E148: McCarthy ousted, border chaos, Cruise's robotaxi "accident" & more

Jason Calacanis 0:00 How was your colonoscopy, by the way?

David Sacks 0:01 (laughs) Oh, yeah.

Chamath Palihapitiya 0:01 Oh, well, uh, that was, uh-

David Sacks 0:03 Talk about your anus.

Chamath Palihapitiya 0:05 Talk about my anus?

David Sacks 0:06 (laughs)

Chamath Palihapitiya 0:07 Have you guys had yours recently? Who's had a colonoscopy?

Jason Calacanis 0:10 I had mine in December, my first one.

Chamath Palihapitiya 0:11 Was that your first one?

Jason Calacanis 0:12 I had it... Yeah, my first one.

Chamath Palihapitiya 0:13 Yeah, I was delinquent on mine too.

Jason Calacanis 0:14 They... It used to be 50, and they moved the age down to 45.

Chamath Palihapitiya 0:17 Yeah, they did move the age down. Friedberg, have you had one yet? That's a yes. We got a yes.

David Sacks 0:22 I'm due.

Chamath Palihapitiya 0:23 Sacks, have you had yours?

David Sacks 0:24 I'm due.

Chamath Palihapitiya 0:25 By the way, I got a report, because, uh, actually, Sacks, you did have one, and they found, uh, a bunch of DeSantis merchandise up there.

Jason Calacanis 0:31 (laughs)

David Sacks 0:31 (laughs)

Chamath Palihapitiya 0:31 They found a DeSantis hat, a DeSantis pin. Tons of DeSantis stuff right up your ass. (laughs)

David Sacks 0:36 (laughs)

Chamath Palihapitiya 0:37 At our age, we should be four for four on the colonoscopies. We're one for four. They gotta get that stat up. Every week, I wanna check in here. Propofol, uh, Mi-... Shout out Michael Jackson, is the greatest drug ever. I counted 15 seconds, I was knocked out. I woke up, and the next thing I know, I was in m- the recovery room.

Jason Calacanis 0:53 Were you groggy?

Chamath Palihapitiya 0:54 I was not groggy. No, I was fine. You literally don't remember anything, no pain, no suffering. I did have-

Jason Calacanis 0:59 But were you able to have a regular schedule the rest of the day?

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:02 Not really. So, uh, I don't wanna dissuade anybody from having this, but you do have to take a drink called Prep, which clears you out. And when I say clears you out-

Jason Calacanis 1:11 Oh, I love that. Oh, I love it. I love that.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:12 ... it clears you out. Yeah, I hit a record low weight. I'm 168 now, so that was the one benefit, but I di-

Jason Calacanis 1:17 Well, how much weight did you lose?

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:18 Three pounds, maybe?

Jason Calacanis 1:20 Come on.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:21 Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Jason Calacanis 1:22 Were you working when you were prepping? No.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:24 I was working when I was prepping, so Monday when I was prepping, but then literally, (laughs) you take this Prep stuff. An hour later, you're, you need to be ready to evacuate at any time.

David Sacks 1:34 Normally, the diarrhea is coming out of your mouth.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:36 Absolutely, absolutely. (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 1:39 (laughs)

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:39 (laughing) Well played. There's your call to open, folks.

David Friedberg 1:42 I'm going all in.

Jason Calacanis 1:43 Let your winners ride.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:45 Rain Man David Sachs.

David Friedberg 1:48 I'm going all in.

David Sacks 1:49 And I said- We open source it to the fans, and they've just gone crazy with it.

Jason Calacanis 1:53 Love you guys.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:54 West Side Queen of Quinoa.

David Friedberg 1:56 I'm going all

David Friedberg 1:57 in.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:58 All right, everybody. Welcome to another amazing episode of the All In podcast, Episode 148. The docket is absurd. Uh, the number of lawsuits and the amount of news that has happened in just the last week has been insane. Uh, but we wanna, at the top of the show, do a quick correction, right? It's an all-in correction. If we make a mistake here, we don't hide it in the show notes. We just talk about it right up front. Sacks, you were in touch with the Airtable CEO, Howie Liu, who's been a guest on This Week in Startups. I'm gonna have him on again, actually, soon. Maybe you could just discuss what we got wrong, e- and how we got it wrong-

David Sacks 2:34 Yeah.

Chamath Palihapitiya 2:34 ... and then what the correct facts are about Airtable, just quickly, here at the top of the show.

David Sacks 2:38 Yeah. Well, we had a segment a couple weeks ago where we were talking about these high-priced, late-stage unicorn rounds needing to get revalued. And the IPO of Instacart was a good example of this, where, yes, it IPO'd at about 10 billion, but the last private round was at 39 billion. So, there is a big wave of revaluations or down rounds coming, and we cited some numbers off the internet regarding Airtable. As it turns out, not everything on the internet is true.

Chamath Palihapitiya 3:07 (laughs) And you're talking about-

David Sacks 3:08 Um... (laughs)

Chamath Palihapitiya 3:08 ... specific journalists might've gotten it wrong? We would say which ones?

David Sacks 3:11 Well, this was actually a, a tweet storm on X-

Chamath Palihapitiya 3:14 Uh-huh.

David Sacks 3:14 ... that-

Chamath Palihapitiya 3:14 Mm.

David Sacks 3:14 ... from a financial account that, you know, appeared on the surface to be correct. And in fact, it did have some correct information, but it was outdated. It was stale. So, just the, the quick correction here is that the, the amount of ARR that we cited, which I think was around 150 million, was accurate as of the time they did the last round, but that was like three years ago. Furthermore, the growth rate that was cited, which I think was around 15%, that was off. That was off by about a, a 3X, uh, multiple. So, when you put all these things together, I wasn't able to get the exact numbers, but if you just do a little bit of napkin math here, my guess is that Airtable is somewhere in the half a billion of ARR club, with pretty decent growth. And if you look at the public comps for that, I think the public comps would be something like a, a Monday, you know, which is doing-

Chamath Palihapitiya 4:08 Sure.

David Sacks 4:09 ... five to 600 million of ARR coming off a 50% growth rate, maybe forecasting 30% for the next year. That company has been hovering around the seven or eight billion dollar valuation range.

Chamath Palihapitiya 4:22 12X.

David Sacks 4:23 Yeah, the claim that was made on X was that Airtable wasn't even worth the 1.4 billion that it's raised in, uh, VC money. I think that's way off. I mean...

Chamath Palihapitiya 4:31 Yeah.

David Sacks 4:32 And furthermore, you know, what we heard is that Airtable still has something like two-thirds of the money that it's raised in the bank. So, look, is Airtable worth the 11 billion that it was valued at at the peak? Probably that's not what the public comps indicate. Would I be a buyer, personally, at roughly half that price? For sure.

Chamath Palihapitiya 4:51 For sure.

David Sacks 4:51 And I think it'll-

Chamath Palihapitiya 4:53 Yeah, go right ahead.

David Sacks 4:53 ... have a nice IPO at some point when they decide they wanna do it.

Chamath Palihapitiya 4:56 So, just an important reminder for everybody is, uh, you know, listen, if information's on the interwebs, it may not be correct.

Chamath Palihapitiya 5:03 But the top news story in the country is, uh, unequivocally, Kevin McCarthy being ousted as Speaker of the House. On Tuesday, he was voted out in a 216 to 210 vote, with eight far-right Republicans, uh, joining all of the Democrats, uh, so those eight GOP members include, or are led by, Matt Gaetz, obviously, a group of, I guess, what would be best described, Sacks, as Tea Party-esque members of, um, the, the GOP contingent? They, they care mostly about spending and curtailing spending. Am I correct, Sacks?

Jason Calacanis 5:38 Well, don't for- don't forget all the Democrats.

Chamath Palihapitiya 5:40 Well, yeah, I'm putting the Democrats on... We're already accounting them. I'm just talking about the eight who made this tip over.

David Sacks 5:44 The media is trying to portray them as these far right, you know, wingers, and I don't think you can necessarily say that, because I don't think Nancy Mace fits in that group. I think she does care about spending, but she's not this like, MAGA-

Chamath Palihapitiya 5:54 Is it far right to care about spending? I mean, far right, to me, would be more MAGA.

David Sacks 5:56 Well, that's exactly right. I mean, anything that the media-

Chamath Palihapitiya 5:58 Yeah.

David Sacks 5:58 ... doesn't like, they label far right.But I think, you know, Nancy Mace is a good example of somebody who is very concerned about spending discipline-

Chamath Palihapitiya 6:08 Huh.

David Sacks 6:08 ... but is not like a MAGA-type Republican.

Chamath Palihapitiya 6:11 But, but is the... and just to, to just refine this one more time before I keep going, those eight would... the common thread would be control spending. "We're out- we have out of control spending" is, is the reason-

David Sacks 6:22 Well-

Chamath Palihapitiya 6:22 ... they're voting a no vote for Kevin McCarthy.

David Sacks 6:25 I think that there are a couple other pieces to this. Um, if you listen to Nancy Mace and some of the other people that were involved here, a lot of the issue comes down to trust. They felt like they could no longer trust Kevin McCarthy. They felt like the things that he had told them-

Chamath Palihapitiya 6:38 Hmm.

David Sacks 6:38 ... in private were not matching up with the things that he would then later do or that he would say in public or that he would tell the Biden administration. So I think that-

Chamath Palihapitiya 6:48 And their main issues were?

David Sacks 6:50 Well, I think there's a couple.

Chamath Palihapitiya 6:52 Yeah.

David Sacks 6:52 One was on spending. He had promised that he would stop doing these giant omnibus spending bills where everything would be lumped into one bill. You get, like, 24 hours to read it and then you gotta vote up or down on whether you pass this giant spending bill or shut down the government. Everyone feels forced to vote for it. He had promised to do single-subject spending bills.

Chamath Palihapitiya 7:11 So military, education, welfare, whatever.

David Sacks 7:14 Yeah, that goes through a regular budget process. So, the, th- they felt like he had broke his promise on that. I think, also, on the issue of Ukraine, there were some trust issues there because what he was telling Republicans in private was not what he was telling the Biden administration in private, where he was telling the Biden administration, "Don't worry, we're gonna get the Ukraine funding through." But then he was sounding different notes with various Republicans. And I think his true feelings on the matter came out in this press conference he did after he was ousted, in which he goes on this long rant about how Putin's the second coming of Adolf Hitler and if we don't stop him now, he's gonna be, you know, marching into Paris. And, I mean, it was sort of this, like, unhinged, second-grade, American history-style, uh, view of, of the war, which regardless of what y- your view is on it, I think it expressed his true feelings on the matter, which is that when push came to shove, he's more hawkish than Joe Biden-

Chamath Palihapitiya 8:12 Yeah.

David Sacks 8:12 ... on the issue of Ukraine. He feels that Biden has not done enough. It's safe to say that that position is now very out of step with the Republican caucus. So, he is pushing a view on Ukraine that is now very out of step. Moreover, I think that if he had just acted as an honest broker on the issue, which is to say, "Listen, I'm just going to represent the views of my caucus, my caucus is divided on the issue, I'm just gonna let them have an up or down vote on it," then I think he could have survived on that issue. But instead, again, I think he was trying to manipulate things in a direction of continuing Ukraine funding regardless of the views of his caucus.

Chamath Palihapitiya 8:49 Gaetz wants to end CRs, continuing resolutions. Uh, those extend the funding deadline from October 1st to the holidays, claiming this buys Congress time to lump all those individual appropriation bills into the omnibus bill, as you correctly pointed out. Gaetz wants to end that practice and return to regular order, passage of individual annual spending bills, not the omnibus.

Jason Calacanis 9:09 The context that I think is important that I think is... that the American public should understand is, how is this actually supposed to work so that we don't normalize what these CRs are? So, the way that it's supposed to work is that Congress is authorized by law to create 12 spending bills a year, and each of those bills have to map to the large parts of the government. So, there's a military bill, there's an education bill, there's a, you know, HHS bill, et cetera, et cetera, and those are supposed to be negotiated on the House floor and passed. The Senate is allowed to do a version of the same. If those two things are different, meaning the Senate doesn't take the House bill and creates their own, the law says that you have to create what's called a conference, and a h- a group of people, half senators and half congresspeople, sit in a room, hash out and mediate a resolution, and that is what goes to the president's desk to be signed. That's how it used to be done. But about a decade ago, all of that broke down. And now what happens is you have this thing that Sachs mentioned, which is called the CR, which is essentially a backdoor. It's this release valve that is supposed to be a in-emergency break glass-type measure that has become fundamentally normalized. And I think what's important to call out is what happened here isn't getting the just attention because it's being characterized on party lines and not actually being characterized with how America is legally supposed to work as defined in the Constitution. So, the Congress is supposed to pass 12 spending bills a year. It's then supposed to get negotiated or approved by the Senate, and then it should go to the president. When you override that with these continuing resolutions, this is the issue that Friedberg's been talking about. You balloon the deficit, you balloon the debt, you have all kinds of pork barrel spending, there's zero accountability, the bullets cost $6,000, the umbrella holders cost $15,000, all of this nonsense that just brings us closer and closer to some sort of default or economic contagion. So, I actually look at this issue not as Republican versus Democrat, the far right wing. I think that's misguided interpretation by the mainstream media. I think what this is is the first chance in a while where you're not allowed to pass a continuing resolution, where you will have to propose 12 bills the way the law says you're supposed to. And what that'll mean is that you'll have to negotiate a compromise to get those 12 bills passed. Now, what's crazy is the Senate actually has six of those bills on their desk, and they haven't even negotiated it. And I think the reason is because they know that the CR is always in the offing. But if this continuing resolution is not allowed because you fired the speaker...... then they'll have to negotiate those bills. And part of what McCarthy did to get elected was say, "We will return to the law and not use the in-emergency break glass." And I think that's what's not... it's not understood well, I think, by Americans as that is the actual process. We haven't been doing it for a decade. And I'm not a fan of Gaetz, but I'm glad that somebody did this because somebody has to draw a line in the sand. The Republicans and Democrats equally have been responsible for breaking the way the American government spends money. And so, this is the best way to fix it.

Chamath Palihapitiya 12:37 Freeberg, you agree with what's gone down here and that, th-

David Sacks 12:40 I hope.

Chamath Palihapitiya 12:40 ... and that this is worth shutting the government down, et cetera, or do you think this is, like, uh, where to make the stand? 'Cause you've been very pro-controlling spending, uh, as have I. And so do you think that this is the, the best way to do it, I guess?

David Sacks 12:55 It's more about the United States is facing a fiscal emergency. National debt reported by the Treasury Department increased by $275 billion in a one-day report yesterday. $275 billion in a day.

Jason Calacanis 13:10 Sh-

David Sacks 13:10 The entire TARP program during '08 was $400 billion. That's how out of control our fiscal condition is. And this is a function of rising rates, a function of spending. And, you know, as we talked about many times over, there's an arithmetic to this that at some point it becomes ever escalating until you step in and do something dramatic about it. So I'm hopeful and I, I mean, there's a lot of rhetoric. You can watch all the news channels and see a lot of these Congresspeople get on camera and talk about different things. I think we're seeing more frequently now people talking about the fiscal crisis that the US is facing and that this action provides a mechanism, as Chamath points out, for forcing everyone to the table to figure out how do we reduce the impact, how do we chart a path to a solution. 'Cause right now, if you ask anyone in Congress, "What's the strategic plan here?" there is not gonna be an answer from anyone. Everyone's got a different point of view and everyone's fighting over the deck chairs on the Titanic, and we've got a more significant problem. We're hitting an iceberg. So, yeah, I'm hopeful that this causes, hopefully, a turning point in the never-ending spending spree where everyone gets elected and everyone promises to the folks that they're representing and the folks that funded their political campaigns some amount of money back out from the government and everyone gets that free money. And at some point, something's gotta turn around or the whole thing kinda goes down. So, hopefully, this is that moment. I don't know.

Chamath Palihapitiya 14:43 Sax, do you think that this is-

David Sacks 14:44 And by, by the way, if the government shut down for weeks and months to try and figure this out and for everyone to get aligned with, "Here's the long-range strategic plan presented to the American people on how we prevent the US from either inflation or bankruptcy," then I think everyone will feel like it was worth it.

Chamath Palihapitiya 15:02 Sax, there's been tons of speculation about what this i- what's, what this is actually about. Is it about Ukraine? Is it about out of control spending? Is it about Matt Gaetz and Kevin McCarthy having some sort of personal grudge against each other? What do you, what do you think is at the core of this, Sax?

David Sacks 15:17 Well, probably all of the above, but I think it's fundamentally a rejection of the status quo. Kevin McCarthy, if nothing else, is a figure of the status quo. I mean, he's worked for 20 years through the system. He's a great fundraiser. I actually attended an event for him down the street here. And of course, all the donors love him. And look, I like Kevin McCarthy, I've contributed to Kevin McCarthy, but at the end of the day, I'm not sure that Kevin McCarthy's the guy who's gonna get us out of this mess. And the fundamental problem is he's just too conciliatory. And the idea that you're gonna impose spending discipline and get us out of the budgetary mess that we're in, the idea that you're gonna make that omelet without breaking a few eggs I think is just kind of silly. So, I think we need a tougher speaker who's gonna actually live up to the promises of stopping these omnibus bills, going back to single-subject bills, who is going to represent the views of the majority of the Republican Caucus on, you know, indefinite, infinite Ukraine spending, 'cause he's kind of off-the-center of the Republican Party on that.

Chamath Palihapitiya 16:20 Why can't the Republican Party be in unison on this? Is, is, i- i- explain what the, what's the rift inside the, the GOP right now-

David Sacks 16:28 Well, the-

Chamath Palihapitiya 16:28 ... if you had to describe it?

David Sacks 16:29 ... the GOP actually has debates in this party. What you see is the Democrats are in total lockstep and they just support whatever is the status quo. But the Republicans actually have debates inside their party, and there is a big debate right now on how we handle Ukraine. And I think there is growing opposition to a blank check as long as it takes policy towards Ukraine. We've already appropriated over 100 billion. What's the return on investment of that? The counteroffensive failed.

Chamath Palihapitiya 16:54 So you think that's the key? You think that's the key, not the, the CRs?

David Sacks 16:57 I think it's both of those issues combined with the fact-

Chamath Palihapitiya 17:00 Ah.

David Sacks 17:00 ... that increasingly, McCarthy was not seen as an honest broker. Listen, I think McCarthy could have had whatever views he wanted to if he was perceived as somebody who actually represented a majority of the Republican Caucus. But what Nancy Mace, what Matt Gaetz, what these others who rebelled were saying is, "Listen, what Kevin told us is not what he did." And I personally witnessed this aspect to McCarthy, okay? So when I went to this event down the street here, I heard him gave this whole putler rant, and then afterwards, I came up to him and said, "Kevin, what are you talking about? Do you really wanna cause World War III?" And all of a sudden, he backpedaled and he started saying these conciliatory things, and I was like, "Okay, maybe he just went on this, like, toot where, you know, it was kind of off-topic."

Jason Calacanis 17:44 (laughs) Toot.

Chamath Palihapitiya 17:45 He tooted?

Jason Calacanis 17:46 (laughs)

David Sacks 17:46 He tooted.

Jason Calacanis 17:47 Did you re-toot it? (laughs)

Chamath Palihapitiya 17:50 (laughs)

David Sacks 17:50 But af- after I kinda had this, like, sidebar with him, I'm like, "Okay-

Jason Calacanis 17:54 Mm-hmm.

David Sacks 17:54 ... maybe it's not so bad, maybe..." You know, I think he, he promised that he would impose-

Chamath Palihapitiya 17:58 You're saying he's in the pocket of special interests. Let's be clear.

David Sacks 18:01 Well, I think he-

Jason Calacanis 18:02 Well, no, not quite, Jason, 'cause he didn't, quote, "toot it." He just sorta-

Chamath Palihapitiya 18:05 He didn't, quote, "toot it," he just tooted it? (laughs)

David Sacks 18:06 He, he, he, he re-tooted it.

Chamath Palihapitiya 18:07 He re-tooted it? (laughs)

David Sacks 18:08 What, what I would say is that...... he was really good in any particular meeting at saying conciliatory things-

Chamath Palihapitiya 18:15 Mm-hmm.

David Sacks 18:16 ... to get somebody to like him and to get him on their backs.

Chamath Palihapitiya 18:19 He's a BS-er, is what you're saying, now that you've heard me ask that.

David Sacks 18:20 Well, I mean, I think a lot of politicians are, right?

Chamath Palihapitiya 18:23 A lot of politicians are.

David Sacks 18:23 And so he told me what I wanted to hear. I think he promised that he would get an accountant.

Chamath Palihapitiya 18:26 How would you have voted? Would you have been with the eight or with the rest?

David Sacks 18:28 Hold on. Guys, the fundamental thing-

Chamath Palihapitiya 18:29 I'm just curious about Sax. Would you have voted with the eight or would you have voted with the rest, as if you were-

David Sacks 18:33 I then would have voted with the eight. I mean, even though I like-

Chamath Palihapitiya 18:35 Okay, same.

David Sacks 18:35 Look, I like McCarthy. He's a likable guy. But again, I think that press conference he held revealed the truth of it, which is-

Chamath Palihapitiya 18:43 Okay.

David Sacks 18:43 ... he was BSing me. His real view is that we need to support Ukraine for as long as it takes, and he told me something different.

Jason Calacanis 18:51 His grand bargain was that he would stop these continuing resolution pork barrel bills. That was the grand bargain. That was the thing that said, "And if I don't do it, you guys can vote me out." Do you guys remember this?

Chamath Palihapitiya 19:01 Yeah.

Jason Calacanis 19:01 You know, that was his negotiation. So this really was kind of like a fait accompli the minute he decided to pass yet another pork barrel bill.

Chamath Palihapitiya 19:08 He also seemed kind of frustrated that, like, he just... He seemed like he was spent in dealing with all this, so it seems like he was at the end of a rope.

Jason Calacanis 19:13 What's surprising to me is why the Republican Party allowed Matt Gaetz to get all of the attention and to be, like, the organizing principle, because he's such a loathsome individual to so many people, both in the Republican Party and outside. He... The guy, the guy broke a fundamental promise and that promise wasn't that provocative. It's just like, "Yeah, we're going to pass 12 bills. We're just gonna follow the law." (laughs) And he couldn't follow the law. And so why doesn't anybody else stand up? Why does it have to take these eight kind of coalescing with, with the Dems? It's, it's really nutty, actually.

David Sacks 19:45 Yeah.

Chamath Palihapitiya 19:45 It's a very strange series of events.

David Sacks 19:47 And by the way, I think you make a... Just your last point there, this would not have happened if Hakeem Jeffries didn't send down word that all the Democrats were supposed to vote with Matt Gaetz. I think that this is a vote against their long-term interests because the fact of the matter is that Kevin McCarthy ultimately was a very pliant speaker, and he was giving the Democrats what they wanted on spending, on keeping government funded and open forever at higher and higher rates of spending, and on Ukraine. They're never gonna get somebody who is more compliant.

Jason Calacanis 20:19 To your point, I think what, what is really interesting and hopefully beneficial for America is we've broken the seal on unseating the speaker interterm if they kind of, like, violate a handful of these defined things. And I hope one of these things is... The best thing we could do for America is just force all of these folks in Congress to negotiate 12 bills a year. Keep them busy, focus on those bills, get to a, like, a compromise, get it to the Senate, get it voted, get it to the president, sign it. That's it. If they, if they just did that, we would probably spend a third to half of less than we do now.

Chamath Palihapitiya 20:57 Is Gaetz the winner in all of this? Does he look like-

Jason Calacanis 20:59 By the way, just, just so you guys know-

Chamath Palihapitiya 21:00 (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 21:00 ... like, when you try to propose elements of a bill, right, in one of those real bills, okay, it has to go to the, the CBO and it has to get scored, right? So for example, we've tried to propose certain aspects of legislation. And no matter, whatever we think about it, there at least is an independent body that scores it and says, "Here's the X year cost, the Y year cost. Here's the benefits." And so you get a very clear sense and a transparent sense that's public to everybody about what this is. In CR, you can avoid all of that stuff. There is no close study of any of this stuff. And, you know, David is right. You get it on a Thursday night at like 8:00 PM and you vote Friday at 6:00, you know, or like at, at midday. How is anybody supposed to approve a multi-trillion dollar package logically? You know it's riddled with nonsense.

Chamath Palihapitiya 21:50 It, it makes no sense that you don't break up the work and do it thoughtfully each time. I guess, should they change this ability for one member to propose a resolution to remove the sitting speaker?

David Sacks 22:01 Well, of course.

Chamath Palihapitiya 22:01 Yeah.

David Sacks 22:02 It's comically easy to vacate the speaker based on the rules they passed. However, I think it's important to understand why that rule happened. It happened because McCarthy was so desperate to become speaker.

Chamath Palihapitiya 22:12 Uh-

David Sacks 22:12 If you go back to the history of this thing, McCarthy was actually passed over for speaker back in 2015 when he made this gaffe on TV about the Benghazi select committee being set up to hurt Hillary's poll numbers. Obviously, that wasn't an admission that helped Republicans. And he only got the job this year by making it so easy to take it away from him. And remember, they did-

Chamath Palihapitiya 22:33 Right.

David Sacks 22:33 ... like 15 rounds of voting. So this is the problem. Frankly, one of the problems with McCarthy is he is a little bit too desperate to have the job. Sometimes when you get a guy who is so desperate for a job they're not that effective in it because they're too worried about it being taken away.

Chamath Palihapitiya 22:48 Getting fired. Yeah.

David Sacks 22:48 What you want is a guy who's like, "Look, take it or leave it. I could do this job or not do this job."

Chamath Palihapitiya 22:53 Yeah.

David Sacks 22:53 That's the only way you're going to get somebody tough in the job. I think the guy they should look to right now would be Jim Jordan. I think Jim Jordan would be excellent because at the end of the day, you want a speaker who's going to be feared, not loved, like Nancy Pelosi, quite frankly. You need a Republican speaker who's going to be tough, who doesn't give a shit if you like him or not. I mean, this is, I think, Kevin's downfall, is that he cared too much about people liking him. As a result, in the room, he would always tell you something that you liked. But the problem is that he can't deliver on that.

Chamath Palihapitiya 23:23 Yeah, so let's get ready to move on to the next topic, but just a final question here. Do you guys think a shutdown in a couple of weeks, because that's the, how long the extension is, would be productive for the country if it, if it becomes the backstop against out of control spending?

Jason Calacanis 23:36 If it stops the CR process, it'll be effective to the tune of about $500 billion. It'll be half a trillion dollars effective.

Chamath Palihapitiya 23:45 So the... A, a couple of weeks of the, the government not spending money-

Jason Calacanis 23:50 No, no, no. Meaning if you, if you kill the omnibus bill-

Chamath Palihapitiya 23:52 Yeah.

Jason Calacanis 23:52 ... and, or you have, like, an extremely slimmed down version of that bill and you revert back to this 12 bills a year process that's supposed to be the law-

Chamath Palihapitiya 24:00 It'll be more effective.

Jason Calacanis 24:02 You'd save half a trillion dollars probably.

Chamath Palihapitiya 24:03 Yeah.

David Sacks 24:03 Just to finish the point on that, I think we have to just look at this Wall Street Journal article that came out this morning where it was called Rising Interest Rates Mean Deficits Finally Matter.Finally, there's-

Chamath Palihapitiya 24:13 Yeah.

David Sacks 24:13 ... a recognition-

Chamath Palihapitiya 24:13 We called it, we called it.

David Sacks 24:15 Yeah. Finally, there's a recognition both politically and economically that our deficits and debt are too big. And the key point of this article is, it says, "Most of the increase," this is in long-term rates, "is due to the part of yields called the term premium, which has nothing to do with inflation or short-term rates." So until now, our interest rate problems have been about the Fed raising short-term rates to combat inflation. Now we're seeing a separate problem, which is long rates are going up, and the long rates are going up because of this concern that the federal government has too much debt. And so bondholders are starting to demand a higher long-term premium-

Chamath Palihapitiya 24:53 Yep.

David Sacks 24:53 ... to hold that debt. It's what we've been warning about for a long time now-

Chamath Palihapitiya 24:56 For a year now.

David Sacks 24:56 ... and it's finally happening. So unless the political system gets serious about reducing deficits, even if inflation comes down and even if the Fed cuts short-term rates, you're gonna have a problem with long-term rates remaining high, and that is gonna keep the cost of capital high, and that is gonna reduce long-term innovation in the economy.

Chamath Palihapitiya 25:16 It's bad for us.

David Sacks 25:18 It's horrible for us.

Chamath Palihapitiya 25:19 Yeah. Terrible for us.

Chamath Palihapitiya 25:20 Let's go to another troubling situation, what's happening at the southern border. Obviously, videos of migrants crossing the southern border are all over X, Reddit, YouTube, et cetera. One side saying it's chaos, the other side, uh, arguably been ignoring it. So let's start with the two numbers that we actually know, put a bunch of time into trying to figure out if there are any accurate numbers, talked to a bunch of people on Twitter and other places. There are only, uh, we have very, very flawed data on what's actually happening there, we do have anecdotal videos. Obviously, uh, our friend, Elon, went down to the border and did a video himself. The best data, with the caveat that it's very flawed, is the count of encounters. This is not folks who get through, (laughs) this is folks who were encountered. So this is the official southern land, uh, border encounters from the US Customs and Border Protection Agency since 2022. 2020 and 2021, there were obviously COVID issues on the border so it was much more locked down. Uh, half a million people in 2020, 1.7 in 2021, 2.4, rounding up there, and in 2023, supposedly rounding up, two million through 10 months, tracking on pace for 2.3, the exact same as last year. However, it certainly doesn't look like that it's the exact same. Again, that's from the Border Patrol, and that is encounters, not actually people who got through. And then the border states are saying that those numbers are wrong and there's a lot more people getting through, and Eric Adams in New York, where a lot of these people are being sent, and this has obviously been the most politicized issue, I think, of the last decade. Governor Abbott in August of 2022, quote, "New York City is the ideal destination for these migrants who can receive the abundance of city services and housing that Mayor Adams has boasted about within the sanctuary city." Here are the clips, and then I'll get your responses from those when we get back.

Narrator 27:17 This is horrific when you think about, uh, what, uh, the governor, uh, is doing, the governor of Texas, but we are going to set the right message, the right tone of being here for these families.

27:29 Before we began busing illegal immigrants up to New York, it was just Texas and Arizona that bore the brunt of all of the chaos and all the problems that come with it. Now the rest of America is understanding exactly what is going on.

Chamath Palihapitiya 27:46 All right. So this is obviously something that New York City is unable to handle. Those are from August of last year when this was flaming up. According to Abbott, Texas has given bus tickets to 42,000 migrants, and, uh, as of late September, 119 migrants have arrived in New York City since the spring of '22. About 13% of New York City migrants have been bused in from Texas. I'll stop there and just get your general reactions to what you all believe is happening at the border since we're getting a highly politicized take on each of these, it's become super polarized, and the numbers, uh, any accurate numbers do not exist. Sachs?

David Sacks 28:24 I don't think it's hard to understand what's going on at the border. I think there are people who want to-

Chamath Palihapitiya 28:30 Well, I said it's hard to understand the numbers of what's going on at the border, yeah.

David Sacks 28:32 I don't even think the numbers are that hard.

Chamath Palihapitiya 28:34 You have a better source of numbers?

David Sacks 28:35 I have some numbers that are similar to yours, but-

Chamath Palihapitiya 28:37 Okay.

David Sacks 28:38 So Statista goes back to 2019. So the numbers I have are about, in 2019, which is when Remain in Mexico went into effect, the number was 851,000. Then it went down to 400,000 because of COVID and Title 42. Then in 2021, we had about 1.7 million, which was a new record. Then in 2022, we were up to 2.7 million, which was a new record. And the question is what is happening in 2023. Obviously, we don't have a full year of data, but given that we've eliminated Remain in Mexico and Title 42, I don't think anybody seriously doubts that we're headed for a new record. And in fact, The Washington Post had articles in August and September saying that those months were all-time records and now they're surpassing 11,000 daily migrant encounters at the border just twice last week. So, and, you know, what- what Elon reported from the border-

Chamath Palihapitiya 29:31 Can you send that link? Can you send that link so we can pull it up?

David Sacks 29:33 Yeah, I'll have to-

Chamath Palihapitiya 29:34 And then also, just so you know, Statista-

David Sacks 29:34 No, that was NBC News, that was NBC News.

Chamath Palihapitiya 29:36 Okay. I was about to say, Statista is, um, an aggregator. They don't do primary research, as you know. So, uh, which one are we using for primary researching?

David Sacks 29:41 Yeah, but tho- those numbers were pretty similar to- to yours.

Chamath Palihapitiya 29:44 Yeah. Maybe from the same source, who knows?

David Sacks 29:45 We also have the video evidence-

Chamath Palihapitiya 29:47 Yeah.

David Sacks 29:47 ... we have the fact that, you know, Elon went down there and reported exactly what we're seeing in other contexts, which is new records virtually every day and every week and every month. The Border Patrol agents are basically being overrun, and so you made the correct point that this only measures encounters, it doesn't m- uh, measure the actual number of people going through. Well, if Border Patrol is overrun, then the number of encounters relative to the number of people getting through is obviously gonna be very understated. So-I think we're on track for another huge record in 2023. And the point is that the pace is accelerating. Elon gave the simple math. There's eight billion people in the world. How many of them would want to be in the United States if they could? Probably billions.

Chamath Palihapitiya 30:29 At least half of them, yeah.

David Sacks 30:30 At least half of them, and I don't blame them. Okay? I wanna be in their instance too.

Chamath Palihapitiya 30:34 Best country in the world. Yeah, yeah.

David Sacks 30:35 Okay. But obviously, we can't handle all the people who wanna be here. And the word has gone out via social media, via word of mouth that the border is effectively open and we've seen numerous videos. It wasn't just Elon. When RFK went down there to Yuma, Arizona, they-

Chamath Palihapitiya 30:51 It was 100 different countries.

David Sacks 30:51 ... there was a big hole in the wall-

Chamath Palihapitiya 30:53 Yeah.

David Sacks 30:53 ... and people were just lining up and, and e-

Chamath Palihapitiya 30:54 But it was 100 different countries, right? I mean, we, we, it was not just Mexico.

David Sacks 30:57 And 100 different countries. And Elon broadcast the exact same thing coming from Eagle Pass. So, the point is, you've got all of these different points where there is no wall and people are just lining up and being let through. And in some cases, they're just running through because the border patrol is, is overrun. So, we effectively have no border. I mean, let's admit the truth. Now-

Chamath Palihapitiya 31:18 Yeah.

David Sacks 31:19 ... and I think that the mainstream media and the Biden administration, their policy was basically see no evil, hear no evil, and to deny the reality of what was happening. Eric Adams was one of the first Democrats to break rank saying, "Listen. We can see the, uh, migrants, uh, lining up in tents going around the block. We are trying to put them up in hotels. It's costing us $12 billion. We can't afford it." But Eric Adams has always been a little bit of a maverick inside the Democratic Party. We talked about how he was-

Chamath Palihapitiya 31:46 Yeah.

David Sacks 31:46 ... tough on crime during the Chase and Boudin era, which is why I supported him.

Chamath Palihapitiya 31:50 He's a moderate. Yeah.

David Sacks 31:51 But, he was a moderate. But then you had Kathy Hochul, who's the governor of New York, who's nothing if not a machine politician just in the last week saying we cannot handle this, so she broke ranks, which was, I think, a big news story. And now the latest is that the Biden administration itself might be breaking ranks. I think, Chamath, you posted a really interesting story that Mayorkas, who's the secretary of DHS, just posted a notice in the Federal Register which said, "There is presently an acute and immediate need to construct physical barriers and roads (laughs) in the vicinity of the border of United States-"

Chamath Palihapitiya 32:27 They don't wanna say wall. (laughs)

David Sacks 32:28 They don't wanna say wall.

Chamath Palihapitiya 32:28 Don't say the W word. And just to, whatever your point is.

David Sacks 32:29 "... in order to prevent unlawful entries into the United States." Now, there was no press conference on this. The way that this got reported is some reporter was doing their job keeping track of the Federal Register and saw that Mayorkas had posted a notice saying that they need to construct a wall.

Chamath Palihapitiya 32:47 Yeah.

David Sacks 32:47 Now, Biden hasn't said this. No one in the administration said this, but clearly-

Chamath Palihapitiya 32:50 Well, for obvious reasons, yeah.

David Sacks 32:51 For obvious reasons. So-

Jason Calacanis 32:53 Jason, what do you think the obvious reason is?

Chamath Palihapitiya 32:55 Well, the obvious reason is Trump's entire presidency was predicated on, "Hey, we're gonna build this wall," and to go back-

Jason Calacanis 33:02 But I'm saying do you think that-

Chamath Palihapitiya 33:02 ... and say that he was right is untenable to this administration.

Jason Calacanis 33:06 Yeah, even at the sake of national security. It's like-

Chamath Palihapitiya 33:08 Yes. And so they're gonna do the right thing-

Jason Calacanis 33:10 Admitting that-

Chamath Palihapitiya 33:10 ... obviously, and build the wall, but they don't wanna say it, so it's just ridiculous. But just one important point to what David said. New York City has a right to shelter, so that means every immigrant who comes here, they have to put them in a hotel. And these are, like, turns out $400 or $500 a night hotels, so this has become cataclysmic. There obviously needs to be a border, and, uh, it's ridiculous to say there shouldn't be a border. Nobody believes that. I don't know why this administration just can't admit that there needs to be a, a border of some kind. And we can talk about what that is, but Cham-

David Sacks 33:38 A wall?

Chamath Palihapitiya 33:38 Well, no, actually it's a better solution than a wall, but we'll get to that. Um...

David Sacks 33:41 What is it?

Chamath Palihapitiya 33:42 Well, I, I don't wanna jump Chamath. He had something to say. So, Chamath, I'll explain it in a second if you want, or I can jump to it.

Jason Calacanis 33:47 No, jump to it. Jump to it.

Chamath Palihapitiya 33:48 Oh, okay. So, obviously people are talking about a wall. Walls are a terrible solution, uh, because there are ladders that can go (laughs) over them pretty easily. What you really need to have is eyes on it and the two best solutions, you can see them here, Israel has had a really, they understand borders really well. And so what you're seeing, if you're watching, are these, um, towers which do a great job of monitoring the border and you could put about 2,000 of these towers. They, they have a range of easily a mile. This is Next Gen Border by Ebit Systems. It's an Israeli-based company. It's 160 foot surveillance tower. Anduril actually has a sentry tower as well. Our friend, uh, friend of the pod, Palmer Luckey's company Anduril. Uh, and obviously, oh, and the, the border patrol already has 10 of the towers.

David Sacks 34:35 Wh- why do you see it as an either/or? I'm just curious. Like, why wouldn't you do both?

Chamath Palihapitiya 34:38 Oh, no. I think that th- I think that these smart lampposts, (laughs) as I call them, are the number one first thing to do because you could deploy these in a fraction of the time. You could have 2,000 of these-

David Sacks 34:48 These are really cool. Wow.

Chamath Palihapitiya 34:49 ... in under a year for $4 billion dollars. And so, these only cost $2 million each. The 10 towers that we're putting, we're putting at 26 million in the pilot. So, if you put 2,000 of these towers in and you just picked four different vendors, so they do 500 each and you test them, that would be $4 billion. That would be nothing.

Jason Calacanis 35:06 What do you do when you, when the camera spots a person?

Chamath Palihapitiya 35:09 You send, uh, intercepts there, and then you build the walls where people are crossing most. So, that would be my-

David Sacks 35:13 (laughs) How will you know where they're crossing most?

Chamath Palihapitiya 35:16 ... that would be the most logical.

David Sacks 35:16 They're crossing at the holes.

Chamath Palihapitiya 35:16 Yeah. You, obviously you build w- you, you look for hotspots, David. So you would f- you, but we don't, there's hotspots that we don't know about. So, I'd say you, you deploy these for $4 billion very quickly. And then where there are hotspots, you obviously build walls. But you're still gonna need-

David Sacks 35:27 Can I be frank about this?

Chamath Palihapitiya 35:29 Sure. Be as frank as you like.

David Sacks 35:30 Look, regardless of what you think about Trump, this Mayorkas revelation completely and utterly vindicates his approach to wanting to build a wall. And there's so many people who won't just admit that he was right, that we need a strong border wall. Not because it's perfect, not because you can't climb over it if you have the right tools, but-

Chamath Palihapitiya 35:49 Yeah.

David Sacks 35:49 ... because a wall is more defensible than an open field. Now, look, I'm all in favor of these towers and the cameras. And my understanding is that a lot of the parts of Trump's wall did have cameras on them.

Chamath Palihapitiya 35:59 Yeah. No. He, he gives credit for that too.

David Sacks 36:00 But the point is that you have video now coming out of thousands of people streaming across, running.

Chamath Palihapitiya 36:06 Yeah. The word is out.

David Sacks 36:07 You need a wall to stop that. You also-

Chamath Palihapitiya 36:10 Yeah.

David Sacks 36:10 ... then need cameras and border guards and all the rest of it.

Chamath Palihapitiya 36:12 Just so you know, 2,000 miles of wall is going to be, like, a decade long project.

David Sacks 36:17 No, no.

Chamath Palihapitiya 36:17 So, that, that's my only point.

David Sacks 36:18 Okay. It's only a decade long if you allow all of these court challenges that are designed to frustrate it. The fact of the matter is, and look, we don't need 2,000 miles of wall because there are a lot of natural barriers along the border.

Chamath Palihapitiya 36:29 Yes.

David Sacks 36:29 You know, where you have deep rivers or mountains or whatever.

Chamath Palihapitiya 36:32 Yeah.

David Sacks 36:32 We're not gonna need the wall. However-

Chamath Palihapitiya 36:33 Exactly.

David Sacks 36:33 ... there are pieces of the wall that were literally laying on the ground. They were unfinished from Trump's term. By the way, Trump should've gotten that done. He didn't. In any event, whatever.... the point is, the Biden administration was actually selling those pieces of wall for scrap metal for two cents on the dollar. This was a story that came out. Now they're admitting that we need the wall. That was pure politics. That makes no sense. They had the construction materials, they should have just finished it.

David Friedberg 36:59 That is kind of ridiculous.

Chamath Palihapitiya 36:59 American public's... Yeah, the, the American public-

David Sacks 37:01 It's utterly ridiculous.

Chamath Palihapitiya 37:02 ... all agrees, yeah.

David Friedberg 37:03 (laughs) That's, like, crazy.

Jason Calacanis 37:04 It's because the American government didn't like who said the right thing-

Chamath Palihapitiya 37:09 Yes.

Jason Calacanis 37:09 ... and the tone in which he said it.

Chamath Palihapitiya 37:11 Yes. And they didn't like the, the separating of children from whatever, and they politicized that. Both parties are equally just gross at this issue and incompetent.

Jason Calacanis 37:21 But I have a, I have a question, so-

Chamath Palihapitiya 37:21 So-

Jason Calacanis 37:21 It should be a point-based system. You lock the border and you allow people in, you know, as I've said 10 times on this podcast, based on merit, what they're going to contribute to our society, that's re- that's recruitment, some amount of people who are... need asylum because they're going to be murdered, i.e. Afghanistan, people who supported us, Afghanis who supported us during the war, and then finally, the orderly process of people applying to come in here. Do your jobs, everybody. It's just so crazy.

David Sacks 37:47 Pull, pull up this article, please, Nick.

Jason Calacanis 37:48 What happens when you get to the border, guys? Do you just get in, admitted to America?

Chamath Palihapitiya 37:52 Basically, yeah.

David Sacks 37:52 Guys, this is insane, okay? The Biden administration started auctioning (laughs) off what they called spare border wall parts, okay? I mean, how does Biden live this down?

Chamath Palihapitiya 38:04 I think this could cost him the election.

David Sacks 38:05 Yeah, you're 100% right about that.

Chamath Palihapitiya 38:06 Yeah, yeah, I think this is like, uh-

Jason Calacanis 38:08 This is a setup for a very bad ad, absolutely.

Chamath Palihapitiya 38:11 Yeah, yeah. And, I mean, I think this is just... Because it's become so politicized, point-based system, recruitment over chaos, build a wall, build sensor towers-

Jason Calacanis 38:21 No, but Jason what do you, what do you do in the meantime?

Chamath Palihapitiya 38:22 ... and it'll be fine.

Jason Calacanis 38:22 There, there are tens of thousands of people a day hitting the southern border-

Chamath Palihapitiya 38:26 We have a National Guard. We have something called the National Guard, we send them there. They have to be deployed anyway. You just deploy the National Guard-

Jason Calacanis 38:31 No, but say more, 'cause I think-

Chamath Palihapitiya 38:32 ... that's the shortest term.

Jason Calacanis 38:33 But say more, say more. Like, you would put the military to basically turn these people around?

Chamath Palihapitiya 38:37 Of course. Of course, you turn them around. Yes, that's it.

David Sacks 38:39 Yeah. Well, specifically-

Chamath Palihapitiya 38:40 You, you build a wall, you... National Guard will be quickest, the towers will be secon- qui- quickest, and the wall is going to take forever. You need a wall.

Jason Calacanis 38:45 But how do you, but how do you process the asylum claim? Because isn't the whole point of asylum, like, you can't send them back to this country in which they're going to be killed in. And so...

Chamath Palihapitiya 38:54 It's an imperfect process, Chamath, obviously.

Jason Calacanis 38:56 So, Sax and I, and a few other folks, we held a fundraiser for Vivek Ramaswamy last week, and we talked about this a lot. And one of the things that we learned is that all the people that come to the southern border are trained in YouTube and TikTok and Instagram-

Chamath Palihapitiya 39:12 Yes.

Jason Calacanis 39:12 ... exactly what to say so that you have to accept the asylum claim. So, part of-

Chamath Palihapitiya 39:16 And for the asylum, there should be a limited number of them. That's it. Just, you have this many per year that we can take.

Jason Calacanis 39:21 But you don't... I understand, but, but you don't know whether that person who was helping us in Afghanistan ends up coming in October and not in March, and that's the reason why they can't get in. The, the thing that I learned is that it's a, it's a specific script, it's available in multiple languages, right?

Chamath Palihapitiya 39:37 Yep.

Jason Calacanis 39:37 So anybody who gets to the southern border knows exactly what to say so that America is forced to accept you.

David Sacks 39:43 That's not how asylum should work.

Chamath Palihapitiya 39:44 The bad news is not everybody's gonna get in. Not everybody will get in. That's it.

David Sacks 39:47 Jake L., there's two things we need to do in addition to, to your point about sending troops to the border 'cause we do need the manpower.

Chamath Palihapitiya 39:53 Yeah. It's obvious.

David Sacks 39:55 Number one, to Chamath's point, you can't just say the word asylum and get in. That doesn't make sense.

Chamath Palihapitiya 39:59 No.

David Sacks 39:59 You should have to produce evidence-

Chamath Palihapitiya 40:01 Yeah.

David Sacks 40:01 ... of actually meeting the, the, the case for asylum, which is not being economically disadvantaged. It's being politically prosecuted, where if you're-

Chamath Palihapitiya 40:09 Yes.

David Sacks 40:09 ... sent back to your home country, they're going to put you in jail or kill you. And there aren't many countries in the world, quite frankly, where that is going to be a valid claim, just to be honest about it. I mean, if you have a freedom fighter from Iran coming over who's going to be-

Chamath Palihapitiya 40:24 Totally different.

David Sacks 40:24 ... put in jail or killed, let him in. But that's not most of the people lining up at our border.

Chamath Palihapitiya 40:28 If you're coming from Mexico, there's a very small chance (laughs) that you are being politically persecuted.

David Sacks 40:32 The other thing we got to do is you got to reinstitute Remain in Mexico. That was the policy.

Chamath Palihapitiya 40:36 Yeah. That's it.

David Sacks 40:37 You can't-

Chamath Palihapitiya 40:38 I agree 100%.

David Sacks 40:38 ... have people just waiting on this side of the border, because they're never gonna show up in court.

Chamath Palihapitiya 40:42 Yeah. I mean, listen, we, we want immigration to this country. It has to be logical. And the fact is, everybody wants to come here. That's a great thing. We should be taking advantage of that, but it can't be chaos. It's got to be orderly. That's what everybody wants. I don't know why, how this became a political issue. Everybody wants orderly, everybody wants recruitment, nobody wants an open border.

David Sacks 41:01 Well, but, but Jake L., in order for it not to be a political issue, you need both parties to agree, and they currently-

Chamath Palihapitiya 41:05 Yeah.

David Sacks 41:06 ... don't. I mean, think about it.

Chamath Palihapitiya 41:07 Yeah.

David Sacks 41:07 What's in Biden's interest right now is to do a 180 on this issue before it's too late.

Chamath Palihapitiya 41:12 He's got to do it, yes, absolutely. What... And it's very simple for him to say, which is-

David Sacks 41:14 But he hasn't done it.

Chamath Palihapitiya 41:15 ... because everybody knows that the border doesn't have a wall, we've seen an increase. There's been a 10X increase. That's... The situation on the field has changed, therefore we're going to change.

David Sacks 41:26 That's right.

Chamath Palihapitiya 41:26 And we're going to do all these things. And if one of them is building a wall-

David Sacks 41:28 That's right.

Chamath Palihapitiya 41:28 ... and you wanna say gotcha-

David Sacks 41:29 That's right.

Chamath Palihapitiya 41:29 ... you can say gotcha, but it's the right thing to do because data has changed my opinion. Where do we get to the point where data can't change your opinion? Data should change your opinion. The data is clear that more people are coming through. That's why I made such a point at the top of this is, like, we don't even have good data. What these sensor towers would do, would at least give us data and would give us clarity. And then you only need a, you know, uh, a unit every half mile, so you need 4,000 units patrolling the border, and they would catch everybody. Y- this isn't as expensive as people think it is. This could be s-... I mean, the, the last, the last amount of money we gave, what was the last appropriation for Ukraine, Sax, since I'll give you a red meat?

David Sacks 42:08 (laughs) Well, we've already appropriated or authorized over-

Chamath Palihapitiya 42:12 It's close to 100.

David Sacks 42:13 ... 100 billion, and there-

Chamath Palihapitiya 42:14 Yeah, so for 4% of that cost-

David Sacks 42:14 ... Biden's asking for another 24 billion.

Chamath Palihapitiya 42:16 Okay, so for 3 or 4% of that cost, we could have these sensor towers already deployed.

David Sacks 42:20 It's crazy. We're defending Ukraine's border, but not our own.

Chamath Palihapitiya 42:22 It's a very valid point, independent of how you feel about Ukraine.

David Sacks 42:25 This is what has the populist Republicans up in arms. It's this-

Chamath Palihapitiya 42:27 Yeah.

David Sacks 42:27 ... combined with the, the lack of fiscal discipline.

Chamath Palihapitiya 42:31 Now, the craziness about this is if we were sitting here 20 years ago, the Republicans were trying to open the border to have more low-skilled workers to work in restaurants, to work in businesses. That's not the place we are today. We have too many people coming in, and these are not just-

David Sacks 42:46 It's even worse than that.

Chamath Palihapitiya 42:47 ... low-skilled-... workers to, to pick vegetables. It's a different group.

David Sacks 42:51 There was a point in time, Jason, where the Wall Street Journal editorial page, which is really the voice of the GOP establishment-

Chamath Palihapitiya 42:57 Yes.

David Sacks 42:58 ... supported a constitutional amendment in favor of an open border.

Chamath Palihapitiya 43:01 Yeah.

David Sacks 43:02 This was very much the point of view of the old Republican Party, which was-

Chamath Palihapitiya 43:06 Yeah.

David Sacks 43:06 ... this libertarian, open borders, open trade, free markets position. And the results of those policies have been partially disastrous. I mean, I understand the value of free trade and so forth, but... And obviously, we wanna have high-skilled immigration. We've talked about that. But it was too much of a good thing. I mean, they didn't draw intelligent distinctions. But we still have, I think, this... to your point about the battle inside the Republican Party, we still have that old GOP establishment, and now there's this new populous wing that wants to make, I think, sensible changes.

Chamath Palihapitiya 43:38 Here's the Wall Street Journal story from 2001. "Open, Open After Borders. Why Not?" (laughs) There it is.

David Sacks 43:44 Yeah, that was Bob Bartley who was the longtime editorial page editor. He was kind of like a hero in the conservative movement. When I was in college, I read a great book by him called The Seven Fat Years about supply side economics, and I think he was right about a lot of that stuff. But along with that economic policy came, I think, this open borders, completely open trade view that I think produced a lot of negative results and has to be revisited. And by the way, there's a third leg of that stool which is forever wars. The Wall Street Journal is one of the most pro-Ukraine publications there is, both in the news pages and in the editorial page.

Chamath Palihapitiya 44:23 Yup.

David Sacks 44:23 And they have never revisited the results of our disastrous foreign policy where we keep intervening all over the world. This is the old Republican Party. There's a new Republican Party that is emerging, and unfortunately, Kevin McCarthy found himself on the wrong side

David Sacks 44:39 of that divide.

Chamath Palihapitiya 44:40 All right. So moving on to our next topic, uh, there was a notable accident with a Cruise robo-taxi in San Francisco this week, or not. This is being framed by some as the first automated Cruise vehicle to get in an accident, but what actually happened is not accurate. So there was a hit-and-run incident in San Francisco when it was struck by a human driver. That human driver fled the scene. The hit and run launched, tragically, the woman underneath a Cruise vehicle. The Cruise vehicle braked aggressively, according to Cruise, but stopped with its rear tire on top of the woman's leg. Police asked Cruise to keep the vehicle in place and lock it, which they did. Emergency respondents arrived and used the jaws of life to get the car off the woman's leg. Local media picked this story up, and they reported-

David Sacks 45:27 So wait. The police asked Cruise to leave the car, leave the car on the woman's leg?

Chamath Palihapitiya 45:33 Yes. I, I think-

David Sacks 45:34 Why would they do that?

Chamath Palihapitiya 45:36 Well, I think actually, um, sometimes-

David Sacks 45:38 That doesn't make sense at all.

Chamath Palihapitiya 45:39 ... moving... No, no. I, I, I do think, um, from my time as an EMT, sometimes moving the person can cause more damage than leaving it until you have the emergency services on the scene. So they like to wait for emergency services unless... Because moving it-

David Sacks 45:51 Oh, 'cause they could bleed out.

Chamath Palihapitiya 45:52 ... you could have a broken bone hit your fem-

David Sacks 45:53 Oh, right, right, right.

Chamath Palihapitiya 45:53 ... your femoral artery, and then you could bleed out. So they just say, "Stay where you are. Don't make any more movements until the EMTs are here."

David Sacks 45:59 Dude, and leave the car on top of them? That's ridiculous. Oh, God.

Chamath Palihapitiya 46:02 It's on the person's leg, so that-

David Sacks 46:04 Yeah.

Chamath Palihapitiya 46:04 ... would mean that they're not in any danger. It might be painful, but if you were to move them... I was taught this when I was an EMT. You... If you move people, you have to be very careful because you could cause a spine injury, they could become paralyzed, or you could cut a major artery. You gotta be very-

David Sacks 46:18 How long were you an EMT?

Chamath Palihapitiya 46:19 I was the first class of what was called EMTFRs, first responders, and I worked at Bravo Ambulance in Brooklyn as... on a volunteer one for about three or four years.

David Sacks 46:28 Did you have, like, a tight outfit, like a tight polo?

46:30 What did you wear?

46:31 Like skinny jeans? Did you have skinny jeans?

Chamath Palihapitiya 46:33 You wear green pants and a white-collared shirt, and, um... Yeah, I never told you that's the first call I ever got? I never told you that story?

David Sacks 46:41 But were you, like... Were you, like, a sexy paramedic or were you just, like, a paramedic

Chamath Palihapitiya 46:44 I can be whatever you want me to be, Shamov. Whatever works for your fantasies, I'll be.

David Sacks 46:48 He's blushing. Look, he's blushing.

Chamath Palihapitiya 46:49 But I'll tell you my first call. (laughs)

David Sacks 46:50 You are. You were a sexy paramedic.

Chamath Palihapitiya 46:52 I was a little sexy as a paramedic.

David Sacks 46:53 Shamov got him blushing.

Chamath Palihapitiya 46:55 Here's my first call. I swear to God. It's the night before Thanksgiving, Wednesday night. It's a big night in Brooklyn. I don't know for other places, but the night before Thanksgiving, everybody goes out and parties. So big Wednesday happens, first call comes in. It's... I was, I was originally the person who picked up the... I was the operator at the 911. But then my second job, I was on the bus. And so first call, first shift is big Wednesday. Guy gets... We get a call that a guy got stabbed. We go. The guy is outside TJ Bentley's, and I kid you not, the guy who was in charge of the ambulance says, "Cut the jacket off." I take my shears, and we have these really sharp scissors, and boom, we go right up the sleeve, we cut his jacket. He goes, "Oh, my members-only jacket!"

David Sacks 47:32 (laughs)

Chamath Palihapitiya 47:33 We cut him open, and this giant hairy chest, blood is pumping out like it's, like, a little, uh, water fountain. And the, the guy who was running the bus, I remember it was like yesterday, puts his hand on both my shoulders and says, "Guy, you got bigger problems than this member-only jacket." He says, "Get the mast pants." The mast pants, just so you know, are used in war. We get trained in them. You never use them. Mast pants are a blood pressure cuff you put over people's pants to-

David Sacks 47:57 Oh, yeah.

Chamath Palihapitiya 47:57 ... take the blood from their legs-

David Sacks 47:59 Take the blood, yeah.

Chamath Palihapitiya 47:59 ... put it into their chest so that they at least survive. The guy says, "Get the mast pants." I said, "Get the mast pants?" The mast pants are packed away. You never use them. I'm getting the mast pants out. We're, we're wailing down 4th Avenue, uh, to get this guy, and his blood pressure's dropping, his heart rate's dropping, blood all over the bus. We're trying to control the bleeding. He survived.

David Sacks 48:18 Did you save him?

Chamath Palihapitiya 48:19 We saved him. Yeah.

David Sacks 48:20 That's awesome.

Chamath Palihapitiya 48:20 But that was my first call. First call. Nuts.

David Sacks 48:24 This was a volunteer gig?

Chamath Palihapitiya 48:25 Volunteer gig.

David Sacks 48:25 Like, you didn't get paid for it?

Chamath Palihapitiya 48:26 Nope. No, not everything's about money, Friedberg. Not everything's about money, Friedberg.

David Sacks 48:30 Well, I'm not saying it is. I'm just asking.

Chamath Palihapitiya 48:32 I'm joking with you. Yeah, yeah.

David Sacks 48:33 Yeah.

48:33 Jake Hellum's always wanted to be a superhero.

48:35 Yeah.

48:35 That's all that can be clear. Guys, I, uh, I texted- (laughs) ... I texted Jamie, Jason's brother, and, uh, I asked him if this was true.

48:43 (laughs)

48:43 And, uh, I asked for a photo. (laughs) Hey, Nick, do you wanna... you wanna put up the photo, the second one?

Chamath Palihapitiya 48:48 Oh, no.

David Sacks 48:48 Please?

Chamath Palihapitiya 48:48 Oh, there I am.

David Sacks 48:49 (laughs)

48:50 (laughs)

Chamath Palihapitiya 48:50 There I am.

David Sacks 48:51 Big Wednesday.

48:51 If your heart stops, this is the guy you wanna come resuscitate.

48:55 Jake Hellum, Big Wednesday.

Chamath Palihapitiya 48:56 Dave.

David Sacks 48:56 Here we go.

48:56 (laughs)

48:56 Dave, did your heart stop?

Jason Calacanis 48:58 Did your heart stop, Dave? Because I'm gonna resuscitate it. Nick, show the other one. This is-

David Sacks 49:02 (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 49:02 ... this was the original outfit when he became a paramedic.

Chamath Palihapitiya 49:05 Oh, no, this better not be X-rated. Oh, God. Oh, there.

David Sacks 49:08 I like the second one better.

Chamath Palihapitiya 49:10 Yeah, we know which one you like better, Dave.

David Sacks 49:13 Is that a nurse? Is that a thermometer he's got? What, what does he have in his hand there?

Chamath Palihapitiya 49:16 That's a needle.

David Sacks 49:17 Uh, that's a needle.

Chamath Palihapitiya 49:18 I think so.

David Sacks 49:18 That's a needle or a thermometer?

49:18 I think that's, like, a Coke bottle. (laughs)

Chamath Palihapitiya 49:20 I think that could be a thermometer. We might need to check your temperature, David.

David Sacks 49:24 It's, like, a Pepsi bottle. What the hell is that? (laughs)

Chamath Palihapitiya 49:25 We're going to take your temperature, Dave. I don't know if you're gonna make it.

David Sacks 49:28 This would be a good option-

49:28 What kind of temperature does that take?

49:30 ... for you in a couple weeks, JCal.

Chamath Palihapitiya 49:31 Exactly. (laughs) All I know, it's gonna be really hot.

David Sacks 49:34 Oh, Jason, you did a great job as a paramedic.

Chamath Palihapitiya 49:36 Oh, God, what happened to his first job?

David Sacks 49:36 We really, we really appreciate your contributions.

Chamath Palihapitiya 49:39 Wow, great job.

David Sacks 49:41 (laughs)

Chamath Palihapitiya 49:41 All right, back to the story about Cruise, about this terrible accident. Oh, wow, we got derailed.

David Sacks 49:46 Yeah.

Chamath Palihapitiya 49:47 Okay.

David Sacks 49:47 Well, thanks for the work you did, JCal. Thanks for your service.

Chamath Palihapitiya 49:49 Yeah.

David Sacks 49:49 Okay, so... (laughs)

49:50 (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 49:50 (laughs)

David Sacks 49:51 That was really good.

Chamath Palihapitiya 49:53 I'm gonna take, I'm gonna take your vitals.

David Sacks 49:56 (laughs)

Chamath Palihapitiya 49:57 Okay, local media picked up-

David Sacks 49:58 Do you have that eagle tattoo on your arm too?

Chamath Palihapitiya 50:01 That was, that was removable. Local media picked up on this, uh, reporting that Cruise was responsible for the incident. Director of News for the San Francisco Chronicle, which is a lunatic publication, "Woman run over by Cruise self-driving car on Market Street in downtown San Francisco. Pulled from under rear axle, circumstances under investigation." The San Francisco Standard posted on X, "A woman suffered traumatic injuries after being trapped under a Cruise robo-taxi in downtown San Francisco Monday night, fire department spokesperson said." A few weeks ago, as you know, a video circulated on X, formerly known as Twitter, of 20 or so Cruise vehicles causing a massive traffic jam at an intersection in Austin. The robo-taxi, uh, provider issue has become very divisive here in San Francisco. There are now multiple companies working on automotion.

David Sacks 50:55 Guys hear that people in San Francisco will put pylons-

Chamath Palihapitiya 50:59 They cone it. Yeah, they cone it.

David Sacks 51:00 ... they cone it to brick the car? Why would they do that?

Chamath Palihapitiya 51:03 'Cause they're lunatics, and it represents technology.

David Sacks 51:06 That's the real story here. The real story is the very deep disdain for technological progress. And the second story, I think, that's so important is the total lack of assumption of risk generally in the US, which limits progress in meaningful ways. Let me just pull up some data that I shared here. So, Nick, if you pull up this first chart. I'll give you guys some, some numbers. For every 100 million miles driven in the US, there's about one and a half deaths, car accident deaths. There's about 3.2 trillion miles driven per year in the US, so about 45,000 people die from auto accidents each year. This is a crazy number. 2.3 million people have auto accident-related injuries in the US each year, and there's six million car crashes each year in the US. That's one crash for every half million miles driven. Pretty, you know, incredible statistics. So if you look at this chart, it kind of shows the car fatalities over time. Now, what's the leading cause of car fatalities? Well, cl- go to the next chart.

Chamath Palihapitiya 52:07 Distracted driving.

David Sacks 52:08 Number one, I shoulda, I shoulda done this as a quiz. Number one, DUI.

Chamath Palihapitiya 52:13 Hm.

David Sacks 52:14 Jesus, that is unbelievable that even today-

Chamath Palihapitiya 52:16 To this day?

David Sacks 52:17 Yeah. Number two, speeding.

Chamath Palihapitiya 52:19 Yeah, that makes sense.

David Sacks 52:19 Number three, not using your seatbelt.

Chamath Palihapitiya 52:22 That's insane.

David Sacks 52:23 So all- Yeah.

Chamath Palihapitiya 52:23 By the way, all three of those are the same.

David Sacks 52:25 Yeah. Al- so 80% of those, 80% of deaths are DUI, speeding, and seatbelt non-use. Now, go to an autonomous driving world-

Chamath Palihapitiya 52:32 In other words, those are all opt-in.

David Sacks 52:34 So now go to an autonomous driving world. You won't see DUIs. Those things are programmed to not speed. Obviously, they're not gonna run if you don't put your seatbelt on. And then the fourth one is distracted driving. The real question is, what incremental accidents or what incremental errors do autonomous cars make that might, you know, kind of cause new deaths or new accidents? But the net is that we have an incredible number of car accidents, six million accidents a year, two and a half million injuries a year, 45,000 deaths a year, most of which can be prevented by things that are just basic human stupidity.

Chamath Palihapitiya 53:08 The first three are all opt-in.

David Sacks 53:09 So what you're saying is Warren Buffett and Geico are probably responsible for lobbying and creating this mess in San Francisco? Do the insurance companies even need to exist?

Chamath Palihapitiya 53:19 Oh, Deep State Chamath. Conspiracy corner.

David Sacks 53:22 Well, I actually think there's a very different driver for why these things... So I just wanna make the case, first off, that if you, if you zoom out and you don't take the anecdotal story of the woman trapped under the Cruise car, it's an awful story, but that anecdote allows people to heighten their fear and heighten their emotion and create a response to autonomous driving as if that is a cause of a problem.

53:43 Totally.

53:44 But if you zoom out and you ask the question, "Dude, 50,000 people a year are dying because of human stupidity that we can just completely take off the streets," it's such a no-brainer that this technology should progress.

53:55 Agreed.

53:55 And I'll give you guys another story. In 1999, there was, uh, the, the clinical trials for gene therapy had begun. And, uh, there was a guy named Gelsinger. He was a young kid, I think he was 18 or 19 years old, and he passed away from the gene therapy. And it turns out that there was actually doctor malpractice that was primarily responsible for his death. After that happened, the FDA and the regulators stepped in and they basically put a halt to all gene therapy clinical trials for about seven years. The number of lives that were lost during that seven years that went on that we did not make progress on getting gene therapy programs to market is significantly higher than the number of people that would have lost lives, which, by the way, it turns out when you go back to this, this particular death, was driven by doctor malpractice, not by the gene therapy technology necessarily itself and a lot of this stuff was understood. And I think we've heard Peter Thiel and others speak a lot about how the US has lost our appetite for risk. We say that if anyone dies or if any bad thing happens, a new technology should not progress.... but when we look at the benefit of new technology relative to the cost of it, many of these technologies should progress at an accelerated pace, not at a decelerated pace. And the stepping in to stop these things from moving forward because, number one, we're rootly af- afraid of new technology, number two, we, you know, we- we kind of want to... there's a lot of regulatory capture and incumbency that wants to see these things not succeed. I think we're really denying ourselves, in many cases, the opportunity to realize progress because we're so concerned about any loss. Nuclear fission is a really great example of this. Three Mile Island accident and Fukushima, you know, if you look at the total number of lives lost, and- and there's incredible statistics which I should probably not pull off the top of my head, I should probably make sure I get the right numbers, but Chernobyl is another good example. If you look at the total number of incremental cancers and the total number of lives that were lost from Chernobyl, you look at Three Mile Island, you look at Fukushima, you can actually-

Chamath Palihapitiya 55:50 Yeah, Chernobyl was 46. Yeah.

David Sacks 55:51 ... you can, you can make a statistical argument that even with those extraordinary cataclysmic disasters, the number of lives that could have been improved, the number of lives that could have been saved, the progress that people have been, could have been, uh, could have made, the number of people that, uh, could have been pulled out of poverty if we made cheap abundant energy available at an accelerated pace rather than at a decelerated pace, it could have had a much more significant effect. So I view this in the lens, this autonomous driving backlash, in the lens of what we see with a lot of new technologies, which is we lose our- our appetite for risk, we lose our tolerance for any sort of incremental loss, and we lose perspective on the fact that that loss is far, far, far outweighed relative to the gains that you gain if you can get that technology into market faster, uh, not slower. And I think that's just such a- a- a real kind of storyline that- that's not told very often about how technology and progress is limited, particularly in the modern age. Because once you have enough stuff, you're not willing to take as much risk. Meanwhile, you see China building 450 nuclear fission stations and the US building none. And I think that that's part of the story of where the US is today.

Chamath Palihapitiya 56:58 Mm-hmm. Yeah.

David Sacks 56:59 I mean, I know that was a big rant but, for me, I'm just, like, so sensitive to this stuff. You know, like all of this, like, anti-tech stuff and anti-progress stuff because you then pick an anecdote and you focus on the anecdote and you miss the bigger fucking picture.

Jason Calacanis 57:12 Well, what's so funny about San Francisco is this, it's the city that both is the first to approve the testing of it and then where there's a small fra- fraction of citizens who try to go and sabotage it.

Chamath Palihapitiya 57:23 I guess the next issue is, how close are we to having these at-scale cruises currently in San Francisco, Austin and Phoenix? Waymo, very expensive cars by the way, uh, they are currently in San Francisco and Phoenix 24/7, they're gonna launch in LA soon, and Tesla's been working on this.

David Sacks 57:42 You know what's another example of this? SpaceX, some shrapnel got blown into the uninhabited desert lands around Boca Chica, Texas.

Chamath Palihapitiya 57:51 You're talking about Starship?

David Sacks 57:53 Yeah, Starship.

Chamath Palihapitiya 57:53 The big one, yeah. Yeah.

David Sacks 57:54 And they come in and they're like, "Shut the whole thing down. You can't have shrapnel flying around." Think about the risk tolerance equation here. So if you delay SpaceX by six months to make sure that shrapnel doesn't fly through the desert, that's six months longer till humans can perhaps inhabit the moon, go to Mars, do all these extraordinary things. This is what I mean about the lack of tolerance for risk. We have to assume that there is a cost in moving things forward. There has to be a cost in progress. You don't go fight a war and try and move the front lines of a battlefield further into the enemy territory and assume you're gonna have no loss. And all of human progress needs to be thought about in a similar way. We have to have some degree of loss and some tolerance for risk as we try and make progress with our species. And technology always is gonna have setbacks, it's always gonna have mistakes, but if the net benefit far outweighs those mistakes, we have to be willing to accept it, and gets everyone to kind of take a broader perspective on what we're doing, that this isn't just about maintaining status quo and not getting hurt, this is about the great benefits we get from moving things forward. And we've lost that in such a profound way over the last 50 years in Western culture.

Chamath Palihapitiya 59:09 Another great example of this, to add to your tirade, is challenge trials and these have been banned for a long time and if you don't know what a challenge trial is, it's when you introduce something, like let's say COVID, into a person who has had a COVID vaccine. And yeah, they're assuming some risk in doing this, but if it was a young person, as we saw, it probably wouldn't be that much risk and there are people who would do it. And there are... This whole concept of challenge trials could reduce, in the long term, a massive amount of deaths but it's not allowed because of ethics issues. Wh- What are your thoughts on that, Freeberg, challenge trials?

David Sacks 59:43 I mean, it's... Look, there- there's so many examples, we could just keep going through this. Ener- from energy markets and nuclear technology, to biotechnology, to space technology, to... I've lived it. I mean, like GMO technology and bioengineering in- in food systems, there's a fear and a concern. And like Rob Henderson said at our summit, I've always viewed those to be luxury beliefs, that this idea that I don't want to have my precious things changed when the benefit really accrues mostly to the poorest people in the world, the people that can't afford-

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:00:12 Explain why that is, by the way, because that's an important point that people don't realize.

David Sacks 1:00:15 Wh- When you make things more productive, whether it's a acre of land to make more food or a unit of energy and the cost comes down per unit of energy, those of us who already have a lot of stuff and have all of our basic needs met, we have housing, we have shelter, we have food, we have energy, we can afford it, we live in a great environment, we live in a place that we can do whatever the heck we want anytime we want, we don't care if the price goes up by 30%. I'm happy to go down to Whole Foods and feel good to plop down an extra 50% to buy an organic banana. Someone who only makes $8,000 a year cares very deeply about that cost delta. They need to see the cost of food go down, the cost of energy go down, the cost of medicine go down. The improvement that's driven by technology and has been for 10,000 years mostly accrues to the poorest people in society first.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:01:05 Well said.Well said.

David Sacks 1:01:05 And that's, that's the problem. And so we all who are in charge, those of us who are rich, who are elite, who have power, who have control, who have influence, who run the fucking government, we all get to raise our hand and say, "I don't want to take any more risks 'cause one person died."

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:01:18 Yes.

David Sacks 1:01:18 Meanwhile, a million people are starving to death over the next three months and you can make that same story and you can connect those dots in every area of technology that humans are, have lost their risk tolerance for in the wealthy, industrialized West. And we are largely, I think, not just i- uh, hurting ourselves because of the economic costs and all the other stuff that's going on that we're now seeing is very apparent, but we're also limiting the intelligence and the energy to make technology and progress it that could benefit the whole world. We're limiting its ability to diffuse and I think it's, it's really profoundly sad. And I, I hope that we one day look back at this era as almost like a pseudo-Dark Ages and we wake the F- up someday-

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:02:02 Totally.

David Sacks 1:02:02 ... and recognize that we need to take some degree of risk-

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:02:05 It is a family show.

David Sacks 1:02:05 ... and have some tolerance for making progress.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:02:07 All right, listen, it's a family-

David Sacks 1:02:08 Bleep me out, whatever.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:02:08 It's a family program here.

David Sacks 1:02:09 Sorry, I got a little-

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:02:09 Put a bleep in it, yeah. Okay.

David Sacks 1:02:11 I got a little passionate about the whole anti-tech stuff.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:02:13 Hey, we like it. We like it. Hey, and, and listen, 35 people died building the Golden Gate Bridge, right? Like, who, the people wanted to see that progress, people took risk. Uh, uh, uh, that's it. No risk, no reward.

David Sacks 1:02:24 To that point, I think it took two years to create the Bay Bridge and 17 years to do the repair to it. I mean, that's how crazy-

1:02:30 Totally.

1:02:30 ... things have gotten. But let me a-

1:02:31 $2 billion to, $2 billion to build those suicide nets on the side of the Golden Gate Bridge and some fraction of that to build the whole friggin' bridge.

1:02:37 Yeah.

1:02:37 You know, on a, an e- even on a dollar-adjusted basis, it's ridiculous.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:02:40 It's w- it was five... It's interesting you say that. 550 million to build the bridge in US dollars and then, yeah, it was the same amount to build the, uh, nets, so there you have it.

David Sacks 1:02:49 But let me k- ask a question about the Cruise thing. So do you believe that Cruise will have a good solution to self-driving? I'm just, like, a little bit skeptical. Are, are they owned by GM now?

1:02:59 Yeah. But didn't they raise money from SoftBank? Isn't there some, like, independent funding as well that happened?

1:03:04 I thought it was sold to GM. I'm just, like-

1:03:06 It was part of GM. I think it was sold to GM and then they set it up as a sub and they... Like, like Alphabet did with Waymo, Alphabet's raised 5 billion in outside money into Waymo and I think that Cruise or GM tried to do the same thing where they've got SoftBank and a bunch of institutional investors in Cruise. Uh, I'm pretty, I'm pretty sure that's right. Yeah.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:03:23 It's majority-owned by GM, but it was spun out 'cause GM-

David Sacks 1:03:24 It was spun out, yeah.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:03:24 ... didn't have the ability to bankroll it. It's obvious that these are getting there. The question is, is I think it's more like 10 years before this is fully deployed. Also, you have to build all the cars. If Elon does get out this robo-taxi vehicle for 25K, which he seems like is well on the way with the Model 3D getting to, this was an early mockup from Walter Isaacson's book, which looks pretty sharp and it doesn't have... It's like a two-seat car, so these things zipping around San Francisco, et cetera, at a reasonable speed, 25, 35 miles an hour, I think he's pretty close to having this. I use the self-driving beta, full self-driving, FSD. I use it all the time. I used to only use it on highways, now I use it on side roads. I disengage it when it's on roads that are not clearly marked, a l- you know, let's say, like backroads.

David Sacks 1:04:14 Have you guys taken a, a Cruise or a Waymo ride?

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:04:17 I haven't taken either. I got invited to the beta, though, for Cruise, so I'm gonna check it out.

David Sacks 1:04:20 Do you guys want to take one?

1:04:23 Personally, I would not trust, uh, the Cruise ride. I don't believe they were responsible for this accident, as it turns out, but I'm just skeptical that some of these initiatives are gonna pan out. I think Tesla's getting it.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:04:35 Why? Why, why are you, why are you skeptical?

David Sacks 1:04:37 Yeah.

1:04:37 I think it's a hard problem to solve and I'm just dubious about GM's ability to develop tech at this level of s- of sophistication.

1:04:47 You think Tesla will get there?

1:04:49 I think Tesla's already there.

1:04:50 Well, if an autonomous Tesla drove up and picked you up, would you do that? Would you take a ride in that?

1:04:54 I mean, not today, but, I mean-

1:04:56 Right.

1:04:56 ... when they get there, which I don't think will be 10 years. I mean, it seems like Tesla's just way ahead of everybody else.

1:05:01 Chamath, what do you think? Where do you think the tech is?

Jason Calacanis 1:05:03 I think this is, uh, an inference problem for Tesla and it's a learning problem for everybody else. So I think in order to build Level 5 autonomy, you have to have good reasoning. And I think in order to have good reasoning, you just need to have enough training data where you literally see every potential branch and node in a decision tree. And so it's one thing to be able to scan a light, know that it's green, and then go forward. But when you multiply that by every intersection, every light in every city, it's a massive, massive learning problem. So the thing that GM and Cruise don't have, in my opinion, is a path to acquire enough data to be credible. Could they solve a limited set of streets in San Francisco? Yeah. Yes. And so, if you have the city sort of block off certain parts of the neighborhoods and say, "No more human-driven vehicles in these sections. Only these three or four licensed providers can be inside of it," I think that Cruise and Waymo could work. But if you're gonna live in a world where there's autonomy, meaning, like, humans can drive wherever they want, I think Tesla is the only one because I think they've acquired and they are acquiring so much training data that, for them, they're fine-tuning reasoning. And th- it's exactly what Jason just described. Jason is a perfect example of a consumer now who has adopted it, call it 70% of his use cases, and is incrementally kind of like getting towards 90% or 95%. And I think that that's impressive. I would agree with Jason. I use FSD 100% on the highways and depending on where I'm going, so like this weekend when I, when I came to, David, your house, Sax's house, full FSD the whole way.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:06:47 Yeah, 280, 101-

Jason Calacanis 1:06:48 And there was-

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:06:48 It's bulletproof.

Jason Calacanis 1:06:49 Bulletproof, and then in the city.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:06:51 Yeah.

Jason Calacanis 1:06:52 And navigating to get into, into David's house, it, I thought it was, it was pitch perfect. And there was one or twice where I'm actually the person that's panicking and disengaging FSD.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:07:02 Yes, like intersections, right? Left turns.

Jason Calacanis 1:07:05 And also just on the highway, like, I get a little skittish at times if it goes... if it speeds up or whatever. My point is-

David Sacks 1:07:11 ... Tesla is so close to it, so I, I do trust that they'll have a credible solution in the next four or five years. And these other companies, I think that they need to have a solution for training and I don't see it.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:07:24 Yeah. The, the point is, there's over a million cars recording, 'cause when you buy a Tesla you turn on self-driving. It's in every car and so every car is recording data all the time, as opposed to GM. GM doesn't take the time to put the $10,000, $20,000 package.

David Sacks 1:07:40 Half a million new sensors-

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:07:41 Yeah.

David Sacks 1:07:42 ... collecting millions of miles a quarter-

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:07:44 A quarter every year.

David Sacks 1:07:45 ... being added to the network.

1:07:46 Exactly. What Tesla did years and years ago is, even before self-driving was a thing, they s- put all the cameras in the cars to collect the data.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:07:53 Yeah.

David Sacks 1:07:53 And you're right. GM doesn't do that.

1:07:55 If GM did that to their legacy gas cars and then-

1:07:58 Yeah.

1:07:58 ... funneled that into Cruise, I think they would have a decent shot, but they are not doing that.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:08:03 Here is a map-

David Sacks 1:08:03 It's too late.

1:08:04 ... of Waymo, um, in... And I brought this up because, you know, I think there's two different strategies going on here. Tesla's going for the whole megillah. They wanna be able to do dirt roads you've never been on. Waymo and Cruise are working from constrained areas that they can perfect, and Phoenix is the perfect area because that's a grid-based system, very wide highways, and it was planned. And so if you have a planned community, you know, it's not like a city- Right.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:08:30 ... in Italy or France where it's like the, the roads have been there for 800 years. When you have some modern city where it's a grid-based system, Austin falls into this as well for a large portion of Austin, it's gonna be fairly easy to do those. And so that's what we'll see. My prediction is we'll see this. Also, it's very flat, and there are obviously no hills, and also weather. So, you know, the Northeast will be the last place. When you go to Boston or, you know, you're in, uh, other places that don't have a grid-based system and you have ice and snow, this stuff is 10 plus years out. But in a dry place with consistent weather like California, Phoenix, et cetera, it's, it's, the, it's, it's now, right? It's now

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:09:09 I think. Okay. In, uh, Bill Gurley's Regulatory Capture Corner, we have an interesting story about JSX. If you don't know JetsuiteX, that's what the JSX stands for, this is an airline that offers hop on public charter flights out of FBOs, uh, tiny airports usually reserved for private jets, and they give passengers the private jet experience for the cost of roughly a first class ticket at major airlines, maybe double the cost of a coach ticket. 700 bucks one way from Westchester to Miami, $1400 round trip. Not a bad deal. By comparison, United on the same day are between 5 and 800 for first class from Newark to Miami. JetsuiteX has 47 airplanes with 1200 crew members.

David Sacks 1:09:56 Let me cut in and give you my anecdote. On Saturday I took a JSX flight from-

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:10:00 Okay.

David Sacks 1:10:01 ... Vegas to Oakland.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:10:03 What were you doing in Vegas?

David Sacks 1:10:05 I went to the opening night of the U2 concert at The Sphere.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:10:07 Opening night at The Sphere? At The Sphere?

David Sacks 1:10:09 It was incredible. Yeah, The Sphere.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:10:11 I looked at the photos and the videos. I wasn't super impressed. Is it impressive in person? 'Cause it didn't come across in the videos.

David Sacks 1:10:17 Yeah. It's incredible. You gotta go see it. I think it's the first-

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:10:19 Incredible how?

David Sacks 1:10:20 So it's the first, like, live experience that I think you have kind of live analog elements like a band and this incredibly immersive digital experience because it's a-

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:10:30 Mm-hmm.

David Sacks 1:10:30 ... 360-foot tall dome and the entirety of the interior of the dome is a digital screen. So, there were these scenescapes that they created that were, like, dynamic video on these walls that-

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:10:42 Mm-hmm.

David Sacks 1:10:42 ... it's hard... It... I don't think the videos do it justice. Like, when you're actually-

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:10:46 Yeah, it didn't do it justice, yeah.

David Sacks 1:10:46 When you're in this room during this shot right here, and I was kinda sitting center. I was also... I went down on the floor for a while.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:10:51 Looks like you're in the desert or something.

David Sacks 1:10:53 It's like you're there. Dude, I mean, it's-

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:10:55 Wow.

David Sacks 1:10:55 ... it's, it's inexplicable. It's more real than VR. It's like you're in this world and-

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:11:01 Mm.

David Sacks 1:11:01 They even did these amazing integrated scenes where they had like helicopters flying overhead and