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All-In PodcastAll-In Podcast

E15: “The Besties” All-In’s inaugural award show covering the best, worst & most memorable of 2020

Follow the crew: https://twitter.com/chamath https://linktr.ee/calacanis https://twitter.com/DavidSacks https://twitter.com/friedberg Follow the pod: https://twitter.com/theallinpod https://linktr.ee/allinpodcast Intro Music Credit: https://soundcloud.com/olyofficial Show Notes: 0:00 The besties discuss some recent beak wetting, open source merch & more 6:31 Chamath tells the “192.5” weight loss bet story 10:54 Biggest Winner - Politics 13:08 Biggest Loser - Politics 16:24 Biggest Winner - Business 19:47 Biggest Loser - Business 23:22 Biggest Winner - Culture 26:24 Biggest Loser - Culture 32:31 Biggest Turnaround 34:49 Biggest Flash in the Pan 39:32 Biggest Breakthrough 43:51 Smartest Move - Business 49:58 Dumbest Move - Business 56:25 Smartest Move - Politics 1:00:20 Dumbest Move - Politics 1:04:22 Best/Worst Political Theatre 1:12:57 Best Memes #allin #tech #news

Jason CalacanishostDavid FriedberghostChamath Palihapitiyahost
Dec 18, 20201h 16mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:00 – 6:31

    The besties discuss some recent beak wetting, open source merch & more

    1. NA

      You got to rise up. Before you sink in. You've got to dive in. Before you can swim. You've got to give it. All to win. We're going all in.

    2. JC

      Hey, everybody. Welcome back. Besties are back for the All-In Podcast. The queen of quinoa, Freiberg is here, the dictator Chamath, and of course, Rain Man, David Sacks. And, uh, it's been a big week here in Silicon Valley with Airbnb and Wish both going public for over a hundred billion dollars combined. Anybody get their beak wet on that one?

    3. DS

      Oh, hey, guys.

    4. JC

      (laughs)

    5. DS

      (laughs)

    6. JC

      Oh. Well, how are you, David? Did-

    7. DS

      Yeah, I might ... I might have gotten my beak wet on, on, on a couple of those, so ...

    8. JC

      Oh, a little beak wet, huh?

    9. DS

      (laughs)

    10. JC

      Well, uh, you know what? In celebration of your recent victory with Airbnb and Wish, I will ... Oh, no, I can't zoom in on my merch, but I've got my-

    11. DS

      (laughs)

    12. JC

      ... unofficial wet your beak mug. So for those of you wondering, we have to, uh, get a little bit of housekeeping out of the way, uh, first here. Uh, the merch has gone crazy. Have you guys been watching merch on Twitter?

    13. DS

      Of course.

    14. JC

      Anybody ... Anybody got favorite-

    15. CP

      I got ... I got-

    16. JC

      ... merch with lots-

    17. CP

      I got some of those ... I got some of those mugs. I think they arrived today. They look great.

    18. DS

      It's amazing. And, you know, the best decision we made was, was not to let you s- sell T-shirts, Jason, 'cause you would have, you would have, you would have, uh, milked this for every, every nickel you could.

    19. CP

      (laughs)

    20. JC

      (laughs)

    21. DS

      And instead, and instead, we, we open-sourced it to the fans, and they've just gone crazy with it.

    22. JC

      I mean, they're literally-

    23. DS

      I know it's ... I know that hurt you. I know that hurt you a little bit.

    24. JC

      I mean, the, the problem I'm having here, no advertising. I'm picking up all the production-

    25. DS

      (laughs)

    26. JC

      ... cost here. I'm sending you guys equipment. You maniacs lose the equipment every time. You go from one of your estates to another estate. I'm sending equipment to four different places. Ugh. Anyway, uh, we've got a special, very special episode for you today. We are doing, drum roll please, (imitates drum roll) we're gonna add some sound effects to this afterwards. We're gonna do the Bestie Awards today. So we're gonna go through the biggest winners in politics, in business, in cultures, and of course, the losers, the flashes in the pan, the best business moves, the stupidest business moves. We got a lot to get through. Um, but just in terms of housekeeping, again the All-In Syndicate is up and running. I think there's 4,000 people have applied in 10 days.

    27. DS

      Let's just talk about the market cap of Airbnb.

    28. CP

      (laughs)

    29. DS

      Or Wish, for that matter. (laughs)

    30. CP

      What round did you invest in Airbnb?

  2. 6:31 – 10:54

    Chamath tells the “192.5” weight loss bet story

    1. JC

      biggest winner-

    2. DF

      Wait before, before, hold on, hold on a second. Um, how much weight did you lose? Because it's either that you're still fat-

    3. JC

      What are you talking about?

    4. DF

      ... and you have a... Wait, wait, wait. It's either you're still fat and you have an incredible camera or you've actually lost weight. And this reminds me, by the way-

    5. JC

      Oh, no.

    6. DF

      ... I would like to tell a story.

    7. JC

      No, no, no, no.

    8. DF

      Four years ago, four or five years ago-

    9. JC

      Oh, my God. Here we go. (laughs)

    10. DF

      ... Jason, Jason and I make a weight bet.

    11. JC

      Okay, just don't say the dollar amount.

    12. DF

      Now, it was like, you know, it was like... I think it was like, uh, $10,000 a pound.

    13. JC

      Whatever it was, anyway.

    14. DF

      And, uh, Jason, Jason, he would get 10... He was about to do... And this is incredible. Jason comes to us five years ago and says, "Guys, you won't believe it. I'm doing a show on NBC."

    15. JC

      (laughs)

    16. DF

      Uh, a reality TV show.

    17. JC

      A pilot.

    18. DF

      A true pilot with (beep) .

    19. JC

      Not (beep) .

    20. DF

      Beep.

    21. JC

      With (beep) .

    22. DF

      (laughs)

    23. JC

      Please beep that out.

    24. DF

      Okay, beep that out.

    25. JC

      Beep that out so I don't get canceled.

    26. DF

      And I thought, "Oh, my... I thought, 'Oh, my God, that guy, that guy seems like a train wreck, but okay, that's fine, you're gonna do this pilot with (beep) ."

    27. JC

      Beep, beep. (laughs)

    28. DF

      Don't, don't, don't you-

    29. JC

      On NBC.

    30. DF

      On NBC. "And don't you need to, you know, be in fighting shape?" And he said, "Yes, I need motivation." So I said, "Here's motivation. Let's make a weight bet. You need to be under 190 pounds, and I'll pay you 10,000, $10,000 a pound that you're underneath, you pay me 10,000 a pound over."

  3. 10:54 – 13:08

    Biggest Winner - Politics

    1. JC

      The Biggest Winner in Politics. Biggest Winner in Politics. I'm gonna ask you gentlemen to raise your hand if you have a strong feeling on this. I'll call on one of you. Who's got a, a big winner in politics? Go ahead, Chamath.

    2. DF

      Joe Biden.

    3. JC

      Joe Biden. Okay, going out on a limb there.

    4. DF

      There is, there is, there, there are...

    5. DS

      There, there-

    6. JC

      Joe Biden.

    7. DS

      I mean, let's be honest, there's nobody bigger. And actually, if you wanted to abstract it, what I would say is, centrism was the big winner. And, uh, and it, it kind of feeds the losers, which is sort of the extreme left and the extreme right. But I would say that centrism and Joe Biden were the huge, huge, huge winners. Well, I'll, I'll give a, I'll give a, um, an orthodox pick, which is, uh, Xi Jinping, the Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party. You would have thought he would have had a bad year starting off with, you know, COVID, uh, starting in his country at the beginning of the year. But he was able-

    8. JC

      The Wuhan virus. (laughs)

    9. DS

      Th- they, you know, the, the... A global plague came from China, but they were able to kind of, uh, they were able to use a, a very gullible WHO to launder, uh, responsibility for the catastrophe.

    10. JC

      (laughs)

    11. DS

      And they took advantage of the crisis to build more client states in Asia and Africa with promises of vaccines and, and money.... and finally, his, uh, biggest global nemesis, uh, Trump, and then, you know, Pompeo, lost in the election. So you have to say he came out on top at the end of this year.

    12. JC

      Freeburg?

    13. CP

      Yeah, I, I, um, I put... I have the exact same answer as Sacks. I put the Chinese Communist Party as a whole, actually.

    14. JC

      Right.

    15. CP

      And I feel like, um, on the world stage, they're, uh, they're strengthened, uh, in, in the post-COVID world, so.

    16. JC

      I had Kamala-

    17. CP

      I totally agree. Yeah.

    18. JC

      ... because she went from the famous quote in the debates, "There was a little girl in California who was bused to school, that little girl was me," where she took on Joe Biden, and then she winds up getting the VP slot. And, I think, she winds up actually becoming president, and will be the first female president of the year, of the, of, of, in the history of the United States. And that could happen in the first term, or if Joe Biden doesn't run for a second term, and they do a halfway decent job, Kamala plus Pete Buttigieg is a pretty great

  4. 13:08 – 16:24

    Biggest Loser - Politics

    1. JC

      ticket as well. Who's the biggest loser? Who's your biggest loser, Chamath, in politics?

    2. DF

      Uh, Donald J. Trump.

    3. JC

      Biggest loser.

    4. DF

      And, uh-

    5. JC

      Okay, the obvious answer.

    6. DF

      ... the extreme left, the extreme left, and the extreme right.

    7. JC

      Got it.

    8. DS

      I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll agree with that, but I'd also add, uh, Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House. Uh, her impeachment of Trump at the beginning of the year went absolutely nowhere, wasn't even a, an issue in the election. And her majority in the House has almost completely disappeared. She lost a, a dozen seats. I think the, um, the, the... I think she's down to about four or five seats, there's a razor-thin majority in the House, and she's set to lose more in the midterm elections. I predict that she is set to not be Speaker anymore in two years, and headed for retirement.

    9. JC

      Okay. Freeburg, you got one? Biggest loser?

    10. CP

      I have, I have the, uh, institution of American democracy- (laughs) ... as the biggest loser of 2020.

    11. JC

      (laughs)

    12. DS

      (laughs)

    13. CP

      I feel like we're coming out of this year with, like, no belief that our election was valid for a vast majority, for, for, uh, s- sizable minority of this country that, um, that the whole, uh, system-

    14. JC

      Well, actually some, some Democrats believe that the election was fraudulent now too.

    15. CP

      Yeah. I mean, if you say something enough times, everyone believes it. So, um, here we are coming out of this year where, with a crippling, um, lack of faith in our electoral system, and, uh, it's scary that American democracy is being fundamentally questioned by its own constituents. So, um, so I think that's the biggest loser of the, of the year.

    16. JC

      I had, uh, I had, uh, two choices here. One of them was already said. I said the hysterical left as my runner up, Bernie and Warren, just dismissed by Biden and Kamala. They, they are not even part of the discussion anymore, and they didn't even get cabinet positions. So the hysterical left and the Socialist Communist Party is out of the Democratic Party, thank the Lord. But my biggest loser, I have to say that this is the worst run of any politician I've ever seen in a year, which is Rudy Giuliani-

    17. CP

      (laughs)

    18. DS

      (laughs)

    19. JC

      ... under investigation for-

    20. (laughs)

    21. ... Les Parnas and Igor Fruman-

    22. CP

      (laughs)

    23. JC

      ... then the bogus lawsuit elections, then farting during a hearing-

    24. CP

      (laughs)

    25. JC

      ... then doing the Bharat shirt tuck. I don't know if we have feelings on if that-

    26. CP

      (laughs)

    27. JC

      ... was a tuck or if he was trying to wake up the genie.

    28. CP

      (laughs)

    29. DS

      (laughs)

    30. JC

      And then he bleeds hair dye. (laughs)

  5. 16:24 – 19:47

    Biggest Winner - Business

    1. JC

      Biggest winner in business. Biggest winner in business. Freeburg, you wanna lead us off? You haven't led us off yet.

    2. CP

      I'll, I'll take this one. I think that the biggest winner in business this year is a company that started a few years ago called Moderna. This company had a IPO in December of '18 at seven and a half billion dollar market cap. It traded between four and five billion throughout 2019. And all of a sudden, COVID hits, and this becomes a vaccine candidate, uh, driver for Moderna, and the stock shoots up, it's worth 60 billion today. This company has not had a product that's gone to market prior to COVID, and they struggled, uh, getting this business, um... Well, I wouldn't say struggled, but they, they never really had a, a, a, an application for their mRNA technology. They looked at it for years iterating and pivoting this business, and COVID, un- like a lot of other businesses, really gave them an unbelievable, uh, kick. And as of tonight-

    3. JC

      What about it say? A shot in the arm.

    4. CP

      A shot in the arm. And tonight, they got approval from the FDA, and they're gonna be shipping starting t- on Monday, I think.

    5. JC

      Sacks, who you got for the biggest winner in business? We're moving at a good pace here.

    6. DS

      Elon Musk, uh, our friend.

    7. JC

      Okay.

    8. CP

      Oh.

    9. DS

      Ro- rose, uh, to become the sic- second richest man in the world ahead of Bill Gates, uh, and, you know, uh, right on the heels of Jeff Bezos. Uh, his company, Tesla, had something like a 8 or 10x gain, so over a $500 billion company. Of course, the products are awesome. It joined the S&P 500. And SpaceX is doing amazing as well. Uh, we saw the launch of s- Starship the other day. And I have just been mesmerized by all these unboxing videos for Starlink, which you can see on YouTube. And it is just magic that you can unbox this little satellite dish, plug it in, and you have broadband internet from space. So, um, I think, you know, Elon seems to be on track to be, uh, not only the world's richest man, but the world's first trillionaire-

    10. JC

      Wow. Big, uh, big, uh, big ups there to E. Uh, Chamath, what do you got for the biggest winner in business of 2020?

    11. DF

      Yeah, I have to agree with Saxypoo. Uh, Elon is the... Elon basically has had, over the last 10 or 15 years, an incredible amount of challenges that he's overcome. He's had an incredible amount of haters. He's had... Probably had to deal with stuff that most of us would have broken under, and, uh, he just fought through it. And the guy just basically bended all the haters until he crushed their souls, and I just think that that's incredible.

    12. JC

      Absolutely.

    13. DF

      Uh, so Elon Musk is the, hands down, the biggest, biggest, most obvious winner of 2020.

    14. JC

      That's the obvious winner. Uh-

    15. DF

      In business.

    16. JC

      I'll give a couple of runner-ups here. Um, I thought also on the runner-ups, uh, after Elon, Zoom beating Skype, Slack Video, Google Hangouts, and fixing all their China issues and getting to a $100 billion valuation is notable. Obviously Amazon did a great job, um, be- because of the pandemic. Uh, and then just as an oddball out there, I just thought Adam Silver and the NBA Bubble was an incredibly bold project that was executed so well and was such a delightful business moment and also a cultural moment that, you know, you had the NBA shutting down during the pandemic. Remember that dramatic night on a Thursday night? And they canceled the games. And then they do the bubble and it works, and that gave me hope that we could get through the virus. So, those were some of my other runners-up.

  6. 19:47 – 23:22

    Biggest Loser - Business

    1. JC

      All right, the biggest loser in business in 2020. Go ahead, Chamath.

    2. DF

      Facebook and Google, exiting the year with umpteen antitrust lawsuits. Um, I think morale must be pretty brutal over there. Um, there's no amount of money at some point that people are willing to get paid to walk in the door every day and just have to do... Have to deal with those kinds of accusations. And so, um, for all the good in the world that they do, um, which... So it just must be really tough that they have to deal with it, but, uh, those guys are, I think, are the biggest losers in business.

    3. JC

      Who do you got, Sax?

    4. DS

      The small business person. Um, you know, whether it's restaurants, retail, hospitality, what have you, small business people really took it on the chin this year. I agree with Chamath about, you know, companies like Google and Facebook losing esteem in the eyes of the public for good reason, censorship, so on. But tech still are... You know, stocks are at all-time highs. The politicians got to keep eating at French Laundry, but it was the small business people who got absolutely decimated by these lockdowns, which don't even work. And so they are the big loser of 2020-

    5. JC

      Freedberg, what do you got?

    6. DS

      ... in business.

    7. CP

      I, I'm a little more vanilla than the rest of you guys. I went with AMC Entertainment Holdings. Talk about a fucked business in COVID.

    8. JC

      (laughs)

    9. CP

      Restaurants, at least you can do takeout. You can't take out a movie from AMC. They're, they're shut down all over the country. Their creditors are telling them to declare bankruptcy. It's a total shit show. No one's going to go back-

    10. JC

      You think people go back-

    11. CP

      ... to the movie theater.

    12. JC

      ... to movies?

    13. CP

      You know, it's like...

    14. JC

      You don't think they'll go back?

    15. CP

      I don't think they'll go... I don't know what the hell-

    16. JC

      Wow.

    17. CP

      ... like AMC is gonna do. What do you do with all those theaters? They're awesome. I love going to the movies, but I'm not going to the movies for at least another year, so. And it's sad because honestly, like, movies are a big part of my life, always have been, and it's sad to see movie theaters-

    18. JC

      I think they're gonna come-

    19. CP

      I- you know. Yeah.

    20. JC

      They're gonna come back strong... They're gonna come back stronger. I think Amazon will buy one chain. I think Netflix buys the other.

    21. CP

      Right.

    22. JC

      And then with your membership, you get to go and see all the range of stuff, and maybe even see, like, Queen's Gambit in the theater-

    23. CP

      It's such a... It's such a great-

    24. JC

      ... a week before.

    25. CP

      ... experience, right? Yeah, like there's... There's-

    26. JC

      Yeah. I would have loved to see Queen's Gambit in a theater.

    27. CP

      Totally. There's so much-

    28. JC

      Okay.

    29. CP

      ... you could do with theaters, and I think, um, there's an opportunity. But man, did those guys get screwed this year.

    30. JC

      Well, I always thought they should do an extended edition. So imagine if when HBO or one of those did, you know, Game of Thrones, if they had it out the day before in movie theaters or the week before, uh, or two days before, and they did an extra 10 minutes. People would love that. My biggest loser was, of course, same as David, uh, real world businesses absolutely demolished and the government... After that first stimulus, which was incredible. Trump did an amazing job of just dropping buckets of money, whether it was the PP loans and... PPE loans, whatever the... PPP loans? PPP loans. All this stuff was incredible. And then what complete utter bullshit and incompetence from our government that they couldn't get the second one done. It's absolutely fucking infuriating that the Democrats and the Republicans, these selfish fuckers, couldn't get another billion dollars dropped on people's head. And here we are in December. That shit needed to drop in August or September, not December. It's just absolutely disgraceful. It's... The- They're... I'm... I'm just disgusted that they couldn't even get some more money to people who are suffering unemployment and these restaurants. 100,000 restaurant closures by the end of 2020. It's just unconscionable that the, the stock market is ripping and we can't get just some money in people's pockets. Just drop the money. It's infuriating. I was sitting here at the taping of this that it might actually happen.

  7. 23:22 – 26:24

    Biggest Winner - Culture

    1. JC

      Um, okay, biggest winner in culture. Who's got a big winner in culture? Anybody got one?

    2. CP

      I got the, um, the Black Lives Matter movement, and I think it-

    3. JC

      Hmm.

    4. CP

      Um... I think it was such a, like, meaningful, um, and impactful, uh, um, kind of shift in how people were thinking fundamentally about behavior in society. It's still persisting. You know, there's corporate action, there's state action, there's regulatory action. Um, and I think it's, uh... It's a meaningful movement that's gonna persist. I think it came at a time when we all felt... Like, you know, a lot of people felt locked up in their homes. People were angry. People were frustrated with the system. And, um, just, uh... It just was a very poignant moment, uh, especially occurring during COVID that it really took hold. Um, and it... I think it's going to last, and I think that the, uh, um, the movement itself is gonna spawn a lot of change.

    5. JC

      Yeah, I think that's well said. David, who do you got, uh, in culture? (clears throat)

    6. DS

      Uh, Baby Yoda, uh, star of-

    7. JC

      (laughs) So you went pop culture on that one. (laughs)

    8. DS

      Yeah. Star, star of the Mandalorian show, uh, that has... His ascent to icon status, uh, helped Disney get 86 million subscribers for-

    9. JC

      Grogu.

    10. DS

      ... for, for Disney+, uh, which just blew away expectations and, uh, has established Disney+ as the main rival to Netflix.

    11. JC

      Do you think Netflix... Uh, you think Disney will pass Netflix, correct?

    12. DS

      I don't know if they'll pass them, but they're now certainly gonna be a, a major rival to them.

    13. JC

      I think that, I think they pass them. Okay. Chamath, who do you got? Culture?

    14. DF

      I would pick, uh, a combination of Fortnite, Roblox, and Among Me, which I think has for at least, um, a lot of high school and middle school, uh, kids, but, I, maybe a lot of adults, the only form of social interaction that we've had-

    15. JC

      Wow.

    16. DF

      ... for the entire year.

    17. JC

      What a great-

    18. DF

      Um-

    19. JC

      ... what a great selection.

    20. DF

      And, uh, and I think it's important to understand how much lonelier we all would have been and how much more mental illness and depression we all would have dealt with if we couldn't have even just talked to our friends. And I think that there is something really beautiful that those games did for people.

    21. JC

      Ah, that's a good one. That's a good one. I, I went with podcasting. I think on a cultural basis, Joe Rogan and what's happened in podcasts, these long-form discussions, even this podcast, um, has become just an amazing, amazing movement. And people are having better discussions, and I, I consider it the antidote to what's happening on social media. When people hear us discussing stuff on this podcast, they feel like they ate something nutritious. They had a great salad. They had some healthy food. And then when they're on social media and they consume the same tweets that we're doing, they feel like it's junk food, right? And so I think that podcasting, long-form discussions, listening to each other, maybe, you know, Republicans and Democrats, left, right, everybody listening to each other, and podcasting is just such a great meeting- (instrumental music plays) ... medium for discussion.

  8. 26:24 – 32:31

    Biggest Loser - Culture

    1. JC

      Who is the biggest loser on a cultural basis in 2020, Mr. David Sachs?

    2. DS

      The media, starting with the New York Times and other sort of elite media. They ripped the umpire jersey off their backs to go after Trump. Well, they got him, but at what cost? Half the country will never trust them again. Uh, this makes conspiracy theories more likely. It makes cultural divides deeper. And they've been revealed to be corporate journalists, journalists who, uh, subscribe to and serve a- an agenda of their corporate masters. They've lost the public's trust.

    3. JC

      Friedberg, what do you got on the biggest cultural loser?

    4. CP

      Uh, climate change, took a backseat this year. Um, it, you know, it had momentum. (laughs) As a, as a cultural meme, it's, uh, it's lost its, uh, its luster. And it's been, um, shattered a little bit this year with BLM and, uh, and COVID, and lack of faith in institutions and all the other stuff that's been going on.

    5. JC

      Do you think that people now, when they see the collective response to COVID and the pan- uh, the, the vaccines and us- our ability with science and technology to solve the pandemic, we will have a newfound appreciation for coordinated global action on global warming, David? Friedberg-

    6. CP

      I think... Are you asking me? I think, um, I think the, uh... I think the faith in institutions has eroded tremendously this year. The WHO telling people not to wear masks and then telling them, "Hey, masks are good." Uh, the FDA-

    7. JC

      So you think that that hits the, um-

    8. CP

      I think just-

    9. JC

      ... the global warming movement as well?

    10. CP

      I think, I think, yeah. Yeah, I think the, the lack of faith in-

    11. JC

      Okay.

    12. CP

      ... institutions as well as in the media, um, makes it really difficult for things that require a coordinated effort, uh, and a coordinated cultural shift, uh, to take hold, um, you know, are really challenged, uh, uh, in this new kind of model where, where you don't know what to believe and you don't believe institutions and you don't believe old school and you don't believe states and you don't believe, you know, anything structural anymore. So it's, it's a scary, it's a scary kind of moment. I don't know. I think climate change is gonna have momentum with the new administration at least coming into office in the US, but, um, but generally, like institutional guidance is, has lost its luster.

    13. JC

      Chamath, what do you got?

    14. DF

      Wokeness.

    15. JC

      Biggest loser culture.

    16. DF

      Wokeness. Wokeness.

    17. JC

      Whoa, I just got it.

    18. DF

      And I, I think when you now look at the realization of what we've gone through, um, people have realized that, you know, you can, you can be extremely anti-racist and think Latinx is just a stupid label. You know, you can be an entirely complete 100,000 million% supporter of LGBTQ but think that, you know, all these complicated pronouns aren't really necessary. Um, and I think that people are coming to a point where you can have, um, nuance. Um, and I think that that's really important. I think that this whole cancel culture and wokeness was, um, incredibly corrosive, um, and I think that, that they lost.

    19. JC

      I, I think it's actually a great... Um, I think it's, I think it's a great p- pointer making, Chamath, because on the last episode, I fumbled the word "MX", which none of us-

    20. DF

      (laughs)

    21. JC

      ... had ever seen. We all laughed about it. And then I just had this little thing, I was like, "Okay, I guess this is when I get canceled," because I laughed at the fact that- or I mispronounced it, right? And the fact that I thought even for a second that mispronouncing this term MX, which I then did research on, and I said, "Does anybody know how to pronounce word MMX- MX on Twitter?" So I figured I would preempt the, the dropping of the, um, podcast by bringing it up on my Twitter. And people are like, "Are you trolling?" I'm like, "No, I'm asking." And I found videos, and it turns out there is an actual controversy in the trans community where MX some people believe means mixed-... M-I-X-E-D. Other people m- think it's, um, M-X as X the variable, as in the variable X. And so they're having their own debate, they're figuring it out. That's great. Everybody loves them, everybody supports them. But the fact that I mispronounce it, you know, should I be canceled for mispronouncing it?

    22. DF

      Do, do people that are struggling with that?

    23. JC

      Yeah.

    24. DF

      Well, Jason, can I tell you, can I tell those people-

    25. JC

      Yeah.

    26. DF

      ... that are struggling with whether X equals anything or X equals mixed. Hum- just to touch upon Friedberg's point, um, the human race has caused 8% of all the species in the world to go extinct, and we have put another 22% of every single other species at the, at the brink of extinction. At the same time, we have now expanded our footprint to touch 75% of the earth's land surface. So, until somebody fixes those problems, I don't actually want to know what the X stands for.

    27. JC

      Yeah. I mean, we, we're, this idea that we're gonna cancel each other-

    28. DF

      Until we put, until we put-

    29. JC

      ... and the politics of destruction-

    30. DF

      ... until we put stimulus checks ... Put the fucking stimulus checks into people's hands. Get these small businesses back to work.

  9. 32:31 – 34:49

    Biggest Turnaround

    1. JC

      (dramatic music) Okay, let's keep everything moving here. Biggest turnaround in, I guess this is biggest turnaround anything, but I did business. I'll lead off with mine. My best turnaround was Airbnb. They laid off 25% of the company in July, 1,900 of 7,500 employees. They cut their marketing budget by 800 million, and then they IPO five months later. Uh, and they had raised a billion dollars, an $18 billion evaluation according to PitchBook and now worth 88 billion a week after the IPO. That is a turnaround of all turnarounds. David, who did you have?

    2. DS

      Uh, this is where I had Joe Biden.

    3. JC

      Got it.

    4. DS

      He finished fourth in Iowa, fifth in New Hampshire. No candidate has ever bombed that badly in the first two contests and gone on to win the nomination. Biden roared back in South Carolina and then won big on Super Tuesday, and wrapped up the party nomination by March. Uh, biggest political comeback ever.

    5. JC

      Hm. Who do you got, Friedberg?

    6. DF

      I got Airbnb as well. I mean from, yeah. (items thuds on table) And here's the cr- here's one of the craziest stats. They're sitting there in Q1 with a great business, revenue drops 67% in Q2.

    7. JC

      Oof.

    8. DF

      Can you just imagine the experience of 67% of your revenue going away in one quarter? Uh, cash burn skyrockets and just having to respond quickly and still maintain integrity with your customers and your employees as a leadership team. I mean, it was an incredible leadership, um, uh, demonstration by Chesky and-

    9. JC

      It's a five alarm, it's a five alarm fire, right? I mean, it's literally you gotta get everybody out of the building.

    10. DF

      Here, here we go. Here we go.

    11. DS

      I agree with that.

    12. JC

      Here we go. Sax? (laughs)

    13. DF

      (laughs)

    14. DS

      I agree with that. I agree with that.

    15. JC

      Sax agrees. (laughs)

    16. DF

      Sax is wearing his beak. Yeah.

    17. DS

      (laughs)

    18. JC

      Who do you got? Chamath, I'm curious. Who is your biggest, best turnaround-

    19. DF

      Censorship.

    20. JC

      Biggest, censorship.

    21. DF

      Sensor- censorship. Censorship existed in, in Draconian and the dark ages of our, of our journey as a country and in the world. And it came roaring back this year. The amount of people that have been muzzled, stifled, the amount of fact and science that literally just gets judged willy-nilly by our distribution points like Facebook and Twitter and Medium. It's really scary. So censorship made a roaring comeback in 2020.

    22. JC

      I, I like it. I like it a lot.

  10. 34:49 – 39:32

    Biggest Flash in the Pan

    1. JC

      Okay. Now we go on to the biggest flash in the pan. You can interpret this any way you like. What do you got, Sexy Poo? Rain Man.

    2. DS

      The WHO.

    3. JC

      Who?

    4. DS

      The WHO. Nobody knew-

    5. JC

      Who?

    6. DS

      ... who the W- the World Hor- Health Organization, nobody knew what the WHO was before this year. Then they have become, you know, somehow this global authority on COVID despite getting everything wrong. They initially said that we didn't need to wear a mask, they didn't update that until June 5th. This was about 10 weeks after my blog saying that, you know, masks were a good idea. They got the method of transmission wrong. They were saying that transmission mainly occurred through fomites, which is contagious surfaces instead of respiratory particles. They, uh, initially said that lockdowns worked, then they modified their policy on that because of its impact to marginal groups. And so the WHO has just gotten everything wrong this year. And despite that fact, you now have, to Chamath's point, Google, YouTube, and even sites like LinkedIn or Nextdoor are now censoring people's statements if they contradict the WHO. Apparently without irony, because nobody has contradicted the WHO more than the WHO itself. I look forward to next year when nobody cares about the WHO anymore.

    7. JC

      Great. Friedberg, what do you got? Flash in the pan.

    8. DF

      Uh, I put hydroxychloroquine.

    9. DS

      (laughs)

    10. DF

      You guys remember hydroxychloroquine?

    11. JC

      Yeah, that was good, good point, good point.

    12. DF

      It was gonna, it was gonna save the world for a minute or two and then-

    13. DS

      (laughs)

    14. DF

      ... you know, here we are and, uh, so I'm just gonna leave it at that. Yeah.

    15. JC

      Here we... Okay.

    16. DF

      Yeah. Go ahead. (laughs)

    17. JC

      Everybody knows, you may have heard of hydro-

    18. CP

      ... Clara Quinn.

    19. DF

      (laughs)

    20. JC

      Okay? America. Some people say it's America. I tell you, it's great. Chamath, what do you got? It's a flash in the pan.

    21. DF

      Uh, it's actually quite re- it's actually quite related to this, and I thought that she was marvelous, but I do think she will disappear off the scene, which is Sarah Cooper. Which, uh, you know, basically in the last month of the campaign, um, kind of just disappeared and now is, uh, I don't think, uh, anybody knows who Sarah Cooper is and probably in a year from now won't. But for, for the period, for those dark months of the pandemic, her mockery of Trump was some of the funniest stuff on Twitter that I'd ever seen.

    22. JC

      Oh, Sarah Cooper's amazing, yeah. She, she got on Netflix and I don't think she'll be a flash in the pan. I think she'll come back. Um, I would have loved to pick, um... Who was the press secretary for, um, with the Southern accent for, for Trump? Sachs?

    23. CP

      Sarah Huckabee? Sanders?

    24. JC

      Yeah, Huckabee. She wa- But I think she was gone in tw- by 2020, so I can't pick her. But she was amazing at defending Trump. She's like, "You all are dumb, and Trump is smart, and he has 150 IQ, and he owns Mar-a-Lago, and he has a jet, and his jet hasn't hit the yard yet."

    25. DF

      (laughs)

    26. JC

      "And you are the fake news media. And I don't care what you say, American public don't care what you say, and Trump is amazing in bed. He was banging porn stars when y'all were jer-..." I mean, he's just... She would defend him. I, that's who I want as my PR person. She defended him for all time. My biggest flash in the pan though is-

    27. CP

      I don't think you need a PR person. Yeah.

    28. JC

      I don't need a PR person. I got this... We got this podcast now. We don't need the press or PR (laughs) . We just go right to the audience.

    29. DF

      (laughs)

    30. JC

      Um, Nikola Trading at $34 billion. They took your precious SPACs, Chamath, and they perverted it with a dipshit, Milton, who was on my podcast and couldn't answer basic questions. It's now worth six billion. I predict it will be worth 60 cents. I kid you not, this company will go to zero, is my prediction. If you are buying companies and I made Jason's rule based on this-

  11. 39:32 – 43:51

    Biggest Breakthrough

    1. JC

      Um, biggest breakthrough. Friedberg, you want to start us off on this one? I have an idea. I think I know what you're gonna say.

    2. CP

      I'm gonna say AlphaFold. You know that we talked about it in the last podcast, I think. Um, AlphaFold feels to me like what ARPANET was, which was the origins of the internet, you know, back when it was first installed and no one really k- kind of grap- grappled with the ramifications of what would emerge. And I think, you know, once we have the ability to design proteins to do things, um, a, a lot's gonna change in the world of medicine and human health and longevity, and the kind of environment. And it's gonna be pretty powerful. So I'm excited about AlphaFold creating a foundation for, for humanity's ability to do those things.

    3. JC

      Chamath, what do you got?

    4. DF

      100% AlphaFold. By, uh... There's not a close second, to be honest.

    5. JC

      Okay. Sachs?

    6. DF

      Well, I, as a, as a close second, I guess I would, uh, I, I would mention the mRNA vaccines which we talked about on this show. The ability to basically, um, print a vaccine in two days. And hopefully they will follow our advice about challenge vaccines for the next time we have one of these pandemics.

    7. JC

      Challenge trials. Challenge trials.

    8. DF

      Challenge trials. We can, uh, we can respond much more quickly. And then just quickly, in politics, I thought the biggest breakthrough was Pete Buttigieg. He made the unlikely leap from mayor of South Bend, Indiana to being the first credible openly gay candidate for president. He won Iowa, sort of, along with Bernie Sanders, and was a very close second in New Hampshire. Uh, he's gonna be, uh, the, the, um... He's gonna be-

    9. JC

      Transportation.

    10. DF

      ... Director of the Trans- Transportation Department in the Biden administration.

    11. JC

      Uh, my biggest was-

    12. CP

      By the way, Sachs, I, I want to just point something out on your... Sorry, JCal, but, um, you know, the mRNA vaccine technology has been around for like 15 years. And regulatory barriers and regulatory constraints have largely kept this stuff from coming to market. And it's interesting how, you know, in a year where we have this pandemic emergency, we can take this technology that has been around and has been available to us for so long and suddenly, you know, all the regulatory barriers get dropped and things come to market that change the world. I think it, it's a great highlight of, like, what's possible when some regulatory constraints are, are diminished a little bit and technology is really allowed to flourish and see the light of day. Um, and, you know, we all act so surprised that this technology works but it's been here for a while. It's pretty, uh, pretty astounding that it hasn't worked or hasn't been allowed to work in the past. Um, that's just an observation, I think is worth adding.

    13. JC

      I- in a previous episode, Friedberg, y- yeah, I think it's a really valid one because it wasn't a breakthrough that occurred this year. The breakthrough was they broke through the regulations. You said you wanted to wait and see some people get the vaccines first, um, and then that led to some accounts, uh, on the Twitter saying, "Are you still anti-vaccination?" And I, I had to correct them that you've never said you were anti-vaccination. To be clear, you said you might want to wait.

    14. CP

      Oh, I'm not, I'm not anti-vax. Not at all.

    15. JC

      No. You wanted to-

    16. CP

      No, no you watched it. My point, my point-

    17. JC

      You said you wanted to wait.

    18. CP

      My point... Yes. No, no. I think my point is, um, I think a lot of people are gonna latch on... Uh, sorry. Let me just be really clear. I think a lot of people are gonna latch on...... to the small number of cases that are gonna be amplified of people having adverse reactions to this, you know, new technology vaccine, in Alaska the other day, like, two days ago, there was a nurse who got the vaccine and she had a really bad anaphylactic reaction to it and she had to be given epinephrine twice to survive. And she came out and she was fine. But it's that storytelling, that's like, you know, they, they, they assume it should be some small percentage of people will have some reaction to this thing. But that is the storytelling that will keep people from doing this and I think that is the, the, the biggest kind of concern. And that's why you've got guys like Mike Pence doing the, the vaccine tomorrow, you know, he's gonna do it on, on live TV and, uh, celebrities like Ian McKellen doing it. They're, they're trying to kind of create a little bit of fake reverence.

    19. DF

      Wait, wait, wait, wait, are we gonna see Mike Pence's naked shoulder and bicep on television?

    20. CP

      (laughs) Yeah. We're gonna blur it. We're gonna blur it out. They're going to blur it out.

    21. DF

      Will Mother allow it? Will Mother allow it?

    22. CP

      Because Mom doesn't want to see that. No, not allowed in his-

    23. DF

      No, but is, is Mother, is Mother gonna be beside him?

    24. CP

      (laughs)

    25. DF

      That's his wife, by the way.

    26. CP

      Yes. They'll, they'll pixelate it. They'll pixelate it.

    27. DF

      He calls his, he calls his wife, Mother.

    28. CP

      Actually, Mother's gonna give it to him because if a, if a woman doctor gave it to him, he would be kind of like cheating 'cause she stuck something in him, you know, and that's just not right. Um, uh, okay. (laughs) Uh, I can't wait to take it. If anybody doesn't want their vaccine, I will take it 'cause I'm losing my mind in quarantine. I mean, for the love of God.

  12. 43:51 – 49:58

    Smartest Move - Business

    1. CP

      Uh, smartest business move, Chamath.

    2. DF

      I think, uh, 2020 was, uh, the year of the SPAC. I think that it is a, it is-

    3. CP

      Hey-oh. (laughs)

    4. DF

      It's just, it's an incredibly... it's done, it's, it's done something really, really, really important in the capital markets, so that, uh...

    5. CP

      Can you give Chamath his Besty Award now, JCal? Yes. (laughs) Accepting his Besty Award.

    6. DF

      (laughs) Here you go.

    7. CP

      Given to him by himself-

    8. DF

      Myself.

    9. CP

      Would you like an acceptance speech? I've-

    10. DF

      I would like to thank me.

    11. CP

      The smartest business move... This is classic Chamath.

    12. DF

      (laughs)

    13. CP

      The smartest business move, me. (laughs)

    14. DF

      (laughs)

    15. CP

      Zacks, what was your smartest business move or-

    16. DF

      (laughs)

    17. CP

      ... the smartest business move in business?

    18. Well, I, I'd like to thank Chamath for the SPAC thing too, because I was in Open Door and, uh, I was in Porch and both of them are SPACing this year, so...

    19. Oh, I-

    20. Thanks.

    21. I'm in desktop metal. I'm going to go with... We have to agree. Chamath is the best in business.

    22. Yeah, thanks for... Yeah, you've, you've wet, you've wet all of our beaks, so...

    23. DF

      (laughs)

    24. CP

      Yeah, I mean, I mean, actually, if you think about it, I, I've done, uh-

    25. (laughs)

    26. ... six deals this year.

    27. DF

      Are we still talking about me or

    28. DS

      (laughing)

    29. CP

      We have to play the music, you know, the walk-off music on the Oscars. << Da-da-da-da, da-da-da-da >>

    30. DF

      Oh, my God. Except the second besty is Chamath.

  13. 49:58 – 56:25

    Dumbest Move - Business

    1. JC

      Uh, so there were some dumb business moves as well. Sachs, you got a dumb business move that was a highlight for 2020?

    2. DS

      The City of San Francisco biting the hand that feeds it. For years, these politicians have been shitting on the tech community, acting like the tech community was somehow a parasite on San Francisco. Well, you know, now because of COVID-

    3. JC

      Congratulations.

    4. DS

      ... the tech community has the option to leave. You have a lot of people leaving, and there are gigantic budget deficits for the city. The schools have giant, uh, budget deficits. It's not clear how they're gonna close these things, and it's looking th- more and more like it wasn't tech that was a parasite. It was the politicians who are the parasites, and nobody, uh, knows how to fix the City of San Francisco anymore.

    5. JC

      Yeah. Okay. Uh, dumbest business move. Chamath?

    6. DF

      Um, I think it was-

    7. JC

      It's a tough one.

    8. DF

      I think it was probably, for me, um, the Governor of California's handling of COVID. Um, well, I guess that's more political than business, but, um...

    9. JC

      Well, no, I mean, it did impact businesses, so I think you're, you're... I'll-

    10. DF

      I think that-

    11. JC

      I'll allow it. I'll allow it.

    12. DF

      I think that, I think that what he showed was how naked partisanship was in decision-making that had, that should have been based on science and fact. And the quality of the decision-making just eroded every single decision that he made. And then now, you know, as, as David said, it's kind of like you have this just, just, you know, um, uh, you have this moment where it's like, you know, the Just Eat Cake moment where he's eating (laughs) at French Laundry, and then the day after he's basically shutting the whole world down again. It's, it's very frustrating.

    13. JC

      And...

    14. DF

      So, so I think that that-

    15. JC

      And he also was shutting down beaches, right? And then, you know, the stay-at-home orders. And not letting people leave their house and go to a beach or eat outdoors, all that does-

    16. DF

      There was a-

    17. JC

      ... is send them inside. They're gonna have a party inside their house.

    18. DF

      But there was a great tweet-

    19. JC

      So it's stupid.

    20. DF

      There's a great tweet that said, um, "You know, I'm not allowed to go to the store. I'm not allowed to go to the shopping center, but I'm gonna take my child on a walk, and if anybody stops me, I'm just gonna tell them I'm taking her to the nail salon." (laughs)

    21. JC

      (laughs)

    22. DF

      And the reason is because you couldn't walk to the park, but you could, you could go to the nail salon. And so, you know, this tweet was just reminiscent of just how arbitrary and random this stuff was, and it had just so many downstream impacts. So I think that was a huge fail of 2020.

    23. JC

      And nobody loves hypocrisy. I picked my smartest business move was Salesforce buying Slack. Conversely, I'm picking my dumbest business move was Slacksboard selling Slack. This is the stupidest thing I've ever seen. I understand they felt like maybe it was a great deal, but I would have much rather them see, seen them do what, uh, Jeff did at Twilio.

    24. DF

      I, to be honest with you, to be honest with you, I mean, I left the board, and I just don't know why... I- I wish I could have gotten the call 'cause I would have bought it.

    25. JC

      Yeah. That's interesting.

    26. DF

      I- I- I agree with you. I think network effects are incredibly unique assets. They're very, very rare. I think we've all been around them. We've worked in them. David has. David, the other David has. I have. Jason, you have. It is the single most incredible moment- momentum driver and, you know, sort of tailwind. And when it exists, you just never give it up. And so I agree with you. I would have bought Slack if I could have, if they would have given me a shot.

    27. JC

      So we ride our winners and you appreciate network effects. If you look at what Jeff Lawson did at Twilio, he started with much less, I think, uh...

    28. DF

      He started with nothing.

    29. JC

      Started with nothing-

    30. DF

      Jeff Lawson-

  14. 56:25 – 1:00:20

    Smartest Move - Politics

    1. JC

      Uh, let's go to smartest political move and, and we'll go to our token, uh, Republican, David Sacks, for that.

    2. CP

      (laughs)

    3. DF

      Well, uh, well, it's, it, it's, it's f- yeah. It's funny you identify me that way because, uh, my, my smart- the smartest political move goes to Congressman Jim Clyburn, uh, Democrat of South Carolina, for endorsing Joe Biden just before the South Carolina primary. Uh, a number of people on the Biden campaign were, uh, panicking. They wanted him to do it early because Biden had bombed in Iowa and New Hampshire. And, uh, Clyburn kept his powder dry and endorsed Biden at the absolute perfect time. It caused Biden to win South Carolina and that led him to sweep on Super Tuesday. Jim Clyburn was the kingmaker of 2020. Without him, Joe Biden would not be president.

    4. JC

      Wow. Okay. Who do you got? Friedberg?

    5. CP

      Smartest political move of 2020 was Joe Biden staying quiet, hanging out in his bunker, and letting Trump do his own damage. (laughs) End of story.

    6. DF

      That's it.

    7. CP

      I feel like, I feel like if, you know, the... Biden knew that it wasn't his election to win, it was Trump's election to lose, and I think he let him go out and lose it. And, um, and that to me was, uh, smart advice and, and smart action. You know, sometimes the best action is inaction.

    8. JC

      So he just checked. He just, he just, he just slow played aces, he hid his set, he just checked, and he watched him fire. Uh, who do you got, Chamath? Smartest political move.

    9. DF

      Smartest political move which you will not see until 2022 or '23, but laid the groundwork this year and I thought it was brilliantly done was Nikki Haley, who I think will be-

    10. JC

      Hmm.

    11. DF

      ... the Republican nominee for president in 2024.

    12. JC

      Oh, nice one.

    13. DF

      And she did a an unbelievable job of tricking Trump to believe that he was her supporter, then getting distribution, and then basically subtly telling everybody that she thought that he was an idiot. And I thought-

    14. JC

      Hmm.

    15. DF

      ... that she was brilliant in 2020.

    16. JC

      So she didn't look like a rat leaving the ship. She looked like sh- you know, a rebel or something getting off the ship, yeah.

    17. DF

      I think, I think if you wanna find, um, somebody to consolidate center right politics in 2024, uh, my money would be on Nikki Haley.

    18. JC

      All right. I went with the smartest political move. I also went for the long game. Pete Buttigieg going on Fox recently, I think he did obviously a masterful job. You had that, Sacks, earlier. But he started going on Fox and basically being really spicy with them and supporting the hell out of, um, Biden. And then he gets himself this, uh, Secretary of Transportation, and I think he's set up to either be the VP or the presidential candidate, uh, in the future. And he's go- I think he's gonna be one of the bright stars. I also would... Uh, I think Andrew Yang did nothing happened for him this year really, I don't know. But I, I felt like he, he also is g- and my understanding is he's gonna run for Mayor of New York. That was another amazing political winner in all of this. I don't know if anybody has feelings on either of those.

    19. DF

      I love, I love Andrew Yang. I think he's, uh, fabulous.

    20. JC

      Uh, he's coming on the pod, I just did-

    21. DF

      Pragmatic s- pragmatic, centrist, smart, capable, competent. Um, he's great.

    22. JC

      Good listener. And I think-

    23. DF

      He attracts it. He attracts a plurality of people.

    24. JC

      Temperament. Yeah, temperament-

    25. DF

      Yeah. And I, and I think he's spoken out against, uh, cancel culture. And so, you know, whenever I see somebody on the left speaking out against cancel culture and censorship, like the way Chamath has, uh, that definitely to me elevates them in my book.

    26. CP

      Are you saying Chamath is someone from the left?

    27. DF

      (laughs) Well, it's amazing how much we agree on, you know.

    28. JC

      Well, I mean, I think that there's... you have these left and right definitions which have become very hard to understand. And I think what we have to get back to is the American principled idea of freedoms, uh, and opportunity, right? And, and, and, and I don't think either of the parties actually were s- were representing that properly....

  15. 1:00:20 – 1:04:22

    Dumbest Move - Politics

    1. JC

      dumbest-

    2. CP

      Yeah.

    3. JC

      ... political move of the year, I think I know where everybody's gonna go with this, but I would like to know-

    4. CP

      (laughs)

    5. DF

      Rudy Giuliani.

    6. CP

      (laughs)

    7. DF

      Rudy Giuliani's press conference at the sex shop.

    8. CP

      (laughs)

    9. JC

      (laughs)

    10. DF

      I mean-

    11. CP

      (laughs)

    12. DF

      ... just, I mean, how amateurish is that group of people?

    13. JC

      The Four Seasons, gardening, (laughs) were gonna be at the Four... Were they, were they trolling us and trying to get press for it? I don't understand that one.

    14. DF

      Unbelievable. Unbelievable.

    15. CP

      So stupid.

    16. JC

      So you go with Rudy Giuliani for the dumbest political move. Sachs, what do you got? I have a feeling I know what Sachs got. I, I... Well, I got, I got a tie here, um- Okay. ... between, uh... One was, uh, defund the police, you know, as a political slogan. The whole country, you know, the- the BLM movement had the whole country on its side, uh, after the f- you know, the- the- the George Floyd video came out. Everybody was in favor of sensible reforms to control the use of force by the police and then they, they introduced the slogan of defund the police, and it scared voters across the country into voting for, uh, Republicans in Congress and it, uh, probably cost Joe Biden not the presidency but, uh, Congress. And the- my- my tie, the other half of that was, uh, Donald Trump refusing to, uh, wear a mask or to, uh, endorse masks. Uh, he finally did it, but it was two or three months too late. If he had just gotten on board with masks, it would've been a very easy thing to do, uh, politically, personally. Uh, that could have made the- the margin of difference. He might still be president if he had gotten on board with masks about three months earlier. Friedberg, what was your dumbest political move of the year?

    17. CP

      I actually, yeah, I- I put making masks political more broadly. Um, both the left and the right pointing fingers about masks. I mean, this is like a human life issue and, um, you know, uh, kind of shaming the Republicans for not wearing masks and making it about, "We're the right guys, you're the wrong guys." Everyone should have avoided pointing fingers and avoided, um, not doing it because the other side was doing it and it should never, ever have been allowed to become political. It was pure science. It was about saving lives. And I think, uh, both sides are to blame, um, for... You know, the Democrats tried to make the Republicans look bad because they were advocating for masks and they shouldn't have done that, and the Republicans should not have tried to avoid wearing masks because the Democrats were telling them to wear masks and it was just a total cluster. Um, really sad and, you know, could've made a- a big difference for thousands of lives.

    18. JC

      Uh, I too put Trump not advocating for masks as my dumbest political move. I believe he nailed the stimulus, that first stimulus where he just dropped the $1,200 checks and the PPP and everything. He obviously nailed, uh, you know, the Operation Lightspeed and the vaccines. He didn't get credit for it. Um, I don't know if that was political or not, that they dropped them the week- the weeks after the election. I think it was. I'm- I'm- I'm a- a little bit cynical about that. But my God, is there nobody that this man would listen to? Um, and they must have all been telling him in unison, "Hey, dipshit, put the mask on. We'll win the election." The... In July and August, the numbers started to go down precipitously and everybody, Fauci, everybody with half a brain was saying, "Second wave is coming, wear a mask." And he refused to take that stance and not only did he do that, he doubled down like the moron he is and started doing rallies. This person is such a complete idiot, grifter and just imbecile that he couldn't see the clear path to victory and he- he was tempting fate and, of course, he winds up getting COVID. I mean, the idiocracy of the moment is just so profound. He absolutely would've sailed into that second term. We were sitting here on this very podcast and we all believed he was gonna sail into the second term when the market started ripping back and the COVID numbers went down. And because of the stupidity of not wearing masks, thank God we got him out. But to the families who lost loved ones, he's a murderer, period. (drum roll) We're

  16. 1:04:22 – 1:12:57

    Best/Worst Political Theatre

    1. JC

      moving on. Best political theater. Besides what I just said.

    2. CP

      Trump inhaling, Trump inhaling-

    3. JC

      (laughs)

    4. CP

      ... COVID into his body-

    5. DF

      (laughs)

    6. CP

      ... and then taking the polyclonal antibodies to heal himself-

    7. DF

      (laughs)

    8. CP

      ... and show the American population that it's just not that bad. It was the best-

    9. DF

      (laughs)

    10. CP

      ... stunt, the best act- the best theater I've seen and, um, uh, you know, I- I- I don't know what- what the hell else, uh, could have beaten it this year. I mean, the guy literally-

    11. JC

      When he went through a balcony, (laughs) when he went through the balcony and could barely breathe.

    12. CP

      He stormed out, he buckled himself in, he, you know, buttoned up his jacket, he stared at the lights in his face. He was glowing. He had the antibodies rushing through his body, he was healing his body.

    13. DF

      (laughs)

    14. JC

      He was on speed, man. Come on.

    15. DF

      It was, yeah. (laughs)

    16. CP

      It was so incredible.

    17. DF

      I thought the best, I thought the best political theater was when the Democratic leadership did like the Colin Kaepernick one knee in kente cloths at the, in the rotunda of Congress. (laughs)

    18. CP

      (laughs)

    19. JC

      Oh, Lord.

    20. DF

      Can somebody, Nick, could you just throw the picture up there? (laughs) I mean, I mean half of them are, half of them are so old they couldn't get down on one knee.

    21. JC

      Yeah, who picked them back up? They all hit their life alert.

    22. DF

      (laughs)

    23. JC

      They got the life alert, "I've fallen, I can't get up." (laughs) Like 20 life alerts have never gone off in the same room.

    24. DF

      (laughs)

    25. JC

      (laughs)

    26. DF

      But the, but the kente cloths were just so over the top. Like you didn't need the kente cloths.

    27. CP

      They really were kente cloths. (laughs)

    28. DF

      Oh, my Lord.

    29. CP

      Oh, Lord. So funny.

    30. JC

      All right. My best political theater in a... I- I'm crying, I'm laughing so much.

  17. 1:12:57 – 1:16:04

    Best Memes

    1. JC

      final two categories. Uh, best meme. Uh, for me, it was the funeral dancers, uh, followed up by Michael Jordan. I took that personally. And I, of course, loved Chamath's mix-up that one of you maniac All In Army members made. Uh, who do you got for... What, what got best memes? Any got a best meme?

    2. CP

      Tuban.

    3. JC

      Oh.

    4. CP

      Tuban. Tuban.

    5. JC

      Tuban. Yeah, that- that's it.

    6. CP

      For- forever a cautionary tale about what not to do on a Zoom call. (laughs)

    7. JC

      Yes.

    8. CP

      (laughs)

    9. JC

      Yes, that would be... Okay, arguably in political theater? Let's say no.

    10. CP

      (laughs)

    11. JC

      Uh, anybody else got a meme? (laughs) Best or worst?

    12. DF

      I like the funeral dancers, but, uh-

    13. JC

      Funeral dancers are pretty great.

    14. DF

      Yeah.

    15. JC

      David, anything for you? Sorry, I just-

    16. DF

      I just want to say to everybody that's listening, I really hope that you guys have an incredible holiday and, um, uh, we can put this year behind us. And I hope for all of you guys that have gone through hard times, just know that, um, you know, hopefully you got some friends to talk to and family to see and talk to. And we love you and we really appreciate-

    17. JC

      We love you guys too.

    18. DF

      ... that you take the time to listen. And guys, I just want to say to you guys, I love you guys with all my heart. Thank you for helping me get through a very difficult year.

    19. JC

      Uh, back at you. And, uh, I was very touched by the, uh, birthday present you sent me last week. That was just, uh, neat.

    20. DF

      Oh, you wanna tell them what- what you got? You wanna tell them what you got, big boy?

    21. JC

      I mean, listen, I- I don't wanna... Chemoth, I- I- I get a big crate at the house. It was... I was born in 1970 and he got some of the best wines from 1970 and put them in a box. And, you know, I- I literally had to put them on a shelf and say, "Do not drink these." These things cost as much as the Teslas and the driveways. I mean, some of these bottles are ridiculous. And, uh, I hope to crack them all open with you guys at the house in-

    22. DF

      Happy-

    23. JC

      ... 2021.

    24. DF

      Honestly, happy- happy 50th birthday, big boy. It's a big, big milestone.

    25. JC

      Thanks. Yeah. Well, you know, it was- it was a little bittersweet, obviously. You know, I was going to have some kind of party or anything like that. And then what made it particularly hard and challenging was my birthday was on Saturday and my friend Tony Hsieh died on Friday, uh, on that day. And I had been dealing with Tony Hsieh being in a coma for the five, for the... no, for ten days before that. And then I found out that- that afternoon that they, uh, tragically had to pull the plug, um, or I assume that's what happened. I- I shouldn't say that. I don't- I don't want to speak out of, uh, turn, but, uh, this has been a shitty year. And I really hope, uh, that anybody out there who is suffering from mental illness, uh, or struggling in any way, call a friend. And I think the reason this podcast, uh, has resonated with so many people, and I hear this from people when they listen to the pod, is our friendship. And they- and they- they- they hear us talk and they hear us laugh and they hear us joke. And the value of friendship and the love and the joy, and people just can't believe, uh, when Chemoth says, and- and men say to each other, they love each other. And they can't believe that Sax almost is able to say it. And they- and there's-

Episode duration: 1:16:36

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