All-In PodcastE24: Markets trend down, political pandemic manipulation, stimulus breakdown, biological Patriot Act
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,014 words- 0:00 – 15:29
Markets tank, reasons for optimism in the short-term
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
I got to count the other- anoth- another billion dollars I lost. I've lost two bil-
- JCJason Calacanis
(laughs)
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
... two billion dollars in the last two days. It's fucking ridiculous.
- DFDavid Friedberg
Are you guys recording? Please record this.
- JCJason Calacanis
Looks like we (laughs) -
- DFDavid Friedberg
(laughs)
- JCJason Calacanis
Looks like we need a poker game tomorrow. (laughs)
- DFDavid Friedberg
Oh.
- DSDavid Sacks
Can you imagine how tilted Chamath is gonna go into the poker game-
- DFDavid Friedberg
Yeah. He's gonna, he's gonna be, he's gonna be oooooh.
- DSDavid Sacks
... down multi-million in the market? He's gonna buy in for two million just to try and get even.
- NANarrator
I'm going all in. Don't let your winners ride. Rain Man, David Sachs. I'm going all in. And I said. We open sourced it to the fans and they've just gone crazy with it. US stock market. Queen of quinoa. I'm going all in.
- JCJason Calacanis
Hey, everybody. Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the All-In Podcast. We took a week off, and boy that was sad. I missed you guys. I missed my besties.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Well, we should tell, we should tell people, we had a, we had a small medical procedure for one of the besties and, uh, but everything's good and, uh, it was planned, so you know, nothing, nothing out of the ordinary. But we just needed to take a week off, so that's why we missed a week, and that's why we're back.
- JCJason Calacanis
Yes. And one of the besties, uh... God, I got so many jokes I'm not gonna tell. (laughs) All the jokes that came into my mind right now would get me canceled. (laughs)
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Would get you canceled? Really?
- JCJason Calacanis
I just... I-
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Well, I-
- JCJason Calacanis
... literally had seven jokes, I can't tell any of them.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Based on the amount of money that I've lost in the last two days, I'm ready to get canceled, so it's fine.
- JCJason Calacanis
(laughs)
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
So I'll just, I'll get another.
- JCJason Calacanis
Evan.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Put them in the chat and I'm just gonna fucking let them rip.
- JCJason Calacanis
All right, everybody. David Sacks, the Rain Man is here, calling in from an undisclosed compound.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Miami.
- JCJason Calacanis
Friedberg, the Queen of Quinoa back in action. And the dictator himself, licking his wounds, checking his-
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Two billion dollars poorer.
- JCJason Calacanis
(laughs)
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
A billion a day, keep it going. (laughs)
- 15:29 – 24:12
Breaking down the stimulus
- JCJason Calacanis
let's take virtue signaling and populism out of this discussion, just on an economic basis, is it necessary to send every American another 600,000, 2,000 knowing what we know today with the unemployment rate going down, or would it be readi- or w- or would we be better off taking that capital and deploying it in education-
- DSDavid Sacks
Right. Look, first of all-
- JCJason Calacanis
... uh, unemployment-
- DSDavid Sacks
Right. It's-
- JCJason Calacanis
... or something else?
- DSDavid Sacks
Well, first of all, it's 1.9 trillion that we don't have. We're borrowing it. I mean, I would extend unemployment for people in those hard-hit sectors that haven't come back yet, but most of this money is going for blue state bailouts of cities that are totally mismanaged. Uh, this is not gonna help states like, uh, California or San Fran- or cities like San Francisco get their house in order because this is gonna bail them out and defer that day of reckoning from their chronic mismanagement. So we're borrowing money we don't have to bail out people, cities and states that don't really deserve it. Um, I do think we should s- help the people who've been impacted but, um, but it doesn't require two trillion. And look, here's the thing, we're already down to 6% unemployment. We're gonna be down to, I'd say probably three or 4% in two quarters. I mean, the economy's coming roaring back and the reason it's coming roaring back is because COVID is ending, right? So the biggest announcement recently, and I think this is playing into what's happening in the stock market as well, is that Biden announced that every American who's over the age of 16 who wants a vaccine will be able to get one by the end of May. By the end of May. I mean, we're gonna have-
- JCJason Calacanis
Yeah. What, what, wait, what happened-
- DSDavid Sacks
... 300 million doses-
- JCJason Calacanis
... to the fall? (laughs) Yeah.
- DSDavid Sacks
Right. While he was-
- JCJason Calacanis
Cut six months off this.
- DSDavid Sacks
I mean, he... just, yeah. When he came in office in January, he's p- saying the worst is not over bla-... I mean, that was clearly sandbagging. The worst was over and we're gonna have 300 million doses by the end of May, and the only reason why everybody won't be able to get one is because of states that are, you know, creating these ridiculous hoops to get through.
- DFDavid Friedberg
Confiscating them.
- DSDavid Sacks
Th- yeah, exactly. Like California right now has, has three million doses sitting on a shelf because of all the crazy hoops that Gavin Newsom has everyone going through because he wants to score, uh, brownie points on equity, right? Um, so if the government would just get outta the way, let everyone who wants to get a vaccine get one without worrying about making sure the exact right person in the exact right line gets one first, this thing will be over by Memorial Day. Over. Now look, there'll still be a case here or there, uh, for sure there'll be... I'm not saying there'll be zero cases of COVID, but there'll be zero pandemic understood as such.
- DFDavid Friedberg
By the way, I'll, I'll also say one other, um, you know, important point about the stimulus, uh, one that, that Sachs made. Yesterday, the CBO put out a, a, a projection. Uh, this is the, um, the budget office, uh, at, I think Congress and they said that the, um...... US national debt is likely to reach 202% of GDP by 2051. So the amount of debt that the US government will own, um, is 2X the amount of all the revenue generated by all of the industries in the US, um, o- in, in about 30 years. That's an insane statistic. And the reason that people look at, you know, GDP or debt to GDP is because you have to pay your debt down at some point, so you owe some interest on that debt, you have to pay it down, and every year you have to generate revenue to pay the bond holders. And though how do you, how does the federal government generate revenue? It either issues more debt or taxes. And in order to meet a 202% level of debt relative to GDP, you end up raising taxes so significantly as a percent of GDP to cover the, uh, the, uh, the interest payments and the, and the, the principal payments every year, that you end up stalling out the economy, cutting important services, et cetera. Um, and so we're in a circumstance now where the, the, the benefit we're gonna get from taking on this additional debt relative to economic growth and stimulus, um, doesn't actually, uh, outweigh the cost of that debt, and we're facing a fiscal crunch at some point in the next decade or two. And there is this fl- this big question mark outstanding right now on a global stage. Is the dollar really the safest place, um, to be? I- does everyone really want to be dollar-denominated if this is the circumstance that the US federal government is gonna be facing, uh, 20 years from now?
- JCJason Calacanis
Here's a, uh, question for Chamath that I'm curious about. If the government is buying all this debt, shouldn't they be buying some amount of equity as well so they can profit from...
- DFDavid Friedberg
Well, the government's issuing debt, Jason.
- JCJason Calacanis
No, I know, but isn't the government also going into the market and buying up corporate debt through all of this?
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
No, they, they, they-
- JCJason Calacanis
And shouldn't they have profits coming from that?
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
No. So th- there, there was a risk last year where, you know, corporates may not have been able to fund their obligations, and so the government basically said, "We're going to be the buyer of last resort and step in." And effe- effectively what they did was they, they, they essentially froze the credit markets, because if you were going to then f- bet on some of these companies not being able to raise capital, you would have gone to the worst part of the, you know, the stack, or you would have bet actually that there was going to be a state transition. So meaning debt is very tightly scripted as, you know, triple A plus, d- you know, double A, A-minus. And these transitions from these tiers of, like, investment grade to junk to whatever are huge events, and basically the government said, "Nope, uh, everybody take your chips and go home 'cause we are gonna backstop companies like Ford or whoever," folks that were teetering. And so they, they effectively said, "This is gonna be, you know, until I tell you otherwise, a rigged game. I'm gonna make sure I backstop these things. These companies will always be able to have money."
- JCJason Calacanis
So my question, though, Chamath, is if the government is gonna do that and take that risk, shouldn't they get some warrants or some upside in the company's future success to then create a virtuous cycle here, that if they did backstop it, maybe they had warrants for 5% of the company, like you would give if you were doing a debt instrument?
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
They could probably do it if they were, uh, a direct lender and they, they had that chance and they didn't really do it in 2008 when they did it. And I mean, maybe they could have done it in a better way. Here when you enter the open market, there's no such contract, and so you can't negotiate that. Look, I, I, I, I wanna sort of talk about something slightly related to this, which is if you actually looked at that $1.9 trillion stimulus bill, the thing that makes the most sense, and I think nobody would complain about, was saying, "Let's give a means-based test where the poorest Americans get the most money, call it five or six thousand, and the richest Americans get nothing."
- JCJason Calacanis
Yes.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
And I think nobody would disagree with that. And if you added up all of that money, it's probably on the order of 500 or $700 billion, if you did it, if you did a really expansive package. And it, and, and I think people would, I mean, all of us would raise their hands and say, "We shouldn't get a fucking dime." And-
- JCJason Calacanis
Right.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
... you know, people, other people-
- JCJason Calacanis
Right.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
... should be getting many multiples of 1,400, okay?
- JCJason Calacanis
But why should anybody who wasn't impacted, Sax, get anything? Like if you-
- 24:12 – 38:27
California's COVID emergency stimulus mishaps, political manipulation via "Zeroism"
- DFDavid Friedberg
on.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Friedberg, you had a, you had a breakdown of, uh... It, it... By the way, 'cause it's not just the, the federal stimulus bill. You know, the, the California breakdown of what they spent-
- DFDavid Friedberg
Insane.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Do you have that-
- DFDavid Friedberg
Is-
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
... do you have that-
- DFDavid Friedberg
Yeah.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
... or can you fill it out?
- DFDavid Friedberg
You know what, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna send the link because it was a... through a FOIA request. They were forced to list it. So California had, had an emergency declaration.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Joke, a total fucking joke, how much money they're wasting.
- DFDavid Friedberg
Uh, through that em- through that emergency declaration, it gave the governor the power and the ability to enter into no-bid contracts to meet the, the demands of the, quote unquote, "emergency." And the contracts that were entered into are all publicly listed and available in a link that I will share with you guys, um, and it'll be available online. I don't think a reporter has done what needs to be done, which is to go through those contracts and identify how much money was spent on what, and where that... and why that money was spent, and who ended up benefiting from it. Some of these contracts including, for example, $1.9 billion to PerkinElmer to provide nasal swabs and other, you know, reactive chemistry needed to run COVID tests with an overflow capacity of their lab of 4,000 tests a day, which by the way costs a few thousand dollars, um, for $1.9 billion, and ultimately California didn't really do any of the testing. It was done by private labs. Where did that $1.9 billion go?
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Uh-oh.
- DFDavid Friedberg
There was another amount of money. There was $100 million spent on Accenture to build the vaccination website, no-bid contract, $100 million for a freaking three-page website.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
What? Didn't that guy build that website in a weekend?
- DFDavid Friedberg
There was e- e- the Carbon Health guy did. There was another, um, uh, separately for his own vaccination program that he was running, which, you know, obviously highlights just how inept this whole process is. There was another, um, incredible multi-hundred million dollar contract entered into for a guy, and y- and then I looked up his address on Google Maps, and I looked at his home and his office. It's in, like, a strip mall next to a donut shop, and this guy is the guy, he's a... he's technically a doctor but not really a practicing doctor, who would... who got paid hundreds of millions of dollars to source overflow, um, hospital and doctor capacity for prisons in the uni- in California.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
What?
- DFDavid Friedberg
Insane the shit that's in there. And so, um, you know, the- the- the- the total kind of, um, I think mismanagement of capital and obviously inability to kind of-
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Why the fuck-
- DFDavid Friedberg
... manage through a crisis, get taken advantage of... Yeah. And I... By the way, I think, I think, the COVID s- the fiscal... the federal COVID stimulus looks very similar in terms of the, the pork and other nonsense that's going on in there. It makes... Yeah.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Hey, mainstream media, instead of fucking grinding me about w- you know, a couple hundred million dollars of share sales so that I can allocate it to fucking climate change, why don't you do your goddamn job and fucking tell this story?
- DFDavid Friedberg
Yeah, no, 'cause this would take work-
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
What a joke.
- DFDavid Friedberg
... and you don't get virtue signaling points.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
What a joke.
- DFDavid Friedberg
I'll post the link now.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
David, more... I need more red pills.
- DFDavid Friedberg
What a joke.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Get me those red pills from Miami. (laughs)
- DSDavid Sacks
So there's one-
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
What a fucking joke.
- 38:27 – 49:23
Biological Patriot Act, freedom of choice post-vaccination
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
- DSDavid Sacks
No, no comments.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
What do you guys think about the, uh, the, the biological Patriot Act thing? You know, there's these vaccination passports that people are talking about. I just wanna get a sense of where you guys think this is going and, and, and what you think about it.
- DFDavid Friedberg
This is the, this is the slippery slope that I think ends all slippery slopes with respect to privacy, right? So there, there... I think it was proposed in the EU that you would need to get a, you know, a digitally verified kind of passport stamp that shows that you have been vaccinated in order to travel freely amongst other EU nations. Um, and so if you think about the implications of this, now the government or governments have the ability to demand that in order for you to move around freely, you need to represent something digitally or represent something about some healthcare procedure that you may or may not wanna kind of, uh, you know, take on. So that sound... Everyone kind of nods their head and says, "That seems totally reasonable and rational. It's COVID. We're all at risk. We should protect ourselves." Hard no. Yeah. I wanna... Yada yada." But where does this go next, right? Because then it becomes, "Well, have you had your measles vaccine?" Or, you know, "Hey, you know, do you have, um, herpes?" And therefore, you can't... You have to show someone your herpes passport if you wanna have sex with them or, you know, end up kind of going to a point where we, we really don't have a barrier between what's private and what's nationalized, um, or, or even super nationalized in the, in the context of the EU. Um, and, you know, is there kind of a slippery slope that emerges by allowing this amount of invasiveness of personal decision-making and personal data and making it available to government agencies in order to have access to the liberties that you, you know, believe may be endowed to you as an individual citizen, uh, of the world? Or what do we do? So, Sax.
- DSDavid Sacks
Well, I, I, I just think proposals like this are... I, I think they're gonna fade away very quickly once COVID is over. And, and the, and the real issue we have right now is that not enough of the population wants to get vaccinated because, again, the health authorities are being much too conservative in their guidance. So, uh, you know, there's some polling numbers on this that... So only 15% of the public are actually opposed to getting the vaccine. Like you kind of call them anti-vax. But there's another 20 to 30% that are taking this wait and see approach. And, you know, they're gonna make sure that, like, other people go first and don't sprout tails or antlers or something before, you know, they're gonna be willing to get it. But, but the reason why they're all waiting and seeing is because you've got, you know, Fauci and others saying that we're not gonna have normalcy until Christmas or maybe even 2022. So if i- if that's the case, if things aren't gonna be normal till next year, why wouldn't you wait? You know? And I think what we need to be saying is, "Look, go get the vaccine. We're... Everyone who wants it is gonna be able to get it in the next two months. And COVID is over. It's over, guys."
- DFDavid Friedberg
But Sax, if there is a digital passport requirement in the EU, where do you think that goes? Like, if you have to show proof of a vaccination in order to enter the EU without quarantine-
- DSDavid Sacks
That's nuts.
- DFDavid Friedberg
... where, where does this go?
- DSDavid Sacks
Well, uh, yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's not a great precedent. But I, but I, I, I don't know that it's gonna be necessary, 'cause I just think that COVID is gonna end-
- DFDavid Friedberg
There is a self-
- DSDavid Sacks
... so and so quickly.
- DFDavid Friedberg
It's, it's a s- this... I, I like Sax's point of view, which is if you decide you're not gonna do this, then you put yourself at risk. But if nobody else can die from it, why do we need to check it? I understand, like maybe in this bridge period, spring to summer, if you go to a Warriors game or a Knicks game, or you wanna go to Burning Man or the EDC, you know, Electronic Daisy Carnival, whatever, uh, Freebird goes to, you know, when he goes to his raves. I mean, Freebird at a rave is kind of the video we need to see, I think. But w- why would... That's fine with me b- in the short term, but in the long term, I don't wanna give them that power. Look what happened with the Patriot Act and then them monitoring our data forever, and the government being able to put, you know, w- what Snowden found out, like they were able to put on the AT&T backbone, the ability to sniff all data. I mean, it's overreaching.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Last January, uh, or February, I think, Jason, it was one of our first pods where I kind of put this marker out there on this biological Patriot Act, and I said, "It, it's coming." I'm gonna put another marker out there. Um, by the way, 'cause like, you know, there may be something like this in New York. I think most cities will have to have them. I think places, Jason, exactly as you say, for sporting events, for concerts. It'll be very hard, um, as the number of strains increase, as the severity ebbs and flows over time, for us to not end up in this place, and I think it will be because certain people will feel a paternalistic, um, desire to sort of... You know, it'll come from a good place, like, "I wanna help everybody," but they'll pass a law and that law will just get perturbed and, and, and it'll create all kinds of crazy consequences. But I wanna put another chit out there, which is, you know, there was a really important civil rights case called Masterpiece Cakeshop versus Colorado, um, Civil Rights Commission.... he went to the Supreme Court and it was basically a, a, a guy who owned, um, a bakery. And he refused, I think it was to make a cake for a same-sex couple. Um, and ultimately, you know, the decision was, yeah, he's allowed. The Supreme Court gave a very narrow ruling that he was allowed to withhold service. And I asked this question, which is, well, what is the difference, frankly, between withholding service from a same-sex couple or withholding service from somebody that isn't vaccinated? Um, because, you know, in the eyes of the business person, you know, as- assuming apparently you're allowed to make these kinds of, you know, judgments, uh, because you're a private business, the implications I think are really vast. Um, and so I'm just gonna put it out there that I think that, uh, it's actually... David, I'll take the other side. So I think that there's going to be these biological Patriot Acts, unfortunately. And then the second thing that I'll say is that I do think that it will get litigated to the Supreme Court, and I think that narrowly what will come down is that businesses will be able to decide. And I think this is actually what will put the vaccination or anti-vaccination movement to the forefront, because I think in this complex global world where we don't know where diseases come from, except we know that they are more communicable, they can be more deadly, and they're more pervasive, and they spread faster just because of the nature in which the world is set up, there's gonna- there's probably gonna be less and less tolerance for anti-vaccination. Now, that may slow down the actual process of getting vaccines to market, um, because we'll wanna make it even safer if we're gonna do forced vaccinations of certain things. But I'm just gonna put a, put a-
- DSDavid Sacks
Yeah.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
... tip out there that I think that that's coming.
- DSDavid Sacks
Well, I, I don't know that we need to force people to get vaccinated, but I think that we need to recognize that once people have the option of getting vaccinated, there's no need to have the same public policy response, right? So, so look, if Biden's correct that we're gonna have 300 million doses by end of May, and I think he must be correct 'cause he's been very conservative in his guidance, then we should declare a date certain for the end of COVID. I'm not saying that the virus won't exist. I'm not saying there won't be a smattering of cases. I'm saying from a public policy perspective-
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Yeah.
- DSDavid Sacks
... there's no longer a panic, a raging pandemic to justify these incredible new powers that the government has asserted, right?
- DFDavid Friedberg
I mean, what would you do then based on-
- DSDavid Sacks
And so, so-
- DFDavid Friedberg
... the number of shots in arms or the number of deaths per day?
- DSDavid Sacks
No, it's... Look, once, once everyone can get the vaccine, and I think that'll be-
- DFDavid Friedberg
Okay, so availability.
- DSDavid Sacks
... by Memorial Day. Availability. So, I mean, look-
- DFDavid Friedberg
Okay.
- DSDavid Sacks
... what we should s- And, and, and it will be available as long as, you know, governors like Newsom get out of the way and stop restricting the administration of it. But I think we need to declare a date certain where we say, "Listen, on June 1st, there is no more justification for government having these extraordinary powers to lock us down, to require us..." I, I don't think we even need to wear a mask beyond June 1st. And by the way, I was pro-mask. I was in favor of a mask mandate a year ago, as you guys know, but there's no need for it after June 1st. There's no need to have these, um, crazy, you know-
- DFDavid Friedberg
Certainly not if you're vaccinated, right, Freeberg?
- DSDavid Sacks
... no good contracts.
- DFDavid Friedberg
Like, I ma- i- i- you wouldn't- It doesn't matter. I, I, I... It doesn't matter. I, I just, um, you know, I think it's, uh, it's a good point that Sax is making. It's easy for people to say, "Let's wear a mask and protect ourselves." But if you don't care about wearing a mask, but there are plenty of people who do, and I, I think the question is at what point do we allow liberty to kind of play a role here and it's, it's not just about, you know, one, one person's point of view, which, by the way, turned out to be wrong multiple times over the last year, um, is, uh, in terms of what they think that other people should do. You know, what, what does, what does it mean to actually have freedom of choice and, and liberty? Um, it's-
- DSDavid Sacks
And it's, yeah.
- 49:23 – 1:00:33
Newsom recall update, SF DA Chesa Boudin's high school friend responds to Sacks, SF bureaucratic issues
- DSDavid Sacks
actually think that the Newsom recall, which will be in, will be going on this summer, uh, this is what that election's gonna turn into, in my op- opinion, is, so, so by the way, quick, can I give a quick update on-
- JCJason Calacanis
Yes, please.
- DSDavid Sacks
Uh, okay, so I talked to the recall, uh, people this morning. They're up to 1.95 million-
- JCJason Calacanis
Uh-oh.
- DSDavid Sacks
... signatures.
- JCJason Calacanis
He's done.
- DSDavid Sacks
So, 50,000 votes short of two million. They will be at or over two million in two weeks, which is the end of the signature period. Their validation rate is about 84%. So, I think this is clearly gonna pass. There will be a recall election. It will be around August. Now, fast forward, Newsom has said the state won't reopen until August, but I think that by May, June, July, you will see just about every other state reopen. Obviously, Texas has already completely reopened, but even blue states like Connecticut have now lifted lockdowns. They still have a mask mandate for the time being, but I think what you could see by this summer is that California will look like a laggard. You'll see that politicians, like Newsom, are holding onto this zeroest philosophy. They're being too restrictive. They look ridiculous compared to other states. And he still probably won't have an agreement with the teachers unions to go back to school. And, uh, I think this could become the big issue in the, in the recall election.
- JCJason Calacanis
You wanna make an announcement, Sax?
- DSDavid Sacks
(laughs)
- JCJason Calacanis
You wanna make an announcement now?
- DSDavid Sacks
No.
- JCJason Calacanis
We have a special announcement? (laughs) I mean, Chamath, Cha- Chamath might be taking a-
- DSDavid Sacks
No, I'm, I'm making predictions.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
I think Chamath might be taking a hiatus from work, given where the markets are at. He, he could, you know-
- DSDavid Sacks
I, I thought, I thought this governor thing would be value destructive. It looks like actually- (laughs) ... I would've saved money.
- JCJason Calacanis
(laughs) Like, you would've sold all your positions.
- DSDavid Sacks
You should've divested, you should've divested.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Okay, I'm back. Fuck it, I'm doing it. I'm done cashing my chips in.
- DSDavid Sacks
(laughs)
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
I'm doing it, I'm doing it again. I'm back in, I'm back in.
- JCJason Calacanis
Clear the positions.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
(laughs)
- JCJason Calacanis
(laughs)
- DSDavid Sacks
(laughs)
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Oh my God.
- JCJason Calacanis
I don't mean to be cynical, but if you-
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
I am losing so much money, wow.
- JCJason Calacanis
... lock everybody down in your state, Sax, they can't collect signatures at the supermarket or at restaurants or Disneyland. So maybe-
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Yeah.
- JCJason Calacanis
... maybe Newsom shut everything down, so that you couldn't collect sigs.
- 1:00:33 – 1:08:03
Grading Biden's first 60 days in office, Oakley School Board mishap, teacher's union issues, Jason's red pill bender
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
What do you guys think about, um, Joe Biden's first sort of 60 days in office?
- JCJason Calacanis
He's executing at a high level with the vaccine. I mean, opening up all those FEMA sites and getting to two million shots a day on average is undeniably great. The fact that he used the War Powers Act to force Merck and to, to do the, uh, J- Johnson & Johnson, uh, and to work with Johnson & Johnson to increase production, undeniable. Um, I'm not ha- and I'm not happy about, you know, um, the teachers and him kowtowing to the teachers, and I'm not happy about just the hint that he wants to start the war machine up again. So, you know-
- DSDavid Sacks
Yeah, bombing Syria.
- JCJason Calacanis
Uh...
- DSDavid Sacks
... who wants, who here wants to bomb Syria? It's like a rite of passage.
- JCJason Calacanis
I don't wanna, I don't wanna drop bombs on anybody anymore.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Where, where, where the fuck is Syria? Does anybody know?
- DSDavid Sacks
(laughs)
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
(laughs) I mean, why, wh- wh- what? What? What are we doing?
- JCJason Calacanis
I mean, it, it, that's the, that, those are the key issues for me. The, the teachers and the bombings. I, I don't want that.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
I, I'd say, I, I give him an eight out of 10, uh, Jason, because I think the pandemic has been so well handled by him and Zients and that team. I think they've done a very good job. But those two things-
- JCJason Calacanis
They're focused.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Those two things are huge black marks for me. Like, he... And, and Bloomberg ripped him one, you know? And Mike Bloomberg was on TV and he was just like, "That is a joke. The teachers' unions are jokes. And you need to basically-"
- JCJason Calacanis
They have to be stopped.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
"... tear these people to the ground." You have to... They... And you cannot allow these folks to hold an entire generation of kids hostage, okay?
- JCJason Calacanis
It's disgusting what they're doing.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
But then, and then the day, I think it was the same day or the day after, unfortunately, Biden kinda capitulated to the teachers' union. Not cool. And then, this, the bombing of Syria was kind of like, "Why?" Um...
- JCJason Calacanis
Yeah. The, let's use sac- sanctions, let's use money. I mean, the, the, the legacy of Trump, I think, not starting wars was the one thing, and then him, you know, just backing up the Brinks truck for the light speed, those are the two best things he did. And those are two things that we should say, "You know what? He got those things right. Let's carry those forward." We have to crack the teachers' unions. Uh, the teachers' union, the, the voucher system is the only way to do it. And it's very reasonable to say parents who are paying shit tons of taxes should be able to take that money and educate their kids however they damn please. And if we're gonna spend $15,000, $20,000 per student on public education, as a parent, whether you're in Brooklyn or Boise, Idaho, you should have access to that 15K and you-
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
I, Jason-
- JCJason Calacanis
... should pick where it goes, and you should take control of it. That's the way to stop-
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
I-
- JCJason Calacanis
... this meshuggenah.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
J Cal, I had the, I had the, this crazy realization as y-
- JCJason Calacanis
Red pills.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
... as you were saying this.
- DSDavid Sacks
(laughs)
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Which is like, if you said, if I said to you, you know, "Electricians' union." I would say, thumbs up. "Auto Workers' union." Thumbs up. "SEIU generally." Thumbs up. Um, "Nurses' unions." Thumbs up. But if I say, "Teachers' union," I just have this incredibly negative connotation now of an incredibly political class of people who are going completely out of their way to basically just like have exceptions and asterisks that apply to them and them only. It, it's, I don't, I don't... Is, am I the only one that feels that way? It just seems like it's trending to where like teachers' unions-
- JCJason Calacanis
I don't think they care about teachers.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
... almost becoming a four-letter word.
- JCJason Calacanis
Yeah.
Episode duration: 1:10:32
Install uListen for AI-powered chat & search across the full episode — Get Full Transcript
Transcript of episode 6ICMLjL7WLo
Get more out of YouTube videos.
High quality summaries for YouTube videos. Accurate transcripts to search & find moments. Powered by ChatGPT & Claude AI.
Add to Chrome