E38: Bestie brawl, Robinhood's $70M fine & S-1, Delta variant, next gen candidates & more

Chamath Palihapitiya 0:00 Is, is J-Cal here? I can't see him.

David Friedberg 0:03 (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 0:04 (laughs)

Chamath Palihapitiya 0:05 Maybe I've been blocked. I don't know. I can't-

David Friedberg 0:07 I'm getting static on the line. (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 0:08 (laughs)

Chamath Palihapitiya 0:08 I can't hear anything. I can't hear anything.

David Sacks 0:10 Why do the two fat guys have to ruin everything? I mean, get your shit together you two.

Chamath Palihapitiya 0:14 I'm not, I'm not fat anymore.

David Sacks 0:14 We have something good going.

David Friedberg 0:15 Don't start. Don't save it for the show.

Chamath Palihapitiya 0:17 I lost ... The show started, Friedberg. You've lost control already.

David Friedberg 0:19 Oh, shit. (laughs)

David Sacks 0:19 No, no, no. Here we go. Here we go. You guys ready?

Chamath Palihapitiya 0:21 Five-

David Sacks 0:21 I'm not fat anymore. (laughs)

David Friedberg 0:22 ... in three, two-

Narrator 0:25 Going all in. Let your winners ride.

David Sacks 0:29 Rain Man, David Sacks.

Narrator 0:32 I'm going all in. And I said-

Chamath Palihapitiya 0:34 We open-sourced it to the fans and they've just gone crazy with it.

Narrator 0:37 Love you, bestie.

David Friedberg 0:38 Quincy, queen of quinoa.

Narrator 0:39 I'm going all in. If you'd like to skip the bestie Twitter drama and get right into the episode, jump to 20:48.

David Friedberg 0:49 Hey, everybody. Hey, everybody.

David Sacks 0:51 (laughs)

David Friedberg 0:51 We've got a great show for you today. What a treat this is gonna be here at the All In podcast-

David Sacks 0:57 (laughs)

David Friedberg 0:57 ... where we cover everything, technology, business, market, politics, science-

David Sacks 1:00 (laughs)

David Friedberg 1:00 ... and, of course, the besties' emotions and their feelings.

David Sacks 1:04 (laughs)

David Friedberg 1:04 I'm Dave Friedberg, the king of cannolis.

David Sacks 1:06 (laughs)

David Friedberg 1:06 Joining me today are the guys that used to be besties. First, joining us from Berlusconi's Boom ba-bomba Palace-

David Sacks 1:14 (laughs)

David Friedberg 1:14 ... the pied piper of SPACs himself, Chamath Palihapitiya.

David Sacks 1:19 (laughs)

David Friedberg 1:19 Chamath, welcome. You look great today.

David Sacks 1:21 Thank you.

David Friedberg 1:22 And, uh, from one of his many houses, the, uh, Sass bully himself, David Sacks. And, of course, our former moderator and host, the one and only, the internet famous, the Bronx bully, Jason Calacanis, everybody. J-Cal, welcome. You're looking great. You look like you're ready to do a little, uh, jab and a hook. So for those of you joining us today that haven't been following on Twitter-

David Sacks 1:52 I'm sorry, Chamath, did, did you get Kermit the Frog to host the show? I mean, Jesus Christ, that opening was the worst, most painful thing I've ever heard.

David Friedberg 1:59 It was ... It, it really was not very good. Okay. Well, welcome.

David Sacks 2:04 (laughs)

David Friedberg 2:04 Sacks, Sacks and J-Cal, not really feeling great about their-

David Sacks 2:07 Fuck this. You can't. It's a failed experiment already.

Chamath Palihapitiya 2:09 I thought the opening was good. Good job, Friedberg.

David Sacks 2:12 (laughs)

Chamath Palihapitiya 2:12 I think you're doing well.

David Sacks 2:13 It's a fucking four of ten.

Chamath Palihapitiya 2:15 Stop prejudging his performance.

David Sacks 2:17 Yeah.

Chamath Palihapitiya 2:17 It just began. And by the way-

David Sacks 2:18 You're interrupting already. Stop interrupting.

Chamath Palihapitiya 2:21 Stop interrupting, Calacanis.

David Friedberg 2:22 So the moderator is moderating and J-Cal has to take the mic.

David Sacks 2:25 The lovers-

David Friedberg 2:25 J-Cal, I'm gonna mute you.

David Sacks 2:26 ... the dreamers, and me.

Chamath Palihapitiya 2:28 Mute him. Block him.

David Friedberg 2:29 I'm gonna mute him.

Chamath Palihapitiya 2:30 Thank you.

David Sacks 2:30 (laughs)

David Friedberg 2:30 So, gentlemen, welcome. As we know, over the past week there has been a Twitter feud between Jason and, um, David Sacks. And I'm gonna give you guys a little bit of this background for those of you who haven't followed online, which I'm assuming is the vast majority of you. But, uh, there's a, a Twitter account called All In Stats and they published an analysis showing that J-Cal has been talking a lot on our podcast. And Sacks, uh, f- you know, kind of quote tweeted and said, you know, "Here is statistical proof of Jason's piss poor moderation of the All In pod. J-Cal, if you were moderating correctly, you would be fourth place in airtime ... in airtime instead of tied for first. Your job is to facilitate discussion, not dominate it. Stop interrupting and let the grownups talk." J-Cal immediately jumps up with a response, "Maybe you could start your own pod with Peter Thiel and Keith Rabois and have Tucker Carlson moderate." Sacks says, "I know it's rough doing 10 years of This Week in Startups and never getting to number one. Then Chamath, Friedberg and I do it effectively on the first date, on the first take, but this is why you need to stick to your lane and stop talking over us." Oh, my God. So brutal, Sacks. J-Cal then responds with, "A niche podcast about just startups is never gonna be number one."

David Sacks 3:44 (laughs)

David Friedberg 3:44 "It's not for a general audience like All In by design. Number two, sure, trash the guy who has relentlessly supported you for decades because you're obsessed with your stats and forget about the quality of the conversation." Then J-Cal blocks David Sacks on Twitter publicly. Sacks tells everyone J-Cal blocked him. And this whole thing escalates and snowballs. So the besties, have they broken up? Are they gonna get back together? Is this podcast gonna continue? My mom sent me a text this morning. Has the pod disintegrated? Jason pulled out?? The drama ensues. So, gentlemen, um, I leave it to you, Sacks, with your opening remarks. And then, J-Cal, you may respond. I am here to moderate this opening of today's All In pod so we can kinda get past this and hopefully get the besties back together and continue our conversations that I think many people find valuable and are super helpful and useful for us and for our listeners. Sacks, please.

Chamath Palihapitiya 4:39 Well, I mean, I, I can see on Jason's face that he's, he's hurt that ... by my, my tweets. Um, you know, I, uh ... Maybe he should go first and explain what's so hurtful. I mean, look, the reality is about this show that, you know, breaking balls is part of it. We've been doing it for, you know, a year and a half, and nobody does it more than Jason. And then all of a sudden, you know, he's on the receiving end of a couple of mean tweets and he's like the schoolyard bully who finally gets popped in the nose and goes running to the teacher, and he can't stop bawling. So, you know, w- w- where is it that somehow the word piss poor crossed a red line for you after all of the, you know, ball busting you've been doing for the last year, that somehow that's out of bounds? And now you're gonna block me and potentially end the show and our friendship. So explain that to me, big baby.

David Sacks 5:34 (laughs)

Chamath Palihapitiya 5:35 (laughs)

David Friedberg 5:37 (laughs)

David Sacks 5:38 All right. Number one, I wanna talk about the statistics and my role. Um, my perception of you, David, is that you got a taste of fame and celebrity and it's gone to your fucking head. And your out of ... Your ego is out of control. You now have stopped doing your job every day and you are obsessed with your statistics and how you're perceived on the pod.... as seen by your obsession and your bromance with Henry or Harvey Bellcaster, whatever. You're sitting there, obsessing over what percentage each of us talk. None of the other besties are reading all-in stats or getting obsessed with Henry Bellcaster and how they're perceived on the pod. You have taken a championship show, which I pulled together with my decades of experience and team as the point god. I am the Chris Paul of moderating. The reason this show is number one is because I created a super team. There are four people on this podcast who bring a lot to the table, and you have asked for decades for AirCal. Now, I will not pull out a list, but the time that you were going to get canceled because of beep-

Jason Calacanis 7:05 (laughs)

Chamath Palihapitiya 7:06 (laughs)

David Sacks 7:06 ... and the other time that your company was in the beep because the beep was investigating it, you called AirCal. You called in AirCal. You can't deny it. And nobody has benefited more from my skills in media than you. So for you-

Jason Calacanis 7:27 Are you, are you, sorry, are you sp- are you speaking in an accent?

Chamath Palihapitiya 7:29 (laughs)

David Sacks 7:29 I'm not speaking in an accent. I'm getting, uh, this is when I get upset, what happens-

Chamath Palihapitiya 7:33 He's getting verklempt. He's getting verklempt.

David Sacks 7:35 Listen.

Chamath Palihapitiya 7:35 He's controlling it. Okay, uh, let's hear him out.

David Sacks 7:37 I'm bringing the ball up court and I fucking pass the ball to everybody. I am white chocolate on this team. I am the professor. I am Chris Paul, okay? And I pass the ball. Now, if you want to be a point guard like me and throw crisp passes that make the audience laugh and make them cheer and bring down the whole goddamn stadium, well sometimes I'm gonna do a no look pass that's gonna hit you in the back of the head, or it's gonna bounce off. You can't fucking cry about it constantly, David. And if you're looking at the minutes, I have to read the story and prep the story so I can put it in your lap, which I love to do. I love my role here. And you're taking my minute count, which is at least two thirds moderation, and you're saying that's indicative of me being piss poor. Now, if it's all a goddamn joke, that's fine, but you're messing with my business. My business is podcasting and performing. If you got a problem with me as the moderator, you have my fucking phone number, you can call me. But don't go out and start some fight with me and then go start hanging out with Henry Bellcaster when I'm your boy, okay?

Chamath Palihapitiya 8:47 (laughs)

David Sacks 8:48 And then everything with you-

Jason Calacanis 8:49 So, J-Cal-

David Sacks 8:49 ... is about your call in clubhouse killer and we've got to move the pod to that. You're getting out of control, David. You need to realize, we started a podcast that went to number one instantly, and be grateful about that and stay the course. The end. I'm done.

Chamath Palihapitiya 9:07 Well, all right, good. All right, so can I respond? So first of all, J-Cal, I agree, you put the, the super team together for this pod. You're an indispensable part of it. I'm not questioning that. You know? I don't think we should-

David Sacks 9:21 Piss poor.

Chamath Palihapitiya 9:21 ... I don't think... Well, let me come to the-

David Sacks 9:23 Let the adults talk.

Chamath Palihapitiya 9:24 Let me first, uh, let me... I'm, I'm actually saying some positive things about you before I get into my, uh, critique, okay? So, look, you deserve credit for putting this thing together along with, with Chamath. Uh, it wouldn't be the same without you. You do bring an element of entertainment to it. Uh, Lord knows if it was just Freeburg moderating all the time, it'd probably be extremely boring.

Jason Calacanis 9:46 (laughs)

Chamath Palihapitiya 9:46 So, um, look, I... Although we're gonna give him a chance today, so who knows. Um, but-

David Sacks 9:51 Rough start.

Chamath Palihapitiya 9:52 And it's not that I was angry or upset or concerned about my airtime or any of that stuff. I was frustrated, okay? Because your moderation, I have a couple of, um, concerns about, or, or, I guess complaints, okay? One is that you do tend to interrupt, and I'd say you interrupt me-

David Sacks 10:09 Not true.

Chamath Palihapitiya 10:10 ... more than the others.

David Sacks 10:11 False.

Chamath Palihapitiya 10:12 Okay? And specifically-

David Sacks 10:13 Not true. (laughs)

Chamath Palihapitiya 10:14 Let's talk about-

Jason Calacanis 10:15 (laughs)

Chamath Palihapitiya 10:15 ... the, the issue. The, the issue where this came up was the Eric Adams issue last pod, okay? So, you didn't even go to me. This, this issue, the Eric Adams issue is all about the crime issue.

David Sacks 10:26 Okay, fair enough.

Chamath Palihapitiya 10:26 Y- y- what the audience doesn't know is that you went to Chamath like three times, then you moved on and we had to come back. I said, "No, listen," I raised my hand to get back into the conversation. We edited that part out. You skipped over me completely. I don't know how that was good passing. Where was the dish-

David Sacks 10:42 Okay, let me expl-

Chamath Palihapitiya 10:42 ... to me on that issue?

David Sacks 10:43 Okay, let me explain to you. Can I respond to that?

Chamath Palihapitiya 10:45 Sure.

David Sacks 10:47 You've got three people on the team who can score. I come down the court, I pass it. Sometimes there's two open guys. You're the guy who was open, who didn't get the pass, and now you're walking down the court complaining.

Chamath Palihapitiya 11:01 No, this would be like-

David Sacks 11:02 Instead of keeping your head in the game.

Chamath Palihapitiya 11:03 This would be like not going to Freeburg on a science issue.

David Sacks 11:07 All right.

Chamath Palihapitiya 11:07 Okay?

David Sacks 11:07 So I, I understand. I understand.

Chamath Palihapitiya 11:08 This would be like, this would be like not going-

David Sacks 11:09 Any chance for you to defend the cops beating up criminals, I understand that's your wheelhouse.

Chamath Palihapitiya 11:15 No, look-

David Sacks 11:15 Next time when it comes to that, I'll make sure I pass it.

Chamath Palihapitiya 11:16 It would, it would, it would be, it would be a conspicuous-

David Sacks 11:19 I understand. I agree with you.

Chamath Palihapitiya 11:20 It would-

David Sacks 11:20 I agree with you, it's an oversight. I can't hit every perfect pass.

Chamath Palihapitiya 11:23 Okay.

David Sacks 11:23 You're expecting perfection.

Chamath Palihapitiya 11:25 So, so then-

David Sacks 11:26 It's a missed pass and y- now you're upset about it, okay. Forget it.

Chamath Palihapitiya 11:28 Okay, so, so then, so then I basically say, "Listen, I want to talk to this issue. I have three points to make." I'm not through point number two before you're interrupting me and taking the ball away. The specific reason why I said I have three points is to telegraph to you, don't interrupt me, bitch.

David Sacks 11:43 (laughs)

Chamath Palihapitiya 11:43 I got three points to make, okay? What do you do? You cut me off in the middle of point two. How is that good moderation? I don't think you do that to Chamath or even Freeburg.

David Sacks 11:52 This really is about, this really is about Chamath versus you and my relationship-

Chamath Palihapitiya 11:57 No.

David Sacks 11:57 ... with you. I love you both.

Chamath Palihapitiya 11:58 No. No, and-

David Sacks 11:59 I love you both.

Chamath Palihapitiya 11:59 And the reason why I, I brought up the all-in stats, okay, is not 'cause I'm concerned about my airtime, but, but to show, listen-

David Sacks 12:04 You seem a little concerned.

Chamath Palihapitiya 12:06 No, because I, I, th- they broke down that I was like fourth in airtime, and so the only point about that-

David Sacks 12:11 Mm-hmm.

Chamath Palihapitiya 12:11 ... is why are you giving me the hook when I'm not talking too much? If I were talking too much, if I were monologuing-

David Sacks 12:17 Okay.

Chamath Palihapitiya 12:17 ... it'd be a whole different story, but you're yanking the mic away from me and mid-sentence, you-... before I even had a chance to finish.

David Sacks 12:23 Okay.

Chamath Palihapitiya 12:23 And there's, and there's one more thing, okay? Which is, as soon as I bring up any concern with the moderation, where do you go? You start calling me Tucker, you know? You start labeling me in this way. Okay, just like-

David Sacks 12:34 Have you had dinner with Tucker in the last year?

Chamath Palihapitiya 12:35 Just like, just like a year ago-

David Sacks 12:37 Have you had dinner with Tucker in the last year?

Chamath Palihapitiya 12:38 You're proving, you're proving my point. Where do you go-

David Sacks 12:40 I know. It's called a joke.

Chamath Palihapitiya 12:41 Where do you go... Yes, but why are you, why are you trying to label me that way?

David Sacks 12:43 I'm trying to keep the show entertaining and keep it moving.

Chamath Palihapitiya 12:45 No, but, but you keep-

David Sacks 12:45 Part of keeping the show entertaining and moving is keeping you guys from monologuing. I have to cut you off and make jokes.

Chamath Palihapitiya 12:52 A year and a half ago, at the beginning of the pod, we had to have... The last time we had a, a sort of session like this, it was because you kept trying to paint me as the Trump supporter, which is not my agenda. Okay? Now you're trying to-

David Sacks 13:04 Did you vote for Trump?

Chamath Palihapitiya 13:05 Now you're trying to hang the-

David Sacks 13:06 Did you vote for Trump?

Chamath Palihapitiya 13:06 ... the Tucker label on me. Why aren't you saying, "Hey, let's hear from George Will. Let's hear from William F. Buckley." The reason why you're choosing those labels-

David Sacks 13:14 (laughs)

Chamath Palihapitiya 13:14 ... is because you know they are anathema to most people in Silicon Valley, and you're trying to stigmatize me with them.

David Sacks 13:20 No.

Chamath Palihapitiya 13:20 That is, you're trying to hang that-

David Sacks 13:22 Are you reading from your notes?

Chamath Palihapitiya 13:23 That-

David Sacks 13:23 Are you reading from your notes?

Chamath Palihapitiya 13:24 No, you're trying to hang that albatross-

David Sacks 13:25 Your talking points?

Chamath Palihapitiya 13:26 ... over my neck, okay? And that is, you're trying to anathematize me.

David Sacks 13:30 Okay.

Chamath Palihapitiya 13:30 In, in the, in the view of most people in Silicon Valley, you're causing-

David Sacks 13:33 That's not what I'm trying to do.

Chamath Palihapitiya 13:34 You are c-

David Sacks 13:35 I'm trying to make a joke.

Chamath Palihapitiya 13:36 You may not be trying to joke, but you are causing the audience to pre-judge my message, my points, before I've even had the chance to say them-

David Sacks 13:41 That's not what I'm trying to do.

Chamath Palihapitiya 13:42 ... by, by attaching-

David Sacks 13:43 I'm trying to make a joke.

Chamath Palihapitiya 13:44 ... the, the bogeymen of the left to me, okay? The result of that is the audience is gonna pre-judge what I have to say, and probably a third of the audience will never want to hear what I have to say because you've pre-labeled and pre-judged me. That is a serious problem, and that is fucking with my business. That is fucking with my business.

David Sacks 13:59 Is it really?

Chamath Palihapitiya 14:00 A lot more, a lot more than me calling out your shitty moderation on one show.

David Sacks 14:05 Oh, so now it is shitty moderation?

Chamath Palihapitiya 14:07 Not, not the whole time.

David Sacks 14:07 Oh, okay. I thought it was great moderation.

Chamath Palihapitiya 14:09 On one show.

David Sacks 14:09 Now we're back to it being shitty moderation. Let me ask a question.

Chamath Palihapitiya 14:11 You know what you're doing.

David Sacks 14:12 Have you had di- Did you have dinner w-

Chamath Palihapitiya 14:13 You know what you're doing.

David Sacks 14:13 Did you have dinner with Tucker this year?

Chamath Palihapitiya 14:15 You know what you're doing. You know what you're doing.

David Sacks 14:16 Have you had dinner with Tucker? Answer the question. Does she go-

David Friedberg 14:19 All right, I'm gonna mute, I'm gonna mute both of you now. Okay, I'm the moderator. Chamath, do you wanna weigh in on these two idiots and talk a little bit about how we can-

David Sacks 14:25 (laughs)

David Friedberg 14:25 ... move the show forward? And at this point, I'm thinking about ve- ve- vetoing the publication of this show so we can just have this conversation offline.

Jason Calacanis 14:31 No, no, no. This was, this was-

David Friedberg 14:32 And get back to the fucking pod, 'cause this is just painful.

Jason Calacanis 14:34 This was, this was, this was so stupid. Nick, edit all this nonsense out.

David Friedberg 14:37 (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 14:37 And make, make it 30 seconds.

David Friedberg 14:39 So stupid.

Jason Calacanis 14:39 And move on.

David Sacks 14:40 (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 14:40 Um, hey, guys. This is a really important, powerful thing that we accidentally stumbled into. Um, I'll make two points. David does get labeled, and I don't think it's fair. And Jason does an excellent job of moderating. And sometimes I think that Jason does get excited. And in getting excited, you know, he's also not just there to moderate. He's there to contribute as well. And so I think that if you look at the, the number of minutes as a guide, it's not gonna be accurate, because he does have two jobs to do, whereas the rest of us only have one. And David does bring an enormous amount of clarity to what he says in a very fair way, and it is unfair to him that he gets basically slathered with, uh, "Here's the crazy guy on the right." So, I think what I would just say is just, let's just tone it the fuck down and calm down. Okay? We're at a million fucking people a week. We could be at 10 million people a fucking week and we could fucking own the distribution of our ideas to millions and millions of people. Let's just stay the course and calm the fuck down.

Chamath Palihapitiya 15:45 Well, I, I agree with all that, actually. I, I agree with all that.

David Sacks 15:47 I'm 100% in agreement. I want to address-

Chamath Palihapitiya 15:49 Well, no, but, but-

David Sacks 15:50 ... the labeling issue. I wanna address the labeling issue.

Chamath Palihapitiya 15:52 Okay.

David Sacks 15:52 I am joking nine out of ten times when I talk about Trump, because it's hilarious, and your relationship with Tucker. I think it's hilarious that you're part of the Keith Ra boy and, and TL thing. And, and I don't think it's damaging for your business at all. And I, they, uh, people are telling me I'm purple viewed. We're moving to the center here, so I believe that we're doing something noble by bringing all these voices together. It's all a big joke. And you know what? I don't care what you say about me on Twitter. I know I'm good at what I do. There's nothing you could say that can change that.

David Friedberg 16:21 Why did your accent change? Why did it... (laughs)

Chamath Palihapitiya 16:24 I, I think in general you are good at what you do, and I, and I, uh, and the reason why I-

David Sacks 16:28 I have two of the top ten tech podcasts. Go open-

Chamath Palihapitiya 16:31 Great.

David Sacks 16:31 ... up your fucking podcast player. Don't tell me-

Chamath Palihapitiya 16:34 Well-

David Sacks 16:34 ... to get my fucking shoe shine box.

Chamath Palihapitiya 16:35 Okay. Okay, Chuck.

David Sacks 16:35 I don't shine shoes anymore. Four and, number four and number eight.

Jason Calacanis 16:38 No, nobody's saying that, so I think, I think what, what David is saying is-

David Sacks 16:41 Literally what he said. That's literally what he said on Twitter.

Chamath Palihapitiya 16:43 Right, no, what he, what he's doing right now is showing why I had to tweet, which is he won't take a note. I can't tell the guy, "Hey, listen, what-"

David Sacks 16:50 You got a note from me. It's not gonna happen on Twitter. You got my fucking phone number.

Chamath Palihapitiya 16:54 Well, it doesn't happen in private either. We know that.

David Sacks 16:56 You could fucking call me.

Chamath Palihapitiya 16:58 Oh, really? You're gonna take a note in private? No, you aren't.

David Sacks 17:00 I played chess with you all fucking week.

Chamath Palihapitiya 17:01 I've tried. I've tried. We've had this conversation before.

David Sacks 17:03 (laughs)

Chamath Palihapitiya 17:04 We had this specific conversation about the Trump thing a year ago.

David Sacks 17:07 We haven't talked about Trump in six months.

Chamath Palihapitiya 17:09 You're back to all your bad habits.

David Friedberg 17:11 (laughs)

David Sacks 17:11 (Laughs)

David Friedberg 17:12 Can we just hear an apology from one to the other and tell the other person what you want them...

Jason Calacanis 17:16 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.

David Sacks 17:16 I'm absolutely willing to hear Sachs' apology.

David Friedberg 17:18 And, and, and tell him, tell him, tell him what you appreciate about him and what you like about him. Go ahead.

Jason Calacanis 17:21 Yeah, no.

David Friedberg 17:21 Go.

David Sacks 17:21 Fucking Christ. Is this therapy? All right. I unblocked fucking Sachs and I'm following him. Enough.

Jason Calacanis 17:26 Thank you.

David Sacks 17:27 You asked 10, you asked me to have 10 of your founders on the podcast in the last two years. I counted. Your team is in the fucking mix trying to get people booked on the show.

David Friedberg 18:17 Okay, hold on. We're not gonna, we're not gonna keep it going.

Chamath Palihapitiya 18:19 You've benefited from this relationship as well, so thank you for this, for, for the press-

David Sacks 18:22 I never said I didn't.

Chamath Palihapitiya 18:24 Thank you for the press over the years.

David Sacks 18:24 All I've ever said is thank you to you.We good?

Chamath Palihapitiya 18:28 Look, my frustration over your moderation boiled off into a couple of tweets last week. I did not mean to hurt your feelings. I was just trying to give you a note, okay? If you would take the notes in private, I would give you- them to you in private. I do think that overall you're a great moderator. Your contribution to the show is absolutely necessary and essential. Never disputed that. I think we should keep doing the show. Um, I didn't expect you to block me. Honestly, I didn't expect your feelings to be so hurt by what I said. And, um, so yeah, look, I apologize for that. All I wanted to do was give you a note, and I would appreciate if you could try and respect my note, not mischaracterize it. I think you know what I'm saying, right? I just want the chance to be able to present my views without the audience prejudging them, because you know that certain labels will not go over well with our audience, okay? It'd be like introducing Chamath as the Michael Milken of SPACs, okay? There is a-

David Sacks 19:27 Oh, I edited that out. (laughs)

Chamath Palihapitiya 19:29 No, I mean, I'm not- I'm not saying he is.

David Sacks 19:31 Collateral damage.

Chamath Palihapitiya 19:32 I'm say- I'm say- I'm- No, I'm saying it would be as if you did that, right? You understand what you'd be doing-

David Sacks 19:38 I- I got you. I understand.

Chamath Palihapitiya 19:38 ... if you labeled him that way. I don't think that l- that is a fair label.

David Sacks 19:42 In fairness, I thought the labeling and the joking about you being the token Republican was a meta joke about the fact that Silicon Valley doesn't have too many of you and Thiel and Rabois, et cetera. There's a small cohort.

Jason Calacanis 19:53 I think the whole point of what we were trying to say is Silicon Valley's head's up their ass.

David Sacks 19:57 I agree.

Jason Calacanis 19:57 So maybe, so maybe the problem, maybe the problem we've- we've identified is all these left-leaning people are just sniffing their own balls, basically r- running to a cliff.

David Sacks 20:07 Sweating balls.

Chamath Palihapitiya 20:07 And so, yeah, a lot of my views like on free speech are the old center left.

Jason Calacanis 20:12 Exactly.

David Sacks 20:12 Right, and now you're for universal healthcare. Look at you.

Chamath Palihapitiya 20:15 I haven't moved. The whole world's gone crazy. I mean, everyone supported free speech until five minutes ago, okay? That's what I went on Tucker to discuss.

David Sacks 20:22 What, and you were free market about, uh, education, and you were free market about- about healthcare, and now you're like, "I mean, we should have healthcare and safety nets."

Chamath Palihapitiya 20:29 No, it's- I- I am- I am a believer in- in markets, but-

Jason Calacanis 20:32 All right, Jason, let's start. Go.

David Sacks 20:33 Let's fucking start this show. Three, two... Hey, everybody. Hey, everybody. The All-In Podcast is back. Besties unblocked. With us again, the Rain Man himself, David Sacks, and David Freiberg, the Queen of Quinoa. And from his Italian hideaway gallivanting in Italy, Chamath Palihapitiya, the Dictator.

David Sacks 20:58 Big news for Besties this week. Robinhood, um, has filed their S-1 and paid a FINRA fine, $70 million for outages and misleading cup- uh, customers, multiple days of outages back in March 2020 we talked about here, uh, and poor communications around options trading risks. Robinhood's S-1 highlighted some extraordinary, uh, growth during that period, as we discussed on the pod. 18 million funded accounts, and they're on a $2 billion run rate, $522 million in revenue in the first quarter, up 4X, and, uh, monthly active users have more than doubled, 8.6 million accounts to 17.7 million, uh, just for- in the last year. Revenue was up 300%. Any thoughts on Robinhood's S-1? Obviously, I'm an interested party.

Chamath Palihapitiya 21:52 It's the largest fine ever, I think, of this type, but on the other hand-

David Sacks 21:56 FINRA's largest fine, yeah.

Chamath Palihapitiya 21:57 Yeah, so it should be a black eye for the company. But the reality is that they're happy to pay the fine and just, uh, move on so they don't have this issue hanging over their heads anymore. And now they're going to be able to IPO at like a 50, 60, $70 billion valuation. And so for them, it's just sort of cost of doing business. I think there's something a little bit off about that, but, um, that's kind of how it works.

David Sacks 22:17 Freiberg, anything?

22:18 I mean, congrats to you, J-Cal. It looks like you're gonna do really well with this deal, huh?

22:22 It will return roughly... This one deal will do three or four times the value of the first fund, the launch fund one, which was $11 million worth.

22:32 So did you invest in the seed round or the A, or what round did you invest in of this?

22:36 I think it was the seed round, um...

22:38 And so what's your multiple going to be on a $50 billion market cap? Do you know?

22:43 Uh, it would be 500X.

22:47 Amazing.

Jason Calacanis 22:48 Amazing. Congrats, big boy.

David Sacks 22:50 Yeah, it's a-

Chamath Palihapitiya 22:51 Congrats, J-Cal, and I'm- I'm happy to see that your success is fi-

Jason Calacanis 22:53 I'm really happy for you. Thanks.

Chamath Palihapitiya 22:55 Your success is finally catching up to your ego, and so I think-

David Sacks 22:58 (laughs) Oh, God. Here we go.

Chamath Palihapitiya 22:58 I think too soon? (laughs)

David Sacks 23:00 That's it. You've blocked again. You told me to get the shoe shine box.

Chamath Palihapitiya 23:01 Too soon? (laughs) Too soon?

Jason Calacanis 23:04 Your net worth is catching up to your waist size.

David Sacks 23:07 (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 23:07 Congrats.

David Sacks 23:08 Oh, God. Um, well, actually, between this and the composition, uh, I'm, uh, you know, listen, it's- there's a long way to go before we distribute it, obviously, but that first fund I did, which came after the Scouts fu- my Sequoia Scouts portfolio-

Jason Calacanis 23:21 My only advice to you, Jason, is-

David Sacks 23:22 Yeah.

Jason Calacanis 23:22 ... talk- talk to a few seasoned GPs like Gurley, Fred Wilson, and figure out the right distribution strategy. One of the biggest things that I see these folks do is early stage venture investors thinking that they're public market investors, trying to time the market, trying to figure out how to do distributions, and it never works.

David Sacks 23:39 Which means, do you hold the shares for another year or two-

Jason Calacanis 23:43 I would distribute them-

David Sacks 23:44 ... or do you distribute them immediately?

Jason Calacanis 23:44 I would distribute them immediately, book the win, move on.

David Sacks 23:47 Yeah. I- you know, it's interesting, a lot of the top firms that I'm in are holding their shares, and I- I had a firm that had, uh, Square, and they held some number of them until it's 7Xed and then distributed. So I guess, technically, they get to book that win. S- what are your thoughts on that, Sacks, of when to distribute, and how are you doing it in your fund?

Chamath Palihapitiya 24:07 Yeah, I mean, it's a good question. Um, the- the reality is that, you know, let's say that you're in year four or five of a 10-year fund, you could hold the shares for another five years, and if the shares go up over that five-year period, you'll- you'll do better. So I think the question is-

David Sacks 24:23 Better on IRR. Your- your numbers will look better.

Chamath Palihapitiya 24:26 Well, I mean, you're, you're compensated on the absolute amount of return that you generate, and so it might bring your eyes-

David Sacks 24:31 No, but if you, if you distribute the shares, and then if you're in carry and you just hold the shares, you'll realize the same gains. You know? You're not going to-

Jason Calacanis 24:37 Exactly.

Chamath Palihapitiya 24:37 Well, it, it depends what happens to the stock price. I guess, I guess what I would say is-

Jason Calacanis 24:40 No, no, but hold on a second. If the stock were to go 10X and you get 20% of those shares, if there were 100 shares, you had 20. If it 10Xed, you're still getting 20%. Right, Chamath?

David Sacks 24:48 Yeah.

Jason Calacanis 24:48 So it, it nets out to the same if you hold the shares yourself personally. This is why I, I think that if you're in the business of running a, a multi-fund business, I think you're better off generally. And I think, again, if you talk to the best firms out there, they typically will not try to guess what's gonna happen in the public markets. They distribute and they move on to their next fund. Um, and then, because you have to remember, the IRRs, you know, you go through these rough patches, it decays quickly. And all of a sudden, something that looks great can start to look not so great.

David Sacks 25:18 S- and, like, the example of that might be Snowflake or something going down after it went public, and if you had distributed it, you would have booked the win at that high multiple.

Jason Calacanis 25:26 Yeah. And then, then you're thinking to yourself, "Wow, I hope it goes back up," and then you're like, "Well, when do I distribute?" It's all, it, these are all not things that venture capitalists should be engaged in. They should be there to help build the next, the next David versus Goliath.

Chamath Palihapitiya 25:37 I think the, the counterargument to that is if you really believe in the company and think you understand it better than the public markets do or, or because you've been on the board and you have information, you know, if you hold it for another f... Yes, there's going to be ups and downs, but let's say that you plan to hold it for another four or five years, um, yeah, you'll still get the same 20, 25% carry, but, um, the point at which that carry will crystallize would be at, like, a much higher level. And so essentially, you're preventing your LPs from selling, is what you're doing, and so you may get an extra turn of your fund by doing that.

David Sacks 26:09 How do we feel as LPs, David Freberg?

Jason Calacanis 26:12 But there's... Sorry, there's also, isn't there like a, um... I'm, I'm just trying to pull up the Goldman Sachs report they did in 2019 where they analyzed 4,500 IPOs over a 25-year period, and I think that, and, and I could be wrong on this, but if I remember some summary of this, I'm trying to find it. Sorry, I can't find it right now. Um, but that they, uh, basically highlighted that IPOs as an index generally outperform the market over some period of time, whether it's one year or three years. And so if you have access to those IPO shares, assume you're a venture investor, you can beat the S&P by 10, 15 points just generally without having any thought about the business itself or the company itself, um, and, you know, participate in 20% carry on the upside from there, or 25% carry on the upside from there. Um, and so generally, the rule of thumb becomes, well, you shouldn't distribute right away, you should hold. Is that not kind of a, a common dogma amongst GPs nowadays?

David Sacks 27:08 I think they-

Chamath Palihapitiya 27:08 Well, look at Square. Look at Square.

David Sacks 27:10 I, uh-

Chamath Palihapitiya 27:10 I mean, Square had all... Like, most of the appreciation happened in the public markets.

Jason Calacanis 27:14 Right.

Chamath Palihapitiya 27:15 I think Sequoia held onto their Square shares, did way, way, way better because nobody sold effectively for several years. And, I mean-

Jason Calacanis 27:23 The best firms do this, right? I mean, like, you, you, we hear-

Chamath Palihapitiya 27:25 Yeah.

Jason Calacanis 27:25 ... from Gurley and others that, you know, they hold on to these shares for years, and, you know, a good business going public, uh, has a much better chance of, uh, performing well as a public company than, you know, just tracking the S&P, uh, after an IPO, regardless of the valuation it exits at.

David Sacks 27:42 Well, how, how do we feel as LPs, Chamath? Your LPs in a lot of funds.

Jason Calacanis 27:45 That's terrible.

David Sacks 27:45 I'm in 15 funds.

Jason Calacanis 27:46 Terrible.

David Sacks 27:46 You, you want your shares-

Jason Calacanis 27:48 Give me the shares. I, I don't... No, no offense to any GP out there, but I don't think they're as good of a public market investor as I am. So give me the shares. I'll manage it myself, uh, and get out of the way. Um, I, I give money to a lot of, to your point, a lot of GP because I want private market exposure. I don't want them speculating in the public markets for me. I do that for myself. And so I would rather just get the shares and make my own decision. Um, you know, a lot of foundations, for example, are in this situation where they're there to fund programs. So if they have a, you know, multi-hundred million dollar position in a great company, um, and they can't fund a program or the, you know, a hospital system can't do what they need to do because some GP is speculating in the public markets, I think it's insane.

28:31 Mm-hmm.

28:32 So give the, give the, give the, give the LPs the money and move on. It's not your job. Otherwise, you should run a generalized fund. And most people don't because they can't.

28:42 Generally, how do you guys, when you are a large owner in a company that goes public, or just say the pool of venture investors or owners in a company that goes public, and the lockup is expiring, uh, you know, typically six months after the IPO and you can now distribute your shares to your LPs, do those, um, you know, investors take note of or have concern about the impact it might have on the stock price when they're making those distribution decisions typically?

29:09 I think they think about that, but a l- a lot of these LPs, particularly the non-profits, they're forced day-one sellers the minute that they get the stock, they just put it out.

29:17 That's my point is like as soon as the stock gets distributed, everyone's selling and the stock takes a hit, right? And I think the market kind of-

David Sacks 29:21 Yeah, I, you know, uh-

Jason Calacanis 29:22 ...

Chamath Palihapitiya 29:22 time for there to be-

David Sacks 29:22 There's something happening... I, I mean, uh, this is speculation, um, that I don't have. So just, you know, take it as that. But my understanding was some investment banks went to the, uh... And Chamath might know the background on this. Went to some of the major LPs in the world, I'll leave it at that, and said, "Hey, you have a position in, I don't know, this cab company. Um, it's going public. It's fully valued or it's very well valued. Would you like to collar your shares, uh, before that? And we will take them off your hands, uh, and, and, and lock you into a certain price for some percentage of it." Basically, end running the GP's decision-making process. Of course, I'm referring to Luther.

Jason Calacanis 30:02 Well, I... There's, there's a lot of that that happens. This is why I'm saying I think the GP is better off. If you're in the venture fund business, be in the venture fund business. Do a great job at that. Raise funds, distribute cash, do what you're supposed to do, but please don't try to do some... It's kind of like asking, you know, the fireman to also operate on you. No, I don't want that. Take me to the hospital and let the doctor do the job.

Chamath Palihapitiya 30:21 Uh, I think it's a very valid perspective. I think it's probably the baseline that VCs should operate from. But I do think there are exceptions where if the VC's been on a company board for a while and feels like they have... They understand the company better than the public markets, especially during the first two years as a public company when the markets can be really choppy and the company's trying to find its level and people don't really understand it, I think there is an argument for-... y- e- th- the VC having expertise in, in that initial public run. Then they might be doing their LPs a favor by holding but, but look, I, I think Chamath's point is well taken.

David Sacks 30:54 Also, uh, companies are going public earlier, so this is gonna become a bigger issue because it's an easy decision in year 11 if you were an Uber investor or an Airbnb investor to say, "Okay. (laughs) It's been 11 years, we're gonna give you your shares." But if you're in year five and the company goes out so early, you know, y- you could make an argument, "Hey, maybe we hold it for two or three years."

Jason Calacanis 31:15 Just going back on the previous topic, J-Cal, the-

David Sacks 31:17 Yes.

Jason Calacanis 31:18 ... um, the, the FINRA news on Robinhood, right? So FINRA, just so everyone understands, is not a government regulator. It's, uh, what's called-

David Sacks 31:25 It's a private entity.

Jason Calacanis 31:26 Yeah, it's called a self-regulatory organization a- and these SROs are basically, they have a board and a, you know, bunch of people that run 'em, but they're pooled and managed by all the participants, the private participants in the market. So Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley and JP Morgan and all the banks, they are all part of the FINRA SRO. And so the way that these SROs are set up is to avoid government regulation and to avoid government intervention in markets, and allows the markets to effectively self-regulate themselves in a way that everyone in the market is kind of keeping an eye on each other and making sure that this is being taken care of. And I think one thing to take note of from this fine is that it telegraphs that FINRA and the markets in general, the market participants in general, may be rather concerned and rather worried about government intervention, um, in some of these new markets and emerging fintech practices. Because they wanted to say, "Look, we put the gauntlet down on Robinhood. We made them pay the biggest fine ever. We made 'em pay $70 million. Stay away. We're taking care of it." Because the concern everyone's had is that AOC and Elizabeth Warren and a bunch of people on Capitol Hill are waving flags saying, "We need to step in. We need to regulate these companies. We need to regulate these practices. We need to protect consumers." And so this fine really signals that the market is a bit concerned that the government is gonna come in and start trying to tell fintech companies how to practice and how to operate, and generally tell all market company, you know, um, market participants how to operate, which is a very scary prospect for them. So to me, this was really, this, this was really big news about what it telegraphs the backdoor conversations are, you know, that, that are going on, uh, with market participants right now.

Chamath Palihapitiya 33:02 W- What you're almost saying is that this is a benefit to Robinhood to pay the largest fine, because it s- it says to the, you know, to the politicians, "Look, we've already been punished-"

Jason Calacanis 33:12 Yes.

Chamath Palihapitiya 33:12 "... in this, you know, maximal way. You don't need to layer it on top." So in a way, it's better for Robinhood that they paid $70 million instead of $10 million. (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 33:20 Yeah, and it's not, it's not... By the way, it's not even for Robinhood. I think all the, the market participants, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, they all have huge, you know, tech teams and they all have acquired fintech companies, and they are all trying to go digital. And everyone is worried about the government intervening and changing how this business is transforming. Because as soon as the government gets involved, it's gonna slow down the transformation, it's gonna, you know, make things much more challenging. And I think that everyone's trying to keep the government at bay while the great digital transformation of markets is underway. Um, and, uh, and I think that's, like, the biggest signal from this, this FINRA fine.

David Sacks 33:53 And there's y- there's some interesting nuances there that they brought up, something like the confetti. So when you buy something on Robinhood, it used to explode confetti, gamification. They're like, "Oh, we're gonna take that out." And, you know, if you go to Vegas, they've got bells and whistles going off everywhere when you place a bet. Uh, and so i- it is a little bit of window dressing. I think it's also interesting that you bring up the self-regulatory organizations. There's two other equivalents for people who are thinking about this. The MPA, Motion Picture Association, uh, which was formed back in 1922 because people had the same fear about movies. And Valentini, I think, was the, the guy who really, uh, changed, uh, how movies were perceived in the PG-13 era, allowing a lot more violence, Terminator, those kind of movies. And then you had a similar thing happen in the video game industry in '94 when people were-

Jason Calacanis 34:46 Does Robinhood, does Robinhood still have, like, the lawsuits with like, uh, Massachusetts, uh...

David Sacks 34:51 There's like 10 other lawsuits, class actions, et cetera about, um-

Jason Calacanis 34:55 No, no, no, but these are-

David Sacks 34:56 ... the outages.

Jason Calacanis 34:56 ... more like with, with government entities, right? Like, like didn't Massachusetts try to-

35:00 State attor- state attorneys-general.

35:02 Yeah, something like that, I think, right?

35:03 Yeah.

David Sacks 35:04 I, I don't know. Um, but the, the other one that was very interesting was the, um, ESRB, which is the Entertainment Software Ratings Board. Because video games like Mortal Combat and those and Doom were, you know, had to self-regulate, right? Um, so either you regulate yourself or-

Jason Calacanis 35:20 Jason, Chamath was asking a question about lawsuits at Robinhood.

David Sacks 35:23 I know, I was trying to deflect and, and in a better a shade of-

Jason Calacanis 35:26 (laughs) I noticed. I noticed. (laughs)

35:28 (laughs)

David Sacks 35:28 (laughs) Come on, man.

Jason Calacanis 35:28 (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 35:29 (laughs)

David Sacks 35:29 Can we move on to the Delta variant because I'm supposed to be hysterically afraid of getting COVID now because I've been vaccinated. People keep talking about there's this Delta variant, it's spreading. And then I'm hearing one set of information which is, "If you're vaccinated, it's not an issue." And then, uh, other folks are going on TV saying, "This is gonna be like, we're gonna have to put masks back on in California." I can't find any data about how many actual cases there are, but according to the US CDC, 46% of the total US population has been vaccinated now. Uh, and New York, New Jersey, California, all well above 50%. Some people are in the 60% of adults, 70% of adults. Florida still trailing. But I can't... And people are saying this is gonna become the dominant variant. Friedberg, how should we look at the Delta variant if you're vaccinated? And then how should we look at it in terms of are we gonna go through mandatory masks again, which people are starting to signal already in certain, uh, coastal cities?

Jason Calacanis 36:29 Yeah. So Trevor Bedford's a great guy to follow on this. Uh, he's a epidemiologist, virologist, who, um-

David Sacks 36:35 On Twitter?

Jason Calacanis 36:36 ... aggregates... On Twitter, yeah. Uh, TRVrb is his, uh, Twitter handle. And so he's aggregated a bunch of good data. So there was a, a paper published two days ago out of the UK where they were trying to estimate the, um-... uh, you know, the reproduction rate of, uh, the Delta variant, um, and it looks like it's about 1.3. That means for every person that gets infected with the Delta variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, 1.3-

David Sacks 37:01 That's the R naught you're talking about?

Jason Calacanis 37:02 That's, that's, yeah, some people call it R naught, yeah. And so, um, it turns out that, you know, that number is higher than what we saw with the original SARS-CoV-2, which I think was probably closer to 1.1 or so. And so, um, you know, what that means is this variant is much more infectious, right? It could spread through the air, the, the proteins could last in oxygen much longer and not degrade, all these different reasons why it might be kind of more infectious. Um, and there are some cases of people that have been vaccinated, but this is not the predominance of what we're seeing, um, that have tested positive for having this Delta variant, but are having mild to moderate symptoms. There aren't, at this point, a lot of people ... there's not a lot of data to indicate that this is actually kind of like a lethal risk or fatal risk to people that have been vaccinated. In case ... in fact, that seems to be, uh, not true. And one way that that data is kind of demonstrated right now is, there was another analysis that was done where they showed what is the reproduction rate of this variant based on what percentage of the population has been vaccinated by state. And they show that, you know, for a state that's had maybe 30% of its population vaccinated, the R naught is closer to 1.35. When 60% of the state is vaccinated, the R naught is just at one. And so there's this, you know, um, uncor- you know, uh, negatively correlated kind of relationship between how many people have been vaccinated and how much this variant is transmitting. And that makes intuitive sense, right? Like, if people are vaccinated, they're not gonna get infected. The virus isn't gonna hop from person to person to person. Now, when you do the analysis of what percentage of the US population is unvaccinated, um, and how reproductive this virus is, a lot of epidemiologists are saying that the models indicate that we could see up to 10% of the US population now get hit with this variant. And what we don't know is what percentage of people actually had, you know, SARS-CoV-2 in the first runaround last year, um, but we are seeing this, uh, this variant pop up. Now, the, the fa- the fatality rate doesn't appear to be much higher than what we saw with SARS-CoV-2 the first time around, and, um, and so there's no indication to say like, "Hey, this is gonna be much more lethal." So when you combine those factors, it seems like at this point, you know, the, the, the death rates in the US are remaining flat, uh, and stable, while we are gonna see and may expect to see a continuing upsurge, surge up, in terms of number of cases. Are we gonna require masks? This goes back to kind of my previous point about I think we've kind of normalized ourselves to masks and shutdowns and lockdowns and all the stuff that we did last year, thinking that it had an effect. A recent paper showed that lockdowns had no effect on the reproduction rate in the United States, because at the end of the day, what ... if a government says "lockdown" or a government says "put masks on," people still have a tendency to do whatever the hell they want to do. At, at least in the United States, that is the case. That is not the case, likely, in Asian countries where we did see an effect of, of lockdowns and masks. Um, but in the United States, these, uh, these restrictions, uh, obviously had adverse economic effects, but didn't seem to have a strong epidemiological effect, um, based on a, a, a recent paper that I will share, uh, uh, in, in this thing. So, so what are we gonna do? I don't know. I feel like we've normalized masks, we've normalized lockdowns, we've normalized these responses, but SARS-CoV-2 is gonna be here forever, and it is gonna cycle through variants, and that's the concern right now.

40:08 Let me, let me make a prediction. I think that what, at the end of this thing, what I think I have come to the conclusion of is there was a lot of unknowns that got perverted into hysteria and mania by a handful of organizations to basically, uh, sequester power. And what we realized is that these people were incompetent, and they didn't know what they were doing, because you ended up in the same place with all of these different distributions of actions. And so now, I think when you have this other variant, I think there's a growing sensation by a lot of people, not just Americans, that the CDC, the WHO, whoever it is, is probably at best guessing and at worst making it up. And the ultimate result is they're ... it's, it's almost as if they like being drunk with power. And so I think the last part of what you said, Friedberg, is what I really agree with, which is that this is not going to be tolerated anymore. And the reason is because they are also politicizing science, and what they're doing is when they don't know, they're making poor guesses in the name of science, which is just as bad. So, you know, I don't know what's gonna happen with the Delta variant, maybe a lot, maybe a little, but as far as I can tell, I think people are tired of uninformed impacts to their lives, and they're not gonna put up with it anymore.

David Sacks 41:42 Sacks, chance this California goes back to lockdowns or some sort of mask mandates?

Chamath Palihapitiya 41:47 Uh, well, well, they are. They're, they're imposing mask mandates indoors in places like LA, and you have the teachers unions. The, the National Education Union is now putting down all these conditions on going back to school in the fall. So, I think you could be in a situation where we do not have ... they will call it school reopening, but we will not have five-day-a-week in-person learning. And the schools, the public schools that have it, are gonna have all sorts of insane restrictions and conditions, like making kids who really aren't at risk for COVID, even, even the Delta variant, they're gonna force 'em to wear masks. They're gonna, um, enforce this ridiculous social distancing. They're talking about making the kids who aren't vaccinated sit at a separate table like the outcasts. I mean, it's insane what they're talking about doing. So-

David Sacks 42:35 Wait, why is that insane, David? Not to interrupt you, but I- I'm just curious. I want you to unpack that.

Chamath Palihapitiya 42:40 Because ... So, so look, I, I, I'm, I'm pro-vaccine. You know, I think adults should get vaccinated. I don't think my kids need to get vaccinated. Um, I don't think that is a wise policy to, to force kids to get vaccinated. They're at very low risk for getting the virus. They're very low risk for transmitting the virus if they get it, and even if they get it, they're at almost no risk.... for it being harmful or, you know, to cause serious illness or death. And so, to impose all these restrictions on kids, it's like we're living in a time warp. You know, back to last summer when we didn't know as much about the virus, I mean, to Tamas' point, they're imposing all these restrictions which are just un- unscientific, and it really seems like the real point is to create excuses for the teachers not to have to go back to work. And you know, you know a school system is borked when the truancy is on the part of the teachers, not the students. The students wanna go back. The teachers wanna be truant. It's like they wanna be on permanent vacation forever. It is a really broken system.

Jason Calacanis 43:42 Uh, by the way, uh, let- let me just highlight, um, you know, to support, uh, the concern that I think people like Sa- like, uh, people that Sax is kind of speaking to might be having. Um, a research letter was published in the Journal, um, of the American medalis- Me- Medical Association two days ago. Uh, lead researcher was a guy named Harold Walsh, and this paper is going viral amongst kind of the, um, you know, the- the- the scientific and medical community right now. And what these guys did is they measured the carbon dioxide content of children's lungs, um, from wearing masks. And so, they were trying to identify, like, is this a risk to children to actually be wearing masks, uh, health-wise? And the results are pretty scary. Uh, it turns out that, you know, um, in- in- in air, in- in ambient air, .07% by volume is carbon dioxide. When a normal... Uh, and then they measured kids, you know, uh, randomized control, double-blind, you know. Here's the... Or not double-blind, but randomized control. There's kids that have masks and kids that don't. The kids that don't have masks, their carbon dioxide when they exhale is about .28%. When you have to wear a surgical mask, your carbon dioxide increases to 1.3%. Um, and, uh, you know, when they looked at this in a more detailed way, it turns out that it could be as high as 3.8%. And so this starts to reach a medical level that is concerning for doctors, that having these kids wear masks for hours a day could actually be having an adverse health effect because it is increasing the carbon dioxide content of their blood because, you know, their- their lungs aren't strong enough to breathe all this carbon dioxide out. It builds up in their body. And so there is a now, a counterpoint that is being made by scientists and doctors that maybe the benefit of the safety we might get from kids wearing masks and spreading the virus is, um, outweighed, uh, by the, uh, um, the- the cost to their health as a result of wearing these masks. And to ask kids to wear masks for eight hours a day or five hours a day for nine months a year, um, we're just now waking up to the fact that there may actually be consequences to this, and I'm not making a strong case here

Chamath Palihapitiya 45:47 It's- it's like-

Jason Calacanis 45:47 ... whatever, I'm just saying.

Chamath Palihapitiya 45:47 ... it's like- it's like- it's like child abuse. So we sent our five-year-old- (laughs) ... to a summer camp in LA, okay? And the camp is outside, and all the- the adults are vaccinated, okay? But they're making the kids wear masks, and it's no fun, you know, and they can't play sports the way they need to. And we just said, "To hell with this," and we took them out. Now, what I don't understand is why people aren't laying this at the feet of Gavin Newsom. This is 100% his order. You know, all he has to do is say, "Listen, we don't need these rules anymore. It's kids, it's outside, and all the adults are vaccinated. What is the point of this?" And, you know, and I think w- we have this recall election now that's been scheduled for mid-September. You know, right now it looks like Newsom's gonna cruise to- to- to- to winning. But if we had a candidate in California who could say, "Listen, we need five-day-a-week in s- you know, in-person schooling in the fall, no exceptions. All the teachers need to go back to work, or they're gonna need to be looking for new jobs. We're not gonna c- kowtow and give in to all these unnecessary, unscientific restrictions, okay, because Newsom will not make that guarantee." I think they could- they could basically steal this thing. We don't have anyone standing up saying that. And I think the closer we get to the start of school, if we don't have that kind of five-day-a-week instruction, I think parents are gonna be up in arms about this. I think they will be, and I think what we're gonna prove is none of these folks really know what they're talking about, and so they will make it up. And someone will have some shred of evidence about something on either side of any topic, and all it'll do is obfuscate and confuse, and the end of it will be somebody imposing something onto you that will have a negative impact on your life.

Jason Calacanis 47:33 But for their benefit. In the teachers' case-

Chamath Palihapitiya 47:36 For their benefit.

Jason Calacanis 47:36 ... it's for their benefit. Like, I don't want to go back-

Chamath Palihapitiya 47:38 For their benefit.

Jason Calacanis 47:38 There's... I mean, listen, I won't say all teachers don't wanna go back to school. I know a lot of teachers want to go back to school and teach kids and take the masks off because it's insufferable.

Chamath Palihapitiya 47:45 No, you- I think you can say-

Jason Calacanis 47:46 But there is a contingent-

Chamath Palihapitiya 47:46 ... I think you can say the union and separated from teachers. Yes.

Jason Calacanis 47:49 Exactly. Yeah, I- I don't think it's all teachers. It's some percentage of teachers, but I think we're, uh, going to move... David Friedberg, correct me if I'm wrong here, we're gonna move to a two-class system here. If you're vaccinated, you get one set of rules. And if you're not vaccinated, you get another. And this is where, David, I think kids who are over the age of 11 or 12 who do get vaccinated, they shouldn't have to wear a mask at school, but then-

Chamath Palihapitiya 48:10 Well, sorry, can I just say something? This is what the insanity of this thing is. It's like, okay, we're gonna throw around, again, we're probably gonna use the word equity, uh, when we make these new rules. But then fine, why don't you just create a school that has everybody in it who is vaccinated?

Jason Calacanis 48:27 Most vaccinated

Chamath Palihapitiya 48:27 I- I don't-

Jason Calacanis 48:28 ... want that.

Chamath Palihapitiya 48:29 ... I don't- I don't even understand, I don't understand this because all of us are vaccinated, so I- we don't need to worry about it. So, in other words, we're gonna impose restrictions on people and force kids or whoever to get vaccinated, to- to protect whom? If all the adults are vaccinated, we're not protecting anybody. All we're doing is protecting, I guess, unvaccinated adults. That makes no sense to me.

Jason Calacanis 48:48 Well, they're-

Chamath Palihapitiya 48:49 Uh-

Jason Calacanis 48:49 ... taking the risk, right? I mean, if you're choosing to not get the vaccine at this point, Friedberg, you're taking some significant level of risk or some moderate level of risk.

Chamath Palihapitiya 48:58 But does the government have a responsibility to protect that person?

Jason Calacanis 49:02 I don't think it matters. What I think matters is, remember, like, the societal responsibility...... is not and cannot be to protect every individual. The societal responsibility is to make sure that society functions. And, um, and if we take a zoom back, and I just want everyone to s- reset your brains. (laughs) Like, go back to March of last year. And we were talking about the surge of deaths in hospitals, and hospitals were gonna be overwhelmed. And that was the reason we needed to go into lockdowns, and the reason we needed to stop the surge. Even if this Delta variant is highly infectious, there are enough people- uh, people vaccinated in the United States at this point that this Delta variant is not gonna crush our hospital system. It's not gonna cause massive, um, amount of fatalities, which is the reason we went into lockdowns in the first place. All of the concerns that we had last year that rationalized a lot of the extreme behavior that we undertook no longer exists, and we are now talking about continuing those, those behaviors under a different set of standards. And the set of standards is now, I can't put a teacher at risk. I can't put an individual at risk. And even if that individual got infected, if the fatality rate is so low, I can still say, "Well, they could die. Therefore, I can't have them exposed," right? And, and that has become the new standard to what, I think, Sax and that, that article kind of talked about as zeroism. You know, you get to a point, if you're, if you're fighting a war on a battlefield, and you're like, "Well, I can't let any of my soldiers die. We can't move down the field," you're not gonna f- move down the field. You're not gonna win the war, and I'm not saying that this is a war. The point is society has to progress. The economy has to progress.

David Sacks 50:35 Yes.

Jason Calacanis 50:35 People's lives have to progress. People have to be educated. Life is about progress. And if we halt progress because of the concern that any individual might get harmed because of the progress of the group as a whole, we will not go anywhere. And we've created a new set of standards that I think creates that very reality, and it is frightening.

Chamath Palihapitiya 50:52 Let me, let me, m- m- may, maybe put a, a, a finer point on this, which is just this co- this Delta variant is just more COVID fear porn. Okay? This is the third variant of concern where they've been, you know, running around alarmed, saying that, you know, we have to worry. The truth is y- is it more transmissible? Yes. It is going to, I think, sweep through areas of the country in the fall that aren't vaccinated. But the question is, how does it perform against the vaccines? And so far, the vaccines are holding up. The va- the variants, none of the variants have really punched through the vaccines in a meaningful way. I think the stats on Pfizer were it's, you know, was it maybe reduced the effectiveness from 95% to 88% or something like that. But it wasn't a material difference. If you were double vaxxed with Pfizer, you are protected against the Delta variant, and so this is just more fear porn that they keep pumping.

David Sacks 51:44 I, I'm agree, I'm in agreement with you, and I think this reminds me of when we were growing up in the '80s, they tried to scare us about sex and HIV, and were you not going to have sex if you were in your 20s in the '90s and into the '80s? No. You learned about HIV. You learned to use condoms. You learned that you, you probably couldn't do, uh, you know, what people did in the '60s and '70s, which is have many, many partners. You maybe had to have fewer partners, maybe longer term partners, but you, you could, you could take your own risk by putting on a condom. You could make that decision for yourself. Here, I think there's a group of people who don't want anybody to make any decisions for themselves. And in this case, the vaccine is wearing a condom. If you're wearing a condom, like, your chances of getting HIV go down dramatically. It's just a known fact. And we're, we're at 263 people on average dying a day. How many of those, Friedberg, do you think are with COVID versus from COVID? If you had to take a guess.

Jason Calacanis 52:42 Well, I, I have, I have always... I, I, I hate doing this because then people think it's, like, an inhuman analysis, but the way that, um, actuaries or economists would kind of take a look at this sort of decision tree and this sort of data is the number of life years lost. Okay? Um, so imagine someone is gonna die tomorrow. If someone's gonna die tomorrow, and they catch COVID today, and they die a day early, you have lost a life day. And everyone... Yes, that is absolutely devastating, and it is awful emotionally. But, like, when we're making big decisions, we have to think with the data. And so, um, if someone catches COVID, and they, and they lose five years, or they die five years earlier than they, uh, statistically would have died, that's five life years lost. When a child dies, you are losing 68 life years. Right? That is an incredible loss of life, is one, is one way to kind of think about this statistically. And so, um, you know, part of, I think, what's been missing in the equation, and it's easy to tell the narrative by speaking about people that have dead, that have died that tested positive for COVID when they died, is it now speaks to the fact that this is a binary experience, and there's a binary number of lives lost. But the statistical, the data-driven exercise, which may sound inhuman and m- may sound awful, but again, we have to make these decisions using data if we're gonna make large decisions that are gonna impact everyone in a meaningful way, is to look at the number of life years lost. And I think if you were to do that, you would still find that the vast majority of deaths associated with COVID are very elderly people who are already very close to dying. And that's why we are seeing the fatality rates so low right now in the United States, even though COVID is still spreading with the Delta variant. It is because almost 90% of people over 70 have been vaccinated. And as a result, the people that are most at risk of dying are well protected, and we are not seeing a significant loss of life associated with this terrible virus. The terrible virus is still spreading, but the life lost is still not there. Now, someone might raise their hand and say, "Well, we don't know the long-term implications, long-term ramifications." I would raise-

David Sacks 54:36 Long-haul COVID, yeah.

Jason Calacanis 54:37 I would raise my other hand and say show me what the data is that says that there are those long-term implication and ramifications. 'Cause I can say the what ifs about anything and then implement any policy decision I want by just saying, "What if?" and, "We don't know." We have to say, "We do know. Here's the data," in order to make a tough decision versus saying we need to be, you know, protective and use the protective, you know, uh, principle of, um, of precaution or the precautionary principle and be really careful in these circumstances. Uh, because at this point, the impact and the damage associated with some of our practices to, quote-unquote, guard against COVID and, and, you know, protect people, it, it's turning out there are real consequences to those decisions.

David Sacks 55:17 All right, Friedberg, final question on COVID. Uh, should you wear two condoms? In other words, should you get Moderna and Pfizer or J&J and Pfizer? There are studies coming out now to say one plus one equals three. There are some super effect of getting two. I am looking into this. I'm thinking I'm gonna get a second vaccine, uh. I might get, just get a Moderna or a Pfizer or J&J, just-

Jason Calacanis 55:38 Don't waste-

David Sacks 55:39 I'm gonna get a J&J-

Jason Calacanis 55:39 Don't, don't waste, don't waste the vaccine shots. Let them go to other countries. You know, not needed.

David Sacks 55:45 Not needed? Even though the studies-

Jason Calacanis 55:46 Yeah.

David Sacks 55:46 ... are starting to show it gives you increased...

Jason Calacanis 55:49 I mean, do you need your Tes- do you need your Tesla to go from 180 to 185 miles an hour? I mean, like, you know. (hands slap)

Chamath Palihapitiya 55:55 That's a good point. I mean, look, everything we learn about the vaccines makes them look better and better. The protection lasts longer than we thought. The, um, they're more effective against variants than people were afraid of. And now we learn that there is even more protection by sort of this mix-and-match idea. So the vaccines have worked. There are still, I think, a couple of groups in America that are v- very vaccine hesitant. Um, evangelicals and African Americans are the two groups that have not-

David Sacks 56:23 I thought it was male Republicans.

Chamath Palihapitiya 56:25 It's, it's more like evangelicals. And so in a place like Mississippi where you have large numbers of both, the vaccine rate's only like 29, 30%. It's actually pretty low. In a place like that, you could see the Delta variant sweep through in the fall, and you could see a lot of cases. I, you know, let me, let me buck your, uh, labeling and categorization of me, JCal-

David Sacks 56:46 I was- I was reticent to say it.

Chamath Palihapitiya 56:47 ... by saying-

David Sacks 56:48 (laughs)

Chamath Palihapitiya 56:48 By, by saying that I don't think the leaders on the right are doing anyone any favors, any of their voters any favors, by not coming out and saying, "Look, the vaccines work." You know, I think Trump could do a lot of good by coming out and just saying, "Listen, I got the vaccine." I'm pretty sure he did, right?

David Sacks 57:03 He did.

Chamath Palihapitiya 57:04 Eh- he did. And so, you know, I think if you are in one of those groups, you know, and certainly you're over, like, 40, you should be getting the vaccine. I mean, they work.

David Sacks 57:13 W- well, uh, not to harp on this, but what did Trump say when you suggested he come out publicly about it?

Chamath Palihapitiya 57:18 (laughs)

David Sacks 57:19 (laughs)

Chamath Palihapitiya 57:19 Nobody's listening to me.

David Sacks 57:20 A no-fly zone? (laughs) Can we-

Chamath Palihapitiya 57:20 Nobody's... No, it's fine. Nobody's listening to me, obviously.

David Sacks 57:23 (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 57:25 (laughs)

David Sacks 57:25 I mean, it- it is very weird that Trump spent massive amounts of money on the vaccine and now doesn't want to take credit for Project Lightspeed by telling everybody to get it.

Chamath Palihapitiya 57:38 I- I- I-

Jason Calacanis 57:38 I think he's got a lot of other issues-

David Sacks 57:40 What is your-

Jason Calacanis 57:40 I think he's got a lot of other issues on the plate to deal with, including-

Chamath Palihapitiya 57:43 (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 57:43 ... an indictment that just landed yesterday. So maybe, you know, maybe he just doesn't know what to focus on because he, he sees his, uh, his budding empire unraveling before him.

57:53 Did you see the report that said that Trump was extremely thrilled by the fact that his CFO was indicted? For two reasons. One is it kind of, um, indicates that they didn't have enough to go after him, and two is it's gonna make Joe Biden look bad and his administration look bad, uh, because it looks like they're being kind of prosecuted and persecuted now. But that, he- he views this as a positive and it, and it, and it- and he's thinking about it as a way to kind of stage a 2024 run.

Chamath Palihapitiya 58:19 Well, I didn't, I didn't see that particular story, but I do think that what-

Jason Calacanis 58:23 It was from Maggie, Maggie Haberman tweeted it. Yeah.

Chamath Palihapitiya 58:24 Okay, okay. Well, what- what the charges show, I think, is that they got nothing on Trump directly. Um, the- the- I mean, th- this turned out to be a big nothing burger after years of investigation, just like the whole Russia thing. And so it-

David Sacks 58:38 Hold on. 15 felony-

Jason Calacanis 58:40 So, so hold on-

David Sacks 58:40 15 felony counts? Is it nothing?

Chamath Palihapitiya 58:40 Uh, hold on. Hold on. Is that not-

Jason Calacanis 58:43 Hold on. Let Zach finish his point.

Chamath Palihapitiya 58:44 Trump was not... Let me finish. Trump, Trump was not named. They didn't get close to Trump. All they got was they're trying to charge, uh, Wesselheim, who's a CFO, with basically receiving certain perks as compensation.

Jason Calacanis 58:55 T&E. It was T&E violations.

Chamath Palihapitiya 58:57 And not reporting-

Jason Calacanis 58:57 It was crazy.

Chamath Palihapitiya 58:57 Yeah. This is penny ante stuff. It does look like persecution rather than prosecution. And what they're trying to do is they're going after this guy Wesselheim to squeeze him to try and roll over on Trump. Well, good luck with that. That's about as likely to happen as, uh, Putin releasing the pee tapes. Not gonna happen. Sorry, JCal. Trump is getting away scot-free.

David Sacks 59:17 The one thing I would say, I think, that I disagree with, respectfully-

Chamath Palihapitiya 59:21 (laughs)

David Sacks 59:21 ... is, um, this is, uh, a 15-year, uh, tax avoidance scheme that included more than T&E, included people getting their tuition paid for for free and free apartments. So the equivalent-

Jason Calacanis 59:33 Now, but Jason-

David Sacks 59:33 ... would be... And then, hold on. They then knowingly did this and changed the books knowingly, so they caught them going into their accounting and changing to hide it. And so the cover-up worsened the crime. They, this is an explicit way to not pay their taxes. This would be if all of us took our personal residences and our kids' private school tuition-

Jason Calacanis 59:52 I, I know.

David Sacks 59:52 ... and didn't pay taxes on it. It's, it's significant.

Jason Calacanis 59:54 Jason, so the, the total amount, for example, that this guy got in, uh, tuition reimbursements over this 15-year period was about $375,000. The total amount of some other rent perks that he got was for about 1.6 or $1 million. The total amount of value that I think his son got, you know, was spending $1,000 a month in a Trump-owned apartment. When you add it all up, for a guy that was accused of, you know, being in cahoots with Russia, this and that and everything, you pinch the CFO for a few million dollars, ef- effectively, again, T&E, let's just say that he did it, you know, some of these checks came directly from Trump. It, I think I, I agree with David, it's a bit of a nothing burger, and it really does look like it's politically motivated. And the reason is because these kinds of charges are typically not brought. These are things that typically result in a civil penalty or restatement, and you just kind of move on. You know, nobody, nobody's trying to send somebody to jail for, you know, getting... for mis- miscategorizing or-

David Sacks 1:01:00 I, I have a theory because we don't have full information.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:01:02 And they weren't investigating this stuff before Trump became a politician. Why weren't... why... (laughs) wha- wha- this, if this had been going on for 15 years, why didn't this investigation happen five, six, seven years ago?

David Sacks 1:01:12 I, I could tell you why. His, um... the daughter-in-law of Weisselberg's-... uh, was, uh, the- received a lot of these perks and then she dropped a dime and gave all the documents to them. My theory on this is, because we don't have complete information yet, I think that they have other- I think they have this bigger tax, uh, uh, case around making the assets look, um, smaller when paying taxes and inflating the value of the assets when getting loans. And I think they want to get that. And the way to get that is to flip Weisselberg because Trump does not use email and communications. I think that that's what's going on here, um, but, uh-

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:01:51 Yes, you're right. They're trying to- they're trying to flip him. Look, the- the KGB had a saying, "Show us the man, we'll tell you the crime." Okay? They decided we're going to go after Trump. This is entirely political. They weren't interested in him five, six, seven years ago. Once he got into politics, they became interested in him.

David Sacks 1:02:08 Yeah.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:02:08 He became the man and now they are trying to f- roll up and flip all these people and try to get them to turn on Trump and give them something. These Democratic pit bull prosecutors, they are going to make Trump look like the victim here. This will rebound, I think in a negative way.

Jason Calacanis 1:02:21 It is- it is a really stupid thing that they're doing. I mean, this- this could have happened in so many different ways. The guy was finished and washed up, right? He was in his little hovel in Florida, you know-

David Sacks 1:02:34 No Twitter account.

Jason Calacanis 1:02:35 ... he, you know, in the one- no Twitter account, no access to his base. Um, the one time he actually showed up in New York two or three weeks ago, I don't know if you guys saw the photos, he looks so disheveled, so old-

David Sacks 1:02:45 Terrible.

Jason Calacanis 1:02:45 ... so broken. Let the guy wither into obscurity. But instead, you pin these charges, you pr- create an entire press cycle. You're going to rally so many people on the right. And actually a lot of people in general who feel like, "Wait, what are we doing as a country? Why don't we just let- or just be done with this guy? I don't ever want to hear about him ever again." And instead we're kind of like bringing it all back front center. I just think it's a bad look.

1:03:11 What do you think about the Insurrection Commission? Do you think that that should, um, should be disbanded as well, Chamath, because-

David Sacks 1:03:18 No. No.

Jason Calacanis 1:03:18 ... you think that should- that should be pursued?

1:03:20 Yeah, because that's not necessarily about Trump. That- it i- it is about a wh- a whole totality of things that really will lead into the fact that we have a lot of far right organizations that need to be understood. We have one far left organization that needs to be understood, all in the same light, which is that these folks are a destabilizing force to democracy. And so, yeah, you got to get to the bottom of what the hell happened.

1:03:47 Saks, do you- do you think the Insurrection Commission is going to be equally kind of politically motivating for, uh, for Trump's base and for folks like that?

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:03:55 Well, I just think that you have to decide as a country whether you're going to keep re-litigating, you know, what happened in the previous administration. I mean, if we're going to go back and keep this going, you know, are we going to go back and look at why did the FBI use the Steele dossier to go to a FISA court to spy on members of the Trump campaign? Uh, there were 17 misrepresentations in their, uh, in their petition to the FISA court. I mean, there was clear misconduct there. Are we going to go back and re-litigate that and go after people and punish them? Look, maybe we should, okay? But I think that this is the thing about politics. Everyone just wants to move forward. We're in a new administration now. Whatever misconduct occurred, I think the punishment was paid at the ballot box. I think it's just time to move on. And, uh, look-

Jason Calacanis 1:04:43 I agree with that.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:04:44 And I- look, I know there's going to be a lot of partisans on both sides who just want to go re-litigate and punish their enemies forever. But, you know, I think the American people just want to move forward.

David Sacks 1:04:55 Yeah.

Jason Calacanis 1:04:55 Jake Hellman, what are you on the far- what are you on the far left want to do?

David Sacks 1:04:58 Well, I'm not on the far left. I mean, I- I think that there is a str- I- I do think that there is a bunch of gamesmanship here. I think this is a, uh, a chess board that on the left they're saying, "If we- we- if we have a chance to take Trump out of political life, we need to do that because the cost of him getting reelected in 2024 is too great." And so what we're talking about here is, you know, what is the best path to doing that? And, you know, Chamath's right, like, just letting him fade into obscurity. He may not want to run again because he's so old and it's so painful to be president for him.

Jason Calacanis 1:05:33 Guys, he's- he's 75. I mean, he's going to be 78. Or no, 70-

David Sacks 1:05:36 Would s- He'd be the same age as Biden going in.

Jason Calacanis 1:05:38 I- I- I mean, this- this is ridiculous. Both of these two guys are one-term presidents. I think that is abundantly clear. I think the question is, what is Biden's transition plan? You know, does he actually only stay two years and transitions it to Kamala? I don't know, but there's no way that he's running for a second term either. He does not look healthy. I think that much is... at least... and I'm- and I'm saying this as, you know, a centrist Democrat. He doesn't look completely fit, um, and it's only going to get worse. And this is the most incredibly stressful job in the world.

Jason Calacanis 1:06:11 Neither of these two guys are our long-term solution. It's time to let it all go, right? It's like we had four years of just chaos. We now get to have four years to catch our breath. It's time to find the late 40s to mid-50s centrist normal people again, and we have three years to do it.

1:06:36 Who do you think that is, uh, on the Republican side? And Chamath, who do you think it is on the Democrat side who's going to run for the next election cycle? Because just this morning, by the way, an article came out that, um, highlighted that several insiders in the White House are completely, like, up in arms about how, uh, chaotic, uh, Kamala Harris's office is, which is basically a way of starting to shoot her down, right? So if you think about the- the motivation here, someone in the White House is starting to shoot Kamala Harris down, which means they're starting to weaken her a little bit in terms of whether she could actually be a good replacement for the next term. I don't know if that's truly the motivation, but that's typically what these sorts of stories indicate. So if not her, if not her, who on the Democrat side and, you know, if not Trump, who on the Republican side in the next election cycle? Because those folks are going to start to pop their head up, right?

1:07:23 ... the... Well, I mean, I think the, I think the person who has enough credibility to take a shot, it's not clear that she will, but if she did, she would be really serious and she could actually get people to be relatively normal, is Nikki Haley, on the right.

David Sacks 1:07:41 But Ron DeSantis is gonna be the right's candidate, correct, Sas?

Jason Calacanis 1:07:44 And she's kind of normal.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:07:45 DeSantis is definitely the early front runner. Um, e- there was a straw poll in which he was the first Republican to actually run ahead of Trump, uh, in a straw poll for, what, four or five years? And, uh, so yeah, it looks like, um... He... Now, he's running for reelection in Florida in 2022, so that's on his plate, uh, but I think it looks like he's going to sweep to victory. He made the right decisions on lockdowns. This is the central feather in his cap, that before any other governor really, he looked at the data, saw that, to Freeberg's point, lockdowns don't make a difference. He went back to normal. The state benefited. You look at per capita COVID deaths in Florida, it's middle of the pack, um, and which is actually a really good result given how many old people they have. So, he did a phenomenal job, I think, setting COVID policy in Florida, and he did it in the face of a hostile media that was just tearing him limb from limb. And so he's showed that he not only can find the right policy, but that he's got the spine to stand up for it. And I think as a result of that, yeah, he has galvanized early the Republican base. If he wins reelection in 2022 by a, by a strong margin, I think he does become the putative front runner for 2024. Very similar in a way, I think, to the way that, that George W. Bush, uh, you know, he, he basically won reelection in Texas two years before he ran for president, and on the heels of that victory, he was able to make the case, "Look, I just got reelected. I'm very popular in a huge state of the country. You know, I should be the front runner." I think DeSantis is in a similar position, in terms of-

Jason Calacanis 1:09:25 What do you think about Nikki Haley, Sas?

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:09:28 I think Nikki Haley is sort of popular with the establishment wing of the Republican Party, but she does not bring together both the, the sort of the establishment wing with the populist wing. And what DeSantis has able- been able to do is get the business Republicans and the establishment Republicans to get behind him, as well as the populist Trump base loves him. And that's, that's the, um, that's the combo you gotta have, I think, to, to win the Republican nomination. And so Nikki Haley, I think, you know, everybody who sort of reads elite media is gonna overindex on her. But if you go to the, the straw polls and the rallies, she's not, just not gonna perform in those polls. There's a very interesting article in Politico, though, over the past week about how DeSantis is being very careful not to do anything to upset Trump, and I think he understands that-

David Sacks 1:10:19 Is he the VP candidate, with Trump, you think?

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:10:23 Well, that, that, that pre-assumes a lot of things happening. I mean, look, we, we don't know what's gonna happen. I think that, you know, the, the, the number one way to resurrect Trump is what Chamath said, is to keep poking that bear, to fill him with the, the, the rage to, to sort of counterpu- punch and come back. I think it would be better, however, for a new generation of leaders to... Look, we, we have, we're being run by a gerontocracy right now. So I mean, just Biden is 78, Pelosi is 80, Schumer is 77, McConnell is 80, and Trump is 75. And that's today, okay? (laughs) In 2024, all those people are gonna be in their 80s or just about to turn 80.

David Sacks 1:11:02 Who, who will even be alive, I mean?

Jason Calacanis 1:11:05 Feinstein will be 91 or 92.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:11:07 It's time to have a new generation-

David Sacks 1:11:09 What a joke.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:11:09 ... in both parties. Why are we being run by this gerontocracy?

Jason Calacanis 1:11:12 What a joke.

David Sacks 1:11:13 Do we wanna move on to the drought and impending, uh, death,

David Sacks 1:11:17 and-

Jason Calacanis 1:11:17 Or the Facebook FTC dismissal?

1:11:20 Oh, that was incredible. And also, uh, the, uh, FTC got two gut punches in a row, uh, and then, you know, Amazon fr- writes this petition to recuse Lina Khan.

David Sacks 1:11:31 It's like, that's why she was hired. (laughs)

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:11:32 (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 1:11:33 Incredible.

David Sacks 1:11:33 She was hired because she's an expert on Amazon. (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 1:11:36 The, the Amazon, the Amazon letter was actually extremely well written and basically said, "I know that she's in charge, uh, of basically finding fairness, and fairness seems to be that we will get legislated, but we believe that sh- it's unfair to us, so please take her out of the mix." I just think it was fantastic. I mean, it's incredible. It's like, "Isn't this the point of having her in the job?"

David Sacks 1:11:56 It's like, "We've hired a new prosecutor who specializes in organized crime, and the Gambino crime family has petitioned to have them-" (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 1:12:03 Exactly, recused.

David Sacks 1:12:04 ... yep-

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:12:05 Recused.

Jason Calacanis 1:12:05 ... recused.

David Sacks 1:12:05 ... from doing any organized-

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:12:07 Yeah.

David Sacks 1:12:08 ... crime.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:12:08 Right. Their, their argument is that she should be recused because she published, um, articles-

Jason Calacanis 1:12:12 She's biased.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:12:12 ... on how Ama- yeah, that Amazon should be broken up, and they're saying she's already prejudged the situation. There's no way this is gonna (laughs) fly. There's no way she's gonna get recused. But I think what they're trying to do is put an argument on appeal,