All-In PodcastE47: Facebook's week from hell, Ellen Pao on sexism in Elizabeth Holmes coverage, Newsom wins & more
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,003 words- 0:00 – 7:00
Besties intro, TPB Symposium recap, rapid generations in tech
- JCJason Calacanis
Where were you on Thursday? Was you up here-
- DFDavid Friedberg
Remember, I know.
- JCJason Calacanis
... or in LA?
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
I was at home. I, I got, I got family (censored) to do.
- JCJason Calacanis
Oh, family? Have you, you met them? What were they like?
- NANarrator
(laughs)
- DFDavid Friedberg
(laughs)
- JCJason Calacanis
(laughs) Are they everything you expected? (laughs)
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
I had to meet, I had to meet the new kid.
- JCJason Calacanis
He's 19.
- DFDavid Friedberg
What, what's his major? (laughs)
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
(laughs)
- NANarrator
Going all in. Don't let your winner slide.
- JCJason Calacanis
Rain Man David Sacks.
- NANarrator
Going all in. And I said- We open sources to the fans and they've just gone crazy with it.
- JCJason Calacanis
Love you, man. Nice.
- NANarrator
Queen of quinoa. Going all in.
- JCJason Calacanis
Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the All In podcast. Yes, we made it to episode 47. In three episodes, it'll be episode 50. No plans to do anything other than just try to record this every week for you, the loyal audience with us. Again, coming off an amazing event, a live event on Monday, uh, Tuesday, and I don't know if it went into Wednesday, but David Friedberg's, the production board event. We, uh, recorded our first live All In. It seems like it went, uh, well on an AV basis and the audience seemed to enjoy it. What was the feedback? Friedberg?
- DFDavid Friedberg
So, you know, half the room were scientists and they'd never heard of this podcast before, and they were like, "What the hell did we just show up to?"
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
(laughs)
- JCJason Calacanis
(laughs)
- DFDavid Friedberg
It's like, "These, who are these four guys on stage drinking this wine, talking about politics for an hour and a half?" Um, but, uh-
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
And, and dropping F-bombs.
- DFDavid Friedberg
And dropping F-bombs.
- JCJason Calacanis
Yeah.
- DFDavid Friedberg
And, uh, there was a little bit, uh, of, uh, kind of seasoning we had to do afterwards to get everyone kind of comfortable. But-
- JCJason Calacanis
Yeah.
- DFDavid Friedberg
No, actually it was, it was fantastic. People loved it. You guys were the highlight. Um, and I thought it was super fun to do that in person. I don't know what you guys thought. Uh, but- It's cool energy. It's super cool energy. ... yeah, it was great.
- JCJason Calacanis
And with us again, of course, uh, David Sacks, the Rain Man himself and the dictator, Chamath Palihapitiya. What did you think, uh, uh, Sacks, of the live event format? Uh, obviously half the audience were fans of the show, half weren't.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Mm-hmm.
- 7:00 – 19:45
UBI, incentives for success, social safety nets
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
and I worry about this with my own kids, that I think deprivation creates motivation.
- DFDavid Friedberg
Totally.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Especially to do something as hard as create a company or create a startup-
- DSDavid Sacks
Deprivation creates motivation. (laughs)
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
(laughs)
- JCJason Calacanis
Welcome to David Sacks' infomercial. (laughs)
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
No, no, I mean, look. I think, you know, people-
- JCJason Calacanis
Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.
- DSDavid Sacks
That leads to fornication. (laughs)
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
(laughs)
- DFDavid Friedberg
(laughs)
- DSDavid Sacks
(beep)
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
You know, beep, be, uh, (beep) .
- JCJason Calacanis
(beep)
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
(beep)
- JCJason Calacanis
(laughs) Our friend, beep.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
(beep) has a, has a saying that, that sorta became famous when Elon then repeated it, which is that, uh, creating a startup is like staring into the abyss and eating glass. And it is really hard to create these companies when they're successful, and so not a lot of people wanna do it again once they've reached that point, and, um, you know, it does take a certain amount of, um, like I said, deprivation, you know, to, to do this stuff.
- DFDavid Friedberg
I totally agree.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Which is, which is why giving everybody the participation trophy and trying to make people's lives as easy as possible... I mean, yes, you want... You, you don't want to deprive people on the one hand, but on the other hand, it does often lead to, to good things.
- DFDavid Friedberg
Totally agree.
- JCJason Calacanis
We're seeing a bit of a dry run of this if people believe that, you know, they have UBI or the government's gonna take care of them. I would be fine with UBI, you know, everybody getting a little bit of money, um, and if it was a safety net, the only thing I worry about is, it seems like a little bit of money, if you're clever, means you could never work, and then what happens to those people in society, right? Like...
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Well, I just, I think it's anti-compassionate because what you do is you kick out the, the bottom rungs of the ladder of economic success when you basically pay able-bodied people not to work. I mean, they need... Those entry-level jobs that may not pay much better than the UBI are an important stepping stone to where they get to next in their career, and I think it's, it's demotivating. And we've already seen in California, we've been doing this-
- DSDavid Sacks
UBI, UBI's not gonna pay you to go to college, but Amazon will, as an example. So, you're absolutely right. There's a, the, the GI Bill, you know, there's all kinds of examples where, in history, we've used, you know, entry-level jobs as exactly as they're meant to be, an entry-level opportunity, an on-ramp to work your ass off and to make something of yourself. If you, if you all of a sudden let people opt out of it, then it's gonna be a very, um... It's g- And what they're not gonna realize is by the time they get old enough where they will want to have some kind of purpose, it'll be too late, because then activating yourself in your 40s and 50s to essentially start your life is really hard. I'll give you an example of this. Like, you know, right now, I, you know, I, I would say I'm, like, fairly fluent in Italian, um, but-
- JCJason Calacanis
That's pretty impressive, yeah.
- DSDavid Sacks
But I, uh-
- JCJason Calacanis
For sure.
- DSDavid Sacks
But I started, uh, taking Italian lessons, and, you know, the last 4% or 5% of a language is brutalizing, right? Because it's like, it's every little grammatical thing and you wanna get it completely right, and it's very, um, demotivating for me sometimes because I'm like, "God, why the fuck am I doing this?" Um, I don't have to. I can get by, just speak it. But I've made a commitment to myself. Uh, same thing in biotech, you know? I got introduced to it by Friedberg, and, and obviously Nat, and, and now I'm trying to learn, and it is a, it is a grind, and I think it's so easy to quit. Now, you take that to the extreme and some random person that doesn't have necessarily the ability to fall back on the success that, you know, s- we've all collectively had, and you have to start from scratch. My God, it's, it's really tough. It's really tough. At-
- DFDavid Friedberg
Yeah.
- DSDavid Sacks
At our age-
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Right.
- 19:45 – 33:59
Newsom's recall victory in California, where the GOP went wrong
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
We were talking politics. Why don't, why don't we shift to the, the, the recall?
- JCJason Calacanis
Yeah. All right. Uh, so, uh, post-mortem on the, uh, Newsom recall. He, he, uh... Secretary of State says the recall cost over $300 million, obviously. Um, Gavin, uh, Newsom won in a-
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Okay. Well, hold on, hold on.
- JCJason Calacanis
... bit of a landslide.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
The $300 million point, let me just take care of this real quick, okay? Because I saw this all day on social media. You know what? Yeah, it did cost $300 million, but all the people crying about that, clutching their pearls about the $300 million, never said a word about the $30 billion, the 100 times greater EDD fraud that was perpetrated by our state and by our one-party rule of this state, and the recall process and the ballot initiative process is the only check we have on elected leadership in a one-party state. So listen, I'll start clutching my pearls about the $300 million when they start, uh, talking about the $30 billion. But look, let, let's shift to, to the result of this.
- DFDavid Friedberg
What are you ref- Wait, what are you referring to? I'm not sure I, I know enough about-
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
This is, this is the-
- DFDavid Friedberg
... the $30 billion EDD fraud.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
This is the EDD fraud where $30 billion basically went to anyone claiming unemployment, uh, insurance, and $30 billion in, in fake claims were paid out. That process was so-
- DFDavid Friedberg
Oh, right.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
... poorly administered. So, I mean, people were just creating fake addresses. They were just sending in claims from anywhere and, um, and $30 billion went out. So, so look, I mean, that's the kind of incompetence and corruption that we have in California.
- DFDavid Friedberg
So Sacks, your point is that because it's a single-party state where the state, uh, where the Democrats have super majority in the assembly and obviously have the, the governorship, that the only mechanism for the minority, the Republican Party, is to kind of run recall, uh-
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Not even, not the Republicans.
- DSDavid Sacks
Not even, not even the Republicans.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Just, just us as citizens. I mean, look.
- DFDavid Friedberg
Yeah.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Let, let, let's remember how the, um, how the recall and the ballot initiative came to be, uh, that process. It actually came from progressives early in the 20th century who said, "We need the people to have some direct democracy because special interests might usurp the, uh, the, the, the electoral process and-"
- DFDavid Friedberg
Right.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
... and, and get control over all these elected representatives." And frankly, that's exactly what's happened in the state of California. But the people who, you know, have that power are progressives, and so they want to amend or abolish the, the recall process. But so, so look, I think $300 million once every 20 years to put the fear of God into politicians is not, i- i- is money well spent, in my view, even if this particular recall wasn't close. There are much greater examples of waste, fraud, and abuse that the people complaining about this should be wanting to tackle. And I'll believe them about the $300 million when they complain about the $30 billion. But look, this was a, a total shellacking for supporters of the recall, and I, I do think that whenever you suffer a defeat, I think it's important for you to think about what went wrong. You know? And, and certainly as a supporter of the recall, I think it's worth doing a post-mortem. Um, I think, you know, any political party when it loses needs to do some, some introspection. And...
- JCJason Calacanis
So what went wrong?
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Well, I think a couple of things. Okay, so if you, if you go back to the polls a month ago or so, it was a dead heat. We even had that shock poll that Newsom was down by 10. And then what happened? Well, the Republican Party basically consolidated their support around Larry Elder. Prior to that, you kind of had this amorphous blob of five different candidates who didn't have a lot of name recognition. They were pretty moderate. They were a hard target for, for Newsom to shoot at. Once the Republican Party consolidated around Elder, it provided a very, uh, convenient and rich target for, for, uh, Newsom to shoot at. And so you would have to say that tactically, the Republican Party made a, made a mistake there. Now, I understand why they did it. I mean, Elder is smart. He's charismatic. Um, he appeals to that base. Uh, but he's not the moderate candidate that, like, a Schwarzenegger was or that I, you know, Chamath, I wanted you to run. And so Falconer was sort of that candidate. And so you kind of had a choice on the Republican side between a moderate candidate who wasn't very charismatic, which was Falconer, and a very charismatic candidate who wasn't moderate. And it really played into Newsom's hands. And he was then able to nationalize the election in, in the wake of that. So he branded, I think somewhat unfairly, he branded Elder as a, as a Trumper, and he ran against Trumpism and even Biden came to California to denounce Elder as a Trump clone, which look, there's a lot of things you may not like about Larry Elder. I don't think it's fair to call him a Trump clone, but that's what they did. And so they demonized him, and so if you look at the issues that Newsom ran on, they were all...... national issues. He was com- you know, talking about what was happening in Texas with abortion, uh, and he, he, and he talked about COVID. We should come back to that one because I think it, that is a state issue too. We should talk about it. But he started talking about issues that were really more national issues. He, and, and so the, the recall moved away from the issues that had galvanized supporters in the poll just one, polls just one month ago, which were homelessness, crime, schools, and, uh, school closures and lockdowns. And Newsom was able to very effectively change the subject.
- JCJason Calacanis
Well, he got everybody back to school, right? If people didn't go back to school, could have been a different result, maybe?
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Oh, I, I think the recall was very helpful in that, in, in that. I mean, if you remember...
- DFDavid Friedberg
Do you think policy has shifted because of the recall, Sax, at this point and doesn't that ultimately kind of benefit the issues you were most kind of concerned about?
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Look, the 300 million was worth it just to get businesses open-
- DFDavid Friedberg
Right.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
... and just to send a message to the, the education unions that they could not keep schools closed for another year. I, you know, if you look at when Newsom relaxed the lockdowns, it was at every (laughs) step of the recall process when, when the recall finally got enough signatures to get put over the top, he all of a sudden started liberalizing the lockdowns. He knew they were very unpopular and he gave up on that issue, and he got the education unions to stand down on the issue of school reopenings, I think because he was facing this recall. So look, I think the, the recall was worth it just, just for that, but, um...
- DFDavid Friedberg
Do you think things could have been different if there was a fringe candidate, like, I don't know, a, a Sri Lankan billionaire, maybe-
- DSDavid Sacks
(laughs)
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
... uh, that was, you know, um, not kind of this, this hardened Republican that they could kind of charge and target against? Yes, yes.
- 33:59 – 42:42
Facebook's week from hell, Instagram's harmful impact on teen girls
- DSDavid Sacks
Speaking of instincts, uh, you wanna go to the, uh, This Week in Facebook's dumpster fire?
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
(laughs) Sure.
- JCJason Calacanis
Sure. (laughs) Uh, so, I, I mean, where to begin? Uh, this all started, um, on Tuesday-
- DSDavid Sacks
Started in 2016 at the-
- JCJason Calacanis
Well, of course.
- DSDavid Sacks
... Stanford Graduate School of Business.
- JCJason Calacanis
Okay. Well, we'll get to your victory lap in a moment. But just to cue up, this past week, on Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal reported that Facebook conducted in-depth research on the impacts of Instagram on children's mental health from 2018 to 2020, but they never made the research public nor did they make it available to academics or lawmakers who requested it. Uh, you will remember that, uh, last year, uh, or earlier this year, Facebook started floating the idea of Instagram for kids. Uh, so in addition to having this research, which they didn't share, and here is the slide from a presentation, it seems like The Wall Street Journal has, uh, somebody inside of Facebook giving them everything, literally. But here is the quote, uh, from presentation slides from 2019, internal Facebook presentation slides. "We make body image issues worse for one in three teen girls. Teens blame Instagram for increases in the rate of anxiety, uh, and depression." Uh, this reaction was unprompted and consistent across all groups according to The Wall Street Journal. Uh, and, uh, Instagram obviously is a juggernaut, over a billion monthly active users, and over 40% of them are under the age of 22.
- DSDavid Sacks
This is a really interesting issue because we are... this is probably the first example of a broad-based public policy public health issue that tech has created, not necessarily amplified, right, or exacerbated, but actually created, and now we're gonna have to deal with this. I... before I, I wanna give you guys-
- JCJason Calacanis
That issue is? Well, how would you define that issue?
- DSDavid Sacks
Well, I think it is a public health issue if you have-
- JCJason Calacanis
Mental illness in children.
- DSDavid Sacks
... a large percentage of a cohort of our population, uh, (dog barking) subject to mental health issues and eating disorders. That's not a good place to be, right? (dog barking) I don't think that's what we want as a healthy society, (dog barking) in a healthy society. Our daughters and... it's probably, by the way, it's probably n- more than just our daughters, it's probably our sons and daughters that are going through these issues. The question is, uh, now about, you know, is it really a public health issue? If you know about it, what responsibility do you have to do something? And before I opine, I just wanna give you guys, uh, a little bit of data and just get your reaction. I actually wanna go back to what's called the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement. And the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement was entered in November of 1998.... originally between the four largest US tobacco companies, Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds, Brown and Williamson, and Lorillard, okay, and the attorney generals of 46 states. And essentially, it was an agreement that basically said, "Okay. We're gonna net all these Medicaid lawsuits together, we're gonna hold these folks responsible for the downstream implications of the product that they've been selling our kids, and our, you know, adults population without the proper disclosures," et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. The pre- the- the- what happened before this tobacco MSA and big tobacco though was there was about eight or 900 private claims that were filed from the mid '50s all the way to the mid-nineteen... Uh, David knows all this because he- he made a movie about this. The reason why I think this is interesting is that, whether it happens in the United States or someplace else, when I read that article, my immediate thought went to the tobacco MSA 'cause I was like, "Well, okay, there's a public health issue that may or may not have been-
- JCJason Calacanis
And a cover-up.
- DSDavid Sacks
... covered up here."
- JCJason Calacanis
You know, it's definitely a cover-up.
- DSDavid Sacks
That may or may not have been covered up. There could be criminal liability, there's probably civil liability. If you're, you know, a mother or father who's lost their kid to an eating disorder or to depression-
- JCJason Calacanis
Suicide.
- DSDavid Sacks
... anxiety, bullying-
- JCJason Calacanis
Suicide.
- DSDavid Sacks
A- and I think, like, f- I think the article in the Wall Street Journal yesterday was about, like, human trafficking. I mean, these are some-
- JCJason Calacanis
Gnarly.
- DSDavid Sacks
... horribly complicated, gnarly issues. To me, that's how I can edit the dots, so I- I just love to hear your thoughts.
- JCJason Calacanis
Well, I mean, who's the Jeffrey Wigand in this case? I mean, this is literally the movie The Insider, like, somebody's leaking these documents out and- and that-
- DSDavid Sacks
There's a deep throat inside of Facebook, yeah.
- JCJason Calacanis
Well, yeah, and- and that's what the Brown and Williamson was really about is that somebody had the studies from the '70s of when, correct me if I'm wrong, David, when the tobacco industry knew and did nothing and covered it up, and then they had the whistleblower. So do you feel this is exactly analogous, Sax? Or how close to analogous? Are we taking too big of a jump here?
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Well, th- this- this idea that social media is as bad for you as cigarettes has been around for several years now, and I've always wondered whether that was a hyperbolic claim. I mean, i- can it really be the case that using Facebook is as bad for you as lighting something on fire and sucking its carbonized ash into your lungs? I mean, I just, I, you know, I... Yes, I think there's, like, a kernel of truth here in terms of, yes, it does exacerbate body image issues, but I don't believe that Facebook or social media created those issues. Um, I mean, these issues existed before, and, um, what Facebook does is connect people in a more intense way than they were connected. And so it might intensify some of the social dynamics that already existed, but I don't know that it created them. And if you're gonna blame Facebook for this, there's a lot of other places you could blame too. I mean, why don't we be... Why don't we blame the Met Gala, you know? Like, um, you know, look at all those beautiful people-
- JCJason Calacanis
Well, we have had, actually, blame on the fashion industry for making unrealistic body types, and the magazines, and they self-regulate it.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Yeah, my- my- my kids can't wear the full-body stocking to school that Kim Kardashian wore to the Met Gala or whatever, I mean, and they're upset about that, so should we ban the Met Gala? Or, I mean, let's look at all advertising. I mean, all advertising just about focuses on unrealistically beautiful people. And what about TV and movies? I mean, Hollywood tends to cast people who are better-looking, or even the people reading the news off teleprompters. I mean, so this, like, body image and self-esteem issue is everywhere in our society, and I think what social media does, a- as it does in so many of these cases, is really just hold up a mirror to our society. And it's- it's n- a- and yes, there's a lot of bad stuff happening on social media, but that's because there's a lot of bad stuff happening in our society.
- JCJason Calacanis
Well, let me... I, you know, here's one thing-
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Mm-hmm.
- 42:42 – 1:04:46
How to properly regulate social media's impact on certain groups
- DSDavid Sacks
to you.
- DFDavid Friedberg
I guess the question is what's the, what's the, what's the threshold for regulatory intervention? If, um, if someone did this at the scale... Let's say there was a social network that was, had 100,000 users and people were actively using the social network every day, and having body issues or whatever the, you know, the- the consequence claim might be.
- DSDavid Sacks
You're gonna find out.
- DFDavid Friedberg
Then-
- DSDavid Sacks
We're about to find out.
- DFDavid Friedberg
You know, are we gonna end up creating kind of a regulatory framework across all of these things? And I think that this goes also to the point of scale, because, um, at the end of the day, if you end up starting a business and you're not successful, you don't really kind of find yourself in the sort of framing of, "Well, what are you doing wrong?" All of the- the companies that scale, the assumption is they did something wrong in order to get to that scale. You know, Roelof Botha, um, Sax's former colleague and- and obviously famed investor at, now it's Sequoia Capital, um, said that, uh, he always in- he only invests in businesses (laughs) that pursue one of the seven deadly sins, because those are ultimately the things that consumers kind of increment their consumption of. It, there has to be a- a- a seven deadly sin driver, uh, you know, underscoring the success of any business, um, that sells to consumers. And if that is actually true, people aren't making kind of altruistic purchasing and consumption decisions. They're making decisions based on-
- DSDavid Sacks
He- he- he's-
- DFDavid Friedberg
... envy and based on greed and based on gluttony. And all of those drivers, we kind of, you know, are effectively 2:58 kind of related back to these physiological drivers, right? And so like, like... yeah.
- DSDavid Sacks
No, two things can be right. What you said can be right, but I think what also can be right is, are we really willing to bet that now there are not 50 individually ambitious, politically ambitious state AGs licking their chops reading this stuff, wondering how many kids in their state may have suffered from an eating disorder or anxiety and blame it on one of these apps?
- DFDavid Friedberg
Of course they are. Yeah.
- DSDavid Sacks
Are we, are we con- are we convinced that not a single lawsuit will get filed? Are we convinced that there's not gonna be any class action? And by the way, that's just the United States. What is somebody that's sitting around a, you know, around a table of politicians' desks in, you know, Germany, Belgium, uh, France, Thailand, uh, they're gonna find their issue in this treasure trove of content that's being, you know, continuously drip fed out to the public.
- DFDavid Friedberg
I guess my point is that th- this is today's issue. And business success ultimately over time in consumer markets will always ultimately be driven by products that have at scale deleterious effects on the consumer market. And those deleterious effects will be a result of some sort of kind of addictive or negative kind of consequence that arises when folks use these things frequently, and the market figures out how to optimize the utilization of products to increase revenue, to increase profit. And that's what a free market does. And I'm not saying it's right or wrong. I'm just pointing out that there isn't, in my opinion, something unique here. I mean, you know, Coca-Cola is the largest beverage company in the world. They sell 40 grams of sugar in 12 ounces of water, and everyone buys that and they feel great from that, and the sugar creates this addictive problem. Now we've got an obesity epidemic, and I'm not blaming Coca-Cola, but that's the general trend in CPG over the last 50 years. Increasing sugar, increasing salt and-
- DSDavid Sacks
I think the difference-
- DFDavid Friedberg
... the health consequences arise.
- DSDavid Sacks
... the dif- the difference is that this is not sugar, which is a generic compound. This is, for example, no different than when Purdue Pharma started to make fentanyl. It's a really great drug. It has incredibly superior advantages. It's used for a lot of very important things. When that spilled over knowingly to a level of abuse, and I don't think it was a lot of abuse, but there was enough, that essentially was overlooked in the, in the building of a business. It started with state AGs who stepped in, and then it basically ultimately drove a federal agreement, states agreements, a master settlement agreement around fentanyl, and then Purdue essentially disgorging all the profits that they made. So you're right. Free markets should act in however way they're going to act. But when those free market operators themselves are producing data that shows that, "Oh shit, hold on, something could be going wrong here," um, then I do think that politicians will step in, regulators could step in. I mean, what's crazy here is, you know, the FDA could actually act. Like if the FDA is willing to act on JUUL, what is the difference b- if the FDA says they feel like... Let's just assume that somebody in the FDA says, "We feel like we should have a responsibility to think about mental health and eating disorders."
- DFDavid Friedberg
But that's the slippery slope, right? What's the threshold, right? At- at what point do they say, "No, we're not touching this," and at what point do they say, "Yes, we are touching this"? Because at the end of the day, any successful consumer product will have some degree of deleterious effect 2:58.
- DSDavid Sacks
Exactly.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
And- and- and- and- well, this is why we have to have some perspective about it. So in preparation for the segment, I asked my 11-year-old, uh, girl, daughter, um... I know, J Cal, you don't think I talk to my kids, but actually-
- DFDavid Friedberg
(laughs)
- DSDavid Sacks
(laughs)
- DFDavid Friedberg
I- I made no joke.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
(laughing)
- DSDavid Sacks
(laughing)
- DFDavid Friedberg
I made jo- no joke. I was thinking of three or four fun things that you said- Did she ask you if you were the FedEx guy? (laughs)
- DSDavid Sacks
She was like, "Who are you?" (laughs) "Why are you in my room?"
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Gosh.
- DSDavid Sacks
Security.
- DFDavid Friedberg
Security. (laughs)
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
(laughing) So the first thing she said is, "Who are you?" And the second th- and after I said, "I'm your dad." And then the second thing she said is-
- DSDavid Sacks
(laughs)
- 1:04:46 – 1:07:17
Pentagon admits to killing 10 Afghan civilians (including seven children) in drone strike
- DSDavid Sacks
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
By the way, this thing that just came from the Pentagon is a total Friday news drop. I mean, talk about a Friday news drop.
- JCJason Calacanis
I don't know what- we don't know what you're talking about. So...
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
"US Military acknowledges Kabul drone strike killed 10 civilians, including seven children."
- DSDavid Sacks
Eeh.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
We knew this. They're just confirming something that had been exposed.
- DSDavid Sacks
By the way-
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
The New York Times did excellent reporting on this.
- DSDavid Sacks
Excellent reporting by the New York Times.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Mm-hmm.
- DSDavid Sacks
That was incredible journalism. I mean, did you guys see that? They were, like, watching frame for frame of, like, a video. Then they were, like, going to Google Maps. They were comparing colors of cars. They were looking at sides of buildings. Uh, incredible reporting by the New York Times.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
It was really the, I mean, it's obviously a tragedy. It was the final debacle of our Afghanistan involvement. This was a foreign aid worker who (laughs) actually... He was there as an aid worker, and, um, they s- they had him on video loading up his car with, uh, plastic jugs of water, and somehow they thought these were explosives or something like that. And he was doing his errands, and then he comes home, and they hit the- the car with, you know, a massive, uh, missile from one of these Reaper drones, and it kills him as well as, um, you know, t- it's basically 10 members of his extended family, including seven children. Now, the- I- I mean, I- I- I think I understand why this- well, we don't exactly know why- why this happened, and I think it needs to be investigated. Obviously, the military in Kabul was on high alert because we had just had that bombing at the airport, and it was the bloodiest day for America in Afghanistan. I think we had three- 13 soldiers killed, uh, a few days before this. But- but it just shows the kind of mistakes that we can make even fighting drone warfare. You know, the idea was that-
- JCJason Calacanis
I mean, the term "casualties of war" exists for a reason.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Mm-hmm.
- JCJason Calacanis
Like, this is how war works. You cannot-
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Right.
- JCJason Calacanis
... do it perfectly. It's messy. Everybody- innocent people die. This is why war-
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Right.
- JCJason Calacanis
... is the worst thing in the world-
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
But how did- how did we ever get-
- JCJason Calacanis
... and should be the last resort.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Right. And how did we ever think we were gonna win hearts and minds in this country by, you know... Like, we- we- we made too many mistakes.
- JCJason Calacanis
We talked about this. Like, they're- they're not interested in democracy, like, in the way we want them to be and the West wants them to be. We-
- DSDavid Sacks
By the way, that's fine.
- JCJason Calacanis
And us forcing it down their throats-
- DSDavid Sacks
Yeah.
- JCJason Calacanis
... is not gonna work. We- we- we could have maintained a base there. Th- there were better ways to exit, but, you know.
- DSDavid Sacks
Let's fix the schools in California first.
- JCJason Calacanis
Yeah. I think that's- I think that'll- ultimately, I think people are gonna forget those images of people on planes and just think, "Thank God that's over." I think-... now that there hasn't been 20, you know, and, and hopefully there's not another 9/11. All right, uh, let's wrap
- 1:07:17 – 1:25:54
Ellen Pao on sexism around the Elizabeth Holmes trial; Juicero, JUUL, and other male-led failures/frauds
- JCJason Calacanis
with, um, Ellen Pao wrote a piece for the New York Times, uh, op-ed section, section on, uh, sexism in tech using the Elizabeth Holmes trial as, uh, the main example. Um, she was also on Tech Check CNBC show and discussed her op-ed. Uh, quote, "Holmes should be held accountable for her actions as chief executive of Theranos and it can be sexist to hold her accountable for alleged ver- serious wrongdoing and not hold an array of men accountable for reports of wrongdoing and bad judgment." She uses Travis Kalanick and Adam Neumann as examples of men who have engaged in questionable, unethical, even dangerous behavior in tech without much legal penalty, and that they both went on to start new companies. Her main example however of bias is tech, uh, executive Kevin Burns who is the former CEO of Juul, J-U-U-L, uh, who helped the e-cigarette vaping company raise, uh, $12 billion, but he left Juul amidst, uh, a lot of legal blowback. And just this past week-
- DFDavid Friedberg
With a bunch of, with a bunch of cash.
- JCJason Calacanis
With a bu- yeah. I mean, of course, you get the, you secure the bag on the way out, Adam Neumann too.
- DSDavid Sacks
(laughs)
- JCJason Calacanis
Um, and, uh-
- DSDavid Sacks
Yeah, don't drop the bag.
- JCJason Calacanis
Uh, don't drop the bag.
- DSDavid Sacks
You have one job to do, don't drop the bag.
- JCJason Calacanis
Yes. Run, um, but don't dro- do not drop the bag. So, um-
- DFDavid Friedberg
I mean, she sh- she ment- she mentioned other stories like, uh, Juicero. If you guys remember this company, um, couple years ago they raised-
- JCJason Calacanis
Of course.
- DFDavid Friedberg
... $400 million prelaunched, right? It was a juicer that, you know, was supposed to juice vegetables-
- JCJason Calacanis
I enjoyed my juice from my Juicero.
- DFDavid Friedberg
Yeah, but the claim, the claim that they made was that inside of the packets was like fresh vegetables and this thing squeezed the fresh vegetables and fresh juic- juice came out, and it turns out that the bag was just filled with juice. And so you
- DSDavid Sacks
(laughs)
- JCJason Calacanis
No, no I think the bag was filled with shaved vegetables or whatever, but you could squeeze the bag.
- DFDavid Friedberg
No, no, the point, the point that was-
- JCJason Calacanis
All they did was squeeze the bag.
- DFDavid Friedberg
So that it was already pre-juiced is what, um, you know, uh, Olivia Zalevsky-
- JCJason Calacanis
Ah. (laughs)
- DFDavid Friedberg
... who is now, uh, Olivia Peterson-
- DSDavid Sacks
(laughs) Juiced.
- DFDavid Friedberg
It was, uh, she basically put, they, she, she, she kinda made a whole video-
- DSDavid Sacks
(laughs)
- DFDavid Friedberg
... and put it, put it on Bloomberg, they had juice in these packets and they were telling people what they thought were like-
- JCJason Calacanis
Fresh juice.
- DFDavid Friedberg
... fresh, you know like, yeah. (laughs) So they could have opened the jar-
- JCJason Calacanis
Are you telling me... Sorry, sorry, sorry.
- DFDavid Friedberg
... or they could have put it into a machine and paid $7.00. Yeah.
- DSDavid Sacks
They squeezed the juice then took that juice-
Episode duration: 1:35:29
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