E56: Constitution DAO, Rittenhouse trial coverage, private sector efficiency vs the government

1. 0:00 – 1:14

   Bestie intro

   1. JCJason Calacanis0:00

      It was very interesting going to Sacks's kids' birthday party. Um, Friedberg and I were there for about two or three hours. Sacks showed up for the last half hour.

   2. DSDavid Sacks0:09

      (laughs) I think I was there for- I, I think I was there for two hours and didn't see Sacks and then I saw him on my way out the door.

   3. JCJason Calacanis0:14

      But he had some YouTubers there who were pretty cool.

   4. CPChamath Palihapitiya0:16

      Yeah, Papa Jake and Logan, thank you.

   5. JCJason Calacanis0:18

      Papa Jake was great.

   6. CPChamath Palihapitiya0:20

      Yeah. You know they have seven million followers on YouTube. Eat your heart out, J-Cal.

   7. JCJason Calacanis0:24

      (laughs)

   8. CPChamath Palihapitiya0:25

      How many times bigger are- is Papa Jake than you?

   9. JCJason Calacanis0:27

      Business and podcasting on YouTube is a new concept, uh, long form. And long form is not what the algorithm's designed for. It's obviously designed for short form and people getting to completion, so getting to completion on a 90-minute video-

   10. DSDavid Sacks0:42

       Are we talking about lovemaking again? Sorry, what?

   11. JCJason Calacanis0:43

       Oh, God.

   12. CPChamath Palihapitiya0:45

       (laughs)

   13. JCJason Calacanis0:45

       Jesus. When I say completion, I- it's not...

   14. DSDavid Sacks0:48

       (laughs) .

   15. JCJason Calacanis0:48

       We need an HR department at All In. (laughs)

   16. CPChamath Palihapitiya0:50

       Yeah, I pre- I prefer the short form format for that too.

   17. DFDavid Friedberg0:55

       (upbeat music) Let your winners ride.

   18. JCJason Calacanis1:02

       Oh, yeah.

   19. CPChamath Palihapitiya1:02

       Rain Man, David Sacks.

   20. DFDavid Friedberg1:04

       I'm going all in.

   21. CPChamath Palihapitiya1:06

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

   22. DSDavid Sacks1:10

       Love you, What's his... Queen of Quinoa.

   23. DFDavid Friedberg1:12

       I'm going all in.

2. 1:14 – 29:58

   Constitution DAO: implications, shortcomings, how to move forward?

   1. DFDavid Friedberg1:14

   2. JCJason Calacanis1:14

      Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the All In podcast. It's episode 56. We've made it past 55. The show, the band is still together, coming to you every Friday night, far too late, because the Rain Man obsesses over every edit in the podcast. With us again, the All In Scorsese himself, David Rain Man Sacks. And the Queen of Quinoa, the Sultan of Science, David Friedberg is here. And with a power sweater that cost more-

   3. DSDavid Sacks1:47

      No, turtleneck. Turtleneck.

   4. JCJason Calacanis1:48

      I'm sorry, a, a, a power turtleneck that cost more than your mortgage payment this month, the dictator himself, Chamath Palihapitiya. I'm J-Cal. It was a pretty incredible week. I think we have to pander to the cryptocurrency crowd, because that's just making ratings go through the roof here. I am absolutely inspired by what we saw this week with the ConstitutionDAO forming in about a week and going from one or two million to $46 million raised through a DAO. If you don't know what these decentralized autonomous organizations are, it's basically analogous to a, a corporate structure, but that's written in code. So you can get a group of people together, typically in a Discord, then you create a smart contract, they collect in a wallet a bunch of ETH, or it's typically ETH right now, and then you get some kind of governance written into the DAO where people get voting power. They brought this together to bid on one of 13 copies of the original Constitution of the United States. And it was a very controversial moment last night when 80% of the money was raised in the last 48 hours and there was this crazy auction going back and forth with two representatives of Sotheby's on the phone. It hit $41 million. Everybody thought that the DAO had won, which would have mean- would have meant that almost 20,000 people who participated in this would then vote on what to do with this $41 million offer. CoinDesk incorrectly, uh, reported that the DAO won, and then the DAO, uh, announced that they had in fact not. Some other statistics, uh, their Twitter has 36,000 followers. The group reported they needed 14 million to participate, 30 million to be competitive, and 40 million to have a great chance of winning. They raised like, I think six or seven million while they were on the air, you know, and the auction had started. And the only, uh, downside to all of this is that there were huge gas fees. Uh, people were spending 30, 40, 50 bucks to donate 200, which was the average size of these.

   5. CPChamath Palihapitiya4:00

      Yeah, they should have done it on Solana.

   6. JCJason Calacanis4:02

      All right, so here we go-

   7. CPChamath Palihapitiya4:03

      (laughs)

   8. JCJason Calacanis4:03

      ... talking our own book again now. We got, somebody's going to clip this out. (laughs) The Solana, his Solana books are done here we go.

   9. CPChamath Palihapitiya4:10

      Oh, that's hard on your-

   10. DSDavid Sacks4:10

       Jimoth, what are you gonna do with your copy of the Constitution? You know what's so funny? I, I-

   11. JCJason Calacanis4:14

       What, are you gonna-

   12. DSDavid Sacks4:14

       I- When are you going to auction it back to the DAO?

   13. CPChamath Palihapitiya4:15

       When are you gonna burn it and make an NFT out of it?

   14. DSDavid Sacks4:18

       So it's, it's funny. Uh, I did buy something at these auctions, uh-

   15. CPChamath Palihapitiya4:24

       Yesterday's?

   16. DSDavid Sacks4:25

       Quite unique. Uh, I will, I will not comment on what it was. But-

   17. CPChamath Palihapitiya4:28

       Was it that turtleneck?

   18. DSDavid Sacks4:30

       No, but uh- Banksy.

   19. JCJason Calacanis4:33

       Oh-oh. Oh-oh.

   20. DSDavid Sacks4:33

       Banksy.

   21. CPChamath Palihapitiya4:34

       Somebody got a Banksy.

   22. DSDavid Sacks4:34

       No, no. I, I didn't... No, no, no, no, no, no.

   23. JCJason Calacanis4:37

       (laughs)

   24. DSDavid Sacks4:37

       But, uh, I, I did, so but I, I watch these auctions closely, I guess, is what I'm trying to say. And I was surprised that the US Constitution for sold so little. You know, for a, a basically like the Magna Carta of the best startup that's ever been created.

   25. CPChamath Palihapitiya4:51

       Well, but there's 13 of them, right? So on a market cap basis, on a market cap basis, you gotta multiply by 13.

   26. DSDavid Sacks4:57

       Yeah, great. 13 times 40 is still nothing. It wasn't one of the originals. It was the printing after the original was signed. We have a 20... We've created a $22 trillion a year startup that keeps compounding by 4 to 5% a year. I would have thought these things would be worth, you know, a couple hundred million each.

   27. CPChamath Palihapitiya5:12

       Well, there's a lot of, there's a lot of US memorabilia, but yeah, I mean... But what I don't understand is

   28. DSDavid Sacks5:16

       It means the US Constitution, David, is not as, is not worth as much as it used to be. That's the thing.

   29. CPChamath Palihapitiya5:21

       Well, you know, you got other, you got, you got the Declaration-

   30. DSDavid Sacks5:23

       Or the original would sell.
3. 29:58 – 50:52

   Rittenhouse trial media coverage

   1. JCJason Calacanis29:58

      Kyle Rittenhouse found not guilty of all charges. (laughs) A 12-person jury in the Kyle Rittenhouse trial reached the decision, uh, after over 26 hours of deliberation,He shot three people. Uh, he killed two of them and he was found not guilty. He was 17 at the time of the shooting. He was charged with killing the two men and a third, uh, during the protests in, uh, Kenosha, Wisconsin in August of 2020. This was during the protests, uh, over the police shooting of Jacob Blake. He claims he traveled from Illinois with an AR S- 15 style rifle to help protect-

   2. CPChamath Palihapitiya30:32

      No, that's incorrect. That's incorrect.

   3. JCJason Calacanis30:32

      ... businesses and provide first aid. He, he didn't?

   4. CPChamath Palihapitiya30:36

      He did not cross state lines-

   5. JCJason Calacanis30:37

      So his mom dropped him off.

   6. CPChamath Palihapitiya30:37

      He did not cross state lines with the rifle. That's one of the many inaccuracies that have been reported by the media over and over again.

   7. JCJason Calacanis30:44

      'Cause his dad lived there, I guess. He was in-

   8. CPChamath Palihapitiya30:46

      His dad lived in Kenosha. I think he went to school in Kenosha. He worked in Kenosha. You gotta understand, like, this is... they're a few minutes apart, where, from his mother's house-

   9. JCJason Calacanis30:54

      Okay, fine, yeah.

   10. CPChamath Palihapitiya30:55

       And the gun... and he never, he never carried the gun across state lines. The gun was bought for him by a friend who was 18 who could possess it, and it was kept at his house, which is in Kenosha.

   11. JCJason Calacanis31:05

       Got it.

   12. CPChamath Palihapitiya31:05

       He was apparently in Kenosha earlier that day, um, and... you know, cleaning up graffiti at the school and checking out the downtown. And then, you know, obviously when he went out that night, then he got the gun, but he didn't transport it across state lines. So that wa- that's, I think, one of the multiple inaccuracies.

   13. JCJason Calacanis31:21

       What do you think is your- what is your most important insight into this case and what it represents for American society and, uh, the justice system, Sax?

   14. CPChamath Palihapitiya31:32

       Well, I think this... the case has become a little bit of a Rorschach test of how you see America. I mean, there's clearly, uh, a, a group of people in the, I'd say, the ma- dominating the mainstream media, and now it's percolated down to celebrities and figures from LeBron James to, to, um... I'm, I'm spacing, but there's a lot of, like, celebrities who've, who've come out, putting forward this view that America... that this trial somehow is, um... that, that, that Kyle Rittenhouse is a white supremacist and that this not guilty verdict is an example of white supremacy in America. Somehow that became the narrative. And, um, so that... I think it's become... I, I think there's, like, a couple levels to it. One is the trial itself and what you think about the legal case. I don't think that is that complicated or interesting. You have here that the state was required to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Rittenhouse did not act reasonably in self-defense when three violent attackers came charging towards him. That was, I think, a pretty tough case to make, given that these other-

   15. JCJason Calacanis32:33

       One of them had a gun pulled too. I mean, this was-

   16. CPChamath Palihapitiya32:35

       Right.

   17. JCJason Calacanis32:35

       ... you know.

   18. CPChamath Palihapitiya32:36

       And so all of them had long criminal histories. The first one who t- attacked him was daring him to... wa- t- said that he was gonna kill Rittenhouse. The second one was bashing him o- over the head with a skateboard. The third one was rushing towards him when Rittenhouse was on the ground, had a gun trained on him, looked like he was gonna bring it to his head, kind of execution style. I mean, all these, I think, cases, if you saw the video from, I mean, from the first time, it seemed pretty clear that he had a strong claim of self-defense. So, I don't think the case itself was that legally interesting. The question is why it got blown up into being this, like, huge thing. And it's really because the media wanted this so badly to be... to feed into this narrative of somehow that this is, you know, a white supremacist violent attacker who was a vigilante who crossed state lines with this AR 15 to go seek out trouble, um, to confront people at the protest. And, you know, that case, that, that narrative just completely fell apart at the trial. You know, it, it's... he, he didn't cross state lines for the... you know, in that way. He didn't, you know, with the gun. When he went to this protest, he went there... I- it's interesting. I mean, he was a cadet, an EMT cadet. He was kind of in this, like, junior firefighter program. I'm not saying that he showed good judgment. I think it was poor judgment for him to try and insert himself into that situation, but I don't think he went there to kill anyone or to get into a confrontation. He brought a first aid kit for... you know, for better or worse, he thought he was gonna help people. And so, any event, the, the, the story really is about the media constructing this narrative that fell apart so quickly as soon as all the facts came out.

   19. JCJason Calacanis34:21

       Freeburg, Jamaal?

   20. DSDavid Sacks34:22

       Yeah, I think the... I read that there was, um, an analysis of the media and how they tried to portray this and that, I think I'll build on what David said, which is... was really concerning, like, the... there was... they really wanted this to be a white kid who killed Black people during a BLM protest, which was, as it turned out, the furthest from the truth. I'll just tell you my experience. When I first saw it, that's what I thought I had read. And I'll be really honest with you. Initially, I was incredibly biased and my... I had a violent reaction inside me t- of anger towards this kid, because my thought was, "My God, this white kid showed up at a Black Lives Matter rally and killed, you know, three of m- of, of my brothers." You know, like, literally, that's how I'm feeling. I was so angry because they didn't really give the facts. There was an example where, in Germany, it got so out of hand that the articles were written that Kyle Rittenhouse had actually killed three Black men, or two Black men, and, and... and I think that that's very dangerous because we need to have the truth and the facts so we can really figure out what's going on so that we can address what's broken, we can hold people accountable, and then we can move forward together and heal it. But this, like, is the opposite of healing. It just froths people up to make a lot of judgments with misinformation, and I think that that's very unfair. I didn't... to be honest with you, after I saw the facts, I stopped paying attention to this case because I literally exhaled. I would have been much more hurt and I would have probably paid more attention if this wasn't white on white violence, quite honestly.

   21. CPChamath Palihapitiya36:11

       Right, right. And then, and then I think people... I think e- we've heard from a lot of people over... W- when Rittenhouse's testimony kind of went viral and started getting reported on, there were a lot of people out there who were surprised to learn that all the victims were white, that this was an example of white-on-white violence, because it had been portrayed by the media as some sort of racial episode, and, um, and it wasn't. And it, it shows how the media is fueling this polarization and rage in our society by concocting these narratives which aren't true.

   22. DSDavid Sacks36:41

       It's really... That, that, I think, is the dangerous thing. I don't, I didn't follow the case to know whether this kid was right or wrong, but I do think if the media uses these opportunities to not just tell the facts and then race-baits people on both of the left and the right and gets them frothed up, they're doing a real disservice to America, because I think it takes good people and it puts them in a state, like me for a while at the beginning, where I'm, I was really angry and I didn't know how I felt. And that's... And I'm a lucid person, you know, 99.999% of the time, so-

   23. JCJason Calacanis37:16

       You're thoughtful, yeah.

   24. DSDavid Sacks37:17

       And so it just goes to show you how dangerous this stuff is when they can take a narrative and run with it, and then there's no accountability for it. Um, and we really have to stop and, and check ourselves. It just speaks to this ongoing fact pattern where the media is at a, is at a point where they are at a very much low point in their trustworthiness. Their ability to fact-check, their ability to stick to the truth, um, I think it's been undone. Just this past week, you know, I think Elon even tweeted out, like... You know, he, in exasperation, he said, "Where can I find, like, thoughtful news?" Right? He was asking Twitter, like, (laughs) "What, what websites..." And, and the, the, the question wasn't that bad, but if you read the answers, it was really sad. Nobody had a good answer. You know, one person was like, "Oh, there's a browser extension that will show you how, you know, how much lying is happening inside the article." And I thought to myself, "Oh, my God, like, there are browser extensions, like a lie-ometer." You know, like, this is insanity that, that in 2021, that's what we are faced with, which is very smart people, all of us, everybody listening, normal people just, you know, out on the street, we can all come to the right conclusion when given the facts, and we're not given the facts anymore.

   25. CPChamath Palihapitiya38:35

       Jay Kalb, do you think we're missing something here? Because, um, you, you... I know you th- you thought this whole, uh, Rittenhouse thing was crazy, right? Which it was, but are we missing something here with you?

   26. JCJason Calacanis38:47

       Well, I mean, I think, uh... First off, violent protests and violence is immoral. And all of these protests, whether it's BLM, on the left, on the right, they should all be non-violent. There's a reason why Martin Luther King and Gandhi, you know, said, "That's the rules. If you wanna come to the protest, you have to be non-violent." And then I think the rhetoric that was created during the Trump era, um, and that he exacerbated and that he caused, uh, from a lot of his policies and the way he spoke as the leader of the free world and our country, then polarized things. I blame him for a lot of that. And if you put a bunch of people who are on the far extremes into a situation like this, uh, and then you insert guns and you insert young people who have not developed their frontal lobes, who do not have long-term thinking, which a 17-year-old does not. Your long-term... And Freeburg will back me th- up on this in terms of science. Long-term thinking is something that develops in humans into their early 20s. And so young people with guns in a violent situation, with Trump on TV during this time, both good people on both sides, whatever, you know, the borders, all that stuff that he was stirring the pot on, all of that eventually resolves to somebody's gonna get killed, whether it's on January 6th or it's a BLM protest. And that is why he had such a failure of leadership, why he was so disgusting and horrible and loathsome, because he was taking all of this heat and rhetoric up, up, up. And the person who winds up suffering in this are these stupid kids and their really dumb parents and mother who allow them to go to a protest, and she could have stopped him with a gun. Somebody needs to stop these kids from going to a protest with a gun. And I think there's a very difficult question here that can be asked. And it, it probably is true, I think, that it was an open-and-shut case, David, that the... I mean, I saw the video as well, Chamath. The e- the guy puts a gun on him. W- what are you gonna do? You've got a gun. This guy's pointing a gun at you. Whoever fires first survives. It is self-defense, and that's kind of undeniable, uh, uh, I think. But if he had done that, it-

   27. DSDavid Sacks40:44

       I would hope, I would hope that the number of people that really focus on this case, look at the enumerable number of cases of Black and Brown people that have been killed. The Ahmaud Arbery trial is going on right now.

   28. JCJason Calacanis40:54

       Yes.

   29. DSDavid Sacks40:54

       I'm sorry, but I've seen one article in Ahmaud Arbery for every 50 about Kyle Rittenhouse.

   30. JCJason Calacanis40:59

       Yeah.
4. 50:52 – 1:07:08

   Ken Griffin plays heel (again), private sector efficiency vs. government inefficiency

   1. CPChamath Palihapitiya50:52

   2. DFDavid Friedberg50:52

      Breaking news. Citadel CEO Ken Griffin outbid a group of crypto investors for a copy of the US Constitution-

   3. CPChamath Palihapitiya50:59

      (laughs)

   4. DFDavid Friedberg50:59

      ... according to The Wall Street Journal, so-

   5. DSDavid Sacks51:00

      I mean-

   6. CPChamath Palihapitiya51:00

      Oh my God.

   7. DFDavid Friedberg51:01

      ... we knew somebody was trolling for crypto. (laughs)

   8. CPChamath Palihapitiya51:03

      He was a villain, he was a villain before this, but now, remember from payment for order flow?

   9. DSDavid Sacks51:06

      My God, exactly.

   10. CPChamath Palihapitiya51:06

       I mean, he was the central villain basically in that whole Robinhood fiasco for payment for order flow. And now he outbid the crypto crowd. He is gonna be enemy number one.

   11. DSDavid Sacks51:16

       Basically, there is no more sophisticated market participant than Ken Griffin-

   12. CPChamath Palihapitiya51:20

       (laughs)

   13. DSDavid Sacks51:20

       ... and on a silver platter, this group of people unfortunately showed-

   14. DFDavid Friedberg51:24

       Told him what they're gonna bid.

   15. DSDavid Sacks51:25

       ... showed them their strategy and showed them exactly how to become the under bidder.

   16. DFDavid Friedberg51:29

       He priced it right- He, you know what, you know what-

   17. DSDavid Sacks51:29

       ... he did the prices right. He put $1 on top of their bid.

   18. DFDavid Friedberg51:31

       You know what Ken Griffin knows? Ken Griffin knows that now this is an object of interest that people are basically willing to pay anything for. Bingo. He's gonna buy it now, and in one year he'll sell it- Flip. ... for twice as much. It's a valuable asset. But by the way-

   19. DSDavid Sacks51:43

       Let it flip.

   20. DFDavid Friedberg51:43

       ... I wanna make a point on this.

   21. DSDavid Sacks51:44

       I disagree, by the way. He's a, he's a buyer, he is not a seller.

   22. DFDavid Friedberg51:47

       He's gonna hold. Okay. But, look, markets don't work with this much transparency. Markets only work when people have different information than other people that are participating in the market. If everyone knew every-

   23. DSDavid Sacks51:58

       No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

   24. DFDavid Friedberg51:59

       If everyone knew everything-

   25. DSDavid Sacks52:00

       Same data-

   26. DFDavid Friedberg52:00

       ... that everyone else was gonna do...

   27. DSDavid Sacks52:02

       No.

   28. DFDavid Friedberg52:02

       Same data, but if everyone knew what everyone else-

   29. DSDavid Sacks52:04

       Same data, different opinions.

   30. DFDavid Friedberg52:04

       Different opinions. But if everyone knew everyone else's opinion on what something is worth, the market doesn't work. And that's the problem they have here.
5. 1:07:08 – 1:09:15

   Pete Davidson's pull, Sacks' taste in music, wrap

   1. JCJason Calacanis1:07:08

   2. DSDavid Sacks1:07:08

      Pete Davidson is now dating Kim Kardashian-

   3. DFDavid Friedberg1:07:11

      How jealous are you, Chamath?

   4. DSDavid Sacks1:07:13

      I'm not jealous, but-

   5. DFDavid Friedberg1:07:14

      What are you talking about? He's been a great wife- a great-

   6. DSDavid Sacks1:07:16

      I am- I am shocked that Pete Davidson has dated some of the most incredibly famous popular women in the world.

   7. DFDavid Friedberg1:07:23

      Oh, so you aren't jealous? Okay. (laughs)

   8. DSDavid Sacks1:07:25

      Well, I'm a little curious.

   9. DFDavid Friedberg1:07:27

      That's why I'm not jealous. (laughs)

   10. DSDavid Sacks1:07:27

       I gotta say, I'm a little curious. I mean, if you put a picture of Pete Da- I mean, there's gotta be something happening there. Let's just put it out there.

   11. CPChamath Palihapitiya1:07:32

       You've got the kavorka. You've got the kavorka.

   12. DFDavid Friedberg1:07:34

       I'm gonna send you a link to an article. There's an article-

   13. DSDavid Sacks1:07:36

       I don't know what a kavorka is. I'm Googling.

   14. CPChamath Palihapitiya1:07:37

       You don't remember that from Seinfeld? Where, um, Kramer was like, you know, dating all these beautiful women? And it's 'cause he explained he had the kavorka.

   15. DSDavid Sacks1:07:44

       He's got a better finishing move, yeah.

   16. DFDavid Friedberg1:07:46

       This is an article that went viral this week. Emily Ratajkowski, how do you pronounce her name?

   17. DSDavid Sacks1:07:50

       Yeah.

   18. DFDavid Friedberg1:07:51

       Breaks down- breaks down why women find Pete Davidson so attractive. And so, this was like, you know, I saw it all over Twitter this week, but it was all about, you know, the- the claim.

   19. DSDavid Sacks1:07:59

       And- and what is the answer? Just give me the headlines.

   20. DFDavid Friedberg1:08:02

       I don't know. It's something... Uh, he's got, uh, super charming, he's vulnerable, he's lovely, his fingernail polish is awesome. He looks good, he has a good relationship with his mom. I mean, I just think he comes across as a good guy, might be the appeal. Um, but you just need to do the summary yourself.

   21. DSDavid Sacks1:08:18

       Also, they wanna take care of him, I think, because he's got like, his dad died-

   22. DFDavid Friedberg1:08:21

       I think you guys are missing a more subtle, non-obvious point. (laughs)

   23. CPChamath Palihapitiya1:08:24

       (laughs)

   24. DSDavid Sacks1:08:24

       Well, I don't know what you're talking about, Chamath. (laughs) You- you explain. Maybe you could expand on your thesis.

   25. CPChamath Palihapitiya1:08:31

       I'm just guessing.

   26. DFDavid Friedberg1:08:31

       It's a family- it's a family show, Chamath. It's a family show.

   27. DSDavid Sacks1:08:34

       Oh, my God.

   28. DFDavid Friedberg1:08:34

       Yeah. Uh, no, I think they wanna take care of him. That's what I heard from a spec- a woman said.

   29. DSDavid Sacks1:08:39

       Good for Pete Davidson.

   30. DFDavid Friedberg1:08:39

       They wanna like, work on him and take care of him.

Episode duration: 1:15:41