All-In PodcastE60: The 2021 Bestie Awards PLUS Jack Dorsey starts the Web3 Wars
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,034 words- 0:00 – 5:10
Catching up on the Web3 wars and Jack Dorsey sounding off
- JCJason Calacanis
Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the All-In Podcast and it is our year end episode. It is our 2021 Bestie Awards. This is where we give our awards for the best and worst of what happened in 2021. We did it last year, kinda half-heartedly, but this year hopefully we put a little bit more work into it. With me again, of course, David Friedberg, uh, the sultan of science, the rain man, David Sacks, and sweater Jesus, Chamath Palihapitiya. How's everybody doing? We're ready to go. Did anybody do their homework?
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Oh my God. We are nine away from episode-
- JCJason Calacanis
(laughs)
- DFDavid Friedberg
(laughs)
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
... 69.
- JCJason Calacanis
And?
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Where we will have a special guest.
- JCJason Calacanis
A special guest, who I've given the choice of coming on episode 69 or 420.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
No, no, no. He has to do 69.
- JCJason Calacanis
Or both.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
He can't do 420. He can do both.
- JCJason Calacanis
Or he can do both.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
He can do whatever he wants.
- JCJason Calacanis
(laughs) The guy basically could do no wrong.
- DFDavid Friedberg
Is he committed?
- DSDavid Sacks
I got Jack. Can we get Jack on?
- DFDavid Friedberg
Don't talk about that.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
If you stop, if you stop grinding Jack, yeah.
- JCJason Calacanis
Yeah, maybe if you stop dunking on Jack for no reason, you insufferable Sacks.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Seriously, you insufferable-
- JCJason Calacanis
It's bad enough that, like-
- DSDavid Sacks
(laughs)
- JCJason Calacanis
... I've alienated potential guests, Chamath alienated pasts. Now you're getting in on alienating the guests?
- DFDavid Friedberg
Do you think it would be too much-
- DSDavid Sacks
(laughs)
- DFDavid Friedberg
... to have Jack and Chris Dixon on together?
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Who?
- DSDavid Sacks
(laughs)
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Who? (laughs) Sorry.
- JCJason Calacanis
Oh my God, that is so gross. (laughs)
- 5:10 – 9:43
Biggest Winner - Politics
- JCJason Calacanis
biggest winner in politics. A very difficult decision here. Sacks, biggest winner in politics, who do you got?
- DSDavid Sacks
I got Eric Adams, the new m- uh, mayor of New York City. He was a huge underdog candidate. Th- he won by not being woke. He rejected the, you know, woke sensibilities of the other Democratic candidates. He is a former cop who still packs a gun and he made his issues, um, supporting the police, public safety, um, charter schools, you know, as an instrument of minority advancement, and he even pushed to make New York City a tech and crypto hub. He is gonna reverse the damage done under de Blasio. He won four or five boroughs in the Democratic primary and overwhelmingly carried Black and Latino precincts. If the Democratic Party has a future after the rejection of woke, it is Eric Adams.
- JCJason Calacanis
Okay. Friedberg, who you got?
- DFDavid Friedberg
Okay, mine's a little, um, esoteric, but my biggest winner for politics this year-... is the blockchain. And I'll tell you why. I think that the, um, embracing the blockchain as a technology that enables an evolution away from what folks consider to be, um, you know, centralized control systems and ultimately, uh, underscores the interest of the populous notion that's sweeping over the United States is very strong. And I think it's waking up politicians, and it's gonna wake up the political class to the fact that this system of organizing social, economic, and political action may ultimately evolve us away from the systems that we run today. And it is a very serious threat to the current system of politics and economics and social order, and I think it's starting to kind of rear its head, and f- and, and politicians are starting to wake up to it and they're all thinking very deeply about what it means. Uh, and so I would say the blockchain has really kind of created a new model for organization amongst humans that is waking us up, um, in, in the political class more than anything else.
- JCJason Calacanis
Okay, Chamath, who do you got?
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
I think this is pretty obvious, but I think it's Glenn Youngkin, the governor of Virginia. Here's a guy that, uh, was a private equity executive who basically had to fade Trump, um, but still pretend, to feign that he needed his support and ran a pretty centrist, you know, pro-education, anti-crime, pro-business, uh, pro- just individual, um, you know, empowerment campaign in Virginia, which hasn't swung this way for a long time, and basically, uh, beat Terry McAuliffe. And I think that this is the roadmap which effectively says, whether you're a Democrat or a Republican, grab into these centrist temples and run with it, and you're gonna get a ton of people in the silent majority who are sick of all of this fringe behavior, both on the left and the right. And so I think Glenn Youngkin was a real canary in the coal mine for the political future of America.
- JCJason Calacanis
All right, great selections so far and a lot of diversity in the picking, and so, uh, I went with Joe Manchin, uh, obviously the, uh, shadow president who was able to dictate, uh, what gets passed and, uh, Build Back Better getting canceled or, uh, cut from 6-plus billion down to maybe 1.5 billion if it ever gets passed.
- DFDavid Friedberg
Trillion, trillion.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Trillion.
- JCJason Calacanis
Trillion, rather, sorry, thank you, um, was my, um-
- DFDavid Friedberg
Hey, Sax, do you, do you think Manchin's-
- JCJason Calacanis
... was my, uh, biggest winner in politics.
- DFDavid Friedberg
... a rising star or a falling star after, um, his decision to denounce the Build Back Better bill this year, this week?
- DSDavid Sacks
Well, you guys have to remember that the state he's from, West Virginia, went for Trump by, like, 20 points. It is a deep red state, and Manchin himself is a major anomaly as a blue politician hanging on in that state.
- DFDavid Friedberg
Yeah.
- DSDavid Sacks
So the Democrats, instead of alienating him, should be thanking their lucky stars that they even have him for any votes, because any other Democratic politician in West Virginia would have gone down to defeat a long time ago. So they are lucky with that Manchin can vote with them at all on anything.
- DFDavid Friedberg
To a layman like myself, or I imagine most people who aren't aware of that kind of political circumstance, he looks like a John McCain maverick kind of guy. Like, he's coming in and saying, "I'm blowing this thing up," and he gets all this attention.
- DSDavid Sacks
I, I think that is-
- DFDavid Friedberg
Does that light a fire for him, maybe?
- DSDavid Sacks
I think that's a great analogy, which I think he is the Democrats' McCain, you know?
- DFDavid Friedberg
Mm-hmm, right.
- DSDavid Sacks
He is the guy coming in there, casting that very unpopular vote, the single vote, like McCain did on, on the repeal of Obamacare, the single vote that took that down. But the reality is, the Republicans on Obamacare didn't have a plausible alternative. That's why McCain voted against that. And I think here, um, in the same way, I think Manchin may be doing the Democrats a favor because we can't afford all of this spen- new spending.
- DFDavid Friedberg
Super interesting, yeah.
- 9:43 – 14:37
Biggest Loser - Politics
- DFDavid Friedberg
- JCJason Calacanis
Here we go, biggest loser in politics. Who do you got? Let's go in, uh, reverse order now. Chamath, who do you got?
- DFDavid Friedberg
You go first, Sa- J-Kell.
- JCJason Calacanis
My biggest loser, uh, is Elizabeth Warren. Uh, she wanted, uh, everybody to pay a lot of taxes who were in the billionaires to pay taxes. She wanted to cancel them. And now the largest tax bill ever paid by any American has been completed, um, according to a tweet from Elon, that he paid $11 billion. Every program she wanted to work for and fight for has been done, just not by her. It's been done by the private sector. She was attacking Bezos for pay in factories and getting to a $15 minimum wage. Now Amazon is regularly paying in the 20s and giving free college, something her and Bernie Sanders were not able to accomplish in their entire careers. And now she continues to dunk on capitalists, entrepreneurs as the country basically says, "We're not interested in socialism. We're not interested in this brand of politics." They lost the election. Biden won, and now, uh, this far left politics is, I think, becoming, you know, as l- as unimportant as the far right, you know, alt-right.
- DFDavid Friedberg
Mm-hmm.
- JCJason Calacanis
She's, she's basically not important.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
I'll build on your theme, and I, I actually just said the progressive left and the alt-right. So I think that the-
- JCJason Calacanis
Sure.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
... extremes in America have basically, uh, you know, we've exposed them for the emperor with no clothes. So, you know, we have tried progressive policies in cities and states in America that's failed. We've tried far right politics at the federal level. That's basically crashed and burned as well. And now what you see is a wave of normalcy. And so, you know, y- all these chortling, you know, fringe classes get an extreme amount of attention because what they say is salacious or interesting, but underneath, there's no real substance or follow-through or real skill. There's no basic understanding of anything, economic policy, foreign policy, none of it. And so they, they make for great sound bites, but they cannot govern. And so, uh, I think the, the biggest losers, the progressive left and the alt-right.
- JCJason Calacanis
Sax, you wanna go next?
- DSDavid Sacks
Yeah, I mean, very much in the same vein, my choice is, uh, Kamala Harris, the vice president. She has a 28% approval rating. Uh, polls show her lagging Biden by about 10 p- uh, points.No vice president has polled this poorly since, uh, Dan Quayle, uh, was the butt of every late night joke about 30 years ago. And, uh, boy, am I really dating myself with that reference. What's the problem-
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Potato. Potato. (laughs)
- DSDavid Sacks
(laughs) Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Potato.
- DSDavid Sacks
A lot of viewers don't even remember what we're talking about. But, so the problem here is kind of what Chamath was saying. She, Harris is an equity scold, the public is tired of being lectured and hectored about its woke sins, and trying to compensate for that and showing, you know, warmth with a fake laughing cackle isn't going to re- reassure anybody who's just been called a white supremacist.
- DFDavid Friedberg
Interestingly enough, last year on our award show, Jason, uh, Kalikanis made the prediction that Kamala will be the first female president of the United States, uh, just as a gentle, uh, reminder that we had predictions like this.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
I love it how you, how you called him Kalikanis.
- DFDavid Friedberg
Kalikanis.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Kalikanis?
- DFDavid Friedberg
Well, he-
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Kalikanis?
- DFDavid Friedberg
He likes the short name. He likes to monetize his name.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Okay, Friedberg. (laughs)
- DSDavid Sacks
That prediction could still come true, you know?
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
I mean, I, I, the prediction was made because I thought Biden wasn't going to make it through the first term because he's so old (laughs) , and that he might not be able to function.
- DFDavid Friedberg
That was, that was right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That may still happen.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Yeah.
- DFDavid Friedberg
Yeah.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
I mean, I, I think I might stand by that prediction.
- DFDavid Friedberg
That's right. We'll save it for the prediction show.
- 14:37 – 22:24
Biggest Political Surprise
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
right. Biggest political surprise? Sax, what do you got? What's the biggest political surprise of 2021?
- DSDavid Sacks
Yeah, this is where I had Glenn Youngkin. And, you know, just to add to what Chamath had already said, you know, Virginia went for Biden by 10 points just a short time before.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Mm-hmm.
- DSDavid Sacks
Youngkin, he secured Trump's endorsement very early and quietly and kept the Tr- uh, kept Trump at bay, and then he ran as a genial moderate, uh, with a business pedigree, as, as kind of Chamath pointed out. But there was something else going on here as well, I don't think it was just centrism that would flip a blue state red, it was also that issue of schools where McAuliffe had that gaffe in their final debate, he said that parents shouldn't be telling the schools what to teach. Uh, basically, McAuliffe was sided with the, uh, the teachers unions and, uh, whereas Youngkin sided with parents and, um, really, I think, voiced their opposition to CRT in the schools. That became the centerpiece for his closing argument, and, uh, that's what allowed him to win, win the election.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
My biggest political surprise is Joe Manchin. I think that he will probably be looked back on in time as our generation's Paul Volcker. So, let me explain what I mean by that. You know, at the time, Volcker was incredibly unpopular for what he did by raising interest rates to basically break the back of inflation. And it really wasn't until 30 or 40 years later through the, you know, fullness of time, that we appreciated that what he did took an enormous amount of courage, because in the moment, it created huge headaches and a lot of pushback and a lot of ill will and ire towards Volcker. Similarly, I think Manchin is just now starting this process of just getting completely pilloried. And, you know, people will point to a handful of elements of Build Back Better, like childcare, that have now expired, and those childcare credits and, and what it means to working families, and that is true. But, but there are ways to solve for that by just going back and respending the seven trillion we already spend a little bit better. Um, and in time, the idea and the courage to not pour three more trillion dollars on this dumpster fire without getting ourselves better organized will turn out to be an enormous gift that he gave our kids. A profile in courage. Even if we don't right now see it, and a lot of people can be angry at it. But, uh, that was the biggest political surprise is the desire for a politician... Politician, because like you have to remember, Fed chair is elected, right? You're there, you're in, you're out. But that was a surprise to me that he would go through this process and what it meant at a national level for his reputation to get to the other side. Yeah. Okay, Friedberg, what do you got?
- DFDavid Friedberg
My biggest political surprise was that, that insurrection crowd made their way into the Capitol Building. I mean, do you guys remember-
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
(laughs)
- DFDavid Friedberg
... how shocking those images were?
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Yeah.
- DFDavid Friedberg
And what an incredible day that was. I mean, it was almost a year ago now and we watched on screen what felt like the crumbling of institutions that we always took for being, uh, we always took for granted and assumed were impenetrable, um, both politically but more importantly physically. And to see people physically break into that Capitol Building and cause mayhem and damage, it really kind of exposed, I think, a nerve. Um, and it was a really kind of shocking moment and a shocking day. So, uh, you know, to this day, I still kind of think that that's been the biggest surprise for me of the year. I, you know, I don't think any of us thought that that would happen, both in terms of like, that we let our defenses down and let people into that building like that, and that there was enough of a ground swell to break their way into that building. Both sides were surprising.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
And also just-
- JCJason Calacanis
... super disturbing to watch a bunch of elected officials cowering under tables while Secret Service had guns drawn and doors were being kicked in.
- DFDavid Friedberg
Well, also, and, and also while some elected officials were kind of endorsing the behavior to some extent, you know, at a distance, and the whole thing was just shocking. And I think a lot of us realized that maybe our democracy, and I think I mentioned this on the show last year, uh, is not, uh, is a little more fragile, uh, than perhaps we, uh, we, we think it is.
- JCJason Calacanis
Trump was the biggest stress test ever. For me, uh, the biggest political surprise, uh, was Kamala Harris being sidelined. Where is she? What is she working on? Uh, I thought that the Democratic Party was going to want to feature her, showcase her with some great projects, uh, in order to, uh, maybe prep her for running, if need be, in '24, uh, and certainly in 2028. And it seems like they have sidelined her deliberately, and they don't believe in her, which is w- they don't believe in the first female vice president a- and of color? Uh, that's very weird.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
I don't, I don't think it's that.
- JCJason Calacanis
What is it?
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
I think that they think that she's not, she's not a ... They think that she's not electable, and so they're edging.
- JCJason Calacanis
Yeah. Yeah, so that was my-
- DSDavid Sacks
Maybe, maybe they're, uh, racist, J-Cal.
- JCJason Calacanis
Or maybe they are saving her till after the midterms and then gonna feature her. I don't know what the strategy is here, but I think-
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
After they raise the House? I don't think so.
- DSDavid Sacks
Like a fighter?
- JCJason Calacanis
I don't know. Who knows?
- DSDavid Sacks
They're saving, they're saving ... They're protecting her.
- JCJason Calacanis
But if she was good enough to get, to help get Biden in office, why isn't she good enough to, uh, feature now? It just doesn't make sense to me, uh, that she was so sidelined.
- DSDavid Sacks
Well, they did give her a task. Like, they sent her to the border. The problem is she doesn't have anything to say that's, that will resonate with the American people but also be acceptable to her progressive base.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Or her perceived-
- JCJason Calacanis
So-
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
... her perceived progressive base because I actually think that she also has the ability and has in the past, you know, had the ability to be tough, tough on crime.
- JCJason Calacanis
Yeah, wasn't she a law and order DA?
- 22:24 – 26:03
Biggest Winner - Business
- DSDavid Sacks
be right.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Right.
- JCJason Calacanis
All right, biggest winner in business. Friedberg, who do you got? Biggest winner 2021 business.
- DFDavid Friedberg
My, my biggest winner in business, um, goes back to the GameStop days, and I think it was the retail investor class. You know, they were always there to trade on the wings and in the wake of the institutions in the markets prior to, I think, what took place this year. And after what happened this year where they were able to coalesce and organize to make trades that moved the market against institutions in a really meaningful way and broke several institutions in the process, it highlighted that retail has power, retail can organize, and retail in aggregate can act to be a stronger force in the markets than institutions. And so the retail investor is my biggest winner, uh, for 2021.
- JCJason Calacanis
Who's your biggest winner, Chamath, in business?
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
I mean, this is pretty obvious. It's Elon Musk. Um, you know, as a former owner of Tesla, as a current, uh, shareholder of SpaceX, uh, as somebody who sold him a company this year, David and I did, to see him work is magical, uh, absolutely magical. And, uh, I think that this guy ... You know, you know, there's, there are these impresarios who just have, these virtuosos who have these moments where they're just in the zone.
- JCJason Calacanis
Yeah.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Uh, and he's in the zone. He's in his zone of mastery. And to see a guy like that execute, I think, is a privilege. So he's my big winner for the year.
- JCJason Calacanis
If not Elon, who would you have? 'Cause it's pretty obvious it's Elon, so did you have a second place consideration?
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
I would actually probably double down with what Friedberg said. I do think that there was, um ... It's more sort of what I would say is the outsider class versus insiders. I think that whether it's blockchain or Web3 or NFTs or GameStop, this was the year, uh, you know, the ConstitutionDAO. This was the year that loose affiliations of individuals-... um, could compete on a level playing field with organized capital. And I think that that's a really important trend for the future.
- JCJason Calacanis
Sacks, uh, who do you have, uh, biggest winner in business? If it is Elon, who's your runner up?
- DSDavid Sacks
Yeah. So, I mean, can't fault the Elon choice, that's pretty obvious. Um, but I would say in our world, the biggest winner was Tiger Global. Um-
- JCJason Calacanis
Hmm.
- DSDavid Sacks
... they basically productized growth stage capital by far-
- JCJason Calacanis
Good one.
- DSDavid Sacks
... the biggest, uh, deployer of late-stage funding. They productized it, so pretty much founders can just send their metrics on like a single sheet of paper and they get an, a term sheet within two days. They did by far the most deals. Uh, it's really the SoftBank strategy done right.
- JCJason Calacanis
That's a great pick.
- DFDavid Friedberg
15 billion, uh, I think is the amount they deployed this year. I don't know if you guys heard that number, but-
- DSDavid Sacks
Yeah, yeah.
- DFDavid Friedberg
... uh, in a-
- DSDavid Sacks
Heard that.
- DFDavid Friedberg
... single year to invest 15 billion, assume a five-year fund, you know, you're at a $75 billion run rate. It's pretty incredible. I mean, it really is the size of Vision Fund. Um, and, uh, I heard, I don't know if you guys heard, but they are heavily dependent ... not dependent, but they've built infrastructure with third parties who source all this data for them, uh, to really kind of measure everything prior to making investments. So they, they've built a machine. It's amazing.
- JCJason Calacanis
Uh, my biggest winner in business is the Ang, not the Fang. Drop the F and go with the A-N-G. Amazon, um, has a new CEO and they haven't missed a beat. Apple is about to hit three trillion. And Susan Wojcicki and YouTube, if you don't know, is now at two billion users, 30 billion in revenue. And this, of course, is after Elon because that's the obvious choice. So after Elon, um, Alphabet stock up 66%, Apple stock up 31%. You guys know what's going on with those big companies, so I'm gonna go with the Ang.
- 26:03 – 30:54
Biggest Loser - Business
- JCJason Calacanis
Biggest loser in business (drum roll) , the biggest loser in business. Who do you have, Friedberg? Who's your biggest loser in business?
- DFDavid Friedberg
Well, I went, I went the opposite of my biggest winner. I went for those institutions that, that, you know, got their lunch eaten by the retail. Uh, Gabe Plotkin and, um, you know, he lost so much money shorting GameStop against these guys, uh, buying GameStop to the moon. He had to borrow $2.75 billion from Citadel and .7, uh, .72 just to get through his month. (laughs) I mean, talk about embarrassing, uh, talk about reversal of fortune. You know, he's obviously been a, a renowned investor prior to this. Um, and, you know, there's a few others that, that were, you know, casualties of war. White Square, a firm in London, shut down, half a billion AUM. Um, so all these folks who tried to bet against retail during the GameStop saga and since, um, thinking that the world was the way it used to be have had to kind of change and, you know-
- JCJason Calacanis
It's amazing that that and the insurrection both happened in this year. Like, it ... time is moving so fast.
- DFDavid Friedberg
Oh, my God. This year is insane. Yeah. It's been a crazy year.
- JCJason Calacanis
I mean, all of this happened in this past year. It's crazy to think about. We were here and I was up in Tahoe, uh, skiing and, and all this stuff was breaking. It was crazy at that time. That was actually our record episode when All In had that breakout episode. Who do you have for your biggest loser, David Sacks?
- DSDavid Sacks
I have Chinese billionaires were the biggest loser this year. Uh, I don't know if you guys remember.
- JCJason Calacanis
Where are they? (laughs)
- DSDavid Sacks
Yeah, exactly. A year ago we were all asking, "Where is Jack Ma?" Well, he eventually turned up looking very thin and, and kind of broken. Uh, but his experience was just an early sort of manifestation and sort of a canary in the coal mine of a larger CCP crackdown on all Chinese billionaires. Um, and the CCP really seems to be increasing its control and putting these people under its thumb. And there are a bunch of tech companies there like Alibaba, Didi, Tencent, Baidu, jd.com. They've all been targeted for fines and tighter controls. Uh, and China's pretty much shut down the foreign IPO market for their tech companies. They've banned crypto-
- JCJason Calacanis
Yeah. Moving it to Hong Kong, right? I mean-
- DSDavid Sacks
Yeah, exactly. They're ... The CCP has basically brought all the billionaires under their thumb.
- JCJason Calacanis
Wow. Chamath, who do you have? And this is amazing. Just so the audience knows, we do not reveal our choices until in the moment-
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's really great to hear.
- JCJason Calacanis
... which makes this so great.
- DSDavid Sacks
(laughs)
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Yeah. I love hearing some of these things. It makes me think, for sure. Um-
- JCJason Calacanis
Yeah.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
My, my biggest loser is big tech. Um, if you look at this year and you annotate it, not for their stock price but for, uh, what I think is sort of the, the precursor to longer term success, there was a lot of signs that there's pressure building. So whether that's measured in lawsuits, fines, uh, bad PR, if you put all of that stuff together, I think the thing that that drives is decaying morale. And when you have decaying morale, you have human capital flight, so people leave. Um, there were some articles just recently even about, you know, an exodus at, you know, uh, Novi, Novi, I don't know how to pronounce it, the cryptocurrency business of Meta. It's just a really, really difficult thing to deal with when folks start walking out the door because they're just, uh, bummed out from working there. And if you just, and if you just, you know, Google search the, the number of issues that all of these companies collectively, uh, are dealing with, I think that this is sort of peak, uh, big tech market cap is probably within the next year or two.
- JCJason Calacanis
Interesting. Uh, this is just so great that we all had different choices. Um, I picked the Ang as the winner. Um, I'm picking the F in Fang as the loser. Meta was a complete flop. It was a stupid idea to change the name of the company. The product they showed in that big tip off was like every science fiction movie we've seen for the last 30 years. The leaks, the Apple headwinds against their ads, uh, the political headwinds. And my last point is exactly Chamath's last point, which is no one wants to work there. It's becoming more and more difficult if you're in Silicon Valley or you're a tech executive to see a reason to go work at that company. I think that their VR efforts, AR efforts will be beaten handily by Apple and by the metaverse and, you know, open source/decentralized solutions. I think the F in Fang should be replaced with the T of Tesla and be Tang.
- DFDavid Friedberg
Facebook, uh, Meta traded up 25% this year, J-Cal. Yeah, though-
- JCJason Calacanis
Listen, I do think it's a juggernaut. And when things go wrong, it does take a while. So these are forward-looking. If people are leaving now, maybe you'd see the impact of that in three, four, or five years. But I would not buy the stock. I'd buy the other three letters. I would buy the Tang, but not the F in Fang.... uh, but I think it's a good counterpoint. Yeah, these things take a while to unravel.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Well, I think, you know, I think the- the be- the better trade is pick the one that you love in FANG and short the one that you hate in FANG. And if you get that right, you can make a lot of money pretty safely.
- JCJason Calacanis
A big spread there, right? The be- the spread trade, like we talked about.
- 30:54 – 35:27
Biggest Business Surprise
- JCJason Calacanis
Uh, all right. Biggest business surprise. What do you got, Sax? What's your biggest business surprise this year, Sax?
- DSDavid Sacks
I thought the b- the biggest business surprise was tech leaders and startups moving to Miami.
- DFDavid Friedberg
Mm. Mm.
- DSDavid Sacks
Its emergence from really nothing in the tech scene to being a- ... major tech hub. It was just a year ago, one year ago last December, that Delian sort of mused on Twitter about, "Hey, can we just relocate Silicon Valley to Miami?" Uh, the Miami Mayor Francis Suarez jumped in. He responded, "How can I help?" And then since then, it's just been snowballing. And as San Francisco has basically been sliding into what it's become, uh, Miami just keeps blowing up. And it helps, I think, what's been happening on the state level there, that, um, DeSantis has kept the state open for business, and he's kept schools open. And of course, the tax rate is zero. Uh, the income tax and the capital gains tax, that is, are zero. So, uh, it's really pretty amazing how fast it has become a major tech hub.
- DFDavid Friedberg
My answer, which was really surprising to me starting in January, and I think I, I started texting you guys in January saying, "I really think we should talk about this on the pod," if you'll remember. And it's obviously just become a crescendo since then, is NFTs. Um, and it, it really has been incredible to watch how, uh, you know, the individual, um, folks in crypto have embraced NFTs as a way, uh, you know, to tokenize the value that creators can bring to the world. And I think, yeah, there's a lot of fluff and a lot of noise and a lot of bubbles going on within this NFT space right now. Most of it will die, and it will look terrible when people lose lots of money and feel bad about the decisions they made during this phase. But what I think is really wonderful about it is the opportunity it creates for creators to monetize their talent in a way that doesn't require them going through middlemen to get distribution and middlemen who take, you know, huge slugs or huge chunks of the margin out of, um, out of what they create. And this can ultimately translate into music, into art, into writing-
- JCJason Calacanis
Great.
- DFDavid Friedberg
... um, into all sorts of things. So I'm, I'm pretty excited, uh, not necessarily about where NFTs sit today. I think it's a disaster where it sits today. But I think over the long run, I just love the-
- JCJason Calacanis
Why is it a disaster?
- DFDavid Friedberg
I, I just think there's too much of this bubbly stuff that's going on-
- JCJason Calacanis
Got it. Okay.
- DFDavid Friedberg
... where people are buying into speculative transactions that are gonna lose them money, and then people are gonna be really hurt and really upset. Uh, but-
- JCJason Calacanis
Got it.
- DFDavid Friedberg
But the general-
- JCJason Calacanis
But you love the core tech and the promise.
- DFDavid Friedberg
I love the fact, I love the fact that creators, people that are great at art and people that are creative, uh, can develop stuff and make money because people will appreciate it and pay for it. And I just think that's awesome.
- JCJason Calacanis
Fantastic. All right, so for me, um, it was that DAOs, um, were able to raise $40 million in a couple of days for this constitution, uh, and get, and basically captures every, capture the entire world's imagination for, you know, a 72-hour news cycle, uh, much in the way day, the day traders did, um, with AMC, uh, and GameStop, to Friedberg's point earlier in the big winners. And, um, I have a dual one here. I'm absolutely surprised about this, you know, the, the, the DAO that was able to raise 40 million for the constitution. But I was also disappointed that the SEC, in year 10 plus of crypto, has not defined the rules of the road yet so that one group of people, professional capital allocators, play by one set of rules and then another group of people, DAOs, tokens are playing by no set of rules or their interpretation of unclear rules, I guess, would be the most charitable way. So that's my biggest surprise. We have to have a regulatory framework for crypto, for DAOs, for NFTs, for tokens, and it's just crazy that it hasn't happened yet. What do you got, Chamath?
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Uh, my, my, my big, big business winner breakout company, uh, I have two, but they're the same really, is Moderna/BioNTech. Uh, you know, these were guys that were kind of swimming at the edges of science and R&D and somewhat was just incapable of putting one foot in front of the other until this pandemic and through a bunch of, you know, emergency use authorizations. These guys have really shown up to help the world. Uh, and in 2020, I think they cemented themselves as now on a path to not just, you know, be a vaccine maker for COVID, but a whole bunch of other things, including cancer treatments and everything else. So I think-
- JCJason Calacanis
Great. Great move forward.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
... these two companies, these two companies really took a big step forward in 2020.
- JCJason Calacanis
Absolutely.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
2020.
- JCJason Calacanis
And just as a side note, OpenSea had 8 million in monthly vol- volume at the beginning of the year in January and 3.46 billion in August. Just to give you an idea of the scale of that.
- 35:27 – 42:56
Best Science Breakthrough
- JCJason Calacanis
Okay, best science breakthrough. What do you got, Friedberg? Everybody wants to know, the sultan of science's best science breakthrough.
- DFDavid Friedberg
I'm a little bit, um, blinders on this one because-
- JCJason Calacanis
Mm-hmm.
- DFDavid Friedberg
... I think I mentioned this on the show a few weeks ago, and I'm spending quite a bit of time at work on it, which is that starch synthesis system that was demonstrated by those Chinese scientists. Um, and the system itself is likely not gonna be the production system that saves the world, but the concept that we can take proteins that are expressed by different plants and put them together in a tank, and then that tank can convert molecules from one form to another by leveraging these proteins that just interact and move a- move around in the tank, is really an incredible demonstration. And the demonstration is inspiring. We can take carbon out of the atmosphere and make food with a minimal amount of renewable electricity. Um, and I think that's really, um, a moment that will inspire a whole new realm of industrial synthetic biology work. Uh, a lot of which I hope to kind of, you know, build and participate in pretty heavily in the work that we do day to day. But it was really exciting for me.
- JCJason Calacanis
So the starch syntho- synthesis system is your, uh, best science breakthrough. What do you got, Sax?
- DSDavid Sacks
I've got these new oral COVID antiviral pills that are coming out from Pfizer and Merck. The FDA is supposed to be approving them by the end-
- JCJason Calacanis
Good one.
- DSDavid Sacks
... of this week. Uh, as you'll recall, last year around this time, it was these new mRNA vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna, but we now have to admit-... that the vaccines have not ended the pandemic because the virus can, uh, mutate its spike proteins around the, the, um, vaccine. So, the vaccines by itself cannot end the pandemic. These new, uh, pills have, I think, a, a very good shot of doing it next year because they're protease inhibitors, so they stop the virus from replicating and just, and even if the, uh, spike proteins mutate, it will not prevent these protease inhibitors from working. So, I am hopeful that this will be the thing, hopefully, that ends the pandemic next year, are these new, uh-
- JCJason Calacanis
Hmm.
- DSDavid Sacks
... antiviral pills.
- JCJason Calacanis
Great one.
- DFDavid Friedberg
I would like to make a counter to Sax's, um-
- DSDavid Sacks
(laughs)
- JCJason Calacanis
Oh.
- DFDavid Friedberg
... point. I would be very cautious about the side effects that are going to arise from these protease inhibitors. And, um, you know, they're, they're, they're not as well studied as they normally would be, but there are, they have a serious biological effect in normal cells in the human body. Um, and I think as more people use them, you'll see more crazy stories about side effects that are really, uh, significantly
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
What do you think the side effects would be? That we sh-
- DFDavid Friedberg
There's a, there's a lot that are well documented-
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Huh.
- DFDavid Friedberg
... but the way they work biologically is, is they disrupt, um, you know, certain systems. Uh, a- and those are not just systems related to the virus. They're systems in our own cells. And so, I, I, I, I'm personally quite nervous about them. Uh, I know that folks, uh, are pretty e- encouraged by them and excited, but I, I'm nervous about them.
- DSDavid Sacks
There's a similar medication that's been developed, uh, for HIV, right? Uh, uh, it's called PrEP, right? Um, does that cause similar side effects or... 'cause people use that prophylactically.
- DFDavid Friedberg
Yeah, to some extent, you know, and the dosage matters. (laughs) And so, w- normally you would go through many more years, I think, of testing on these things to kind of truly quantify. You know, when you have 0.5% or 1% of a population, you know, let's say, take the most extreme case, die, then a million people use it, you're gonna have a lot of people dying. Um, and, and I'm not sure we've really gotten the, the boundaries of this yet. And the dosage is pretty significant on them. Uh, so, uh, yeah, I, like, l- l- let's, you know, let's keep a watchful eye on this stuff. But, uh, I'm, I'm, I'm hopeful, but I'm also nervous.
- JCJason Calacanis
Well, hopefully the number of people who need to take it, Freeberg, correct me if I'm wrong, if we got this many people vaxxed who will not need to take it, and then Omicron, Omicron whips through-
- DFDavid Friedberg
My biggest optimism is just that Omicron-
- JCJason Calacanis
Yeah.
- DFDavid Friedberg
... is a, um, much less virulent virus-
- JCJason Calacanis
Yeah.
- DFDavid Friedberg
... and it sweeps through the population and we slowly see this pandemic kind of, you know, becoming less severe.
- JCJason Calacanis
Which is what was predicted.
- DSDavid Sacks
Do, do you think herd immunity even exists?
- DFDavid Friedberg
The, in the, in the way that the virus evolves, no. Uh, so, um, there, and, and by the way, it's not binary. Uh, it's not like, "Hey, you get herd immunity and no one's gonna catch this thing." There's clearly a spectrum of immunity, meaning, like, I can maybe get the virus and be somewhat contagious for half a day or a day and I don't even know it, and then I'm spreading it for that half day, but I didn't even know I had it. Um, that's kind of, you know, not all the way over to herd immunity in the traditional kind of definition of the way that we talk about it. Um, but it reduces the spread and the severity in aggregate. Um, on the other end is, like, everyone gets it. It spreads like crazy. No, no vaccine stops it, changes anything. No amount of antibodies changes anything and everyone just dies. Um, and so somewhere in the middle, I think, is where we find our kind of, you know, our ground. But I, I don't think that the traditional definition or the way that people talk about herd immunity which is, "Hey, everyone get the shot and this thing's over," uh, is gonna play out that way at all. This is gonna be a slow, slow wind down.
- 42:56 – 47:08
Biggest Flash in the Pan
- JCJason Calacanis
in the pan. Biggest flash in the pan. Sax, you picked beeple, uh, you told me earlier.
- DSDavid Sacks
(laughs) No, I said-
- JCJason Calacanis
Oh, we love beeple. Please.
- DSDavid Sacks
Yeah. No, that was yours. Um...
- JCJason Calacanis
(laughs)
- DSDavid Sacks
I had, uh, I think the, the use of the word, uh, transitory, uh-
- JCJason Calacanis
(laughs)
- DFDavid Friedberg
(laughs)
- DSDavid Sacks
... was my biggest, uh, flash in the pan.
- DFDavid Friedberg
Yeah.
- DSDavid Sacks
It seemed like, for a brief moment, that every, uh, administration official, every, uh, Democratic political consultant, every talking head on TV kept using the word transitory. It was very much the ve- vocabulary word of the day. But now, uh, it turned out that the inflation was not transitory and so the use of the word transitory, I predict, will in fact be transitory.
- DFDavid Friedberg
Mm.
- JCJason Calacanis
(laughs)
- DFDavid Friedberg
Nice summary.
- DSDavid Sacks
(laughs) I like that.
- JCJason Calacanis
What do you got, Chamath?
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Uh, I picked, uh, all things, uh, metaverse and-
- DFDavid Friedberg
(laughs)
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
... Web 3.0.
- DFDavid Friedberg
And Web 3.0.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Yeah, I did-
- DFDavid Friedberg
And Web 3.0. Writ large.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
I, if you guys were around in the emergence of Web 2.0, there was-
- DFDavid Friedberg
Oh, yeah.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
... there was a period when, where this gaggle of investors were just clamoring about Web 2.0. None of us understood what it is, and we were building it, it turned out.
- JCJason Calacanis
Yeah.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
And so I think that, uh, these trends actually have names and those names are of companies, and those companies create experiences that people want. And so, I just think that this whole concept of metaverse and Web 3.0 goes away, and we replace it with real solutions for people that give them value, and then we'll be obsessed with these companies. And, uh, this, this too will be transitory.
- DFDavid Friedberg
I went with the, uh, Constitution DAO. Um, while, while I believe, Jason, that the concept was inspiring and will echo for quite some time with other, um, you know, kind of improved, uh, versions, uh, and different applications, this particular DAO, uh, caused a lot of people to lose a lot of money in gas fees, transferring tokens over to cover the expense of the, uh, ultimate purchase that was not actually done. It felt a little disorganized. There was questions around equity and securities and the legality and misaligned expectations. And while I get that there was a good, um, intent and that folks that were involved in it were, uh, felt like it worked and, and it did what it was meant to do, which was to be inspiring, that particular DAO came and went in three days. Um, and I'm not, not, not to discredit the concept, and I think that more will come in the future, but it really was such a loud moment and then it went silent two days later.
- JCJason Calacanis
Yep. Okay. And I picked the woke socialist leadership of cities, uh, specifically the-
- DFDavid Friedberg
(laughs)
- 47:08 – 52:43
Best CEO
- JCJason Calacanis
I have a feeling that we're gonna, this is gonna sweep here. Best CEO? (drum roll) Should we just say three, two, one and say the name? (laughs)
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
I'll go first. I'm gonna pick-
- JCJason Calacanis
Okay.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
... Satya Nadella.
- JCJason Calacanis
Oh, well done.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
And, uh, the reason I say that is that, you know, he, if you look at this track record, and I thought this business could not get any bigger, but it just is a compounding, absolute juggernaut and a machine. He has completely turned that company around. And from, you know, big, chunky acquisitions, he's unafraid to pull the trigger and rip the money in, LinkedIn, GitHub. This year, he did Nuance, the product portfolio. He, you know, we had to compete with him at Slack when he was, you know, he decided to turn the, the sights on, on, with Teams onto us. We had no choice but to basically sell to Salesforce. This guy is a master executor, has kept the entire company out of the press, has had the least amount of pushback around their growth and expansion, the least amount of lawsuits, the least amount of bad PR. So, just in terms of a, you know, first-class CEO, he, he's-
- DFDavid Friedberg
Great pick.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
... he's running a master class right now.
- DFDavid Friedberg
He's crushed it.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
He's crushed it.
- DFDavid Friedberg
He's crushed it at scale, totally.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
What can Brown do for you? That was a UPS logo and it's now-
- DFDavid Friedberg
(laughs)
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
... it's now what the shareholders-
- JCJason Calacanis
How you pick your CEO of your at-scale company.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
... of, of Google, Microsoft-
- JCJason Calacanis
Twitter.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
... Twitter, uh, Palo Alto Networks, uh, and Adobe-
- JCJason Calacanis
Alphabet?
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
... have said. Yeah.
- JCJason Calacanis
Okay then. What can Brown do for you? (laughs) Okay. Uh, so much for the curry ceiling. Uh, okay. Freeburg.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
We, we have smashed through the curry ceiling.
- JCJason Calacanis
Absolutely. (laughs) There is curry everywhere.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Penetrated the samosa ceiling.
- JCJason Calacanis
There we go. Freeburg, who you got?
- DSDavid Sacks
You're making me hungry.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Mm-hmm.
- JCJason Calacanis
I know. Gosh. We should actually-
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
I'm having, I'm having crab curry tonight. Can you believe it? I went fishing (beep) . I told you guys this. I went f- oh, bleep out the name. I went fishi- fishing with (beep) and, uh, we caught some crabs. And so we're having crab-
- JCJason Calacanis
Wait, where did you do that?
- 52:43 – 57:12
Best Investor
- JCJason Calacanis
it. (drum roll) So, uh, best investor. Chamath, uh, are you gonna pick yourself for the third year in a row or do you have somebody else in mind?
- DFDavid Friedberg
(laughs)
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
This one, this one I think is a, is an absolutely easy one, but it's my dear friend, Dan Loeb.
- JCJason Calacanis
Huh. Oh.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Founder and CIO.
- JCJason Calacanis
Dear friend? When did that happen?
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Founder and CIO of Third Point. Uh, and of w-
- JCJason Calacanis
Good for him.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
... of, of, as I've seen... I talked to him yesterday actually. I called him just to wish him a happy birthday. By the way, it's his birthday.
- JCJason Calacanis
Oh, happy birthday.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
But he has shown the widest range this year and really put everything together yet again kind of one of these virtuoso performances. Early stage success. So he was a, you know, early stage investor. I think they did the Series A in Centellum 1 that had a big IPO this year. Growth investing, he, you know, was a, was a great investor, uh, early investor in Rivian that went public this year. He had great public performance in Upstart and a bunch of other ones. Activism, he went after Shell. Crypto, I think he's an investor in FTX and a bunch of other things. I mean, just tonned it. And to be able to put together a team that can execute across all of those business lines and risk manage and then to where he still-
- JCJason Calacanis
Mm.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
... sizes, like, I'm telling you, like, it is so hard to size this stuff properly and get it right.
- JCJason Calacanis
Hmm.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
He did an incredible job. And he's just a, a, a, a beautiful, lovely human being. So Dan Loeb.
- JCJason Calacanis
All right. We're mo- we're cooking with oil here. We're moving at a nice pace. I picked the Sequoia Fund, the new Evergreen, Sequoia and the Sequoia Fund, the new Evergreen Fund. Obviously over the past two years they've had DoorDash, Airbnb, Snowflake, Unity, all these incredible companies worth over $300 billion combined. And now those LPs get to keep their money in this one vehicle and, uh, I think it's gonna make Sequoia even more powerful, great innovation. Shout out to my friend Rulof. And I gave a runner up to Brad Gerstner, friend of the pod, um, who obviously did Snowflake, uh, last year, but, uh, had the Grab IPO this year, which I think was the largest back in history. Uh, and, uh, you know, I don't think it traded particularly well yet, uh, but, uh, congratulations to Brad as my runner up. Who do you got, Sacks?
- DSDavid Sacks
Well, my first thought was Nancy Pelosi, but-
- JCJason Calacanis
(laughs)
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
(laughs)
- JCJason Calacanis
... she has a going on performance.
- DSDavid Sacks
Yeah, I don't think it counts though if you do it through insider trading, so I had to rule her out.
- JCJason Calacanis
Gee, so... Okay, sure.
- DSDavid Sacks
Um, so my-
- JCJason Calacanis
Fair enough. (laughs)
- DSDavid Sacks
... my actual choice (laughing) , my actual choice is Ken Griffin, the founder of Citadel. Um, he generated something like-... 10% returns on a $500 billion fund. I mean, just mammoth, mammoth amounts of money. But it wasn't just his economic retu- he's obviously a cash generating machine, but it wasn't just that, it was also the way that he came out on this whole, uh, Wall Street Bets, Robinhood scandal way back in January. Remember of the whole payment for order flow was a gigantic scandal with, with Robinhood, and he along with Vlad and others was hauled up to Capitol Hill, but they could not lay a glove on him. He demonstrated, I think in commanding testimony, that all these conspiracy theories around his role had no merit and the populous revolt around, uh, this whole, uh, payment for order flow Robinhood thing broke, uh, against the rock of Ken Griffin. Uh, he comes out as a huge winner, both economically and politically.
- JCJason Calacanis
And you left out the most important part, he was the super villain in buying the Constitution Dow- (laughs)
- DSDavid Sacks
Yeah, and he got revenge.
- JCJason Calacanis
... for one extra dollar. (laughs)
- DSDavid Sacks
Yes, he got, he got revenge on the crypto people, that's right. He had the last laugh on, on that.
- JCJason Calacanis
(laughs) He, he, he got to duck on the crypto people.
- 57:12 – 1:02:47
Best Turnaround
- JCJason Calacanis
This is incredible. Best turnaround. (drum roll) What do you got for best turnaround, Chamath? Best turnaround.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
I picked Ford. Enormous performance this year, the stock's up 130 odd percent. Good portfolio mix of, uh, you know, gas guzzling cars that still make a ton of money, like the Ford F-150s, but you know, they have the Mustang, they have the electric versions of the Ford F-150s. They had some great investments. I think they printed like, a $20 billion gain on Rivian. So it's just a really, really good turnaround from what that company was, which was, if you talked any car company that, that could have been up 132% at the beginning of 2021, it would not have been Ford. So, uh, well done by that team.
- JCJason Calacanis
Who do you have, Sax?
- DFDavid Friedberg
Are you an investor in Ford, Chamath?
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Uh, no, no.
- DSDavid Sacks
Th- so I went a little different for this. I said the best turnaround was Kyle Rittenhouse's reputation. Um-
- JCJason Calacanis
Oh, okay.
- DSDavid Sacks
As you recall, uh, Rittenhouse shot three white attackers, including two of them were sex offenders, at a violent BLM protest in Kenosha. The media then painted him without any evidence as a white supremacist terrorist, who went there looking to shoot people like some sort of frustrated school shooter. It turned out not to be true, there was clear video evidence at the scene that he acted in self-defense. Once there was a jury t- trial, uh, all of this came out. He was acquitted on all charges, and the prosecution was revealed to be politically motivated. I would say that, um, Rittenhouse now has his freedom and he has his reputation back in the eyes of all fair observers.
- JCJason Calacanis
Who do you got, Friedberg?
- DFDavid Friedberg
Well, I went from who was in the worst shape and, you know, came back from that, and I, I put WeWork on here, um-
- JCJason Calacanis
Great one.
- DFDavid Friedberg
... which is an obvi- an obvious and easy choice. WeWork to me is like Rocky Balboa. Um, you know, Rocky Balboa could not win the match. Rocky Balboa got so beat up, goes to the, you know, to his corner, he gets patched up, he's bleeding from his eye, he's bleeding from his nose, he's literally about to die. His coach gives him a little smack on the butt and says, "Get back out there," and he keeps going. He's not gonna win the match, um, but man, for WeWork to go from where it was a few years ago, which was days or weeks away from bankruptcy, billions of dollars of money injected by SoftBank, and for them to orchestrate, uh, basically this, this whole, you know, juggernaut into what looks like a business now, um, and get it public via a SPAC, and it now has enough capital and a good game plan and it looks like maybe a normal, you know, challenged technology business, um, was really quite a, uh, a turnaround. There was no one to sell this thing to, they had to get in there and they had to rework this whole thing, and they reworked WeWork, and Rocky Balboa is gonna make it to the 10th round. He may not win the match, but you know, he's still in it. It was pretty, pretty impressive to see them get it out this year.
- JCJason Calacanis
All right. Listen, I struggled with this one. I had two companies that I really wanted to highlight for two different reasons. One, uh, was Twitter, which had no product velocity, and people thought... and I'm taking out financial performance right now, I'm just looking at the product itself. Um, and my Lord have they, uh, increased their product velocity, releasing, uh, newsletters, audio spaces, um, and countless other features, and so I like them, but I actually think, uh, Disney, which was, and it hasn't performed well this year, but they had 44 million subs, um, they added 44 million paid subs this year, and, uh, people thought p- theme parks would be a problem, et cetera, and I think they're gonna have an absolute killer future. If Apple had not, uh, if it hadn't been for antitrust right now, I think Apple will be looking at buying Disney if they had had any way to get it through there, because the juggernaut it has been amazing.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Sorry, what are they, what do they turn around exactly? Like, turnaround means it's crappy and then it's not crappy.
- JCJason Calacanis
Well, I didn't do stock price, but I think they had a major threat and a major question of could they actually create their own streaming platform, would it work?... uh, and getting out of the pandemic, could the parks rebound? The parks have rebounded.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
I see, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.
- JCJason Calacanis
And I, I think they're going to roll over Netflix. So, the sentiment was, like, "God, this stock, I don't know." Um, and they've really, I think, turned it around.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Yeah, the stock's been a dog this year, but yeah, I understand.
- JCJason Calacanis
That's why I said, like, it's kinda hard to pick it, but I do think, like, if you look at the fundamentals of the business-
- DFDavid Friedberg
Twitter's down this year too, right?
- JCJason Calacanis
... I think that 118 is gonna go to 300 million, um, because-
- DFDavid Friedberg
For Disney?
- JCJason Calacanis
... they announced so much content from the Star Wars, Marvel, Pixar, Disney ecosystem that is coming this year and next year. Um, and it's goi- from Book of Boba Fett, Mandalorian, Obi-Wan Kenobi where, um, you know, uh, Hayden Christensen and, uh, the guy who played Obi-Wan Kenobi are coming back. Like, this library is going to have a ridiculous 2022.
- DFDavid Friedberg
I like HBO Max more than Disney+. I mean, my kids watch a little Disney+, but they watch all the other streaming services too.
- JCJason Calacanis
Yeah.
- DFDavid Friedberg
Uh, D- Disney+ doesn't seem to have a monopoly for me. HBO Max has such a depth of content, it's so freaking good.
- JCJason Calacanis
HBO Max is just killing it right now.
- DFDavid Friedberg
When that Warner Media deal gets done, I think that's the juggernaut stock you wanna own. It's gonna have an incredible library to compete with Disney.
- JCJason Calacanis
Well, I mean, Succession and just like 10 other programs-
- DFDavid Friedberg
Just library, man. They got, they have, so much in there.
- 1:02:47 – 1:07:31
Worth Human Being
- JCJason Calacanis
this week. Okay, worst human being, I'm gonna go first. I'm gonna say Elizabeth Warren (drum roll) . Um, I think trying to raise money off of the back of the person who raised the most money for our taxes, from taxes, is just lame. If you haven't seen, she's attacking, um, Elon and Bezos in Facebook ads, trying to grift to get $10 while she's got 12 million in equities that she paid like $0 on, because that's how the tax system that she has operated under for decades works. Worst human being to me, Elizabeth Warren.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Uh, I am going to pick Travis McMichael, Gregory McMichael, William "Rhody" Bryan, Roddy Bryan, and Derek Chauvin, four white men who, uh, killed, in two different incidents, uh, an unarmed Black man. They are scumbags, and they should go to jail, and they will for the rest of their lives. They are terrible human beings.
- JCJason Calacanis
Great job. Sax, who you got for worst human being?
- DSDavid Sacks
Yeah, I've, I've got a name here. I don't know if, if the audience knows yet. It's, uh, a guy named Peter, uh, Daszak, who's a British zoologist. He's head of a group called the EcoHealth Alliance that received millions of dollars in, uh, NIH grants for gain-of-function research in bat viruses.
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
Oh, sure (laughs) .
- DSDavid Sacks
If, if that sounds familiar it's because some of that was given to the lab in Wuhan from which, uh, COVID likely leaked. Uh, but that by itself is not the r- the reason why he's my choice. He then became one of the leading s- uh, signers and organizers of a letter that was published in The Lancet in February of 2020, insisting with total certainty that the virus had made the leap from animals to humans rather than being, uh, rather than leaking from a lab. In fact, he basically painted anyone who had put forward the lab leak theory as a conspiracy theorist. Uh, he, you know, his influence made this s- so-called zoonotic theory the official narrative that could not be questioned online for well over a year, all the social networks then censored on that basis, and he never disclosed his obvious conflict of interest given that his millions of research was threatened if the lab leak theory were proven right. So, this, you know, this guy not only helped unleash a plague upon the world, he then lied about it to cover his ass and protect his millions. That makes him the worst in my view.
- DFDavid Friedberg
If you're interested in hearing, um, a point of view on this, uh, Jamie Metzl did an interview with Lex Fridman on Lex's podcast. It's worth listening to. It's five hours long, but the, um, uh, the section where they talk about what Sax is sharing I think is around the one-hour mark. Um, and it's a, a really interesting narrative that Jamie shares about what this individual did, uh, during this period of time and why.
- DSDavid Sacks
Does this support what I'm saying?
- DFDavid Friedberg
Yes. Yes, okay-
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
He's not gonna listen, but now he feels smug with himself-
- DSDavid Sacks
(laughs)
- DFDavid Friedberg
(laughs)
- CPChamath Palihapitiya
... so thanks.
- JCJason Calacanis
Oh, no, because Sax loves it.
- DSDavid Sacks
No, my, my source, so-
- JCJason Calacanis
Lex Fridman's a genius.
- DSDavid Sacks
Yeah, Lex is great. No, so, uh, my, my source for this has been the reporting of Glenn Greenwald, who, um-
- DFDavid Friedberg
Yep.
- DSDavid Sacks
... did some, uh, pretty good research on, a great, I mean, sort of expose on the conflict of interest that was never disclosed. And it was on this basis that all the social networking sites then engaged in censorship. So, just a whole, you know, cluster of bad motives by-
- DFDavid Friedberg
Yeah.
- DSDavid Sacks
... you know, people looking to cover their ass.
- DFDavid Friedberg
But, I mean, it's, it's worth hearing Jamie's point of view on this, which is he tries to identify the motivation and the incentives that those people had when they made those cover-up decisions along the way. Um, and I think it's really worth everyone taking that in. That's what I really liked about Lex's podcast, uh, interview with Jamie, um, was, you know, none of these things come from a place of pure evil. Uh, they come from a place of incentive and motivation where these individuals think that they're doing the right thing for some reason, and, uh, and, and that's what motivated their behavior. But that's also why, uh, just to jump the gun here, I am not giving you a worst human being answer, uh, not a virtue signal. Uh, really, I just, I go back to this point that I don't think humans are, you know, intrinsically evil. I think that a lot of people make decisions for, uh, what they consider to be good reasons or the right reasons, or reasons that are, in their mind, altruistic, but ultimately have adverse consequences for another population.
- JCJason Calacanis
Mm-hmm. Not, not Derek Chauvin.
- DFDavid Friedberg
Yeah. I would argue that in some cases people who are selfish, um, don't make it very far in life, and so they generally don't have that much of an impact in an evil way. There's very few people that are purely selfish and make it to scale. But, um, anyway, that's my-
- JCJason Calacanis
... very esoteric response.
- DSDavid Sacks
I think Friedberg raised a good point, which is, I think we can judge this not by people's internal motivations, 'cause we don't really know, but rather by the consequences of their choices.
- DFDavid Friedberg
Right.
- JCJason Calacanis
Yeah, the outcome. Right.
- DSDavid Sacks
The ad- the adverse consequences.
- JCJason Calacanis
Okay.
- 1:07:31 – 1:10:02
Best Meme
- JCJason Calacanis
So, uh, best meme? I'll go first. Uh, I love Daniel Craig's, uh, The Weekend, because I've been so exhausted from this year that when Friday rolls around, that's all I can think about, is Daniel Craig saying, "Ladies and gentlemen, The Weekend." He's just exacerbated and exhausted, as am I. My runner up was Anakin and Padme doing their conversation, you know, uh, for the better, right? And you can look that up online. It's a four-pane, it's one of those four-pane conversation ones. Uh, what do you got, Shamath? You have any best memes? It's the, uh, Bernie Sanders inauguration outfit.
- DSDavid Sacks
(laughs)
- JCJason Calacanis
Amazing.
- DFDavid Friedberg
Yes.
- JCJason Calacanis
Always a great go-to. That was a good one. (laughs)
- DFDavid Friedberg
His little- his little mittens and, you know, his- his detached-
- JCJason Calacanis
Totally. ... his detached communist glare.
- DFDavid Friedberg
Totally. Forgot about that.
- JCJason Calacanis
Uh, yeah. Great meme. Great meme. Yeah. It's like he's at a sit-in at, like, uh, some college in Vermont.
- DFDavid Friedberg
So funny.
- JCJason Calacanis
In- in Russia in the wintertime. Exactly. Exactly.
- DFDavid Friedberg
It's like a little chipmunk.
- JCJason Calacanis
Yeah. All right, who do you got, Sax? You got a best meme?
- DSDavid Sacks
The Ever Given, uh, forklift meme. This was that little forklift trying to push that gigantic barge out of the-
- JCJason Calacanis
Oh, yes.
- DSDavid Sacks
... what was it, the Suez Canal, and, uh, it got-
- JCJason Calacanis
That's a good one.
- DSDavid Sacks
... hilariously repurposed, and then, uh-
- JCJason Calacanis
Wasn't that, like, 10 years ago? (laughs) That was this year?
- DSDavid Sacks
I know. It was this year. Can you believe it? And a closer runner up was my fall plans versus the Delta variant.
- JCJason Calacanis
Oh, yeah.
- DSDavid Sacks
Do you remember that one? That was a good one too.
- JCJason Calacanis
That was a great one. That was a good one. Friedberg, uh, yeah, I know you don't care about pop culture or consume much of it, but gi- give us your best meme. Friedberg, give him one.
- DFDavid Friedberg
No, I don't, I- I don't have a meme. Sorry. (laughs)
- JCJason Calacanis
I do not have a meme upgrade. I have no sense of humor memes.
- DFDavid Friedberg
I liked Shamath's meme. That was a good one. I'll take that one.
- DSDavid Sacks
Swear jar?
- JCJason Calacanis
I enjoy your memes, but not enough... Okay, can we upgrade his meme subroutine?
- DFDavid Friedberg
I love pop culture. This, the meme thing, I just don't, it doesn't resonate for me. It just doesn't sit-
- JCJason Calacanis
I love pop culture.
- 1:10:02 – 1:14:47
Most Loathsome Company
- DFDavid Friedberg
Loathsome Company. This one is an absolutely easy one, slam dunk. It is, uh, PG&E, who this year was charged with felonies and manslaughter in the death of four people because of the wildfires that they started because of their inability to maintain their power infrastructure throughout the state of California. Very rare that a for-profit corporation gets charged with felony murder and manslaughter, so, uh, I think that's a pretty easy one.
- JCJason Calacanis
What do you got, Friedberg?
- DFDavid Friedberg
I think one day, the human race will look back and identify animal agriculture as, uh, worse than human slavery. Um, I- I do think that that will be a profound realization over the next century for our species and as such-
- JCJason Calacanis
Wait, wait, did you say worse than human slavery?
- DFDavid Friedberg
I- I believe that- that's what we will realize, because the- the scale of death caused by animal agriculture-
- JCJason Calacanis
Okay. Oh, I understand now what you're saying. Got it.
- DFDavid Friedberg
... the- the birth to death cycle that these animals live in, in cages, with no ability to touch or interact with their families, uh-
- JCJason Calacanis
Wow.
- DFDavid Friedberg
... the hurt, the pain, it's extraordinary. And, uh, part of my work that I do day to day is to figure out ways that we can use science to replace animal agriculture. So, the, uh, penultimate kind of animal agriculture processor in the US is Tyson Foods. They are the most loathsome company to me. Um, and, uh, I stick by my- my answer.
- JCJason Calacanis
Can I- can I give you a counterpoint?
- DFDavid Friedberg
Yeah.
- JCJason Calacanis
But it's delicious. It's a joke. Don't- (laughs)
- DFDavid Friedberg
Oh, here we go.
- JCJason Calacanis
Don't... That's not cool.
- DSDavid Sacks
(laughs)
- JCJason Calacanis
I mean, that was a spicy take, I mean, to-
- DFDavid Friedberg
Yeah, that's a good one.
- JCJason Calacanis
... take the human suffering of slavery and then equate it, but you added their murder- I mean, look, ho- honesty, Friedberg, like, if you- yeah, but the thing is, look.
- DFDavid Friedberg
That's a- that was intense.
- JCJason Calacanis
You haven't e- you've never eaten any form of animal protein, so how do you know what you're missing? That's true, but he does know about cruelty. Um, yeah, I guess. I'm just saying- All right, I don't- I don't think there's any winners in this conversation at this point.
- DFDavid Friedberg
Yeah, this is a longer pod. We could do this another time.
- JCJason Calacanis
Fried chicken is really delicious. Oh, man. So is a good steak. Okay, we gotta stop. I'm hungry. (laughs) Me either. Sax, did you have a, um... Besides Tyson Foods, uh, what do you, who do you got?
- DSDavid Sacks
Okay, Most Loathsome Company-
- JCJason Calacanis
Twitter for censoring you and putting a label on your thing?
- DSDavid Sacks
No, no.
- JCJason Calacanis
Is it Twitter?
- DSDavid Sacks
The Most Loathsome Company, I had the New York Times.
- JCJason Calacanis
Oh, wow.
- DSDavid Sacks
A new book came out this year in 2021-
- JCJason Calacanis
Oh, they're spicy.
Episode duration: 1:47:59
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