E61: 2022 Predictions! Business, politics, science, tech, crypto, & more

1. 0:00 – 6:12

   Recapping the "Superspreader"

   1. JCJason Calacanis0:00

      So, I was not gonna bring this up. Sax said bring it up.

   2. DSDavid Sacks0:03

      No, no, no, no, no. No, no, no. You're already creating mischaracterizations.

   3. JCJason Calacanis0:07

      (laughs)

   4. DSDavid Sacks0:07

      You said you wanted to bring it up. I'm like, "Sure, I don't- I'm not gonna veto it, go for it."

   5. JCJason Calacanis0:10

      No, I said, well we have to bring up my COVID, obviously. I'm the second bestie to get COVID. And I told you offline, without the other two besties, uh, I will just say I got it at a social function, period, end of story. You said it's okay to talk about... I got it at your-

   6. DSDavid Sacks0:25

      Yeah, that's not like I wanted to bring it up. You want to bring it up and I'm a- allowing it because I- I'm fine with it, so go for it.

   7. CPChamath Palihapitiya0:31

      We all got something at Sax's event. You got COVID-

   8. JCJason Calacanis0:34

      (laughs)

   9. CPChamath Palihapitiya0:34

      I got chlamydia.

   10. DSDavid Sacks0:35

       (laughs)

   11. JCJason Calacanis0:38

       Oh, you guys went to the downstairs rooms? (laughs)

   12. CPChamath Palihapitiya0:40

       (laughs) We went downstairs-

   13. JCJason Calacanis0:41

       I skipped the basement level.

   14. CPChamath Palihapitiya0:42

       ... and I got gonorrhea, goddammit. (laughs)

   15. JCJason Calacanis0:45

       Chamath again? You promised... It was a great party.

   16. DSDavid Sacks0:49

       All right, let's- let's hear Jason's accusations. I've been hearing about it all week in the chat.

   17. JCJason Calacanis0:53

       There's no accusation! It was a great party.

   18. DSDavid Sacks0:54

       No, you've been saying it was a GOP super-spreader.

   19. CPChamath Palihapitiya0:57

       We didn't know at the party.

   20. JCJason Calacanis0:57

       You are, you are re-taking COVID, Jason. You are angry. You are angry and you are- No.

   21. CPChamath Palihapitiya1:01

       Yeah, you were really mad at Sax because you thought he actually gave you COVID even though Sax had people test, every single person tested on the way in.

   22. JCJason Calacanis1:09

       Except you, J-Cal. J-Cal, you walked around the velvet rope-

   23. DSDavid Sacks1:12

       I have st- it's, uh-

   24. JCJason Calacanis1:12

       And you said, "Guess what? I'm a bestie, I don't have to test."

   25. CPChamath Palihapitiya1:15

       Yeah.

   26. JCJason Calacanis1:15

       And you walk right in that party.

   27. DSDavid Sacks1:17

       (laughs)

   28. CPChamath Palihapitiya1:17

       And guess what? At the end of the day-

   29. JCJason Calacanis1:18

       It's so not true.

   30. CPChamath Palihapitiya1:18

       At the end of the day, there is nothing-
2. 6:12 – 11:57

   Predicting 2022's biggest political winner

   1. JCJason Calacanis6:12

      Biggest political winner in 2022, what did Tucker Carlson's former writers tell you to say, Sax?

   2. DSDavid Sacks6:18

      (laughs) .

   3. JCJason Calacanis6:19

      (laughs)

   4. DSDavid Sacks6:20

      I- (laughs) okay.

   5. JCJason Calacanis6:23

      It never ends, Sax. It never ends.

   6. DSDavid Sacks6:26

      (laughs)

   7. JCJason Calacanis6:26

      It's never gonna end. People were intrigued about what was the second battle about, and that was the big debate-

   8. DSDavid Sacks6:33

      Which battle?

   9. Oh.

   10. JCJason Calacanis6:34

       Who knows? I can't remember-

   11. DSDavid Sacks6:36

       Whoo.

   12. (laughs)

   13. About the beep, beep, which led to me writing the Google doc about beep, beep.

   14. Oh, I know what it was.

   15. Chemath and I, Chemath and I deserve a Bestie Award for that.

   16. I know what it was.

   17. JCJason Calacanis6:46

       Who is your biggest political winner?

   18. DSDavid Sacks6:48

       Okay.

   19. JCJason Calacanis6:48

       Come on. Let's stop at the inside baseball.

   20. DSDavid Sacks6:49

       My biggest political winner for 2022-

   21. JCJason Calacanis6:52

       Predictions, please.

   22. DSDavid Sacks6:52

       Uh, I predict, uh, my man, Ron DeSantis, will be the big winner. He's up for re-election in Florida. He won, uh, in 2018 with less than 1% of the vote. It was a real nail-biter. This time, I think he's gonna cruise to re-election quite handily and become the national front-runner on the GOP side. And the reason is because he had the right approach on COVID. He made the vaccine available.

   23. JCJason Calacanis7:16

       Got it. Yeah.

   24. DSDavid Sacks7:16

       He made the antibodies available. But ultimately, he treated the population like adults. He let them make their own decisions.

   25. JCJason Calacanis7:23

       Yep.

   26. DSDavid Sacks7:23

       He kept businesses open, schools open, and I think the rest of the country is gonna come around to his point of view because of the unstoppability of Omicron next year. And so I think that DeSantis, who is much maligned and disparaged, will come out as the big winner a year from now.

   27. JCJason Calacanis7:41

       All right, who do you got, Freeburg?

   28. DSDavid Sacks7:42

       Vladimir Putin. Um, I think Putin's gonna benefit from the rising conflict between the US and China. Uh, the other day, there was a call between, uh, Putin and, um, uh, Xi, and they said, uh... And, and Putin called Xi his dear friend and said that relations between the two countries had reached an unprecedentedly high level. And I think that his position, um, economically as a trade partner with China and as a beneficiary of Chinese, uh, economic prosperity will only grow as tensions between the US and China rise. Um, I think we're seeing that with some of his cavalier behavior with the Ukraine right now, and I think Putin will become a stronger player on the global stage, uh, particularly as it relates to his relationship with NATO, uh, over the next year. Um, and he's been a little bit quiet the last few years. He was kind of, I'd say suppressed with, uh, sanctions and all the other nonsense that's gone on, uh, to keep him at bay. But he could kind of rise up again in 2022, and, and he could become a, a real player on the, the geopolitical stage globally, um, in a more meaningful way than he has in the last couple years. I mean, you, you white guys love Putin. It's crazy.

   29. (laughs)

   30. The whites love Putin. I don't love him.
3. 11:57 – 19:07

   Predicting 2022's biggest political loser

   1. JCJason Calacanis11:57

      gonna wanna run. And that brings me to my biggest political loser for 2022 as we segue. (drum roll) I believe this is gonna be split between Biden and Trump, the two most important people of the last, uh, four years.

   2. DSDavid Sacks12:09

      Great call.

   3. JCJason Calacanis12:09

      And I think Biden is gonna lose the midterms, and I think Trump is gonna get destroyed with this January 6th thing and, uh, bow out and not run again. Who do you got for your biggest loser?

   4. DSDavid Sacks12:18

      Let me add an octogenarian to that.... which is, my, my pick for biggest political loser next year is Nancy Pelosi. I-

   5. JCJason Calacanis12:24

      Sure.

   6. DSDavid Sacks12:24

      There's a red wave coming. The Democrats for sure are gonna lose the House, that is baked into the cake, and I predict she will announce her retirement shortly after that. She has served, you know, a couple of pretty consequential terms as Speaker. She's never lost a vote, but, uh, with this whole Build Back Better, she forced all of her moderates to take a vote on 5 trillion in new spending, which they then lost in the Senate, and that's gonna cost them some seats. So, she contributed to, I think, her own downfall, what's gonna happen next year.

   7. JCJason Calacanis12:53

      Is N- Are you... Is Nancy going to come work at Social Capital, and you're gonna give her-

   8. DSDavid Sacks12:56

      (laughs)

   9. JCJason Calacanis12:56

      ... uh, a bucket of capital, Chamath, (laughs) to work with? To try to play the market? (laughs) No.

   10. DSDavid Sacks13:02

       By the way, Jason, who's the excellent writer you got from Tucker? Because I wanna hire them.

   11. JCJason Calacanis13:05

       (laughs) All right, listen, I, uh, I got somebody from the YouTube comments who said they would, they would punch me up. All right, I got Biden and Trump, Nancy Pelosi, uh, and then who do you got, Friedberg? Who's your biggest political loser of 2022 prediction?

   12. DSDavid Sacks13:18

       Mine's a little, uh, depressing, but I'm, I, I'm honestly a little bit worried about the United States' influence on kind of a global stage, socially, politically, economically. And I think that there's a number of events that could catalyze kind of a preci- precipitous, uh, series of events, um, that could really harm the continuing influence the US has geopolitically. So, uh, um, you know, I don't really have an individual, but I kind of have the US and its, and its role on the global geopolitical stage.

   13. JCJason Calacanis13:51

       US influence?

   14. DSDavid Sacks13:52

       US influence, yeah.

   15. JCJason Calacanis13:53

       And you said you thought there was gonna be this, uh, potential tipping point perhaps, uh, do you see that being Taiwan, or what?

   16. DSDavid Sacks13:59

       I've got a couple of them. I think when we get into our contrarian points of view-

   17. JCJason Calacanis14:03

       Okay.

   18. DSDavid Sacks14:03

       ... I'll share some of them.

   19. JCJason Calacanis14:04

       Okay. Uh, Chamath, who do you got for your biggest political loser for 2022 prediction?

   20. CPChamath Palihapitiya14:09

       Well, look, I, uh, I like your pick of Trump, which is not mine, but just to double down on this Trump thing. It's incredible to see that he's just a, a bamboozler, you know? The s- the same guy who's like, you know, telling people to not take the vaccine, gets boosted, then, you know, when he finally gets outed with this other scumbag... What's that guy's name? What's that other right knob?

   21. JCJason Calacanis14:38

       Sacks, take out your phone and go to speed dial.

   22. DSDavid Sacks14:40

       (laughs)

   23. CPChamath Palihapitiya14:40

       Just read it.

   24. JCJason Calacanis14:42

       Riley?

   25. CPChamath Palihapitiya14:43

       Read from your speed dial. (laughs) Bill O'Reilly, Bill O'Reilly, Bill O'Reilly-

   26. JCJason Calacanis14:45

       Bill O'Reilly, yeah, that's number four-

   27. CPChamath Palihapitiya14:46

       You know-

   28. JCJason Calacanis14:46

       ... in his speed dial. (laughs)

   29. CPChamath Palihapitiya14:46

       Those two dopes on stage are like, "Yeah, I got boosted, what about you?" "Yeah, I got triple vaxxed." And, and then everybody's-

   30. JCJason Calacanis14:52

       Of course.
4. 19:07 – 25:47

   Predicting 2022's biggest business winner

   1. DSDavid Sacks19:07

   2. JCJason Calacanis19:07

      Biggest business winner for 2022. Chamath, let's start with you. (rimshot playing)

   3. CPChamath Palihapitiya19:11

      Small businesses.

   4. JCJason Calacanis19:12

      Oh.

   5. CPChamath Palihapitiya19:13

      Um, I think what we are starting to see is that these monolithic, monopolistic mega corps aren't everything that they're cracked up to be. And so there's going to be a certain amount of lock-in that we will tolerate. There's going to be a lot of taxation and policy that prevents its further growth, and all of that opportunity accrues to smaller companies. And so in general, I think that if you are on the side of the David versus these Goliaths over the next year, you're gonna have, or, well frankly, over the next several decades, but starting really next year, you're gonna do really well. And the middle companies, so the folks that are neither huge nor are small... Let's take a, you know, an example like a Shopify, 100-billion-dollar market cap, but it's by no means is it a trillion-dollar market cap. Their success comes from enabling, you know, arming the rebels. And so I'm a huge fan of these enabling, this enabling layer for small businesses, both offline and online.

   6. JCJason Calacanis20:16

      Who do you got, Friedberg?

   7. DSDavid Sacks20:17

      Um, I am actually gonna go with Stripe. Stripe is a payments-

   8. JCJason Calacanis20:21

      Sure.

   9. DSDavid Sacks20:21

      ... technology company based in San Francisco. Uh, Stripe raised money earlier this year at a $95 billion valuation. Um, the highest valued IPO, tech IPO, in history was Alibaba. They were valued at $230 billion when they went public. We are hearing rumors that Stripe might, you know, kind of, or think that they, bankers think that they might be able to break that. And so Stripe's IPO could be the biggest tech IPO ever. Um, I think they've been talking about doing a direct listing. By the way, I don't know the guys. I don't know the investors. I, I don't know the company. I'm not an investor, so I don't have any information whatsoever. I'm simply an observer and, and talk to people in the market. But it sounds like they're going for direct listing, and we could see that become the highest valuation tech IPO ever, and then they will become kind of the golden child next year. Uh, and you know, kind of be, be part of the, you know, the, the top of the top.

   10. JCJason Calacanis21:12

       What do you got, Sax?

   11. DSDavid Sacks21:14

       I got rise of the rest, meaning the parts of the United States that are not the traditional California-

   12. JCJason Calacanis21:20

       Good one.

   13. DSDavid Sacks21:20

       ... and New York centers of industry and wealth. I think it's a trend that's been going on, but it's gonna keep getting bigger next year. If you guys saw the net migration numbers by state, they're absolutely stunning.

   14. JCJason Calacanis21:33

       Stunning.

   15. DSDavid Sacks21:33

       So- and it's the, it's the zero tax states that are just booming right now. It's states like Florida and Texas and Tennessee and on and on it goes, at the huge expense of California and New York. I think that trend's only gonna pick up steam now that SALT is dead. I think there was a hope on the part of many people that, you know, Trump got rid of SALT, but... and then the Democrats were supposed to bring it back, and then AOC rejected it. It's not coming back. And what that means is that if you're in, say, f- uh, California, for example, uh, you know, with the SALT deduction, your effective tax rate was around 8%, not 13.3%. Now it really is 13.3%. That's a huge increase. And the politicians in California don't even realize that the tax rate has effectively gone up to the end taxpayer and, uh, and, and the quality of life isn't any better. We're not getting anything more for that. And so I think this exit is gonna continue.

   16. CPChamath Palihapitiya22:23

       I'm sorry, that's the, that's the subtle math that they actually really need to understand. That 500 basis points, you can overcome that if your life is 5% better in enough ways where you're like, "It's fine." And the reason why people are leaving is they feel that their life is actually much less than 5% worse.

   17. DSDavid Sacks22:41

       Right, if the quality of life-

   18. CPChamath Palihapitiya22:42

       If the trash doesn't get picked up-

   19. DSDavid Sacks22:42

       ... doesn't justify it.

   20. CPChamath Palihapitiya22:43

       ... you know, your, your windows are getting smashed in all the time.

   21. JCJason Calacanis22:45

       Safety.

   22. CPChamath Palihapitiya22:46

       Your kids are, you know, depressed and need counseling because of the way that the teachers unions locked them out of school. You're just like, "Forget this. I can't do this anymore."

   23. DSDavid Sacks22:53

       Right.

   24. JCJason Calacanis22:54

       You gotta add those two numbers, yeah.

   25. DSDavid Sacks22:55

       You're here.

   26. CPChamath Palihapitiya22:55

       And so tha- that's what, that's what people really need to appreciate. I don't think it's the actual effective tax rate, but it's the delta of how poor your quality of life has gotten over these last few years relative to the tax you pay. Yeah.

   27. DSDavid Sacks23:07

       Yeah, I total- totally agree with that. And then one other effect that I think plays into this is the re-shoring of American industry, which is not happening in places like California or New York. It's happening in places like Texas.

   28. JCJason Calacanis23:17

       Sure.

   29. DSDavid Sacks23:17

       Samsung just announced a $17 billion investment in a new chip, uh, foundry in Texas. Here, I'll post this. And there's a lot of things like this happening. So as we decouple from China and bring our supply chain home-

   30. JCJason Calacanis23:31

       Let's go. Let's go.
5. 25:47 – 34:30

   Predicting 2022's biggest business loser

   1. JCJason Calacanis25:47

      around a trend here. Biggest business loser for 2022, uh, I'll just give it real quick. I think crypto projects that actually don't deliver a product in 2022 are just n- gonna be, um, loss. I think this idea that people are gonna bet on things that don't exist in the real world or don't actually have applications is gonna end. It's time for crypto to put up or shut up and I think the crypto projects that do that, which a number of them are starting to, are gonna soar but it's gonna be a big shake out there. What do you got for biggest business loser in 2022, Friedberg?

   2. DSDavid Sacks26:18

      I agree with you, actually. That was mine.

   3. JCJason Calacanis26:19

      What?

   4. DSDavid Sacks26:20

      I, I... Yeah.

   5. JCJason Calacanis26:20

      Oh, wow.

   6. DSDavid Sacks26:21

      I said crypto bubble will burst. There's a lot of scammy nonsense going on. 90% of these projects-

   7. JCJason Calacanis26:27

      Okay.

   8. DSDavid Sacks26:27

      ... you know, are not gonna yield value and fundamentals. And I also think that rising interest rates are gonna affect, uh, the crypto market. There's a na- a lot of leveraged trades into the crypto, uh, assets. Uh, those will start to de-lever, uh, as these, uh, interest rates shift up. And as a whole, you'll see a large percentage of them go away or decline in value, but a small number will continue to grow in value. Just like we saw when the dot-com bubble blew up. There was a number of companies that survived, most of them did not, and the few that did survive ended up being, coming worth 10 times what the current market value is. And I think that that's still possible with these crypto projects, but, uh, I'd say 90% of them are probably gonna start to blow up next year.

   9. JCJason Calacanis27:07

      What do you got, Chamath?

   10. CPChamath Palihapitiya27:09

       Well, I guess I'm fading you guys and I'm also fading implicitly Friedberg's pick of Stripe, but my biggest business loser for 2022 is Visa and Mastercard and traditional payment rails and the entire ecosystem around it. So I think that this is the year you can put on what probably will be the most profitable spread trade of my lifetime, which is to be short these companies and that anybody that basically lives off of this two or 3% tax and be long, well thought out, Web3 crypto projects that are rebuilding payments infrastructure in a completely decentralized way. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that what you say won't also happen, both that Stripe will have an incredible IPO and that a lot of these scammy crypto projects will go to zero, however, if you read the white papers of these crypto projects and you systematically put together a framework, I think you can be long those and you can be short Visa, Mastercard because I think this is their peak market cap.

   11. JCJason Calacanis28:11

       And for those of you who don't know, fading in sports betting, taking the opposite side of a bet, taking the opposite team, I guess.

   12. DSDavid Sacks28:16

       Man, Visa's market cap is half a trillion dollars, huh? It's incredible.

   13. CPChamath Palihapitiya28:21

       It's a, it's a completely contrived duopoly that doesn't need to exist.

   14. JCJason Calacanis28:23

       And what does Visa mean to a young person?

   15. DSDavid Sacks28:25

       And M- Mastercard's almost 400 billion, so they're a trillion dollar combined market cap, that's incredible.

   16. CPChamath Palihapitiya28:30

       By the way, you have to, you have to understand that the canary in the coal mine here is pretty significant. The most important thing is Amazon earlier this year, Nick, maybe you can post this, decided to just shut Visa off in the UK.

   17. JCJason Calacanis28:41

       Oh, yeah. Big-

   18. CPChamath Palihapitiya28:42

       Now, Amazon is not going to do something like that, in my opinion, unless it's a test of what they can do all around the world. And again, going back to this idea of arming the rebels, there really is no need today for all of these small businesses to sit on top of Visa, Mastercard, and Amex rails. It's unnecessary. And so it'll probably get developed in the developing world first. This is why I think, you know, focusing in markets like Nigeria, to me, are way more exciting than talking about these-

   19. DSDavid Sacks29:10

       Right.

   20. CPChamath Palihapitiya29:10

       ... you know, these fading Western European countries. Who cares?

   21. DSDavid Sacks29:14

       Right.

   22. CPChamath Palihapitiya29:15

       This is where this stuff will happen. Um, it's not to say that those o- those other companies can't tr- you know, trundle along for a while, but when I say, you know, we'll look back in 10 years and their market caps will be materially lower, anybody in those traditional infrastructure and rails versus anybody in this new infrastructure and rails will be... It will look like a no-brainer 10 years from now.

   23. DSDavid Sacks29:39

       Do you consider the buy now, pay later companies like a firm and upstart or whatever. I don't know if upstart fits in that category, but some of these buy now pay later businesses as being the alternative to the traditional payment networks, or do you think-

   24. CPChamath Palihapitiya29:50

       No.

   25. DSDavid Sacks29:50

       ... it's a different business?

   26. CPChamath Palihapitiya29:51

       No. I, right now, I think what, what buy now pay later is, is, is a rate arbitrage.

   27. DSDavid Sacks29:56

       Right.

   28. CPChamath Palihapitiya29:57

       When, as you said earlier, rates are very, very low so the cost of capital is low, but it again starts to habituate the consumer experience to, "I don't need to pay these users' rates to these three credit card companies to facilitate a transaction of money that I already have or money that I'm good for." That's the big idea, right? And so when you translate that into Web3 in a good project or a good series of projects, you're not gonna need these companies. And so it's going to, I think, eviscerate trillions of dollars of market cap of traditional companies.

   29. JCJason Calacanis30:25

       Well, not to mention you also have in between these two Venmo and Cash App-

   30. DSDavid Sacks30:30

       Right.
6. 34:30 – 1:02:07

   Most contrarian belief for 2022

   1. DSDavid Sacks34:30

   2. JCJason Calacanis34:30

      Got it. Okay. Most contrarian belief. Uh, Sachs, why don't you tell us your most contrarian belief since, uh, I'm sure that you workshopped this with the contrarian, Peter Thiel himself?

   3. DSDavid Sacks34:38

      (laughs)

   4. JCJason Calacanis34:39

      It never ends.

   5. DSDavid Sacks34:40

      Yeah. I mean, so I ... Well, I have a couple of them here actually.

   6. JCJason Calacanis34:44

      You wanna wait and go after everybody else?

   7. DSDavid Sacks34:45

      Sure. Yeah, go ahead.

   8. CPChamath Palihapitiya34:46

      Uh, I don't even know if this is contrarian or just unconventional, but I think that all of this pressure in, on the progressive left will manifest in the chosen one, AOC, deciding to step up and run against Schumer in the primary-

   9. JCJason Calacanis35:05

      Mm-hmm.

   10. CPChamath Palihapitiya35:05

       ... in June of 2022.

   11. JCJason Calacanis35:07

       Mm-hmm.

   12. CPChamath Palihapitiya35:08

       And she will lose.

   13. JCJason Calacanis35:10

       Wow.

   14. DSDavid Sacks35:11

       That's a good prediction.

   15. I like Chamath's prediction.

   16. JCJason Calacanis35:14

       That's a bold one, yeah. That she would lose is bold.

   17. CPChamath Palihapitiya35:15

       Well, well, sorry, just to give a little bit of color on this, like, let, let's just assume that she doesn't, right? And, and, you know, th- she shouldn't, but le- think about where she's sitting. Build Back Better is over. There's an enormous amount of stuff happening right now where, you know, it looks like the progressive left is really gonna be, uh, put under pressure. And it's almost as if, if she's really going to be the standard-bearer and she needs to do something quickly otherwise she's gonna have to wait until she's 38, you know, she's, you know, another six years from now because it's not unlikely that she's gonna run against Kirsten, you know, Kirsten Gillibrand. So this is kind of like, it may be a, a moment where, out of her sheer frustration, she steps up. And then we will see whether Freeburg is right or I'm right, whether the populism is really around the left or if the populism is really around the silent majority.

   18. JCJason Calacanis36:05

       What do you got, Sachs?

   19. DSDavid Sacks36:06

       I think it's a good ... I think that's a very good prediction. Um, uh, in a, in a similar way, I predict that there will be a strange new respect for Bill Clinton in the Democratic Party by the end of next year. Why? Because after the red wave, there'll be a recognition that they need to move towards the center, they need to triangulate, and o- and Clinton was the one who provided the formula for doing this. He dragged the Democratic Party back to the center after they were losing elections. And the other piece of this is gonna be that it's already the case in polling that Hispanics and Asian-Americans now are swing voters, and I think you're gonna see in November 2022 that they go for Republicans in big numbers. And so the idea...... that the Democratic party can just coast to, uh, election based on demographics. I think that theory is gonna be-

   20. JCJason Calacanis36:53

       Out the window.

   21. DSDavid Sacks36:53

       ... imperiled.

   22. JCJason Calacanis36:54

       Yeah, I like it-

   23. DSDavid Sacks36:54

       And so, and so they're gonna be looking to, to Clinton and maybe not so much Obama as the, uh, as sort of the predicate they should be, you know, aspiring to in the future.

   24. JCJason Calacanis37:03

       I think what's important about that is those groups of people, I think, are offended by the free money, get something for nothing. They're hardworking immigrant people who have pride. They don't want handouts. And then you have this left, white, liberal maniac saying, "No, no, you're poor. You need handouts. You don't, you shouldn't work. You need handouts. You're, you know, uh..." And I just think they don't buy it, and that's why I think they're gonna go to the Republicans, because Republicans are hardworking and freedom-loving.

   25. DSDavid Sacks37:27

       And what was Clinton's big tagline in his campaign? He, he said that he supports people who work hard and play by the rules.

   26. JCJason Calacanis37:34

       Yeah.

   27. DSDavid Sacks37:34

       That was the... So-

   28. JCJason Calacanis37:35

       Great tagline.

   29. DSDavid Sacks37:35

       That's the message the Democrats gotta refine. Right now, they'd seem to be on the side of basically drug addicts. I mean, you know, people who-

   30. JCJason Calacanis37:43

       Junkies.
7. 1:02:07 – 1:04:19

   Best performing asset of 2022

   1. JCJason Calacanis1:02:07

      So let's go to best performing asset of 2022. (drum roll) What do you got, Chamath?

   2. CPChamath Palihapitiya1:02:12

      This is simple. This will be battery metals, uh, lithium, nickel, cobalt-

   3. JCJason Calacanis1:02:18

      Okay.

   4. CPChamath Palihapitiya1:02:19

      ... graphite. Put them in a basket-

   5. JCJason Calacanis1:02:21

      Rapid fire, like it.

   6. CPChamath Palihapitiya1:02:21

      ... and you can be along these things and definitely you're gonna profit.

   7. JCJason Calacanis1:02:23

      Okay. Rapid fire, Sax, what do you got? Best performing asset.

   8. DSDavid Sacks1:02:25

      I just said Series A venture because it's pretty unoriginal. It's what I do. I think growth got a little bit over-funded and overheated, and I think the seed stage also. There's like so... there were so many new seed investors.

   9. JCJason Calacanis1:02:37

      Mm-hmm.

   10. DSDavid Sacks1:02:37

       Again, it might have been, um, partially because of excess liquidity. So Series A is still the choke point and I think it's still the best area to invest in. Innovation's not gonna stop. There's gonna be great Series A investments next year.

   11. JCJason Calacanis1:02:50

       I also picked early stage startups because, uh, that's where the magic happens. I picked early stage, like right before Series A. I think SPACing, uh, direct listings, raising money, people coming down to do the Series Bs, all of that is creating a pull for more startups and the founders are getting very sophisticated in terms of finding product market fit and scaling globally, um, you know, uh, earlier. And that's what's creating these great big outcomes, whether it was Uber or Facebook, both figuring out... and Or Airbnb, how to go global quickly. So my choice for best performing asset of 2022 is still early stage startups. Friedberg, what do you got?

   12. DSDavid Sacks1:03:30

       Obviously best performing asset in terms of a multiples basis, you're never gonna beat seed stage investing, certainly. Um, but, uh, you know, I tried to highlight, uh, and continue my, uh, kind of contrarian bet that we're gonna see increased global conflict next year, again, driven by, you know, incumbents trying to hold onto political office and increase, uh, inflation and fueling economic growth and the American response to China. So in a world of increased global conflict, I think assets that do really well are energy commodities and energy stocks. I recently made a big bet on energy stocks, uh, defense stocks, and it used to be, uh, gold. It could be the case that Bitcoin, uh, you know, sees a, a, a role as being a defensive, uh, position in portfolios in a world of, uh, of war and conflict. So, th- those are my kind of macro, um, themes-

   13. JCJason Calacanis1:04:18

       All right.

   14. DSDavid Sacks1:04:18

       ... for, for

8. 1:04:19 – 1:09:19

   Most anticipated trend of 2022

   1. DSDavid Sacks1:04:19

      asset.

   2. JCJason Calacanis1:04:19

      Most anticipated trend of 2022. What do you got, Chamath? (drum roll) A trend you're anticipating in 2022?

   3. CPChamath Palihapitiya1:04:26

      Peer-to-peer payments. Um, the destruction of traditional rails. Uh, it will come out of Africa.

   4. JCJason Calacanis1:04:31

      Great. Sax, what do you got?

   5. DSDavid Sacks1:04:33

      This is where I had the civil war between progressives and pragmatic liberals. Um, so building on what Chamath said, you're already seeing this in the feud between London Breed and Chesa Boudin. That is really gonna, I think, blossom next year. We have not heard the last of that. You saw it in Philadelphia where the mayor, uh, Michael Nutter took on Larry Krasner. I think you're gonna see it in New York City between Eric Adams and these Manhattan elites. Um, and you also saw it in Washington DC where the progressives were blaming Manchin for, you know, the... losing the Build Back Better. So this is a civil war that's gonna continue and, uh, what Chamath predicted with AOC versus Schumer would, would certainly play into that. So, uh, it's... grab the popcorn. It is the, the trend I'm anticipating the most.

   6. JCJason Calacanis1:05:18

      All right. There you go. Uh, do you anticipate a similar trend with like the alt-right Trumpians and DeSantis and that kind of thing breaking up? How do you see that playing out?

   7. DSDavid Sacks1:05:27

      Not, not yet because, um, Trump isn't on the ballot in 2022. So I actually think the Republican Party is gonna be surprisingly united in 2022. I think where the trouble might come in is when we have a Republican primary in 2023, and especially if Trump runs, then, you know, all hell's gonna break loose. So, yeah.

   8. JCJason Calacanis1:05:46

      Who is, who are the two people who would be most viable against Trump in that 2020, 2023 s- s- s- Ron DeSantis and Ted Cruz?

   9. CPChamath Palihapitiya1:05:52

      Nikki Haley.

   10. JCJason Calacanis1:05:54

       Nikki Haley? That's gonna be, that's gonna be fireworks. Friedberg, what do you got? Anticipated trend?

   11. DSDavid Sacks1:05:58

       My biggest, uh, anticipated trend for 2022 is gonna be a gold rush in biotech into, um, what I think will become the cover story on magazines throughout the year, that humans have discovered the Fountain of Youth. Um, and this will arise from, uh, these investments in what are called Yamanaka factor-based cell reprogramming methods. I've talked about this on the pod in the past. A few years ago, uh, scientists identified that four chemicals could trigger gene expression in cells and get those cells to effectively revert to being stem cells. And more recently demonstrated that using, uh, uh, lower amounts of those chemicals and other, what are called kind of epigenetic, epigenetic factors can trigger partial cell reprogramming, which causes cells in the body to act youthful. As a result of those discoveries, an absolute gold rush is now underway. Um, more recently, Yuri Milner, Jeff Bezos, Arch, and others put a billion dollars to seed a new company called Altos Labs to pursue therapeutics in this area. Google has s- individually funded a company called Calico, led by Art Levinson, the former founder and CEO of Genentech. And, uh, just recently, uh, Blake Byers and Brian Armstrong announced their new company called NewLimit with $100 million of their own personal capital. All of these, uh, companies are pursuing the same, uh, effort, which is, um, basically causing cells to be youthful, to regenerate in a youthful way, um, and as a result, you see kind of organs, um, and, and systems in the body, uh...... uh, act more healthily. And there will be magazine covers and, y- you know, uh, 60 Minutes artic- stories and all sorts of stuff will start to happen in 2022 saying, "Oh, my gosh," as... because the amount of money that's gone in in this year is gonna cause breakthroughs and discoveries to start to get published about next year. And when that starts to happen and the media and the PR cycles start to kick up, you'll see this become the year of, uh, Yamanaka factor-based, uh, reprogramming. It will... and everyone's saying it's gonna be the biggest gold rush, um, in biotech since recombinant DNA, um, was used by Genentech in the, uh, in the '80s and '90s.

   12. JCJason Calacanis1:07:59

       All right. And, uh, I had, uh, most anticipated trend of 2022 being the accredited investor laws are going to change and evolve, and it might just be you take a test and you're now accredited. It doesn't matter if you won the lottery or you make 200,000 a year. And, uh, a legal crypto framework is going to happen, I think, at the same time, so those regulations combined are going to empower really interesting capital formation, uh, on a global basis, whether it's running a syndicate with everybody in the world, including non-accredited investors, or DAOs, or those two things merging, uh, or as Balaji is talking about, you know, a cap table over here that's mirrored on a blockchain at the same time, and people being able to trade their interest in Chamath's fund or Sax's fund or one of my syndicates with tokens on the internet, and that could become-

   13. DSDavid Sacks1:08:47

       That's pretty cool.

   14. JCJason Calacanis1:08:48

       ... uh, a major unlock, where, you know, if you were in-

   15. CPChamath Palihapitiya1:08:52

       I don't have a fund.

   16. JCJason Calacanis1:08:53

       ... Social-

   17. CPChamath Palihapitiya1:08:53

       I run a meager family office.

   18. JCJason Calacanis1:08:54

       Well, if you were in your earlier funds and somebody... and there was still stuff trickling to Social Capital Three, the people who have that could sell it back to you or sell it to each other if they wanted to get liquidity, um, and that's gonna be super interesting, especially if it could happen just globally where some person in China decides they wanna have access to US, uh, funds. Our LPs could just start selling if it was structured that way.

9. 1:09:19 – 1:09:39

   Most anticipated media for 2022

   1. JCJason Calacanis1:09:19

      Most anticipated film, TV series, media, yada yada for 2022, what do you got? Yellowstone season nine, uh, Sax?

   2. DSDavid Sacks1:09:28

      (laughs) So I've s-

   3. JCJason Calacanis1:09:29

      I watched the first two episodes. It's really great. I mean, you forget what a great actor, um, what's his name is, uh-

   4. DSDavid Sacks1:09:37

      Kevin Costner.

   5. JCJason Calacanis1:09:37

      ... Kevin Costner is a great actor.

Episode duration: 1:22:29