E71: Russia/Ukraine deep dive: escalation, risk factors, financial fallout, exit ramps and more

1. 0:00 – 0:50

   David Sacks: Man for the people

   1. CPChamath Palihapitiya0:00

      Dude, Sax, I love that look. Look at that shirt.

   2. JCJason Calacanis0:02

      Look at that, man.

   3. DSDavid Sacks0:03

      Is it too noisy for a podcast?

   4. CPChamath Palihapitiya0:04

      No, you look very relatable. You're like a- you're like a- an American man, like, just like at home doing stuff.

   5. JCJason Calacanis0:10

      Is he trying to go full Tucker on us?

   6. DFDavid Friedberg0:12

      It is a really, really horrendous shirt that you're in.

   7. DSDavid Sacks0:14

      (laughs)

   8. JCJason Calacanis0:14

      That is a horrible... I mean, I- that was the same shirt Tucker was wearing last week.

   9. CPChamath Palihapitiya0:18

      Oh my God, Sax is gonna be so appealing to middle America right now. He's like...

   10. JCJason Calacanis0:21

       Absolutely. Look, he's going for the everyman.

   11. CPChamath Palihapitiya0:23

       Yeah, he's an everyman. He doesn't have a blazer on.

   12. JCJason Calacanis0:24

       He's trying to get the purple pills. Are you gonna go chop wood with Tucker?

   13. CPChamath Palihapitiya0:28

       Yeah. (laughs)

   14. DSDavid Sacks0:29

       I may not be a man of the people, but I do try to be a man for the people.

   15. NANarrator0:34

       All in. Let your winners ride.

   16. JCJason Calacanis0:37

       Rain Man David Sax.

   17. NANarrator0:39

       I'm going all in. And I said- We open sourced it to the fans and they've just gone crazy with it.

   18. JCJason Calacanis0:46

       Love you, bestie.

   19. CPChamath Palihapitiya0:46

       Queen of quinoa.

   20. NANarrator0:48

       I'm going all in.

2. 0:50 – 16:27

   Escalating tensions over Russia/Ukraine; nuclear scare; evolving forms of warfare

   1. JCJason Calacanis0:50

      Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the All-In Podcast. It's, uh, obviously been an intense week, and there is a topic, uh, there's really only one topic to talk about this week and that's the Russian invasion of the Ukraine. With me to break all this down, I'm gonna take it from a couple of different angles, the Rain Man, David Sax, with his power flannel on today. He's gonna go chop some wood after this, trying to appeal to the everyman.

   2. DFDavid Friedberg1:18

      (laughs) Power flannel.

   3. DSDavid Sacks1:19

      (laughs)

   4. JCJason Calacanis1:19

      It's a power flannel, it's a power flannel. I think that was gifted by Tucker.

   5. DSDavid Sacks1:23

      (laughs)

   6. JCJason Calacanis1:23

      And the Sultan of Science, hot off the-

   7. DSDavid Sacks1:25

      How do you know, how do you know it's, uh, flannel instead of, uh, cashmere? How do you know it didn't come from one of Chamath's little, um-

   8. JCJason Calacanis1:32

      Chamath would never wear that shirt.

   9. DSDavid Sacks1:33

      ... maybe, uh, baby elephant supply.

   10. JCJason Calacanis1:33

       If you sent that shirt to Chamath, he'd burn it.

   11. DSDavid Sacks1:36

       (laughs)

   12. JCJason Calacanis1:36

       That would go right in his pizza oven.

   13. DFDavid Friedberg1:37

       I wouldn't burn it, but I- I would wipe my butt with it.

   14. DSDavid Sacks1:40

       (laughs)

   15. JCJason Calacanis1:41

       (laughs)

   16. DFDavid Friedberg1:42

       (laughs)

   17. JCJason Calacanis1:42

       Geez, here we go, folks.

   18. DSDavid Sacks1:44

       (laughs)

   19. JCJason Calacanis1:44

       Uh, and hot off the launch of the Canna Beverage Printer Replicator, the Sultan of Science himself, David Freberg. And back from a little holiday, the dictator himself, Chamath Palihapitiya, with a, a Jedi robe. Te- tell us about the Jedi robe that you elected for this week, Darth Palpatiya.

   20. DFDavid Friedberg2:06

       Well, this is-

   21. JCJason Calacanis2:07

       Darth Palpatine Hapatia.

   22. DFDavid Friedberg2:10

       Well, I- I- I mean, this is, look, this is, yes, it is cashmere. We're- we're running out of time, I have to wear through the rest of my few garments, my new garments-

   23. DSDavid Sacks2:18

       (laughs)

   24. DFDavid Friedberg2:18

       ... before it's springtime, and then I have to go to the-

   25. JCJason Calacanis2:21

       Hmm.

   26. DFDavid Friedberg2:22

       ... you know, the linen and the cotton.

   27. JCJason Calacanis2:24

       Got it. So you're enjoying the final days of cashmere?

   28. DFDavid Friedberg2:27

       Well, I do, I did find some-

   29. JCJason Calacanis2:29

       Hmm.

   30. DFDavid Friedberg2:29

       ... baby cashmere, light, thin.
3. 16:27 – 34:23

   Assessing impact of economic sanctions: first, second and third-order effects; exit ramps for Putin and Russia

   1. CPChamath Palihapitiya16:27

      My concern, Chamath, is that we've rushed into a reactive response, um, with respect to sanctions and seizing assets in a way that maybe not be calculated over the long run. Meaning, like are we setting ourselves up for another Iraq, Afghanistan situation, where w- we rush into a war and we don't have an exit strategy? And the issue is that a lot of the assets that we've effectively wiped the value down to zero have a repercussive effect on global businesses and the global economy. As a- as an example, you know, this company that we were texting about called Lukoil, they were worth $60 billion a few days ago. We effectively wiped them out to zero, and, um, 65 to 70% of the shares in that company were held and owned by public, uh, um, retirement funds, pension funds, mutual funds that are used for retirees in Europe and the United States. And, um, and so, you know, a significant amount of-

   2. DFDavid Friedberg17:28

      I think this is a complete red herring. I- I- I've told you this in the private chat, I think this is a complete, complete red herring. And the reason it's a red herring is that the global total market cap of all of these businesses is meaningfully different than the amount of total capex that these guys represent. And inasmuch as you are gonna take the equity values of certain of these companies to zero, it's, in the grand scheme of things, not that much equity value.

   3. JCJason Calacanis17:53

      We can absorb it.

   4. DFDavid Friedberg17:54

      We're not talking trillions of dollars.

   5. CPChamath Palihapitiya17:56

      For- forget about the equity value, just think about the economic repercussions where there is leveraged, uh, positions and swaps and derivatives in place, counterparty swaps in place with a lot of these companies that are now gonna default. And we're not gonna know that till the end of this month when everything has to settle and no one's gonna be able to make their payments.

   6. JCJason Calacanis18:14

      Small price to pay, Friedberg, if-

   7. CPChamath Palihapitiya18:17

      Well, hold on one sec. This applies both to Russian companies that are suppliers and buyers of assets, um, products and services from international businesses and all of a sudden, that line item just zeroes out.

   8. DFDavid Friedberg18:29

      I don't believe the economic value of all of that oil-... exceeds the market cap of Lukoil. I don't believe it. And I don't believe, further, that the economic value that's held by, uh, non-Russian actors is meaningfully more than a few 10s of billions of dollars.

   9. CPChamath Palihapitiya18:48

      We're gonna find out pretty quick.

   10. JCJason Calacanis18:50

       For sanctions-

   11. CPChamath Palihapitiya18:50

       By the way, Russia and the Ukraine combined account for roughly 25% of global wheat exports.

   12. DFDavid Friedberg18:56

       Let me, let me say it differently.

   13. CPChamath Palihapitiya18:57

       That wheat goes to Egypt, and from Egypt, it goes throughout Africa. And there's a lot of nations and a lot of people that depend on that food supply, and that food supply is now cut off.

   14. DFDavid Friedberg19:07

       Okay, I understand, but now we were talking about something different. You wanna talk about wheat? We can talk about wheat, but you're talking about oil.

   15. CPChamath Palihapitiya19:13

       I'm just talking about generally. I'm talking about zeroing all this stuff out and cutting them off completely.

   16. JCJason Calacanis19:16

       Hold on, hold on a second. One, one of the things you have to realize, Friedberg, is that the purpose of sanctions is to create massive pain that stops a madman dictator-

   17. CPChamath Palihapitiya19:24

       100% agree, my point-

   18. JCJason Calacanis19:25

       ... from, from-

   19. CPChamath Palihapitiya19:26

       Yeah.

   20. JCJason Calacanis19:26

       ... invading other countries and causing a world war. So while it is tragic that some-

   21. CPChamath Palihapitiya19:32

       My point is that there is, there is-

   22. JCJason Calacanis19:32

       Hold on, let me finish, Friedberg. While it is tragic that people will suffer and people maybe can't get their Netflix or can't get their Facebook, or some wheat will get disrupted, all of this is the, the l- what is the better choice than going to war with Putin, and it's meant to create pain and suffering. It does not create pain and suffering, then Russia will not change.

   23. CPChamath Palihapitiya19:53

       I understand the intent-

   24. JCJason Calacanis19:54

       That's the point of sanctions.

   25. CPChamath Palihapitiya19:55

       Jay Kal, I totally get it. I totally understand the intent, and I totally understand the point. My, my point is, have we really done the calculus? Because when you make this much of an impact this fast, when you rush into what we might call an economic war with such significant, um, abrasion, in such a significantly short period of time-

   26. DFDavid Friedberg20:13

       I don't think it's that significant.

   27. CPChamath Palihapitiya20:13

       ... do we really have a sense of where the calculus is?

   28. DFDavid Friedberg20:15

       Yet.

   29. CPChamath Palihapitiya20:15

       Because I don't know where the wheat expo- imports are gonna come from for Egypt now, and I don't know where the millions of people that depend on that wheat supply are now gonna get fed from. And I don't think we have an answer. If we had a strategy that said, "Here's the solution. Here's the solution from an energy perspective, from a food perspective, from a capital perspective, to fill all these holes." Otherwise, we may all end up sharing that cost over the long run, and it's gonna be a big cost to bear.

   30. DFDavid Friedberg20:39

       I think you're wrong. And the reason why I think you're wrong is we've already seen how this has played out before. So in the last two years, we learned what governments are willing to do when you have supply shocks and demand shocks. And what they do is they turn on the money printer, and they create enormous amounts of stimulus, okay? And what we have now is a point where if these shocks are really, really, really meaningful globally, I think you're going to see the Federal Reserve and the ECB and the Bank of Canada and the Bank of Japan step in, in a very coordinated way, to provide liquidity to these markets. And I think what that has the byproduct of doing is blunting the economic consequences to everybody but the person who is sanctioned.
4. 34:23 – 46:12

   Reflecting on if taking NATO expansion off the table would have prevented war; Putin's risk of ruin; lessons learned so far

   1. DSDavid Sacks34:23

      I think, to your question, let's just go back for a second to, to your question of would it have made a difference if we had taken NATO expansion off the table, say, last year. I think this year is probably already too late. But I think the answer is yes, regardless of whether you believe that NATO expansion is a real issue for the Russians or whether you think that's a pretext, um, because, you know, people are in one of those two camps. Putin has been saying since 2008... In 2008, there was a NATO summit in Bucharest in which they basically declared, they proposed that Ukraine and Georgia could eventually be eligible for membership. That basically started this whole thing. The Russians at the time said, "This is an absolute non-starter for us. It's a red line. No way will we allow this to happen." And in fact, later that year, they rolled the tanks into Georgia to put a stop to that idea in Georgia. In Ukraine, the conversation was deferred. They had this basically pro-Russian democratically elected prime minister, president, uh, Yanukovych, who was deposed in a coup in 2014, a coup that was supported by our State Department and probably the CIA, okay? In reaction to that, Putin seized Crimea, not a year later, not months later, days later. The reason why he was able to seize it so quickly is the Russians actually have a naval base there at Sevastopol, okay? It's, it's a leased, the area's leased from Ukraine but they have a naval base there. It allows them to control the Black Sea. So the, the Russian thinking on this, if you believe it, goes that, "Listen, we're about to have a pro-Western ruler come into Ukraine, installed by a, what, an American-backed coup, and now we're going to lose our main naval base in the Black Sea and it could be replaced with a NATO base. There's no way that's happening." So they moved to seize Crimea. And then after that, they started backing Russian separatists in the Donbass and the civil war began, okay? So that basically is what's been leading up to this. And then last year, they started getting very exercised about the possibility of this NATO proposal, which again, goes all the way back to 2008, becoming formally recognized and-... Ukraine joining NATO. And for- again, this is from the Russian perspective, okay? And we could talk about whether it's a pretext in a second. But from the Russian perspective, they said that, "Listen..." And Putin gave a speech like this. "If Ukraine joins NATO, because of Article 5, the next time we have a border dispute, which is all the time, right, we could end up getting drawn into a W- World War III with you guys. And so, there is no way we're going to allow Ukraine to be part of NATO." And so they propo- they basically, by December, had given an ultimatum to the State Department. Now, what was the response to that? Blinken came out at the critical moment and said, "NATO's door is open and will remain open." Basically said, "You guys can, you know, take a hike." Um, now, obviously, that was an extremely provocative thing and the Russians invaded Ukraine days later. Now, I think it's pretty obvious that if you take the Russians at their word, that they believe... Forget about whether you think it's true or not, but if you believe, take them at their word, that th- uh, the same word they've been saying since 2008, that this is a red line for them and they have a serious vital national interest there, then you should have diplomatically tried to resolve this issue. But even if you believe it was a pretext and Putin is making up this whole red line thing and his real goal is the expansion of Mother Russia and all that kind of stuff-

   2. JCJason Calacanis37:59

      Or reunification.

   3. DSDavid Sacks37:59

      ... or reunification. Let's say that's his real goal. It still would have been a good idea for Blinken to basically declare that we are going to take NATO expansion off the table, which is simply an affirmation of the status quo. It's not appeasement. You're not giving anything up. You're re-affirming the status quo. Why wouldn't that have been a good-

   4. JCJason Calacanis38:17

      You're blocking something from happening in the future and...

   5. DSDavid Sacks38:19

      Right. Why, why wouldn't that have been a good idea? Because the polling on this showed that the Russian people, by two to one, were in favor of basically taking this kind of military action against Ukraine to prevent NATO expansion, but they were not in favor of doing it purely for unification. So you would have... If this was a pretext by Putin for his expansionist dreams, you could have taken away that card and it would have changed his calculus. Would it have prevented the war? We can't say. But in his calculus, he's got to think, "Well, wait a second. Maybe the people won't be behind this."

   6. JCJason Calacanis38:53

      Well, here's the good news too. If you had given him that chip and said that, "We're not going to let them into NATO," and then he does invade, now you've proven that this person is in reunification mode-

   7. DSDavid Sacks39:04

      That's right.

   8. JCJason Calacanis39:04

      ... and he's deranged and he's a warmonger-

   9. DSDavid Sacks39:06

      Yes.

   10. JCJason Calacanis39:06

       ... and that this could go to other places, and Finland and Poland-

   11. DSDavid Sacks39:10

       Right. He would have much less internal-

   12. JCJason Calacanis39:10

       ... and other people have a real reason to be scared.

   13. DSDavid Sacks39:12

       Yes. He would have much less internal support, so-

   14. JCJason Calacanis39:15

       It would have been a much better chess move.

   15. DSDavid Sacks39:16

       Right. So there was a failure to listen and, um, and this is what concerns me. So I wanna, you know, uh, G- George Herbert Walker Bush, who I think was a great foreign policy president, only s- wasn't so good on domestic, only s- got reelected, didn't get reelected. Uh, but everyone recognized him as a great foreign policy president and, um, he has a quote about this style of foreign diplomacy that we, that his son practiced, Dick Cheney and Rumsfeld, and the same people now in the Biden administration, it's all this sort of neocon foreign policy. He said, the way, he, he called, uh, this iron ass foreign diplomacy. He called Cheney an iron ass and he called Rumsfeld arrogant. And, um, you know what he basically said is that these guys, he's talking about Cheney and Rumsfeld, they don't listen, they just want to kick ass and take names. They never wanted to listen to the other guy's point of view and, um, you know, he thought this was tragic. He thought it ruined Bush 43's presidency. And I gotta wonder, I mean, are we practicing the same style of iron ass diplomacy here? You know? Um, well, now it's too late. We're already at war. I mean, I think if we had practiced... I, I, I think if Herbert Walker Bush and James Baker had, had been president last year and, and James Baker were Secretary of State, do you think we'd be in this mess? I don't think so. I think James Baker would have figured out a way to defuse it.

   16. JCJason Calacanis40:38

       Who is the political-

   17. DSDavid Sacks40:39

       Now it's too late.

   18. JCJason Calacanis40:39

       Who's the political scientist that you shared that, uh, link from in the group chat, uh, from the University of Chicago who has-

   19. DSDavid Sacks40:46

       Yeah, this guy, John Mearsheimer, who's sort of king of the realists.

   20. JCJason Calacanis40:48

       I watched the video from him.

   21. DSDavid Sacks40:49

       Yeah.

   22. JCJason Calacanis40:49

       It's, it's quite convincing that-

   23. DSDavid Sacks40:51

       Yeah.

   24. JCJason Calacanis40:52

       ... we should have an approach that was, "Hey, we, we don't need to incite Ukraine to break off. We could let them make their own decisions." And that we're kind of taunting the Russians. And I don't think... Y- you know, he makes a pretty convincing argument there and I don't think you need to be a Putin apologist. You can keep in your head, "This person's a dictator. This is a communist country. He's a murdering sociopath. And at the same time, we should not provoke him and let the Ukraine make their own decisions, but not encourage them to come into NATO." And we should have taken U- NATO off the table. It's pretty clear that that would have been a, a better, uh, decision here. But we, we still can't think of, uh, an exit ramp here which... And I don't hear-

   25. DSDavid Sacks41:35

       Well, it's always possible, it's-

   26. JCJason Calacanis41:36

       ... Putin talking about... Putin has never said, "I want X," right?

   27. DSDavid Sacks41:40

       Well, no, I think... No, there, there have been times where he... Well, I mean, look, I think his demands-

   28. JCJason Calacanis41:45

       In this situation.

   29. DSDavid Sacks41:45

       His demands have been a nonstarter with us. I think at this point, he wants Crimea, he wants the Donbas to be independent, maybe, uh, under the suzerainty of, of Russia, some, a protectorate basically. Uh, and he's talked about this, uh, denazification, demilitarization of Ukraine. I mean, so now, I think the demands are escalated because they're at war and-

   30. CPChamath Palihapitiya42:05

       He, he's lost too much. He needs to get more, right? I mean, part of the, the problem is-
5. 46:12 – 1:05:22

   New version of economic warfare; possibility of a regime change; comparisons to the Cuban Missile Crisis; realist vs. idealist; lessons for Taiwan

   1. DFDavid Friedberg46:12

      change. I wanted to say something, Jason, before. You know, there's a common thing that you hear right now, which is, "Oh, economic sanctions don't work," and I just wanted to talk about that for one second. Which is, I think, I think there's a lot of people, there's a lot of chatter that historically economic sanctions aren't enough, which is why you can't draw a very clear bright line between that and military intervention as well. And I've, and I, as I thought about it, this is why I think you can actually fight an economic battle and an economic conflict without it pulling you into a military one, and the reason is actually because of what's happened in the last 40 or 50 years. You know, you have, like, the, the most critical infrastructure in the world, I think, is the financial infrastructure, whether we like it or not, right? Because, you know, energy infrastructure tends to be more localized. Other forms of infrastructure are localized, but the one real asset that is absolutely global and universal is the financial payments infrastructure. And, you know, what has really happened is that you can really cripple a country or an entity when you blacklist them from these organizations and these networks. And so this is why I actually think people underestimate the severity of, um, of economic sanctions, if done correctly, and I think before, you've never really, other than, you know, Venezuela and a couple of other, you know, North Korea-

   2. JCJason Calacanis47:35

      North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela.

   3. DFDavid Friedberg47:37

      ... Cuba, you've never really explored the totality and the impact of this kind of sanctions on a large global actor, which we're now gonna find out.

   4. JCJason Calacanis47:44

      This is almost greater than sanctions. You're being... You're not allowed to participate. It's not even like you're saying, "You can't export this. You can't import this." It's, "You're now not allowed. You have no seat at the table."

   5. DFDavid Friedberg47:56

      I think the crude oil example and the airline industry example are two incredible examples of the ripple effects of these sanctions, right? So again, just to reiterate, like, if you're a European-based refiner, in order for you to go and buy that oil, you may have, you know, a working capital line from a German bank. Well, that would violate the terms of that bank now, and so you can't go and get that, right? If you actually have that oil on hand and you refine it into gasoline and you wanna put it into the open market, and you call Flexport as an example and say, "Help me get this stuff to XYZ location," or Maersk or somebody else, they won't do it. Right?

   6. JCJason Calacanis48:34

      I mean, and you look at the tech sanctions that have started, it sounds minor, but you have Netflix has pulled out of the country, Apple is not selling products in the country, Google is starting to restrict services in the company, a- and this is going to have a massive impact on their ability to just participate-In society, they just turned off proactively this morning, I don't know if you saw that, it was right as we were getting on air. Uh, Facebook's been banned. Instagram is still on, Twitter's still on, but the Russians now are, are turning off information into the country while every other country, uh, every other company is turning off their services there.

   7. DFDavid Friedberg49:04

      I think the global economy, or not even the global economy. I think Japan, Europe, Canada, America can collectively support five, six, seven trillion dollars of subsidies to blunt the economic impact of these sanctions. That's effectively shutting Russian exports off for eight, nine, 10 years. Think about the, the... So, you know, th- this, this is, that is the damage.

   8. JCJason Calacanis49:37

      Any thoughts here as we kind of come to no way out here and just the Russian-

   9. DSDavid Sacks49:43

      Well, I mean, I think, c- can I, can I say-

   10. JCJason Calacanis49:44

       ... economy being decoupled?

   11. DSDavid Sacks49:46

       So, so I, I think that if we're gonna figure out a way out, we need to assess what our objectives, you know, what our objectives are. And we talked earlier on, on, on this show about this idea of regime change, and that there wouldn't be an answer without regime change. I disagree with that. Um, I, you know, just those two words, "regime change", should make everybody cringe because regime change was the justification for the Iraq War, for Afghanistan, for Libya, for Syria, and every single one of those things have been a disaster. When has the United States of America successfully achieved regime change in the last 20 years without creating enormous blowback? There's an assumption that somehow if Putin gets toppled by an internal coup, that we end up with Gorbachev 2.0. Well, maybe we do.

   12. JCJason Calacanis50:34

       It's a coin toss.

   13. DSDavid Sacks50:34

       Maybe we, maybe we end up with a hard-liner who's even worse. I don't, you know, I don't, and I, and I think-

   14. JCJason Calacanis50:39

       So what should the goal be? Uh, obviously regime change would be wonderful if the Russian people chose that. But wha- what is the, uh, peace?

   15. DSDavid Sacks50:44

       I say cease fire. Cease fire.

   16. JCJason Calacanis50:46

       Cease fire and peace, right? Yeah, I agree.

   17. DSDavid Sacks50:47

       Cease fire. Um, so I think Putin miscalculated the resolve of Zelenskyy and the West. You know, Zelenskyy was like this TV actor who became president. He was very... Before this, he was like 25% popularity. Now he's at 90-something percent. I think Putin underestimated his resolve. He-

   18. JCJason Calacanis51:05

       Would you say-

   19. DSDavid Sacks51:06

       ... rose to occasion-

   20. JCJason Calacanis51:06

       ... Putin has lost the information war? I mean, that, that's pretty-

   21. DSDavid Sacks51:08

       Oh, yeah.

   22. JCJason Calacanis51:09

       ... staggering.

   23. DSDavid Sacks51:09

       Yes.

   24. JCJason Calacanis51:09

       I mean, it's pretty clear that Putin thought he could win this information war (laughs) , and this is the first meme-

   25. DSDavid Sacks51:15

       I don't even see him trying.

   26. JCJason Calacanis51:15

       ... the first meme war.

   27. DSDavid Sacks51:16

       Yeah, I, I agree it is a meme war. I think we're being heavily propagandized, um, but if, um-

   28. JCJason Calacanis51:21

       But the West is winning the propaganda war.

   29. CPChamath Palihapitiya51:23

       But Jake Hell- Look at, look at, look at, yeah, but I mean, look at where you're sitting, right?

   30. DSDavid Sacks51:27

       Ukraine is engaged in that effort too, right?
6. 1:05:22 – 1:19:22

   Market impact, increased volatility, thinking in decades, managing risk

   1. JCJason Calacanis1:05:22

      too, I have to say. I give them a lot of points.

   2. DFDavid Friedberg1:05:23

      Should we talk about markets? I mean, you know, I- I feel like there's-

   3. JCJason Calacanis1:05:26

      Yeah.

   4. DFDavid Friedberg1:05:26

      ... a really kind of-

   5. JCJason Calacanis1:05:27

      Let's go to markets.

   6. DFDavid Friedberg1:05:28

      ... important discussion because the markets are so volatile during these kind of volatile information times, times of, you know, information that's changing day to day, intraday. You know, where do you guys think about kind of spending your time right now? Are you kind of just putting your head in the sand and saying, "We'll pull it out afterwards"? I mean, how do you guys kinda-

   7. JCJason Calacanis1:05:49

      Yup.

   8. DSDavid Sacks1:05:49

      (laughs)

   9. DFDavid Friedberg1:05:49

      I mean, well, what's funny is, like, I've- I-

   10. JCJason Calacanis1:05:51

       Sacks is curled up in a ball. (laughs)

   11. DSDavid Sacks1:05:53

       (laughs)

   12. JCJason Calacanis1:05:54

       Shaking. (laughs)

   13. DFDavid Friedberg1:05:54

       You know, in- in times of, in times of uncertainty, you actually wanna be deploying. So, you know, uh, I announced, what was it, last week, I think it was?

   14. JCJason Calacanis1:06:04

       The solar deal?

   15. DFDavid Friedberg1:06:05

       The solar deal. You know, I put $228 million into this thing. And then I did another deal. I put 45 million bucks into this thing you guys know about, which we haven't announced yet.

   16. JCJason Calacanis1:06:13

       Yup.

   17. DFDavid Friedberg1:06:14

       So, um, but other than that, I've been literally, uh, white-knuckled. Uh, I don't like to open the stock app.

   18. JCJason Calacanis1:06:21

       (laughs)

   19. DFDavid Friedberg1:06:21

       There's no point. (laughs)

   20. JCJason Calacanis1:06:23

       Take some Dramamine before you open your Morgan Stanley account.

   21. DFDavid Friedberg1:06:26

       The stock app. The stock app. And then what's- what's so funny is, like, my Bloomberg terminal, which is right beside me here on my desk, I have not logged into it. (laughs) Oh, God.

   22. JCJason Calacanis1:06:33

       Put it in a drawer.

   23. DFDavid Friedberg1:06:34

       (laughs)

   24. JCJason Calacanis1:06:34

       Unplug it.

   25. DFDavid Friedberg1:06:34

       Yeah. There's just no point. I- I- at the end of every week, I get a report, right, kind of like our PnL, and I just look at the top line. Like Conor always sends me the top line. It's like, you know? And it, and the last, like, eight weeks in a row, we've lost 1%. We've lost 2%. We've lost 3%. The time that it was like we had made two, 3%-

   26. JCJason Calacanis1:06:50

       Sacks wishes he lost 1%.

   27. DSDavid Sacks1:06:52

       Yeah.

   28. DFDavid Friedberg1:06:53

       ... I celebrated. I got so drunk that night. (laughs) I was like, "Finally!"

   29. JCJason Calacanis1:06:59

       This is where it, uh, it really does help, right, Sacks? To think in decades-

   30. DFDavid Friedberg1:07:02

       There's nothing you can do.

Episode duration: 1:35:53