Google fires protestors, NPR chaos, Humane's AI Pin, Startup tax crisis, sports betting scandal

1. 0:00 – 9:49

   Bestie Intros: Chamath recaps the Breakthrough Prize Ceremony, "High IQ foods"

   1. DSDavid Sacks0:00

      Chamath, did you go down to the Breakthrough thing this weekend?

   2. CPChamath Palihapitiya0:03

      The Breakthrough Prize was amazing. It's like observing exotic animals-

   3. DSDavid Sacks0:06

      (laughs)

   4. CPChamath Palihapitiya0:06

      ... in their natural habitat.

   5. DSDavid Sacks0:08

      Well, a friend of mine who you hung out with down there called me (thudding sound) last night to give me the breakdown on all the individuals he saw and what was going on with them.

   6. CPChamath Palihapitiya0:16

      I mean-

   7. DSDavid Sacks0:16

      He's like-

   8. CPChamath Palihapitiya0:17

      ... I don't even know how Nat and I keep getting invited to this, but, like, to say we were outclassed is an understatement.

   9. DSDavid Sacks0:22

      (laughs)

   10. CPChamath Palihapitiya0:22

       The people at that thing (laughs) were-

   11. DSDavid Sacks0:24

       What is this, the Breakthrough Awards?

   12. CPChamath Palihapitiya0:25

       The Breakthrough Prize, yeah.

   13. JCJason Calacanis0:26

       Yeah, I couldn't make it. I got invited, too. Shout out to Yuri.

   14. CPChamath Palihapitiya0:28

       It's so incredible.

   15. JCJason Calacanis0:30

       Yeah.

   16. CPChamath Palihapitiya0:30

       Okay, first of all, shout out to Yuri and Julia. It is incredible. There were two moments where I cried. This woman goes up on stage to give an award to the people that had made this advancement in cystic fibrosis.

   17. JCJason Calacanis0:44

       Yeah.

   18. CPChamath Palihapitiya0:45

       And she says, "My child was born with cystic fibrosis, and then my second child was born with cystic fibrosis, and then my second child died." She said that. I just burst into tears. And then you present an award to the person that actually is helping them stamp out the disease. We celebrated the people that found the gene that caused Parkinson's, and then... Yeah, I mean, the, the people at that... It's pretty incredible.

   19. JCJason Calacanis1:09

       It's in LA, right? They did it in Los Angeles?

   20. CPChamath Palihapitiya1:12

       Yeah, I mean, like, look, Yuri Milner and Julia Milner, Zuck and Priscilla Chan, and Anne Wojcicki, and Sergey Brin, those six people are the ones that organizes Breakthrough Prize, and I think it's just a modern version of the Nobel which tries to really shine a spotlight on people doing really groundbreaking work in physics and math and life sciences. And so you get people that have just done things that are just very practical and are very real, and I think what they do is they make, frankly, these kinds of achievements much more high level in the sense that you're bringing together people from Hollywood and people from Silicon Valley, and the awareness is up, and it's just incredibly well-produced, and... Yeah, it's really a cool thing to be a part of. But, I mean, seeing some of these people ver- are very intimidating. I sat beside Vin Diesel.

   21. JCJason Calacanis2:09

       (laughs)

   22. DSDavid Sacks2:10

       Oh, really?

   23. CPChamath Palihapitiya2:11

       That was super cool. He is a super nice guy, and on the other side of me was someone that actually Sachs knows, Toby Emmerich, who's a, was the chairman of Warner Brothers. So just talking to these guys was super cool.

   24. JCJason Calacanis2:24

       Moving it to Los Angeles was a great move. And it's ju-

   25. CPChamath Palihapitiya2:27

       Great idea.

   26. JCJason Calacanis2:27

       Yeah, it's just I was invited. I couldn't make it, so sorry, and thank you to Julia and Yuri for inviting us again. But it, it's really great that they're giving it the celebration it deserves and making it, you know, like, dare I say, sexy and cool and hip to be a scientist and solve the world's biggest problems. I, I think it's just so awesome. And you're right, Sergey Brin, Anne Wojcicki, Zuck, and Priscilla and Julia and Yuri are the founders of the Breakthrough Prize.

   27. CPChamath Palihapitiya2:57

       The craziest thing is they give a, they give a youth Breakthrough award.

   28. JCJason Calacanis3:01

       Mm.

   29. CPChamath Palihapitiya3:01

       So the Breakthrough Prize is this beautiful globe, and then the junior winner gets, like, a smaller version, very appropriate. And it was a video of this kid in India who had won it a few years ago-

   30. JCJason Calacanis3:13

       Huh.
2. 9:49 – 14:38

   All-In Summit update, Poker styles of Andrew Robl, Jason Koon, and Phil Hellmuth

   1. JCJason Calacanis9:49

      Freeburg, so much good stuff happening with the summit and, uh, I'm delighted that John is doing all this work. You're doing all this work and I can just sit back and enjoy it. So tell us, is there an update on the summit?

   2. DFDavid Friedberg10:03

      Yeah, you're just collecting your coupon. But, uh, yeah, we had... within 72 hours, I think we had more applications than we have seats, but we are still leaving applications open and in the next week we'll start to respond to people. So basically, if you're interested in going to the summit, sign up now. Get your applications in this week.

   3. JCJason Calacanis10:24

      Apply early, yeah, is the key.

   4. DFDavid Friedberg10:26

      Yeah, 'cause it's gonna be done in order of when it's received and they're gonna start processing applications this week. We'd love to get everyone that wants to show up, show up. And if you went in the past, your registration window is wrapped up this week, so that's when we start the process-

   5. JCJason Calacanis10:43

      Okay, so alumni automatically get in?

   6. DFDavid Friedberg10:45

      Alumni automatically are in and then all, any-

   7. JCJason Calacanis10:47

      Okay, and then tell us about the scholarship because I'm getting bombarded and everybody who's an up and coming All In fan.

   8. DFDavid Friedberg10:53

      We're gonna announce it in a couple of weeks. So we're-

   9. JCJason Calacanis10:55

      Okay, so sit tight.

   10. DFDavid Friedberg10:57

       ... playing it, but there will be... Yeah, we'll still do scholarships because I think they were super successful and helpful to people that otherwise couldn't afford the ticket. I know it's expensive this year, but the reason was we actually spent a lot more per person last year than people actually paid for their tickets.

   11. JCJason Calacanis11:10

       Yeah, it just really is. Yeah, so same. It's less than 10, so-

   12. DFDavid Friedberg11:12

       Yeah, we're, we're trying to get the price so that we can makes, um, make this thing break even and we're gonna have scholarship tickets with the balance.

   13. JCJason Calacanis11:19

       Great.

   14. DFDavid Friedberg11:20

       So should be awesome.

   15. JCJason Calacanis11:21

       I saw a couple of speakers come in. I... there's two-

   16. DFDavid Friedberg11:23

       Not talking about it yet. Not talking about it yet.

   17. JCJason Calacanis11:24

       Oh, come on. Just... can we just tell the two speakers who said yes? Come on. Give, give the audience something.

   18. DFDavid Friedberg11:29

       Not yet. Not yet. We'll do a big announcement-

   19. JCJason Calacanis11:30

       Why not? Saxs landed a big speaker and I think it's gonna be awesome.

   20. DFDavid Friedberg11:34

       In a week. In a week, we'll announce a bunch together.

   21. JCJason Calacanis11:36

       Listen. Well, one thing I don't want to wait on is today's docket because it is unbelievable. Welcome everybody to Episode 175. That's right. It's Episode 175 of your favorite podcast and the largest and most listened to podcast in the world officially. Episode 175 of the All-In Podcast starts right now and... Ah, I got so many feelings about this one.

   22. CPChamath Palihapitiya11:57

       Wait, what? Is that the largest most listened to podcast in the world?

   23. JCJason Calacanis12:00

       I'm manifesting. Okay?

   24. CPChamath Palihapitiya12:01

       Oh, you're manifesting.

   25. DFDavid Friedberg12:02

       (laughs)

   26. JCJason Calacanis12:02

       I'm manifesting ............................ Just like, just like Phil Hellmuth is the world's greatest poker player and then we watch Robo roll over him.

   27. CPChamath Palihapitiya12:10

       Is that a new word that narcissists use for lying? Manifesting? (laughs)

   28. JCJason Calacanis12:14

       No, it's just like, you know, the world's greatest poker player and then we see Phil Hellmuth get dominated by...... by Koon, Jason Koon.

   29. CPChamath Palihapitiya12:21

       Just so you know, tonight is a murderer's row and Hellmuth is flying back. You saw the lineup. I'm very excited to see what happens tonight.

   30. JCJason Calacanis12:28

       Is Jason Koon coming or no?
3. 14:38 – 35:08

   Google fires protestors

   1. JCJason Calacanis14:38

      all-in docket, and I want to start with Google firing 28 employees who were involved in this protest at their offices. We didn't think that this would happen. We were having a, a discussion on the group chat. On Tuesday, about a dozen employees engaged in sit-ins at the company's offices in Sunnyvale and New York City, protesting the conflict in the Middle East between Israel and Palestine. And so, they took over, literally took over the offices of the, uh, CEO of Google Cloud, and nine employees were arrested after refusing to leave. The protest was organized by a group called No Tech for Apartheid, and they posted a bunch of clips of this sit-in on X. Those 28 employees were fired on Wednesday after a quick investigation. The VP of Global Security was pretty direct and candid. Man, this is based. "They took over office spaces, defaced our property, and physically impeded the work of other Googlers. Behavior like this has no place in our workplace, and we will not tolerate it. If you're one of the few who are tempted to think we're going to overlook conduct that violates our policies, think again." So, what were the protests about? Google is, uh, involved in a Project Nimbus, a 1.2 billion dollar cloud contract with Israel's government. Both Google and Amazon are involved in the project, which was announced in 2021. Google has denied it was doing work for the military, saying it was working with departments like finance, healthcare, transportation. There's a lot of details to this. But let, let's start with you, Friedberg, since you were a Googler and we've been talking about the culture of Google, putting aside what the protests were about. How do you feel about protests in the workplace? We've talked about it before here with Coinbase and others. And then, is this a distinct change in tone that I'm hearing from Google that they've had enough of social activism at the office?

   2. DFDavid Friedberg16:37

      I mean, yeah, there was obviously a line crossed in, in the, the view of security. But-

   3. JCJason Calacanis16:44

      Hmm.

   4. DFDavid Friedberg16:45

      ... I think you could look at this two ways. You could look at this as being a culture of entitlement that let folks feel, that our employees, that they have permission to stage sit-ins and behaviors like this because Google is so infinitely tolerant-

   5. JCJason Calacanis17:03

      Hmm.

   6. DFDavid Friedberg17:03

      ... uh, in giving employees the space and the room to do whatever they want to do and all of their wishes and demands can be met and will be met if they demand it strongly enough. That's one way to look at this, and that that culture manifested this behavior. Another way to look at it is that these people feel so deeply, strongly, and passionately about the issue at hand, that they were willing to risk their jobs and arrest, and they cared so deeply about an issue that they think no one's paying enough attention to that they're willing to put themselves and sacrifice themselves for it. So, I, I want to be empathetic to that point of view as well, but I do think that there's a belief that there may have been this kind of entitlement culture where any time Google employees ask for stuff, they get it.

   7. JCJason Calacanis17:50

      Hmm.

   8. DFDavid Friedberg17:50

      Someone told me the other day how at TGIFs at Google now where they do these all-hands and people get to ask questions, this person is kind of executive level, they're so sick and tired of how every question is all about employees asking for more things that they want. So it's like, "When are we gonna get this bonus? When are we gonna get this gym? When are we gonna get this ..." That so much of the orientation of being an employee at Google is all about what Google can do for me-

   9. JCJason Calacanis18:16

      Hmm.

   10. DFDavid Friedberg18:16

       ... and how I can get more, and that becomes what you ask for. It's like you give a kid something, you give them candy, they're always ask for candy.... and I think that there is certainly an element of that culture kind of being frothed up over the years at Google. But I do think that this is an issue that people care very passionately about right now, and you're seeing it all over the place. So, certainly not-

   11. JCJason Calacanis18:37

       In the same week, we had, uh, the Golden Gate Bridge get shut down, the Bay Bridge get shut down as well. Chamath, your thoughts on these protests and then obviously the entitlement issues that Freeberg alludes to specifically at Alphabet/Google.

   12. CPChamath Palihapitiya18:52

       They're two separate things, and I think it's important to deal with them individually. Groups of people in society in a democracy should have a right to protest. That's, uh, absolutely fundamental and I think they can raise a lot of issues that could otherwise get swept under the carpet. When that stuff impedes the public functioning of society for other people, then I think there is a responsibility for law enforcement and other people to act and make sure that that is better managed.

   13. JCJason Calacanis19:25

       Mm-hmm.

   14. CPChamath Palihapitiya19:26

       So, shutting down an entire bridge is not only disruptive, it can be really dangerous.

   15. JCJason Calacanis19:32

       Of course.

   16. DFDavid Friedberg19:33

       And it can hurt your cause, because then people, people dislike the cause because it hurt them.

   17. CPChamath Palihapitiya19:37

       Right. Typically what happens is you're supposed to file for a permit to protest. And when you get that, there are areas that are cordoned off and then people are allowed to express their views. That's a really healthy form of democracy. Going rogue like this will only blow up in people's faces because the folks that are somewhat sympathetic will eventually get burned by this experience and turn against it. So, that's one set of issues. I think that's just people going rogue, and I think that you can't be tolerant of that kind of chaos. There should be organized protests, but not disorganized chaos.

   18. JCJason Calacanis20:07

       Okay.

   19. CPChamath Palihapitiya20:07

       And law enforcement needs to get a control of that. Inside of a company, I think this is different. It's this weird thing that I see which is, like, what I would call, like, left-on-left violence. It's, like, left-leaning people creating all of these distractions and demonstrations inside of left-leaning organizations for not being left-leaning enough.

   20. JCJason Calacanis20:25

       Hmm.

   21. CPChamath Palihapitiya20:26

       And so it's kind of, like, a little bit nutty because I think it actually shows how totally naive these employees are and what basic business understanding they have. The first and foremost being that they are at-will employees. These are not people that are contracted players in the NBA or are part of a union, okay, where you have guaranteed employment through some mechanism or some arbitration process to even be let go. The fact that you don't even understand that you are at will means that you are there because you wanna be there, and Google allows you to be there because they choose for you to be there. And at any point, if either of you break a covenant, you can be gone. That kind of stuff I think is very distracting and it just belies a poor understanding of what you're there to do. Google is a for-profit business, and they are in the business of generating maximum profit on behalf of their shareholders. They are also incentivized to do that in a way that achieves a mission and a set of values that the majority of their employees agree with. And the fact that a small cohort of people can try to hijack and sabotage that overall direction I think is very misguided.

   22. JCJason Calacanis21:38

       Sacks, I, I don't know if you have any opinions on this. I didn't see anything in the docket. I'm not sure if you have any strong feelings here, what are your thoughts on Google employees and the protests, putting aside, you know, the nature of the protests. This could be for BLM. This could be for Trump's indictments. You could, you could be protesting any number of things. But the protesting at work issue and then Google specifically, which we talked about with the Gemini issues and, you know, this stuff bleeding over into product, I think Freeberg said it really nicely, hey, are, are people actually focused on products at Google anymore or is the whole place just focused on social issues that have nothing to do with their waning, apparently, product set?

   23. DFDavid Friedberg22:21

       Well, uh, G- Google had no choice but to fire these employees. They were being disruptive and they were trespassing, and Google has a business to run. So, this is what any business would do, and I don't think they deserve either credit or blame for taking the action they took. In terms of the protestors themselves, I think that in the fullness of time, we may come to think of them in a slightly different light. And some of this reminds me a little bit of, of another war, the protestors in another war, the Vietnam War, where they were very disruptive. In some cases, they trespassed. In some cases, they got arrested. They were easy to make fun of in terms of what they looked like. They were sort of unkempt, unshaven, all the rest of that stuff. They were hippies. And at the time, people were, I'd say, very dismissive of them or actually antagonistic. They were seen as giving aid and comfort to the enemy and they were sort of demonized. But now, in the fullness of time, we look back on that war and realize that they had a point. In fact, maybe they were right. In fact, maybe their actions were justified. And I think that how we view these protestors at Google can't just be judged now. I think it's going to have to be judged in the fullness of time based on how we perceive this war in Gaza. And I wanna make two points about why I think this war will eventually be viewed as Israel's Vietnam. The first is that in Gaza, Israel faces a, a guerrilla-style force, and they're in a quagmire. And if you read the latest news that's coming out of Gaza, what you'll hear is that after Israel has supposedly cleared an area like Gaza City or Khan Yunis, they then move south, Hamas has popped back up again. This whole idea that they can clear an area has been proven false. It's like playing Whac-A-Mole. They basically hit Hamas in one area, Hamas disappears down the tunnels. They come back in a different area. And this is why you're seeing a lot of articles now in Haaretz, which is an Israeli newspaper, saying the war in Gaza is already lost. You had The Wall Street Journal...... last week, wrote an article saying that Israel is winning every battle but losing the war, which is the- again, shades of Vietnam here. And the- you gotta understand, the Wall Street Journal is the most pro-Israel of all the major mainstream publications. I don't think the Wall Street Journal's ever written a truly critical article about Israel. And they described this whack-a-mole dynamic. You also have the General Gadi Eisenkot, who's, uh, a member of the War Cabinet, he's a member of- of the sort of war government in Israel, came out and said that we can degrade Hamas in Gaza, but we cannot destroy it. And he said, "Anyone who's telling you that we can destroy Hamas is telling you a tall tale." And that was, I think, an appointed reference to Netanyahu's claim that they would destroy Hamas in Gaza. So you've got shades of Vietnam in terms of it being this unwinnable war. I think the second aspect of- of a similarity to Vietnam is just the huge number of civilian casualties. You'll recall that in Vietnam, the Viet Cong tried to grab us by the belt buckle. They knew that America had superior firepower, so they tried to get in close, use ambushes, booby traps, snipers. And in response to that, the Americans used immense amounts of firepower and bombing to try and subdue the Vietnamese. And 3.4 million Vietnamese were killed in that war, according to, uh, Robert McNamara. The second thing that happened is the rules of engagement in Vietnam got extremely loose. You took a bunch of scared American kids, many of whom were conscripts, you drop them in a jungle. Pretty much because they feared ambushes, they shot anything that moved. And then finally, I think partly to justify this, you had a- a dehumanization of the Vietnamese, that they were seen as- as co- somehow kind of subhuman. In any event, if you watch movies about Vietnam, like Platoon, which was made by Oliver Stone, who was a GI in Vietnam, or if you watched, uh, Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece, Full Metal Jacket, which was based on books about Vietnam, you can see these dynamics in play very vividly. Now, turn to- to Gaza. All you gotta do is look at the miles and miles of video to see. It looks like a lunar surface. I mean, even in the words of Joe Biden, there's been indiscriminate bombing there. In terms of the rules of engagement, the rules of engagement have gotten very loose. A week or two ago, you had the deaths of those seven aid workers from the International Kitchen Organization, and there's an article in Haaretz recently about the kill zones have been set up. Pretty much if you come within a certain invisible perimeter of Israeli troops, you can be shot. I mean, those are the rules of engagement. And this is why there were three Israeli hostages who escaped, and they were running towards Israeli troops and yelling in Hebrew, and they still got shot. And again, this goes back to the rules of engagement being very loose. And then the final piece of it is you do have this dehumanization going on of the Palestinians. You can see this in a lot of the videos that have been posted by IDF soldiers. So look, I think that these protesters, their actions are gonna be judged in the fullness of time. I think there are actually good reasons to believe that Israel's war in Gaza, it's shades of Vietnam, and I think that over the long term, people may regard these protesters in a different light. Right now, they're just seen as being disruptive and annoying and interfering, but if this war ends up being Israel's Vietnam, which I think it's on track to be, again, I think that people may, in time, give these protesters a little bit more credit.

   24. CPChamath Palihapitiya28:05

       Jacob, what do you think?

   25. JCJason Calacanis28:07

       Interesting question. You know, putting aside what they're protesting about, I- I think they knew, or some number of them knew they were gonna get fired, so I think they're kind of resigning by sit-in. And I think, yeah, there could be nobility to that. If you do not want to participate in supporting things in the world, you do not have to work at Google, and you can protest, and you can get fired. And we've seen, like, some pretty intense protests. I- I don't know if you guys are aware of, like, what Greenpeace and other environmentalists did to stop whaling. I'm sure you are aware, Friedberg, with your passion on the subject. Those people went to jail in Japan for boarding Japanese whaling ships. Like, those are really intense protesters. But then to your point, Chamath, you know, you- you can really hurt your cause. Clime act- climate activists have been throwing paint on works of art. I don't know if you've seen that. And- and that's just infuriating. Like, I- I have no tolerance for people destroying works of art or attempting to get attention. Here, it is benign to sit in an office a- and get fired. So I- I just consider it resigning by sit-in. If they want to do that, that's fine. I do think there is something to Google enabling all this, to your point, Friedberg, over time. A- and listen, they were parodied on Silicon Valley, the TV show (laughs) because of how coddled and entitled people are. So there's a bu- a bunch of things going on at the same time, and you know, if you want to do these intense protests, you have the right to do them, and history will judge you o- over time, but you need to be able to pay the price. In this case, the price is getting fired. In the case of, like, shutting down the Golden Gate Bridge, like, you should get a fine for doing that, I believe. And the fine should be based on whatever that cost to shut that bridge down. Um, and- and that's got to be a serious fine. A- and you're right, Chamath, people... If there's an emergency situation, somebody's got to get to a hospital or something-

   26. CPChamath Palihapitiya29:59

       That's what I always think about when I see those things, when you block streets and stuff, or you block airports, or you block these throughways, there's a lot of just normal, everyday people trying to live their life who are probably very sympathetic to what-

   27. JCJason Calacanis30:11

       Yeah.

   28. CPChamath Palihapitiya30:11

       ... what you stand for. But when you disrupt their everyday lives and/or threaten their physical security-

   29. JCJason Calacanis30:19

       Yeah.

   30. CPChamath Palihapitiya30:19

       ... they're not gonna think that that's worth it.
4. 35:08 – 40:43

   Chaos and culture wars at NPR

   1. JCJason Calacanis35:08

      All right, there has been a ton of chaos, and the culture wars continue over NPR. Couple things happened simultaneously this week that are worth discussing. Katherine Maher was named NPR's new CEO back in January. I'm gonna have to give a little bit of a timeline here before I get comments from the boys because there's a little setup. And so she was named the, the, uh, CEO back in January. She officially started in March. Okay, she formerly worked at Wikimedia Foundation. Those are the people who run the Wikipedia, obviously. NPR's mission, if you don't know, is to create a more informed public, one challenged and invigorated by a deeper understanding and appreciation of events, ideas, and culture. That's their stated mission from their website. On April 9th, Uri Berliner, an editor who's been with NPR for 25 years, wrote an op-ed for Bari- Bari Weiss's, uh, Free Press, friend of the pod, explaining how NPR lost America's trust by going hard left and becoming closed-minded. He said, quote, "An open-minded spirit no longer exists within NPR, and now, predictably, we don't have an audience that reflects America." Last Friday, Maher put out a statement calling his actions profoundly disrespectful, hurtful, and demeaning. This Sunday, uh, conservative activist Christopher Rufo, uh, he's, uh, the person who exposed former Harvard president Claudine Gay's plagiarism, he's a vocal critic of LGBTQ, uh, stuff at schools, started reposting old tweets from Maher, this new CEO. Part tweets are super far left, "Trump's a racist," yada yada. There's an interesting clip of her talking at TED.... talking about how truth is a bit of a distraction that prevents people from getting things done. People have gotten pretty inflamed about that clip. And then on April 16th, Berliner was suspended for five days without pay. Wrapping this all up, Berliner then resigned after 25 years saying, quote, "I cannot work in a newsroom where I am disparaged by a new CEO whose divisive views confirm the very problems at NPR I cite in my Free Press essay." Sacks, your thoughts?

   2. DFDavid Friedberg37:17

      I mean, this just seems like a dog bites man story. I mean, what is the novel revelation here? Uh, the person running NPR is a liberal?

   3. JCJason Calacanis37:26

      (laughs)

   4. DFDavid Friedberg37:26

      I mean-

   5. JCJason Calacanis37:27

      I'm kind of with you, but-

   6. DFDavid Friedberg37:28

      ... what took 25 years to resign? I mean, all you have to do is listen to NPR.

   7. JCJason Calacanis37:32

      (laughs)

   8. DFDavid Friedberg37:32

      It's always been liberal, okay?

   9. JCJason Calacanis37:34

      Uh, y- yeah, I agree.

   10. DFDavid Friedberg37:34

       This is not some recent capture of an institution by the left.

   11. JCJason Calacanis37:37

       So why is it going so crazy viral right now? Why has this become the topic of the moment?

   12. DFDavid Friedberg37:43

       Well, apparently there are some quotes that this, um, new CEO, Katherine Maher, tweeted or said that you can point to that seem kind of woke and kind of crazy woke. But they're just actually pretty standard. I just don't see the breaking news here.

   13. JCJason Calacanis38:01

       Hmm.

   14. DFDavid Friedberg38:01

       If they end up firing Katherine Maher, they're gonna hire someone just like her.

   15. JCJason Calacanis38:05

       Okay.

   16. DFDavid Friedberg38:05

       I mean, they're gonna have the same views. NPR has always been left of center and the only change that's happened is that the left has now become woke.

   17. JCJason Calacanis38:15

       Yeah.

   18. DFDavid Friedberg38:16

       And so it's become obsessively focused with the ideas of white supremacy and, and, and white privilege. And she's simply, she simply reflects that.

   19. JCJason Calacanis38:25

       I, I agree. I... It's like a tempest in a teapot, like newsflash, NPR is woke and left-leaning? I mean, I guess maybe that somebody who was there for 25 years wrote the expose is interesting or, I don't know. Chamath, any thoughts on this one on why it's taking up so much headspace for people?

   20. DSDavid Sacks38:43

       I don't think it is. I think it's taking up a lot of headspace amongst breathless journalists. I don't think it matters to the public at large. I don't think anybody cares.

   21. DFDavid Friedberg38:51

       Can I say one thing? Which is, I do think that the government should not be funding this anymore. I think NPR at this point is mostly funded by private donations-

   22. JCJason Calacanis38:59

       Yeah.

   23. DFDavid Friedberg38:59

       ... but it got started with government money and the government still funds it. And given that it is this left institution at this point and, and really always has been, there's simply no reason for the government to be funding one side of the political debate that way. So I think there is maybe an issue there in terms of reminding people that, hey, this is like government funded. Why? And there's no reason why NPR can't be funded with either private donations or private subscription dues.

   24. JCJason Calacanis39:28

       Yeah. This is, uh... Just to give people some back of the envelope math. Eh, NPR's budget is like 320 million. It's a dollar per (laughs) American and they get a bunch of programming fees and some corporate sponsorship. The corporate sponsorship is like a 100 million bucks. The programming fees is what the local radio stations play them. Net-net, this is costing like maybe, I don't know, 30 cents an American. And if you just swap out... And this is the way I like to look at these to be objective. If you were saying this was funding Fox News or, I don't know, Ben Shapiro and Daily Wire, how would you feel about it? You'd be like, "Well, why is the government funding that?" They should just cut NPR and all this public broadcasting stuff loose over the next year or two, wind it down, and let them fend for themselves in the new media landscape.

   25. DFDavid Friedberg40:11

       Look, J- Jake, I agree with you. They could easily Substack it. NPR is not gonna go away. Just create subscriptions and you're fine.

   26. JCJason Calacanis40:17

       Yeah. I mean, it's only like... They're down to whatever. It's, it's, it's very hard to find the numbers. There's a little, like hiding of the money here, but there's so little at stake here, I think that's why it's so (laughs) contentious. Nobody cares-

   27. DFDavid Friedberg40:27

       The government should not be funding one-sided ideological institutions on either side of the political debate. And you're right. If this was funding going to Daily Wire or something like that, people would be up in arms. So-

   28. JCJason Calacanis40:40

       Yeah.

   29. DFDavid Friedberg40:40

       ... in any event-

   30. JCJason Calacanis40:40

       Cut 'em loose.
5. 40:43 – 1:02:28

   Humane's AI Pin: Marques Brownlee's review, the Ex-Apple issue, polarizing reactions

   1. JCJason Calacanis40:43

      in a teapot is Humane's AI pin getting barbecued by our modern day Walt Mossberg, Marques Brownlee, who is an awesome YouTuber. I love his reviews. Let's create a bit of a social media Rorschach test here, getting a lot of feels from people in Silicon Valley. Let's just tee this up here. Humane is a hardware startup, uh, that you may have heard of. They make an AI-powered wearable computer. It's basically a pin you put on your chest. It's about the size of a pack of cigarettes, maybe half the size of it. It's founded by two Apple execs back in 2018, raised a quarter of, uh, a billion dollars or so, and, um, the device is now in the hands of reviewers. It's pretty innovative and Marques talks about how innovative it is in his review. It will, uh, let you talk to it. It's got a camera on it. We'll show it here on the screen. If you're not subscribed, uh, to the YouTube channel, just go to YouTube right now and you'll see us playing the video of it. Search for All In. And, um, really interesting interface. Uh, it does obviously voice, it connects you to an LLM on the backend. So if you wanna know, uh, you know, some piece of information, it can answer those questions for you. But Marques, uh, showed it just absolutely failing at a bunch of tests, being overpriced, and he called it the worst product he's ever reviewed. He's very thoughtful-

   2. DSDavid Sacks42:03

      (laughs)

   3. JCJason Calacanis42:03

      ... and methodical, but the (laughs) title is obviously a bit link baiting. As a co-founder of Engadget, I can tell you if you want to get a lot of clicks, just say something is the best or the worst ever, and you're gonna get 10 times the views. The pin, uh, according to him, uh, doesn't do anything better than a smartphone. It's slow, it doesn't work. (laughs) It's often wrong. It's 700 bucks. The battery sucks. So many different-

   4. DSDavid Sacks42:30

      (laughs)

   5. JCJason Calacanis42:30

      ... ways to go with this. Everybody is talking about it on, uh, X and, uh, in the media. Where, where do you stand on this one, Friedberg? Both on wh- how people are responding to it in the tech industry as being like anti-tech, anti-innovation versus, hey, it's just a reviewer giving his candid feedback on a product that's clearly not ready for primetime?

   6. DFDavid Friedberg42:54

      I think there's a lot of issues. One is just the challenge of deep tech, more specifically in this case, hardware investing. You have to invest a lot of capital before you even have your first product and then you don't really know how well it works until you've already burned through a lot of capital. I mean, this is one of these stunning stories of a startup that has raised a quarter billion dollars and then they come out with their first product and it turns out it needs a lot of work, because it doesn't do anything that consumers really are compelled by, as evidenced by the review. So, I think it, it highlights that, that challenge and why that market finds, particularly in this environment, it to be so hard to get capitalized. Now obviously, there are some entrepreneurs, like Elon, who can take that capital and drive to the outcome, spending hundreds of millions of dollars before you get your first rocket into space and you have a lot of failings along the way. But the general tone here is, a deep tech investment is very likely to fail because you spend so much money before you even know and at that point, you have less money and you can't really make the necessary iteration to get there. So, it's a tough data point for other deep tech companies that need to raise a lot of capital. Then I think it brings up the point about ex-Apple people, that there is a degree of confidence because people come from Apple-

   7. JCJason Calacanis44:23

      Mm-hmm.

   8. DFDavid Friedberg44:23

      ... and a degree of hubris in the employees that come from Apple that says, "I have worked at the best hardware company in the world, therefore this person is likely to succeed." And it turns out that when you don't have all that built-in infrastructure for testing and optimization, all of that built-in distribution, all of the feedback systems that Apple has engineered into their business model for so long, maybe you miss some of the data around what makes a product great or not-

   9. JCJason Calacanis44:47

      Hmm.

   10. DFDavid Friedberg44:47

       ... before you launch.

   11. JCJason Calacanis44:48

       I think that's your key point, Freeberg. That is the best point, is these pe- folks come from Apple, they're used to unlimited resources, and what you don't see is, all the product Apple doesn't release, right? They never released their car, correct, Freeberg? And, and they get to-

   12. DFDavid Friedberg45:02

       Well, I think, I think then there's also this question about, like, where is the value in the product? Because they thought, "Hey, if we have AI on a pin, it'll work," without the consumer feedback about whether or not people are willing to sit around and wait for 12 seconds-

   13. JCJason Calacanis45:18

       (laughs)

   14. DFDavid Friedberg45:18

       ... to get an answer to a question. And then it, it brings up the ris- this other really important point, which is, half the people in Silicon Valley are running breathlessly into the conversation saying, "Do not disparage a startup that's working really hard at getting their first product right. It'll destroy the motivation of other startups that need to kind of iterate to get there. Um, and we can't just take the first V1-"

   15. JCJason Calacanis45:38

       (laughs)

   16. DFDavid Friedberg45:39

       "... and say that's it."

   17. JCJason Calacanis45:40

       Chemal, your thoughts? You're laughing-

   18. DFDavid Friedberg45:41

       Well then the other-

   19. JCJason Calacanis45:41

       ... hysterical at this.

   20. CPChamath Palihapitiya45:42

       Oh, no.

   21. DFDavid Friedberg45:42

       Then the other, then the other, the oth- the oth- the other half of Silicon Valley are running in and saying, "This thing's a piece of (beep) . What are you talking about? It doesn't (beep) work." So, it is-

   22. JCJason Calacanis45:49

       Yeah.

   23. DFDavid Friedberg45:49

       ... a really interesting kind of, you know-

   24. JCJason Calacanis45:51

       Rorschach.

   25. DFDavid Friedberg45:51

       ... debate. Yeah, a Rorschach test-

   26. JCJason Calacanis45:53

       Yeah.

   27. DFDavid Friedberg45:53

       ... on what's going on, on what people-

   28. JCJason Calacanis45:54

       Chemal, where do you, where do you see this, uh, in plot of a product?

   29. CPChamath Palihapitiya45:59

       Neither of those two cohorts. I think that incredibly motivated, dedicated entrepreneurs don't even know that this is happening and don't care.

   30. JCJason Calacanis46:08

       Got it.
6. 1:02:28 – 1:12:39

   Startup tax crisis: How a recent provision upended R&D deductions

   1. JCJason Calacanis1:02:28

      Silicon Valley startups having a bit of a R&D tax problem. Thanks for putting it on the docket here, Friedberg. It's a bit inside baseball, but very important topic. Let's say company like Acme Corporation generated a million bucks in revenue, and they spent a million bucks on their software developers last year. Let's say they had, I don't know, five developers getting paid 200 grand each. Well, traditionally, this company would pay nothing in income tax, right? They spent a million, they deduct that million from the million dollars in revenue that came in, and everything's good. But due to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, starting last year, a provision kicked in forcing companies to amortize their R&D expense over five years. So, in this hypothetical situation, the Acme Corporation would amortize 200K a year and pay income tax on the 800K in profits. This is brutal, obviously, for a startup.

   2. CPChamath Palihapitiya1:03:19

      Profits air quotes. Profits air quotes.

   3. JCJason Calacanis1:03:21

      Air quotes profits. Correct.

   4. CPChamath Palihapitiya1:03:22

      Yeah.

   5. JCJason Calacanis1:03:22

      Uh, and this is absolutely brutal, and a lot of companies took a wait-and-see approach, just hoping Congress would fix the issue. In January, a bipartisan tax bill that would reverse these changes passed in the House, but the bill has stalled in the Senate. And we gotta get this thing fixed 'cause it's gonna sink a lot of startups. Maybe people will start putting their companies in other countries, but, uh, it's attached to this child tax credit, which Republicans don't wanna pass, so no reversal has happened. Friedberg, you highlighted this for us, very important topic. Thank you for doing so as, uh, our great contributor here. What are your thoughts on it?

   6. DFDavid Friedberg1:03:59

      This became law in the 2017 Jobs Act, as you highlighted, and basically it means that companies, not just, like, tech companies, but life sciences companies, defense companies are pushing Congress to change this law because you can't actually deduct the expenses that you use to run your business. You have to only deduct them over five years, 20% a year. So like you pointed out, if you're making a million dollars but you're spending a million dollars, you made no profit, but you gotta pay taxes as if you made 800 grand in profit. And a lot of these small companies don't have that cash. So venture capital-backed companies and public companies that are profitable, they can afford to do this 'cause they have large balance sheets so it doesn't affect them as much as it does the literally hundreds of thousands of small businesses that work in the life sciences sector, the defense sector, the tech sector that are struggling this year to make the tax payments that are required under this th- this law that went into effect last year.

   7. JCJason Calacanis1:04:59

      But why-

   8. DFDavid Friedberg1:04:59

      And Congress promised that they were gonna repeal this law-

   9. CPChamath Palihapitiya1:05:02

      Yeah.

   10. DFDavid Friedberg1:05:02

       ... leading up to April 15th, which happened obviously a few days ago, um, and make it retroactive to 2023, but they didn't.

   11. JCJason Calacanis1:05:09

       But Friedberg-

   12. CPChamath Palihapitiya1:05:09

       They know basic math.

   13. DFDavid Friedberg1:05:11

       Yeah.

   14. CPChamath Palihapitiya1:05:11

       Congress knows basic math. How do they, how do they-

   15. JCJason Calacanis1:05:14

       Well, the way th-

   16. CPChamath Palihapitiya1:05:14

       What loophole do they think they're closing?

   17. JCJason Calacanis1:05:15

       ... what was the intent here?

   18. CPChamath Palihapitiya1:05:16

       Yeah.

   19. DFDavid Friedberg1:05:16

       Yeah, so the, the original intent was that this was one of the ways... You guys know whenever you pass a bill, it gets run through the OMB and the CBO that figures out what's the budgetary cost of the bill.

   20. CPChamath Palihapitiya1:05:27

       Yeah.

   21. DFDavid Friedberg1:05:28

       And one of the ways that they made this work, this bill, the 2017 Trump Tax and Jobs Act, you guys may remember in that bill, they also made it impossible to deduct entertainment and dining expenses-

   22. CPChamath Palihapitiya1:05:37

       Ugh.

   23. DFDavid Friedberg1:05:37

       ... when you take people out to dinner anymore.

   24. JCJason Calacanis1:05:39

       That sucks.

   25. DFDavid Friedberg1:05:40

       And they did all those things to make up some of the money they were using for basic general tax breaks for companies. So they used this as a way to say like, "Look, in a couple of years, we're gonna kick in this R&D expenditure thing, and it'll trigger a lot more revenue for the federal government. It'll create a lot more taxes and a lot more revenue." So that was the idea, and everyone was like, "Yeah, okay, sure, we'll do that. Great, it makes the accounting work." And then in a couple years, you know, nudge, nudge, wink, wink, "We're gonna come back and repeal it." Except Congress has stalled out. There's this ineptitude where anytime someone tries to pass a bill in Congress, someone else says, "I want to get money." And so the Democrats showed up and said, "We want this child tax credit thing to show up," which basically was passed during COVID, and they want to extend it going forward. And the child tax credit says that you can get a check for 1,800 a year in 2023, 1,900 in 2024, and $2,000 in 2025 for having, for each child you have! And the Republicans in the Senate are saying, "Wait a second. For people to get this thing, we wanna make sure they're working. We wanna make sure it's not as retroactive." So now there's this big debate about how big the child tax credit should be, and that's keeping this R&D thing from going through. And meanwhile, I've gotten tons of emails from CEOs of tech companies that are breaking even. These are not tech companies that are making a ton of profit. They're not public. They're not venture backed. They're just people running, running their, their business, and now they're gonna have this huge tax bill even though they didn't make any money this year.

   26. JCJason Calacanis1:07:07

       Mm-hmm.

   27. DFDavid Friedberg1:07:07

       And it's crippling businesses around the country, and needs to be fixed.

   28. JCJason Calacanis1:07:10

       But what do they do?

   29. DFDavid Friedberg1:07:12

       They're gonna write a check. They're gonna borrow money. They're gonna go to the bank, borrow money, or they're going to incur penalties with the IRS 'cause they don't have the cash to pay the, the tax bill, 'cause they don't have any profit. They didn't make any money.If they just ran the business break even, which a lot of these companies do, is just make a little bit of money or break even, and then they've got this huge tax bill on profits they didn't actually have, they gotta go figure out how to write a check.

   30. JCJason Calacanis1:07:31

       And also, how do you define R&D? I was talking to an accountant, he's like, "Yeah, I don't know if that's R&D." I'm like, "You don't know what's R&D?" Like, okay, so if I make some piece of software-
7. 1:12:39 – 1:23:33

   Sports betting scandal: NBA player Jontay Porter banned for life, explosion of sports betting in the US

   1. JCJason Calacanis1:12:39

      mainstream. If you don't know, two out of three college students (laughs) have placed a bet in the last year. Since the Supreme Court struck down the Amateur Sports Protection Act, 38 states have legalized sports betting. I think that's a great thing, but we're starting to see some weird behavior because of it. Tons of sites like DraftKings, FanDuel, ESPN Bet, BetMGM, all of these have broken out. But this week, we started to see some weird behavior. The NBA banned a 24-year-old player, Jontay Porter, for life after a scandal. This one is bizarre and interesting. Porter was a bench player for the Toronto Raptors, averaging about 14 minutes per game. It's important. On these gambling apps, you can do all kinds of prop bets. For those of you who don't know, prop bets could be things like, uh, Steph is gonna hit five...... threes in a game, or LeBron's gonna score under 30 points. You're just betting on unique things that could happen, and then you can parlay them together, you can put multiple bets together, and it automatically gives you a price and you can do really, you know, deep wagers, uh, doing this. The NBA found out that Porter was telling people to bet his unders for points and rebounds during certain games. During those games, he'd play a few minutes, then check him out- self out of the game with an illness, quote unquote. (laughs) Technically, the bet would still count since he played the game, but everybody who bet his unders would win. Normally, nobody would notice this, of course, because he doesn't play that much. He's a bench player. But DraftKings, because they have all the data, tipped everyone off, because Porter, uh, was the biggest moneymaker on March 20th. This led to an NBA investigation. DraftKings will give you a leaderboard of the biggest bets, and they saw that somebody placed an $80,000 bet that Porter would hit the unders on a bunch of different categories. Crazy outlier bet. DraftKings canceled the bet. The NBA found that Porter separately placed dozens of bets on NBA games using his friends' accounts, winning a whopping $22,000, and this idiot now is banned for life from the NBA, allegedly, allegedly, allegedly. But obviously, the NBA has the receipts with DraftKings. Chamath, you, uh, owned a NBA team for a little while and you watched as David Stern-

Episode duration: 1:36:51