Trump assassination attempt, Secret Service failure, Inside the RNC, VC liquidity problem

1. 0:00 – 1:34

   Bestie intros: Live from the RNC!

   1. JCJason Calacanis0:00

      All right, Chamath, apparently the Rain Man, David Sachs, is now the architect. I think he's been working behind the scenes, according to a bunch of the news stories.

   2. CPChamath Palihapitiya0:08

      I like puppet master.

   3. JCJason Calacanis0:09

      The puppet master? Okay, well, let's cut live-

   4. CPChamath Palihapitiya0:11

      Geppetto. We should call Sachs Geppetto.

   5. JCJason Calacanis0:12

      Let... Let's cut. We're going live now to the RNC in Milwaukee and live coverage. Uh, Sith Lord David Sachs-

   6. CPChamath Palihapitiya0:20

      (laughs)

   7. JCJason Calacanis0:20

      ... are you there? Oh, there he is. (laughs) It's Palpatine. Tell us about your new empire-

   8. CPChamath Palihapitiya0:27

      Jason-

   9. JCJason Calacanis0:27

      ... Senator Palpatine.

   10. DSDavid Sacks0:29

       Everything has proceeded as I have foreseen.

   11. CPChamath Palihapitiya0:32

       (laughs)

   12. JCJason Calacanis0:32

       (laughs)

   13. DFDavid Friedberg0:33

       I'm going all in. So let your winners ride.

   14. JCJason Calacanis0:38

       Rain Man, David Sachs.

   15. DFDavid Friedberg0:39

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

   16. JCJason Calacanis0:46

       WSI.

   17. DFDavid Friedberg0:47

       Queen of quinoa. I'm going all in.

   18. JCJason Calacanis0:50

       Obviously, Sachs, Trump makes his own decisions. You're getting a little bit too much credit, uh, I think.

   19. DSDavid Sacks0:55

       Yeah, absolutely. No, I mean, I'm... I'm mocking, I'm satirizing The New York Times and Business Insider and all these publications that are giving me all this credit. Listen, the president obviously makes the decision. He solicits feedback from lots of people. I was probably one of a thousand people, or at least hundreds of people who offered my opinion. Obviously, I'm a big fan of J.D. Vance, but I think, uh, it's just giving me way too much credit.

   20. JCJason Calacanis1:17

       In all seriousness, uh, Sachs, uh, you're there, and obviously, you know, President Trump. How is he doing? How's he feeling in the wake of this absolute tragedy?

   21. DSDavid Sacks1:27

       I think he's doing well. He was in great spirits, I think. But let's... Maybe we just should get into the assassination attempt. That's really the thing to talk about

2. 1:34 – 12:52

   Reacting to the assassination attempt against President Trump

   1. DSDavid Sacks1:34

      here.

   2. JCJason Calacanis1:34

      All right, everybody. Welcome back to episode 188 of the All In podcast. We have a full docket to get through today. We are here on July 18th on the taping of this, and it is five days after an assassination attempt on the former President of the United States and the likely 47th President of the United States, obviously President Trump. We're gonna start with what we know. It's five days later. We're a bit in the fog of war as it is, and there are, uh, all the breaking news caveats that you can put on this. But I wanna recap what we know now about this assassination attempt and get everybody's feedback on it. Last Saturday, at a, uh, rally in Pennsylvania, a 20-year-old named Thomas Matthew Crooks fired eight rounds with an AR-15 at the former president. One bullet nicked Trump's right ear. This was confirmed by the president on Truth Social. And, uh, a Trump supporter, tragically, in the crowd, Corey Comparatore, was killed while protecting his family from gunfire. Two others were critically injured. Crooks was killed by the Secret Service's counter-sniper team 26 seconds after he fired the first shot. Now, he didn't have a criminal record. He was not known to the FBI or Secret Service. He, uh, was a registered Republican, but also donated $15 to a progressive PAC. And the motive is not known. So, we'll just wait for that. There were some, uh, leaks from a senate briefing. I don't know if you gentlemen have heard those. That just came out. And it was reported that Crooks wrote on July 13th on Steam, that's a gaming platform, "July 13th will be my premiere watch as it unfolds." He had a second phone. He had a, uh, detonation device in his pocket, or a bomb, or some sort of explosive device in his car. We'll get details of that, I'm sure. And now we are in the phase of how the hell did this happen? Here's a picture of the rooftop. The closest rooftop was not secured, and it was 130 yards away. The head of the Secret Service said they didn't put anybody on the rooftop because of its sloped surface. Obviously, this is being mocked on social media and questioned by journalists and anybody with any IQ points. The most disturbing part of all of this, aside from somebody wanting to murder the president, is the timeline. So, ABC News is reporting the following timeline, gentlemen. 5:10 PM, Crooks was first identified as a POI, person of interest. 5:30, he's spotted with a range finder. 5:52, he's spotted on a roof by the Secret Service. 6:02, Trump takes the stage. 6:12 PM, he fires his first shot. We'll get into some clips and everything, but let me just stop here and get everybody's reaction to this tragedy. Chamath, your thoughts.

   3. CPChamath Palihapitiya4:30

      It's absolute insanity. I actually just... I had just woken up because I was flying back to the United States for a board meeting. And so, as I was boarding and on the way, I was just on my way to the airport reading it, mostly from our group chat. And I was... I couldn't... I couldn't believe it, to be totally honest with you. I thought this made... I thought this was... this is not possible in this day and age. And part of why I thought it was not possible was because I had elevated in my mind who the Secret Service were, and that the job they did or that they're supposed to be doing is just so sacrosanct to the well-functioning of America that you only have the absolute best people doing that job. And that job is to protect these handful of individuals in America, most importantly being the United St-, uh, the President of the United States, who are just critical to the functioning of the most important country in the world. And when you see the level of negligence and incompetence, you know, y- my mind started racing. How is it even possible? And I guess the, the, the only thing that I can come up with is that we need to figure out where incompetence ended and negligence began in all of this, because I think that's what's going to be the most critical.And we need to figure out the totality of what happened and, you know, if there were other people that supported this guy trying to do this. And then the second, I'll just say, is Trump is an absolute legend. What a boss.

   4. JCJason Calacanis6:17

      Okay. Freeberg, where were you when the news broke? And what are your general thoughts here, five days after this occurred? We'll get into political ramifications and everything else, but just on the event that occurred and, and your takeaways from it.

   5. DFDavid Friedberg6:29

      I was with a group of people drinking beer outside. We were on our fourth beer. And we... I thought it was a joke. I think the first thing I thought after I saw the video and saw that he was okay and that his ear was bleeding was, "That's it. It's over. Trump's won." It was probably one of the most iconic patriotic visuals I think any of us have seen. Um, and here's the image Nick's pulling up. What a photo. This is the AP photographer, and I think it's really, um... It was so striking. You see this photo which, um, which didn't come out right away, but some of the imagery that came out right away with him pumping his fist was like, "Okay, that's it. Trump's won. It's over." Second thing I thought was, "This could trigger a lot of violent counterreactions, um, if it, if Trump doesn't lead well here," and I think he prevented that in his statements and from the other side. Third thing I thought is, "It doesn't matter if Biden drops out now 'cause it's over." Biden could stay in, he could leave. Um, this just feels like a lot of momentum. And then the fourth thing I thought was this. To Chamath's point, I think we've all been around Secret Service people in our lives and in our careers and in meetings and interactions we've had. It really was amazing that the Secret Service let this happen, and if you see, you know, all the data and the stuff that's coming out now about how the Secret Service managed this, it seems pretty scary that this was so botched. Certainly, now-

   6. JCJason Calacanis7:51

      Okay.

   7. DFDavid Friedberg7:52

      ... the dust has settled five days later, and it seems like they're back into the conversation about, "Let's remove Biden and figure out who can run against Trump," although there is conflicting polling data, which I know we're gonna get to.

   8. JCJason Calacanis8:02

      Let's get Sachs' reaction. Sachs, where were you when this occurred and your thoughts on, um, you know, the event itself? And obviously, there's tons of conspiracy theories going around right now. Obviously, there is some, uh, negligence that occurred here. I don't think there's any doubt about that. Uh, there's a DEI angle. Th- there's a ton of angles here. But where were you when you saw this happen and what was your immediate thought?

   9. DSDavid Sacks8:29

      Yeah, well, let me answer your first question first. I think this was one of those events where you'll always remember where you were, and I was just working in my office in Los Angeles. I was gonna fly to the Republican Convention in Milwaukee a few hours later, and so someone texted me, "The president's been shot." Trump had been shot. And my heart sank. I immediately went online to see the video, and I think I saw in almost real time h- him go down, and then w- when he stood back up and faced the crowd and told the Secret Service, "Wait, wait," he didn't wanna just let them kind of drag him away. He turned to face the crowd and exposed his face. Who knows if there'd been another shooter? Who knows if that shooter was really down? But in that moment, he went to let the crowd know that he was fine.

   10. JCJason Calacanis9:12

       We were one inch away from the president of the United States having his head shot. You know, he's got grandkids. He's got a wife. He's got kids. Uh, he's got friends. Y- you know, however-

   11. DSDavid Sacks9:22

       (clears throat)

   12. JCJason Calacanis9:22

       ... you feel about the individual, his head was almost shot on television in front of thousan- hundreds, uh, maybe thousands of people on live-

   13. DSDavid Sacks9:29

       Right.

   14. JCJason Calacanis9:30

       ... television. And the, the gravity of this, I think, is very significant, and I think we've, in this media-saturated environment, we've processed it too quick, which is why on the docket, I wanted to slow down here and just take in what happened.

   15. DSDavid Sacks9:41

       You know, one other, uh, very important detail for, for me is that, you know, my father-in-law was actually at that rally in, in Butler, at Butler Farm.

   16. JCJason Calacanis9:49

       Really?

   17. DSDavid Sacks9:49

       Yeah, he was there, and he saw everything that happened and... When we saw there was a shooting there, we were trying to get ahold of him, and the cell reception had been shut down, and we couldn't get ahold of him for a couple hours. And obviously, we, we found out later that he was fine, but what he described is that when the shots rang out and the president went down, there was really a feeling of, of bedlam and pandemonium in the crowd. The crowd was afraid-

   18. JCJason Calacanis10:10

       Yeah.

   19. DSDavid Sacks10:10

       ... that the president had been shot, and so when he stood back up and faced the crowd and then, you know, said, "Fight, fight, fight," it created this huge sense of relief. It was like palpable that he was-

   20. JCJason Calacanis10:22

       Cathartic, yeah.

   21. DSDavid Sacks10:22

       ... that he was fine. And then the part that I don't think's been well reported is that the crowd started chanting, "USA, USA, USA."

   22. JCJason Calacanis10:30

       Yeah.

   23. DSDavid Sacks10:31

       So they responded with this unity. It's been well reported that, you know, that Trump was... Said, "Fight, fight, fight," but I don't think it's been well reported that the crowd started cheering, "USA, USA, USA." So I think that the crowd turned from fear to unity and strength and patriotism reflecting what they saw from the president.

   24. JCJason Calacanis10:52

       Yeah. That's well said, yeah.

   25. DSDavid Sacks10:53

       It's just one of these things that's unbelievable, and the whole world, I think, has just seen how iconic it is. I saw there's a video online even, and I think kids in Uganda were actually reenacting the assassination attempt.

   26. JCJason Calacanis11:04

       Yeah.

   27. DSDavid Sacks11:05

       That's how iconic it was. Trump's like a global legend for that. And again, there's just no way to fake what he did in that moment, right? Where, again, he... I mean, the, the bullet missing him was either luck or, you know, hand of God or destiny, whatever you wanna call it, but him telling the Secret Service to stop, to face the crowd, to basically show that he was unharmed and that he was determined and he was defiant in the face of an assassin's bullet, that's courage that nobody can fake. And I've seen people online talk about how, um, soldiers under fire, they've described how when they've been under fire, obviously they hit the deck. They don't stand back up, you know?

   28. JCJason Calacanis11:43

       No.

   29. DSDavid Sacks11:43

       Even soldiers don't, don't do that.

   30. CPChamath Palihapitiya11:45

       His composure is incredible.
3. 12:52 – 21:15

   Impact of charged rhetoric

   1. JCJason Calacanis12:52

      And I think I guess now it's time to talk about rhetoric. And I think that's actually, from my perspective, you know, the next thing that has to happen here in terms of leadership. When something this tragic happens, you know, everybody's looking at the other side's rhetoric here, whether it's putting Trump on a magazine cover as Hitler or they're saying, "You got to fight like hell," or the Oath Keepers and all this January 6th nonsense and beating up cops. I think we have to put both of these things aside and the, the leadership, Trump and Biden, should be saying right now that... And leadership does start at the top. This rhetoric is not to be done anymore. People have to tone things down. You could be passionate about politics, but using violent language, there are sick people in the world, and this kid, I think it will ultimately turn out like all the other assassins we've seen or, or these celebrity killings that occur, John Lennon, et cetera, it's usually a mentally ill person, likely what happened here, we don't know yet. You know, they interpret violent language differently than a normal person. So we could say, "Fight like hell," or, "Target," or, you know, "You got to fight for your country," whatever it is, and we would take it a certain way. The sick people take it a different way and they need to put out a joint statement and just say, "Anybody on our teams who use violence, who uses violent rhetoric is no longer on our teams," and they haven't done that, so I think there's, like, more work to be done here in terms of leadership.

   2. CPChamath Palihapitiya14:14

      I think it's more precise than that. I think it's way more precise than this. I don't think that this is like years of Donald Trump using violent rhetoric. I think this is-

   3. JCJason Calacanis14:23

      Oh, both sides.

   4. CPChamath Palihapitiya14:23

      ... years of misc- No, I don't... You cannot both sides this. I think this is years-

   5. JCJason Calacanis14:28

      Of course. Of course, yeah. And I just gave you examples of it.

   6. CPChamath Palihapitiya14:30

      I think what it is, is that we have gone through years and years of literally the words that the former president has said being perverted and misconstrued and chopped up into sound bites that advance a mainstream media's agenda to try to vilify a person. And I think that that's an important thing to take a step back. I think we have to understand that the mainstream media has really gone out of their way to amplify violent rhetoric and to actually associate violent rhetoric with, as a tolerable reaction. And I think that that is the thing that we need to now completely get rid of in our society. I saw so many reactions to the former and probably future president of the United States getting shot, which was along the lines of basically hoping that that person hadn't missed and/or justifying that violence on Donald Trump was somehow justified. That's insane. Now, that person could only have gotten that idea because the media fed them that language and that idea. And I think that that's extremely scary because I don't think you actually see Republicans necessarily saying that about Joe Biden. They may think that Joe Biden is feeble and mentally incompetent, but nobody's calling for the death of Joe Biden. So I think that that's a very scary place where you have one group of people who are being fed this extremely toxic narrative, and I think that that part of what you're saying, Jason, I agree with, but I really disagree with the other part, which is, and this is someone, again, as, as someone who was a former Democrat, I can observe this and be relatively rational here. I didn't see that from the other side.

   7. JCJason Calacanis16:26

      Okay. Well, you know, the media is reflecting what is said by both candidates and both sides and they both use very targeted language. I'll put a couple of links in the show notes of both sides doing this and you can make your own decision as the audience, but I do think leadership would be both of them saying, "Stop this violent language," and both sides do it. And that's pretty clear.

   8. DSDavid Sacks16:47

      I, I'd like to address that too.

   9. JCJason Calacanis16:48

      Yeah, sure. Go ahead.

   10. DSDavid Sacks16:49

       Just days before the shooting, Peter Thiel and Reid Hoffman had an exchange at Allen & Company that was publicly reported in which Peter said that Reid had turned Trump into a martyr by funding lawfare, and Reid responded, "I wish I had turned him into an actual martyr." Okay. That's wishing for someone's death. When the news of the assassination attempt came online, I don't think it was Jack Black himself, but a member of his band said that it's too bad the shot missed. There are other people on the Democratic side who expressed similar sentiments. They were disappointed that the assassination attempt had failed. Now, I don't think those people are, are mainstream political leaders, so-

   11. JCJason Calacanis17:31

       Yeah, yeah. That's, that's the, that's the, just the distinction I wanted to make here. Like, there's, yeah, no political leader who said that. Yeah.

   12. DSDavid Sacks17:36

       I'm not gonna try and hang that around Joe Biden. However, Biden himself, days before the shooting, said that it was time to put Trump in the bullseye. That's what he said. And his defense for that rhetoric was, "Well, I didn't say crosshairs." Well, I think bullseye means the same thing. Now, even that I, I'm willing to basically forgive because I don't think Biden meant it in a literal sense. I think he was speaking rhetorically about, say, campaign ads, things like that. I wouldn't necessarily say that was violent rhetoric, okay? I'm not gonna try and pin that on-... President Biden. But, but I, the thing I do think was unacceptable by President Biden and the Democrats-

   13. GUGuest18:12

       You can literally-

   14. DSDavid Sacks18:13

       ... is the level of demonization and the level of vitriol that they have pursued against President Trump. Not as a one-off statement, but as a campaign strategy. Again, they have said over and over again, "This man is Hitler. This man is a fascist. This man is a threat to democracy. If he wins, it is the end of democracy." They have repeatedly gone there and repeatedly used... they've tried to Hitlerize him. Now, if you're saying that this man is Hitler, where else is there to go, rhetorically? That's the worst thing you could ever say about somebody. And quite frankly, if he is Hitler, why would you be offering him thoughts and prayers after he gets shot? I mean, wouldn't it be a good thing to shoot Hitler? And so, I do think that, you know, if we think about the contribution of political rhetoric to what could have happened here, I'm not gonna try and blame anybody for these one-off poor choices of language that could be interpreted as violent. What I will blame them for is taking the demonization up to 11, taking the vitriol up to 11, because that could poison the mind of someone who's already mentally disturbed and say, "Okay, well wait a second. If he is Hitler, why wouldn't I be Colonel Van Stauffenberg for assassinating him? Wouldn't I be a hero for trying to eliminate this man?" And that's the thing that I think is really unacceptable, and I do think the Democrats should be blamed for that because again, they made it a campaign strategy. Their entire argument against Donald Trump is not about issues. It's about this man being Hitler, and I think it's ridiculous, it's inflated, it's hy- hyperbole, to be sure. And I think that we don't know yet about the mind of this shooter, this Crooks, but if anything contributed to the shooting, it was that.

   15. JCJason Calacanis19:57

       J.D. Vance referred to him as Hitler as well, other people inside the Republican Party have referred to him as Hitler and a threat to democracy, so there's plenty of blame to go around here, correct, Sax?

   16. DSDavid Sacks20:06

       That happened over eight years ago as, like, part of a text message exchange. It wasn't a public rhetoric as a campaign strategy. I'm talking about a systematic strategy that gets amplified. Look at the cover of The New Republic. They literally turned Donald Trump's face into the face, a mashup of him and Adolf Hitler, and has been amplified and repeated over and over and over again on MSNBC, on CNN, on all these liberal channels, okay? This is coordinated, political rhetoric as a campaign strategy. It's not a one-off. I'm not gonna blame anybody for a one-off that could be misinterpreted. But when you do this as a systematic campaign strategy, and in fact, you base your entire campaign around the idea this man is a threat to democracy and a fascist, this is the language they used, like I said, there's nowhere else to go after that. Where else do you go?

   17. JCJason Calacanis20:57

       Threa- threat to democracy, I think, is a valid criticism of Trump, calling him Hitler, yeah, probably insightful. So yeah, I, I think reasonable people can parse this. And it is something that has occurred on both sides, it's well documented, and both parties can do better.

4. 21:15 – 37:02

   Secret Service's massive failure; institutional decay

   1. JCJason Calacanis21:15

   2. CPChamath Palihapitiya21:15

      I think, like, one thing that... when the investigation happens into what happened here, and we really figure out what happened in the Secret Service, how many examples do we need of institutions where we put in our trust just, like, letting us down? And they just seem to be piling up, and it's independent of administration. And at some point, I think we have to, like, really check ourselves and say, "What has happened here?" Like, how do we objectively measure the quality of the people that are supposed to be working in these organizations, and, and how do we make sure that they are actually competent in doing their job?

   3. JCJason Calacanis21:50

      I think this is the key, this is the key point, Chamath, is, uh, the outcome. (laughs) You know? Uh, how do we judge people? Outcomes. And if you look at the outcome, how the Secret Service Director hasn't resigned now, I mean, I, I know she's had a storied career and, and she's probably a good person who's done plenty of great things in her career. I don't know the details of it. But if the outcome of what you've done results in something this tragic, and that could have been avoided, the proper thing is ownership and resignation, and, or the people who run this organization, or they answer to being fired. And so, this absolute acceptance of mediocrity is something that has to change.

   4. CPChamath Palihapitiya22:26

      Is it an acceptance of mediocrity, or is it that they just got completely distracted on things that are not germane to doing your job? So, you know, if, if it was, "We need a diverse Secret Service," or, "We need to have inclusion," all of those things have nothing to do, in my mind, about protecting somebody. There are characteristics, and I suspect that there are women that embody these characteristics as much as men that embody these characteristics, but why isn't there a psychographic way of determining who the best people are that have the protective instinct to protect the most important people that run our country?

   5. JCJason Calacanis23:02

      There's a very simple test here. (laughs) The job of the Secret Service is to jump in front of a bullet, as we witnessed. In order to jump in front of a bullet, you have to be bigger than the target, right? You have to be... (laughs) so a six-foot-two woman who's four feet wide, just as qualified as a man who's six-foot-two, four feet wide, for that job description. You have to be brave enough to jump in front of a bullet.

   6. CPChamath Palihapitiya23:20

      I don't know if you guys saw, but there was, like, a thing where... and I, and I feel bad for this woman who's being derided as being totally incompetent, the one in the field, but there was a David Attenborough voiceover.

   7. JCJason Calacanis23:30

      Of her trying to put her gun back in the holster, yeah. I mean, i-

   8. CPChamath Palihapitiya23:33

      My gosh, I mean it, it-

   9. JCJason Calacanis23:34

      ... apparently, I think Eric Trump said she's incredible.

   10. DSDavid Sacks23:36

       Or have you seen the DEI Another Day memes?

   11. CPChamath Palihapitiya23:39

       Yeah.

   12. JCJason Calacanis23:39

       Yeah. This is just sad.

   13. DSDavid Sacks23:40

       I mean, look, it's, it's a very unfortunate video.

   14. JCJason Calacanis23:43

       Didn't Eric Trump say that she's like the best person ever? I think he was trying to support her as an answer.

   15. DSDavid Sacks23:46

       She, she may have just had a bad moment. Who knows? I mean, I-

   16. JCJason Calacanis23:49

       Yeah.

   17. DSDavid Sacks23:49

       It did look pretty bad that she was having trouble holstering her weapon. I mean, you know, not that I'm a gun expert, but-

   18. JCJason Calacanis23:53

       A lot of adrenaline running at that moment in time.

   19. DSDavid Sacks23:55

       Yeah, but I mean, look, it's what's known as an outside the waistband holster, which is the easiest type of holster to use 'cause it's... you don't have to tuck it into your pants or anything like that. And I, you know, I gotta say, it, it, it does look...... pretty bad that she was having so much trouble just trying to holster her weapon. But, look, I think this is only one of a number of questions that I think have been legitimately raised about the Secret Service performance, and we need a full investigation to figure out what happened. And let me just, you know, let me just run off a list of questions that I would like to see answered. So number one is how did they fail to cover that roof? It was the most obvious shooting spot in that entire Butler Farm area, and it was not properly covered. And then, the Secret Service releases this statement that they didn't cover it because it was a sloped roof, which is the most ridiculous cover story ever-

   20. DFDavid Friedberg24:47

       (laughs)

   21. DSDavid Sacks24:47

       ... because they did have snipers on another roof that was more sloped and that's been rounded up.

   22. JCJason Calacanis24:51

       Like five times more sloped.

   23. DSDavid Sacks24:52

       Right.

   24. DFDavid Friedberg24:52

       Right.

   25. JCJason Calacanis24:53

       Too slopey.

   26. DFDavid Friedberg24:53

       So that sounds like a lie, right?

   27. DSDavid Sacks24:54

       Yeah. So once you put out that, that cover story, which is basically a, a lie, you only make the-

   28. JCJason Calacanis25:00

       It's a lie.

   29. DSDavid Sacks25:00

       ... situation worse, and it only makes the question even more poignant of how do you fail to cover that roof, okay? That's number one.

   30. DFDavid Friedberg25:06

       Well, did, and did you see the picture of the Secret Service on top of the White House roof, which is extremely sloped?
5. 37:02 – 41:16

   Inside the RNC: Sacks breaks down his speech

   1. JCJason Calacanis37:02

      Let's talk about the RNC. A friend of ours gave a talk and the VP was selected. Uh, you did a great job, bestie.

   2. DSDavid Sacks37:10

      Thank you.

   3. JCJason Calacanis37:11

      What was it like to get on that stage? A- and I have, I have a bunch of questions about-

   4. DFDavid Friedberg37:17

      Yeah, what was it like?

   5. JCJason Calacanis37:18

      ... because it was a, like, it seemed like people are not sitting in s- in chairs, right? They're just-

   6. DSDavid Sacks37:21

      Right.

   7. JCJason Calacanis37:21

      ... mulling about. Tell us what the vibes are.

   8. DFDavid Friedberg37:22

      Give us the behind the scenes.

   9. JCJason Calacanis37:24

      Yeah.

   10. DFDavid Friedberg37:24

       And what was it, what was it like getting prepped and doing all the kind of prep work uh-

   11. JCJason Calacanis37:28

       Did you have to review your speech? Like, tell us all the details.

   12. DSDavid Sacks37:30

       Yeah. Well, let's see, I mean, I started working on this about, I don't know, a week before the convention and they, they sent me some ideas for remarks and then I completely rewrote it with my research assistant/writer, and then sent it to them and there was some back and forth, but by and large, they let me do what I wanted to do.

   13. JCJason Calacanis37:47

       Do they give you a, a time? Like, they're like-

   14. DSDavid Sacks37:49

       Yeah, the one thing, the one thing that was kind of set was the time and they correlated the time with a number of words so they said, "You've got six minutes, which is 600 words." And so that's what we worked towards. And then the big thing I had to learn was just how to use the teleprompter, so they had these rooms set up where there were teleprompters and I could do some training on how to, you know, read a speech using a teleprompter.

   15. JCJason Calacanis38:16

       What is that like? Like, it's like...

   16. DSDavid Sacks38:19

       It's just a matter of knowing where to look and trying to stay natural but also-

   17. JCJason Calacanis38:24

       Yeah.

   18. DSDavid Sacks38:24

       ... using the prompter as a, as a mnemonic device.

   19. JCJason Calacanis38:26

       And does the prompter stop when you stop? Or how does that work?

   20. DSDavid Sacks38:30

       There is actually somebody in the room who is physically advancing the words as you're speaking.

   21. JCJason Calacanis38:35

       Okay.

   22. DSDavid Sacks38:35

       And so there's someone who's actually working the prompter and they will go out-

   23. JCJason Calacanis38:38

       So if you get big applause, they'll pause it for you and you don't have to try to keep up.

   24. DSDavid Sacks38:42

       Exactly. Exactly.

   25. JCJason Calacanis38:44

       Yeah.

   26. DSDavid Sacks38:44

       So that was probably the biggest thing to learn and then the other thing about it is that you're speaking to a huge convention hall and so you feel like you really want to project in order to kind of reach people-

   27. JCJason Calacanis38:56

       Yeah.

   28. DSDavid Sacks38:56

       ... but at the same time, you're really speaking on TV. As you guys know, you'll come across as being kind of insane if you start, like, yelling into a TV set.

   29. JCJason Calacanis39:05

       (laughs)

   30. DSDavid Sacks39:05

       So finding the right balance between speaking to people in the auditorium and speaking to people watching from home, that's kind of tricky and I'm reasonably happy with it, and the most important thing is I got to say the substance of what I said.
6. 41:16 – 58:52

   Trump picks JD Vance as his running mate

   1. DSDavid Sacks41:16

   2. JCJason Calacanis41:16

      This is a perfect segue because there are reports that friend of the pod Tucker Carlson had a big impact on talking to Trump about his selection of J.D. Vance and said, "Don't pick a neocon. That'll get you assassinated," there was one report. That was advice that came before the assassination attempt, obviously, so conspiracy theorists are kind of losing their minds over this, but let's talk about this election of J.D. Vance because that is a big surprise, I think, in many quarters. Tell us about J.D. Vance. Uh, you're friends, yeah?

   3. DSDavid Sacks41:47

      I mean, I'm, I'm friends with him and ve- I very much supported his selection for, for VP.

   4. JCJason Calacanis41:52

      Why is he the best pick in your mind?

   5. DSDavid Sacks41:54

      Well, there's a couple of things. So J.D. Vance represents a couple of very interesting characteristics. On the one hand, he's from this poor region of Appalachia that really represents the forgotten man or the forgotten cities and towns in America. You could call it the, the MAGA heartland.And so MAGA really likes him. At the same time, he's worked in tech, he was a venture capitalist, he understands the future, and he's popular in tech. So it's very unusual to get somebody who has MAGA plus tech on their side together. So that's one almost contradiction you could say that J.D. represents. Here's another one. J.D. Vance was in high school when the Twin Towers came down, and then we invaded Iraq, and he was gung-ho to serve and to go exact retribution and justice on America's enemies. And he enlisted in the Marine Corps, and he went off to serve in the Iraq War. Subsequently, he realized that we'd all been lied to about the Iraq War and that it was a gigantic mistake, and moreover, the forever wars were a huge mistake. And to me, this is something that I really appreciate about him, and this is a quality that I really want at President Trump's side, which is, he's an American patriot. He had the courage to serve, to go serve in America's wars, but he has the wisdom and the judgment to want to avoid those wars when we don't need to fight them. And there's way too many of, like you said, Jason, these neocons, these warmongers in the party, who've never, ever acknowledged their mistake in the Iraq War and all the forever wars. And they seem, on virtually a daily basis, to want to plunge us into the next forever war. So this is, I think, a quality that's of paramount importance to have in our commander-in-chief and in the person who would be next in line to be commander-in-chief.

   6. JCJason Calacanis43:43

      All right.

   7. DSDavid Sacks43:43

      So for these reasons, I very much support J.D All right. So let me get some feedback from the rest of the panel and just give you a couple of bullet points about him for those of you who don't know J.D. Vance. Yeah, he worked at Peter Thiel's Mythical Capital and Steve Case's Revolution. And so he worked for a Republican and a Democrat in Steve Case. Started his own firm called Narya Capital and he went to Ohio State, graduated Yale, was, uh, actually classmates with Vivek. They talked about that. He's only 39 years old, so he's half the age of Trump. As you mentioned, combat correspondent for six months in Iraq in 2005, 39 years old, and Thiel backed him with, I think, the largest Senate race donation in history, 15 million. And so this is quite a ascension, Chamath, from a venture capitalist to potentially vice president and obviously, potentially president. He's in the, in the second spot. So were you a proponent of the J.D. Vance as well?

   8. CPChamath Palihapitiya44:41

      He's superb. He's superb.

   9. JCJason Calacanis44:42

      The press says you, uh, lobbied Trump as well. Is that true?

   10. CPChamath Palihapitiya44:45

       He's superb. I cannot say enough good things about this guy. He's superb.

   11. JCJason Calacanis44:50

       Why? Why is he superb?

   12. CPChamath Palihapitiya44:51

       And his wife is superb. He is a ... He's a bit of an enigma, I think, as Zach said, because he, his views are so unique. And he comes from a background that is very similar to mine, so I have tremendous loyalty for the path that he had to navigate to get out. Just to get out. And I think that that, you know, I really care for people like that. And then he's done really good things with the resources that he's been given and the relationships that he's built, and I really respect that too.

   13. JCJason Calacanis45:30

       We all read-

   14. CPChamath Palihapitiya45:30

       He's great.

   15. JCJason Calacanis45:30

       ... Hillbilly Elegy, uh, I don't know if we talked about it on this pod years ago, but you and I certainly talked about it a bunch, Chamath. And you know, he, he came from nothing.

   16. CPChamath Palihapitiya45:41

       Less than nothing.

   17. JCJason Calacanis45:42

       Less than nothing. Addicts and his family.

   18. CPChamath Palihapitiya45:43

       Less than nothing.

   19. JCJason Calacanis45:44

       And, um, he, he talks a lot in his book, I don't know if you remember this, about social capital, and the fact that he didn't understand, uh, the name of his firm is Social Capital for people who don't know the reference, that he just didn't have the social capital to even understand that a lawyer went to law school. (laughs)

   20. CPChamath Palihapitiya45:58

       Totally.

   21. JCJason Calacanis45:58

       And you know, he, he is an enigma. His positions don't align with Trump's in every case, but they have quickly become aligned with Trump's.

   22. CPChamath Palihapitiya46:07

       He's an incredible pick, I think.

   23. JCJason Calacanis46:09

       Now. Yeah.

   24. DSDavid Sacks46:09

       Yeah. I thought he was an incredible pick before his speech last night, and he even exceeded my expectations in that speech. I just thought it was truly an incredible speech. First of all, the, the introduction by his wife, Usha, was really, you know, incredible. I thought she did a fantastic job. And then he got up there and I had s- a friend text me who's not really that into politics, he's just like, "This guy seems so normal. He's happy, he's normal, he seems competent." There was one commentator, I think, on one of the cable shows who I think meant this as an insult but it actually was positive. He said that when you're at, like, a fast food restaurant or something and need to ask for the manager, J.D. Vance is the person you hope is the manager. You know, he comes out, he's friendly, he's competent, he's reasonable. He knows how to get stuff done.

   25. JCJason Calacanis46:55

       (laughs)

   26. DSDavid Sacks46:56

       I'm not sure if that was meant as an insult or a compliment, but I take it as you're s-

   27. JCJason Calacanis46:58

       It's meant as an insult, yeah. I can tell you that's meant as an insult.

   28. DSDavid Sacks47:00

       Yeah. But I think it's... Yeah, but I think it's a compliment, right? And he's just so normal he's gonna be very hard to demonize. Obviously, they're trying to do it on cable news, they're trying to, somehow trying to portray him as an extremist or, or a racist even though he has a mixed race family.

   29. JCJason Calacanis47:13

       The tent of the Republican Party at, at this RNC, Zach's, is the most wide open tent I've ever seen in politics. They had Amber Rose and people were criticizing Amber Rose, you know?

   30. CPChamath Palihapitiya47:23

       She was excellent. She was excellent.
7. 58:52 – 59:46

   All-In Summit scholarship applications are LIVE!

   1. DFDavid Friedberg58:52

      doing that.

   2. JCJason Calacanis58:52

      Can you give us an update here at the end of the show, Freeburg, on scholarships? I know people have been asking for the All-In Summit.

   3. DFDavid Friedberg58:58

      So this week, we are opening up scholarship applications. You can go to summit.allinpodcast.co. And, uh, we have a very, very, very limited number of scholarship tickets that we hold for the summit like we did the last two years. The applications are open now. Please get your application in right away because we expect it will be completely overbooked almost immediately. And some of those scholarships are gonna be sponsored by Athletic Brewing Company. So, thank you to Athletic Brewing Company for paying for a lot of our scholarship recipients to go to the All-In Summit this year. Really exciting programming coming together. We have more details to share in the next couple weeks. And we do s- uh, we- we do have one more last block of GA tickets that we're gonna release. Get your application in on the website, summit.allinpodcast.co for a GA ticket, uh, for the last block.

8. 59:46 – 1:14:51

   VC update: Exits creeping back, Sequoia's secondary offering for Stripe, Google in talks to acquire Wiz for $23B

   1. DFDavid Friedberg59:46

      Thank you.

   2. JCJason Calacanis59:46

      All right. Let's just do one quick business story here since we spent the bulk of the episode talking about politics and current events. Exits creeping back. Sequoia is doing a secondary sale of their Stripe investment, one of the greatest investments of the last decade. And Google is in talks to acquire Wiz. And this is absolutely amazing news for the industry, which has been suffering from a lack of distributions. As you can see in this chart, Chamath, after 2021, exit values just plummeted, and there are some signs of life now. Let's start with Sequoia buying back some Stripe shares from its own LPs. Sequoia Capital has invested 517 million in Stripe.That's currently worth about 10 billion, 20X. Michael Moritz, uh, led the seed and series A. Sequoia offered to buy back 860 million in Stripe shares from LPs in its legacy funds. Those are the funds between 2009 and 2012. Sequoia is using capital from their newer funds, like its Evergreen fo- Fund that was formed in 2021, the Heritage Fund, that's their wealth management team, to give the legacy fund some liquidity. It's not normal that a company stayed private this long. It is the exception to the rule, but it has happened. Uh, actually it happened with Uber to a certain extent. So legacy fund LPs have the choice, Sacks, to hold, sell some, or sell all of their Stripe shares. Here's the quote from the note. "Sequoia personnel and associated persons will not be offered the option to sell Stripe shares previously received as carried interest distributions from the legacy funds." And they are offering 27.50 a share, which is pretty generous, $70 billion valuation. As you may know, Stripe has hit as high as 100 billion in market cap in the private markets. So this will be a, from the seed, which was a 20 million post, 3,500X for those LPs. And for the series A, it is $100 million post, which is 700X. For those people (laughs) who don't know, I think it was Sam Altman who actually did that investment as a Sequoia scout in the same fund that I did the Uber investment. So still the number one and two investments there. Your thoughts, Chamath, on this unique opportunity and device to sell early shares from the same venture fund?

   3. CPChamath Palihapitiya1:02:11

      I have two thoughts. The first is that it's interesting to see that they marked the valuation up to 70 billion. So that's actually a good sign for Stripe. But the second thing is, I was a little kind of puzzled by this whole thing. It's a very complicated thing when you're buying old stakes into a new fund and crossing funds. It's sort of like actually one of those things that are supposed to be verboten.

   4. JCJason Calacanis1:02:38

      Yes.

   5. CPChamath Palihapitiya1:02:38

      And when you're trying to build a good fund with great governance, this is actually at the top of the list of the things that you're never supposed to do, which is to provide liquidity to a group of LPs via another fund that you control. But I think this actually shows what may be going on behind the scenes. So I don't want to be conspiratorial or anything, but it would be a great way for the GPs to get liquid, to meet their capital calls here without having to pay capital gains tax. And that makes a lot of sense for the GPs themselves. And so I suspect that that probably has-

   6. JCJason Calacanis1:03:16

      Well, they did say that th- the GPs aren't gonna get to liquidate anything. So they did put that note in there, so they anticipated that-

   7. CPChamath Palihapitiya1:03:22

      Right, so you can provide-

   8. JCJason Calacanis1:03:23

      Yeah.

   9. CPChamath Palihapitiya1:03:23

      You can provide... No, meaning, but that, what that means is you can provide liquidity. You don't get to pull the money out. That's fine, but then now you can use it to fund capital calls. But I don't like it. I don't like these kinds of, like, things-

   10. JCJason Calacanis1:03:34

       Mm.

   11. CPChamath Palihapitiya1:03:34

       ... where one fund is basically scratching the back of another fund. It's, it always tends to be the case that this stuff on the surface looks a little smelly and can be a little unseemly, and this is why you're not supposed to do it. You're supposed to go and get some other random fund to buy these things. And I think it's generally a much cleaner thing to do.

   12. JCJason Calacanis1:03:56

       And the hygiene of it is clearly what we see Sacks in that documentation, giving people choices. "You can make your own choice. We're not taking carry, we're not selling our shares, but we're, and we're only selling 10%." So they, they did go to extreme measures, I guess, to outline that. But your thoughts on this, uh, type of sale? It happens in private equity all the time, I understand, but we don't see it in venture all that often. What are, what are your thoughts on this providing liquidity to the 14-year-old funds?

   13. DSDavid Sacks1:04:23

       Well, first of all, there's a Kid Rock concert going (laughs) on behind me. I had to mute myself.

   14. JCJason Calacanis1:04:26

       Sorry if that's distracting for you.

   15. DSDavid Sacks1:04:27

       No, no, it's been, uh, it's gonna be lit. That's all I can say. If he's introducing President Trump, it's gonna be pretty baller tonight. Uh, we're taping on, on Thursday, obviously. Uh, this episode will probably come out tomorrow, but in any event, with respect to the Sequoia thing, look, I think there, there is this, this overarching issue of the fact that VC funds are classically designed to be tenure funds. The money is called over time, usually over the first few years, it's invested, and then you don't get liquidity. I mean, it's not like, uh, a mutual fund where you can take your money out. You get liquidity if and when the fund gets liquidity. And these funds are meant to be long term illiquid vehicles. So like I said, 10 years. And typically, you can get two one-year extensions to the funds. So then the question is, what do you do at year 12 if you've still got positions in those funds? Well, I think a pretty good solution is what I think Sequoia is doing here and what I've heard other people do, which is if you have a security that's not public yet, but is semi-liquid because it's a very late stage private company, then what you can do is spin those shares into an SPV or to some other vehicle, and you let new investors come in and buy those shares at some price, and then you give the option to your old investors, "Do you want to sell or do you wanna roll into the new vehicle?" So nobody is forced to give up their ownership position, but if they wanna get liquidity and there's sufficient demand on the buy side that you can get them that liquidity, it's a really elegant solution. I can't say I know exactly all the details of what Sequoia is doing because they've got this two-tier fund structure that makes it a little different. But I have seen in other cases people have distributed shares into an SPV and then new buyers can come in, participate, and then the old investors get to decide whether they roll or sell. So it's a pretty good way of handling this, like, 12-year limit.

   16. JCJason Calacanis1:06:21

       And the valuation, just to, uh... Sorry, I didn't clarify this.

   17. DSDavid Sacks1:06:22

       Yeah.

   18. JCJason Calacanis1:06:22

       Valuation's based on the four- last 409A. So...

   19. DSDavid Sacks1:06:25

       That's the one thing about Sequoia that's a little different is, remember, it's their kind of like global mega fund that's buying the shares as, as opposed-

   20. JCJason Calacanis1:06:31

       Yeah.

   21. DSDavid Sacks1:06:31

       ... to an SPV.Normally, what would happen in terms of figuring out the price is you'd wanna use some sort of validated secondary price. But obviously, it'd be- have to be a market clearing price where new money wants to come in at that price. And this is a little bit different because it's their preexisting fund that's buying at that price. And so how do you sanity check the valuation? And I guess I would just wanna make sure that...

   22. JCJason Calacanis1:06:59

       Yeah.

   23. DSDavid Sacks1:07:00

       ... that, that valuation-

   24. JCJason Calacanis1:07:01

       So I guess the answer to that would be...

   25. DSDavid Sacks1:07:02

       ... is, is a secondary, yeah, is like the secondary clearing price.

   26. JCJason Calacanis1:07:03

       That's what it's trading at in secondary markets, and that's what the 409A is. So I guess that would be the hygiene there. But it's certainly unique and, uh, I guess, great for those LPs unless...

   27. CPChamath Palihapitiya1:07:12

       That's a word for it (laughs) .

   28. JCJason Calacanis1:07:14

       Well, I mean, we, uh-

   29. CPChamath Palihapitiya1:07:16

       Unique (laughs) .

   30. JCJason Calacanis1:07:16

       We had a similar thing happen with Uber where they did the secondary and, um, you know, they, they had Masayoshi con- Masayoshi-san come in and do an IPO essentially.

Episode duration: 1:15:56