Trump's First Week: Inauguration Recap, Executive Actions, TikTok, Stargate + Sacks is Back!

1. 0:00 – 6:22

   The Besties intro Thomas Laffont!

   1. CPChamath Palihapitiya0:00

      So, we had a dinner where me and Friedberg and J-Cal were invited to have dinner with the folks from (censored) and their, and their other top podcast friends.

   2. JCJason Calacanis0:07

      It was an off-the-record dinner, let's talk all about it. There was an interesting moment, which even Friedberg had to recognize, which was, we went around and said, "Hey, what, what podcasts are you listening to? Which ones are your favorites?" We went around the room, and I gotta tell you, you know what your podcasters' favorite podcast is?

   3. CPChamath Palihapitiya0:22

      Bingo.

   4. JCJason Calacanis0:23

      All-In Podcast.

   5. CPChamath Palihapitiya0:24

      Well, the funniest thing is, my wife thinks I'm (censored) all the time I say, "This is-"

   6. JCJason Calacanis0:28

      Mine too.

   7. CPChamath Palihapitiya0:28

      "... a pretty reasonably successful and well-list..." She doesn't believe me. She thinks we're all (censored) .

   8. DFDavid Friedberg0:33

      Why do you think I waited to make my world podcast premiere for All-In? All the ankle-biters called and I said, "No."

   9. DSDavid Sacks0:38

      (laughs)

   10. JCJason Calacanis0:38

       I'm holding out.

   11. DFDavid Friedberg0:38

       "I'm gonna wait for the besties' call."

   12. CPChamath Palihapitiya0:41

       (laughing) Can we just say it, Nick? You got to look it up.

   13. JCJason Calacanis0:44

       Power move.

   14. CPChamath Palihapitiya0:45

       When the (censored) podcast called, you're like, "Nope, can't do it."

   15. DFDavid Friedberg0:48

       Yeah.

   16. JCJason Calacanis0:48

       "Sorry, I'm waiting for the real deal."

   17. DFDavid Friedberg0:51

       I don't need JV.

   18. DSDavid Sacks0:53

       I'm going all in. Don't let your winner slide. Rain Man, David Sacks. I'm going all in. And I said, we open source it to the fans and they've just gone crazy with it. I love you guys. Queen of Quinoa. I'm going all in.

   19. JCJason Calacanis1:10

       All right, everybody. Welcome back to the number one business, finance, technology, science podcast in the world. This is the place where we call balls and strikes, where we tell the truth, where there is zero censorship. Every week, we tell you about the truth behind the most important stories. We point out who the heroes are and who the villains are, who are the delightful ones, and who are the desgracia. With me again-

   20. CPChamath Palihapitiya1:38

       (laughs)

   21. JCJason Calacanis1:38

       ... on this week's program-

   22. CPChamath Palihapitiya1:39

       Desgracia.

   23. JCJason Calacanis1:40

       ... the cackling chairman dictator, my guy, Shemath Palihapitiya. How are you doing? How was your victory lap? How was your victory lap?

   24. CPChamath Palihapitiya1:48

       It was really, really, really fun.

   25. JCJason Calacanis1:50

       You look like you were in your afterglow. And I have to say, that was looking pretty good. Uh, whoo. Halo.

   26. CPChamath Palihapitiya1:57

       We have some pictures. Don't worry, we're gonna go through behind the scenes in a second.

   27. JCJason Calacanis2:00

       Whoo.

   28. CPChamath Palihapitiya2:00

       That's our first segment.

   29. JCJason Calacanis2:00

       Armani came through for Amore. The Amore collection from Armani coming this fall.

   30. CPChamath Palihapitiya2:06

       By the way, I mean, Armani Couture is like firing on all cylinders. The, the other, the other one which you'll see is a great picture of this incredible jacket, Luisa Beccaria. Two shout-outs, Armani and Luisa Beccaria.
2. 6:22 – 15:58

   Behind the scenes: Inauguration Weekend recap!

   1. JCJason Calacanis6:22

      We had so much fun. We tore D.C. apart.

   2. CPChamath Palihapitiya6:25

      Let's start with actually just, Thomas, did you watch any of it on TV? Did you think about going? It was really like a... There were so many tech people in Washington this weekend.

   3. DSDavid Sacks6:36

      I saw the live stream. I talked to Sax last night to get- get the download, and, you know, my takeaway just from watching, especially the executive orders, was, you know, democracy in action. Democracies self-correct.

   4. CPChamath Palihapitiya6:50

      Yeah.

   5. DSDavid Sacks6:50

      And dictatorships double down. And to watch in real time, a country of our scale and a democracy, you know, decide to make a change, I think that's why we've been great for, you know, 250 plus years and will remain great. So it was fun to watch. I- I'm really curious to see what your takeaway was.

   6. CPChamath Palihapitiya7:09

      Okay, well, let's just... We'll just go behind the scenes. First of all, it's hard to see that this was me dressed up for Sax's ball. I really brought the heat. This is, by the way, Luca Rugonaci-

   7. DSDavid Sacks7:19

      (laughs)

   8. CPChamath Palihapitiya7:19

      ... is the tailor here. It's hard to see my jacket.

   9. JCJason Calacanis7:22

      Is that a blue- blue coat?

   10. CPChamath Palihapitiya7:24

       No. So this is what I'm saying. I think the picture is very hard to see, but it's a very refined green paisley.

   11. DSDavid Sacks7:30

       Ooh.

   12. JCJason Calacanis7:31

       Mm. Subtle.

   13. CPChamath Palihapitiya7:33

       Hard to bring it out. Now, I will say, this was the most popular shirt over the entire weekend. This is just a simple Brioni tuxedo shirt. (laughs) There was 200 versions of it. I felt bad when I saw because normally I don't like to wear things that other people are wearing.

   14. JCJason Calacanis7:48

       Correct, yeah. What did Michael Saylor think of this? When you saw Michael Saylor at the, um, at the, uh-

   15. CPChamath Palihapitiya7:52

       You know, I met- I met Michael's CFO. Wonderfully nice guy.

   16. JCJason Calacanis7:56

       Oh.

   17. CPChamath Palihapitiya7:56

       So this is us at the... This is us at the Crypto Ball.

   18. DSDavid Sacks7:59

       I went- I went for white tuxedo on the first night. I've never had three tuxedos before, but there was-

   19. CPChamath Palihapitiya8:04

       David looked- David looked really great.

   20. DSDavid Sacks8:05

       ... three nights wrong.

   21. CPChamath Palihapitiya8:05

       I really loved his.

   22. JCJason Calacanis8:06

       David looked great, yeah.

   23. CPChamath Palihapitiya8:07

       And Sax had this incredible tux, which was more crypto themed. It sort of looked like the opening scene from The Matrix.

   24. JCJason Calacanis8:14

       Oh.

   25. CPChamath Palihapitiya8:14

       So there was, like, this cool print there. You can see my green in there a little bit, Thomas, in this one.

   26. JCJason Calacanis8:17

       Okay.

   27. DSDavid Sacks8:18

       Yeah, yeah, got it.

   28. CPChamath Palihapitiya8:20

       There's Sky and New Money Sonny, the president of Grok.

   29. JCJason Calacanis8:24

       Sundeep Madra, x.com/sundeep. Oh, look.

   30. CPChamath Palihapitiya8:27

       Here are the besties. Here are the besties.
3. 15:58 – 31:38

   Biggest takeaways from DC during the Inauguration

   1. JCJason Calacanis15:58

   2. DFDavid Friedberg15:58

      Okay, let's talk about key takeaways. Chamath, what is your big takeaway from the weekend?

   3. CPChamath Palihapitiya16:03

      I think my biggest takeaway is that, if you look in the past, there was a very tight coordination, I guess I would say, between private industry and the private sector and the public sector. Meaning the president, and then people who were in charge of managing huge, vast swaths of resources in America. And somewhere along the way, that became either unfashionable and uncool, particularly under Democrats. And what I saw was a very broad-based embrace of business people, because I think that the president understands how important it is to make sure that economically America is just firing on all cylinders. The one thing to remember, like for example, in the inauguration, I know that you saw the picture and it was basically like, Meta, Google, Apple, Amazon, Tesla kind of CEOs, et cetera, founders. Arnault was there. Mukesh Ambani was there. So, it's just business people from the entire world were there. And so I think what it says is America's gonna basically turn a totally new page. We're not gonna ostracize people. We're not gonna play favorites. That's the other thing. You know, Elon was there right at the beginning, but if you saw, all the CEOs of the, you know, major companies were there. It's not like he excluded Zuck because of his past issues or anything.

   4. DFDavid Friedberg17:32

      Or Sam Altman.

   5. CPChamath Palihapitiya17:34

      Or Sam Altman. That was the biggest takeaway.

   6. JCJason Calacanis17:36

      That would be the more notable one, yeah, to exclude, yeah.

   7. CPChamath Palihapitiya17:39

      That, that the president doesn't play favorites. That this is like Team America kind of thing. And it was a projection of tremendous power to the rest of the world. This is what America's about. I loved every minute of it, and I think that this is exactly how the American government should be working, which is hand-in-hand with private industry to basically set the pace for the rest of the world. That's my takeaway.

   8. JCJason Calacanis18:01

      Thomas, did you have a, uh, takeaway after the weekend?

   9. DFDavid Friedberg18:04

      I did. I'm curious what you guys thought, but to me what was notable from Scott Bessent, the new Treasury Secretary, he was asked in one of the exchanges about the green energy race with China. And he reframed the debate, I thought incredibly well, where he said, "We're not in a green energy race with China. We're in an energy race with China."

   10. CPChamath Palihapitiya18:25

       That's right.

   11. DFDavid Friedberg18:26

       Right? And he made the point that China is adding 100 coal plants, it's adding nuclear-... and to me, it was kind of just-

   12. CPChamath Palihapitiya18:33

       137 gigawatt hydro facility, which is-

   13. DFDavid Friedberg18:37

       Exactly.

   14. CPChamath Palihapitiya18:37

       ... unbelievable.

   15. DFDavid Friedberg18:39

       And it was such a good framing of the debate because I think, Chamath, to your point, it's about reframing the right issues, right? And I think that just that little piece of dialogue to me is exemplified, you know, and was a really important takeaway and I think more of what we'll see over the next coming year.

   16. JCJason Calacanis18:54

       Freeberg, did you have a takeaway coming out of this?

   17. DSDavid Sacks18:56

       There was just so much. It was so impressive to be there. I definitely echo the sentiment about seeing the strength of America represented between the entrepreneurial engine that has driven this country for 250 years, and the government that's meant to serve the people working together to try and take America forward. It was just really inspiring. Um, the one thing that was the biggest (chair creaks) kind of observation for me, which was a bit of a d- disappointment, unfortunately, is I feel like DOGE and cost-cutting is gonna be a lot harder to realize than folks assume. Uh, nearly everyone I met with who works in government or is entering government had this, if not disdain for DOGE, a concern that it doesn't really align interests with the political objectives of politicians, that they need to get more stuff for their constituents in order to get reelected and that they're not gonna vote programs away. They're not gonna vote themselves out of a job, which is effectively what they would do if they cut programs. In fact, I was watching Brooke Rollins' Secretary of Ag confirmation hearing this morning, and Mitch O'Connell was given the opportunity to ask her questions. You know what his question was?

   18. JCJason Calacanis20:12

       Hmm.

   19. DSDavid Sacks20:13

       He said, "In the last Farm Bill, I was able to get $60 million to build an ag research lab at the University of Kentucky, and it hasn't started being built yet. It's been four years. What are you gonna do about that?" This is literally the intention of so many of these conversations, if you sit and watch. And then I watched a similar conversation with a senator from Minnesota who, you know, I- I- I won't get into all the- the statements, but every single conversation you hear, and he- we even talked with Ted Cruz about this, is all about-

   20. JCJason Calacanis20:41

       He was great by the way. I love Ted Cruz.

   21. DSDavid Sacks20:43

       It's all a- it-

   22. JCJason Calacanis20:44

       Ted Cruz is excellent.

   23. CPChamath Palihapitiya20:44

       Ted Cruz is excellent. Yeah.

   24. DSDavid Sacks20:44

       It's all about what can I get for my constituents? How do I get more jobs, and how do I get more money? And ultimately, that incentive is what gets people elected, and I don't think it's gonna change. And so, that was the biggest kind of shock for me. I thought that there was a moment of the importance of cost-cutting, the importance of deficit reduction, the importance of debt reduction, and I was just a little saddened to kind of see that that- there's no stopping the train. So, that was my takeaway. It's a little bit bitter. I hope I'm wrong. I really do hope DOGE is effective, and I really do hope that policymakers start to recognize the importance. By the way, Ray Dalio has a new book coming out. We'll talk more about his book o- once it's released publicly, but it speaks very clearly to the challenge the United States is now facing with respect to spending. So, I know I've talked about this. I know we all felt like there was a big reprieve with this election, but for me it, was a little bit bitter this week. Yeah.

   25. CPChamath Palihapitiya21:34

       It's... Can I say a little bit on that first topic? That-

   26. DSDavid Sacks21:36

       Yeah.

   27. CPChamath Palihapitiya21:37

       I- I just want to double down on that because one of the things that some folks said, and I guess it makes sense now that you think about it, but when you look at the confirmation hearings, there are certain folks for whom the resource allocation is relatively modest inside of America. They tend to just do much better in general. And if you saw Marco Rubio's confirmation process, there was- you know, it was like 99 to 0, right?

   28. DSDavid Sacks22:02

       Mm-hmm.

   29. CPChamath Palihapitiya22:02

       And to your point, what- what they say is that folks that actually allocate the internal spending in the United States-

   30. DSDavid Sacks22:08

       That's right.
4. 31:38 – 33:39

   Trump Executive Action breakdown

   1. JCJason Calacanis31:38

      All right, in our first topic, President Trump smashed the record for day-one executive orders, 26 in all, beating the prior record of nine by Uncle Joe Biden. And no other president signed more than one EO on day one since The Federal Register started tracking this in 1937. Let's go through them. If you want to comment on one, we'll stop and pause, or we can just run through them, gentlemen. Doge officially was established, and, uh, people are making note of the Doge SWAT team. Doge will assign an agency head to each federal agency. The agency head will build a four-person team. This will include an engineer, an HR specialist, and an attorney. It was separately announced that Vivek, hm, was leaving Doge to run for governor of Ohio. Fascinating, interesting, I don't know if everybody's got a take there. They suspended the TikTok ban for 75 days. There's a lot more to get into this, so we're gonna break that down a little later in the show.

   2. DFDavid Friedberg32:38

      Let's talk about TikTok.

   3. JCJason Calacanis32:39

      Yeah, okay. We'll go right to that in a minute. The January 6 pardons, they pardoned 1,500 January 6 participants, including some that savagely beat cops. Very controversial. We'll get back to that in a moment. Ending birthright citizenship, this is a controversial one that, uh, is being fought legally. Those born in the US to illegal immigrants would no longer be considered citizens if this holds up. The birthright citizenship is codified in the 14th Amendment, and 22 state attorney generals have already sued over this executive order, so it might be a performative one. Energy, unleashing American energy, we're gonna dump into that one, jump into that one for sure. And then federal employees, a hiring freeze, and a full return to office, and the, uh, hiring freeze doesn't apply to military, immigration enforcement, or public safety. And then a regulatory freeze on regulations. Gentlemen, where do we want to start? Jan 6, TikTok, Doge?

   4. DFDavid Friedberg33:35

      TikTok.

   5. JCJason Calacanis33:35

      Thomas, you're our guest. Where do you want to start?

   6. DFDavid Friedberg33:37

      I'm happy to chat about TikTok.

5. 33:39 – 57:01

   TikTok's grace period, valuing the business, US new equity strategy?

   1. DFDavid Friedberg33:39

   2. JCJason Calacanis33:39

      Okay. As we mentioned earlier, Trump extended TikTok's grace period by 75 days. Trump said he wants to get a deal done. He also said at a press conference that he'd like the US to own 50% of TikTok, and that it could be a trillion-dollar asset. That's unique and interesting. He was also positive about the idea of Elon possibly buying it, or maybe Larry Ellison or anybody. So, he wants to make a deal. What are your thoughts, Thomas, on what should happen with TikTok, and what will happen?

   3. DFDavid Friedberg34:13

      I don't know what will happen, but I do think it'd be interesting, um, to share, you guys, we were inv- we are investors in TikTok.

   4. JCJason Calacanis34:22

      Okay.

   5. DFDavid Friedberg34:22

      We invested back, it was obviously just a Chinese company, and investing in China was very different back then. But what resonated to me when I met the founder, and he just had a very simple idea, which is his view was, if I have a piece of content and it's a great piece of content, how can I have it be shared? And his view was that if you share it on Instagram, the only way people see it is if you had, uh, you know, a lot of followers. And so he just had a really simple idea, and he said, "What if I take every piece of content that's uploaded into the system, and I show it to at least one other user? So, no matter what that content is, at least one person will see it even if you have no followers. And then based on whether that person views it or how long, I might show it to another user, and then a third and a fourth." And it was such a revolutionary idea, and it really resonated with me at the time. And it just goes to show how we're in an idea business, and when you have a truly revolutionary idea, it can get really big. And so the, the whole genesis of TikTok came from that really simple concept of your content will be shown, and if people like it, it will be shown to a lot of people. So obviously, I mean, if you look at TikTok in the US, we can just kind of very back of the envelope look at the math, right? So, if we look at DAUs, Mother Blue, or Meta as we love to know it, the Facebook hat, roughly, right, has about 200 million DAUs in the US.

   6. JCJason Calacanis35:48

      Daily active users, for folks who don't know the terminology.

   7. DFDavid Friedberg35:52

      Yeah, correct. Right, so if you look at Facebook plus Instagram, you'll see it's about 200 million DAUs. And you can look at the time spent. What's interesting about TikTok's time spent is the DAUs are about half of combined Meta and Insta, so we get about 100 million DAUs in the US. But the time spent on the platform is the equivalent of Facebook plus Instagram. So obviously, um, incredible not just scale in terms of DAUs, but also on time spent. So, if we think about, okay, well, what, what would that mean the business is worth? So if we look at Meta today, the market cap is roughly one and a half trillion. I think internet investors generally assume about roughly half the market cap is US.So, if we take the one and a half trillion, maybe that's 750 billion, right? Now, we know that the time spent is equivalent but the DAUs are half, so maybe we cut the 750 in half, right? That would tell you that the max value would poten- you know, if you monetize the way Meta does and ran it the way Zuck does, might be 375 billion for the US asset alone. I think from that point, you know, you kind of start to apply a couple discounts, right? One is, if that's my kind of long-term value, what kind of return would an investor want potentially to get to that 375? You know, is it 50%? So, maybe you cut that by 50%. And then I think the devil would be in the details. What are exactly are you getting? Are you just getting users? Are you getting the algorithm? Are you getting data, right? So, maybe you also want to apply kind of a more kind of severe discount to that. But I think you put it all together, you know, is a hundred billion a reasonable scenario? You know, I think the math proves it. And then could it be a trillion-dollar asset the way Trump has mentioned? I mean, in a world where Facebook's one and a half, right, and the penetration of TikTok in the US is 50% of what Meta is, I don't think it's unrealistic. So, let's see what happens. I don't, uh, have any particular insight on what will happen, but what I do know is that it's an incredibly valuable franchise.

   8. JCJason Calacanis38:03

      So let me ask you the, the obvious question. People are looking at this and saying, "W- wait, you're gonna take 50% of your shares?" And in this case, we actually have somebody here who has shares. So, are you comfortable with the government seizing 50% of your shares, I guess is one way to frame it?

   9. DFDavid Friedberg38:22

      Well, I don't know. I mean, first of all, there's, there's kind of no deal, so it's a little bit hard. I can tell you that when we-

   10. JCJason Calacanis38:27

       Well, that's the deal he proposed, so if... in that scenario, would you... yeah.

   11. DFDavid Friedberg38:31

       We never attributed much value to the, you know, the TikTok US asset, in the sense of our, our analysis was always based on the value of the Chinese business, specifically because it's just hard to know what the, you know, the TikTok asset ex-China would be worth, right? Is it worth zero because it's so compromised regulatorily? Is it worth a lot more? It's just very, very difficult to know, so we always took a very kind of conservative view of really looking at kind of the Chinese and, you know, some of the other assets as the core value of ByteDance, the holding company. Ultimately, what TikTok happens, I mean, it's the classic when you try and sell a company, what's the value? Well, it depends. Is there one bidder or five bidders, right? Is the government the only, uh, bidder for that asset? You know, in that case, it kind of will indicate a value of X. Or are there other companies that potentially could be an acceptable bidder to both sides? Just really hard to know.

   12. JCJason Calacanis39:28

       Well, the Trump deal though is he's saying the government, the United States Government, the citizens of America would get half of the company, so that would be the equivalent of you giving half your shares.

   13. DFDavid Friedberg39:37

       The US company.

   14. JCJason Calacanis39:37

       The US company, yeah.

   15. DFDavid Friedberg39:38

       The US company.

   16. JCJason Calacanis39:38

       Yeah. So, what do you think of this proposal? Because this seems, like, unique in all the world. So, if, in order to have it spin out and maintain half your shares, would you be willing to give all of us, the government, the citizens of the United States half your shares?

   17. DFDavid Friedberg39:55

       Well, I mean, if you think about it, what, what, what did we learn a couple days ago?

   18. JCJason Calacanis39:58

       For your license. Yeah. (laughs)

   19. DFDavid Friedberg39:59

       We, we learned that it might just get shut down and be worth zero.

   20. JCJason Calacanis40:02

       Yeah.

   21. DFDavid Friedberg40:02

       Right? So, in one sense, anything that's greater than zero by definition is-

   22. JCJason Calacanis40:08

       Okay.

   23. DFDavid Friedberg40:08

       ... kind of better, right?

   24. JCJason Calacanis40:10

       Yeah.

   25. DFDavid Friedberg40:10

       I think ultimately, it will kind of come down to does the government want to be the only bidder for the asset or would the comfortable, would the government be comfortable with either Elon owning it-

   26. JCJason Calacanis40:20

       Mm-hmm.

   27. DFDavid Friedberg40:20

       ... and merging it to X or Microsoft owning it or-

   28. JCJason Calacanis40:24

       Got it.

   29. DFDavid Friedberg40:24

       ... you know, what have you, so. What are you thinking, Friedberg?

   30. DSDavid Sacks40:27

       Well, Thomas, let me ask you a question. Can you just tell the audience a little bit about, 'cause you guys have been involved as investors in China for a long time, I would love for you to share behind the scenes what has gone on with respect to being an investor in China in technology over the last couple of years. What has changed and why, and what goes on today? You guys made a fantastic investment in ByteDance, which is the parent company of TikTok, you've made other incredible investments in China. Are you still investing in China? If not, walk us through what happened and why.
6. 57:01 – 1:09:49

   Jan 6th pardons, birthright citizenship

   1. JCJason Calacanis57:01

      orders and I too wanted to talk about January 6th, uh, just to give people the update here. JD Vance had said that the people who committed violence on January 6th, quote, "obviously shouldn't be pardoned." And this is a- a parade of people who are on the Republican side who are coming out against how President Trump handled this. I think y- y'all know where I would fall on this side of it. What- what are your thoughts-

   2. CPChamath Palihapitiya57:24

      But where- where- where do you-

   3. JCJason Calacanis57:25

      ... on this?

   4. CPChamath Palihapitiya57:25

      ... where do you fall on it?

   5. JCJason Calacanis57:27

      You know, I come from a family of cops and I feel like he's betrayed the blue on this one. And, you know, if there are people who... I think he should have taken his time with this. It is possible that some people had sentences that were too long. Uh, the justice system, you know, is imperfect in our country and the pardon power is there, I think specifically to do a very granular job of looking at each case, right? And so I think we have to look at pardon power generally after what we saw the Biden family do and now we see Trump doing this. So I think the- the pardon power is not being used as it's intended. Uh, it's being used politically now by both parties. So I'm trying to call balls and strikes here. But, you know, as somebody who's in law enforcement, a- a family that's in law enforcement and my chosen career was to be a cop and an FBI agent and, you know, just looking at it, it's just heartbreaking to see people beat cops and then be treated as heroes, treated as heroes. And some of these people are very dark people, you know, the- the- the OathKeepers and some of these people are extremely violent and they're coming out now after this has all been said and saying that they're gonna double down, they're gonna buy more guns and that they're gonna get their retribution. And so I think you have to be really careful with violent people that you give them, you know, this coronation and that they were justified because they'll go do more violent things. And so I understand he made this promise to people. I think he should have been very granular in doing this. I totally understand there could be people who got sentences that were too long and I would- would have liked to seen him do this thoughtfully. This was not done thoughtfully. I have a certain amount of goodwill towards the new president and this has lowered it.

   6. CPChamath Palihapitiya59:05

      I knew that this would be really important to you so I took a few minutes to try to collect my thoughts. I've been kind of walking myself through it since yesterday. This is not an explanation other than to you, Jason, my friend, about how I think we got here. Okay? So I just wanted to take a few minutes to explain that to you. I think that before you can look at January 6th, I think you gotta go back to what happened during the COVID lockdowns and what we started to see in a bunch of these liberal cities.

   7. JCJason Calacanis59:43

      Talking about BLM riots?

   8. CPChamath Palihapitiya59:44

      The BLM riots, the Antifa riots, what happened in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, the lawlessness that you see in places like New York, the decarceration movement. And I think that what started to happen was a sensation that for the same weight, there were different measures. So, for example, if you start to look at some of the deportations that are happening now, it's really quite shocking. I sent Nick a clip of them. Nick, where you can just maybe show the first few seconds, but you are talking about some incredibly, incredibly violent offenders that were just walking randomly down the street as -

   9. JCJason Calacanis1:00:31

      I- I'm not going back to Haiti.

   10. NANarrator1:00:32

       One of those threats is this illegal alien from Haiti. ICE says he's a gang member with 17 criminal convictions in recent years.

   11. JCJason Calacanis1:00:41

       (beep) Trump, you feel me? Joe Biden forever, bro. Thank Obama for everything that he did for me, bro.

   12. CPChamath Palihapitiya1:00:47

       There's more after this, but there was, like, a rapist that they picked up in Boston. There's a person that was charged with assault.So there was this sensation, Jason, that was building up for a long time, that all of a sudden the law was being applied in very odd ways where, depending on what you did, you would get adjudicated in totally different ways based on your political affiliation or your leaning, or based on the desire of a district prosecutor to go after one thing or another. Let me just pause. So that's, that's sort of, like the thing that was sort of building and cascading. I do agree with you that I think January 6th is kind of like a stain. I, I think there's nothing to be proud of there. But I think what we found out since January 6th is somewhat important. I think the first thing we found out was that there was a bunch of these folks whose convictions were very speculative. I think the Supreme Court already ruled that in June of last year. It was, like a six to three vote that said at least 350 of these convictions should probably just be thrown out. So there was one body that was that. Then there was a whole bunch of them where, to your point, you took a misdemeanor, you trumped it up to a felony, you had all kinds of, you know, things where procedural motions were denied for the defense, approved for prosecution, and you had sentences that didn't match the crime. And then you have a president who, frankly, was the subject of law fair himself. So I think that what would have been better was a more methodical approach to this, I agree with you. But I do think that what's happening here is essentially a moment where we can close this entire chapter, and we can get back to a focus on observing the law and adjudicating it equally for everybody. And I think that that's probably the best way that y- we can all deal with this, because I think that there was a bunch of pardons that were 100% obvious, and then there was a bunch that were just, you know, had to be done because th- the court was perverted in how they dealt with some of these folks. Then there was a small number, and I don't know the exact number, to be fair, Jason, where these folks did some really bad stuff. Now, it's also mixed in with this thing where there was a bunch of informants, then there was a bunch of folks that were paid.

   13. JCJason Calacanis1:02:59

       Yeah, the informant stuff-

   14. CPChamath Palihapitiya1:03:00

       Super complicated.

   15. JCJason Calacanis1:03:01

       ... we'll have to wait for that to come out because th- that's con- in conspiracy corner for now, yeah.

   16. CPChamath Palihapitiya1:03:05

       Anyways, my, my point is, I just went and I collected that as a way to try to explain to you how we-

   17. JCJason Calacanis1:03:09

       Well, I appreciate you understanding my passion on it and, and wanting to bring it up, yeah.

   18. CPChamath Palihapitiya1:03:13

       How we got here, I think it's sort of like-

   19. JCJason Calacanis1:03:14

       I'm well aware of it, yeah.

   20. CPChamath Palihapitiya1:03:16

       I think we gotta put a pin in this and say both sides should now have enough experience to say we're gonna apply the law equally to everybody going forward from this moment out, let's just go forward and not look back. I think that's the best thing that we can all do.

   21. JCJason Calacanis1:03:31

       Let's hope. I'll just leave you with this. The, the Proud Boy leader, Enrique Tarrio, this is his quote on getting out. "I'm happy the president's focusing not on retribution and focusing on success, but I will tell you that I'm not going to play by those rules. They need to pay for what they did." These are some seriously bad hombres, the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, and so don't be surprised if they do something worse.

   22. CPChamath Palihapitiya1:03:55

       I also want to talk about the citizenship thing, and I just want to just provide a little color for people.

   23. JCJason Calacanis1:04:02

       Yeah.

   24. CPChamath Palihapitiya1:04:02

       I'm sure that there's a lot of folks that are listening who have people that work for them that, you know, may be-

   25. JCJason Calacanis1:04:08

       It's the birthright thing. If you came here illegally and had a child, you get to be a citizen, just to be clear.

   26. CPChamath Palihapitiya1:04:14

       This is going to the Supreme Court. And just to put a little bit of color on it, in the 14th Amendment, there's this very important part that says birthright citizenship is, is applied to people who are subject to the jurisdiction of America. And for a long time, that phrase was not really considered in how the Supreme Court administered the 14th Amendment. I think what this EO did and the lawsuits that happened almost instantaneously as a result will now send this back to the Supreme Court very quickly-

   27. JCJason Calacanis1:04:45

       Yeah.

   28. CPChamath Palihapitiya1:04:45

       ... and people will opine on what that means. So if it means nothing, it means that if you are here, however you're here, and if you have a child, they're going to be a citizen of America.

   29. JCJason Calacanis1:04:56

       Hmm.

   30. CPChamath Palihapitiya1:04:57

       If that qualifier is now part of the administration and the interpretation of the 14th Amendment, I think what President Trump has written is what will happen, which is if you are here illegally, it doesn't apply. If you are here under a visa that necessarily means you're still subject to the jurisdiction of somebody else, it may not apply. But I think the Supreme Court is going to get to decide this in pretty short order.
7. 1:09:49 – 1:23:41

   Stargate: $500B AI investment, is Masa the GOAT?, bull case for OpenAI

   1. JCJason Calacanis1:09:49

      let's continue. Another big story, uh, from week one. We, we are literally not even three or four days into this. It's gonna be a crazy four years. According to OpenAn- AI's press release, the Stargate project is a new company which intends to invest 500 billion over the next four years building new AI infrastructure for OpenAI in the United States. Freeberg, we gotta find out what's going on here with the Stargate movie and TV series if they got IP permission to do this. SoftBank and OpenAI are the lead-

   2. DSDavid Sacks1:10:22

      Good question, Jacob.

   3. JCJason Calacanis1:10:23

      I know. I mean, I'm just thinking out loud. And we have to talk about where this ranks on your list (laughs) of great sci-fi and most accurate sci-fi.

   4. DSDavid Sacks1:10:30

      Top 30. Top 40. Top 40 sci-fi.

   5. JCJason Calacanis1:10:32

      Okay.

   6. DSDavid Sacks1:10:32

      Definitely. Yeah.

   7. JCJason Calacanis1:10:33

      Right up there with-

   8. DSDavid Sacks1:10:34

      Yeah.

   9. JCJason Calacanis1:10:35

      ... uh, the Star Trek original series and The Next Generation. SoftBank and OpenAI are the lead partners with Oracle and MJX also participating. Oracle, NVIDIA, and OpenAI will build and operate the infrastructure. Microsoft is sort of involved, although we'll see about that. Masayoshi-san was at the announcement. He's gonna be the chairman. However, Gavin Baker and Elon both called cap on X saying they don't actually have the money. Gavin did some back of the envelope math. And of course, as always, Sam and Elon have been spicy in the replies. Sam is hurt. Elon is dunking. It's, it's just their relationship is so fluid. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella jumped into my thread (laughs) with Elon saying he was good for the 80 bill and that he was ready to build other products and services, and that was what was important. What do you think here, Thomas? Is this, uh... Are you an investor in OpenAI? I guess let's get that out there. Or in xAI, just so we know where you're coming from here if you're talking your book. But, uh, is- is 500-

   10. DSDavid Sacks1:11:37

       I am an investor in OpenAI and, uh-

   11. JCJason Calacanis1:11:40

       Okay.

   12. DSDavid Sacks1:11:40

       Okay, so there's three points I want to make here.

   13. JCJason Calacanis1:11:42

       Go.

   14. DSDavid Sacks1:11:43

       Point number one, going back to the origins of the pa- uh, of this podcast and, you know, sitting watching both public market investors and, and venture investors, you know, one notable difference is, you know, I think venture investors tend to be very tribal. So, if you're in one tribe, you are, by definition, not in another. And, you know, I think there's a lot of, kind of, domain specific reasons for that. You know, for me, as my legacy as a public market investor, I'm very comfortable being both, you know, pro OpenAI and pro Tesla and pro X. And so I just kind of caveat that, kind of, you know, as a first point. My second point is, can we do a slight detour on Masa for one minute? And I'm curious to get-

   15. JCJason Calacanis1:12:24

       Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

   16. DSDavid Sacks1:12:24

       ... your guys' opinion.

   17. JCJason Calacanis1:12:25

       Yeah. Yeah.

   18. DSDavid Sacks1:12:25

       But-

   19. JCJason Calacanis1:12:25

       Cool.

   20. DSDavid Sacks1:12:25

       ... is Masa the GOAT? Because when I started in the growth business, I met with Yuri Milner, and he said, "Thomas, you get in the hall of fame if you can have one deal that gives you a billion dollar return," i.e., you know, whatever you invest plus what you take out is a billion dollars or more. And he actually kept a tracker in his mind of who had made those deals and what share he had and et cetera. So, let's go to Masa for one minute. Masa is the 100 billion dollar club.

   21. JCJason Calacanis1:12:51

       Yeah.

   22. DSDavid Sacks1:12:52

       Okay? And not only that, he's actually done it twice. He did it the first time with SoftBank and Alibaba, which at its peak was a 200 billion dollar win, and I think he ultimately netted, like, 80 plus billion out of it, so that's one.

   23. DFDavid Friedberg1:13:05

       He did it again with Arm, that he bought for 30 and now is sitting on a gain of a hundred- I think 35 billion, and he could have done it a third time-

   24. JCJason Calacanis1:13:15

       (laughs)

   25. DFDavid Friedberg1:13:15

       ... with Nvidia-

   26. JCJason Calacanis1:13:16

       With Nvidia.

   27. DFDavid Friedberg1:13:16

       ... if he hadn't sold. I mean, guys.

   28. JCJason Calacanis1:13:19

       There's nobody like him. There's nobody like him.

   29. DFDavid Friedberg1:13:21

       Incredible.

   30. JCJason Calacanis1:13:22

       Incredible.

Episode duration: 2:05:32