White House BTS, Google buys Wiz, Treasury vs Fed, Space Rescue

Chamath Palihapitiya 0:00 Friedberg had this great story. There's a machine there, I've never seen this machine in my life, but he knew the machine. There's a machine-

Jason Calacanis 0:06 It's a Coca-Cola Freestyle machine.

Chamath Palihapitiya 0:08 There's a machine that's right by the Navy mess where we had lunch in the situation room, which dispenses literally... I've never seen this before. Like, no-

Jason Calacanis 0:16 This is how out of touch you are. This is in every 7-Eleven, every movie theater-

Chamath Palihapitiya 0:20 90 different drinks. Are you serious?

Jason Calacanis 0:22 ... every McDonald's.

Cyan Banister 0:23 Every movie theater.

Jason Calacanis 0:24 Come on.

Cyan Banister 0:24 It's everywhere.

Jason Calacanis 0:25 This is everywhere.

Cyan Banister 0:26 Everywhere.

Jason Calacanis 0:26 You have not left-

Chamath Palihapitiya 0:28 I was blown away by this machine. All the Coca-Colas, all the Gatorades-

Jason Calacanis 0:33 Let me ask you a question-

Cyan Banister 0:33 It's the 777 Freestyle.

Jason Calacanis 0:34 ... what is that 3.75?

David Sacks 0:34 Chamath, let me ask you a question. How much is a dozen eggs?

Chamath Palihapitiya 0:38 399.

David Sacks 0:39 How much?

Jason Calacanis 0:40 Yeah, $399.

Chamath Palihapitiya 0:41 399.

Jason Calacanis 0:41 He got it. $399. That's right.

Chamath Palihapitiya 0:43 No, $3.99.

David Sacks 0:44 Close, close. It depends.

Jason Calacanis 0:46 $3.99.

David Sacks 0:47 It's pretty close.

Jason Calacanis 0:47 It depends. It's pretty much double that in the Bay Area at Whole Foods, but yeah, it's half that.

Chamath Palihapitiya 0:50 Ask me how much milk is.

David Sacks 0:52 How much is milk?

Chamath Palihapitiya 0:54 8.99 to 11.99 depending on what you buy.

David Sacks 0:56 How much is a sweater, Chamath?

Chamath Palihapitiya 0:58 My sweater's $4,000. (laughing)

Jason Calacanis 1:01 All right, now we're back everybody. We're back.

Narrator 1:05 Let your winners ride.

Jason Calacanis 1:08 Rain Man David Sachs.

Narrator 1:10 I'm going all in. And I said- We open sourced it to the fans and they've just gone crazy with it.

Jason Calacanis 1:16 Love you guys.

Narrator 1:17 Queen of Quinoa. I'm going all in.

Jason Calacanis 1:20 All right, everybody. Welcome back to the number one podcast in the world, the All In podcast. With me again, Chamath Palihapitiya, David Friedberg, and look at this, look at this, live from DC, our bestie David Sachs is back. He's suited up in the administration and in the fifth bestie seat for the second time. My long-term bestie, Syanne Bannister, hot on the trails of her new fund getting announced. Congratulations on that, Syanne.

Cyan Banister 1:51 Thank you. Thank you. It's exciting to be back, and I'm so exc-... I did not expect to see David, so, like, I am over the moon.

Jason Calacanis 1:57 Hm. Yeah.

Cyan Banister 1:59 I'm, like, so excited.

Narrator 2:00 Well, I just popped in to reminisce about this trip that Chamath and Friedberg just did.

Jason Calacanis 2:06 Oh, wow.

Chamath Palihapitiya 2:07 Absolutely. Yeah.

Narrator 2:08 We had all the besties at the White House, so it's really incredible.

Chamath Palihapitiya 2:12 It's incredible.

Narrator 2:12 Oh, wait. Jake Heller isn't there? (laughing) Oh. What happened?

Jason Calacanis 2:15 Actually, it's interesting you say that. (laughs) It's interesting, I, um, I checked my spam filters and my invite got stuck in the spam filters.

Narrator 2:22 Oh, okay.

Jason Calacanis 2:24 But yeah, it was a little bit of a problem, but I... You know, I had ski week this week, so I wouldn't-

Narrator 2:27 Oh.

Jason Calacanis 2:27 ... have been able to make it anyway, but, um-

Narrator 2:30 Okay.

Jason Calacanis 2:30 Yeah, you know, I noticed there were some other invites stuck in my, um... A couple of other invites got stuck. Yeah, my Jeopardy invite. I see that, uh, you guys are all going to be in the next Jeopardy in the second round. My invite to Jeopardy somehow got lost. I'll have to talk to John, the CEO. So that kinda... That was kind of a bummer. Also, I, uh, also I missed my, uh, I missed my invite to the Bridgerton, uh, you got a cameo in Bridgerton there, Mr. Friedberg?

Chamath Palihapitiya 2:55 (laughing) What is this?

Jason Calacanis 2:56 I'm not going to be on the Netflix show Bridgerton. I missed that, and uh-

Narrator 3:00 I think we're in a bit. Let's keep going .......................... (laughing)

Jason Calacanis 3:04 And, uh, looks like my white party invite here with Diddy. Oh, well we just gotta hit post.

Chamath Palihapitiya 3:09 Oh, thank God.

Jason Calacanis 3:10 Oh, thank God. The white party. Oh, look, Epstein's Island. Oh no, I'm sorry, that was Reid Hoffman's invite.

Chamath Palihapitiya 3:15 That was you.

Jason Calacanis 3:15 Sorry to beep that out of you, bro.

David Sacks 3:17 Hell yeah.

Jason Calacanis 3:18 Missed, missed, missed my invite.

Narrator 3:19 Keep going. You're on a roll here. Keep going.

Jason Calacanis 3:20 (laughing)

Jason Calacanis 3:23 All right, all right, let's get back to it. Let's get back to it. It was a triumphant week for our besties. There were like, uh, little school girls giggling on the group chat, "Oh my God, I'm in the White House. Oh my God, look, I'm getting closer to power." What was it like? Chamath, your dream has come true. You came here to America from Canada, you built all this from nothing, and you wound up at the White House. Give it to me.

Chamath Palihapitiya 3:46 It was probably the most intense three days that we had. Nate and I were there to see the President, but obviously we were there to see Sachs as well. But there was a bunch of other things that happened. Myself, Friedberg, New Money Sonny was there, our bestie Elon Musk, obviously we dropped in with him. So to recap, on Sunday we got in, it was just like raining cats and dogs, nothing to say there. Then on Monday what happened was we basically had some meetings in the morning and then David said, "Guys, let me just walk you around and just show you where I work."

David Sacks 4:22 By the way, we camped out in Sachs's office for three days, which was awesome. So we, we had the passes to be at the West Wing and in the Eisenhower Building. That's Sachs's office. And so we all kind of worked from there, and then we went and did our meetings from Sachs's office, and Sachs's incredible Chief of Staff Tracy escorted us around any time we needed to go anywhere.

Chamath Palihapitiya 4:44 So then we, we started to walk through the West Wing. We dropped by-

Jason Calacanis 4:48 Look at Sachs's office for a second here. Sachs, I love what you've done with the place. Uh, were you allowed to put up a piece of art? And look at that desktop rig.

Narrator 4:56 Not really.

Chamath Palihapitiya 4:57 I think the most iconic part of the West Wing is the portico, where you see that... Those very famous shots of all these very important people. In this case, it's just the four of us. (laughs) But you can see Nick, there's the shot of all of us.

David Sacks 5:10 Well, the portico connects the West Wing to the President's residence. Tracy Sachs, his Chief of Staff, escorted us from the West Wing after we did an amazing tour of the West Wing over to the residence. I don't know if we were really supposed (laughs) to do it, but she, she has full access, so we were able to kind of go on the walk, and then we took a walk around the residence and saw all the rooms. But this is the entrance to the West Wing right here. So when you come in for, for meetings, administrators. So we walk in, Pam Bondi's on her way out. We got to meet Pam Bondi. I mean, it really is amazing, like, members of the Cabinet are coming in and out of this door, members that work in the West Wing-

Narrator 5:44 Foreign leaders coming in and out.

David Sacks 5:45 Or leaders, yeah, and then we saw, like, leaders coming in.

Chamath Palihapitiya 5:48 One of the most iconic things we were allowed to do was see the press room. By the way, the people that work, and we'll get to it in a second because we met some incredible people that work in the White House, but some of the folks that don't necessarily get a lot of flowers, like folks that work in, like, the upper press room and the lower press room, some of the kindest people. And what they did was they're like, "Oh guys, why don't you come and see...... where they do the presidential briefings. And the one thing about the White House is everything is just, like, in a nook and cranny away. So this is where-

David Sacks 6:17 Ooh.

Chamath Palihapitiya 6:17 ... obviously you see the presidential seal isn't there because the president is not there, but we were able to do that. We met some really-

David Sacks 6:23 So you're in the press room here? This is the actual press room?

Chamath Palihapitiya 6:26 This is where, by the way-

David Sacks 6:26 And it was, it was just like a little door-

Chamath Palihapitiya 6:28 ... it's so small.

David Sacks 6:29 It's so small. It's a little door off the side. This- the whole West Wing is, like, disarmingly small. You can walk for 15 seconds between the Oval Office and pretty much everywhere else in the West Wing. It really is very tight. And Elon's got an office in there that we got to kind of drop in and say hi. The president, obviously Chamath went over to the Oval. Then there's the situation room. I mean, everything is within a couple of steps of everything and it really is... You're in these kind of historic moments as you walk through this. You just feel the resonance of everything that you've heard about and seen and all the history and legacy to every- everything, and it's just all right there compact in one space. You're just overwhelmed. It really was overwhelming for me emotionally, it was overwhelming intellectually. You just kind of walk around and, you know, it, it's just... You're, you're part of it and it was so... I was telling Chamath, it was so emotional for me at the end of the day to just be like, man, like, you come to this country, you come to America, you know, from wherever you came from and anyone can find their way into this historic space. That's the beauty of this country. And I... It never really hit me until we were in this moment.

Chamath Palihapitiya 7:38 So let me show you-

David Sacks 7:39 That I, that I kind of really got it.

Chamath Palihapitiya 7:40 ... we met some really incredible people. Uh, Nick, you can find a picture of myself and Freeburg and Sunny and Sax. We're with Taylor Budewich.

David Sacks 7:48 Who's that?

Chamath Palihapitiya 7:49 David, he's a deputy chief of staff, right?

White House staffer (communications official) 7:51 He's the deputy chief of staff for-

Chamath Palihapitiya 7:52 Yeah.

White House staffer (communications official) 7:52 ... communications in the White House. His office is, is well-placed because through that window behind us is the gaggle. There's this lawn out on the, the White House called Pebble Beach, and all the networks have tents there, and they'll do recordings with White House officials and the White House will be in the background. It's not like a green screen or an LED, it's the actual White House will be in the background. That's why it's all set up there and it's called Pebble Beach. And then there's an area, I think they call it, like, the sticks, which is basically just like a paved area where White House officials can go out there and they get swarmed by all the media asking them questions, and that's called the gaggle.

Chamath Palihapitiya 8:28 Yeah.

White House staffer (communications official) 8:28 So he can keep an eye on everything that's happening with the media through that window in his office.

David Sacks 8:33 Is that where Marine One lands and you see everybody yelling at the president and trying to, like, talk over the copters?

Chamath Palihapitiya 8:38 No, that's on the-

David Sacks 8:39 Or that's on the other side?

Chamath Palihapitiya 8:39 That's on the other side.

White House staffer (communications official) 8:40 Yeah, it's on the other side.

Chamath Palihapitiya 8:41 100%.

White House staffer (communications official) 8:41 But a lot of those reporters will just move over there when they have the opportunity to do that.

David Sacks 8:45 Ah, got it.

White House staffer (communications official) 8:45 But, like, when you see-

David Sacks 8:46 So when you guys-

White House staffer (communications official) 8:46 ... when you see Caroline Leavitt, who's the White House press secretary, or Stephen Miller, who's the-

David Sacks 8:50 Yeah.

White House staffer (communications official) 8:50 ... deputy chief of staff for policy, they'll come out and all of a sudden they're speaking at a microphone, it'll seem impromptu, there'll be a lot of reporters. That's usually the, the sticks or-

David Sacks 8:58 Mm-hmm.

White House staffer (communications official) 8:58 And that's the, the White House gaggle.

Chamath Palihapitiya 9:00 We saw Elon, obviously. Nick, you can just show the picture of all of us with Elon.

David Sacks 9:03 Hmm.

Chamath Palihapitiya 9:03 And the incredible thing is here you have the most incredible entrepreneur of our lifetime dealing with so many complicated issues. And I'll tell you, Elon works in one of the smallest offices I've ever seen.

David Sacks 9:20 Hmm.

Chamath Palihapitiya 9:20 All he has is a desk with an enormous screen and his phone, and you can see that there is nothing that matters except the task at hand, and that's really inspiring. Like, it- it just puts everybody on the same level. You feel this energy that all of these guys are doing incredible work on behalf of the country to a one where there's no ego about some of these things, meaning what is the office size, what is this, what is that? They're just here to grind. It's inspiring.

David Sacks 9:48 And I don't think I've ever seen a workforce more happy. Like, you get there and the energy and the intensity, it's very much like the TV show West Wing. There's just this constant momentum. Every day you live a whole lifetime and everyone is just, like, e- energized and y- y- like s- I was talking to Sax's chief of staff and she's like, "There, you just never calm down." Like you never, you're never like... There's never a dull moment here and that's why everyone kind of has this grin on their face.

Chamath Palihapitiya 10:16 I-

David Sacks 10:16 They're just so happy to be doing this work. It's just intense and incredible.

Chamath Palihapitiya 10:18 The intensity... I'm gonna, I'm gonna describe to you-

David Sacks 10:22 But impactful.

Chamath Palihapitiya 10:22 ... a 45-minute or so experience in the Oval. So the next day, myself and Nat and Sax go to see POTUS in the Oval. And there's this incredible meeting room and you're kind of... You wait there, right, their waiting room. It's quite large, it's very beautiful, you know, beautiful sofas, et cetera. And then they say, "Oh, the president's ready to see you," and you get escorted into the Oval. And the one thing that strike, that struck me about the Oval is it's also much smaller than what you would think. Like, it's a very good size and it's a very natural size, but it's beautiful and it's inspiring. And our experience was Nat was in the front, I'm in the middle, and then David's beside me. And as we were walking through, you could hear that there was this, like, very important conversation happening between and somebody else who I won't say about something that I won't say, but it was really important. And we walk through the Oval and we walk through the back and we go into his private dining room that has all this incredible memorabilia sticking around. Nick, maybe you can show the picture of me, Nat, and the president. So we had this conversation, and in the middle of the conversation we had a chance to watch some Fox News together because the Dragon capsule was landing. And I texted Elon, I said, "Hey, we're in the Oval. Do you wanna come drop in?" He texts back, "Can't. Dragon capsule landing." I'm like, "Yeah, I know. We're watching it right now." So Nat, myself, POTUS, Sax, we're watching this thing kind of unfold. Anyways, then we- we have our meeting, it ends, and we walk out into sort of, like, this area where Taylor's office is, like where that picture was-... and we s- continue to just randomly sit there watching, and this is what you mean, Freeberg. Marco Rubio comes by. (laughs) And so now, we're all just standing around. There's Marco Rubio. We were talking about the, the landing. And then out of the left-hand side, Sheikh Tannoun comes in because he's there to say hi (laughs) to the president. Then he comes in, obviously says hi to Marco Rubio, says hi to me, we talk for a few minutes, he leaves. So, the intensity of the people just within two steps of each other, you ha- you saw the CIA director walk in and out. It's just an in- it's an incredibly mesmerizing place where irrespective, I think, of your political ideology, the minute that you're there, I think it's hard to not be anything but Team America. I think it's impossible, actually, and it's really inspiring. And by the way, coming home, I feel like I'm crashing, meaning, like, there's such a level of adrenaline and dopamine, and, you know, we are like these observers. So, I can only imagine, Sax, what it feels like for you when you're not in that environment. It's... it's a really intoxicating, mesmerizing place.

White House staffer (communications official) 13:21 I think that's well said, Chamath. And every day there's something new, you know?

Chamath Palihapitiya 13:25 Mm-hmm.

White House staffer (communications official) 13:25 Every day you discover something new. One day it's the, the Navy Mess where y- you didn't mention that, but we got a chance to eat lunch-

David Sacks 13:31 Oh, yeah. Cut over to that, Nick.

White House staffer (communications official) 13:33 Do you have a photo of that?

David Sacks 13:33 There's like... We had a... We... Yeah, we had lunch there. It was incredible.

White House staffer (communications official) 13:36 Did you get a photo of the burgers? The...

Chamath Palihapitiya 13:37 I did. I sent Nick a ph- a photo of the burger.

David Sacks 13:39 I got the veggie burger. The burger's famous, right?

Chamath Palihapitiya 13:41 Whoa.

David Sacks 13:41 'Cause it's got the seal on the top.

Chamath Palihapitiya 13:43 That's beautiful.

David Sacks 13:43 Yeah, it's got the seal.

White House staffer (communications official) 13:44 Huh. They must use some sort of grill tool to burn the seal of the president of the United States onto the burgers.

David Sacks 13:50 (laughs)

Chamath Palihapitiya 13:50 On the burger tray.

White House staffer (communications official) 13:50 So, I think that's a nice touch.

David Sacks 13:51 Amazing. By the way, you wanna know something? They didn't do it on the veggie burger.

Chamath Palihapitiya 13:54 (laughs) Yes, because they're-

David Sacks 13:55 The veggie burger. (laughs)

White House staffer (communications official) 13:55 What does that say? (laughs)

Chamath Palihapitiya 13:56 They're sending... They're sending you a message.

David Sacks 13:58 Sending you a message, yeah. (laughs)

Chamath Palihapitiya 14:00 By the way, what's incredible-

David Sacks 14:01 Hey, uh-

Chamath Palihapitiya 14:01 ... about like the, the narrowness and the smallness, there's just a door that does not look all that assuming. It's very unassuming. And there's just a small sign that says, "Situation Room." (laughs)

White House staffer (communications official) 14:12 Right.

David Sacks 14:12 Yeah, right next... right next to where we were eating.

Chamath Palihapitiya 14:14 Right beside where we were eating. (laughs)

White House staffer (communications official) 14:14 There's a little corridor off of the, the West Wing lobby, which by the way, like you said, if you're hanging out in the West Wing lobby, you're gonna run into all sorts of interesting people.

Chamath Palihapitiya 14:22 Everybody.

David Sacks 14:23 Hmm.

White House staffer (communications official) 14:23 But you go down this little passageway. It's so small. The, the header of the door is so small that Sriram, you know, who does AI policy, he's 6'6", he almost concussed himself once because he hit his head on the top of the door.

David Sacks 14:35 (laughs)

White House staffer (communications official) 14:35 I think the door frame's about 6'... 6'2" is the clearance.

Chamath Palihapitiya 14:39 Maybe.

White House staffer (communications official) 14:39 And he's 6'6".

David Sacks 14:39 Well, it was made over 100 years ago.

White House staffer (communications official) 14:41 He has to... He literally has to duck his head every time he walks by.

David Sacks 14:44 We were different heights as Americans. Yeah.

Chamath Palihapitiya 14:45 That's funny.

White House staffer (communications official) 14:45 But in any event, if you walk to the end of that passageway, there's a little kiosk to get a coffee, or you turn the other way and you're in The Situation Room.

Chamath Palihapitiya 14:52 (laughs)

White House staffer (communications official) 14:52 I mean, it's really-

David Sacks 14:54 You could be... You could be whacking a terrorist from 4,000 miles away, or you can get a mocha. (laughs)

White House staffer (communications official) 15:00 (laughs) I mean, it's true.

David Sacks 15:00 You could do both. Why choose? Cyan, you have a question? What are you... If you're taking all this in, uh, tell us what you take. What you take.

Cyan Banister 15:04 Yeah. Yeah. I want... I wanna know from David what his favorite piece of art is there, and whether or not David and Chamath saw the Declaration of Independence.

David Sacks 15:13 Mm-hmm.

White House staffer (communications official) 15:13 Yeah. Actually, yeah. Well, go ahead, Chamath.

Chamath Palihapitiya 15:15 We... Yeah, we saw it. I mean, so this is the problem, Cyan. I, I feel like I want to redo that moment fi- I mean, David gets to do it every day, but I wanna redo it 50 times because we didn't necessarily stop there. He has to open and close the curtains because they wanna keep the sun off the Declaration of Independence.

David Sacks 15:33 Probably a good idea.

Chamath Palihapitiya 15:34 I didn't think to like, "Oh, sir, can we just talk..." I- I... It's just such a whirlwind that I wanna redo. (laughs) But there's like this... You know, the thing where it's like... Oh, I wanna redo. (laughs)

Cyan Banister 15:41 Okay. (laughs) I think you'll get a chance to. I think you will.

David Sacks 15:44 Uh... Well, when I run and I'm president, 'cause I'm the only one here who can, I will definitely... Uh, you guys can catch...

Chamath Palihapitiya 15:50 Cyan can. Cyan can.

David Sacks 15:51 Oh, wait. Cyan, you're American. Yeah.

Cyan Banister 15:52 Yeah.

David Sacks 15:53 You're, you're an American. Okay. There you go.

Chamath Palihapitiya 15:54 Way to dial up the misogyny. Good, good for you.

David Sacks 15:56 (laughs)

Chamath Palihapitiya 15:56 Good job.

David Sacks 15:56 Well, no. I was talking about the, the besties here. I forgot for a second. Um... She is a bestie.

Chamath Palihapitiya 16:00 Yeah.

David Sacks 16:00 All right, listen. Amazing. I was wondering about the choice of the double-breasted, Chamath. This is a strong, strong choice here to go double-breasted to the White House. Take me through the thinking.

Chamath Palihapitiya 16:09 So, first of all, big shout-out to, uh, Luca Rubinacci, my tailor. I did double-breasted on Monday and Wednesday.

David Sacks 16:16 Whoa. In two in this... Two... Wait. So, you quaded it in one week?

Chamath Palihapitiya 16:20 But then I went... I went single-breasted to see POTUS.

David Sacks 16:23 Okay. I did notice that. Yeah, it's a little gratuitous to go triple-double. Yeah, you don't wanna triple-double, no.

White House staffer (communications official) 16:27 Mm-hmm.

David Sacks 16:27 By the way, so we're, we're hanging out in the White House and we got the random... It was like 1:00 in the afternoon, Chamath, on Monday when they said, "Hey, would you guys like to sit down with Secretary of the Treasury, Scott Bessent?"

Chamath Palihapitiya 16:39 Hmm. Special bonus episode.

David Sacks 16:42 And so then we... They're like, "At 5:30 today." And we had a dinner at 7:00, 7:30, so it was pretty tight but we were like, "Yes, that sounds good." So, then we got to go over-

Chamath Palihapitiya 16:50 Hmm.

David Sacks 16:50 ... to Treasury later in the afternoon. We had a camera guy come and set up.

Chamath Palihapitiya 16:54 Oh, nice. Nice.

David Sacks 16:55 So, yeah, here's this, this, this beautiful room in Treasury. I forgot the name of the room, Chamath.

Cyan Banister 16:58 Oh, look at that carpet.

David Sacks 16:58 Do you remember?

Chamath Palihapitiya 17:00 Yes. It was like the Ch- something Chase room, I think.

David Sacks 17:02 Oh, we gotta find this.

Chamath Palihapitiya 17:04 Hmm.

David Sacks 17:04 Beautiful room. So, we set up the interviews on YouTube, obviously, on X.

Chamath Palihapitiya 17:09 And on the main feed. It's on the main feed.

David Sacks 17:10 And on the main feed. And then we got a call after we did the Bessen interview and it... and it... You know, I think folks that were there from press said that wor- that was great. Howard Lutnick, who Chamath was going to be doing a meeting with on Wednesday morning right before we were flying home, said, "What if I come in early before our meeting, Chamath, and we do a sit-down?"

Chamath Palihapitiya 17:30 Hmm. Fans of the pot.

David Sacks 17:31 So, we said, "Great. Let's do it." So then we got to go to the White House press auditorium. They have a special auditorium just outside the West Wing. And you guys will recognize the stage, obviously, from many Biden press interviews. Here's the, the stage. And so, then we did this interview with Lutnick, and my God, this is gonna be a barn burner of an interview when it comes out.

White House staffer (communications official) 17:50 I ran into him after he had done this interview, and he was, he was excited about it. Sounds like you guys were on fire.

David Sacks 17:56 He was on fire, Sax. I mean, this guy.

Chamath Palihapitiya 17:58 Yeah.

David Sacks 17:58 I think it's gonna... There's gonna be so many clips out of this interview. It was incredible. It was like over an hour and a half.

White House staffer (communications official) 18:03 Wow.

David Sacks 18:03 And he just kept going and going.

Chamath Palihapitiya 18:04 He...

David Sacks 18:05 Yeah.

Chamath Palihapitiya 18:05 After the... Afterwards, we went to his building. By the way, you know that he's the Secretary of Commerce. Howard's office is War Department office, the old War Department office.

David Sacks 18:12 Hmm.

Chamath Palihapitiya 18:13 So, we jumped in his car and we went to his office.It is the most beautiful... I- I, this is... Again, I didn't think to stop and take photos. I should have ta- taken more photos, but his office is outrageously beautiful. Sacks, I don't know if you've been over there.

White House staffer (communications official) 18:27 Yeah, I have. Yeah, I had a meeting over there.

Chamath Palihapitiya 18:29 Uh, it's p-

David Sacks 18:29 Okay. So let me just say-

White House staffer (communications official) 18:31 Yeah. It's really beautiful. Yeah.

David Sacks 18:31 Let me just say one thing.

White House staffer (communications official) 18:32 Yeah.

David Sacks 18:32 I want to say that politics and policy aside, these individuals from the White House deputy chief of staff to these members of the Cabinet to all the staff that work in the West Wing were incredibly open and transparent. There were no press people intervening or involved. It was very random, very ad hoc that we got to have these sit-down conversations, and they were just so open. And I just want to say, like, that was really refreshing and really incredible, and, and I feel really privileged to have had the opportunity to kind of sit through this. But, you know, I- I was not expecting this on this trip at all.

White House staffer (communications official) 19:04 I think that when you work in the White House and, and y- you have been successful in the private sector like a Scott Besson or Howard Lutnick or myself.

David Sacks 19:12 Or Doug Burgum.

White House staffer (communications official) 19:13 Or Doug Burgum.

David Sacks 19:14 Or Elon.

White House staffer (communications official) 19:15 Or Elon, especially. I would describe it as a money for purpose trade. You're giving up money, but the sense of purpose you feel working for the White House for this president is just incredible, and I think you guys kind of picked up on that. And in my view, that's a trade that you should be happy to make-

David Sacks 19:31 Yeah.

White House staffer (communications official) 19:31 ... any day of the week, because it is really an honor to, to work at the, the White House and for this president, because he actually wants to get things done on behalf of the American people. The default state of Washington is just that nothing gets done, right? You guys know that. The bureaucracy and the, the entropy and the inertia just basically rule the day. And so it takes a president who, number one, has a mandate from the American people, number two, has a tremendous sense of mission or purpose, and number three, brings tremendous energy to the job, and then I think finally assembles the right team around him. And those are the conditions under which you can actually make change, positive change for the country. And we have that, and it's kind of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. If we don't get this done now, if we're not able to cut the deficit and debt now, when are we ever gonna do it? This is the... You know, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and I think everybody there feels that. I think everyone in, in the White House is really proud to be there and, and excited to be there, and-

Chamath Palihapitiya 20:27 I'll give you-

White House staffer (communications official) 20:27 And it's fun. And, you know, part of it is that the... You know, you can tell that the, the president, he makes this job fun because-

Chamath Palihapitiya 20:34 Well, I'll give you one-

White House staffer (communications official) 20:35 ... he's having a great time.

Chamath Palihapitiya 20:36 Yeah.

White House staffer (communications official) 20:37 He was really, I think, born to do this job, I mean, in so many ways.

Chamath Palihapitiya 20:40 Yeah.

White House staffer (communications official) 20:40 He just brings so much energy to it. He's indefatigable. There's so many-

David Sacks 20:44 Well, he's, he's empowering. He's... Like everyone we met with, Sacks, to your point, they've all been successful in another part of life, in, in business and whatnot, and they're generally post-economic people, but he's letting everyone run. We got to meet with several other members of the Cabinet, and they were all sharing with us that they're being given autonomy and authority. They can just run, and I think that that's really important. If you want to bring in high-impact people, you need to let them have an impact and let them do their thing, and I, I observed that repeatedly.

Chamath Palihapitiya 21:11 Can I give you one quick anecdote, maybe to wrap this segment up? So when we're sitting in... When we're at the private dining room, Steve Witkoff, who's another incredible entrepreneur, was dealing with something sensitive, comes in, tells the president. He's like, "Okay, great. Great job." Then there was three other issues. Sacks had something, then Sergio had something, and then on top of all of that... So there's this bang, bang, bang, and then he's also like, "Guys, listen, for this dinner coming up, I really want to make sure the acoustics is right so everybody has an opportunity to..." It's like the level of detail from the most important thing all the way down to literally the acoustics in the dining room, he is on top of all of it, and I was just like... And that was, again, just in my small little brief observation, and I was like, "This is crazy." Sacks, to your point, like the energy and the, the indefatigability and the desire to get every little thing right, it's pretty rare. It's... I kind of feel like America is in good hands, to be honest.

White House staffer (communications official) 22:08 You saw just in those few minutes when he's being peppered with so many decisions, so many actions-

Chamath Palihapitiya 22:13 So many decisions.

White House staffer (communications official) 22:14 ... you just realize what a demanding job it is, and you really need a person who just is special in that way, that they're just somehow cut out for that, that type of job. It is-

Chamath Palihapitiya 22:25 Yeah.

White House staffer (communications official) 22:25 ... very difficult.

Chamath Palihapitiya 22:26 Totally agree. I think Friedberg is totally right. If we can create a pattern where people with high executive... Let's just say that, because that's less of a loaded word than businessman or successful whatever. People with high executive function that have proven it should, at some point in their career, step into government and replace money for purpose. If that is a trend that this administration creates, I think America is in incredible hands. Eventually, there will be-

David Sacks 22:52 Which was the- which was how the founding fathers o- operated the government originally.

Chamath Palihapitiya 22:56 Yeah. Eventually, the- there'll be a moment, guys, where the Democrats win, right? There'll be a moment when the Republicans return to power. There'll be a moment when all the ideologies flip. But if in all of that you can find people who are willing to pause their private lives, have demonstrated executive function, and can make the trade, we're gonna just kick ass.

David Sacks 23:15 And give back.

Chamath Palihapitiya 23:17 That's great.

David Sacks 23:17 It was... Yeah.

Chamath Palihapitiya 23:18 David, thank you. I really, honestly, thank you. Like you are-

David Sacks 23:21 Yeah. Thank you, David.

Chamath Palihapitiya 23:22 ... awesome. You're awesome.

David Sacks 23:23 Yeah.

Chamath Palihapitiya 23:23 Thank you for giving us-

White House staffer (communications official) 23:25 Well, it was fun.

Chamath Palihapitiya 23:25 ... a window into that.

White House staffer (communications official) 23:26 I think it was fun-

David Sacks 23:26 And shout out to Tracy as well, who-

Chamath Palihapitiya 23:28 And shout out to Tracy.

White House staffer (communications official) 23:30 Yeah. Tracy did an amazing job organizing that.

David Sacks 23:31 ... does an incredible job. Yeah.

Chamath Palihapitiya 23:31 She's incredible. She's incredible.

David Sacks 23:32 Jake Howell, what'd you think of the Bessette interview? Did you see it?

Jason Calacanis 23:35 I did watch the Bessette one. Yeah. I mean, listen, I would have loved to ask him a couple questions, obviously. I would have probably done a couple of fastballs, curveballs, would have gone a little bit harder, but he is so impressive. And you guys did, like an hour with him, and I haven't heard-

Chamath Palihapitiya 23:49 What did we miss that you would have asked?

David Sacks 23:51 Yeah.

Jason Calacanis 23:52 I mean, you know, you, you gotta get a little bit into the chaos being created around-

White House staffer (communications official) 23:55 I think this is a good time for me to drop off.

Jason Calacanis 23:57 (laughing)

White House staffer (communications official) 23:57 Yeah. I'll drop off so Jake can pontificate and tell us what a better job you would do.

David Sacks 24:03 Thanks again. Thanks again, Jake.

White House staffer (communications official) 24:04 (laughing) Okay.

David Sacks 24:05 Oh, Sacks, you don't-

White House staffer (communications official) 24:05 All right, Jake Howell, we'll see you later.

David Sacks 24:05 You don't want to talk?

White House staffer (communications official) 24:05 You can tell everyone now what a great job you would have done.

Chamath Palihapitiya 24:08 Love you, Sacks.

White House staffer (communications official) 24:09 All right. Love you guys.

David Sacks 24:09 Love you, bro.

Chamath Palihapitiya 24:10 See you. Love you, bro.

Jason Calacanis 24:10 (laughing) Thanks for the invite.

Chamath Palihapitiya 24:12 Bye, Sacks.

Jason Calacanis 24:12 See you in the commissary. (laughing) What a guy. No, I thought it was really good to hear from him long form. I think there's a little bit of chaos going on with the tariffs and stuff like that, but, you know, I don't think the country knows how great he is.This guy is a powerhouse. He has an incredible track record. And by the way, like, Trump picking him, I'm gonna give Trump a little bit of flowers here. Obviously, folks know I'm an independent and a never-Trumper who is, you know, supporting the administration to do the best they can.

Chamath Palihapitiya 24:38 What does it mean to be independent, but also have another label that says you refuse to consider somebody? I don't understand what that means.

Cyan Banister 24:43 Keeping options open.

Jason Calacanis 24:44 Well, no. I mean, I- I- I didn't... I had my own issues with-

Chamath Palihapitiya 24:47 What's that mean? (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 24:47 ... you know, Tr- what Trump did on January 6th, and we don't need to get into it, overturning Roe v. Wade. We don't have to get into the things that I don't agree with what he did. Putting all those things aside, I think he's done a great job with the team he's putting here. And this is, you know, my message to, I think, some of the Americans or the people on the left is, I would look at what he's doing and some of these individuals. These are really high-functioning individuals. The last time, I think he had a cast of characters around him who I think were kinda dark, and- and I didn't care for a lot of them. With Bessent, this guy is like a bi... I- I think he, you know, was previously a Democrat who gave to a ton of Democrats, and he is a powerhouse, and I think he really understands financial markets.

David Sacks 25:26 Luttnik was a big donor to Hillary and then-

Jason Calacanis 25:29 Yes.

David Sacks 25:30 ... RFK was a Democrat, Tulsi was a Democrat, Trump was a Democrat. I mean, you know, a good chunk of-

Jason Calacanis 25:36 Well, this is my point.

Chamath Palihapitiya 25:36 I was a Democrat.

Jason Calacanis 25:37 You were a Democrat, yeah. So, I think that's... You know, Bessent is... I came away from it saying, "This guy is super qualified," and the chaos that I think Trump has been creating with, like, back and forth with the tariffs and his communication style, it made me feel better to know that there was somebody who was rock solid like him in there, and who's really thoughtful. Because right now, when you talk to 50 people who are knowledgeable about the markets and say, "What is the strategy here that Trump has?" You get 10 different answers, five different vectors for it. People are trying to figure out exactly what he's trying to do, and there's a lot of non-consensus. But h- hearing that he's got somebody like him there and you talking to him for an hour, I felt much better about the situation. And that maybe there is a plan here.

David Sacks 26:22 So we- so we did a good job?

Jason Calacanis 26:24 I think, yeah, it was a s- it was a solid interview. Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, the access level, you know, most of the time, he's on something like Meet the Press or-

David Sacks 26:32 11 minutes.

Jason Calacanis 26:32 ... Face the Nation, and it's 11 minutes, and the guy can't breathe.

David Sacks 26:37 Totally.

Jason Calacanis 26:37 And for him to go an hour and you-

David Sacks 26:39 Totally.

Jason Calacanis 26:39 ... kinda... You did a good job, Chamath, of sort of giving his history with a... which I think, uh, the context most Americans don't have. So, I was very proud of the job the two of you did. I wish I was there, obviously.

David Sacks 26:40 Chamath did a great job, by the way, 'cause Chamath T- that... He had a very incredible... Chamath, by the way, I gotta give you flowers for having good intuition-

Jason Calacanis 26:40 Yeah.

David Sacks 26:40 ... on some of the questions you asked both Luttnik and Bessent that I think revealed a little bit more about their character and who they are as people, which I was not on. I'm all about, like, what are the hard... what are the questions I wanna ask related to policy and agenda? But you did a great job bringing that out in them, and- and that actually, I think, created a lot of texture for both interviews that I was not pre- I was not thinking about. It's a great job, Chamath.

Jason Calacanis 26:42 I'm looking forward to the next one. I don't know when that drops, but that should be really good.

David Sacks 26:42 Oh, my God, the S- dude, the Luttnik interviews, like... (laughs) I mean, that guy-

Chamath Palihapitiya 26:42 So that guy's-

David Sacks 26:42 That's- that's gonna come Thursday.

Chamath Palihapitiya 26:42 ... like, he's a, he's a-

Jason Calacanis 26:42 You kinda, you did a good job, Chamath, of sort of giving his history, with I- which I think, uh, the context most Americans don't have. So I was very proud of the job the two of you did. I wish I was there, obviously.

David Sacks 26:48 Chamath did a great job, by the way, 'cause Chamath T- that... He had a very incredible... Chamath, by the way, I gotta give you flowers for having good intuition on some of the questions you asked both Luttnik and Bessent that I think revealed a little bit more about their character and who they are as people, which I was not on. I'm all about, like, what are the hard... what are the questions I wanna ask related to policy and agenda? But you did a great job bringing that out in them, and- and that actually, I think, created a lot of texture for both interviews that I was not pre- I was not thinking about. It's a great job, Chamath.

Jason Calacanis 27:16 I'm looking forward to the next one. I don't know when that drops, but that should be really good.

David Sacks 27:20 Oh, my God, the S- dude, the Luttnik interviews, like... (laughs) I mean, that guy-

Chamath Palihapitiya 27:24 So that guy's-

David Sacks 27:25 That's- that's gonna come Thursday.

Chamath Palihapitiya 27:25 ... he's a, he's a hardcore New Yorker, and like, he really... I- I think you guys talked about tariffs? Let me tell you, let me tell you... Yeah, we did talk about tariffs.

David Sacks 27:33 Oh, my God, yeah.

Chamath Palihapitiya 27:33 Listen, the thing with, the thing you need to know about Howard Luttnik is, he is an incredibly resilient and resourceful businessman. This guy has built himself up literally from nothing.

Jason Calacanis 27:45 Good human.

Chamath Palihapitiya 27:45 I'm a little biased, but he's a great guy. And you're gonna hear some really incredible stories, but again, another one who traded money for purpose.

David Sacks 27:56 Look, I just wanna say real quick, we don't do ads on the show, but we did have three sponsors that actually helped fund our DC trip and set this thing up for us. So, I really wanna say thank you to Hims, hims.com, and For Hers, Gemini, and iTrust. Everyone listening to the show, please go to the description, whatever player you're in, check them out. These three sponsors helped make this trip happen. We're really appreciative. Please take a look at their websites, give their products a shot. Thank you to Hims, Gemini, and iTrust. Uh, you guys are the best. We really appreciate it.

Jason Calacanis 28:26 All right, everybody. We got a full docket today, lots of docket. And, you know, just, hey, welcome back to the show, Syanne. I just wanted to start, you had a really great announcement this week, Long Journey Ventures, your venture capital firm, announced a $180 million fund. Tell us a little bit about that.

Cyan Banister 28:42 Well, 181, 181, 181, and 18. 18 stands for life to people who are Jewish, and my partners are Jewish, and it was something that was very important, uh, to them and to me-

David Sacks 29:00 Mm-hmm.

Cyan Banister 29:00 ... uh, to stand up after October 7th and, you know, take a very public stance. And so-

David Sacks 29:06 Mm-hmm.

Cyan Banister 29:06 ... we announced our funding announcement on Bloomberg yesterday and, uh, and our office is on 18th Street, so...

David Sacks 29:13 Oh, congrats.

Cyan Banister 29:14 Yeah.

Chamath Palihapitiya 29:14 That's awesome.

Jason Calacanis 29:15 What is the mission of the venture fund? What- what- what stage are you gonna do? You and I started as angel investors together 14 years ago, 12 years ago.

Cyan Banister 29:22 Yeah. Yeah, so we focus on early stage-

Jason Calacanis 29:24 Yeah.

Cyan Banister 29:24 ... seed checks, first check in, and, you know, this, this fund, um, is our fourth fund. We've institutionalized more. In the beginning, it was high net worth individuals and then now we're, you know, going to kind of what Chamath was speaking about earlier is aligning what we do with our higher purpose. And so now, we're helping, you know, institutions help people go to school, solving cancer, and things like that. So, every day that we get up in the morning, you know, we're- we're aligning what we do. Our mission is to chase the magically weird. We're looking for alpha in things when everybody is consensus investing and they're doing the same thing and talking about the same things, we're thinking six to eight years in the future. You know, when our fund three, we invested in a company in the chip space and, you know, we were thinking ahead about what's going to power AI and crypto. And now that everybody's, you know, investing in the application layer, we're going into the next thing, which is like, what is that going to enable and what's coming down the road? And looking for founders that are thinking differently that most other of my peers would look at it and say, "That's crazy. I don't wanna put any money into that."So that's, that's what we focus on.

Jason Calacanis 30:31 This is such a hard thing t- for people to get their heads around, the non-consensus bet and why that's so important. Um, you know, I'm training, you know, new associates at our firm and they always are going to safety, so they're looking at a vertical, they're looking at a startup and saying, "Well, this makes the most sense." And then they look at the ones that don't make sense, but that are, like, intriguing and they are like, "Yeah, I, I don't know if I wanna place a bet on that 'cause ............................" I'm like, "That's where the gold is."

Cyan Banister 31:00 Exactly.

Jason Calacanis 31:00 It's that non-consensus bet. When you and I did Uber, it was a room of 21 people, three people decided to invest, 19 didn't.

Cyan Banister 31:07 Yeah, that was a magically weird company at the time. If you remember, I sent it around to multiple investors and they came back with the stupidest excuses I ever heard, but it was their excuse, which is, you know, "N- not everyone wants a black car. The car doesn't come to my house yet. Uh, no one wants to get into a stranger's vehicle." The list goes on and on.

Jason Calacanis 31:25 Yes.

Cyan Banister 31:25 But it takes a vision of seeing the future and seeing how it plays out and believing in all the miracles-

Jason Calacanis 31:30 Hmm.

Cyan Banister 31:30 ... that are gonna happen. And getting in early is where all the alpha is. You know?

Jason Calacanis 31:34 Hmm.

Cyan Banister 31:34 Before the thing is defined as a category. So that's where I like to play-

Jason Calacanis 31:38 Yes.

Cyan Banister 31:38 ... is I don't want it to even have a market name yet.

Jason Calacanis 31:41 Such a great observation. Like, when, when a, when an associate or some research company says, "Oh, it's the on-demand economy," that's when you know that opportunity-

Cyan Banister 31:51 It's too late.

Jason Calacanis 31:52 ... gone. (laughs)

Cyan Banister 31:52 It failed. You can let-

Jason Calacanis 31:52 It's done.

Cyan Banister 31:52 That's where, like, all of my peers can go lose all their money in an ocean-

Jason Calacanis 31:56 Yes.

Cyan Banister 31:56 ... of dead bodies because, like-

Jason Calacanis 31:58 (laughs)

Cyan Banister 31:58 ... I don't wanna play there.

Jason Calacanis 32:00 Yeah. All right. Well, speak-

Cyan Banister 32:00 And you get a price advantage too, right? Like, if you enter early before it's-

Jason Calacanis 32:04 I'm in.

Cyan Banister 32:04 ... a defined category, you're taking on a lot of risk. And so, you know, I'm getting deals anywhere from, like, five to 10 posts while all of my peers are playing in the 20 to 30 range. And so obviously-

Jason Calacanis 32:14 Uh, it's literally you and I are the product of, you know, our early bets and, like, what the lessons we learned and, like, one of those lessons was to be in early. Um, it's literally what I'm doing Founder University now is just trying-

Cyan Banister 32:26 Oh, yeah. What's that about?

Jason Calacanis 32:26 ... to do 100... It's just, like, a pre-accelerator. If I find two or three founders who I like, I give them their first 25K check or 125K check where they can just come, you know, do it with me. We're starting next Friday. So if people wanna come, founder.university. But it's just like what we used to do in the old days, trying to get in-

Chamath Palihapitiya 32:43 Congrats.

Jason Calacanis 32:44 ... be the first investor and it's, it's really working and it's super fun. Hey, listen, there is great news, I think, for the venture industry. This Google acquiring Wiz, I think this is, this could be the starter's pistol again.

Chamath Palihapitiya 32:57 Unbelievable.

Jason Calacanis 32:59 Yeah. It's absolutely fantastic.

Jason Calacanis 33:00 Google has acquired Wiz for $32 billion in cash. If you don't know what Wiz is, just imagine you have cloud services like Microsoft's Azure, Amazon Web Services, Google's Cloud, Oracle's Cloud. You need to have security between these things. They help do that. It's the largest deal in Google's history. David was there, I think, for some of the other, um, big acquisitions. There haven't been a lot of acquisitions. Obviously, we know the wrath of Lina Khan was pretty acute for the last four years. But, uh, looking back in history, Salesforce buying Slack, which, uh, our bestie Chamath here was an early investor in for 27 billion. That occurred in 2020. And then we had a couple of things get blocked, HP and was it Juniper I believe for 14 billion last year got blocked. And so, and- Adobe Figma.

Cyan Banister 33:51 Mm-hmm.

Jason Calacanis 33:51 Adobe Figma got blocked.

Chamath Palihapitiya 33:52 Blocked in the, blocked in the UK. Blocked in the UK.

Jason Calacanis 33:54 Blocked in the UK, but they, you know, assumed it was gonna happen here. And this is-

Chamath Palihapitiya 33:57 Yeah.

Jason Calacanis 33:57 ... actually, we talked about this on episode 189, Chamath. Wiz turned down $23 billion from Google. They said at the time it was because they wanted to IPO, but now reporting is saying-

Chamath Palihapitiya 34:07 No, I mean, I think-

Jason Calacanis 34:08 ... it was because of the antitrust stuff under Biden-

Chamath Palihapitiya 34:10 Yeah.

Jason Calacanis 34:10 ... plus the UK, obviously. Go ahead, Chamath. You can take it from there.

Chamath Palihapitiya 34:13 I think this is the Trump premium. I mean, the problem when that deal was being looked at back then was there was still a chance that there could be a Democratic administration and it was very clear that they were anti-M&A-

Jason Calacanis 34:28 Hmm.

Chamath Palihapitiya 34:30 ... and anti-tech quite honestly.

Jason Calacanis 34:32 Hmm.

Chamath Palihapitiya 34:32 And when Trump won, I think it basically said, "Okay, we can now look at these deals." There's another important part of this though, and this was part of our interview with Howard Luttig. I'd love to just play this quick clip.

Tim Walz 34:45 What I'm doing is I'm saying, okay, I gotta collect tariffs, right? So I go to one of the great software companies of the Earth and I say, "I want you to give me, you're gonna build for me, for America, you're gonna build the greatest customs processing ever."

Chamath Palihapitiya 35:02 But what's incredible is you're convincing these companies to basically, like, do right for America and build this software for you. Do you think that's gonna be a movement throughout the government or is that-

Tim Walz 35:11 Here's the idea.

Chamath Palihapitiya 35:12 Yeah.

Tim Walz 35:12 I say, "Build it for me for free."

Chamath Palihapitiya 35:14 Yeah.

Tim Walz 35:15 I put it in for free. I don't know. What other countries in the world do you think are gonna buy now?

Chamath Palihapitiya 35:21 Right. If it works for us.

Cyan Banister 35:22 (laughs)

Tim Walz 35:22 Well, remember, you have to-

Chamath Palihapitiya 35:24 Hmm.

Tim Walz 35:24 ... you have to connect to me.

Chamath Palihapitiya 35:25 Yeah.

Tim Walz 35:26 So every country's gonna buy.

Jason Calacanis 35:27 Yum, yum.

Chamath Palihapitiya 35:28 Right.

Jason Calacanis 35:28 This is awesome.

Chamath Palihapitiya 35:29 What is he really saying? What he's really saying is there are all kinds of companies that are doing all kinds of work who Google famously has its 20% time. Could you imagine if some of this 20% time was allocated to rebuilding the core infrastructure of America and giving back to the country that gives you the ability to have a multi-trillion dollar company? That's about one example. So when you connect the dots, the way that I interpret it is that I think companies will be much more aggressive on M&A. Jason, it's what you've been asking for. I think you're gonna get it.

Jason Calacanis 36:03 Hmm.

Chamath Palihapitiya 36:03 And I think the reason why you're gonna get it is you're gonna have a very open-minded administration that'll let the M&A happen, but also there are ways where you can build goodwill by doing-

Jason Calacanis 36:13 Yeah.

Chamath Palihapitiya 36:13 ... the kinds of things that Howard is talking about. I mean, could you imagine if somebody volunteered, let's say Palantir, and said, "Hey, we can build the following software for the IRS so that we can just completely automate tax returns."

Jason Calacanis 36:25 Hmm.

Chamath Palihapitiya 36:25 And it's okay for Palantir. They're still a $200 billion company. They could allocate a small amount of time and get that done. If Oracle stepped up and said something. So... And all of that goodwill-... will then allow America to just grow faster. And then under that economic umbrella, a- a little, uh, consolidation is not necessarily a bad thing. So, I'm really interested in how all of these pieces move together. That's- that's the one thing I get. But I'd like to say something else very narrowly about Wiz, which is, Wiz does not do something that's necessarily unique, meaning there are other products in market. But they have done one thing better than everybody else and I think it's really worth rewarding, which is they have incredible taste. So, if you use it, and all my engineers at 80/90 live inside of this regime, when I ask them, "Hey, we need to implement something," they all pick Wiz.

Jason Calacanis 37:23 Hm.

Chamath Palihapitiya 37:23 And if you ask them why, and if you ask our CIS admin, "Why did we imp- implement it?" Not only is it good, but it is the most beautiful, it is the most intuitive, it's the most well-integrated. And it's just an incredible lesson where even when other people do this other thing, you can build $32 billion of value by just doing that thing in a more coherent way.

Jason Calacanis 37:45 I mean, design matters, right? I mean, Sayant, what do-

Chamath Palihapitiya 37:47 I think that having taste and having taste matters. It's an en-

Jason Calacanis 37:49 Having ta- having a perspective, a point of view-

Chamath Palihapitiya 37:50 It's so great that that was rewarded.

Jason Calacanis 37:53 ... yes. Sayant, what do you think of what I'll call Lutnick's lighthouse customer approach? In other words, make ... this piece of software for the US government. We'll become your first customer, the lighthouse that pulls in other customers-

Chamath Palihapitiya 38:07 For free.

Jason Calacanis 38:07 ... and for free. So, we get it for free, we help you set the standard, and then you get to use us as your reference client. Let's start with that. Thoughts on- on that, and then we'll get into M&A.

Cyan Banister 38:18 I- I think that the government has long relied on private industry to solve some of its biggest problems and that's what sets us apart from other countries in the world. And so, you know, you look at some of the best companies like SpaceX, Anduril, et cetera, we need more companies like this if we're going to compete. And so doing this absolutely makes sense and it's just gonna help the sales cycle to get that sort of stamp of approval that, you know, our government is using that software.

Jason Calacanis 38:47 Freeberg, your thoughts on Lutnick's lighthouse strategy. Could it work?

David Sacks 38:53 Yeah. I think this is what makes it good to have, you know, as we talked about earlier, folks with high executive function and business experience and acumen in key leadership positions in the government, so they know how to drive kind of better economic outcomes. Negotiating the price of a contract down and saying, in this case, "Give it to us for free." One of the things Lutnick said in the interview, which you didn't see in this clip, is that the government can actually accept, for free, contracts, these gratis contracts, and you don't need to go get approval to do it, so they can operate in the executive branch, um, independently.

Jason Calacanis 39:31 Oh, that makes total sense. Right. You don't need an approval if it's gratis. (laughs) That makes total ...

David Sacks 39:36 That's right.

Jason Calacanis 39:36 Yeah. That makes it even more great.

David Sacks 39:37 And so that- that- that- that's also a big unlock. Yeah.

Jason Calacanis 39:40 Well then, I guess, we can contrast this, Chamath, with Tim Waltz. You know? (laughs) VP, potential VP candidate who-

Chamath Palihapitiya 39:48 I have a real problem with this clip, Jason.

Jason Calacanis 39:50 This was the most infuriating thing I've ever seen from a politician. (laughs) I mean, Tim Waltz gets on stage, pulls out his stock app, and starts mocking the greatest American car company ever created and that its stock is down. This is disgraciad.com to me. Play the clip, Nick.

Tim Walz (recorded clip) 40:11 I know some of you know this. On the iPhone, they've got that little stock app. I added Tesla to it to give me a little boost during the day. (audience laughing)

Jason Calacanis 40:19 So- so true.

Tim Walz (recorded clip) 40:20 225 and dropping.

Jason Calacanis 40:21 ... communist-

Tim Walz (recorded clip) 40:22 So ... And- and if you own one, if you own one, we're not blaming you. You can- you can take dental floss and pull the Tesla thing off-

Jason Calacanis 40:34 All right. Enough.

Tim Walz (recorded clip) 40:34 ... you know, and take out just telling you-

Jason Calacanis 40:35 I mean, Chamath, you wanna talk about this communist scumbag and what he did there?

Chamath Palihapitiya 40:39 No, I'm not gonna say anything personal except to say that I think that it is incredibly lowbrow. At the end of the day, he represents the American people. He needs to be firmly on team America. I don't think he understands this because he's never actually had a real job, but the auto industry is a vibrant part of how many, many, many Americans earn their living. Tesla employs 125,000 plus employees. There is no reason a politician should be wishing any American company to fail. Period. I just think that should be the price of entry.

Jason Calacanis 41:20 Yeah.

Chamath Palihapitiya 41:20 And so t- to lack the basic decorum and understanding and then to whip people up into wanting any American company to fail. There are many American companies-

Jason Calacanis 41:30 Sure.

Chamath Palihapitiya 41:30 ... sure, I like or dislike, whatever. It's not the point. There are some that I'll buy the stock of. There are some that I will not. That's not the point. You can not openly and actively be cheering, as a politician at least, for these things to fail. That, I think, is just incredibly lowbrow.

Jason Calacanis 41:47 I- I think it's the bottoming out of the Democratic Party. That moment will be looked at as the bottom. Sayant, any thoughts?

Cyan Banister 41:52 I think it's incredibly lowbrow. I agree with Chamath and I think it's just so distasteful for, you know, a public official to do something like that in ... especially for an American company. And it ... You know, if you hear the people cheering in the background, it's obvious that there's a base that supports this and that frightens me even more. Because he's saying these things because his constinuate- his constituents believe it.

Chamath Palihapitiya 42:14 Right.

Cyan Banister 42:14 And, you know, a politician says these things because they think it's gonna motivate them to vote for them in the future and that really frightens me. You know, that we are riling people up, um, to cheer on the destruction of American company and possibly go out and burn cars. You know, I think, uh-

Jason Calacanis 42:31 Well, that's the- that's a really good point, Sayant.

Cyan Banister 42:34 ... that's the outcome.

Jason Calacanis 42:35 Yeah. Be- be- 'cause whenever you incite, like, this kind of aggressiveness ... And by the way, both sides do it.... you get a contingent who takes it too far. Freeburg, may- maybe we wrap up on this and then we can jump back to Wiz. Sorry for the diversion.

David Sacks 42:47 I think the Democratic Party, um, has split into two parties. There's the Democratic Party with beliefs and there's a Democratic Party without beliefs. I think that the Democratic Party with beliefs is the one that's very far left, and their beliefs are fundamentally rooted in concepts of socialism, Marxism.

Jason Calacanis 43:06 Yes.

David Sacks 43:07 And they're very clear about those beliefs, that traditional power structures need to be dismantled and assets and influence need to be commonly redistributed. The rest of the Democratic Party, which people call the moderate part of the party, actually don't really know what their beliefs are. When you talk to anyone in the Republican Party in a leadership position, you hear very clearly what their beliefs are. We saw it this week in DC. Every member of the Cabinet that we met with, and there were quite a number of them, had the exact same message and the exact same set of beliefs of what this administration stands for and what they're trying to do. You may agree with those beliefs or you may not, but they have stated their beliefs. The problem is that because the moderates in the Democratic Party have not stated a set of beliefs, a set of objectives, a vision for the country, a vision for their party, the party is effectively being represented by this part of the party that does have beliefs, the deeply socialist, Marxist beliefs. And they have basically subsumed the message, and as a result, this is why people have lost interest in the Democratic Party, because the moderate aspect has not been really clear on what their beliefs are. There is an opportunity for some of these moderate leaders in the Democratic Party, like Dean Phillips, like ... And people may not like me saying this, but like Gavin Newsom, who I don't think is all the way over on that far left side of the, uh, the spectrum, to be really clear and paint a better vision and really state the beliefs of the party and what the beliefs are that differentiate them. And those beliefs, recently, the only thing that underscores what that party stands for is, "We're not the other guys. We're not the Republicans." And that's it. And so people that don't like the Republicans are like, "Well, I don't know, because then I'm subsumed by the socialist, Marxist rhetoric. So I don't know if I want to be a part of that either." And that's why I think a lot of people feel left out, and that's why I think the recent polling data, if you pull it up, on the Democrats, it's like 23% or something in this country now.

Jason Calacanis 44:58 It was like th- 30s or something.

Chamath Palihapitiya 45:00 Did you see the crazy clip that did the racial demographic split on some key issues, like things like-

David Sacks 45:05 Yes.

Chamath Palihapitiya 45:06 ... DEI?

Jason Calacanis 45:06 Is this the one that says white college-aged women are just-

Chamath Palihapitiya 45:09 Yeah.

Jason Calacanis 45:09 ... um, like this weird ...

David Sacks 45:11 Anyway-

Chamath Palihapitiya 45:11 Yeah.

David Sacks 45:11 ... I think Tim Walz, like a lot of others, because there's no other beliefs to stand for, you end up being subsumed by the part of the Democratic Party-

Chamath Palihapitiya 45:17 Mm-hmm.

David Sacks 45:17 ... that does have beliefs. And you don't have anything else to say- to state and to- to show what you're for.

Chamath Palihapitiya 45:23 And I think a lot of people-

Jason Calacanis 45:23 H- here's an idea too, like-

Chamath Palihapitiya 45:25 It's a really g- It's a really good framing. I really like that.

Jason Calacanis 45:27 Well, and here's another framing, like w- is it so hard to agree on something? Like, I think this is one of the brilliant things that Trump did, was he's like, "Here are some things we can agree on," and he just subsumed those, like fighting for the working class person, saying no tax on tips. Like, these were Democratic positions. I think this just proves that meme where it's like-

David Sacks 45:46 Can I tell you something?

Jason Calacanis 45:47 ... we're all standing here and eve- and the left just went too far away.

Cyan Banister 45:50 Yeah, they left everybody.

David Sacks 45:50 Let me give you a piece ... Yeah. Let me give you a piece of advice.

Jason Calacanis 45:54 They left everybody. (laughs)

David Sacks 45:54 To the Democratic Party leadership that might be listening, the advice I would give you is basically take away the opportunity for the distinction that the Republicans have right now, which is a more efficient government, a more f- you know, fair government where money isn't wasted, where your taxpayer dollars aren't being destroyed. The Democratic Party has an opportunity to stand up and say, "We don't want to have things like regulatory capture or this pork or inside stuff going on." They have an opportunity to make that the core set of beliefs that still aligns with reducing government and increasing efficiency in government. Efficiency in government should not be a party issue. By allowing the Republicans to say, "We're for efficient government," it implies that the Democrats now to be opposite of that are saying, "We're for inefficient government." And if- if the Democrats want to win this, they can actually take that message and say, "You know what? We're for more efficient government, and the way we're going to do it is get rid of things like regulatory capture and inside deals and all the other sort of stuff."

Jason Calacanis 46:49 Yeah.

David Sacks 46:49 It may, you know ... That may not kind of go, but there's an opportunity for the Democrats, I think, to really stand up and take the country in the direction that we all, as Americans, need it to go to, which is to have a sustainable federal government. And that's going to require some degree of fiscal conservatism and action.

Chamath Palihapitiya 47:04 It's-

David Sacks 47:05 But they could take a different point of view on how they do it.

Chamath Palihapitiya 47:06 Yeah.

David Sacks 47:06 And they could have core beliefs around that.

Jason Calacanis 47:08 It's- it's really ... And- and by the way, Dean Phillips we're inviting back on the program, Ezra Klein, Sam Harris. We want to have some more people on the left come on here and maybe talk about this very issue. It's really three things they could work on. Number one, build 10 million homes in this country that are affordable. That's a really key issue. Rich people should pay their fair te- share of taxes and reform the tax code. And then, uh, third, healthcare for everyone. Those three would get this party back on track. We're gonna make a more efficient government, you're gonna be able to buy a home, you're gonna get healthcare, and rich people are gonna start paying their taxes, which they're not, and we're gonna stop with these crazy Trump tax breaks. That would be the perfect positioning. And it's not personal, it's just, hey, we're a rich enough c- country that people should get healthcare. Why shouldn't people have healthcare in the modern world? Why can't these rich people who are donating tens of millions of dollars to Trump just pay some more taxes and- and make sure poor people have basic healthcare? Syan, your thoughts? And then let's get back to the docket.

Cyan Banister 48:03 Well, I disagree with all those points, obviously, but sure, they could run on them. Uh, they have tried. They've- they've definitely said we're gonna have, you know, healthcare for all, you know, selling the American dream of home ownership I actually think is flawed in many ways. We're putting people into debt and for things they can't afford and they get screwed. And so I- I just actually think, uh, they need to find a unifying ... Figure out who their moderates are and there's also politically homeless people, we didn't include them.

Jason Calacanis 48:33 Yeah.

Cyan Banister 48:33 You know, there's these people who are just like, "Well, I can't vote right and I'm not left either anymore." So we've got to bridge this divide somehow and they've got to figure out the messaging, but I don't think going back to what they used to do is gonna work, because they promised universal healthcare and it hasn't happened. And they had plenty of opportunity to do so.

Jason Calacanis 48:52 Hm. All right, let's get back to the Wiz deal and the, uh, and the docket here. Let's see if we, is there anything we didn't, uh... Well, I (beep)

David Sacks 48:59 We should talk about the, um, you know, the price they paid, and we should talk about-

Jason Calacanis 49:04 Yeah, how to do that, yeah.

David Sacks 49:04 ... the, the strategic rationale and how-

Jason Calacanis 49:06 Yeah.

David Sacks 49:07 ... others are gonna respond.

Jason Calacanis 49:09 All right, so looking at this, the deal got sweetened massively over the year between when the first offer was made for $23 billion and then went up to $32 billion. The revenue roughly doubled since the time of the first offer. And then there's some really interesting things in the details. There is a huge breakup fee. We saw the breakup fee with Adobe and Figma. This one is tremendous, it's 10% of the deal size, $3.2 billion in cash. They don't get an investment. If this deal doesn't go through, Google has to give Wiz $3.2 billion in cash. Let that sink in. This company is massively high growth, zero to 100 million in their, in 18 months, uh, when they started, and, uh, last year, they passed $500 million in ARR. You know, that puts the deal at roughly 60 times their run rate, and that is a high price. However, they're supposed to hit, uh, a billion in ARR this year, which would put it at 30 times forward-looking, or 32 times, which isn't outrageous because Google probably has, Freyberg, some concept, or Alphabet rather, some concept of how they could increase the velocity of that, uh, of that revenue, yeah? Or that it would be a defensive position, one of those two, yeah?

David Sacks 50:24 Yeah, I mean, just to put it in context, right, Google's cloud revenue is about 40 billion a year, and Microsoft and A- and Amazons are both kind of plus or minus a little bit around 100 billion a year. And so Google has kind of been, as we know, lagging a little bit in the cloud market. The, the thing about kind of enterprise sales is there's a common strategy, which is you kinda land with a beachhead and then you kind of expand from there with additional products and services. This has been the reason so many enterprise software companies over time, from Oracle to Salesforce to Microsoft, have been acquisitive and can make acquisitions very synergistic. What that means is you can acquire a new product or a new service and then sell it into your install base, or acquire the customers and then cross-sell your existing products or services into their install base. And so you can increase the overall revenue by putting the two together and combining sales teams and being able to offer a combined offering. And so the theory here, and I think this is something I don't understand well enough, is that security has become such a kinda top requirement and, and product category that it now effectively enables a beachhead-type model to be successful, meaning you can cross-sell the security into all of your existing customers, or there's enough new customers that Google might be acquiring from the Wiz acquisition that they can now bring new GCP services to and, and cross-sell into. Now, to figure out how this actually has to make sense, so Google's ROIC is about 30%. That means that when they make an investment, a CapEx investment or a capital investment, they expect to see about 30% of incremental profit per year come back at some point from that capital investment. The capital investment they're making here, again, this doesn't hit their income statement, goes on their balance sheet. It gets marked mostly as goodwill. So Google's gonna have a $32 billion move from cash down to goodwill. So now they've got this asset on their balance sheet and they've gotta make an incremental $10 billion a year profit. So you kinda gotta do the math, $10 billion a year of incremental profit against $40 billion of cloud revenue and against $1 billion of Wiz revenue. There's a lot to be kind of built here to make this make financial sense. So then it becomes, okay, well, that's a really hard one to kind of think that they're gonna get there very soon, but remember, Google's made some investments like-

Chamath Palihapitiya 52:55 I think it's more, I think it's a very tricky... You said it earlier actually, it's a Trojan horse into the other clouds. The reason-, you know, the reason Wiz exists, and Jason mentioned this upfront, is because of the value that it creates in a multi-cloud, multi-tenant environment across Azure and GCP and, and AWS. And when the deal was done, one of the things that Wiz said is, "Hey, don't worry, we're not gonna prefer GCP." And it was interesting because I thought, wait, people actually thought that they would just prefer GCP? No, it's the exact opposite of why Google would want this, because now what you have are your tentacles. Like, think of any other service that any cloud provider provides where most of your revenue is coming from the other clouds. Can you name one? Well, it didn't exist until now. And so I think the strategic rationale is quite clever, which is you start to gain customer traction and workloads in all of these other environments, and I suspect that TK is smart enough to try to pull these workloads back into GCP. So that, that's like, I think, probably like-

Jason Calacanis 53:59 Because they were, you're saying, Jamat, they would have the data, they would be able to see-

Chamath Palihapitiya 54:03 Of course.

Jason Calacanis 54:03 ... from Wiz, like, "Hey, look-"

Chamath Palihapitiya 54:05 Of course.

Jason Calacanis 54:05 "... 90% of this, this type of job is-"

Chamath Palihapitiya 54:07 Why wouldn't you do it?

Jason Calacanis 54:07 "... existing on Oracle or it's over here on AWS or Azure."

Chamath Palihapitiya 54:10 All three of you would do that if you were running Google Cloud-

Jason Calacanis 54:12 Of course, of course.

Chamath Palihapitiya 54:13 ... and Thomas Kurian is smart enough and they're not gonna pay-

Jason Calacanis 54:15 Yeah.

Chamath Palihapitiya 54:15 And David, by the way, the other thing that I would say is I think this is where bankers get this totally wrong as the observer watching a deal like this, is it's never about the rate of change when you're trying to do a deal. It's always about the rate of change of the rate of change. And the most incredible thing that Wiz had going for itself was that they were basically doubling in months. So the time-

Jason Calacanis 54:38 Hm.

Chamath Palihapitiya 54:38 ... to double at that scale, you can do any kind of fantastical model with that kind of raw input, because when that boundary condition is true (laughs) and you're trying to, you know, deescalate or-

Jason Calacanis 54:49 Yes.

Chamath Palihapitiya 54:49 ... scale down or weigh down a model, you're still gonna get crazy gargantuan numbers that when you discount them back, gets them to this price. So, I mean, congrats to these guys. I don't, I, you know, I would love to find out...How does Wiz- 'cause this, I mean, I'm sure you guys have this question too. How do you build a sales infrastructure that can scale that productively that quickly? That's an incredible thing, you know?

Jason Calacanis 55:12 Yeah, I wonder-

Chamath Palihapitiya 55:13 How do you, if-

Jason Calacanis 55:13 ... a lot of people are s-

Chamath Palihapitiya 55:15 How do you do that?

Jason Calacanis 55:15 I wonder if it's a lot of self-service-

Cyan Banister 55:16 It's gotta be self-service.

Jason Calacanis 55:16 ... people just sign up and use it. It's gotta be, yeah, some percentage of it.

Chamath Palihapitiya 55:20 But I mean, I'll tell you our experiences. We had a guy that had to come in and sell it into us, and we had a little bit of a bake-off. And I don't know, maybe we were unique, and there's a simpler lower-scale product that's just more... PayGo?

Jason Calacanis 55:31 C- consumption, yeah.

Chamath Palihapitiya 55:32 Yeah.

Jason Calacanis 55:33 Who knows? Sayean, looking at this, I'm curious of your take on big VC because the, uh, series A, $100 million round, we don't have the valuation for it. The B was at 1.7 billion a year later, so maybe we assume it was, uh, $500 million dollar valuation for 20%, something like that, I would guess, maybe a 600 million post. Sequoia, Insight, Index, CyberStarts all did that series A. When you look at the B, C, D, and E, those same players all participated. This is another example of sometimes your best next investment as a VC firm is the highest growth outlier in your existing portfolio. Your thoughts on what this means-

Chamath Palihapitiya 56:11 Compliment.

Jason Calacanis 56:11 ... in terms of venture capital and maybe the logjam that we saw over the last four years, five years of no M&A e- 'cause we, you and I came up when like, it was a golden era of M&A and then, you know, the IPO market started to open up with Airbnb, Coinbase, and of course, Uber. Now, we're sitting here, hmm, what could, if this is the starter's pistol, what could it look like for the VC industry, which has just been dead-

Cyan Banister 56:38 Yeah, I'm gonna start with, you know, my thoughts on Wiz. I think this is really exciting for me because this is a great example of a contrarian investment. When this investment was initially made, there was not a lot of money going into security. There still isn't. It's an underinvested category. And with AI and the threat of the types of things that can, people can build and vibe coding and everything in between, you're gonna need better security. And so I'm excited to see that maybe this might become an investable category. I think this is the largest exit ever in the security space. Am I, am I wrong? I mean, I think, I think-

Jason Calacanis 57:13 I gotta be-

Chamath Palihapitiya 57:13 I think you're probably correct.

Jason Calacanis 57:15 It's gotta be.

Cyan Banister 57:15 Yeah, I can't-

Jason Calacanis 57:16 You gotta be.

Cyan Banister 57:16 ... I don't think I've ever heard of anything this large.

Chamath Palihapitiya 57:18 M&A-wise, absolutely.

Cyan Banister 57:19 Yeah, so, you know, how does this impact M&A? I mean, it's still pretty slow out there. You know, some action's better than no action, but like Niantic was just bought by Scopely.

Jason Calacanis 57:29 Hmm.

Cyan Banister 57:29 We're starting to see some-

Jason Calacanis 57:30 You were an angel investor in that, right?

Cyan Banister 57:31 I was.

Jason Calacanis 57:32 That was the Pokemon Go folks. I remember you showing me Pokemon Go over a decade ago.

Cyan Banister 57:36 Yeah, so-

Jason Calacanis 57:36 That's amazing.

Cyan Banister 57:37 And, and, and-

Jason Calacanis 57:37 That's a Saudi company that bought it? Looks like a Saudi conglomerate.

Cyan Banister 57:40 Scopely?

Jason Calacanis 57:40 Yeah.

Cyan Banister 57:41 Yeah, it's a Saudi conglomerate. And so that exited for 3.7 billion. And, you know, I, I think we're gonna start seeing some movement, especially with the new administration when we start-

Jason Calacanis 57:51 How long were you in that, uh, deal? How many years were you in that deal?

Cyan Banister 57:54 Oh, I, gosh, as soon as they spun out when Alphabet, uh, formed and spun them out as their own entity, I... Here's a funny story for another time about how I got into the deal. Uh, but I, I realized it was my only opportunity to get in as early as possible. And so I stalked the founder and sat at his door and-

Jason Calacanis 58:11 Oh, tell us the story.

Cyan Banister 58:12 Okay. All right. Well-

Jason Calacanis 58:13 Permission, permission granted. You can't say it's a great story unless you tell us.

Cyan Banister 58:16 Yeah, no, it's a great story. So before Pokemon Go, they had this game called Ingress, and I started-

Jason Calacanis 58:21 Hmm.

Cyan Banister 58:21 ... playing it with my friends, and I started noticing that my friends were doing some really unusual things. They were like charting helicopters and like traveling all over the world to cast these invisible triangles over the earth. Basically, it's a game of green versus blue and who can cast the biggest triangle. I was like, "Why are these people spending so much time? And not only that, but why are they going around taking pictures of points of interest for Google? Like, what is Google actually doing with this asset?" was my number one question.

Jason Calacanis 58:49 Hmm.

Cyan Banister 58:49 So I realized that Ingress was part of a bigger mapping plan. You know, if you look at the team, you look at John Hanke, they all come from Keyhole, and they're obviously part of the maps team and helped build Google Earth. So this wasn't just a game. Pokemon Go was a joke. It was basically an April Fool's joke where the founder of Pokemon said, "Wouldn't it be cool if, like, we put Pokemon on the map and we just tried to find them?"

Jason Calacanis 59:13 Yeah.

Cyan Banister 59:13 And John Hanke's like, "Uh, yeah. Like, let's turn this into an Ingress-like game." I went around telling everybody, like, if I had a chance to invest in anything, it would be Niantic. And because they were part of Google, I thought there was no chance. And then I got a call one day and they said, "Hey." A friend of mine was like, "Did you hear Niantic spun out?" I was like, "Oh my gosh, I don't know anyone at Google."

Jason Calacanis 59:34 Hmm.

Cyan Banister 59:34 "How do I reach John Hanke?" And I realized I'd invested in this company called Hint Water, and they were giving out game codes on the bottle cap. And, uh, I was setting up her ticketing system one day and helping her out in her office, and I saw all these tickets coming in with a subject line that said, "Ingress game code." And I was like, "What is this all about?" And I just connected the dots, and she introduced me to John Hanke.

Jason Calacanis 59:55 Wow.

Cyan Banister 59:55 And then I went there with two engineers 'cause I figured I gotta show up with some value here. Um, so two badass engineers were players. We sat on the front stairs and basically sat there and, and said, "Please take our money." He's like, "I don't need you. I've got Nintendo, I've got Google, I've got..." And we're like, "No, you really need us." Uh, and he gave one of those engineers a job offer pretty much that day.

Jason Calacanis 1:00:16 Hmm.

Cyan Banister 1:00:16 He gave me a key card to the office, and so I can come and go from Niantic as I please, which is pretty awesome.

Jason Calacanis 1:00:21 Amazing. Well, congratulations on the big M&M's-

Cyan Banister 1:00:23 But it's, it's just a fun story, you know?

Jason Calacanis 1:00:24 Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, this is what it takes to get in deals in Silicon Valley.

Jason Calacanis 1:00:28 All right, the Fed held rates steady on Wednesday. Markets have been d- digesting this, uh, pretty flat. The second consecutive meeting, of course, where the Fed held rates steady. This is after the two consecutive cuts in September, 50 basis points, uh, in September and then obviously 25 in December. And we had this high hopes that there would be, you know, four or five of these cuts this year, and there are apparently none right now. Trump posted on Truth Social (laughs) that he urged the Fed to cut rates to create a smoother transition for his tariffs. The tariffs are taking place, I believe, on April 2nd is that date. That's gonna change the history of the United States forever.And so, uh, there were some other interesting takeaways. They lowered expectations on rate cuts. Uh, they expect two quarter point cuts for the rest of 2025, this would take us down to about 4%. Your thoughts, Chamath?

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:01:21 Let's add some color from Scott Bessent. One of the biggest mistakes that I think Janet Yellen effected was this continued issuance of money on the short end of the curve to finance these deficits, which gives you, you inherit an incredibly difficult challenge, I think, over the next nine months. I think there's like nine or 10 trillion that has to get refinanced. Do you wanna talk about that and...

David Friedberg 1:01:47 Yeah. Look, I, I, I thought that it, that when rates were low, you're supposed to turn out rates.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:01:53 Exactly.

David Friedberg 1:01:54 And in- instead, the, the Treasury for the past few years has pulled rates in, and I think part of that was to keep rates lower, uh, that they, they changed the issuance schedule when rates moved back up towards 5%. Uh, I, um, have maintained that policy, but I'm maintaining it because, let's go to back to David's question, uh, when, when are you going... When are we gonna see the results from this, the, uh, getting the government spending under control? And I don't think the markets recognize it yet.

Jason Calacanis 1:02:33 Okay. Translate it for us, Chamath. Yeah.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:02:36 So he's saying a couple things. He, he, he has inherited a problem that he hasn't quite yet changed. What is that problem? That problem is that when rates are low, you wanna borrow for as long as possible, right? You don't wanna borrow for the shortest amount of time. And now that rates are high, you're in this difficult position where you have to refinance all of it at a much higher rate. That's effectively the net of it. What I took away, and you can see more and understand more when you watch his whole interview with Friedberg and I, but I think that there has been a fundamental disconnect and break from the Fed and the rest of Treasury and the government. And I think that Scott was very clear, like, he views that as an independent organization and it should continue that way, but it was very clear to me that they are singing from their own hymn book, and it just doesn't seem to me that Powell really understands the gravity of this situation, and I don't think that he's really willing to play ball. So he's probably on the margins. Again, this is my total interpretation of this, would rather wait longer than necessary because I think it's, it's almost like a political gambit, and I think that that's very dangerous. That's, again, just my own-

Jason Calacanis 1:03:53 Well...

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:03:53 ... interpretation. I just do not think that Powell, A, has the data to make a very clear decision, and B, will act unless it's totally necessary. So I think this, there's an overcorrection here that's happening-

Jason Calacanis 1:04:08 Hm.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:04:08 ... which I think is dangerous, and I think it's gonna slow down the pace of cuts, which I think will then create a lot of other pressure in the economy.

Jason Calacanis 1:04:20 Well, Dave, uh, I'll drop it, drop it to you. The Fed's mandate as an independent organization is, uh, full employment an, and that 2% target, which we talked about before here, was just a number that was picked by, uh, an economist in New Zealand of all places. It's, it's not like it's, uh, some specific dosage that is perfect, but it is their mandate. They're not supposed to be a political organization. So what are your thoughts on this situation, uh, and these high rates which we have to pay for our debt?

David Sacks 1:04:52 We've never been in a situation where in 100 days a federal government is setting out to cut their spending by a trillion dollars, which has a significant effect, a recessionary effect on the economy because there's less federal dollars flowing out which goes as revenue into various businesses and income for a lot of people that are employed as contractors or directly by federal government agencies, coupled with, for the first time in 100 years, a significant change in the policy for tariffs for goods flowing into the United States and whether that will reduce spending by consumers or drive up the cost of products by consumers. And we talked extensively about both of these issues with Bessent and Lutnick in DC this week. And if I'm the Fed, I don't really have a great proxy historically for saying when this was done in the past, here's what the effect would be on GDP, here's what the effect would be on inflation, here's what the effect is going to be on, uh, employment. In fact, folks like Lutnick are making the case that the current measure of GDP is probably not even correct.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:06:10 That's right. That's right.

David Sacks 1:06:10 The way we measure it, the way we count it, and so the traditional economist's point of view on making rate adjustments as a function of economic contraction or growth may be wrong. So I think there are quite a lot of these kind of confounding factors that the Fed is in a very wait and see mode. What I would look to is the bond market which also seems to be in a kinda wait and see mode. So remember right before the election, the bond market traded the tenure up so that rates went down to about 3.65%. About a month ago, the tenure was at 4.5% and today it's at 4.22%. And so in the last month, we've seen rates on the tenure decline by about a quarter point or about, uh, 30 basis points. And so the bond market is giving some kind of opening to the Fed saying, "Look, we expect that this is gonna be deflationary, this is gonna be recessionary. We are expecting you to cut rates to the Fed."And so that's what the bond market is saying. And now, I think we're gonna start to wait for the reports that are gonna start to come out that are gonna show the impact. I don't think we're gonna know immediately, so I think the first 100 days of this presidency and this administration's actions are gonna be pretty telling on what's gonna happen going forward, in terms of the effect on employment, on inflation and on GDP, uh, contraction or growth. And then I think the market will know how to handicap those numbers in the future based on actions by the administration. Right now, we're still in a, like, I don't know how, when you put all these things together what it does. And it's a lot happening real fast. And so wait and see.

Jason Calacanis 1:07:57 Yeah. Sayan, I'm not sure if the Fed and, you know, the people in the administration can't communicate the strategy perfectly well and the Fed can't interpret it, I don't know that we're gonna solve it here, but any- any thoughts on this?

David Sacks 1:08:09 Well, the-

Jason Calacanis 1:08:10 Yeah.

David Sacks 1:08:10 I don't know if they're not communicating it well. Besant did that. It's the effect that it will have ultimately on the economy and over what timescale, that's what's uncertain right now. Sorry, go ahead, Sayan.

Jason Calacanis 1:08:17 Well, specifically, the tariffs. I mean, y- you know, if they're on, they're off, to what extent. You know, I don't ... it doesn't feel like the entire administration is on the same page. That's just, you know, based on everybody I've talked to.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:08:29 The Fed is not part of the administration.

Jason Calacanis 1:08:31 Of course not, yes. They're independent. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:08:33 And the quote today in the Wall Street Journal, Nick, you can look for it, is Powell's statement basically blamed rising inflation in the short-term period on exogenous factors. He said, "Our job was getting the job done," and now there's exogenous inflation. And I think what he's pointing to are these potential tariffs or something.

David Sacks 1:08:49 Yes.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:08:49 So I think it's- it's less that they're not coordinated. I think that they are on very different pages, and I don't think the Fed wants to play ball. Sorry, Sayan. And then I have a story at the end.

Cyan Banister 1:08:58 Oh, no. Just quickly-

David Sacks 1:08:58 Okay.

Cyan Banister 1:08:58 ... you know, one of the things that really concerns me is how we've been so high on cheap supply for so long. Like, if you look at Shein and Temu before this, uh, podcast, I went and looked up that their prices are up by 27% or something like that. And so when you used to be able to get a garment for $18, you're now paying $37, and Zara is like 75 for an equivalent.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:09:18 Yeah.

Cyan Banister 1:09:18 And I think people really liked getting packages in the mail and feeling like their dollar went further, and it's not going far. And so when you have a bunch of people who can't buy anything, and consumerism is a big part of our, unfortunately in some ways, our culture, you know, what does that do to our country? You know, if- if you're looking around, there's urban blight everywhere in retail and, you know, we can't fill our malls. We don't have brick and mortar stores. They're shutting down. Forever 21 just shut down. You know, the- these are the types of things that, you know, people really care about, is whether y- especially in a time where, you know, you- you do have a recession, uh, people want to buy a tube of lipstick or- or a dress to feel better about their life. And right now, they can't even do that.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:10:04 Yeah.

Cyan Banister 1:10:04 And so that's- that's what concerns me, is thinking about the retail future and then, you know, the consumer landscape of how this all affects everybody.

Jason Calacanis 1:10:13 Yeah, and consumer confidence is not good right now.

Cyan Banister 1:10:15 No.

Jason Calacanis 1:10:15 People are feeling like a little bit concerned a- about it, and this ... immigration plays into this. We're supposed to be deporting 20 million people. Maybe it's only gonna be a million. Who knows about that issue? Who's gonna actually work in these factories? Are people getting laid off or are they not getting laid off? Like, there's just a soup of issues here that makes the Fed's job extremely difficult, so in an extremely difficult, confusing storm, what is the best thing to do when you're driving the storm, is just maybe try to keep the car going straight, not hit the brakes or not hit the gas, and that's what they're doing. They're taking a wait-and-see, and let's see if the administration can be a little bit crisper, I think, in their delivery of what their plan is, because it does seem chaotic to me. And people here might disagree. Chamath, you said you had an anecdote?

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:10:59 Well, I- I kind of