E9: Trump has COVID, First debate reactions, Coinbase letter response & more

Hey, everybody. Hey, everybody. Welcome to another All-In Podcast. We just got the show notes, and I'm ripping them up because the President has the 'Rona.

(laughs)

We knew this was a possibility. We had an incredible docket brewing, but as fate loves irony, we found out on Wednesday night, I believe, just in a brief timeline here, Wednesday night, uh, Hope Hicks, his personal assistant, uh, got the 'Rona. And then, of course, um, President Trump announced late last night that he, in fact, had the 'Rona and that his, uh, wife, Melania, also had the coronavirus. So with us today to discuss all things tech, politics, and coronavirus, David Friedberg, David Sacks, and bestie si Chamath Palihapitiya are with us. Uh, I guess, maybe we'll just drop it right to you, Friedberg. You, you are our, um, science kid here in the class. Uh, what is... When we look at the President's, um, physique-

(laughs)

... he's clinically obese-

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... technically. I'm not saying that to be cruel, but he's a 74-year-old who's clinically obese and snorts Adderall.

(coughs)

Uh, we don't know that. That's just a claim. Um, but seriously, what, what is the prognosis here? And then, uh, I, my... I understand he's now got a experimental treatment, was just announced an hour ago, uh, at the taping of this on Friday afternoon.

I think, I, I-

And, of course, we wish them all the greatest speedy recovery, et cetera, but let, let's get r- let's get into the facts here.

I think the o- the overall mortality rate for, um, someone of his age is in, call it, the 2 to 4% range, right? And for someone with, with... You know, he's not known to have diabetes or high blood pressure. But generally, you could kind of say there's some risk factors maybe associated. Um, so a couple points. But the reality is the treatment that he got is one that's not available to the public and is effectively like creating these, uh, you know, uh, taking these antibodies to the coronavirus. And he got, uh, eight grams of this immunoglobulin therapy, um, that is basically a bunch of antibodies that'll, uh, eliminate the virus. And they're not, um, widely available. They're not publicly available, these treatments. But, uh, you know, uh, based on the early trials and the general experience with using synthetic and, you know, polyclonal antibodies for, uh, infectious, uh, disease like this, it's pretty effective. And he should kind of, uh, (slaps hand) you know, recover pretty quickly, I would imagine. So he's getting-

So him, him dying would basically be a two outer. Him getting this special treatment makes it a, a one outer, if we were talking about this in poker terms. Uh, Chamath, when you, when you look at this turn of events and you saw the news, what was your first thought?

Um, that it's now basically 100% guaranteed that we will have all of the most transparent data about coronavirus, um, soon. So for example, you know, we, we've been in this position where we've been debating hydroxychloroquine, we've been debating these, um, you know, all of these different, uh, regimens. Um, and the reality is the President of the United States, if he doesn't get the absolute top-notch care, um, we're all in some ways fucked. So it's, it's probably likely that he's going to get the thing that folks know to work, and then it'll be hard for everybody else to not wanna ask for that. And then it's going to be even harder for everybody to then not get some version of it. And so I think probably we're gonna deescalate a little bit of mask stuff, of testing stuff, of, you know, what the right course of care is. And, you know, frankly, I'll be honest with you, I hope... You know, I, I wouldn't vote for him, but I hope he's well. Um, I don't want anything to happen to the guy. Um, and I hope that he recovers and it... you know, he kicks it in the ass and that, um, whatever he took to get better, everybody else can get it too.