E15: “The Besties” All-In’s inaugural award show covering the best, worst & most memorable of 2020
Narrator, Jason Calacanis (host), David Sacks (host), Chamath Palihapitiya (host), David Friedberg (host), Jason Calacanis (host), David Friedberg (host), Chamath Palihapitiya (host), David Sacks (host), Jason Calacanis (host)
In this episode of All-In Podcast, featuring Narrator and Jason Calacanis, E15: “The Besties” All-In’s inaugural award show covering the best, worst & most memorable of 2020 explores all-In Besties 2020: Winners, Losers, SPACs, and Political Circus This episode of the All-In Podcast is formatted as an irreverent year-end awards show—the “Besties”—where Chamath Palihapitiya, David Sacks, David Friedberg, and Jason Calacanis name the biggest winners, losers, flash-in-the-pan moments, and best/worst moves of 2020 across politics, business, and culture.
All-In Besties 2020: Winners, Losers, SPACs, and Political Circus
This episode of the All-In Podcast is formatted as an irreverent year-end awards show—the “Besties”—where Chamath Palihapitiya, David Sacks, David Friedberg, and Jason Calacanis name the biggest winners, losers, flash-in-the-pan moments, and best/worst moves of 2020 across politics, business, and culture.
They praise standout successes like Elon Musk, Airbnb’s turnaround, Moderna’s mRNA vaccine, AlphaFold, Zoom, SPACs, and the NBA bubble, while calling out perceived failures including Facebook/Google’s antitrust woes, small business devastation from lockdowns, “defund the police,” and Rudy Giuliani’s post-election antics.
The group repeatedly returns to themes of centrism versus extremes, censorship and media bias, institutional failure during COVID, and how regulatory and political choices amplified or hindered technological breakthroughs and economic resilience.
Despite heavy topics, the tone stays comedic and personal—weight-loss bets, “wet your beak” investing jokes, Giuliani fart memes—and ends on a sincere note about friendship, mental health, and gratitude to listeners after a brutal year.
Key Takeaways
Centrism quietly won 2020 even as extremes dominated the noise.
The hosts frame Joe Biden’s victory as a win for centrist politics and a loss for both the populist right (Trumpism) and the far left, arguing that broad coalitions still beat ideological purity in national elections.
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COVID simultaneously punished real-world businesses and supercharged tech and biotech.
Small businesses—especially restaurants, retail, hospitality, and movie theaters—were decimated by lockdowns, while companies like Tesla, Zoom, Moderna, and Airbnb saw massive value creation through either digital leverage or successful crisis navigation.
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Regulation can delay breakthroughs as much as science can enable them.
Friedberg notes mRNA vaccines and AI protein folding (AlphaFold) had been scientifically viable for years; only when regulatory barriers dropped under pandemic pressure did they move at “warp speed,” suggesting underappreciated opportunity cost in normal times.
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Network effects and time in market are more valuable than market timing.
The group criticizes Slack’s sale and praises long-term compounding bets (Twilio, Tesla, SPAC-backed winners), with Friedberg calling his own hedging/selling in March his “dumbest move,” reinforcing Buffett’s idea that time in market beats timing the market.
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Media bias and platform censorship have eroded trust and fueled polarization.
They argue mainstream outlets (e. ...
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COVID exposed both the necessity and incompetence of political leadership.
They contrast successes (initial U. ...
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Cultural power shifted toward decentralized, long-form, and interactive mediums.
From BLM protests to gaming communities and podcasts (Rogan, All-In itself), the hosts see 2020 culture being shaped less by legacy gatekeepers and more by participatory platforms that enable extended, nuanced conversation and social connection.
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Notable Quotes
““Centrism was the big winner… and the extreme left and the extreme right were the huge, huge, huge losers.””
— Chamath Palihapitiya
““Elon basically bended all the haters until he crushed their souls.””
— Chamath Palihapitiya
““Tech stocks are at all-time highs… but it was the small business people who got absolutely decimated by these lockdowns, which don’t even work.””
— David Sacks
““It’s not about timing the market. It is about time in market.””
— Chamath Palihapitiya (quoting Warren Buffett)
““The media ripped the umpire jersey off their backs to go after Trump. Well, they got him, but at what cost? Half the country will never trust them again.””
— David Sacks
Questions Answered in This Episode
How fair is their claim that “centrism” truly won 2020, given the ongoing strength of both progressive and populist movements?
This episode of the All-In Podcast is formatted as an irreverent year-end awards show—the “Besties”—where Chamath Palihapitiya, David Sacks, David Friedberg, and Jason Calacanis name the biggest winners, losers, flash-in-the-pan moments, and best/worst moves of 2020 across politics, business, and culture.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
Do you agree that Slack should not have sold to Salesforce and instead pursued a Twilio-style roll-up strategy, or was the acquisition rational given competitive pressures from Microsoft?
They praise standout successes like Elon Musk, Airbnb’s turnaround, Moderna’s mRNA vaccine, AlphaFold, Zoom, SPACs, and the NBA bubble, while calling out perceived failures including Facebook/Google’s antitrust woes, small business devastation from lockdowns, “defund the police,” and Rudy Giuliani’s post-election antics.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
Where should the line be drawn between combating misinformation and enabling the kind of “censorship comeback” the hosts warn about?
The group repeatedly returns to themes of centrism versus extremes, censorship and media bias, institutional failure during COVID, and how regulatory and political choices amplified or hindered technological breakthroughs and economic resilience.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
What regulatory reforms would balance safety with the kind of speed we saw for mRNA vaccines and could those reforms be safely generalized beyond pandemics?
Despite heavy topics, the tone stays comedic and personal—weight-loss bets, “wet your beak” investing jokes, Giuliani fart memes—and ends on a sincere note about friendship, mental health, and gratitude to listeners after a brutal year.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
Are the hosts underestimating the long-term resilience of institutions like the WHO and mainstream media, or is the legitimacy damage from 2020 truly lasting?
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
Transcript Preview
You got to rise up. Before you sink in. You've got to dive in. Before you can swim. You've got to give it. All to win. We're going all in.
Hey, everybody. Welcome back. Besties are back for the All-In Podcast. The queen of quinoa, Freiberg is here, the dictator Chamath, and of course, Rain Man, David Sacks. And, uh, it's been a big week here in Silicon Valley with Airbnb and Wish both going public for over a hundred billion dollars combined. Anybody get their beak wet on that one?
Oh, hey, guys.
(laughs)
(laughs)
Oh. Well, how are you, David? Did-
Yeah, I might ... I might have gotten my beak wet on, on, on a couple of those, so ...
Oh, a little beak wet, huh?
(laughs)
Well, uh, you know what? In celebration of your recent victory with Airbnb and Wish, I will ... Oh, no, I can't zoom in on my merch, but I've got my-
(laughs)
... unofficial wet your beak mug. So for those of you wondering, we have to, uh, get a little bit of housekeeping out of the way, uh, first here. Uh, the merch has gone crazy. Have you guys been watching merch on Twitter?
Of course.
Anybody ... Anybody got favorite-
I got ... I got-
... merch with lots-
I got some of those ... I got some of those mugs. I think they arrived today. They look great.
It's amazing. And, you know, the best decision we made was, was not to let you s- sell T-shirts, Jason, 'cause you would have, you would have, you would have, uh, milked this for every, every nickel you could.
(laughs)
(laughs)
And instead, and instead, we, we open-sourced it to the fans, and they've just gone crazy with it.
I mean, they're literally-
I know it's ... I know that hurt you. I know that hurt you a little bit.
I mean, the, the problem I'm having here, no advertising. I'm picking up all the production-
(laughs)
... cost here. I'm sending you guys equipment. You maniacs lose the equipment every time. You go from one of your estates to another estate. I'm sending equipment to four different places. Ugh. Anyway, uh, we've got a special, very special episode for you today. We are doing, drum roll please, (imitates drum roll) we're gonna add some sound effects to this afterwards. We're gonna do the Bestie Awards today. So we're gonna go through the biggest winners in politics, in business, in cultures, and of course, the losers, the flashes in the pan, the best business moves, the stupidest business moves. We got a lot to get through. Um, but just in terms of housekeeping, again the All-In Syndicate is up and running. I think there's 4,000 people have applied in 10 days.
Let's just talk about the market cap of Airbnb.
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