E40: A Bestie gets COVID, Delta breakthrough, Billionaire Space Race & more
Jason Calacanis (host), Chamath Palihapitiya (host), David Sacks (host), David Friedberg (host), Jason Calacanis (host)
In this episode of All-In Podcast, featuring Jason Calacanis and Chamath Palihapitiya, E40: A Bestie gets COVID, Delta breakthrough, Billionaire Space Race & more explores cOVID breakthrough scare, Delta risks, and billionaire space dreams collide The episode opens with David Sacks recounting his breakthrough COVID-19 infection after being fully vaccinated with Pfizer, contracted outdoors at a restaurant from another vaccinated person. The besties use his case to dig into Delta’s heightened transmissibility, waning vaccine effectiveness, booster strategies, policy implications, and the economic/psychological impact of renewed COVID fears. They then pivot to the “billionaire space race,” defending Branson, Bezos, and Musk against critics while exploring the long-term economic and civilizational upside of private space ventures and satellite internet. The conversation closes with light banter on space tourism, tech investing in space, and personal anecdotes.
COVID breakthrough scare, Delta risks, and billionaire space dreams collide
The episode opens with David Sacks recounting his breakthrough COVID-19 infection after being fully vaccinated with Pfizer, contracted outdoors at a restaurant from another vaccinated person. The besties use his case to dig into Delta’s heightened transmissibility, waning vaccine effectiveness, booster strategies, policy implications, and the economic/psychological impact of renewed COVID fears. They then pivot to the “billionaire space race,” defending Branson, Bezos, and Musk against critics while exploring the long-term economic and civilizational upside of private space ventures and satellite internet. The conversation closes with light banter on space tourism, tech investing in space, and personal anecdotes.
Key Takeaways
Breakthrough infections can be mild but highlight Delta’s extreme transmissibility.
Sacks’ breakthrough case, plus infections in another vaccinated diner and his child, shows vaccinated people can still catch and spread Delta, though his symptoms resembled a mild cold and avoided hospitalization.
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Vaccine protection against infection appears to wane over time, increasing urgency for boosters.
Israeli data and pharma/virologist briefings suggest Pfizer’s effectiveness against infection drops from ~95% to ~64%, with older vaccination cohorts showing more breakthroughs and supporting the case for third-shot boosters.
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Mass vaccination remains critical to slowing dangerous variants and protecting the unvaccinated.
The hosts emphasize that high viral replication in unvaccinated populations accelerates mutation, increasing the odds of more lethal or vaccine-evading strains and framing non-vaccination as a self-imposed Darwinian risk.
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Policy will likely shift toward stricter requirements in workplaces, schools, and services.
Even the libertarian-leaning Sacks endorses employers and institutions requiring vaccination, arguing that unvaccinated people create an externality risk; they foresee economic discrimination against the unvaccinated rising.
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Fear and policy, not just disease severity, could drive meaningful economic setbacks.
Freeburg stresses that even mild breakthrough cases can spook consumers and policymakers into de facto or formal lockdown behavior, threatening a fragile recovery through reduced travel, dining, and in-person work.
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Private space ventures could unlock massive long-term value despite unclear near-term markets.
They liken today’s space industry to 15th-century ocean exploration: hard to monetize now but historically such frontiers spawned entire ecosystems (shipping, insurance, global trade) and transformative technologies.
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Global satellite internet may be one of the most immediate, world-changing space applications.
Starlink and similar constellations could give billions of people first-time broadband access, dramatically expanding education, commerce, and opportunity—arguably a larger humanitarian win than many government programs.
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Notable Quotes
“If you are not vaccinated, you are choosing to get the Delta variant at this point.”
— David Sacks (referencing Jason’s tweet and current data)
“We cannot get our shit together… We are in an alternate universe.”
— Chamath Palihapitiya, on U.S. politicization and media failures around vaccination
“This is the beginning of the beginning… we are completely re-imagining how the human race can work.”
— Chamath Palihapitiya, on the significance of the new space age
“So many of our problems are not a problem of underfunding. We have the wrong ideas. We have the wrong organization. We have the wrong execution.”
— David Sacks, on critics who say space money should solve earthly problems
“If history is any predictor of the future, this pioneering work… could transform our species once again.”
— David Friedberg, comparing early space ventures to 15th-century maritime exploration
Questions Answered in This Episode
How should policymakers balance individual liberty with public health when vaccinated people can still spread variants like Delta?
The episode opens with David Sacks recounting his breakthrough COVID-19 infection after being fully vaccinated with Pfizer, contracted outdoors at a restaurant from another vaccinated person. ...
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At what threshold of waning immunity or variant escape should societies commit to widespread booster campaigns?
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Is it ethically defensible to prioritize massive private investment in space while many resist even basic public health measures on Earth?
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What safeguards or strategies could prevent long-term economic damage driven primarily by fear and political overreaction rather than disease severity?
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Which space business models—tourism, broadband, imaging, mining—are most likely to produce sustainable returns in the next 10–20 years, and why?
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Transcript Preview
This week, we're gonna play our favorite new game show, Guess Who's Got COVID? Yes, that's right. Somebody on the pod-
Hey, hey, hey. He has COVID.
... somebody's got COVID. Hey, hey, hey. It's not the me.
Oh, hey-
Hey, hey, hey.
... you're ruining the game, Jamal.
(laughs) Oh, sorry. So here's the game. Person who got COVID- Have they been vaccinated or not? Okay, all four of us have been vaccinated. We covered that on our previous pod. So everybody's been vaccinated.
Double vaxxed.
Did we all get Pfizer? I was Pfizer.
Pfizer.
Pfizer.
Pfizer. Okay, so Pfizer across the board. We got quads. And this is a breakthrough infection. Has anybody taken a Z-Pak after a night of partying? (laughs)
I have.
(laughs)
Oh my God. (laughs) Okay, the pod lasted 39 episodes. I'm done.
That was good. That was good.
Okay, so number one. Clue number one, this bestie got a breakthrough infection outdoors at a restaurant. Number one, got it outdoors. Number two, got it from somebody who was also vaccinated. Number three, this bestie does not fly commercial and-
(gasps)
... he's not a fan of being, uh, interrupted, and he is not an ev- evangelical.
David Sacks.
The breakthrough vaccination.
David Sacks.
David Sacks.
I'm glad that, uh, my getting a breakthrough case of COVID is, uh, is-
(laughs)
... comedy fodder for you somehow.
(laughs)
Let your winners ride.
Rain man, David Sacks.
And I said we open source it to the fans and they've just gone crazy with it.
Love you bestie. Queen of quinoa. Sacksy poop, break it down.
Walk us through the like h- what happened and then how you felt.
Yeah, okay. So, what happened is-
And we're glad you're safe, obviously, obviously. We wouldn't be joking if-
You're still losing weight.
You lost five pounds, so-
Yeah.
Yeah.
... we, we hate you for this.
Yes, yes. You may want to read some of the beautiful text messages we sent you when we found out this week.
(laughs)
Yes.
(laughs)
(laughs)
(laughs) Jason, what would you say, Jason? You said, uh-
(laughs) I was just like, "Wow, think about who we could recruit for the fourth spot."
Yeah.
We get Keith Raboy. We get Peter Thiel in here.
I said that I really, really hope you didn't die, but if you did, I would love to have your plane as a support plane for my plane.
(laughs)
And I was thinking, "You know what? I might be pro-San Francisco. If you die, I could, I might want to-"
All right. Well, sorry guys. I'm gonna live. Sorry, Jason. I'm gonna live.
(laughs)
(laughs)
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