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Hold on, let’s see if we can get Sax on the line.
Alright guys, I guess Sax is blowing it off because he’s too busy with his app.
No, fuck Sax.
We’ll start without Sax.
Let’s start.
We’ll start without Sax.
Okay.
Three.
Two.
Hey everybody, hey everybody, welcome to the All In Podcast.
With us today, the queen of quinoa on fire in California, which also happens to be on
fire sadly, and the dictator Chamath Palihapitiya.
David Sax will not be joining us today.
He’s too busy with his All In app.
Oh, I’m sorry.
It’s actually Call In.
He put a C in front of it.
No, no, no.
Before he co-opted the All In podcast.
It’s Callin.
Callin.
Callin.
His Callin app.
It’s free.
But Sax will be, if you’re a Sax stan, I think Sax is.
No, we’ve done one show without Freeberg.
Now we’re doing one without Sax.
Yeah, this will be the Sax free episode.
It is what it is.
Sax free episode.
Alright.
So we got a lot on the dance floor.
I’m here.
I’m here.
I’m here.
Oh, look who joined.
Look who joined.
I’m all too eager to take credit for Call In on Twitter, so don’t pretend like you’re
not part of it now.
The All In app.
Oh, I’m sorry.
I meant Call In app.
The All In app.
I hope Call In is worth a trillion dollars.
Yeah.
I can’t believe it.
This guy is complaining that I’m leveraging the pod.
You know, we should have done the Adam Neumann style licensing of the term All In to Sax
and gotten paid like seven million dollars in equity for him using our name.
Oh my God.
I gave you guys so many shout outs, you know, during the whole promotion.
Oh, shout outs.
By the way, no, he did.
Because I listened to his interview with Emily Chang and I listened to his thing with Axios
with Dan Premack.
Oh, did he?
He’s very, David had a very good.
It was magnanimous.
Presentation and then he was really magnanimous and kind.
So thanks, Saxy Poop.
Oh, really?
And I gave so much credit to J-Cal.
I said that if it wasn’t for J-Cal, I never would have done this whole podcasting thing
because it was too hard.
I never would have figured it out.
And then you gave me a shout out because like of organizing it so that we could all be friends
on.
I like that.
I appreciate that.
Very nice.
I actually haven’t listened to it, but give us a, for those who don’t know, David Sax
has created a podcasting slash casual audio app.
It’s called Call In.
It’s available for download for iOS, just coming out of private beta.
My understanding is you’re at somewhere around 10,000 folks.
Yeah.
I mean, there’s a lot of signups yesterday.
I haven’t got all the latest numbers yet, but yeah, no, it’s taking off.
All the reviews of it have been sort of rave reviews.
People are really excited about it.
Fantastic.
But yeah, look, the concept is we’re combining social audio with podcasting.
We call it social podcasting.
You’ve seen these apps where people create a room and they have these many to many conversations.
They tend to be ephemeral.
No one really records or saves them.
And the quality of the conversation, it’s a little bit chaotic, but we’ve taken that
concept and put it in the service of creators who can now essentially like record their
pod in front of a live studio audience.
They can bring up the, we call them callers.
They can bring up people from the audience one by one to ask their questions.
It’s much more organized and structured.
It’s not a free for all to try and grab the mic.
And then once you record the episode, you can then go into post-production in the app.
You can edit the transcript in order to edit the episode, and then you publish it and you
can share it.
Is it like, so it’s basically like only fans, but audio.
It’s only fans, but for people who don’t look good on camera.
Do you still jerk off at the end?
Oh!
Oh!
Family show.
Family show.
Come on.
I do.
I do when this becomes a unicorn.
No!
No!
No.
No.
No.
Delete.
Delete.
No, not delete!
It’s my birthday today, God damn it.
All right.
Happy birthday, Chamath.
Thank you.
We’re going around the horn here.
Everybody’s patting themselves on the back.
Let’s all take a moment to say what we like about Chamath.
Okay.
Great.
Let’s get back to the episode.
That was quick.
I was thinking about what birthday present do I get for Chamath?
And then I was like, gee, what do you get for the dictator who has everything?
I don’t know.
What does Kim Jong-un need?
Exactly.
Hey, guys, wait a second.
What did they get MBS for his birthday?
Hmm.
Hey, we don’t know.
Well, actually, I’ll tell you.
Wine.
Very rare wine.
Very rare wine.
Very rare wine.
There’s actually an answer to that question.
And apparently, Madeline Albright once got Kim Jong-un a basketball signed by Michael
Jordan for his birthday.
Brilliant.
Yeah.
Apparently, that’s what you get a dictator.
Access.
You get them access to people they wouldn’t normally have or a bone saw.
A very, very, very old French Burgundy.
Ideally white, but the white doesn’t hold up as well.
But if you go back, I mean, I wonder if you could drink.
Like yesterday, I had the two the two fills, Deutsch and Muth at my house.
And we had we drank nineteen ninety six Salon Clos de Mesnil.
No, sorry.
Nineteen ninety seven Salon Clos de Mesnil.
And then we drank a bottle of nineteen ninety six Paul Roger Sir Winston Churchill champagne.
Fabulous.
Only champagne.
It’s fabulous.
We could also get you some plenonium plenonium if you want to.
No, guys, guys, I don’t want to take out some enemies.
I would like you to come and play poker next Thursday, you fuckers.
And then I was just bring a bottle of bring a really nice bottle of wine or champagne.
We’ll drink it.
That’s fine.
Oh, my God.
I got cases of terrible one.
I’m going to bring him.
No, you asshole.
Did you hear what this fucker did?
Oh, my God.
This piece of shit showed up last week.
And he’s like, come on through these fantastic bottles.
And I looked at this like nineteen eighty five came and said, I’m like, that’s not a good year.
I’ve never heard in the right in the garbage.
Five is right in the garbage.
It gets better.
It gets better.
He has two bottles.
And so he gives them to Joshua and Joshua looks at them.
And Joshua doesn’t know what to think.
And he looks at me.
I’m like, just like, you know.
And so Josh was like, wow, David, thanks, Friedberg.
This is incredible.
I appreciate it.
And then Friedberg does the fucking most brutal thing.
Open it.
Open it.
Let’s just get Josh was so appalled.
He opened it and poured it on.
I threw it out.
I took it right to the garden.
No, he said, where did you find this?
He goes, oh, it was in my basement in the hot, temperate, humid, fucking San Francisco weather for ten years.
Yeah, I didn’t know.
I moved, you know, I moved like two weeks ago and I went to the basement, like get all my boxes.
And I’m like, I’ve got like hundreds of bottles of wine that I have not seen in years.
And I started not temperature controlled furnace.
They weren’t lying flat.
I’m like, these are all like they’re all core.
They’re all they’re all.
And there’s like stuff in the 80s, 90s.
Yeah.
So me a Josh took them and poured them over the arugula salad.
He didn’t want to ruin the arugula.
No, he didn’t.
The arugula would ruin the fucking vegetables and herbs in the garden.
He basically cleaned the drain.
I’m going to burn them on Chabot’s windshield.
Do not bring any more wine to my house.
Oh, my God.
I’m bringing wine for your dog.
If your dog’s coming back with Nat.
My dogs are coming back today.
Yeah, they’re flying back.
All I have to say about that game is thank God.
Mr. Beast has 100 million followers on YouTube.
Rest RIP, Mr. Beast.
All right.
You know, by the way, I want to say give a shout out.
Mr. Beast is fucking incredible.
He’s a great.
What a great.
What an incredible entrepreneur.
What a great human being.
Yeah.
I am.
I mean, for 23 years old to be that sophisticated.
Twenty three.
Twenty three.
This guy.
I thought he was guy.
This guy is clearly on track to being an enormous figure in culture.
Oh, he’s going to be a fucking multi multi billionaire.
He is determined, hardworking, smart, kind, good, ambitious, clever, ambitious.
Amazing.
Great.
And his ideas.
He’s creative.
And he’s just a good human.
Mr. Beast was one of the most impressive people I’ve met in a really, really, really long
time.
I mean, he and I had been texting for a long time on Twitter and then and then just on
text.
But then to finally meet him and we had talked on the phone and we had zoomed before, I’d
never met him in prison.
But what an incredible.
Oh, why don’t we have him as the best guest on the pod?
He totally like he totally fit in with the group, too.
He was great.
Just funny.
All we should do is we should all round everybody up.
We should fly to to Greenville.
We should surprise him.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Do a little game at his.
Well, here’s an idea.
No, we could do is we could tweak Phil Hellmuth and just have a game and replace Phil in the
game with him as our new bestie.
Oh, my God.
That’s great.
Let’s replace.
Let’s replace the mute with Mr. Beast.
Replace the mute with Mr. Beast.
Replace the mute with Mr. Beast.
Kind of like a better bestie in many ways.
OK, listen.
By the way, are we skipping next week to record at the symposium on Monday or are we going
to do next week and then also do Monday?
No.
Double down.
OK.
Double down.
Yeah, let’s keep it.
Let’s double down.
All right.
Listen.
We have a lot of shit to cover.
Good.
Good notification.
We’re doing our first all together recording of the all in pod a week from Monday.
At?
At the TPB symposium.
No reason to.
The production board.
The production board.
No reason to publicize it.
But I’m excited because it’s a closed event.
What is the purpose of the event?
I just get together a bunch of scientists, investors, entrepreneurs and CEOs.
And it’s a day of science talks mostly and then some business talks on the next day.
But we’re having a really fun event the night before with poker.
Our friends are all coming to play poker and we’re going to record.
I’m coming for the science day.
I’m there for the science day.
I’m staying for the science day too.
I want to learn.
But the poker night is going to have poker and we’re going to record the all in pod live
or together in person for the first time.
First time.
Yeah, that should be really cool.
And for those of you wondering, you know, we’re going to do our own all in summit, which
will be probably like 100 or 200 iconoclastic people.
And we’re going to probably do that in the first quarter or second quarter of next year
post pandemic.
We got to choose a date.
You know, my people are going crazy because you won’t give them a date.
I still think we should do it in.
Here we go.
In Rome.
Okay.
So.
If dictator wants Italy, Rome.
Sax wants Miami.
I’m telling you guys their hotel in Miami is the sickest hotel in the world.
And I’ll tell you why.
The people you have never seen these people ever.
These people are amazing.
Amazing.
Tremendous.
In Rome.
They are great.
It attracts the hottest people.
I mean, it’s fucking right.
We’re not doing it based on aesthetics.
We’re doing it on ideas.
Chamath.
It’s not just aesthetics.
Wherever you are.
People are going to go to Rome.
You know, Miami.
The good thing about Miami is we know it’ll be open no matter what.
Right.
You know, we can’t count.
We can host our own super spreader event.
Fantastic.
No, I mean, we’re a host.
The, uh, the code conference, Kara Swisher’s conferences at the end of the
month and sky and Brooke and I are hosting our poker again.
And I was like, is there any way this conference is going to occur?
And if it does occur, what happens if they’re, I mean, obviously
everybody’s going to be vaxxed.
Everybody’s going to be Mac.
Masked.
I don’t know if they’re going to do testing.
You think everyone should be mass at the conference?
They’re going to be, unless it’s, well, they’re going to be because it’s
indoors and there’s a breakout event amongst the vaccinated, which can
happen between Delta and Zeta two.
You’re, uh, you’re, you’re going to be forced.
What do you think sacks?
Well, I just think, how do you effectively have a meeting with people
when everyone indoors, when everyone’s wearing a mask?
I just think that’s, and by the way, I mean, there’s so much
Really?
Indoors, not during the dinner and stuff.
Look, I mean, I think for poker, but we are testing everyone on
entry all three days.
Okay.
That makes sense to me.
Right.
We do a rapid test at the door.
And so, but then once you’ve done the test and someone’s negative,
why would you need a mask?
Once you go in?
I don’t know.
The stupidest thing is they do stuff like make you wear the mask, but
then take it off for dinner.
Like what you, you can’t get COVID when your mouth is full.
I mean, how does that work?
It makes no sense.
Put your mask on.
Let’s do risk assessment here.
And then take it off when you sit down three feet away.
It’s security theater.
Well, let’s do it.
Let’s do risk assessment.
None of us would go to an indoor event if it wasn’t fully vaxed.
Correct.
Would anybody attend an indoor event of this nature?
Hundreds of people.
If they didn’t have the VAX requirement.
I would.
Yes.
I don’t.
You would.
Well, I mean, what I would care about is I wouldn’t attend it.
If people weren’t all being tested on entrance.
Okay.
Well, I’m trying to do.
The VAX doesn’t seem to eliminate.
Transmission.
So for you to go to an event, you would have to be vaxed and tested that
day.
Morning of rapid test.
Yeah.
Look, I mean, I think in general, everyone’s kind of standard.
It’s like, make sure VAX, because it reduces the likelihood of
transmission, but still like, it’s not stopping transmission.
Clearly.
I’d rather, what I care more about is, is point of entry testing,
which is what we’re doing at our symposium.
I just want everyone to get tested upon entry.
What would you do?
Let’s talk about something important.
Okay.
Let’s move on.
All right.
Listen, I think the most interesting thing going on in our industry
this week is Elizabeth Holmes.
His trial has begun.
Jury selection started this week.
And it’s going to cover 12 counts of fraud and conspiracy to commit
wire fraud over false claims.
She made about the blood test results from Theranos.
They have now selected a jury of 12 Northern California residents
consisting of seven men and five women.
It took two days to question around a hundred potential jurors about
their answers to a 28-page questionnaire that included news outlets
they read, what news outlets they read, if they knew any witnesses,
and if they had any negative medical experiences.
And it was complicated to get these because it’s impossible to not
know about it.
And now it seems the interesting thing is Elizabeth Holmes,
who worked on this company for close to two decades and was involved
in this fraud from start to finish, is now taking the position that
she was under the control of her business partner, Sonny Balwani,
and that he had been abusing her and controlling her.
What are your thoughts on?
And so he’s being tried separately, by the way.
They’re going to be tried in sequential order.
So whenever this trial ends, then he gets to get tried.
What are your thoughts on if she will be convicted
and her defense strategy?
I think this is less about the specific evidence against her,
and it’s much more right now about the whole Silicon Valley
fake it before you make it approach to entrepreneurship.
We all hear this from all the entrepreneurial advisors
and stories of experience and stories of success,
that in order to achieve success as an entrepreneur,
you really have to oversell and promise and create an incredible narrative
about where your business is headed.
And in many cases, that gets ahead of you.
Now, the public, the general public that doesn’t operate within Silicon Valley
with as much breadth as we do, I think they hear the stories
of the Adam Neumann’s and we work in the collapse and Elizabeth Holmes
and this Trevor Milton guy and Nicola.
But there’s 1000s of these other sorts of smaller stories
where VC rolls his eyes where the first board meeting
after raising money is like, wait a second,
we’re actually going to be half our forecast when we raise money,
or the numbers are going to be way below
or the product doesn’t actually work as we presented it.
Sorry, I don’t think I’ve ever funded a company
where that hasn’t been the case.
Exactly. And so I think that’s the big question, right?
Does this trial kind of indict the way Silicon Valley operates
and the storytelling models and the narrative models,
there are examples of these people getting a little too far ahead of their skis
and maybe you can argue, they could perceive something to be non fraudulent
while other people can kind of perceive it to be fraudulent.
But don’t we see this kind of broadly in Silicon Valley
and doesn’t this kind of bring up a question on like,
are all startups now and is the industry going to have a shift
as a result of this trial in terms of behavior as investors
and as entrepreneurs and how you tell stories, how you diligence, etc.
This is only going to get meaningfully worse.
I don’t know if Elizabeth Holmes committed fraud or not.
I think that these folks will be able to figure that out in detail.
But here’s something that I do know pretty precisely,
which is the amount of money that’s trying to get into Silicon Valley
is going exponentially up.
And as that happens, you guys now see it every day
where there are firms whose entire business now
is just to literally write a check every day.
They’re closing deals every single day.
They’re doing zero diligence.
And so what that’s going to create is an incentive for founders,
particularly those whose backs are against the wall
or who’s doing something that’s highly speculative and hard to diligence
to stretch the truth to get the capital.
And it’s impossible for guys like us to actually step in
and do diligence on a lot of these companies,
even if you actually have time.
But then if the competitive dynamic is such that you don’t even have the time
because somebody else beside you is going to rip in a check
by just meeting somebody and, quote unquote,
having done the work on their own, which is impossible
because you don’t have access to somebody’s financial books,
this problem is only going to get worse.
And so I think we as an industry just have to realize that
there’s going to be an incentive to lie.
There’s going to be an incentive to stretch the truth.
And it’s because of the amount of money that’s available
and the lack of diligence that’s happening.
Saks, is this an example in the case of Elizabeth Holmes
of somebody being delusional as a strength
or somebody committing fraud as a crime?
It’s probably both.
Now, look, I think you guys are giving a little bit too much credence
to the media narrative that Theranos is a, quote unquote,
Silicon Valley failure.
The truth of the matter is there was no major Silicon Valley VC firm,
in fact, not even a minor one, that invested in Theranos as far as I know.
There was no VC on the board of Theranos.
We’ve talked about this before.
It was a bunch of kind of grand poobah types.
And there was no one who actually had the technical competence
to do diligence.
And so, Elizabeth Holmes isn’t so much an example of Silicon Valley
as somebody who was selling Silicon Valley.
She was selling the promise of Silicon Valley.
She was selling the idea that this was going to be a decacorn
or a centacorn to people who are too unwitting to know.
And I see, you know, Tim Draper a lot.
People are really hanging their hat on the fact that Tim Draper
wrote a seed investment to Elizabeth Holmes.
You know, that really is very different.
You know, when you write a seed investment,
clearly Elizabeth Holmes was like a neighbor of his.
Yeah, their daughters were friends is my understanding.
Yeah, and she clearly was an impressive person.
You know, she came across impressively in person.
She obviously cast a pretty big reality distortion field
to a lot of, you know, smart people.
So, you know, she’s the type of person who you would write potentially
a seed check to just based on, you know, a talent bet.
The fact that she later chose to engage in fraud,
I don’t think that’s like Tim Draper’s fault.
And it doesn’t make this like a Silicon Valley fraud.
Again, you know, show us the VC firm that was hoodwinked by this.
But you are seeing, David, this trend of the firms coming in
and not doing diligence, not having audit rights,
not having information rights, not doing proper diligence,
and basically relying on the previous investors.
Right.
How troubling is that?
And what are you doing to protect Kraft’s LPs?
Yeah, so look, I think there’s a big difference between
going into a board meeting and finding out the projections
were inflated because, like, frankly,
we all take projections with a grain of salt.
Right.
But versus the founder lying about the past.
Right.
So people are always going to put the rosiest picture.
They’re going to puff up what the future is going to look like.
And it’s up to you as the investor to determine if that’s true or not.
But they cannot lie about the past.
They cannot lie about what their revenue was last year,
what contracts they signed before you invested.
That is fraud.
Right.
And that is what – that’s where Elizabeth Holmes crossed the line.
She wasn’t just painting a rosy picture of, you know,
what the technology would look like, you know, years from now.
She was lying about their capabilities at the time people were investing.
That is the line you cannot cross.
Look, we conduct diligence.
We, you know, try to look at financials.
We try to make sure that the numbers are all true.
You know, frankly, we’re not investing in things
that involve a tremendous amount of technical risk,
a lot of technology risk.
So we always use the product before we invest.
The idea that the product would be faked,
I think it would be hard to perpetrate that kind of fraud with a SaaS company.
But so, look, I mean, that’s what we look at.
Well, it’s interesting you bring that up.
I just dropped a link into the Zoom chat.
Co-founder and former CEO of Palo Alto-based startup technology company,
Headspin, charged with securities fraud and wire fraud.
And this guy, Lakhwani, 45 from Santa Clara County,
basically was lying about their ARR in a SaaS company.
And they raised a bunch of money.
So this is an example of somebody…
It can happen in every company.
Yeah, it can happen at…
I don’t think you’re inoculated just because you invest in SaaS.
My point is, if you have a person that’s willing to rip in a check,
$100 million, three hours after meeting you,
asking for no diligence, at some point, David,
your back is going to be against the wall
because you’re going to have to justify to your LPs
why you aren’t in some of these theoretically good deals, right?
And some of them will become fraudulent.
They’ll just turn out to be.
It’s just the laws of distribution.
So it’s a bit of a prisoner’s dilemma, you’re saying, Shamath.
You don’t do…
You have to get deals done.
And you’re up against people who won’t do diligence.
No, it actually comes down to something different,
which is then you have to differentiate with real brand,
meaning if somebody really wants you on the cap table,
they will absolutely slow everything down to get you.
Correct.
So for example, let’s assume it’s Mike Moritz.
I’ll use that.
There is nobody in the world, I think,
who’s not a complete buffoon moron
who wouldn’t slow his process or her process down
to get Mike to be on their board.
And so if you’re willing to basically just scuttle an entire process
and just take the fastest money,
I think it actually says something
that there is more risk in backing somebody like you
than somebody that wouldn’t slow it down.
Right?
So then, you know, the problem is there’s fewer
and fewer Mike Moritz’s in the world.
You know, I think Sachs is one of those people.
I think Peter Thiel is another kind of person.
You know, Bill Gurley is another kind of person.
So there are these people in our industry
where I think that you will slow things down.
And I do think allow these folks to do diligence.
And I think there will be less fraud in general for that cohort.
But if your platform becomes one that’s just about ripping money in,
and I think the late stages are roughly this,
it’s all brand independent because the money is the same,
the valuations are the same.
Freeberg, Freeberg.
Doesn’t it introduce the risk of the retail investor?
You know, we’re seeing more retail participation via syndicates,
you know, via, you know, one-off investments,
online kind of marketplaces, and also SPACs,
where the retail investor relies on, you know,
Chamath, some of these kind of bigger institutional
or perhaps some name that gets some carried interest
in an investment doing the diligence.
And if the activity level is going up and the dollars are flowing in
and the margin of error is increasing, you know,
is there not some inevitable kind of SEC backlash
or consideration around how are private companies
ultimately raising money and how much they are disclosing?
And we kind of face this regulatory threat.
I can address this as a syndicate lead.
You know, we only take accredited investor money at this time.
And so anything that happens is with obviously sophisticated people,
the top 4% of Americans investing in companies.
And in our diligence now, we have seen a spike
in what I’ll call massaging or painting the picture
in a way that I’m not comfortable with.
And we have maybe tripled the amount of time we’re putting
into diligence now because I really care about my reputation.
And maybe 20%, 30% of the companies we wind up
after initially wanting to invest, maybe giving them an offer,
getting an allocation.
In recent history, 20%, 30% were winding up backing out
during the diligence process because their revenue
was not software-based.
There was $100,000 in consulting revenue.
For me, it’s like if you’re going to make these kind of decisions
early on in the company, I think it’s indicative of future fraud
or future moral or ethical issues.
So we’re sitting out in a lot of cases.
There are public platforms now, Republic and SeedInvest,
which I know are also increasing their diligence process
because there are so many newcomers to the space.
And I think there’s a level, I’ll be quite frank here,
of entitlement amongst founders that is being, let’s say,
encouraged unintentionally by the lack of diligence
that’s going on.
People are not taking the process as seriously
as they did 10 years ago or even 5 years ago.
Well, yeah.
Look, I agree.
I think the diligence you’re doing is really good.
And here’s where I agree with Chamath.
So we have seen this trend in our industry
of the private equity money coming in in greater volumes,
in greater, you know, earlier and earlier
and faster and faster, right?
And it started with, you know, you have these,
like frankly, like public company investors
were looking at the value at IPO relative to the last private round
and they saw, wow, there’s like 2, 3x market peer for one year.
Those are phenomenal returns.
Let’s arb that by getting into the last private round.
Then they look at the second to last private round.
They’re like, well, wait, there’s a big return there.
So they keep moving earlier and earlier to arb out that return.
But to Chamath’s point, it’s just they’re applying a financial model
where they’re not in the diligence business.
They’re just, and I think they just see like fraud
as a cost of doing business, right?
Something they can model out with a portfolio.
But the only reason they can model it out that way
and have the fraud be an acceptable and predictable
sort of cost of doing business
is because you had these firms in our industry
who actually did diligence at the seed, at the Series A, right?
And now the private equity guys, they’re moving so early.
They’re actually even now doing the, they’re moving all the way to Series A.
So no one’s doing the diligence.
And so that is a risk, I think,
because it might actually change things.
And this is where, bringing it back to Elizabeth Holmes,
I think it’s important here that there’s a conviction.
I think she should do time.
This was clearly a major fraud, big time fraud.
And even if she didn’t directly perpetrate it on Silicon Valley VCs,
I think the message to the industry would be absolutely horrible
if she gets away with it.
And frankly, I’m a little concerned she’s going to get away with it.
You know, because-
Well, she is incredibly charismatic.
John Kerry was saying on a CNBC hit
that don’t underestimate her charisma and ability to snow people.
And the Shvengali defense, and she just had a baby,
which, you know, people don’t want to discuss
because it seems like it’s sexist.
But she is a Shvengali herself who will manipulate people in the-
I like the way you say that, Shvengali.
She’s a Shvengali, like a-
I think you mean Svengali, but Shvengali.
Yeah, I’m talking out of Brooklyn right now.
Sax, what do you handicap her likelihood of conviction at?
I think it’s probably like a 50-50.
And I think, so here’s the thing.
When she was running this company,
she wanted everyone to believe she was Steve Jobs.
She even did the media tour with the turtleneck.
She wanted everyone to know that she was a Jobsian micromanager
who made every decision and was responsible for the success.
Now that she’s on trial,
she wants us to believe that she wasn’t calling the shots.
She wasn’t the person in charge.
She had 99% voting power in the company,
from what I’m understanding.
Yeah, look, this is sort of the
Romy and Michelle’s high school reunion defense
where she wants us to suddenly believe
that she was sort of like, you know,
the sort of ingenue who didn’t know anything,
but she might get off because she kind of looks like Lisa Kudrow.
Wow, this is a lot of deep polls here.
You have a lot of deep media polls here.
What?
That is deep.
The number of polls there.
Based on the number of polls,
I know exactly how old you are too.
Romy and Michelle’s wedding.
Lisa Kudrow is her galore.
She’s going to go up there
and pretend to be Lisa Kudrow or something.
It’s also offensive.
It’s super offensive that she wants to get up there
and say that she was this abused woman.
I mean, for women who actually are abused,
for her to get up there and say she’s an abused woman
because she perpetrated this 20 year.
Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on.
I’m sorry.
We don’t know whether she was abused or not.
And if she was,
it may or may not have implicated in what she did,
which we don’t know whether she did,
because again, thank God for the laws in America,
she is presumed innocent.
So let’s all just like,
I think what David where I agree with you is the following,
which is we do need to know that, you know,
investors, we all sign up
for expressing the fiduciary responsibilities
on behalf of our LPs or on behalf of our stakeholders.
Okay.
There needs to be some equivalent standard
that founders are held to.
And there needs to be consequences for lying,
particularly about the past,
because in the future you say,
I’m just projecting,
but in the past, you’re right.
You have to be able to rely on what’s given to you.
Like, look, when we do diligence in a company,
we are given everything that they have, right?
We talk to their lawyers.
We talk to their lawyers, lawyers, in some cases,
in the public markets,
all of this has to be transparently published
so that we can come to our own conclusion.
Sometimes those conclusions are right.
Sometimes they’re wrong,
but we can at least know that they’re not lying to us.
The minute that it turns out
that they were fudging the numbers that they gave us,
you’re making the best decisions you can.
You’re assuming that it’s great data,
but if the data is fudged, you’re fucked.
And so to the extent that she did that,
then she should be punished.
She needs that standard.
This goes beyond money.
She was switching people’s results.
She was saying that she was giving them a blood result
on her incredible Theranos machine,
and she was running it to the back
and running it on an Abbott machine.
Is that right?
Yes.
So she was taking investors,
putting their blood into her machine,
the Theranos machine,
then taking them for coffee,
running it to an Abbott machine,
and giving their results.
I mean, this was the definition
of a premeditated, deliberate, and multi-year fraud.
Ooh.
I put her at 80% likelihood of guilty,
and I put the over-under at 32.5 months served.
Served.
I don’t know what the-
Take the under.
You’re taking the under of 32.5 months?
I’ll take the under.
Saks, observed, observed.
I’ll take the under.
What do you got, Saks?
Well, I hope you’re right,
because I’m a little worried
that she’s going to figure out a way
to pull the rug over people’s eyes here.
What are our kids going to get in jail
if we were Chinese right now
and they played video games?
How many months are they going to get?
Basically, I think you would do harder time.
So, moving on to our next story.
No, the consequences is to the Chinese internet companies.
No, what’s the consequence to the kids
if they’re caught on video games?
No, no, no.
The companies have to turn it off.
Right, right, right.
All right, here we go.
China bans young people from playing video games.
This is for kids who are under the age of 18.
They are now restricted from playing games on weekdays,
can only play for three hours most weekends.
And these were set as a response
to China’s physical and mental health
being affected by gaming, according to Reuters.
It limits…
I think they’re doing what all American parents
would want our government to do for our kids.
I don’t disagree with that.
Gamers are now penalized if they don’t obey,
and the gaming companies will be as well.
Gaming companies will have to prove
they have an identification system in place,
like requiring monitors to use their real names.
Do you know how fucking hard it is?
I have three kids in that age range.
I am sweating who they’re texting,
who they’re talking to,
what game they’re playing,
the new game they want to download.
Fuck that.
This is the only thing I’ve ever said
that would make me want to move to China.
This one rule is the most incredible thing
I’ve ever heard, and they’re so smart.
By the way, what’s so beautiful is
they send fentanyl and TikTok to us
so that we get addicted to that shit.
Totally.
You know what I’m saying?
And they’re like,
no, you guys are going to learn STEM
so that you can take over the world.
It’s beautiful. It’s brilliant.
Yeah, I would say everything about China
is a measured decision, right?
The Politburo, the decision makers
are not sitting there,
randomly shooting from the hip
based on intuition and saying,
hey, I think we should stop video games.
They seem bad for kids.
There is clearly evidence and data
and statistical models
that are driving this decision
and their objective function
is improve the health, the longevity
and the economic prosperity
of our society as a whole.
I’m sorry, did you get this statement from China?
What are you doing?
Continue, comrade.
Comrade Friedberg, continue.
I’m pointing out,
these guys generally don’t make decisions
based on someone’s kind of like
flippant intuition.
They make decisions based on
what they believe to be in the better interest.
And I’m not saying it’s right or wrong,
but in the better interest
of economic prosperity and longevity.
They got a 100 year plan, let’s be honest.
They want to win.
And I think we all know it intuitively.
We can certainly read reports,
but in the United States,
we value individual liberties above all else.
And so we don’t find ourselves
in a circumstance that seems foreign
and scary and crazy.
But again, it’s another, in my opinion,
it’s another tool that China will use
to outcompete the century.
Yes, that’s true.
But let’s be clear.
We don’t value individual liberties.
That’s not true.
That’s just what we tell people.
But that’s not totally true.
And you know that.
I’m not going to go there, but yeah.
Well, I mean,
we are literally sitting here fighting.
There is a group of individuals
who are fighting to wear masks
or not have to wear a mask, rather,
not have to take the vaccine.
And at the same time,
and I don’t know if we want to go there,
we are denying a woman’s right to choose.
Can I, can I, can I?
Let’s go to David Sachs.
David Sachs, are you in support
of Texas’s abortion ban?
No, no, let’s just hear it on China.
No, no, I think it’s a stupid law
and I’ll explain why in a second.
But just on the China thing for a second.
This is, I’ll be a dissenting voice here.
This is like if we had given
Tipper Gore dictatorial powers.
I mean, this is insane.
They’re going to, they’re going to determine
how many hours a kid can play video games.
I mean, look, I get the potential benefit,
but this is incredibly intrusive
into the lives of citizens.
And I’m not sure that video game playing
is altogether a negative thing.
You know, I think it’s mostly
our kids go through a phase
where they play a lot of games
and they grow out of it.
And, you know, you talk to developers,
like computer programmers,
they all went through some phase
where they were like hyper addicted
to video games.
It, you know, builds hand-eye coordination.
It builds sort of, you know,
computer literacy.
So I’m not sure it’s like that.
Look, obviously, if someone does nothing
but computer games their whole life,
that’s a problem.
But as a phase that a kid goes through,
it’s not the end of the world.
I agree with you,
because I used to play three hours
of fucking Zelda a day when I came home.
No, because I was a latchkey kid.
No, because I was a latchkey kid
and I didn’t have anybody
to take care of me.
I don’t think, David, though,
that that’s what kids are getting
when they’re playing four hours
of fucking Call of Duty every night.
Four hours?
These kids are playing 10 hours a day.
By the way, I think China has another motivation
for this ban, which is
they’ve got a lot of,
because of the one-child policy, right,
they’ve got a radical misbalance
of, you know, male to female ratio.
They’ve got a lot of young males
without romantic prospects in that country.
Basically, they have an incel problem.
They have a ton of incels.
It’s a giant incel problem.
I don’t think we hear much about it
because they control the media.
But I wouldn’t be surprised
if there’s a lot of just random violence out there.
And the last thing they want to do
is have these incels
playing Fortnite and Call of Duty,
shooting people five hours a night,
and then getting their brains wired that way.
That might be playing into this decision.
I don’t know.
Well, again, you’re just validating
the mental health aspect.
They’ve studied the mental health implications
of these video games.
That’s my point.
I’m not arguing for the ban.
I’m arguing for the fact
that China has certainly done something
to indicate they have some data
that indicates why they should make this decision.
It may be, you’re right,
it may be about kind of, you know,
growing, getting people to be more romantic
and get out of the house
and go get married and have kids and whatnot.
But there’s certainly a…
And remember, their objective function
is always about longevity and economic prosperity.
So, you know, there’s something
that’s making them say
that we can increase economic prosperity,
increase longevity by doing this.
And that outweighs
whatever the detrimental social
and other effects might be.
And, you know,
I think there’s something to read into it.
But no matter what,
every big decision they make
has some degree of competitive advantage for them.
And, you know,
those kids, if they’re not playing video games,
they’re going to be doing something else.
Like, I don’t know,
programming computers,
doing biotechnology in a lab,
figuring stuff out on the internet,
writing the next cryptocurrency.
I don’t know,
but there’s going to be some advantage
that’s going to arise
out of the time and the productivity
that’s going to be generated by this.
And I think that’s the calculus
that they’re undertaking here.
I’m not saying it’s right or wrong.
No, no, we all agree they’re thoughtful.
The question is,
what is this going to do for this generation
if they don’t play video games?
Are they going to be more productive?
Are they going to be, you know…
They’ll be good drones for the collective,
you know.
That’s right.
You’re right.
You’re right.
You’re exactly right.
And that’s the downside here
is even if they get it right
in this particular case,
how much freedom do you have to give up?
How much state surveillance
is there in the enforcement?
And how many other insane policies
will they foist on people
with this mentality of
you don’t get to live your life individually,
you got to serve this collective?
This is actually, I think, your best point, Sax,
is that I think what could happen here
is you can overplay a hand
and by squeezing people too tightly,
you can’t play video games,
you can’t run your own companies,
you’re going to get replaced,
you can’t practice your own religion,
you can’t say what you want,
be a journalist.
These things could add up
and they could, you know,
piss off a young group of people
who do what happened in Tiananmen Square
or in Hong Kong
and they could be dealing with,
you know, their own revolution.
And what if it’s video games?
Revolutions have started over similarly,
seemingly simple acts
by an authoritarian government,
taking away people’s right
to sell fruit on the street,
you know, famously started
the Spring Awakening
in the Middle East.
So you could see this, actually,
I think, you know,
maybe it’s a small chance,
5% or 10%,
you know, creating a lot of social unrest.
Maybe.
All right, should we go to Texas?
You guys want to talk about that?
Speaking of social unrest.
I’m going to lose my mind here.
All right, here we go.
SB8 creates a private cause of action
that enables Texans to sue
those who perform or aid and abet
the performance of abortions
after a fetal heartbeat has been detected.
The ban comes two years
after abortion restrictions
were proposed in Georgia, Mississippi,
Kentucky, and Louisiana.
The previous propositions
were spoken out publicly against
by progressive tech companies,
companies with a female customer base,
women-led businesses.
That proposed bill never became law.
Sax, you want to just frame for us
the legal sort of case here?
Yeah.
Let’s go to…
Do you want to go back
and actually frame Roe v. Wade
and Planned Parenthood versus Casey?
I think those are important
to understand what the hell
is going on here.
Sure.
Okay, well, so, you know,
Roe obviously gave women
the right to choose,
you know,
reproductive freedom
over invalidated abortion laws
in a very, very sweeping way.
Casey sort of modified Roe.
It upheld it but modified it
saying that the state
could impose some restrictions
as long as it didn’t place
an undue burden.
That was a key term,
undue burden on a woman’s right to choose.
And I think what was at issue
in that case was,
I think it was Pennsylvania.
The state of Pennsylvania
imposed a waiting period
and some consultation with an advisor.
And so it delayed the abortion
but it didn’t restrict
or didn’t otherwise limit it.
Let me add.
Yeah.
So, Casey, Roe as modified by Casey
is really the law of the land right now,
which is the undue burden.
Then Texas comes along.
And do you want me to explain this law?
Yeah.
So, this law is,
regardless of what you think about abortion,
it’s a really bizarre law
because what it does is
it doesn’t just ban,
it doesn’t ban abortion outright.
What it does is create
a private right of action.
Basically, a right to sue in civil court
anyone who aids and abets an abortion
after about five or six weeks.
Six weeks.
Six weeks.
Basically, after a fetal heartbeat
can be detected.
So, which is about six weeks
into the pregnancy.
And the way the law works is that…
Okay.
So, point one,
abortion providers are prohibited
from performing abortion
if they can detect fetal heart tones.
Again, that’s six weeks.
There’s no exception for rape and incest.
I think that’s really explosive politically.
And horrible?
Do you think it’s horrible as a human?
Yeah.
I’m curious your personal position.
Yeah.
Well, let’s get that.
Let me just explain the law.
So, the law puts the onus of enforcement
on private citizens,
not government officials.
Okay.
They do that to avoid,
to make it harder
to legally challenge this under Roe and Casey.
Okay.
Okay.
So, what the government has done here,
what Texas has done is
it gives private citizens
the ability to sue abortion providers
or anyone who aids and abets someone
to get an abortion.
So, it could be an Uber driver.
It could be a friend
who simply drives someone
to the abortion clinic.
It could be a person
who provides financial assistance.
It could be a secretary
who works at the abortion clinic.
They can all be sued now
under aiding and abetting.
And here’s really the…
The person who had the abortion
cannot be sued,
but anyone who aided and abetted can be.
That’s how they’re getting around
the right to choose.
And here’s the craziest part is
the citizens who choose to sue
don’t need to show any connection
to the person they’re suing,
and they don’t even have to live in the state.
Right?
So, there’s no connection to them.
There’s no personal injury to them,
but they’re basically suing
under a personal injury,
under a civil right of action.
And if they succeed,
the law states that they’re entitled
to at least $10,000 in damages
in addition to their legal costs.
So, if they win,
their legal costs get paid,
but if they lose,
they don’t have to cover
the defendant’s legal fees.
So, they just get a free shot here,
which is also…
I’ve never seen a loser pay rule like this.
I mean, there are loser pay rules,
but they’re symmetric.
So, we have an asymmetric loser pays rule.
But I don’t think we’ve ever had
a civil law like this
where somebody can sue
where there’s no injury to them.
There’s no standing here.
This is the thing that’s fundamentally,
I think, at odds
with our entire legal tradition.
And I think,
regardless of what you think about abortion,
this law will eventually be invalidated
by the Supreme Court
or a lower court on that ground
that they’re allowing people
to sue without standing.
And it’s a horrible precedent
because can you imagine if…
What Texas is basically doing
is deputizing private citizens
to enforce in civil courts
a prohibition that they cannot
or will not pass directly.
Is this the best they could come up…
In your…
Well, hold on.
Let’s just state a couple more facts.
Like, this was an extremely
well thought out law.
I think that the pro-life faction in Texas
clearly had some very smart
constitutional thinkers
that were able to navigate around
Roe v. Wade
and Planned Parenthood versus Casey
to get something written
that could be passed in a way
where, you know,
Sam Alito basically punted
and said, we’re not going to give a stay.
And so this is going to have to
meander through the courts.
There is still a risk
that it could just get kicked down to Texas
and it could remain a state issue,
which there is a big risk.
And if that’s true, then,
you know, other states
could basically take a run
at copying this law.
What I wanted to talk about was
if you bring it all together,
you know,
Friedberg said something about,
like, you know,
we really value personal freedom.
And this is where I was like,
cynically like,
no, actually, that’s not true.
This is an example in my,
in my opinion of where this is just like,
we are very hypocritical where,
you know,
if we talk about a vaccine mandate,
you know,
there’s just an entire fiery,
you know,
up in arms of people,
usually typically in the same states
that are very anti-abortion
that are like, you know,
you know, tread on me lightly.
You can’t touch my body.
You know,
I have the right to decide.
But when it comes to this topic,
they abandon all of that
and they go to the extreme opposite side,
which is the government mandates.
And to be able to say that
to 50% of the population,
that just because you were born
with reproductive organs,
that you’re treated different,
specifically, you know,
a uterus, ovaries, and a vagina,
you’re treated differently than a man,
to me just seems absolutely insane.
And just like fundamentally
just erodes this idea of equality,
like at just a very principled level.
And the even worse thing is that then,
you know,
the corporations that actually used
to be on the front lines
of helping to drive social justice
so far have been completely absent, right?
You have to remember in 2019,
when we had these very repressive
abortion laws,
I think it was in Mississippi or Alabama,
you had all of these companies come out
and say, hey, no, not here,
not under our watch.
Then when you had all these
voter suppression laws in Georgia, right?
You had all these companies come out
and say, hey, absolutely not,
not on our watch.
We will leave the state
if you implement these things.
But so far,
what you’ve seen in this law
is complete radio silence in Texas.
And this is, you know,
you have to remember,
Texas is the ninth largest economy
in the world, right?
In the world.
So you have every single kind of company
from technology to otherwise
who have chosen to either start
or relocate their businesses in the state.
And I got to think that,
you know,
these employees and these leaders
of these businesses
should be saying something
and they haven’t said a damn thing.
Freeberg, you have thoughts?
And then we’ll go to you, Sykes.
Look, I feel like
everyone has a limit
to what they believe
defines individual liberty.
You know, should everyone have
complete freedom to the point
that they can take a gun
and go shoot anyone that they want?
The answer is no.
I think even the most diehard libertarians
would argue that there’s some degree of
what is it?
John Stuart Mill’s sex.
You know,
you should have the ability
to do whatever you want
within your sphere of influence
as long as it doesn’t intersect
with the sphere of influence of others.
And so the philosophical argument
that I believe the pro-life movement made,
which is really a different
point of view on values,
is that the sphere of influence
of a fetus exists
at some point in time
and therefore shouldn’t be invaded
by the mother.
Now, I’m not speaking,
obviously, my point of view.
My point of view is extremely pro-choice,
just to be very clear.
But the argument is, I think,
one that we all kind of blush over
and assume that it’s about
taking away a woman’s right
without recognizing the voice
on the other side,
which says that there is a right
to life by a fetus
at a certain point in time.
And so to me,
there’s almost like this
principle debate that arises,
and it probably certainly falls
more along religious lines
than it does along
on a religious spectrum
than it does on a
kind of a libertarian spectrum
or a spectrum of liberties
that kind of defines
that crossover point for people.
But clearly, Texas is a really
interestingly confused state, right?
There’s this argument about
individual freedom,
but now what comes across
is a highly kind of
conservative point of view
with respect to the freedom
of a pregnant woman.
And so, you know,
I don’t know if there really
is an easy answer.
It certainly seems to me
nowadays that the pro-choice
movement is the majority.
The pro-life movement
is the minority.
And maybe I’m off on that sack.
You probably know better.
But, you know, I’m not sure
this truly does set a precedent
that becomes kind of
a widespread recognition
of a new way of addressing
kind of the pro-life movement
or giving the pro-life movement
some additional movement.
I still think that the
pro-life movement remains
a minority.
And over time,
that will, you know,
there’ll be perturbations,
but there’ll certainly be
some resolution over time
in favor of what I think
the majority…
Where are all the politically
correct people?
Where are they?
Where are they right now?
Where are all the politically…
I mean, I guess they were happy
to get Mike Richards
or whatever the guy’s name was
fired from Jeopardy last week,
but where are they now
when we really need them?
But Chamath,
are you really saying
there’s not enough outrage
about this?
I mean, I’m seeing a ton
of outrage on social media
about this.
Yeah, I see everything.
I see nothing.
I see a lot of useless
virtue signaling.
I don’t see anything
that’s actually organized.
My prediction is gonna be
a million-person march
within 45 days.
Okay, well, let me go back
to Chamath’s point
about whether, you know,
he called this bill smart
in the sense that it was
really thought through.
I agree that it’s a deliberate
attempt to circumvent
Roe v. Wade
and make it harder
to sustain a legal challenge
against it,
but I don’t think this is smart.
I think it’s stupid
philosophically,
politically,
and legally
for the…
even for the people
who are in charge
of this bill.
I don’t think this is smart.
I think it’s stupid
philosophically,
politically,
and legally
even for the pro-life movement.
So, philosophically,
I think the problem here is
they’re creating
unlimited standing
to sue
across state boundaries
by somebody
who hasn’t even experienced harm.
I mean, this is so far
from what conservative
jurists and legal scholars
have always professed to believe.
I mean, I remember
20 years ago,
tort reform
and ending frivolous lawsuits
was the absolute bedrock plank
of the Republican Party.
So, they’re just throwing
that out the window here
with unknown consequences.
Hold on a second.
For example,
why wouldn’t this be used
to circumvent
people’s Second Amendment rights?
Why wouldn’t you just create
a private right of action
to sue anyone
who could,
you know,
aid and abetted
a gun crime?
You know?
So, I think this is going
to boomerang
on conservatives.
Second…
Wait, okay.
Let me get to the
political stupidity of it.
Henry Belcaster wanted
this as one piece
so he didn’t have to do
so much editing.
No, look.
The Wall Street Journal
has a great editorial today.
Okay, this is…
The Wall Street Journal
editorial page
is a great piece.
This is from…
They basically say,
look, they said,
sometimes we wonder
if Texas Attorney General
Ken Paxton
is a progressive plant.
That’s the guy behind this.
His ill-conceived
legal attack against Obamacare
backfired Republicans
in last year’s election
and lost at the Supreme Court.
Now, he is leading
with his chin on abortion.
How about thinking first?
So, they’re pretty clear
this is going to get overturned.
And frankly,
then politically,
this is just handed.
This is…
Democrats are already
having a field day with this.
So, Biden said,
this law is so extreme
it does not even allow
for exceptions
in the case of rape and incest.
I mean, look,
he’s right about that.
And Gavin Newsom,
the polling for him
is now going through the roof
because all he has to do
for the next 10 days
is talk about
right to choose
in this Texas bill
and he’s going to cruise
towards defeating the recall
because it’s basically…
You’re talking about
something differently than I was.
What I’m saying
is something very specific.
If you go back to Roe v. Wade,
it was written by a man,
first of all,
which, you know,
we can debate
whether that makes
any fucking sense.
But Harry Blackmun
went to the Mayo Clinic
and lived there
for like six or eight weeks
reading medical textbooks
and came up with
this trimester framework.
And again,
I’m just going to go out on a limb
and say I don’t have
a fucking clue
what’s going on
in a woman’s body.
And I don’t think
Harry Blackmun did,
even though he was
much smarter than I
And then Casey
tried to clean this up
by going to this
fetal viability thing.
So we have this law
that was really
kind of ill-conceived
but was kind of going
in the right direction
but it was really
a very first form
of judicial activism.
We tried to clean it up
in the early 90s
but it’s always been
an issue
where eventually
what’s really been happening
is we’ve been pushing
this to a state’s
right issue.
And I think that
the cleverness
of this bill
and it’s dangerous
but it was very well
thought out.
This was not
a random thing
where two haphazard
dipshits got together
and wrote this bill,
David.
I think that this was
methodically planned out
for years.
They are dipshits though.
It’s totally going to
backfire on them.
It’s not going to
David,
for example,
we now have
an activist
Supreme Court
who may actually
not opine on this
on the validity
of the issue
but say this is a
state’s right issue.
If this stays in Texas
and doesn’t get
outside of Texas
you will have
this specific thing
hold and stand.
And I think that
that’s a very
bad precedent
to have set.
I think that these folks
planned this out
and I don’t think
they thought that
it was an easy way
to overturn it
and I think that’s why
when everybody
was waiting with
bated breath
for Alito to
basically stay this
he didn’t.
Listen, I think
there’s a lot of
hysteria and hyperbole
on social media
right now saying that
Roe v. Wade’s
been overturned.
The Supreme Court
has overturned Roe v. Wade.
I’m not saying that.
But they’re saying that
because the Supreme Court
ruled on very narrow
procedural grounds
that it wasn’t ready
to hear about
the Texas law
because a harm
hasn’t been committed yet
but they haven’t said
they won’t look at it
in the future.
I believe they will.
I believe that this
law will be found
unconstitutional
not necessarily
Hold on.
Not necessarily
because of abortion
but just because
there is
because they’re changing
the legal definition
of standing
in a way that
flies against
everything we know
about how the
court system works.
I just
I think ultimately
this is too clever
by half
by the
by the state
attorney general.
I think it was
I don’t think
I think he’s a
he’s a tool.
All right.
Do we want to move on
and talk about
Apple allowing people
to link to their
own websites?
The Apple thing
is really big news
because it kind of
goes to show you that
you had
you had a pretty
progressive
legislative framework
in South Korea.
I don’t think it’s
particularly a huge
market for Apple
because most of the
most of the
app activity
I think is Android
more than it is
Apple.
But they basically
just seeded the market
and by deciding to
basically conform
to this law
then then
they started with
these reader apps
and allowing
payments
along the
link.
It’s the beginning
of the beginning
for you know
the app stores
to be deconstructed
and opened.
This just so people
could use the media
apps to create
in-app links
to sign up
pages on
those companies
websites allowing
the likes of
Spotify and Netflix
to bypass the
iPhone makers
cut of subscriptions.
Now of course
you can use
Spotify and Netflix
on your phone
but you may have
probably people
haven’t experienced
this because
they’ve already
become members
of it and did it
on their site
but you can’t
actually pay
through your
phone and
you can’t sign up
through the media
folks.
So what do you
think Saks?
I think
Tramath has
kind of said this
the beginning of the
end.
I think there’s
some truth to
that look I
think the
root of this
is the fact
that Apple
has this 30 percent
rate on any
in-app purchases
and like
Bill Gurley
said it’s a
rake too far
right just because
you can charge 30
percent
doesn’t mean
you should charge
30 percent.
So I think
this 30 percent
rake has
ultimately
backfired on
Apple.
It’s created a
huge backlash
and now they’re
paying the
price.
They’ve already
had to roll it
back for these
so-called reader
apps.
So you know
if what you’re
doing is
buying a
subscription
to say
Netflix
or Amazon
or whatever
you’re
buying a
subscription
to say
Netflix
Netflix will
now be able to
redirect you to
the website you
can buy it there
and then consume
the content
you know on
your iOS app
without Apple
getting a
part of the
split but
this now opens
the door for
this type of
thing to apply
to games as
well where
there’s a lot
more in-app
purchases like
like Fortnite
right.
So I just
think this is a
case where you
know what’s
happening
right now is
Apple is
getting
slaughtered
Apple has
been a
hog and
now it’s
getting
slaughtered.
Yeah.
By the way I
want to point
out like this
is a really
interesting
experience of
the free
market you
know clearly
consumers and
the developers
on the apps
in the app
store ecosystem
were vocal and
angry enough
that that
is important
and relevant
that is that
yes the market
is functional
the market is
functional and
having the
government and
regulators come
in and you
know people
complaining to
the Senate
about Google
and Apple
monopolizing them
out of their
businesses
ultimately gets
resolved when
enough there’s
enough kind of
collective mass
from the
consumer slash
partner that
says to the
the big
Apple think
maybe
maybe
enough fear here
right to kind of
to kind of get
start giving
concessions right
some modest
concession that
yeah if you’re
a Spotify or
a Netflix or
audible we’re
gonna let you buy
through the app
I mean
regulation and
and
well yeah
don’t you think
this is a nice win
for the free
market
yeah I do
well look I
I don’t think
monopolies are
I don’t think
I don’t think
letting monopolies do
whatever they want
is free market
okay I mean
the monopolies
and competition
they will squash
innovation
they will you know
they will
basically
get in the way
of permissionless
innovation so
I you know I’m
in favor of
reigning in these
monopolies and
the two big
issues I think
with Apple and
Google well
Apple especially
is number one
side loading of
apps so the idea
that they have
total control over
the iOS device
people want the
ability to
create alternative
app stores that
already exists for
Android right so
I think that is
coming for Apple
Apple claims it’s
a security issue
but
it is I mean
what they should do
is if you click on
low side load
apps it should just
give you a warning
you are no longer
protected by us
you know you’re
you’re subjecting
yourself to phishing
scams your
information and
buyer beware and
then people can make
their own decision
I’ve always thought
that was a good
decision for what
I like about this
is I think this
gives Apple the
ability to now
just compete against
everybody in the
app store without
having to have
this you know
what we’re partners
with you they are
not partners with
people in the app
store they watch
the app store and
when something great
comes and emerges
they will copy it
they just do it
slower than Facebook
so Apple music
studied Spotify
and they created
their own Apple
product Apple TV
plus now with
Netflix they watch
Netflix and I
signed up for Apple
Arcade for my
daughters because I
didn’t want them to
be paying for
like in-app
purchases I’d rather
just have the games
be stop upselling
them and that’s
been wonderful for
five or ten bucks a
month to have that
and I pay for the
news product so now
they can just compete
against everybody
directly I think all
of these media
companies are going
to be video games
podcasts TV shows
and music so I
don’t know if you
saw Netflix is going
to be doing podcasts
about their shows and
video games I think
Amazon will be
video games content
it’s all going to be
one thing and Disney
plus will have games
built into Disney plus
I bet in that
subscription price so
the consumer is going
to win ultimately
you know I think
monopolies are good
because monopolies
are just like lazy
and it’s easier to
innovate and compete
against a monopoly to
be honest than it is
to compete against
cronyism when
there’s kind of
embedded kind of
government regulation
that prevents
monopolies from
competing against
government regulation
that prevents
emerging competitors
from competing
effectively it’s a
lot harder to win
than against some
slow big
uninnovative monopoly
and well yeah go
ahead well here’s
here’s the kind of
argument so I agree
with you that big
slow lumbering
monopolies can be
great to compete
against but here’s
the problem when
they could pull
access to an
ecosystem when
they’re gatekeepers
that’s the problem
because now you have
to go to them and
they’re going to be
slow lumbering
monopolies and
they’re going to be
slow lumbering and
stupid in terms of
allowing you to
innovate and when
they see you
becoming a threat
they’ll squawk to
you that’s the
problem if these
guys didn’t control
platforms that would
be one thing but
they control the
most important
platform there is
which is the
operating system so
I just think that
you know this is
Microsoft and
Windows all over
again except there’s
two of them right
there’s iOS and
Android and
Microsoft example
you could load
whatever software you
want into the
operating system and
they’re just saying
we’re going to give
you Internet Explorer
with the operating
system so this is
even worse I mean
right Apple said
you can’t even
install your app
yeah Microsoft was
actually pretty open by
comparison but but
there is like a
version of bundling
here what Spotify
said is look when
we have to pay 30%
and Apple Music
doesn’t have to pay
anything we can’t
compete with that
you know and they
have a point there
yeah it’s a it’s a
completely valid
point California’s
on fire this is
the fourth year in a
row this has gotten
acute for the Bay
Area people are
now making plans as
Freeberg mentioned
on the last spot I
think that there’s
or two pods ago
there was like two
or three weeks of
the year maybe even
a month where you
just can’t really be
outside and do
stuff in Northern
California you can’t
you can’t be outside
have you seen
our friends yeah
three of the three
of our friends have
been evacuated
because you know
they they moved up
there in the middle
of the pandemic they
had to come down
they said it was
you know one of our
friends’s homes is is
literally threatened
it’s it’s it’s just
like and then the
fire season is moving
up earlier and earlier
in the year you know
my kids were in
camp in Tahoe this
this July and they
had to be evacuated
and fortunately for
us you know we had a
really good friend of
ours a neighbor here
whose whose kids were
also at that can’t be
able to drive up in
the but my god like
that was you know
there’s there’s about
what’s going on
there’s about eight
trillion dollars
worth of
evacuees in
California
and you know if you
assume a tenth of
that is exposed
in the middle of
this kind of
dense fire
these dense fire
regions let’s say
it’s a let’s say
it’s a trillion
dollars but the
trillion dollars a
real estate value
that you cannot
insure anymore
so I had an idea
about this free
burg I was
looking two or
three years ago
when these fires
started maybe it
was four or five
years ago now for
a blanket that
could go over a
home could be
insured and
insured and
could go over a
home could be
installed or
dropped over a
home with
helicopters I
know this sounds
crazy but is
there a material
that’s light
enough that you
could put it on a
helicopter and
drop it over one
of these yeah
yeah well why
doesn’t the startup
exist I mean
this would be
amazing imagine
if these homes
had on the
roof some
sort of a system
that when fire
heat got there
just deployed the
blanket and
protected the
home from
the flames and
fires and
the fire
insurance
was
becoming
kind of a
predominant
factor in
California
particularly in
all the
areas with
lots of
forest land
there’s a
hundred million
acres of
forest land
in California
so if a
trillion
dollars of
real estate
is actually
exposed to
fires and
you can’t
do anything
about it
it’s
going to
be a
massive
loss
and
ultimately
the federal
government’s
going to
have these
like Katrina
and
the
hurricane
and
all these
other
things
that are
going to
happen
and
it’s
going to
be
a
massive
shift in
economic
value that
we’re going
to someone’s
going to
have to pay
for over the
next decade
and this is
just the
beginning of
it all is
my is my
strong belief
I tweeted
this out about
maybe six or
seven months
ago but
with another
with this
fabulous
entrepreneur
named David
Soloff I
co-founded
climate
insurance
and you
know we’ve
been trying
to build
models and
price
this kind
of insurance
climate
insurance
you know
social media
kinds of
like disruptions
civil unrest
insurance
things that
are very
typical
atypical
sorry and
to your
point
freeberg
it is
really really
hard to
be a
provider of
this kind
of insurance
what I’m
telling you
know what I’m
learning is
man these and
we’re negotiating
multi hundred
million dollar
policies with
these big
corporates
and you know
for example
like you know
they want
pandemic
insurance if
there’s the
next delta
variant or
whatever and
I have to
shut down my
facility and
here’s my
house burns
down yeah
it’s very
hard so
this kind of
parametric
insurance doesn’t
exist which
means that if
you live in
any of these
areas like I
basically I
think what it
means is that
climate change
is going to
ravage suburbs
and it’s going
to ravage these
sort of like
far-flung
communities
because nobody’s
going to want
to step in
there and
ensure the
parametric risk
of climate
change.
And so
you can buy
weather insurance
online and
you underwrite
the risk and
the way you
underwrite risk
like this and
auto insurance and
any kind of
insurance is you
look at past
data you build a
statistical model
that’s represented
by the past data
and the frequency
of certain things
happening and
that’s how you
price the
insurance.
The problem
now is the
past data has
absolutely no
information about
what’s going on
in the
environment.
It’s
basically
like fires
which is
something no
one’s really
good at.
No one
has any
ability to
do because
we’ve never
seen this
kind of
environment
before.
We’ve
never seen
hot year
after hot
year, dry
year after
dry year.
And so
there’s no
way to do
this and
you can’t
build homes
there.
Talk about
functioning markets.
I think what
we’re realizing
is the market
now is so
convinced that
global warming
is real and
you can’t
deny it that
we just can’t
insure for it
therefore we’re
going to have to
make serious
societal changes
and that’s part
of this process.
Insurance being
denied for
hurricane zones
and insurance
being denied
for
climate
change.
And so
we’re
accepting the
reality that
we’re not
doing enough.
Yeah,
J. Cal, the
problem is not
that it’s
going to be
denied, it’s
that you’re
not going to
be able to
get it and
if you are,
you’re not
going to be
able to
afford it.
And so
it’s not
even that
people are
really open
to it.
I’m not sure
that that’s
what everybody
wants.
Or it’s going
to change
building.
I mean, we
saw now in
Florida and
other places,
you know,
Louisiana, other
places that are
flood zones,
nobody builds
on the ground
floor anymore.
Everybody
builds, you
know, on
stilts and
they put a
car garage
underneath it
because it’s
going to
flood it.
It’s going
to take
one hour.
15 people, my
understanding,
has died in
basement apartments
because they
couldn’t or
they didn’t get
out in time.
It’s kind of
hard to
understand,
but I guess
people stayed
in their
apartments while
they were
filling up
with water
and then
it broke
through.
Did you see
the video of
the flood
waters ripping
into the
ground?
When we build
new structures,
the first floor
is going to be
built like they
built them in
Miami, which is
for water to
flow straight
through them.
And the
garages underneath
are designed
to accept
massive flood
waters.
I’ve been
spending a lot
of time on
water recently
and the thing
that I learned
this week,
which, not the
thing that I
learned, but a
great way to
summarize this
is that
when we have
extreme
dryness or
heat, it’s
going to be
extreme.
And when it
rains, it’s
going to be so
extreme and
we’re just
going to get
buffeted back
and forth
between these
two extremes
and this is
only going to
escalate over
the next
20 years or
30 years
because we
have so much
embedded
pollution that
we have to
work our
asses off
to actually
fix it.
It
was all
over
my head.
The
question is
why is
this so
unprecedented.
What
wait this
is my
god damn
birthday
guys.
What the
fuck.
Happy
birthday,
the happy
birthday women’s
rights are
being taken
away.
The planet
is on fire.
We’re
doing it
like nuts
right now
and it’s
pretty exciting.
I like the
way you
say
entrepreneurs
because I
say it
entrepreneurs
but you
say
entrepreneurs.
It’s a
very literal
pronunciation of
it.
Yeah,
look, I
think
you’re a
real
schwing
galley
of the
word
yeah,
that’s
that’s
the good
news
here.
Colin’s doing
really well.
Great
long.
I
look, I
think I
think that
in terms
of processing
all the
bad news,
I do
think we
have a
tendency to
underestimate
how much
political
partisans
sort of
whip things
up in any
way.
So
I
think
it’s
a
pretty
good
issue
to talk
about.
Joe
Rogan got
COVID.
He was
I think
they
misframed
what he
said.
I
actually
saw the
original
quote where
he said
should a
young
person
get
COVID?
And
then he
got it
and he
had to
cancel some
shows.
I
think there’s
something
kind of
funny here
but also
kind of
serious here
about the
way the
media covers
news like
this.
First of
all, the
media is
positively
gleeful
whenever they
can report
news like
this.
I
don’t
know
whether
Ivermectin
is a
helpful
treatment or
not.
I
think you
have to do
a double
blind
study to
figure that
out.
I
also think
it’s
dishonest to
be
describing
Ivermectin
as a
horse
dewormer.
It’s
not
a
treatment
for
humans.
Humans
do take it
as a
treatment
against
certain
parasites.
It also
happens to
have a
benefit in
deworming
horses but
that’s one
of its
applications.
To
describe this
drug as
a horse
dewormer
as if it
was the
opposite
of
a
horse
dewormer.
I
don’t
know
whether
Ivermectin
is a
good
treatment
for
horses.
I
don’t
know
whether
Ivermectin
is a
good
treatment
for
horses.
I
don’t
know
whether
Ivermectin
is a
good
treatment
for
horses.
..
this
is
good
for
horses.
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