Guys, my fucking dog in jail Joker’s in jail. Joker got in

jail again. Okay, so he’s been jailed in Italy. He was jailed

in Palo Alto. When will that dog learn? I’ve spent quality

time with my dog. He’s out of control. Why do you got jailed?

Because he’s a runner. He went to he’s a runner. He’s a runner.

He’s a track star. He uh the the we we we send him to like a

you know, like the dog walker where he goes and runs around

and they come pick him up but then they the guy opened the

door. He took off. Anyways, he gets found. They they’re trying

to call me um because I guess my number is on the thing which

I hadn’t realized. You don’t pick up? Can’t reach me. Well,

I’m in I’m in DC in New York and uh they put them in the

kennel and we get this picture and Nick, you can post the

picture but you know, cuz I sent it to you. Poor poor Joker

and dog Joe. He’s a great dog. The but he is he is. Wait, is

he back? Did you get out? He’s back. We got him back but he’s

back. He’s out of jail again. Honestly, he’s only gonna learn

if he goes to jail. You should get a little tag for him. Those

little uh remote tracking. Bro, that’s not, I mean, it’s

great but it doesn’t stop him from escaping. That dog,

there’s something wrong with that dog. Um remember when he

came over, when Saks came over? Yeah. And the dog was like

growling at him and Saks was like, not hunched in the

corner like. It’s the only dog that doesn’t like me. I mean,

every other dog, every other dog. What country was that dog

trained in? No, he’s not been trained. He’s not been trained.

We have to train him. I mean, I I I get it. He hasn’t been

trained but he’s so cute. Did you train that dog to hate

white people?

That dog is a little racist. I’ll say it.

Rain Man David Saks.

And instead, we open source it to the fans and they’ve just

gone crazy with it. Love you guys. Queen of Kinhwa.

Alright, everybody. Welcome to another episode of All In.

The podcast that you’ve been listening to for 48 episodes.

Here we are on the precipice of greatness. 49 episodes in with

us again today, the Queen of Kinhwa, your science ambassador

David Friedberg. Also on the pod, the Rain Man himself.

Definitely his dad lets him drive in the driveway. David

Saks and batting cleanup, the dictator himself Chamath

Polyhapitiya. What did we all think of last week’s pod with

Bology? I felt it got cut off too soon. I was getting into a

groove with Bology and I’m trying to figure out how to pick

that up with him because I thought that we were getting

into some pretty interesting discussion towards the end and

we obviously ran out of time. Chamath had to hop off. So it

would it would have been great to keep that conversation going

with Bology. I really do think there’s a big question mark on

like, how does the decentralized centralized web or

decentralized social networks in particular work with respect

to kind of that, you know, recommendation application

layer, which is effectively what search solved on the

internet. And so I’m curious to keep the conversation going and

seeing, you know, what this means. I made the decision to

end the pod because Chamath had to go, Saks had to go, there was

a hard stop. And I was like, I don’t want to keep this going

without the other besties. And people were very upset. They

thought I shut it down abruptly, but we had a certain

amount of time and we can always have them back. So

everybody relax. But I did look at the stats. We each came in

with our, you know, whatever percent pro rata and he had

double so he had 40% and we all had basically. Which is right

for a guest, I think. I felt right. Didn’t it feel right? I

think it’s important to hear what when folks come on, what

they have to say. He’s a really smart guy. And, you know, you

can kind of just let him go and riff for a while. And then just

react to him. So I think it’s, it’s lovely to hear such a deep

thinker. Think out loud, quite honestly.

Yeah. And even if you don’t agree with him, I don’t agree

with him on a lot of his points about, you know, decentralized

everything. I think centralized works for, you know, many things

better. I’m curious, Saks, you know, looking back on it, were

there moments that you felt maybe you disagreed with him

more or agree with him more and wanted to lean into a

conversation? Obviously, it’s very hard to have five people on

a pod and only get a certain amount of airtime, etc.

Well, look, I think, I think biology is a great guest to have

on once in a while. I mean, it does kind of turn the pod a

little bit more into a TED talk. Definitely have that vibe, but

the fans liked it. And I mean, biology should have his own show.

I mean, he can go for a while. I mean, he’s got a lot to say for

hours. Yes. And he has, he has. And I think he should do his own

show because there’s definitely a huge fan base for it. And, and

if people want more biology, I interviewed him for about an

hour on purple pills, which is kind of the, the, I don’t know

if you want to call it solo pod solo show that I do where I

occasionally interview people on calling download call in and go

check out purple pills. So yeah, you know, I gave biology a

little pep talk coming in saying, Hey, listen, it’s a

roundtable discussion. And I’ve interviewed before and you can

kind of tip into the monologuing and explaining very big picture

things. So just try to pass the ball a little bit here. And I

think he did adjust his game a little bit. But it’s, you know,

it’s hard to have somebody like that on. I think you pointed out

sacks that it’s more like a TED talk for him. We’re having a

conversation and he’s used to being interviewed. And I think

that is a that’s a transition. But, you know, it was fine.

Let’s move on. Yeah. Okay. So I think we’ll start off with

something we talked about on episode nine, which was coin

basis CEO Brian Armstrong wrote a very controversial blog, very,

very controversial blog post. Exactly a year ago, Coinbase is

a mission focused company. At the time, he was dealing with a

never ending debate inside his own company about Black Lives

Matter about social justice and any number of issues. And he

said, Listen, the company is mission focused, our mission is

to, you know, make people more financially independent,

literate, etc. And we’re going to ban any discussions on our

electronic communications, you can do things on your own time.

And it was quite controversial. At the time, we had a good

discussion, I re listened to our discussion, I re listened to

our discussion on that pod. And we all universally felt like it

was the right move. Well, he went ahead and picked up the

hornet’s nest. He did not have to talk about this ever again.

Everybody had forgotten about it. And he grabbed the hornet’s

nest ran into the end zone and spiked it. Jason, can you Well,

before you do that, can you say how many people left as a result

of his blog post? And all of you know those stats? Because I

think I don’t have those stats. But it was 5% ended up leaving.

There was a big article about it. This was I think I think it

was worth him doing a follow up post. This was the one year

anniversary of his blog post. And he was kind of giving us a

status update. And what he basically said is that the

policy had worked. So you got him. So first of all, should we

just review what the policy was? The policy was that they were

going to declare the workplace to be politically neutral that

people would leave their politics to the door, they would

not have sort of extraneous political conversations at work.

That doesn’t mean you couldn’t support whatever causes you

wanted on your own time or tweet whatever you want on your own

time. But while you’re at work, they would declare it to be sort

of a political DMZ, like a demilitarized zone. Basically,

all he was doing was reasserting the old center, the old etiquette

of Hey, when you go to work, you you’re not engaged in your

Yeah, you’re paid to work, you’re not there to engage in

political activism. So that was the policy. And of course, the

woke mob became completely hysterical about it, as it

turns. And so then what happened is that Brian offered everyone a

very generous severance policy if they didn’t want to stick

around for the policy. Yes, extremely generous. They made it

really easy, certainly done generous, right? They made it

really easy for people to check out if they want to check out

well, only 5% took the policy people. Yes. And then on the

heels of that, there was a gigantic New York Times hit

piece against the company, the usual disinformation and

slanders against the company. And then now we have this

follow up piece. And I think what Brian basically reported is

that today Coinbase is a more aligned company, because

everyone who’s there wants to be there for the mission. That’s

what they focus on when they go to work. He talked about how

they had hired top talent away from other companies. I mean,

basically, he put out the bat signal, and people came running

because, you know, we have, they wanted neutrality, they did not

want people are voting with their feet. They’re fed up with

the politics and distraction. And and I think the employees

were secretly relieved that he declared this policy. Basically,

he took the heat on himself for the larger benefit of all the

employees who just wanted to be there and work and not have to

wonder whether they’re doing something right or wrong,

because they’re on the wrong side of a political issue.

freeberg nailed it when he said, in our episode nine,

which you go back to freeberg, you may not remember your

comments, but you said, What about the employees who just

want to come to work and don’t want to engage in political

speech? Now you’re infringing on them to force them to be

participate in these discussions. And they don’t have

a choice because they need to feed their families need to go

to work. And so freeberg, I think you’ll take a little

victory lap there. He says in this tweet storm, I’ll just read

the third part of it. One of the biggest concerns around our

stance was that it would impact our diversity numbers. Since my

post, we’ve grown our headcount about 110%. doubled it, while

our diversity numbers have remained the same or even

improved in some metrics. So all of the hand wringing, and

pearl clutching that this would have a negative effect on the

company has turned out to be wrong. Go ahead, Chamath and

then freeberg. I mean, if you want, it’s like, I think it’s

important to set the context for what this is, there is a

productivity war going on inside of institutions around the

world. And what’s happening is that people’s personal beliefs

are bumping up against what the mission and goals, operational

goals of a company are or a university or all these other

places. And so this is probably the first big example. This is

a what is a 50 $60 billion public company, $40 billion

public company that basically said enough’s enough. This is

our mission, everybody else basically just needs to shut

the fuck up. And I think that that’s very important. Now, if

they then go off and actually crush their goals, that’s the

one missing piece in all of this, because when that happens,

then you can write a through line through all of this and say,

okay, this is in part what allowed them to do it. So I

think that the the the folks that you know, were really up

in arms, still have one small straw in the fight, which is

that if these guys don’t achieve their goals, they’ll point to

this as one of the reasons why, but a whole diversity of

strength, or if you know, like, yeah, you’re suppressing free

speech, you know, that argument. But I think if Brian then goes

and delivers a couple of knockout quarters in a couple of

knockout years, then, you know, what he will be able to say

definitively, which no one can refute is, we leave our politics

at the door, we define our okay, ours, and then we go and we

build things that people need as a company. And then you go

off and you can do whatever you want. And I think that that’s

very powerful for many companies and institutions.

Friedberg, you heard my recap of what you said last, I’m not

sure if you remember to re listen to what are your

thoughts today?

I think it’s, it’s worth just noting less about the

particularities of what was said in the particular issue at hand

here. And I would look more to kind of Brian’s leadership style

as an excellent example of defining and creating strong

culture, culture in an organization can give that

organization what it needs to succeed, it puts everyone

aligned in a specific way on how we make decisions, how we

operate, it doesn’t matter what his particular beliefs and

opinions or what to exclude what to include in the dialogue and

the discourse and the model for discourse within the

organization. I think what matters that he put a line in

the sand, and he said, this is what we’re going to do, this is

what’s in, and this is what’s out. And organizations that do

that and do that effectively generally win, they win more,

they do better, the teams are aligned, the teams are more

unified. And I think that definition may sometimes be

controversial. And you’ll notice that as companies get bigger, go

public, they’re larger, they bring in professional managers,

and the founder or CEO steps out, they generally don’t do

that, right, they generally try to not do that definitional

work, because they’re trying to minimize loss, and not kind of

take the bet on maximizing long term gain and doing the things

that they think culturally define, or will enable success

long term. So I think it’s a great example of leadership

generally on how you kind of can, can be very vocal about

defining a strong culture.

Elon calls it I think Elon calls it corpo speak.

What happens, like,

we’re meeting most companies, when they get bigger, they

gravitate towards corpo speak. And then what happens is some

cohort of employees who are really good, just feel trapped

in this kind of morass of mediocrity.

And by the way, look at Elon’s, you know, call it attrition

rate, right? By the typical large scale public company

corporate metric of like, how many people are leaving per

year, you’d say, Oh, my gosh, something’s up with that

organization. But it really speaks to a strong culture.

There’s a company that’s famous for this called Bridgewater

Associates, you know, run by Ray Dalio $100 billion hedge fund,

one of the best performing investment vehicles of all time.

And they have incredible culture. I’ve talked about Ray

Dalio’s book principles before, and some of the work he’s done

on this, where he is so adamant about getting culture right

within the organization, how you operate, that they almost

have, I think, a 30% attrition rate after the first year of

people that come in, because they not only try and screen

for these elements of what they consider to be the right

cultural fit for their organization up front, but then

they also screen people the heck out of the door if they’re

not a good fit. And I think Elon has a similar sort of model.

And you know, I think Brian, the way he speaks about the

organization is a similar model. And it’s about defining

the lines. It’s about being very crystal clear about what’s

in and what’s not, whatever, if you as a CEO, and a founder,

whatever you believe, you need to believe in it strongly. And

you need to communicate it clearly and then communicate it

and then let people vote. They vote with their feet. They don’t

get to vote whether to change it. They just get to vote

whether they get to stay or whether they go. And I think

that that’s a really smart. I think that’s well said. Yeah,

I think there’s one other issue here. Jake, Jake, how this goes

back to your point about why did Brian have to bring this back

up? Was it unnecessary? Did he spike the hornet’s nest in the

end zone? Here’s why I think it was necessary. If you go to

point seven and eight of his tweet storm, he says it was the

most positive reaction I’ve gotten from any change I’ve made

in the history of the company, which is saying something, how

could something be so negative in the press, but turn out to

be incredibly, incredibly positive with every stakeholder

95% of of employees privately, all the investors are telling

him it was a great thing. And then what he says is the only

sense I can make of it is there’s a huge mismatch right

now between people stated and revealed preferences. And we’re

operating in an environment of virtue signaling and fear of

speaking up. So to me, this is the point of this tweet storm

and bringing up now is without people like Brian standing up

and saying what the truth is that look, everybody wants this,

they’re just afraid to articulate the principle that we

keep, we keep encouraging this climate of fear. And you know,

the alternative to Coinbase, you know, one of the other companies

we’ve talked about is Apple. I mean, you can basically choose

to be Coinbase or Apple, what has Apple done, they booted out

Antonio Garcia Martinez, because of a passage in his book that

they knew about. And ever since then, the company has been

roiled by boycotts and petition writing from the employees

about some new cause every couple of weeks,

and eventually that’ll show up in the operating results of the

business. It’s just a matter of time.

Right. And so so why does that go on? I mean, I’m sure most

employees at Apple don’t want to be, you know, constantly roiled

by these, like, petition campaigns. But they have to put

up with it, because everyone’s so afraid to speak up. And that’s

why it’s important that what Brian, do we have to basically

recognize that this woke mob who’s cowed everyone to silence

is maybe 5% of these companies. And if everybody just acts like

Brian, the problem will be over.

Well, we know we know what the trail of breadcrumbs is right

now. And I think we should probably, you know, shine a

light on it, which is that that 5% is exactly the same as

Donald Trump, they just exist on the left, you know, and there’s

an there’s more and more research that shows that just as

much as we thought they were right, authoritarians, they’re

also left authoritarians. And this is what we’re seeing that

that the craziness that you know, everybody decries on the

right, actually also exists on the left.

And they just put a button on that before we pivot to the

next story. Armstrong was very clear that the mission is about

global wealth inequality. So staying focused on that, in his

mind is the high order a bit and will result in the most great

change. So paradoxically, or ironically, you know, all these

woke people attacking Coinbase, Coinbase might do more for

wealth inequality, and justice in the world. If they stay

focused, then if they try to tackle everything, and you know,

this is a road to nowhere for Apple, I think sacks, you

pointed this out about how if you were running Apple, you

would fire anybody who does a petition, because I’ll tell you

where Apple is about to basically land by enabling all

of this woke mob inside their own company by coddling them

addressing them and not keeping them focused, they will

eventually get to the fact that China is, you know, has 3

million Uyghurs in a concentration camp. And those

Uyghurs are proven to be providing through slave labor,

equipment and components to companies that eventually make

their way to Apple products. Ergo, Apple support slavery. And

that’s what the employees will eventually get to and that will

cause chaos.

But there’s something even closer, more closer to home

that that’s probably true, or could be true. I don’t know.

It is true.

But, you know, the fact that Apple had the most important

security leak in their entire software career, just a few

months ago, is also quite important. Like you had a

zero, why is it important?

You had a zero. So the iOS 14.8 exists because of why, because a

researcher or a set of researchers in Toronto discovered

that there was a zero click exploit in iOS that allowed you

to basically turn on the microphone, turn on the camera,

you know, grab anything you needed from iPhones, it was the

most secure device until two months ago, when it turned out

it was actually the most insecure device. So I tend to

think those kinds of technical mistakes happen when people take

their eye off the ball. And I think people take their eye off

the ball, because they’re demoralized with dealing with

distractions.

Saks.

Yeah, I mean, I think it’s the whether it’s the Uyghurs or the

security issue, it’s a good example of the employees at

Apple, see the spec in somebody else’s eye, but not the log in

their own. I mean, that’s, that’s the principle. And, and

they would be much better off focusing on dealing with their

own internal issues. But but let’s go, can we go back to that

article that Chamath referenced about?

Yeah. Anything you got anything else on this issue? Do you want

to before we segue over?

No, I thought this is a really great article. Do you want to

explain it? Jaco?

Yeah, I’ll just give you a quick overview. And then you can dive

right in since you put it on the docket psychiatrist and author

Satel, hopefully I’m pressing that correct wrote an article

for the Atlantic entitled the experts somehow overlooked

authoritarians on the left. The main point here is that Trump’s

presidency sparked a ton of research and coverage of

authoritarianism on the right, but mostly ignored the left with

some researchers even suggesting that the left wing, that wet

left wing authoritarianism isn’t real. In an email to Satel, a

social psychologist from Rutgers said the following. For 70

years, the law, the law in the social sciences has been that

authoritarianism has been found exclusively on the political

right. Why is that one reason left wing authoritarian

authoritarianism barely showed up in social psychology research

is that most academic experts in the field are based at

institutions for prevailing attitudes are far to the left

of society as a whole sex.

Well, actually, Chamath put this on the docket. So Chamath, do

you want to introduce what you liked about it?

The reason I saw this, and I thought it was so interesting

was basically we had an entire body of research trying to

understand why some folks are attracted to these

authoritarian figures like Trump. And overwhelmingly, all

the research at the time said they only exist on the right.

And you know, you went and all of this started after Hitler.

And so there was all this research around the, you know,

social and attitudinal reactions to Hitler and how he came to

power and then all of the iterations of folks like him on

the right afterwards. And so people put Trump in that

category. And then they said, it can only exist there. But as

it turns out, when this person did this research, and she

surveyed 7000 people, and all of this data was very well

summarized in this Atlantic article, which I’m sure we can

post in the show notes that folks should read. Lo and

behold, it actually exists on both sides. So as it turns out,

the extreme right and the extreme left are exactly the

same. They’re moral absolutists. They believe in

themselves and themselves only. And they believe anybody else

that outside of where they are, is fundamentally in the wrong.

And if you actually look at that, and see how Trump behaved

in his presidency, and now how you see how the left names and

shames, you actually find a lot of commonality. So the reason I

found that article interesting is that it actually says, again,

what we’ve been saying, which is coming down the middle and

finding, you know, reasonable compromise is the only way

forward, because the minute you start moving in either

direction, you are the same. And that person is an ugly person

that we don’t want around. Let me give the money quote, and

then get your feedback. Friedberg, the similarities in

the study included, quote, similarities between

authoritarianism on both sides, left and right, preference for

social uniformity, check prejudice toward different,

different others, willingness to wield group authority to

coerce behavior, cognitive rigidity, aggression and

punitiveness toward perceived enemies, outsize concern for

hierarchy. And, as Chamath pointed out, moral apple

absolutism, a free bird, I think, authoritarian figures

resolve when a population feels insecure. So I mean, we talked

about this last pod, but I do think that, you know, the

notion of freedom emerges after the comfort of security has

been provided. And I think the absence of security drives

people away from the drive towards freedom, like, when you

have a feeling of insecurity with respect to kind of your

ability to get a job, I mean, remember, Hitler rose to power,

when unemployment, you know, post Weimar Republic was

skyrocketing, people, you know, couldn’t get jobs, they couldn’t

afford food. And the authoritarian figure was going

to provide the security needed, I think, to resolve the concerns

that the population had. And then, you know, people latch on

to that. So, you know, there are moments in time when I think

authoritarianism can emerge with different forms of resolution,

it doesn’t necessarily mean that the authoritarian actor needs to

take a left or right point of view, they’re just going to give

you a path to security, when you’re feeling insecure, if you

don’t feel insecure, you’re going to say that’s ridiculous.

So countries that are wealthy countries that are privileged

with the opportunities that maybe the United States has are

less likely and less inclined to fall in, you know, in favor of

authoritarian leaders. And then as we slip backwards,

economically, unemployment wise, etc, we’re more likely to be to

be in favor of those sorts of actors. And so I think that,

you know, we’ll see him emerge, but don’t you think it’s crazy

that we actually didn’t think it could exist in one end of the

political spectrum? And now it does you have a point in that or

no, I never really understood the whole, like, Hitler’s purely

a right wing guy. Like, he was a, you know, a socialist, and he

was trying to enable, like, you know, socialized services and

socialized systems for people, you know, in a lot of political

circles, that would be argued as being a very kind of left point

of view. And so I don’t know if it Yeah, I let’s go beyond this

go beyond Hitler. But you’re right, the the Nazi Party was a

National Socialist Party. That’s what that’s what the name

of the party was. But there’s also Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao, I

mean, if you’re paying attention to history, you know, that

there’s been authoritarianism on the left, not just the right.

And so but, you know, in the universities, and in the media,

they only want to focus on the right wing version of it. And I

think what the study does is it upends 70 years of dogma that,

that, you know, authoritarianism is only to be found on the

political right. I mean, it’s obviously can be found on the

political left as well. And you can see that in cancel culture,

in speech restrictions, in these very aggressive COVID

mandates that are now happening. You can see it in the, the sort

of the, the ghoulishness, anytime somebody in the right,

you know, dies from COVID. I mean, there’s, there’s always

some chortling on the part of the left about this, the harsh

penalties for non compliance. I mean, right now, rigidity is

the one that stands out for me, like, there is just on the left,

they make a decision, Amazon is bad. And they cannot move off

of that, right, David, like, what about what about willingness

to wield group authority to coerce behavior? And what about

aggression and punitiveness towards perceived and cancel

culture that would be that to me is it begs a good question,

which is what socialist regimes have come to power without an

authoritarian figure? Has there just none?

They’re all revolutionaries, right? Actually, the study has a

really good point about this, which is they they say that the

researchers describe what they call the anti hierarchical

aggression. So one of the traits of authoritarianism is, is they

call it an outsized concern for hierarchy. But you know,

leftists think that they don’t believe in hierarchy, but

actually, they do, they believe in an anti hierarchical

hierarchy, which is they want to turn upside down the social

hierarchy, and they’re willing to justify that the ends justify

the means. In other words, if you can turn the hierarchy

upside down, they’ll let you do anything. And it’s actually

pretty scary. That’s where the sort of the revolution comes

from. Here’s a practical thing, jk about what you said, which

illustrates this point even further. Right now, we have a

three and a half trillion dollar bill, kind of meandering

through Congress. And, you know, it’s very much a question

mark about whether it gets passed or not. And one of the

elements that’s in there is free community college. Now, when it

passes, if it passes, there’s a lot of support that that’s

something that the government should do, it’s a good thing.

But if you’re a private company like Amazon, who just announced

that they will give you free college, they’re still a bad

company. And, and this is the example of this intellectual

rigidity that doesn’t actually see the forest from the trees,

what do you really want? Do you want the process where you

control and you meter out progress? Or do you actually

want the outcome where somebody can get a job where they make

15 or $20 an hour, and also now get college paid for? Yes, I

personally want the latter. Yeah, we much better if the

government didn’t have to provide. I’d love I’d love it

if the government could pay for it. But I’m really glad that

Amazon is in a position to pay for it as well. But if you

start to become absolutist and say, Well, no, it just needs to

be top down and metered out this way. And any private

organization that wants to try to do it is still bad. I think

that’s where that rigidity holds us all back. It’s unnecessary.

Here’s where I see the rigidity Chamath is, they keep saying gig

workers are bad. Nobody should be allowed to be a gig worker.

And David had a great interview with the ride sharing guy on

Colin, and in which they talked about the fact and this is

somebody who is super pro advocate of drivers said,

listen, 80% of people do not want to do shift work. They do

not want the government dictating how they work. And I

talked anecdotally with an Uber driver studies making like 70

bucks an hour. So during peak hours, they were fighting to get

minimum wage for drivers. Now drivers are making 20 3040 $50

an hour. Uber rides have gone and Lyft rides. It’s a massive

competition free market works. Well, and they can’t take the

win. They still are so rigid on the left that they’re demanding

whatever that woman’s name is, who is you know, in the pocket

of the arena Gonzalez, Lorena Gonzalez in the pocket of the

unions. How cynical are they? The victory is upon them. Yeah,

people are getting paid five times more three times more

minimum wage, and they still want to screw them. The takeaway

for a lot of people should be that your spidey senses should

go up when folks present solutions as a choice of one

source only. Ah, you know, when things when things can only

happen in one way, and it’s the way that I feel the most

comfortable. Yeah, your spidey sensor should go up and you

should think to yourself really is that is that really the only

way like can’t we have choice? Can’t we have different ways of

solving this? Can’t maybe we could run an experiment and see

what happens? Go ahead, sex? Well, I think your spidey sense

should also go up whenever somebody is basically saying

that speech needs to be censored for some higher purpose, you

know, that that that whenever people are trying to a bridge

and take away our rights, and our sort of long held values,

our freedoms, you have to start getting concerned. And there’s

always a reason why they want to do it. In the study, the quote

that the left wing authoritarians agreed with was

getting rid of inequality is more important than protecting

the so called right to free speech. So there’s always some

higher reason the means always justify the the ends always

justify the means. But but that’s that’s what you have to

look out for is when they’re taking away your right to

speech to another fun proof point. Fun because it’s Dave

Chappelle that you can listen to or watch to see a flavor of

this left wing authoritarianism is called redemption song, which

is a little clip he put out recently. And the the entire

clip is more about him getting his body of work back from

Comedy Central. But the part in the beginning talks about

folks on the left that really tried to dunk on him when he got

COVID. And you should just listen to his reaction and how

he frames it. Because I think it’s pretty powerful. And again,

it explains that extremism on both sides, they actually end up

looking the same. Yeah, aggression and punitiveness

towards perceived enemies. And I think that applies to anyone

who anyone who defies that, that whatever the conventional

wisdom is on COVID. There’s another another example in the

study of that, that the people who the left wing

authoritarians agreed with the statement, I cannot imagine

myself becoming friends with a political conservative. So you

know, you’ve got these social groups that are completely

uniform. And by the way, there’ve been like studies for a

long time showing that liberals are twice as likely as

conservatives to be upset if their son or daughter were to

marry someone of the opposite party. So this has been a this

has been turned up in polls for a while, but this and you’ve

seen it on universities and college campuses, right? But

there’s this idea that you know, anybody of the other political

side is just suspect, you know, morally suspect needs to be

shunned, needs to be expelled. Like those are the people you

have to be concerned about. Yeah, you can’t be friends. I

can’t be friends with the USACs because you voted for Trump.

It’s just ridiculous. No, but it’s, I think it’s the

derangement to give the other side of this, I think Trump was

so extreme, and so trolling, and so great. I mean, if you

think about his superpower, it was to troll the left and put

them into such a deranged mindset, that they did actually

become that which they hated most.

Right. But he did, he did troll the left. But But here’s, but

here’s the thing is that we only hear in the media about the

authoritarianism of the Trump administration, how many times

were they screaming fascism during the Trump years, and, and

now today, and of course, you know, if you go to MSNBC, it’s

January 6, all day, all the time, that’s all they want to

talk about. But you there’s a total blind spot with respect to

the authoritarian tendencies of the left, which we see right now

in COVID policy. I mean, it is getting so extreme right now.

And I mean, Friedberg, you posted a breaking news that just

announced by a press conference, Gavin Newsom is now

implementing mandated COVID vaccines for all public K

through 12 schools in California starting this fall.

Wait, wait, these students?

Yeah. All eligible kids in all in all public schools, in all

public schools, in order to go to school in California, you

have to have a vaccine.

I mean, kindergarten, kindergarten.

Well, I mean, they’re not eligible yet. If it’s when

they’re eligible.

Yeah, they’re, they’re, they’re gonna be eligible very soon.

I mean, look, I, I, so, so we have a 13 year old and 11 year

old and a five year old, the 13 year old got vaccinated, she

wanted to, we supported it, the 11 year old wasn’t eligible,

she didn’t get a vaccine, she got COVID. For me, it was a

mild case. And our five year old isn’t eligible for the vaccine,

he never got COVID. Now, if, if and when a new vaccine comes

out that our five year old is eligible, I don’t think he

needs it. I mean, I’m not anti-vax. I mean, I’m glad I got

the vaccine. I’m glad, you know,

Is he going to school?

My 13 year old got the vaccine. Yeah, he goes to school.

I guess the question is, do you, if it is safe, do you want

them going to school, catching it, spreading it? And do you

want them to not have to wear a mask?

How can you say conclusively, what’s safe for a five or six

year old at this point in time?

It’s a little hard, their bodies are developing. And yeah,

you need some time.

I mean, do we really need to mandate this? I mean, why, why

can’t parents make up their own decision?

Because of other people in society who would be impacted.

I mean, you also see this, you know, look, I think, I think

vaccines maybe are a complicated debate because vaccines do

actually provide protection. Let’s talk about these mask

mandates, which I supported at the beginning of the pandemic

because it’s all we had to fight it. But you take an example,

like San Francisco still has these stringent mask mandates.

The mayor of London Breed was caught out at dancing, singing

at a club, screaming, but in fairness to her, it was Tony,

Tony, Tony. I mean, yeah, I mean, that’s what she said was

her defense. She was like, she was basically like, it’s Tony,

Tony, Tony guys. What do you want me to do? I’ll risk the

COVID, which is I had to give her that one. If you want to

risk, if you want to risk to play poker or see your favorite

artist, I mean, I mean, what do you want to do? What do you

want her to do? Let me ask this question.

What she said when she got caught was actually correct,

which is we should be out supporting restaurants. We

should be out supporting nightlife. Adults should be able

to make their own decision about the risks they’re willing to

take. The problem is she’s not willing to give the rest of us

that choice, right? And we can all make our own choice. And by

the way, look, the idea that the COVID is not going to get

you. What you know, once you take off your mask, when you get

to the table, you know, we’ve talked about this, right? Yeah,

you wear the mask and the meter D stand to the table, then you

take it off to eat and drink. And the COVID somehow not going

to get in. She was saying she was like, I listen, they were

like, you weren’t eating, we have you on video, you weren’t

drinking. She’s like, it’s unrealistic for an adult to put

the mask on and off in between sips and bites. And I was on a

flight and I was flying coach as opposed to a business class

recently. And when I was in business class, I was eating and

drinking. There was no entire foreign language so far you’re

speaking. What are you saying?

Most people pay for a plane ticket, and then they get on an

airplane.

So but the interesting thing was, when I was in business

class, I was eating my meal, I was drinking, no issues. I had

the mask off for whatever 20 minutes I was eating and

drinking. When I was in coach, same situation, the flight

attendant was going up and down the aisle. And while people

were eating and drinking, if they didn’t have the mask on,

she was kind of being like a whole monitor saying please put

your mask on in between bites. And I was like, okay.

Yeah. And when we supported this mask mandate way at the

beginning of the vaccine, we all thought the government’s

going to distribute n 99 or at least n 95 high quality 3m

masks, right? We never got those. We never got it. I know

people people are like walking around wearing these cloth mat,

these loose fitting cloth masks. It’s ridiculous. It’s

theater, the COVID goes, you know, through the bottom over

the top through the side, go right through it. I mean, like

it doesn’t do anything. And you’re the Lone Ranger. Yeah.

How’s that? Well, I mean, I look if you were a high quality,

like, you know, PPE type mask, I think it might be helpful. But

you know, it’s a marginal benefit once we have vaccines.

Oh, by the way, just as we end this, what do we think of

Andrew Wiggins? Well, you can’t comment on this, maybe because

you’re an owner on the team, but a number of NBA players,

high profile ones, in fact, in New York and California, where

you’re not allowed in the arena if you’re not vaccinated, are

now deciding to sit out their home games. So Kyrie Irving

being the highest profile one is refusing to get the vaccine.

And he will be getting paid. He’s got a $200 million contract

max player. I think he gets $40-50 million a year. He’s

going to give up half of his salary to not $20 million a

year to not get the vaccine at least and leave his team to not

play with him in home games. What are our thoughts on

mandating NBA players who are playing inside an arena to be

vaccinated? Did you see Draymond’s interview? I did.

What did what did Day Day have to say about this? He says that

he’s so **** strong, isn’t he? Yeah, he was like, this is

ridiculous that we don’t like respect each other’s like we’ve

made this so political and it’s all like antagonistic as

opposed to just meta recognizing that there are differences and

people have differences of opinion and respecting them and

embracing each other for those differences rather than like

attacking each other and finding fault in each other and

forcing them. And it’s a great point. But I don’t know. I mean,

I don’t think that this point is any different than the point

about, you know, mandating a vaccine for anything, any

workplace, any school. I mean, if you’re going to mandate if

you’re going to mandate vaccines for workplaces and

mandate vaccines for schools, you know, the NBA is going to,

you know, not be kind of excluded here. It’s what it is.

Right. Just happens to be a bigger paycheck and a higher

profile stage. I think as a matter of policy, the right

policy here is to let private employers decide whether they’re

going to require vaccination or not. I think I think private

organizations have the right to do that. If you know, if a

restaurateur wants to say that we are going to be an all vax

restaurant, you want to, you know, they’re only going to take

clientele who are vax, that should be their right to do it.

If another restaurant says we don’t care, people can go to

that restaurant if they want. You know, I think that the free

market can sort of sort this out. I don’t know that we need

the government imposing it. If the NBA decides this is what

they want to do. They can’t

it has decided what decision?

Well, I mean, what I wonder about is how necessary it is. I

mean, given the fact that, you know, all the players are young

and healthy. And if they want the vaccine, they can get the

vaccine. Look, I’m really glad I got it. You know, I think it

but but I just, you know, if given that everybody is

vaccinated now who wants it, I just, you know, what is the

point of forcing that last 10% of holdouts to do something they

don’t want to do? I mean, this is where I think the

authoritarian I would resist the authoritarian impulse.

Friedberg, is there a new pill that’s coming out? I saw a story

today about this. I don’t know if I want to cover that or go to

unicorns. First, Merck published some results on this

basically antiviral pill, it effectively inhibits RNA

replication in viruses. And it’s kind of, it was designed to be

kind of broadly applicable. It was, you know, discovered at

Emory University years ago, and they were testing it for

influenza. And then even priests pre COVID, they were testing it

on other kind of coronaviruses, SARS and MERS. And so the the

data that they just published shows that there’s a 50%

reduction in hospitalizations 50% in hospitalizations, while

for people that are test positive for SARS, COV to

infection, and then they start the pill within some number of

hours, you take a few of these pills, I think they said five

days, right? Yeah, well, they did the test on like, it was

effectively Yeah, four or five days. That’s right. When you end

up reducing the number, the percentage of people that end up

in the hospital by 50%. Now, you know, so the idea is that for

countries that don’t have access to vaccines, you can very

cheaply make this chemistry, it’s a cheap molecule that you

could theoretically produce at scale, and you could ship it all

over the world. And countries that don’t have, you know, broad

scale vaccination programs, they can make these pills available

quickly and cheaply. And then, you know, as people get

infected with SARS, COV, two, they just pick up this pill, you

know, put it in every pharmacy, go grab a couple. And then the

hospitalization rate goes down. We don’t yet know if it reduces

the transmission rate. So there’s a lot of question marks

on like, does this actually solve the problem of the

pandemic? It’s certainly another instrument to blunt the, you

know, the impact pronounce the name of it. It’s mall new, all

new pair of your mall new pair of the government. And by the

way, there wasn’t a lot of people in the study, no one that

took the pill died, people that didn’t take the pill did die in

the in the infection in the infected population, because

they split them right, they gave some people a placebo and some

people the pill, the people that had the placebo, there were

deaths, no one in the group that had the pill, the actual pill

died. And so, you know, so theoretically, we don’t yet have

enough data to know. But there’s also a big question on the side

effects. Typically, these anti viral the RNA kind of blocking

drugs have other side effects. They’re usually pretty mild. But

you know, so so there’ll be a little bit more studying, but

generally, people view this as a super big positive. It’s another

instrument, I’m going to make a I’m going to make a prediction.

Here we go. I think that the combination of vaccines and what

is equivalently Tamiflu for COVID, which is effectively what

this is, is the one to punch we need. So that this basically is

rendered, you’re missing the three, you’re missing a key

piece there, the testing, you must have testing to know that

you have this. But I think that that’s a I think like the

testing is, it’s not efficient, but the solutions exist. My

point is, if you have a combination of all these things,

this is like a flu, which means that there’ll be less ability

for folks to not show up to work, which means that most of

the economy really will get back going. And I think then we

can get back to really addressing what are all that 10

or $12 trillion? How does it show up in the economy? That’s

where the inflation comes from. That’s for all this other stuff.

So I’m, I’m pretty excited by what I read today. But now my

mindset is going to 18 months from now, midterm inflation, I

think that’s going to be what it’s all about.

We ordered 1.7 million courses of this. I’ll call it’s a we

just call it basically, this is the equivalent of a z pack. So

I can call this the impact. If this hits, I’ve taken probably

1.7 million z packs. That’s just on the way back from Vegas.

So I mean, this feels like the endgame and they are going for

emergency use. So let’s keep our fingers crossed. This would

mean the stock market’s going to rip Jamal.

I know, I think the stock market is in a little bit of

precarious position, because if you have to, if you have to

reposition yourself, for inflation, there’s a lot of

tech stocks that will get just absolutely obliterated. Like,

well, when you when you when you have inflation, so the the

order of operations, inflation means prices go up. The

government sees prices going up. And they say, how do we

control that they raise interest rates so that the cost of

borrowing goes up so that then less money is being spent,

right, so that we become a little bit more restrained.

When you do that, then all of a sudden, people have to think

about how much money you’re going to make in the future.

Because if you’re not investing as much in the future, you

won’t make as much in the future. And when you discount

all those dollars back, there’s less of them. And so all of a

sudden, you start to think about, oh, my gosh, well, I want

dollars today, not dollars 10 years from now. That really

puts a lot of pressure on tech stocks, because we trade on

multi year valuations in the future. So inflation is very

bad for technology stocks. Inflation tends to be good for

companies that make money today. Why? Because if I get $1

today, I can put it in this in the, you know, bond markets, or

I put it into a savings account, and I can get more interest

than I would have otherwise. And then separately, you also

want to own things that are physical and real, because

those have more value. So all of that has to then get worked

out into the economy, and we have to make a bunch of

economic decisions. So we so now the solution for that, in

all of those cases, though, is still if you’re a hyper growth

company, you’ll be okay. So if you’re growing more than 50 60%

a year, you’re fine. But if you’re growing 20 or 30%, and

you’re kind of a middling business, and rates are going

up, and inflation is going up, you’re in a very, very, very

precarious spot. And snacks, what do you think?

Okay, well, I think there was, there was a great article in the

Wall Street Journal over the past week called university

endowment mint billions in the golden era of venture capital

is basically talking about I mean, these these university

endowments are like gaining 50% year over year, there’s been

like nothing like it before. There’s so many unicorns being

created. There’s, there’s a separate article in I think

pitch book as well about the rate of unicorn or crunch base.

Yeah, that the rate of unicorn creation, I think last year, it

was like one every few days. Now it’s it’s more than one a day

bonkers. And so you know, we’re getting multiple unicorns now

created every day this year, it’s just this golden era VC,

this engine of wealth and prosperity creation. So that’s

the good news. And to connect this to a point we were talking

about earlier, if the radicals on the left would just allow the

golden goose to keep laying golden eggs, we’re going to have

enough wealth and prosperity to pay for all these progressive

programs in the long run, but they’re not willing to wait. And

so you have in Washington, for example, I think a political

program that really could upset the apple cart. I mean, you’re

talking about a three and a half trillion dollar

reconciliation bill, it’ll probably get brought down to

somewhere between one and a half and two, then you got a 1.2

billion trillion dollar infrastructure bill, they’ve

already spent 1.9 trillion on a COVID relief bill. This is after

the 6 trillion. What would you what would you advise should be

the amount spent? Well, okay, good question. So last year, the

federal government generated record tax receipts, the most

revenue it’s ever raised, and it was about 19 and a half

percent of GDP. When Bill Clinton left office, he broasted

about the fact that government spending was only 18 and a half

percent of GDP. Last year, it was about 30% of GDP. My theory

on this is that if you have government spending as a share

of the economy at around 20%, from a tax and spending

standpoint, things basically work, okay. But as you try to go

up to 25 and 30%, it starts to break, you have too much

deficits and debt, too much money printing, too much

taxation, too much inflation, you become more brittle, and you

start to you basically are, you know, unhealthy, you’re killing

the golden goose. And so, you know, all we have to do is let

the economy keep ripping. 20% of it is going to is going to be

government share. And you’ll be able to fund more and more

progressive programs over time, as society gets richer. And by

the way, this, this prosperity that’s being created in the tech

ecosystem, it’s available to everybody who has a good idea. I

mean, this is not so as we all know, so it’s not just

government that’s creating advancement, and economic

opportunity for disadvantaged people, the tech economy is

creating it as well. And what I worry about is, is why are we

taking so much risk in upending this whole system that is

working quite well? Well, the other thing is, this is all in

the face of there being 11 million open jobs, there’s 1.4

jobs for everybody who’s unemployed. So the idea that in

some way, society is broken, and people can’t be employed. Now,

these might not be there’s only 4 million, there’s only 4

million people looking for work. There’s 11 million outstanding

jobs. Yeah. I mean, it is bonkers. Friedberg, or do you

think this is sustainable? What are your thoughts on spending

and turning over the apple cart as sex?

The longer you guys have me on this podcast, the more likely it

is you guys are going to unmask me as a diehard libertarian. I

will not let my tendencies, you know, come out in full force.

The spending is ridiculous, and there’s a lot of waste. So I

mean, I’ll just leave it at that. What I think is

interesting, though, is this unicorn creation system. This

unicorn creation machine, you know, it’s worth highlighting,

because I think that that crunch base article show that

these unicorns in aggregate were worth like what one and a half

trillion dollars or something. And so those are all private

companies. $3.4 trillion.

Is that the amount of both bills?

3.4 trillion is the total market cap of all the private

unicorns, not just in the US, but at the world. And right now

in Washington, they’re talking about three and a half trillion

dollar reconciliation bill, same size. Can you imagine

government spending, basically the entire value of the tech

ecosystem in one year? It’s bonkers, right?

And so this, but by the way, I mean, like, I think that that

3.5 trillion, you can kind of think about that as being the

future economy of the future global economy, right? So the

entire I just pulled up the latest quarterly stat, but the

entire market cap of public US companies today stands at $47

trillion. The top 500 are about $38 trillion. So you know,

these private companies that are kind of the emerging tech

companies are, you know, call it 10%, or, you know, 8% of all

public today of all public companies today. And, you know,

it used to be the technology company started in Silicon

Valley, sold technology to traditional industries. What’s

happening in Silicon Valley today, and over the last 10

years or so, is that technology, quote, unquote, companies are

becoming the next industrial companies, they are replacing

profound insight. And so this is like what we saw, you know,

Airbnb is a hotel chain without hotels. Uber is, you know, a

transportation company without vehicles, DoorDash, DoorDash,

but but even more importantly, there’s an entire emergent class

of life sciences companies of novel hardware companies. And

these businesses are leveraging their core technology

competence to create an advantage in replacing an old

model of doing industry, they’re not selling into the old school

console. I think that the you know, and people are freaking

out about, you know, some of these big investors like Tiger

Global coming in and writing crazy checks. If you take an

index of the three and a half trillion dollars today and said,

you know what, these guys today are going to be worth more than

the $46 trillion market cap of all the other public companies

that’s it today, in the next 20 or 30 years, that’s a pretty

good way to kind of place your money over a 30 year horizon,

I’m going to go ahead and put as much money as I can into the

index of the private companies, and expect that they’re going to

be worth more than 46 trillion in 30 years, I’m going to make a

10 bagger, that’s a retirement fund for my family. And so it

makes a ton of sense, I think that these, you know, these

unicorns, given the advantages that are involved, you know,

kind of evolving from software and like sciences, and so on, do

end up kind of playing out, it’s going to be ugly. And what

will happen is you’ll end up seeing the asymmetry, you’ll see

the like, oh, my gosh, it’s something that’s 1000x, you

know, 100x return, it’ll become $100 billion public company or

$200 billion public company. And then there’ll be a bunch of

them, they’re going to die. And people are going to focus on the

depths and say, this was overhyped, the bubble is over.

But the reality is the index of companies today, I would be

willing to bet 20 to 30 years from now is worth more than the

$46 trillion of all the companies.

So Chamath, one of the things we’re seeing here, and you’re

playing a small part in it, or a large part, depending on who you

talk to. We now have over 6000 publicly traded companies on US

exchange, we have less than 4000, we have about 3800.

Okay, no, we had 3600 in 2016. According to the research I have

here, according to markets, watch 6000, publicly traded

companies in US exchanges. So what’s the right number counting

the pink sheets and over the counter stuff, which is we’re

seeing dramatically more publicly traded companies,

many speculative ones, or ones where you’re getting to buy in

in year four, five or six, obviously, you’re part of that

with, you know, all the different IPO A’s through what

are you up to now? What’s the Yeah, we have six tech specs, we

have four biotech specs, you know, I mean, I’ve started or

invested in a bunch of others that have gone public.

So let’s look at this through the lens of the public markets

as well.

My macro view is exactly what Friedberg said, we are much

better off with as many technology companies being

birthed and being viable. Because over the long arc of

time, those companies will rebuild things that are today

inefficient and broken in a better way. And the world

becomes better. The question is, for a lot of people, well,

what if the wealth isn’t better, because it’s only, you know, a

fraction of the number of people with a very specific skill set

that many other people don’t have, that I think is a valid

argument. But then there’s a different way to attack this

problem, which is you could actually do something really

meaningful around corporate interest rates and corporate

tax policy that would then get it. Right. So like, even if

those, those 1000 companies, if you assume that that $3.4

trillion 10 x is that’s 34 trillion of eventual market cap,

right, that’s going to be supported by trillions of

dollars of earnings. But maybe those things only have a million

or 2 million employees, but there’s 8 billion eight, you

know, odd people in the world. Well, the way you get the money

into the government’s coffers that they can reallocate it to

everybody that doesn’t work at those 1000 companies is through

sensible tax policy that goes after the companies, because

those companies will still do the job, right? It’s not like

you’re going to choose to not work at a, you know, world

beating startup in a mission that you care about, because of

the corporate tax rate. Nobody’s going to do that. Right. So I

think this is where like, if you if you if you actually take a

step back and think of the bigger picture, the answer is

right in front of us, we just choose not to listen. This is

why you know, again, what Trump did was kind of stupid. You

know, he focused on corporate tax policy, cutting it

unnecessarily. And now what we’re doing is we’re fighting

over tax policy. And part of the reason why this bill isn’t

going to get passed is because of corporate tax policy and

trying to raise it again. But really, what we should do is

actually raise it leave personal rates roughly where they are,

you know, Elon even said, when asked by Kara Swisher this week,

he’s like, I pay 53% taxes. What about you? Yeah, it’s going

to 57. And, you know, it’s 53 5761. Who cares? Sure, whatever.

And he has to the point he made was listen, the pro publica

article was really disingenuous. They said he got a

tax refund. And they didn’t, they never explained. Well,

that’s because he overpaid his taxes massively the year before.

So they’re selectively pulling information. And the fact is,

he said, I will be the first money into SpaceX and Tesla,

I’ll be the last money out. That is something we want more

founders to do, which is never sell their shares and be have

more skin in the game. So I I’m sorry, I disagree with that. I

think that’s a that’s a bunch of fucking malarkey. Why? If you

choose to not sell, so be it. Okay. But look at the good that

Bill Gates has done by selling down Microsoft. So I mean, yeah,

that shouldn’t exist. The Bill Gates Foundation shouldn’t

exist. No, no, no, no, the reproductive protect. It had to

be paid some he did that when he hits his 60 years old. I’m sure

when you know other no, he started to do it when he was 40

years old, Jason. And he sold PayPal, and he was able to use

that money to reinvest in Tesla. I do think putting all the

money back into two companies that are solving two major

issues. He wouldn’t have been able to do that if he hadn’t

sold in the first exactly my point is, let’s not conflate the

problem. If you generate wealth, I think that you should be bound

morally bound by society to put the money back to work. He

chooses to put the money back to work by reinvesting so

aggressively into the things that he’s doing. That’s laudable.

Yeah, I think that’s virtuous. Yeah, I agree. But it’s not the

only way Bill Gates took a different path, which is to

basically take all those profits, sell it down to then

be able to go and put it into the Gates Foundation. People

will take multiple paths. The point that’s the same among all

these people is there’s a moral obligation, they feel to do the

right thing for the future, then we’re in agreement. So let’s

just celebrate that not some tactical thing about buying and

selling. By the way, one other point I’d make them off like

you, you said that, you know, we should tax the the wealth

creation and distribute it. There’s another way to get that

redistribution of wealth, which is to enable access to the

investments earlier, by public pension funds, by the

endowments by the places where people by the retirement funds,

where you know, a broader swath of the population, you know,

have savings sitting and change the accreditation. We’ve

historically kind of forced the narrative that everyone in the

United States needs to have a home and have 80 90% of their

wealth tied up in a piece of real estate. And then we end up

with these massive kind of inflationary bubbles to keep

that value that book value kind of growing for them. The

reality is, if that money was put more productively into

building businesses, via retirement funds that had

access to venture capital, the public pension funds already do

but they should they probably under allocate to venture

capital today, relative to where they’re putting. We talked

about the endowments are crushing and look at the

returns. Another way, by the way, if that was the model, you

wouldn’t need to tax right? You

Well, by the way, one of the brilliant provisions in this

reconciliation bill is they’re actually disallowing retirement

funds to invest in alternative assets, including startups and

and say venture capital insane.

That is so wrong. So wrong. Yeah. What? That’s in there.

Taking pension funds and saying, you can’t have access to them.

You as an individual through a 401k, or IRA, I cannot invest

in alternative rule, right? Yes, partly in response to that.

Well, they should just make it a cap. Don’t you think they

should cap Peter teals? I think

why? Why cap anything? Who’s this? Well, because it was

against the spirit of it. The spirit of the Roth was let’s

let’s discuss this as a specific issue. I’ll tee it up

for you, Saks. Peter teal put his Facebook stock in his Roth.

And yeah, you’re supposed to get that tax free. So you can have

a great retirement. He did that as an end run around paying

taxes on the Facebook investment that became worth billions of

dollars reportedly. So now they’re saying you can have a

Roth, but anything above 50 billion, you got to pay tax on

because the goal here isn’t for you to use it as a shelter

against some massive venture gains Saks.

I don’t have a huge problem with them putting a cap on the

benefit of these accounts. However, my issue with what’s in

the bill, there’s a couple of issues. One is like we said,

they’re disallowing investments and alternatives, which I just

think is bad for savers. Why would you want to do that?

Second is the treatment of what happens when you exceed the cap.

And right now what they’re saying is you have to

distribute out all of those funds and then subject them to

immediate taxation at ordinary income rates, which is

confiscatory because you could have made the investment outside

the retirement account and paid locked, long, long term.

If you do go over it should be yeah, long term tax, of course.

Yeah. And and furthermore, it’s even worse than that. Because

what they’re saying is, let’s say that you do have an

alternative, like an investment in a startup or a venture fund,

you have to distribute it out and pay tax on that, even though

that investment is not liquid, right? So you should be able to

take it out and just be treated normal cap gains and not have to

liquidate it. Do you think what it’s going to do is, it’s going

to get it’s going to give people an incentive, it’s going to warp

the incentives for saving, because what it’s going to say

to people is you want to do well, but not too well, right?

Because if you hit the cap, you’re now subject to a

confiscation, you get penalized. Yes, it should be. So it

shouldn’t be a penalty. Yeah, exactly. I think the way it

should work is you have a cap at any distribution above that,

you basically that becomes the basis for future taxation.

I think all of this can be summarized more simply, I think

that we have, unfortunately, gotten so confused, that we’ve

decided to fix the finish line and stagger the starting line.

Right? Because all of this still doesn’t apply to rich people.

No, this has been rich people, rich people can do all of these

different things. They can set up these out of state trust, they

can set up generation skipping trust, they can be, you know,

qualified investors, they can have QSPS deductions. And so

what this will do, unfortunately, is entrench the

kind of wealth gains that Peter Thiel was able to generate in a

very visible way that will just piss everybody off. And I think

instead, you got to go back to a different to a different litmus

test. So I, Jason, you have been the strongest advocate for

letting people participate in the economy. I have always

agreed with that we need to figure out how we can make sure

more important that it that it isn’t abused. But that’s the

best ways to educate financial literacy so that they can

actually be a part of it. Even the starting line, let everybody

be able to put stuff into this stuff and learn about it.

I mean, what Peter did essentially was put lottery

tickets into his, you know, non tax retirement fund, lottery

tickets being buying stocks in private companies early, but

regular Americans aren’t allowed to do that. So rather than

retroactively try to penalize Peter, because you disagree with

his politics, or because he did it too well. I think it’s better

that everybody be allowed to be an accredited investor and do

what Peter did, which is, everybody should be able to take

their 401k or their Roth and be able to buy the next LinkedIn

Uber. So if you were a civilian, and you took an Uber, or you use

LinkedIn to hire somebody in year two, and you had an

opportunity to buy those shares, you should be allowed to buy it

because you’re a human resources person or Uber driver, and you

realize this is a great service that will change the world

doesn’t take a genius to figure that out. Freebird.

Yeah, look, I mean, the downside is you see speculative

concentrated bets that white people out. That’s the reason

the protective provisions are in there. So I think there are

probably sensible ways of managing that, you know, around,

you know, qualifying, you know, pools of these investments in a

way creating indexes against them, etc. And maybe that’s the

right way to provide access, but you know, giving individuals

that maybe, you know, don’t have the right kind of point of view

on a particular investment, the ability to put all of their

capital into that investment. Generally, I would say go for it.

The problem is we’ve socialized, you know, protection, right? So

and this is the same with healthcare, in a model for

governing or model for a state where you provide socialized

care for people through healthcare, socialized

healthcare, or you provide socialized support for people

through, you know, the social security system and other

services like that. It’s difficult to say, okay, the

government’s going to be your backstop, and it’s going to

provide the support for you. And we’re also going to let you

take risky behavior. And that’s where I think the two have to go

hand in hand. If you want to get rid of one, you got to get rid

of the other. And so because otherwise, we all end up paying

the cost of the person that takes the, you know, outsized

risk. And then we all end up having to foot the bill for that

person taking that risk. So if we’re all going to be there to

protect that person, we have to tell them you can’t take

unnecessary risk. Okay, hey,

Saks, let me ask you a conspiracy theory here.

Peter Thiel supported Trump when Trump was teetering on the

access Hollywood tape, and he went to bat for him, he gave him

a big donation at that time, then obviously did the

Republican National Convention, and was a key intellectual

influencer in his election plan. Now the Democrats are in,

and suddenly the focus becomes this one outsize Roth IRA, and

we’re going to rewrite the law so that Peter Thiel has to take

$5 billion or so is one of the estimates that I saw online on

CNBC out of his IRA. Do you think this is specific

vindictiveness on the part of the Democrats to try to attack

specifically Peter Thiel? I know he’s your best

Well, yeah, I mean, it does feel and I’m not I’m not a Peter

Thiel apologist, but this feels vindictive and personal.

So yes and no. Okay. So what I would say is there have been

proposals over the last I think, going back to maybe even 2014

on providing some restrictions or caps on, you know, these

these IRAs and the Roth IRAs. However, there’s never been a

proposal as punitive and retroactive and confiscatory.

That’s what they’re doing here. And specifically, it’s the fact

that they’re going to force Peter to distribute out

everything above the cap, and then tax it as ordinary income.

I mean, that that’s just changing the rules. That part,

I think, is directed at Peter, and I’ve actually heard that

staffers on Capitol Hill are calling this the Peter Thiel

provision. So let me just confirm that part for you. So

what I would say is, I think there is a sensible way to

provide some restrictions on these retirement accounts, but

the way they’re doing it is so punitive. I think it is

motivated by political revenge against Peter.

Chamath, what do we think of the number of unicorns being

created in the private markets? Obviously, when a company hits

unicorn status, I think they’re going to start buzzing around

and maybe knocking on your door and SPACs and boards might

start thinking about that. These companies sometimes have

$10 million, $30 million in revenue, 50 million in revenue,

and they’re becoming worth a billion dollars. Do these

valuations make sense writ large? And are you concerned

that this is a bubble?

I don’t think there’s a bubble.

Okay. Explain why there’s not a bubble in early stage private

companies.

No, I think it’s because of what we just talked about, which is

that these companies, by and large, are growing at incredibly

fast rates, and they are replacing legacy incumbents that

are growing very slowly or not at all. With and who have

basically won for a long time with inferior products. And so

as the superior products with more nimble organizations get

capitalized to go to market, they’re just going to win. And

so I think what we’re seeing is a wholesale replacement of the

economy, from the old to the new. And so that’s why these

companies will do well. And I think it’s going to be a really

powerful force in the world because like the world should be

a little bit more efficient and fairer when you have all this

modern technology working on your behalf. So I’m a real

supporter of all of this, I think there’s going to be even

more. And I think, you know, the the thing that we have to be

comfortable with is whenever something goes from a fringe

thing, which is what venture capital was, Jason, when all of

us were, you know, first in Silicon Valley 20 years ago, to

you know, today in 2021, we’re sitting here, this is going to

become a fundamental part of the economy. And when that

happens, there’ll be more and more money, the returns won’t be

as good, that’ll be okay, but there’ll be a lot of progress.

And so you know, we’re going through the same transition that

private equity did in the 80s and 90s, that venture that

hedge funds.

Did you see all the different venture capitalists who are

retiring, Bajan from Spark, the kid from Lightspeed, a bunch of

other folks, obviously our friend Bill Gurley is stepping

up.

He’s 50.

Am I doing something wrong here? I’m like busy creating a

venture firm at age almost 50.

What do we think’s behind this? They just made too much money

and they’re

Or is it because it’s too competitive now?

And they’re moving to Wyoming.

I would say it’s slightly different than this. I don’t

know. I don’t know. I mean, I know all of those guys, but I

don’t know what their motivation is. But what I would say is I

tend to think that the mindset of venture has a relatively

short half life. And I think it’s about 15 years.

And I think that there is a and because, you know, company

building is roughly a 10 year arc, you know, like when you

get into something early. And so I think that there is like a

newness whenever you start, I don’t think it matters what your

age is. And then there is this sort of like death march that

sets in by year eight or nine. And then you try to see it

through to returning the capital and making sure all the

employees and founders you’ve been invested with land the ship.

And I think what these guys did was get to that place and say,

okay, I’ve had this 15 year beautiful arc. Do I want to do

another 15 year arc? And for a lot of people, it won’t make

much sense. And then also, I think your patience to do it

goes away. Right? Because it’s like, you guys know what it is.

exhausting. It’s exhausting. The amount of drama I’m dealing

with right now in my portfolio is bonkers. The the the bet I

don’t know if you’re seeing the sacks, but the amount of

shenanigans, bad behavior, fraud, lying, backstabbing is

at an all time. That would be your portfolio. JL. Yeah.

It’s literally three companies. I’m literally dealing with three

companies with drama out of 350. I think it’s one out of 100 is

probably fine. But I am seeing all kinds of shenanigans, even

in the diligence phase. I’m seeing it.

I met something more tactical, which is like, for example,

you know, yesterday, we’re starting something really

ambitious in batteries. And I have to sit there for an hour.

And we have to go through ordering the equipment, setting

up the lab getting human resource. And there’s only so

much of that that you have the energy to do after a certain

amount of time, it’s important work, you have to do it right.

But it feels a little low leverage. Now for that CEO, it’s

everything. And so you have to be on top of your game to help

that person. And I think this is where I appreciate their

honesty, in basically saying, guys, I don’t have that level of

detailed focus in me anymore. And that’s important, because

then a next generation of folks who want to put in that 15 year

journey, you need somebody committed, you need somebody

who’s super committed.

Yeah. And I do think there’s a difference between being a

partner in a large partnership, where you kind of have your

portfolio of companies. And, you know, to Tomas point, you’re

going to be on that arc with them. And then kind of building

a firm from scratch, where like, quite frankly, I would go crazy

the way that, you know, you’re dealing with Jason and Chamath

is saying, I would get burned out if I didn’t have a team.

So we now have like a pretty big team.

How many?

Well, just on the investment team, I think we’ve got about

15 people. And, and then we now have a bunch of operating

partners. So, you know, we were looking at what Andreessen

Horowitz has done with services, you know, we had this big debate

in the venture community for a long time about whether venture

firms should operate, it should offer services and operating

partners. And Andreessen, you know, went hog wild with that.

They’ve got like 200 people doing it. And I think they’ve

proven that it works in the sense I don’t, you know, it’s

not totally clear how much value they’re delivering, but it

clearly works in the sense that founders would like the services

if they can get them.

It’s great marketing, but it may not be.

It’s great. It’s great. It’s great marketing.

Because if you’re a great founder, when you were a great

founder, you wouldn’t want Andreessen Horowitz telling you

how to run your HR and doing your marketing for you at

Yammer.

Right. But so what we’ve done is what we’ve done is focus on

bringing on not 200 people, but an expert in every functional

area that a SaaS company might need, because you do want access

to an expert. When you’re setting up the department, you

want to go talk to the digital marketing person or the legal

person or, you know, or, you know, we have an executive

briefing center now. So we do believe that there is a version

of the services model that makes a lot of sense. And we are

building that if I had to do all of that value add myself, yeah,

I would, I would burn out.

Yeah. I mean, I think it’s a very good point. I literally

last week launched the syndicate.com slash SaaS, a SaaS

syndicate, just for the same reason. So I can build a group

of individuals who are focused just on that and who have that

domain expertise. But they’re the great founders do not want

you up in their business. So I I’m concerned with like that.

That’s why we have like kind of we call it a teach them how to

fish model where we don’t want to do the work. We want to give

them an expert as a resource who can meet with them, show them

show them some best practices.

Do you have people though coming to you expecting you to do the

work? Because that’s what I know happens sometimes. Although

can you find us a developer? And I’m like, no, but I can talk

to you about finding developers, but I don’t have a recruiter on

staff. Do you have a recruiter?

Yeah, we actually do. Now we have three recruiters on staff.

So, um,

so you’re paying a half million dollars a year to recruit for

your company. So that’s a basically, basically, that’s a

big advantage. Is it working? Are you actually landing

developers?

Yeah. I mean, look, we can’t and I don’t give a fuck about any of

this. Anyway, this is us in the weeds. So you want to talk about

some, okay, well, just a couple of a couple of it for a second.

I just want to go back to this like golden era point when we’re

talking about venture capital, because look, obviously, in the

weeds, we’re going to talk about our problems. But I really

think that what’s happening here with a thousand new unicorns

being minted every year is just unbelievable. If you look at the

number of billionaires in the U S I just Googled this. There were

614 billionaires in the U S as of October, 2020. Now there’s

probably more, I don’t know, let’s say there’s a thousand.

Well, if you’re mincing a thousand new unicorns every year,

how many billionaires is that creating?

I mean, how many millionaires more importantly, how many

people who are making 50 to $250,000 a year before they

joined the ecosystem and now are worth millions will buy

homes, hire people start the next but let me just give you

guys the counterpoint to that, which I’m not necessarily

arguing, but I’m this is what I think the narrative is, which is

that those businesses that are kind of, you know, accumulating

wealth and accumulating revenue are effectively destroying the

old economy and shutting down companies and shutting and

destroying 11 million job openings. That’s bullshit.

I don’t I don’t I don’t believe it’s a zero sum game. Yeah, I

think there’s it’s it’s creative. It is disruptive,

right? So, there is a there is kind of a temporal flux and

there’s a flux of people across from the old economy to the new

economy and it’s that flux that I think creates the great

uncertainty and the great heartache that everyone’s

trying to solve. That’s the hand wringing. That’s the hand

wringing. This is this is why it is so important to get

corporate taxation, right? Because if you’re going to

replace GDP dollar for dollar, don’t focus on the fewer

employees that work there. Focus on the largest number

possible, which is the revenue that these employees are

helping to generate for these companies. So, if you had much

much higher corporate taxation, you can play around with all

the personal taxation you want but if a lot of people do get

shut out of the economy, you’re not going to make nearly as

much for the government as you would by taxing companies more.

Chamath, should there be a backstop? Because we know tax

law is so sophisticated and if you’re intelligent, you could

make it seem like you didn’t make any money because you’re

investing, you’re distributing, yada yada. Should there just be

a Hey, listen, whatever you want to do with your taxes is

fine. But x percent of your top line revenue is your base tax.

And you cannot get around that. Should there be something like

that? There’s a couple things that this tax bill attempted to

do, which could be really powerful if it does get passed.

I think that corporations should pay a large tax. I think

that they should be forced to spend a certain percentage on

R&D. And I think they should be forced to spend a certain

percentage on basically benefits for their employees. And

I think that would do a lot to level the playing field. Then I

do think that you can have much higher individual taxation, but

you need to make it simpler because there’s too many easy

ways like that ProPublica article showed for you to play

games for individuals to not pay taxes. And so you got to

simplify all of this stuff because it’s too complicated. So

if you’re rich enough to hire a fleet of lawyers, you will work

all your way around it. Yes. Period. And they repealed it as

part of the EMT was for corporations was repealed as

part of the tax cuts and jobs act. I think I don’t know where

that stands. But it does seem like a lot of companies because

I don’t know how that makes sense. J kal. I mean, like some

businesses run high margin, some are low margin, some are

losing money, some are over invested. I don’t have the

solution. That’s what I’m sort of saying. But one of the I

think one of the optics issues here is, you know, people are

like that company didn’t pay any taxes. That company sells

this many iPhones, that company. Yes. Because they’re they’re

doing what tax laws were designed to do, which is to

encourage investment. So how do you fix it? Give me a solution

for your bird. I don’t I think that once businesses are mature

and they start dividend in cash and making distributions and

they’re profitable, that might be the time to tax them. I’m not

sure why would they ever do that if they had an army of

people saying, Hey, you don’t have to, you don’t want to

if they’re investing in growth, they’re creating jobs and

they’re growing the economy. And that’s fine. I don’t think

they’re creating as many jobs as you think, but they are growing

the economy. That’s why you have to tax the corporation because

that’s the effective proxy for taxing GDP. Yeah, look, I would

be all about. I’ll wear my libertarian hat again for a

second. But like, I would be all about taxation if I felt like

my dollars had a positive ROI where they ended up. And the

problem right now is like government spending is set up

in such a way that it’s effectively been gamified and

people extract capital from the government. And my dollars are

not getting a positive ROI for me or for society. I would

rather have them sit which is why you left. Let’s be honest.

That’s why you left San Francisco. I mean, it’s just

they’re spending more. I left San Francisco. I’ve got a family

and I and I need a backyard. So that’s a little bit but isn’t

part of it that you are San Francisco, a separate degree of

incompetence, but like, but yes, you’re right. They’re spending

more than ever. And it’s getting worse. San Francisco is

a whole nother a whole nother nightmare. Jake out. Well, like

I’m just speaking in California writ large, in general, right

now, whether it’s the state level or the federal level, it

feels to me, and I think it feels to a lot of people that

dollars aren’t being spent in a way that’s generating a return

for the taxpayer. And I think we all feel that way. And I think

that’s what’s frustrating. It’s not about how much one’s being

taxed. It’s about how are those tax dollars being spent? And are

they being spent in a way that secures the future of our

nation of our people of our livelihoods, etc. And making,

you know, giving everyone access to opportunity, what’s happened,

what’s happened, what’s happened is we’ve created things like

student loan programs, and, you know, housing programs and

infrastructure programs that are literally just giving away

money to private companies that are profiteering off of

government spending, right. And it’s as our favorite Professor

Scott Galloway says, it’s one thing I really do agree with

politics, it is it is that there is this notion of crony

capitalism, where the United States and state governments,

even local governments as seen in San Francisco, California,

all the way up to the federal level, are spending money in a

way that I think we all feel is benefiting some

disproportionately to most. Now, if there was a high degree of

taxation, and everyone was benefited in a meaningful way,

and those programs were well managed, and capital flowed

meaningfully to, to support everything we want to support.

Great. I think everyone would raise their hand, raise two

hands and say, tax the heck out of me. Let’s make that happen.

But that’s not what happens. And I think that’s the primary

aversion to high taxation.

Sachs, you get the final word?

Yeah, I mean, look, I what I’m worried about is taxes are going

up big time, no matter what happens in Washington, spending

is going up big time, we now have peacetime deficits that are

the biggest that they’ve ever been, the deaths that the

national debt, the peacetime national debt, the highest

ever been, we have a looming debt crisis in China, we have

supply chain shortages. I mean, you know what, there’s a lot of

things here that could upset the apple cart. And what I’m afraid

of is we’re going to look back at at this year, the 1000

unicorns being minted and say, that really was the golden era

and everything happened. And after that, we really screwed

up.

You sound like the old guy at Starbucks that says that every

generation and complains about the last generation, golden era,

and it’s all down.

How much does music suck today?

Normally, normally, I will say how impressive it is that 10

years ago, none of those unicorns existed. And it is

likely the case that $3 trillion of value was created via private

funding and private companies over the last 10 years. So all

these entrepreneurs, all these employees, anyone working at

these businesses, anyone involved in these businesses

should be thrilled about the fact that you from zero created

three and a half trillion dollars of value in 10 years.

That’s extraordinary.

Yeah, I’m not I’m not I’m not trying to create nostalgia about

the past. I’m talking about the present and trying to preserve

it because I’m seeing some storm clouds on the horizon.

Yeah, I would like to play the best song from Tony, Tony, Tony

is really Yeah.

Okay, everybody, we’re heading out this one’s for you London

breed.

State state approved entertainment.

You can take off your mask for this entertainment.

It’s so good.

I need you guys watch a squid game.

Anybody watch squid game?

No, we have lives.

Nobody watched the game.

My kid, my kid’s been talking about that.

Should I be letting them watch squid game or is it?

No, it’s the most violent Korean horror dystopian show ever

watched. They’re going to be scarred for life.

Oh, I want to watch that.

Hey, sex as a follow up.

Did you, uh, did you watch the squid game?

As a follow up.

Did you, uh, did you stop your kids from, uh, from tick tock?

Did you take your kids off tick tock?

They told.

Yeah, I went in there.

I’m like, kids, what are you watching?

I’ll tell you in a second.

Yeah.

So did you take your kids off tick tock?

Yeah, I went in there.

I was like, kids, what are you watching?

They’re like, dad, get the hell out of here.

Tell us our names.

And he was like, okay, I’ll be right back.

If you can tell me to turn off tick tock by my name, I’ll do it.

David’s like, see you later.

The conversation was, what do you want?

I was watching on tick tock.

I hear it’s all sex and drugs.

They’re like, no, we’re watching dance videos.

I’m like, okay, go ahead.

I trust you.

The dance videos are literally like.

Absolutely.

Sex and drug-based every single one of them.

It is so deviant.

No, stop.

It is not that you’re so exaggerating.

I am so not exaggerating.

Literally, if you listen, take the most obscene lyric to obscene hook to any rap song.

That’s what trends.

Oh, my God.

It’s so true, guys.

Every generation says the same about the next.

It’s unbelievable, right?

No, but it is like explicit.

Listen, whatever.

I mean, like, you know, Pearl Jam and, you know, all the way back to the Beach Boys.

They said it about Elvis and shaking his hips.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

But I mean, no, this, when I say it’s explicit, it is literally explicit.

You just don’t get the youth, Jekyll.

You don’t understand them.

I think I understand it a little bit too well.

Anyway, you do not.

You see you.

Do you listen?

Oh, hey, guys.

Are we going to do the all in summit or not?

I went to the code conference and I was like, this was amazing to get back.

Jekyll, you got to stop talking about ideas and actually just doing them.

What are you talking about?

We create a spot.

I’m just trying to get buy in.

Jason, take a day to do it.

Go just do it.

OK, all right.

I need your buy in.

We have a voting system here.

We’re all in.

My name is Miami, Miami.

OK, first year, second year, Italy.

Not Rome.

All right.

We’ll do first year, Miami, second year, Italy.

Make it somewhat accessible.

I think we do domestic.

You have a cane, so you can’t get there.

You old fucking bastard.

So here’s how it’s going to work.

Two hundred fifty tickets, 200 for purchase, 50 for scholarship.

All in summit.

Three days, Miami.

Sax and I are off to the races.

Why don’t you make it more people, bro?

Why do you have to keep it so exclusive?

You’re just so exclusive.

I want to.

What is it?

I want to invert the top down hierarchy to what?

I want to be a left wing authoritarian.

What is it that I have to believe in?

That is what you are, a left wing authoritarian.

I just want to be rich and powerful.

I don’t care what party I am.

I just want money, status and power.

Let me tell you.

Let me tell you why I like this idea is because to the points we’re talking about with Coinbase

earlier, we you know, we have these conferences in the tech industry,

and they’re frankly run by people who hate tech in the tech industry.

And people who are successful tickets.

Right, exactly.

And so I see these tech founders going up on these stages and subjecting themselves

to these interrogations by people who hate them.

And I’m like, what are they doing?

Like, it makes no sense.

I’m putting up a form.

I’m going to let people take deposits.

I’m going to pick a month and we’re going to go.

How many people went to the conference, guys?

You went to this week?

The code conference, I think was probably three or 400.

By design.

It was a third or half of the tickets.

I didn’t actually buy a ticket because I didn’t want to be in the conference itself.

Because I was concerned about a breakthrough virus.

But I did host the poker game with Skye and Brooke.

Tickets, I think are 8000 for code.

And I think Ted is up to 10 or 15.

So how much are we charging me like $25,000,500,

7500.

We’re charging 7500.

And then 50 scholarships for people who wouldn’t be able to afford it.

So the gross revenue here is we want 1.5 million.

And what’s our cost going to be?

Cost will be a million.

And what so wait, so we’re so we’re making profit on this deal?

No, I’m making a profit.

We spend.

Let me be very clear.

We spend what we spend what we make.

I am buying the wine and you will shut the fuck up.

Okay, so then it’s going to be it’s going to cost 2 million.

So it’s going to make 1.5.

No, no, no.

And if he’s doing the wine.

No, it’s gonna go to me.

I want I want a wine budget so that everybody that comes is it feels like they’ve had an

exceptional food and beverage experience.

So much is gonna spend half a million dollars on wine.

No joke.

So then it has to be 10k a ticket.

But you know what the people who are coming can afford it.

They don’t take out we’re not privileging you with some profiteering.

I’m not profiteering off of it.

Honestly, the reason I want to do it most is I want to play poker for three days.

And I want to have us the four of us interview the most iconoclastic interesting people.

And I want to do it for the fans so that some number of fans get to come who wouldn’t

normally be able to come to a conference at this level.

And I just think it’d be a blast.

It’d be fun to get together.

Okay, stop talking about it and do it.

We’re all okay.

I’ll do it.

All right.

I just want to make sure everybody’s bought in.

I mean, to get you fuckers on a date.

I’ll set a date.

Okay, not not the first week of February, because I think I have a I’m thinking March,

April, March, April.

Also, not the third week of February, because I think I’m skiing in Europe.

Jesus fucking Christ.

Can you give us the dates you’re not gallivanting around Europe and other places?

Bro, I’m grinding every day here.

You see what I’m doing?

It’s like, I’m fucking working hard to I mean, it’s crazy right now.

It’s like, I’ve never seen the market like this.

I mean, it is bonkers.

Enjoy it while it lasts.

What’s that?

Enjoy it while it lasts.

Exactly.

All right, everybody, we’ll see you next time for the dictator Chamath Palihapitiya

for the Rain Man David Sachs and the Queen of Quinoa.

David Friedberg.

I’m Jay Cow.

And we’ll see you on episode 55.

Bye.

Oh,

we should all just get a room and just have one big huge orgy because they’re all just

it’s like this like sexual tension that they just need to release somehow.