Point of privilege sacks wore this hat last week
What’s this brand? Is this a Montclair hat?
Yeah, and actually did you see that that tweet people it’s trending it started trending after I wore it
So it’s sold out dude, you sold out the Montclair hat. So we have no advertising
We I feel like if we’re not gonna do any advertising on the show
We should at least get free clothes. We get to pick through them. Wear what we like. I know where’s my cut?
Where’s my cut as an influencer the tweet basically said that I named drop Laura Piana and sent it through the roof and then
Saks they’ve dropped Montclair both brands. Obviously our Italian both entrepreneurs. We know very well
And so I asked that I said Matt, can you basically send this tweet over to that?
So maybe they can give us free
Let’s get the grift going boys now. We’re talking now. We got some bestie grits. God. No, you speak in my language
Speaking of grits, I do like Montclair the way that your mouth likes Laura Piano
Just so you guys know at the birthday Jason that you missed
Are we allowed to play poker? We had a birthday. We had a surprise birthday party for me
That through it
sack showed up
Free bird showed up their wives showed up. It was incredible. J. Cal basically stiff army. I’m very sorry
It was a by the way that came together four days before your birthday. So just show you uh-huh
Well, you know what Kevin Hart showed up. Give us the best one liner, which one landed? Oh, no, Jake
Oh, you have no idea. These guys roasted me. It was fucking incredible. But the best of it was at the end
okay, Hart gets up with no preparation and
Skewers everybody free bird. I mean deep. What do you think of like Kevin’s rose Carter? He was so funny
he’s like my wife walked in here and she looks at me and she’s like
These these guys
I think but it was so funny. He dropped a line. Of course. Well, he’s a ringer. He’s a professional
Well, he’s maybe the funniest person in the world and then sacks had to come after. Yeah, exactly
Xander I don’t know why Xander was the MC but because I was a save Kevin Hart for last
But instead he calls up K Hart in the middle. That’s was so tilted
Okay, so wait, so I couldn’t make you because I had burning man
The Xander does the emceeing then Kevin Hart you were saying is just to fill in the audience here so they can understand it
Kevin Hart comes in he gives this incredible ad-lib roast and then sacks has to go after him. Yeah
First of all Xander’s is funny. That’s a great bag. What a sandbag
Xander’s as funny as a root canal. He should not have been the MC. So yes, we did miss you Jake
You should have been the MC second K Hart should have been left for last obviously worse, but
Xander being a good liberal couldn’t
Censor me outright. So he had me go after K Hart. That’s like the next best thing. Did you steal his documents?
Did you steal all his jokes and put them in your I just threw I had all these like jokes written
I just threw him out the window because I can’t what am I gonna do?
I’m not gonna deliver jokes after Kevin Hart. So I just told a story, you know, Kevin Hart like killed
I mean the room was I mean, that’s like that’s like getting punched by Mike Tyson being like, oh my god that hurt
It’s like shits Mike Tyson
We were at
The the code conference we had the poker game was the last one after 20
Shut up to Kara Swisher big shot. I want to say to Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher
Because they did the conference many years together. Congratulations on a 20-year run
They’re not gonna do it. Okay, I was not gonna do it next year
But my friend Jim bank off who runs Vox is gonna run it next year
So congratulations to him and Cara for a great run and all things deep
They you know, they they they had Steve Jobs at the first one first speaker and you can look it up
I got to ask him a question Jake. Oh, I don’t know if you remember this, but you and I were there when
gates and jobs
Did that speech together?
Unbelievable. What what an incredible legacy that she documented this code code is incredible
Like I mean the number of the amount of memories I have from that place is incredible
It’s great. And so we’ll see where the poker game goes next year
Probably the only time I think the all-in summit could have been that it’s it’s heartbreaking. It’s heartbreaking
I’m not saying that I’ll be hosting the code conference next year, but
You know, they’re looking for an impresario
this is the problem with this pot is we’re drawing too many high-profile people in now, but
Interestingly freeberg and I we now have the press
Wants the the press are trying to do a profile of the pod
And so we had three or four different press outlets now
I would say which ones but have all asked us to do like a sit for a profile. We’ve said no
But just because why don’t we do a profile of them who’s to make them the media, you know?
Well, I mean
Our competitors want to do a piece on us. Why would we cooperate?
You know, it’s gonna be a hit a hit piece. It’d probably be hippies. Yeah, of course because we’re we’re stealing
Influence and clicks and views away from them
It’s done besides they’re ideologically motivated anyway, so they’re they’re message police sex. You don’t think you’re ideologically motivated
Listen if you contradict the official narrative, then they write a hit piece about you. That’s how they try to enforce discipline
But not that is true. It’s I like the independent ones
I do have to say like this whole, you know
Substack movement in independent artists or independent journalists becoming even more indie. In fact, Kara Swisher is more Indian now
She left the New York Times
Specifically because they were you know, giving her a hard time about certain guests or certain conversations and now she’s you know
Doing her pockets independently with Vox publishing it for her
So you see more and more of the voices go independent New Republic is doing a hit piece on me right now
I have no idea why
Me and I CC them and I was like, here’s my official comment
I can’t wait to visit sacks when he’s in the White House in 20 years and the guys like so you’re saying sacks is writing
For a president. I’m saying no. I’m saying that you don’t understand a joke. That was a joke
Yeah, and then and then after you copied me then they’re like, oh, yeah
We were reaching out to David to to get in. No, yeah, and they hadn’t reached out to you yet, right?
I had it reached out. Anyway, so they were going a little sneaky sneak. They were trying to get me
It doesn’t matter. I don’t have time. I don’t have time to talk to them
You know looks a nice that would be a nice profile. I think nobody reads
I think it’s not what it used to be if it were if it were Michael Kinsley running the New Republic
I’d be happy to you know, take the time, but it’s not that anymore. It’s just another left-wing rag that’s into policing speech
You know, they asked they sent us a bunch of questions like, you know, why questions?
Well, I don’t I don’t have them in front of me
but they’re like they’re basically like why did you support the recall of Jason Boudin stuff like that and
My you know PR person got back to him and said have you seen the all-in pod?
Have you read David’s like Twitter because he explained this like abundantly for the two years
He was advocating every week. We talked about we talked about this. There’s a
Sitting there in the transcripts, right? He’s like, oh
He talked about in the pod. He the guy didn’t listen to the pot. He’s like he tweeted about this
No, he just thinks I’m like some right-wing donor who was like trying to get chase it kicked out that kind of narrative
You know, so I’m like this is a total waste of my time
Go read all my tweets go watch the all-in pod and then come back with any questions. I haven’t been answered
It’s this lazy reporting on the New Republic’s part. Why would you do a profile if you didn’t actually?
You are having a serious conversation while free bird is fucking around with his background. What is his background? What is that?
It’s a future city in Saudi Arabia. Who else is planning on doing a hit piece about us. Okay, so the information
reached out and
We said no
Actually on the show right now, I guess I think this way we should deal with all inbound press inquiries
This will tell him no and then discuss it on the pod
If they want to quote
Listen to our pod and then transcribe what we say on this pod or reverse it
My quote for the New Republic is that if Michael Kinsley were still the editor
I’d be happy to spend my valuable time talking to you, but he’s not
Fair profile, of course, it’s not gonna be fair. There are the speech police now
And the fact he didn’t even know the fact he didn’t even know that
I wasn’t just a donor on the chase of Boudin thing. I was the first person that I’m aware of
At least within Silicon Valley who called out chaser Boudin for the horrible job. He was I mean if that was bipartisan, by the way
It’s not like David Sachs is one of the 3% of San Franciscans who are Republican
Like he’s not able to vote for the 69% of people who voted Chesa Boudin out
So like you can’t spin that one. You’re categorizing me as like just a partisan. That’s not really how I come at these issues
Can we go back to your quotes? So that was your comment for New Republic J Cal
Do you have a comment for New York Times? And then no, it started with Eric
I got the affairs Eric newcomer who’s awesome who worked at the information started his own sub stack
Which is really good, by the way, and he comes on my other pod. He’s awesome
And so I’m gonna be a guest on his pod because I promised him and he does my pot
But I’m not gonna be a guest my philosophy is I told him I said you can have me as a guest
But it can’t be more than 10% all in because I don’t want it to become an all-in profile
We agreed as a group. We’re not doing an all-in profile right now
So up to 10% can be about all in but the other 90% has got to be my other projects and he said totally fine
Um, he understands but he asked first and actually I would be inclined to do with him because he’s if we were gonna do it
But then what do they need?
I mean like we create like hours and hours of content and the drama’s out here for everybody to like
I don’t understand. Like what is what do you need our cooperation? I think you want to know you want to maybe frame
And get a couple sleep
No, you want you just want to get a couple of quotes that are unique so that it’s worth reading
These poor guys have shoved their heads up each other’s asses. Oh, it’s like a it’s like a serpent
Wow, I’ve never hunted serpents. You’re clear up here
Clean bill of health sacks. So anyway, Eric newcomer asked and then the information and then Kevin
No, the New York Times just asked right Kevin Ruiz. Oh, yeah. What was a nice in your time?
That’s right your comment my comment in there times is
Yeah, I enjoyed the pod while it lasts we’re trying to keep it together
I mean, I’ll say the other big issue is I got approached by a couple of by two different people who wanna
Who want to represent the pod?
They say there’s seven and a half million dollars in advertising. We’re leaving on the table by the way 150 a week good
To 10 million
Killing me you realize I would have a plane if you guys just let me sell the fucking heads on this thing
I could get like a half dollars in jets. Yeah, you would have a plane if you just one other thing
You’re doing actually different things just do one thing. I’ll tell you what it is. You’d have a plane if you’re smarter
That’s not that’s not nice sex that’s not nice I would have a plane if I got luckier
I will say whoever said this is gonna help our core businesses. And that’s the reason I think might have been you tomorrow. I
am raising my fourth fund I
Am doing it 506 e which is public I tweeted about it. I had 1200 people
sign up for the webinar and
This means I might have to increase the size of my fourth venture fund because so many people
Listen to this pod and want to hang out. So thank you to everybody who listens to the pot
I think for you, bro
I mean, it’s just nice, you know, I you know, I struggled to raise the first couple funds
You guys backed me, but like I couldn’t break through as a solo GP
With that with the big LPS, but I’m hoping to get one big LP this time
And you know, it’s I’m gonna be oversubscribed with all the high net worth individuals and everything
But I’d like to get like a memorial Sloan-Kettering or somebody doing cancer research just to feel good about it
You know, I just want to say that I supported J Cal as a friend
In fact, I was the first LP check in your fund, but that does not mean that I endorsed in any way in any way
Anybody else to come in I mean, whatever you’re I don’t want to say the performance, but you’re doing okay
Let’s leave it at that. Yeah, and I would like you say that I was not the first but I was the biggest
You did you did pretty big. Yeah, absolutely
And I will say that I’m still waiting for that moment to join you guys in jail
Yeah, exactly
Yeah, and I’ll just keep coming to your LP meetings and entertaining your thanks pal
Entertaining wait is Jake on an investor in production board. No, we did we have done we’ve done a syndicate together
You are you are my smallest investor you
Let’s get to work guys
The Queen the passing of the Queen real quick before we start or is that I would like to yeah
I was born in Sri Lanka. I was raised in Canada. So and now I live in the United States
Obviously, I’ve been a citizen of all three countries. So two of the three countries
I’ve been a subject
To the Queen I mean, I’m part of the Commonwealth and I just want to say
It was really sad for me like these last couple of days when I would saw that she was sick
and then she had passed I
Gotta be honest with you. Like it really touched me. She is an
Incur I can’t describe to you guys
For someone who is part of that realm how important she is as a person and then you know, if you’ve seen you know the
the show on Netflix it kind of
Romanticizes a little bit but you know, she has seen 17 prime ministers. She’s seen so many presidents
She has seen the history of the world
The modern world being made in front of her
So yeah, I’m a little sad and I think she’s an incredible person and even if you don’t agree
Necessarily with monarchies in general. I think you have to be super positive or the history of imperialism
There’s a lot of people that are kind of using this moment to be negative, right?
Jamaica wants to become a republic. Australia wants to become a republic. They’ll prosecute that in due time
But for right now, I just think that we have to celebrate this
Incredible woman who lived to an incredible age who saw incredible things and who dedicated her entire life
To the public service and lived it totally neutrally which in today’s world
Nobody else does everybody else takes the point of the point
Everybody else everybody else tries to basically like, you know, create a schism
She never did that in 70 years as the Queen
Yeah, like very stoic very stoic in a symbol of service not a symbol of dictatorship, right?
I mean there seems to be a very different role that she’s taken as a monarch then I think what yeah has maybe historically been
the role
Which is incredible pretty profound, right? It’s extraordinary that somebody would put 70 years of service and be that diligent
And I think stoic and in there for her people and to the people who are you know suffering and grieving, you know
That word you said really resonated with me like diligent is such a great word because it’s like you’re disciplined
You put in hard work. You’re focused on the long-term goal and then you’re selfless
Yes, not many people not many people Jake out
You know this exhibit that at all, but then definitely don’t exhibit it over 70 years
It’s it’s extraordinary and yeah, it’s I know a lot of people are grieving right now
So you have somebody as a citizen of the monarchy? I am of the Commonwealth rather
I am pro Queen Elizabeth and it deeply saddens me to see that she passed away. All right, listen, we got to talk about
Winter is coming. I’m not talking about Game of Thrones. Let’s talk about something serious that’s going on here
and we don’t like to be too repetitive here, but I think
we correctly
Predicted that you know this if this Ukraine, I think maybe sacks you pointed this out of this. You know, what do you mean?
We came Osabi
All right. Listen, I’m trying to give you fucking credit and you interrupted me. Can you just take the fucking win?
You’re such a miserable bastard. I try to give you one fucking finish finish what you’re saying and you cut me off
All right. Listen, we’ve been talking about this Ukraine thing sacks correctly predicted if this goes to winter
this is
Going to get acute and of course right on cue here
We have it. Russia has essentially cut off gas to Europe right now by
Claiming that the Nord Stream one the north pipeline that Russia built that goes under the Baltic Sea
They basically say a turbines broken in it
Magically at this point in time right before winter this turbine broke according to Putin and he needs a turbine
And if they give him a turbine he said he’s gonna turn it back on
This in the face of Europe saying they were gonna cap the price of Russian gas
I don’t know how that works exactly that you tell people what they can charge for gas
But Russian gas shipments, which Germany is particularly
Dependent on have fallen 89% since last year and the price of liquefied natural gas in Europe is
Four times level a year ago in eight times the level of the US
obviously we are have gotten incredibly lucky to find all this natural gas here and we are a huge exporter of
Natural gas and oil in the United States, so we’re good
this is the highest power prices have been in three decades and
The perfect storm is not limited to oil and the Russia and the Ukraine war
France’s 56 nuclear power plants are running at half-strength
Because of shutdowns over corrosion problems and as we talked about maybe two episodes droughts have undermined hydroelectric power
Because of these that’s not the main issue here. The main issue is the well
This is there is a perfect storm here. It’s not just that 40% of Europe’s
Energy consumption comes from Russian natural gas
40% and so you could see variance
There’s a base load requirement for lighting and electricity and then there’s industrial production and then there’s heating and cooling
Heating and cooling demand is linearly tied to the number of degrees above or below 65 Fahrenheit on average
And so as the temperature goes up people turn air conditioners on as the temperature goes below 65
They turn their heaters on so there’s a linear demand for power consumption at those
so number one is you could kind of you could either cut base load, which is lighting and basic kind of
Operations number two is cut industrial production
Which is already happening a lot of fertilizer plants are shutting down in the country that are dependent on natural in the in the continent
That are dependent on natural gas
And number three is the school at heating and cooling and that really ends up being kind of a market driven function
Which is how pricey is this stuff because there’s limited supply
So you could normally in a normal year see fluctuations around 5 10 15 percent
Maybe with good kind of action and behavior
40% of energy being cut is a massive massive
Problem there will be significant price climbs for the kind of variable demand and heating and cooling and so on
But for the price to go up by 6x 7x 8x 10x 15x over normal prices for someone
Is unbearable by the average household unbearable by the average small business unbearable by the average small building
And so it’s causing critical failure
across the economy
across the currencies across debt markets
And there’s real concern that ultimately the shutting off of 40% of the energy supply
To the continent leading into winter winter is coming where energy demand spikes because of the need for heating is
Going to cause real kind of problems. So there’s the cataclysmic problem of people actually being able to heat their homes
There’s the industrial problem of parts of the economy shutting down and then there’s the currency
Problem of the government’s needing to step in and bail out industry buy super expensive gas
Give it to their citizens and their businesses at a discounted price and seeing their national and sovereign debts skyrocket
which is now expected to happen and as a result, the British pound is trading at its lowest level since
1985 and as a result people are rushing to the street from Prague to Cologne Germany even in London
Proclaiming that the government’s aren’t doing enough number one to stall the the rate of inflation to make energy prices cheaper through action
By having the government subsidized and number three, which I think was inevitable and is now becoming kind of the surprise factor to the Ukraine crisis
Citizens are saying end this war now
Get to the table with Russia come up with a settlement and get the heck out of the Ukraine, by the way
That’s not everyone saying it just to be clear, but there is this rising
Rioting protesting behavior happening across Europe, particularly in Eastern Europe as a result of the Ukraine war
And so we’re seeing you know
I think a big shift in attitude and a big shift in kind of the societal perception of this war
Particularly in Europe because they’re so acutely feeling the effects and we are not in the u.s
They’re acutely feeling the effects and they’re saying we need to stop this war now. We need to get out of the way
We need to let Russia turn the gas pipeline back on and we need to figure out a resolution
Stop supporting Ukraine. And that’s a voice. That was that’s a voice that did not exist very loudly
Yeah at the beginning and it’s and it’s starting to swell
Running out of food or you know running out of heat to keep your kids warm. I mean, these are pretty acute situations
What’s the vibe in the Middle East about this? Are they looking at it and seeing it as an opportunity?
Are they looking at it and seeing it as?
You know a manageable crises and what do they consider their participation in this to be?
There’s a very structured framework for energy production, which is OPEC and OPEC plus and
You know
They have done
not just the Middle East but frankly the Middle East plus
The United States the best job possible to basically get the maximum demand so that there’s as much energy as possible
The reasons that Europe are in an energy crisis really should be discussed
Honestly, so number one
an entire continent
Essentially allowed a 16 year old girl to dictate their energy policy
and when Greta Thunberg was able to shame an
entire continent into basically
Walking away from nuclear and not really evaluating how you can actually have energy independence
What they did was they put Europe in an incredibly fragile position and
At the beginning of this war. It wasn’t clear
How much damage the lack of Russian energy would do to the European economy, but now it’s absolutely clear
How did you not see that?
We said it on the credit. We said it on the pod in February. How did they not?
I mean Trump said it years ago. I mean the first thing we said, how is it not obvious?
The problem is you had these look to be honest
You had these two goofballs
You had a goofball on the left, which was a 16 year old girl who knew nothing and you had a goofball on the right
Which is a president whose language turned people off
Even though the message that he was delivering was a hundred percent right when when Trump went to the United Nations
He was clear. He was precise and in hindsight, and I’m saying this as a Democrat. He was right
Oh about the German reliance on Russian gas and and the European reliance on gas
What did they think would happen?
The important thing was was the reaction remember that German delegation snickering while he was laughing
They were laughing but but we’re but we’re missing the real lesson
the real lesson is that in all of our haste to basically
Overtly judge Trump because of his delivery and his you know, his personal style or whatever
We ran towards a 16 year old person who has no rooting in science or technology
To dictate the energy policy of an entire continent. I mean the she was nominated for a Nobel Prize
Just to remind you guys
This is how insane all of these people were so in an effort to virtue signal to the hilt and beyond
What we essentially did what the entire world did was turn a blind eye to science
And turn a blind eye to mathematics and simple understanding of supply and demand and so now you have a situation where
The entire continent of Europe is probably on the precipice of and the minimum of recession
but frankly, there’s a lot of scenarios where it could be meaningfully worse and
I think what it does is ultimately it is forced the Russian endgame and
that Russian endgame is essentially the following which is that
Germany
will probably be the first to capitulate but
It’ll be the combination of the United States in Europe who negotiate some kind of a settlement
They have to fall and and the reason well without calling it folding
I would just say there’s a settlement and the reason the settlement is necessary is you’re gonna start to impact
tens of millions of people’s lives in an
Incredibly arduous way and
those people are
Asking their leaders to tell them why it’s worth it. That’s why you’re seeing
protests all around Europe
people have decided that this war has gotten two or three steps beyond what they thought they were getting into and
that it was
Shining light on a whole set of decisions that never should have been made sacks
What’s I think what people most want to know and I’ll go to Fribourg after sex Fribourg
I think people gonna want to know
How do they close this gap in terms of the 40% dependency so you can start thinking about that
But sacks, how do we resolve this issue with Russia without enabling them because nobody wants to enable them and reward them for evading countries
but here we are they didn’t settle this thing in the whatever nine months we’re in now and
They don’t have any more cards to play. They need heat. They need
People can’t freeze to death in Germany
So they’re gonna have to fold in some way and it doesn’t seem like there’s any gap that can be closed here in terms
There’s not enough firewood to go around. It’s all these stories about stockpiling firewood. That doesn’t seem practical
Sure, you could reduce consumption by 10 20, maybe 25 percent that does seem reasonable, but there’s still a huge gap here
So so what’s the endgame sacks? I mean, well first just just to put some numbers on this
There’s a good report by Goldman Sachs called Europe’s energy
Crisis is at a tipping point this came out on September 8th
And it says here that the price of natural gas in Europe
It used to just be 20 euros per megawatt hour. It’s now above 200 per megawatt hour
So we’re at 10 times the 10-year average in the market and winter isn’t even here
So, you know Europe is the Titanic winter is the iceberg
The main difference between this and the Titanic story is that everyone can see the iceberg and yet no one is really changing course
So Liz trust the new prime minister of the UK so that Ukraine can depend on UK for support in the long term
Olaf Schultz said that Germany will support Ukraine as long as it takes
Macron, you know from France so that NATO will stand together and prevent Russia from winning the war
So, you know leader after leader is doing the opposite of what you and and Chamath have just said
Which is try to figure out a compromise
in fact in the last week or so new information came out about actions Boris Johnson took
Back in March or April when there was remember when there was discussion about a peace deal about a month into the war
It turns out that Boris Johnson went to Ukraine and said no deal do not take the deal
We need to weaken Putin and Russia not compromise with them
so the fact of the matter is that
The European leaders are increasingly out of touch with their own people
The agenda they are serving is not the agenda of or the desire of their people
To basically stay warm in the winter or pay reasonable energy bills. They are serving this larger foreign policy agenda
This is why you’re seeing people in the streets in Czechoslovakia and these other countries and this is why the crisis will only grow in
Winter I think you guys are just assuming there’s gonna be a compromise. I’m not sure that’s true. These leaders are stubborn
So this is why for example, we’ve already now seen in the UK Boris Johnson
Lost power, although listrust basically has the same policy
Mario Draghi has basically lost in Italy at Bulgaria replaced their PM
So the leaders the dominoes are starting to fall in Europe and I think there’s gonna be a lot more of this and who knows what?
Governments we’re gonna end up with in Europe. What’s the endgame then? I mean, what do you what do you predict will happen?
You think they’re gonna hold their ground and not have a compromise. So Chamath pointed out the mistakes that
These leaders made following Greta Thunberg
I think there’s another mistake they’ve made which is I think all of these leaders have pulled a Tony Blair
Do you remember Tony Blair? Tony Blair was the Bill Clinton of the UK after Margaret Thatcher
He was the first Labour PM to get elected
He was incredibly talented as a politician and he was very popular in the UK until he did one thing
You know what that one thing was?
He went along with George W Bush’s
Iraq war the people of the UK did not want to get involved in that war and Blair acted as W’s
lapdog and went along with it and bought into all of the lies about that war and
Today he has zero credibility in the UK. It’s really actually a sad story
I think that these European leaders are making a similar kind of mistake with respect to Biden’s proxy war against Russia
Now, let’s go back. I want to go back to a point you made Jason just an L. Let’s turn to free bird
Which is you talked about the fig leaf that the Russians are blaming this on a turbine
I don’t think that’s even really true anymore. I mean the Russians of course is lying. Of course. Yeah
yeah, but but I think the Russians have basically said that
That listen, this is about your sanctions. It’s not sanctions. It’s sanctions and a turbine. It’s like pick one, right?
But but the point I’m trying to make it look obviously this is retaliation by the Russians. The problem is the stupidity of
Western leaders in not thinking there’s gonna be retaliation
I mean all you’re hearing right now from Western leaders is indignation that Russia would play
The only card they have the card that was obvious they were gonna play, you know
Meanwhile, look at what we’ve done
So you’ve got administration officials
Talking about the fact that we have commandos on the ground in Ukraine
You’ve got administration officials bragging about the fact that we are helping to paint targets on the backs of Russian generals
so they can be killed you have administration officials boasting about providing the
Artillery spotting so we could sink the Moscow the the Russian flagship. I’ll provide receipts for all these things
Okay, you’ve got Biden saying that Putin cannot remain in power. You’ve got Lindsey Graham saying
Let’s go forward how does it resolve you’ve got Lindsey Graham saying these be assassinated like Caesar
You’ve got the u.s. Appropriate 40 billion to hold on a second in weapons to Ukraine. So my point is this okay?
The u.s. And the Western Alliance, they are doing everything in Ukraine except pulling the triggers
Okay, they are doing the attack
Okay, so the point is we are in a proxy war with Russia
Yeah, what did you expect was gonna happen?
These leaders are not going to play what should happen going forward. Hold on. So you’re in the review forget about playing chess
They’re not even playing checkers meaning they cannot even anticipate what the Russians are gonna do next
It was imminently predictable imminently predictable that the Russians were going to turn off European gas and create this crisis
So what should they have done what they should have done was work out a bus deal
I know that but we’re kind of repeating the same position you have every week here. I’m trying to get to going forward
So free bird, what should we do going forward here both on an energy basis and a political basis?
That’s the thing I get the sort of breakdown of what occurred here in your position sacks
But what do you think free bird should happen going forward? How do we say there’s an acute energy shortfall?
You can’t just make that up. You can’t convert oil into natural gas to heat people’s homes
It’s impossible structurally right now in the time frame that it’s needed. So what should the u.s?
What should the EU be doing now that they’re not doing?
Yeah, I think that there’s gonna be this inevitability that we’re gonna need to broker a deal with Russia and
There’s and what I think you’ll see over the next couple of months particularly because winter is coming
is you need to
There’s gonna be a lot of saving face. And so I think I’ve always said from the beginning
I think that Putin’s calculus is to go as far and as deep as he can go
so that he could eventually negotiate himself back out in a way that leaves him with what he originally wanted in the first place and
I think that there are certain strategic regions and certain strategic assets that it’s pretty clear and evident
He wanted and if he’s gotten enough in addition to that
He can give up the additional part and he can get sanctions lifted and he can turn gas back on and be left with what
He actually wanted and ultimately get out of this thing
And then the sick the face saving will be from the West will be hey, we got him to give up this
We got him to give up this we got him to agree to non-incursion and there’ll be some sort of you know
Hey, we got Putin knocked down a bit and you know, we got him out of there. We did it
We won high five meanwhile Putin smiling because he got exactly what he wanted
I think that’s where this is all gonna end up over the next several months
I think that’s that’s if it doesn’t there’s gonna be significant writing and civil unrest in Europe and
and there will be a significant significant economic effect because so much of Germany and so much of the broader continent is
Dependent on a stable low cost or lower enough cost energy supply for the production of things that are produced in Europe
And if those things can’t be produced profitably because the end market won’t pay for it
The economy will be shattered
Economies will be shattered and people will be really unhappy
Food will climb and the currency will be destroyed and you know what happens when currencies get destroyed all
Imports become inflated in price and then you have inflation if there isn’t a resolution in the next few weeks
There will be civil unrest. There will be a really cataclysmic concerning economic effect
And you think that forces the government’s to just fold to Putin and give him some yeah
We don’t know for sure is what are they gonna do from a face-saving move perspective?
What are they gonna say the Ukraine or the the West Alliance Ukraine?
We are gonna have to plow so much money into the Ukraine
To make them feel okay about what we’re gonna ask them to do in order to remove
or to end the crisis and so there’s gonna be this huge check this huge investment in Ukraine the Western investment in Ukraine the
Support mechanism for the country for the people left behind in order to get this thing resolved
And so my guess is huge amount of money from the West and EU going into Ukraine
Ukraine agrees to let Putin keep some regions some assets
Putin agrees to remove himself from certain regions and give up certain assets sanctions are partially lifted
But they’re partially lifted enough to get the flow of gas going and to get the economy turning again
Chamath any final thoughts here as we turn around their base here on this of
Lessons learned and how to avoid this you may
You may you may want to find a clip Nick from July where I said the tip of the spear in the fall was going
To be the European energy crisis
Oil is at a hundred and five bucks a barrel. Russia is basically trying to break the back of
Europe by now messing with their nat gas supplies
The German energy minister yesterday said that if that happens it could be a contagion equivalent to Lehman Brothers
With respect to energy
You’re already starting to see food riots food insecurity energy insecurity rampant inflation
sovereign defaults and
you have to ask yourself like how are we going to really tourniquet this whole thing and prevent a
Much bigger contagion like free bird just talked about if Russia decides to play hardball against
Europe or America
We better hope that it’s a mild winter because very quickly you can go from plus 1 million barrels to minus 2 and in a heartbeat
yeah, my final thoughts are the following which is that I think that the
European
System is going to be put under stress because there are really a bunch of different countries with very different incentives right now
Where some countries are in desperate need of energy some countries can probably stave it off for a little bit longer
Other countries are so adamantly focused on their position on
Russia over and above
Any source of energy that they may need or don’t have
so I just think like this is a really good point to take a step back and realize that in
all of these conflicts
Sadly whenever you have like all of these very complicated countries fighting very complicated wars
it’s really important to understand what these trade-offs are because ultimately what we’re learning in Europe is that
Irrespective of what you morally and ethically believe is right in the Ukraine
The minute that it affects you and Jason you’ve said this what is it? Like you’re only one meal away from a revolution
So yeah, and I think it would be you’re only like five days away from having no heat before people right on the street
It’s probably a tad but but that but that’s the lesson which is that at the end of the day it is
When you’re in a position of comfort you can focus on
forward-and-outlooking
moral
attributes and ethical perspectives that matter
But the minute that you are affected at home where you cannot take care of your children or heat your house
all bets are off and I think this just goes to show you that
If you’re going to sort of engage in proactive foreign policy
You need to make sure that domestically you don’t have any Achilles heels and Europe had a massive Achilles heel
Which is energy and then you know the minute that they were well, they stress tested it
Basically, they’re gonna have to take this much more seriously going into the next year because they’ve enabled a madman
That is the dominant narrative. There is a simplistic binary that has been set up that this is a war between
Autocracy and democracy and that’s all there is to it
And my point is that this conflict has always been more complicated than that
okay, and if you really want to understand this conflict you have to go back and understand the history of it and
You know the American media and the British media
They basically act as if this whole thing began on February 24th for a good example of this. There was an excellent piece by
William Perry who is Bill Clinton’s?
Defense secretary. Okay. He said how the u.s. Lost Russia and how we can restore
Relations and he talks about how we can chart a way forward for peace
Which I think is your question what Perry points out remember again?
He was Clinton’s defense secretary in the 1990s. He almost resigned in protest
over NATO expansion eastward
this was basically a contradiction of the verbal assurances that James Baker and and
President George Herbert Walker Bush had given Gorbachev that we would not expand NATO one inch eastward in any event
that’s when NATO expansion began was the late 90s Perry was against it because like George Kennan like
Former ambassador to the Soviet Union James Matlock. He understood that it would be provocative
It would be seen as a provocative move by Russia. Okay, he was against that policy
The other thing he points out is that in the 1990s the Russian economy collapsed because they moved off of
Soviet system and we did absolutely nothing to help them as a result of that
We bred the conditions for a strong man to emerge who basically
Prioritized the restoration of Russian pride dignity and strength
Okay, so he points out the ways that our policies helped create Putin
I think what he basically suggests in terms of the way forward is look we have to realize that the security architecture of
Europe was crafted in the late 90s and early 2000s at a time when Russia was flat on its back
Okay, what are the Russians basically demanding? What were their demands prior to this war? There were two things
They really didn’t like okay. Number one was they didn’t know what their doorstep we’ve been on
They didn’t want Ukraine admitted to NATO and then number two is they didn’t want American missiles
Right on their border that could hit Moscow in five minutes
Okay
those were their two demands the fact the matter is we never were willing to negotiate at all on those two demands at all and
Instead we basically just claims they were a pretext by the Russians for an invasion. Well look
We never earned the right to call those a pretext if you want to call them a pretext you take those issues off the table
Then if the Russians invade, you know, they’re liars
The truth of matter is we refused
We never played that move and so I’ll never know I don’t disagree with you about that point
Okay, the big lesson here is they need the you the European Union needs to learn
I want to keep going with this because I think this issue is so much deeper
Okay, listen, one of the problems we have in this country is that when a war
Doesn’t work out. We just ghost it. We never talk about Afghanistan anymore
We never talk about Iraq anymore. We understand they were gigantic mistakes, but who is analyzing why they happened?
Who’s responsible for the failure the fact the matter is there’s been no accountability the same people who drove our
Disastrous foreign policy in the Middle East are the same people who have driven our Ukraine policy in Eastern Europe
There is no military concept. Not just that is the foreign policy elite in this country. Okay
Yeah, okay, so my point is this and you’re it sounds to me like you’re willing to now say what compromise can we find to
Get out of this war. Okay, my way since I’m gonna try and avoid war from the beginning
I do think we did not play the piece of hey if NATO is not here if we don’t let them in NATO
And we take that off the table
Will you move these troops back from the border and who we don’t know if they ever offered that or not
But I know we do now actually there was there was new information that came out of the last couple of weeks
Okay, obviously they should have offered that. I mean, the real issue here is dependency on
Dictators for energy because if he if he did not have the ability to yank that gas chain if he didn’t have that Nord
He would be neutered right? Okay, but we knew that we knew that so so if you’re playing
You’re not even saying it accurately
If he didn’t have Nord it’s that doesn’t exist without an entire other counterparty agreeing to I agree if Germany
Had kept their nukes going and if they had made other plans, perhaps with them, okay, but
Or the United States. I mean, we don’t forget Biden canceled our energy independence the first day. He was in office
It doesn’t matter that it’s a dictator on the other side. There is a dependency on the other side and that’s an issue
I’m in for energy and dependence since the beginning. I’ve been talking about nuclear since the beginning for decades
I’ve been talking but Jake out one of the challenges is if everyone creates
Independency on all of their supply, then there is no export market for countries that benefit from exports because they have a surplus
And so we see this around the world with food with energy with manufacturing
China a bad thing with oil. That’d be a good thing with oil, wouldn’t it China? There was no market for it?
If there was no market for oil than a lot of less
A lot of countries that do not have energy stocks
Locally would not be able to acquire energy stocks
Locally would not be able to acquire energy stocks. And so a more free
More does it make sense if you if you’re saying if we lowered our use of oil
That would make it cheaper, which means that developing countries would pay less
Jacob, just just let me finish my point for one second
In every country you are either an importer or an exporter
You’re an importer of manufactured goods or an exporter of manufactured goods. You’re an importer of energy
You’re an exporter of energy an importer of food and exporter of food
It doesn’t matter and we often use this as a way to characterize
The leadership of these countries as being bad when we end up in conflict with them
It doesn’t matter that this person is that there’s an autocracy on the other side
Or if there’s a democracy on the other side at the end of the day
If there’s a global trade agreement, if there’s a supply agreement and that supply agreement gets broken
It’s both parties faults for being dependent on the supply agreement and then allowing conflict
I don’t think what you’re saying is accurate and i’ll explain why
um reasonable parties
um
Who are democracies?
If they get into a trade dispute generally do not invade each other’s country. So that’s where your argument breaks down
It would be absolutely fantastic. If the lesson the european union learned here was let’s not be dependent
What did the united states do to have autocrats? Hold on. Hold on. What did the united states do to iraq?
Okay, did we not invade those countries? I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about the dependency
You said that democracies do not invade and libya
I said we did two democracies two democracies that are in a trade war are generally not going to invade each other
We invaded afghanistan. Actually, that’s 9 11. Okay, and the the first iraq war we invaded we protected. Um
Kuwait, right and so, you know
I’m not here to justify every war the united states has been in i’m just talking about in this situation
The eu lowering their dependency and if you were going to lower your dependency on any country you’d start with the autocratic ones
You’d start with the dictatorships. It’s not not logical to you friedberg
There’s a neoliberal view. Hold on a second. There was a neoliberal view. I’d say courted neoliberalism
It’s called economic interdependence theory, which is that as nations become more interdependent with each other
They’re less likely to go to war. China was the perfect example, right?
What’s the perfect example there was also a belief that as china became richer
They become more democratic that hasn’t worked out
So well, i’d say economic interdependence theory hasn’t worked out so well either
So this is a core failing now you’re modifying the theory to say well only economic interdependence among democracy is fine
But that was not the view that was not the view for the last 20 years. It was a core
If we make ourselves dependent on these other countries then somehow it’s going to lead to peace
No, it actually has just led to dependency. It was a foolish policy
We should have been energy independent europe should have been energy independent. They should not have made them
I do agree that it was foolish. We’re in agreement. Yes, you’re disagreeing
No, no, i’m not disagreeing with february. I think but but by the way
I’m not i’m not a proponent of people not being energy independent
The reason I think people can be energy independent today is because of technology like nuclear
And I think that all these every country in the world should find a way to get energy independent
I’m also an advocate of global trade. I am an advocate because I think that global trade enables economic progress
It allows the consumer to get the cheapest product possible
And for the producer to find a market for the products that they make and that there’s an element of this which is energy
But energy doesn’t need to be a trade traded market as much anymore because of technology
Manufactured goods food. We still haven’t cracked the nut on
We are then in agreement freeberg. Yeah
This is sort of an ancillary point, but I just want to say that historically there’s been no basis for believing in economic interdependence theory
If you go back to world war one germany and the uk were each other’s largest trading partners before world war one
Didn’t stop them from getting into war world war two
I think russia’s biggest trading partner was germany up until the moment when hitler invaded them
So listen economic interdependence has never has never madman
It doesn’t yeah, but the point is there’s very little historical basis for believing that economic interdependence prevents wars
Which by the way that really speaks to the foolishness of our china policy
But look, this is sort of a science question sacks though with it with the china policy because I think this is a very important
discussion we’ve discovered which is
Energy independence is one thing and then you have trade which is another and does this actually push off wars?
Do we actually know that we?
We might have actually pushed off a war with china because we make iphones together
Could we have been in a conflict earlier if we weren’t so independent and have we actually pushed out a potential conflict?
With taiwan, etc
The interdependence with the benefit of hindsight what we can see
With the benefit of hindsight what we can see is that our chinese policy of interdependency really was called constructive engagement
Was a complete and unmitigated disaster. Why?
It was because we made china rich
You go back to the beginning of deng xiaoping beginning getting his economic reforms the average chinese made two dollars a day
Now their economy is roughly the same size as ours
And how are they using their newfound economic wealth to build up their military their navy?
They’re basically militarizing the south china sea. They’re basically being aggressive towards their neighbors
We fed that chinese tiger until it became a dragon that was capable of challenging us
For global preeminence. That was a foolish foolish strategy. The fact the matter is
That and listen, this is a mistake that economists make is that they only look at whether trade creates surplus as opposed to
the distribution
of those benefits and the fact the matter is
That china benefited disproportionately far more than we did from the china trade over the last
Argument we’ve made on this podcast is I think freeberg made it is that we lifted 500 million people
I think I made it as well out of abject poverty in china, but as your point
What yeah, it’s it’s going to we have created we have created
We’ve created the return of great power rivalry. We have created a
competitor to the u.s
Who has roughly almost our same size economy?
And that is going to challenge us for privacy and we need diplomacy. We need very sophisticated diplomacy because this situation with china
It’s it’s not a clear path
Why why is it that you think that we need diplomacy with china when we didn’t need it with russia
No, I I do think we did. I fully conceded that we should have avoided
We should have taken note off the table. I said that from day one. Listen, it’s it’s really important to
Not just say that. Oh, we failed to play chess here that this policy isn’t working
Like let’s not forget how we got into this conflict. We got into this conflict because the administration
Said I think there were four main pillars to
Our current ukraine strategy number one
That ukraine could basically defeat russia if we basically just gave them weapons
That has not happened yet number two
The administration said that sanctions would weaken russia, maybe even destabilize its leadership
And collapse this economy that has not happened
The ruble is at an all-time high and because gas prices have gone up so much their economy has suffered
But on the whole it’s still doing pretty well
the third
Contention that was made by advocates of this proxy war is that the sanctions would hurt
Russia more than europe that has not happened. Europe is already hurting more than russia and it’s about with winter coming
It’s going to hurt even more and then the last thing
The last contention that was made our support for ukraine would rally
The world around us and would strengthen the western alliance. And I think what we’re starting to see
Is that the western alliance is fracturing and you see these gigantic protests in prague and these other countries
so listen, these were the pillars of our
Ukraine policy and they have all turned out to be flawed
And wrong and they’re becoming more wrong by the day and yet there is no reappraisal
Of our policy that’s coming out of washington or london or paris
None of these leaders are saying that there’s a problem
So I think we’re headed for not just an economic crisis, but a political crisis in europe because the fundamental tension
Between the needs of these people which is to basically preserve their economy and to stay warm in their homes
And the ideology of their leaders who are fanatically committed to waging a proxy war against russia instead of finding a diplomatic outcome
That was available last year. It was available in january. It was even available in march or april
That disconnect is the fundamental problem. All right, let’s go. Come on. Let’s talk about kim k. Come on
There is no word on how much money she’s raised for her private equity from from russian oligarchs
But kim will serve as co-founder and co-managing partner
Uh, the firm was co-founded with 16-year carlisle veteran jay
sammons, uh who run day-to-day ops
and uh
People may not know this but kim founded skims. That’s her undergarment company in 2019. It was last valued at 3.2 billion dollars
um
She is obviously got the largest following and is the biggest influencer in the world 329 million followers on instagram alone
Our friend gavin baker, uh responded. Mr. Beast actually. Mr. Beast actually just passed
Okay, so those are
Two examples of people who can put a consumer package good in the world and make it number one instantly gavin
Uh baker a friend of ours, uh tweeted, uh that she adds massive value in this exact regard
Uh, what do you think boys is she gonna have here’s why I think here’s why I think this is so important go
I I have a really strong belief that in the next 30 years or so
All traditional brands are gonna die
And I think that um what we’re seeing happening right now
with the with the power of um
democratized media like us creating a podcast
There are hundreds and now thousands of individuals
Who have stood up and created their own brand and their own presence?
Because of the content that they create on twitch on twitter on youtube, etc
On podcasting and as a result, they become the trusted sources of influence and it’s why they’re called influencers
And ultimately these influencers are becoming the brands they can like. Mr
Beast launched a chocolate bar became like the number one chocolate bar in the country
He just opened up a burger restaurant last week
10 000 people showed up number one. No more than that like a hundred thousand or something. It was insane
It was like the number one burger restaurant, uh opening or number one restaurant opening in history
Um, kylie jenner launches a makeup brand takes off becomes this billion dollar brand kim kardashian launches a clothing brand
Becomes a three billion dollar brand. These are not just brands
They’re businesses and here’s what I think is the most prescient m&a transaction of 2022 and you guys can tell me i’m crazy
I think the most important m&a deal of 2022
Was when pen gaming bought barstool sports because it shows that every consumer package good or every consumer services business
Ultimately needs to be a content business and if you don’t naturally have content creation in your blood
You have to go and buy a content business or you are going to die
And that’s why I think all traditional brands that aren’t oriented and built around content creation as their primary differentiating foundation
Will not survive and will not be able to compete effectively and instead what we’re going to see is influencers
and
individuals that create content build and
Distribute consumer goods and consumer services in a more efficient way because guess what?
They’ve got distribution built in distribution is the number one problem with all consumer services and all consumer goods
So I think in the future all advertising
Yeah, all advertising and marketing gets replaced by content creation and content creation direct to consumers through the
Social media platforms becomes the mechanism by which people are aware of and buy goods and services
So that’s why I think this deal is so important
And I think it’s a it’s a it’s another one of what we’re seeing in 2022
Which is the stacking away towards the end of nameless faceless brands and the evolution of the influencer. I think kim kardashian is incredible
She is an incredible
businesswoman
and
The fact that she can stand up what will probably be like a multi-billion dollar private equity fund
um, and frankly the companies that she invests in
has
um a really compelling chance of being successful because she can basically pour
So much visibility and notoriety and awareness of a brand
Into that company that that cap table if I was a director, I would say of course give her whatever she wants
So that’s the first thing
And the second thing I would say is that
I think what freeberg says is completely right. I think we’re at a point in time where
the biggest thing that if you want to build a consumer business my advice to you as an entrepreneur is
You need to build
direct distribution and scale
Because what that translates into what kim kardashian proves what mr. Beast is proving is it’s all about subsidized cac
Where you don’t customer cost of that customer acquisition where you are not paying dollars to facebook and google
But instead because you have direct distribution in a relationship with tens or hundreds of millions of users
You can pour them into different experiences
And when you can do that, it’s basically virtually zero cost
Your entire margin structure of how you build a consumer business has changed overnight. So that’s what they’ve proven
They’ve proven that you need to first build a brand
And then you can put you
Convert that brand into distribution funnel and then to basically pour all kinds of services into it
And one of the services as it turns out is now a private equity fund
So I think it’s incredible and I hope she’s super successful sax. Do you think this?
influencer, uh
Strategy is here for and going to have a major impact on the venture business. I think it’s pretty interesting
Looking at it
But I think it’s pretty interesting in the consumer space for the reason freeberg said which is distribution is so hard
So creating a great product is hard distribution is even harder. And this is a realization I had
You know many years ago and which is when I started doing yammer and then you know craft started focusing on sass
Which is at least when you do a b2b product, you know software as a service
You can charge enough money for it that you can get a sales team to pencil
so in other words
You charge an enterprise enough money for the software that you can then pay a salesperson to go out and sell it
So there was always a distribution model built in for b2b
And that’s why i’ve always liked that is there’s a playbook there where if you just build a good enough
Piece of enterprise software a good enough product. There’s always going to be distribution for it
However, that’s not true with consumer because consumer products are usually ad based
You can’t generally charge that much if you can charge at all they have high churn rates and so therefore
B to c only works if you can find a very low cost scalable distribution channel
And I think that’s what to freeberg’s point. I think that’s what the kardashians are offering. It’s clearly worked for their own products
I guess we’ll see how extensible it is
But this is really the key challenge with all consumer stuff is just how do you find a very cheap way of distributing it?
in the past the consumer products i’ve been involved in
Like paypal or investing in social networks like facebook. They were viral then they were exponentially viral
So they were able to basically grow virally for free
So you either have to have you know extraordinary virality to the product or some other distribution trick
That allows you to scale at low cost because you can’t afford a sales team
And what we’re seeing is the base of doing that is to create content. Mr
Beast created content for years before he built a big enough audience to do that
Kim kardashian did content for years before she had a distribution to do that dave portnoy and barstool sports. I mean the guy
dave portnoy
Jason calacanis. Yeah, seriously. I mean portnoy was out uh rating pizza and you know
Now he has all these other kind of you know media and content kind of
Um branches of his platform, but it’s all content creation and on top of that content
Not everybody’s good at it freeberg. That’s the other problem. I get it, but that’s not what i’m saying and that’s my point
So let’s say coca-cola tried to build a content business today. How good would they be? Not very good
That’s why they’re going to end up dying or they’re going to end up needing to buy some really interesting concept
I mean, do you think mr. Beast burger could beat?
McDonald’s yes, and that’s what i’m saying. That’s my point
That’s why I opened up kind of insane when you think about it if mr. Beast had five thousand franchisees
Yeah, but this is exactly my point that I said at the beginning every traditional brand will get destroyed in 30 years
And they will get destroyed by the influencers that have built an audience through content creation
And now creating businesses on top of that that compete with the traditional incumbents not technology advantaged businesses
I’m talking about core consumer goods and services. They also have to be good pen gaming pen gaming does betting
You know, there’s no real advantage in betting you build a sports book
That’s it
The reason pen gaming bought barstool is they now have an audience that they can drive to their sports books, right?
And so the same will happen with still have to make a great product though
I mean, that’s the other
Challenge here is can you also be a product savant?
Can you be a virtuoso in building a product in addition to being an influencer?
Yeah, I think that’s what kim gets right. She makes great product and mr
Beast his first burger was not good. But now this new burger from what I understand is awesome
So you have to have both things switched on I think about think about what’s easier and what’s harder what’s easier
Building an audience of two billion or a billion people that listen or watch you every week or building a great burger
It’s a lot harder to build the audience and so
You’ll bring in a chef if it’s a car. It’s really hard. Yeah, it’s not i’m not talking about complicated cars and stuff or electronics
I’m talking about basic consumer goods cereal beverages food. Why not?
Um commodity music audio like like all the stuff that’s commodity, uh, you know betting I mean this is not a bar
Betting is not a differentiated service offering to consumers. So ultimately, how do you differentiate it’s the it’s the audience
That you’ve now built the brand that you’ve built through the audience because of content creation
And so this is why I just want to point out distributed content creation
I think represents one of the most profound investing opportunities over the next decade
Because if you can give individuals the ability to make high quality content
They can scale an audience that that that now can be monetized in a thousand ways
Not just putting friggin ad spots on youtube
But there’s a thousand products you as an as an influencer can build on top of your audience or sell to your audience
Boom, it really changes the whole landscape for cpg and services. Um, and not to bring everything back to mr
beast, but
a large number of his videos he told us, um
He lost money on so the videos at some point started losing him money
And it was an investment in that brand and you know, it’s it’s clearly going to pay off now. I I saw alexis ohanian from
uh, you know reddit fame and
776 to do fun. He went to go see the burger place and he’s like
What like there were at that point in time 10 000 people online. Mr
Beast had to tell people please do not show up which of course
Then 20 000 people show up. Anybody have plugs or anything that they want to get off their chest sacks anything else?
Okay, we got a plug I do
there is a
An epidemic right now of the over prescription
Of amphetamines to children who are diagnosed with adhd
It is
an enormously important issue that
Doesn’t just touch kids anymore, but now also touches adults
you’ve seen
A lot of really kind of bad companies that are over prescribing this stuff get shut down and get sanctioned
Um, so I just wanted to let anybody who’s listening. No
And this is me talking my book so take this with a grain of salt but
There’s a company that i’m involved in that has a video game that has been approved by the fda
To be a useful treatment for kids who have been diagnosed with adhd
So if you have an 8 to 11 year old
You can go and talk to your pediatrician to find out about this solution. It’s called akili
It’s called akili
And it will allow you to prescribe to them a video game that they play 30 minutes a day
I just want to make sure people hear the name. It’s akili aka ili. So if you do a google search for akili aka
Ili interact go talk to your pediatrician if you are a good child that’s dealing with this
Go and read the label have the doctor decide. Okay, so i’m not telling you to go do this, but i’m asking you
Just look into it
but the idea is that
There are drugs that affect
Your brain and now we are increasingly able to design software
that
exquisitely targets
Certain aspects of your brain and are able to train them
And this is really the first example of such a thing that the fda
Who has reviewed all kinds of?
Clinical data has decided to approve and so it’s launching in
The next few weeks we’ve already written prescriptions to kids in every single state of the united states
And so to the extent that you’re deciding what to do
Or you have a child or you have somebody in your family that is of age 8 to 11 years old that’s dealing with this
I would just encourage you to learn about it. That is a plug and you know all the disclaimer
I know it’s a great plug
I think we should at the end just talk about some of these we’re working on and this is an incredible one
The number of kids
on these, you know
ADHD drugs attention drugs depression anxiety drugs millions. It is out of control
There is and listen, I don’t want to tell parents at a parent
But I will say this is becoming a dependency
And the number of drugs I don’t know if you saw that new york times story where they put this one girl on 10 drugs
They’re prescribing multiple drugs and we don’t know exactly what the long-term effects of children using these are and there are other solutions
I’m, not judging any parent
I’m, not judging any teachers who’s advising this but this country and a society needs to really look deeply at this issue and say
Should children because we didn’t go on these drugs when we were kids
They didn’t exist and they haven’t existed for all of humanity
And we need to think what kind of experiment are we running on 10 20 30 percent of kids in some schools
You’re you’re stating something so incredibly important, you know, when you have kids that are preteens and teenagers
Their physiology is changing dramatically and all of a sudden when you introduce a secondary chemical compound into all of that
You’re exactly right. We don’t really know what the outcomes are
And right now I think a lot of people are worried that the over prescription
Of drugs in this kind of condition is going to create a next version of an opioid pandemic
Or epidemic and I think like that’s the thing that’s exactly the analogy shemoth right now. This statistic is crazy
This is in the new york times express scripts a mail-order pharmacy recently reported that prescriptions of antidepressants for teenagers rose
38 percent from 2015 to 29. We are prescribing these at an alarming rate
I have many parents in my circle who have kids who had what I would consider
modest behavioral issues or modest attention issues and they talked to me about this and they
Felt in multiple cases like they were being bullied or pressured by teachers
to put their kids on behavioral drugs because
Their kids were behaving
10 as badly as I did in middle school or high school
This is being used
I believe this is my personal belief. I know there are some kids who need these drugs or I assume that there are
But I think this is being used to keep kids in their seats and to make it easier
For parents to have to deal with what are normally the hardships of teenager, you know
Teenagers and just be very careful parents
About the extent to which you you know, you might be being pressured perhaps parents have told me they felt bullied
Into giving their kids these drugs. It really is infuriating to me and I think it’s really great that you
People should look into it exercise talking to your kids. These things also work
We had a guidance counselor at
at our school
Tell me that they thought that one of my children should just get put on these drugs
and I was like
It was
The most random statement and all I could get from her
Was that she just didn’t want to deal with the fact that every now and then?
This kid would just you know be exuberant
Yeah to your point. I want to kill their spirit. I had the same conversation
I don’t want to get into it too much. But you know, I think that these teachers now and i’m not saying it’s all teachers
They are like it’s just easier to manage kids who are on focused energy drugs
And then there are some parents who want their kids to do really good on standardized testing
I would have done better on standardized testing if I was on
Adderall or whatever these attention drugs are we everybody would score 10 better
But what does it do to the quality of your life long term?
That’s the question we need to ask about this stuff and we don’t have answers for it
I don’t want to be tom cruise on this podcast
But there are other ways to keep
You know kids healthy and to deal with these issues and I think these things are to say they’re over prescribed
It’s going to be a huge understatement. We’re going to look at this like the opioid crisis. I guarantee it
I think that’s exactly if you you start dope sick, right and
People thought they were doing the right thing. Oh these people have pain this drug manages pain
And then they found out like oh, yeah, you know what this drug also makes you can make you an addict and could ruin your life
Uh great job on that investment. Um, and I and I hope it works
Yeah, thank you, uh sax anything else, uh any companies in your portfolio
You want to give a shout out to we might as well get something out of this fucking pod since we’re leaving
Seven and a half million dollars on the fucking table and you guys won’t even let me run all in summit too
So I can get a half milli
I don’t have anything to plug right now, but no company you invested in you need a plug for how about you super gut?
Can we get some supergut.com in here? These bars taste great. Friedberg. I love this. Thank you
Thank you. I literally just ordered another pack of them
I’m glad. Thank you. They’re delicious
Super gut do you have supergut.com? By the way, this is where i’m having
Yeah, supergut.com, but i’m this is actually one of my d2c companies
where i’m having a lot of these conversations about how do you actually
avoid just buying ads on facebook and
Uh google and how do you actually build an audience, right?
How do you ultimately convert your customers by creating content? And so this was originally unique, right? And then you changed it
Yeah based on the science around. Um
around resistant starch and how it changes the gut biome and so
Um, but this is general i’m on the board of a couple of d2c companies and it is universally the conversation right now
Because in the last year
the cost of d2c, uh direct to consumer marketing on facebook and google
It’s brutal double tripled and a lot of the unit economics are falling apart on d2c businesses because of it
You know costs a lot more to acquire the customer than you make from them
And so everyone’s scrambling to figure out okay
How do I acquire customers and that’s where this content creation strategy is becoming a critical linchpin for most consumer businesses now
It’s a really important part
I think a couple of us are investors in eight sleep and they were like, please let us advertise on all in
I was like, sorry, no ads, but i’ll shout you out here eight sleep. It’s great product
I have a plug but I want to save it. So
Like fucking drop a plug for one. No, no, the product hasn’t launched yet
Give me like a month
All right
And if anybody wants to be a venture investor
Jason at calacanis.com to come to one of my webinars and see my list fund since we
Started allowing all these plugs. I thought we
It was a setup. It was a setup
I just wanted to do a roundup of plugs so I could get mine in so i was being generous
Worked plan worked. I got you on the hook for yours. What was your what was your plug?
What were you doing your venture fund? I’m doing what’s fun for and well for plugging stuff
I’ll be over subscribe plug. I’ll plug the call
If you want to call it up, we’re all in everybody’s calling up. Let’s you know, we should do a call in
We should all do like an after hours where we take questions from the audience. That would be great
I would do that. Yeah, I would do that. Can I get a point? All right, let’s go everybody
This has been all in episode 95. Wait, wait, should we do that? Create more?
Jake out that wasn’t that that was another deal you turned down just like the ukraine deal
This is a theme here is that you turn down deals you later regret
Nine months later you admit I was right you should have taken the deal
I should take the quality. Look how hard chamath is crashing right now. Look at him. Look at it. What time is it there?
It’s like 11 30, right?
Midnight, it’s 11 30. It’s 11 30. That’s okay
I’m losing my life. I lost my voice. I lost my voice
Send us an invite for uh, ama for the four of us on calling calling. I’ll do that. Everybody down. Yeah, we should do that
Okay. Yeah, just remember
Maybe yeah live ama live ama with the best
I’ll show up. Maybe I’ll show up for snacks
Jake yeah, i’ll show up. I’d love i’d be happy to do it. I’m back in the united states tomorrow
All right. Well, i’m gonna play poker
in
14 hours in two hours if you get here you’re gonna ask everybody to come play
But we’ll meet you at the airport. We’ll pick you up from the airport. We’ll pick up the airport
We’ll play chinese poker in the back of the car. All right, everybody
We thought it would be suck a loss and chamath you need something a little honey tea
I I need a lozenge. I have some tea over there. Can I get a little?
I love you guys. Love you besties. See you soon
Let your winners ride
Rain man david sax
And it said we open sourced it to the fans and they’ve just gone crazy with it i’m the queen of
Besties are gone
Oh
We should all just get a room and just have one big huge orgy because they’re all just useless
It’s like this like sexual tension, but they just need to release somehow
We need to get
You