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(Names are best guess 95% correct but a lot over talk/interruptions that make it less accurate)
00:00:00 Jason Calacanis
Point of privilege sacks wore this hat last week.
00:00:04 Jason Calacanis
What’s this brand is a Montclair happening learns.
00:00:06 David Sacks
Well there, yeah.
00:00:07 David Sacks
And actually, did you see that?
00:00:09 David Sacks
That tweet, people, it started.
00:00:10 Jason Calacanis
It’s trending.
00:00:11 David Sacks
It started trending after I wore it so.
00:00:14 Jason Calacanis
It’s sold out, dude.
00:00:15 Jason Calacanis
We sold out the Montclair hat, so we have no advertising.
00:00:18 David Friedberg
We if we’re not going to do any advertising on the show, we should at least get free clothes.
00:00:23 David Friedberg
We get to pick through them where?
00:00:24 David Sacks
What we like.
00:00:25 David Sacks
I know.
00:00:26 David Sacks
Where’s my cut?
00:00:27 David Sacks
Where’s my cut as an influencer?
00:00:27 Chamath Palihapitiya
No, the treat basically said that I need drop lower piano and send it through the roof of inside state government cloud.
00:00:34 Chamath Palihapitiya
Both brands obviously are Italian, both afternoons we know.
00:00:38 Chamath Palihapitiya
Very well.
00:00:39 Chamath Palihapitiya
And so I asked Matt, I said not.
00:00:41 Chamath Palihapitiya
Can you basically send this tweet over to left?
00:00:43 Chamath Palihapitiya
So maybe we can give us free hours.
00:00:44 David Sacks
Yeah, I’ll take free stuff.
00:00:45 David Friedberg
Let’s get the grip going, voice.
00:00:47 David Friedberg
Now we’re talking, now we.
00:00:48 Jason Calacanis
Got some best?
00:00:49 David Friedberg
Egrets, guard dog, you speak in my language.
00:00:51 David Friedberg
This cup of tea, let’s.
00:00:52 Speaker 5
Speaking of grips.
00:00:53 David Sacks
I do like Montclair the way that jamath like slower piano.
00:00:56 Chamath Palihapitiya
Just so you guys.
00:00:57 Chamath Palihapitiya
Know at the birthday Jason that you missed?
00:01:01 Jason Calacanis
Are we allowed to talk about?
00:01:01 David Sacks
She played poker.
00:01:03 Chamath Palihapitiya
We had a.
00:01:03 Chamath Palihapitiya
Birthday we had a surprise birthday party for me.
00:01:06 Chamath Palihapitiya
That through it, socks showed up.
00:01:09 Chamath Palihapitiya
Free books showed up.
00:01:10 Chamath Palihapitiya
Their wife showed up.
00:01:12 Chamath Palihapitiya
It was an incredible J.
00:01:13 Chamath Palihapitiya
Cole, basically stiff arming some.
00:01:15 Jason Calacanis
I’m very sorry.
00:01:16 Jason Calacanis
It was a bother that came together four days before your.
00:01:19 Jason Calacanis
Birthday, so just wait.
00:01:19 Jason Calacanis
Uh, huh?
00:01:20 Jason Calacanis
Well, you know what?
00:01:21 Jason Calacanis
Kevin Hart showed up.
00:01:22 Jason Calacanis
Give us the best one liner.
00:01:23 Jason Calacanis
Which one landed?
00:01:24 Jason Calacanis
Oh no, Jake.
00:01:25 Chamath Palihapitiya
Paul, you have no idea these guys?
00:01:26 Chamath Palihapitiya
Roasted me it.
00:01:28 Chamath Palihapitiya
Was ******* incredible, but the best of it was at the end.
00:01:32 Chamath Palihapitiya
K Heart gets up with no preparation and skewers everybody prepared.
00:01:38 Chamath Palihapitiya
I mean deep.
00:01:38 Chamath Palihapitiya
What do?
00:01:38 Chamath Palihapitiya
You think of like Kevin Jones it was.
00:01:39 David Friedberg
I had never laughed harder.
00:01:41 David Friedberg
He was so.
00:01:41 David Friedberg
Funny, he’s like my wife.
00:01:43 David Friedberg
Walked in here, and she.
00:01:44 David Friedberg
Looks at me and she’s like.
00:01:47 David Friedberg
These guys.
00:01:50 David Sacks
Delete my.
00:01:51 David Sacks
Check it out mate, but it was.
00:01:52 David Friedberg
Still funny.
00:01:53 David Friedberg
He dropped line after line after.
00:01:54 David Sacks
Of course.
00:01:54 David Sacks
Well, he’s a ringer.
00:01:55 David Sacks
Lessons? Oh my God.
00:01:56 David Sacks
He’s a professional.
00:01:57 Chamath Palihapitiya
But he may be the funniest person.
00:01:59 Chamath Palihapitiya
In the.
00:01:59 David Friedberg
And then Sachs had to come.
00:02:01 David Sacks
Out, yeah, exactly.
00:02:03 David Sacks
I don’t know why.
00:02:04 David Sacks
See but he should have stayed Kevin Hart for last, but instead he calls up K Hart.
00:02:06 Jason Calacanis
Because I was involved.
00:02:10 David Sacks
In the middle.
00:02:10 David Sacks
Shots were so tilted.
00:02:13 Jason Calacanis
OK, so wait, so I.
00:02:14 Jason Calacanis
I couldn’t make it ’cause.
00:02:15 Jason Calacanis
I had Burning Man this vanderdoes, the emceeing then Kevin Hart.
00:02:20 Jason Calacanis
You were saying it’s just a filling voids here so they can understand it?
00:02:24 Jason Calacanis
Kevin Hart comes.
00:02:25 Jason Calacanis
Then he gives this incredible adlib roast.
00:02:29 Jason Calacanis
And that Zach has to.
00:02:30 Jason Calacanis
Go after him, yeah.
00:02:32 David Sacks
It’s standard in our personal lives.
00:02:34 David Sacks
Sanders is funny.
00:02:34 Jason Calacanis
Oh, that’s a great sandbag.
00:02:34 David Sacks
With the root canal.
00:02:36 Jason Calacanis
Uh, sandbags?
00:02:36 David Sacks
I think it’s a rude.
00:02:37 David Sacks
Kid house hunters as funny as a root canal.
00:02:39 David Sacks
But he should not have been the MC.
00:02:41 David Sacks
So yes, we did miss you, Jacob.
00:02:43 David Sacks
Should have been.
00:02:43 David Sacks
The MC second K heart should have been left for last, obviously, but Xander, you know, Zander being a good liberal.
00:02:46 David Sacks
Of course, this obviously, obviously is audited.
00:02:51 David Sacks
Didn’t censor me out, right so?
00:02:54 David Sacks
You had me go after K.
00:02:55 David Sacks
Art that’s like the next best thing.
00:02:57 Jason Calacanis
Did you steal his documents?
00:02:58 Jason Calacanis
Did you steal all his jokes and put them in your?
00:03:00 David Sacks
I just threw.
00:03:01 David Sacks
I had all these, like jokes written.
00:03:02 David Sacks
I just threw him out the window because I can’t.
00:03:04 David Sacks
What am I gonna do?
00:03:04 David Sacks
I’m not.
00:03:05 David Sacks
Gonna deliver jokes after Kevin.
00:03:07 David Sacks
So I just told the story, you know?
00:03:09 David Friedberg
Kevin Hart like, killed.
00:03:10 David Friedberg
I mean, the room was wooling it.
00:03:11 Jason Calacanis
I mean that’s like, that’s like getting punched by Mike Tyson being like, Oh my God, that hurts like, yes, Mike Tyson.
00:03:12 Chamath Palihapitiya
Was really funny.
00:03:17 Speaker 6
Second, let your winners live.
00:03:22 Jason Calacanis
Rain Man David sacks.
00:03:31 Chamath Palihapitiya
Queen of keenwah.
00:03:35 Jason Calacanis
We were at.
00:03:36 Jason Calacanis
The code concepts we had, the poker game was the last one after 20.
00:03:40 Speaker 6
Big shout out.
00:03:41 David Sacks
To Kara Swisher, big shock to care station.
00:03:41 Jason Calacanis
Just I want to say to Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher because they did the Congress many years together.
00:03:47 Jason Calacanis
Congratulations on a 20 year run.
00:03:49 Jason Calacanis
They’re not going to do it.
00:03:51 Jason Calacanis
A car is not going to do it next year, but my friend Jim Bancroft, who runs Vox, he’s going to run it next year.
00:03:56 Jason Calacanis
So congratulations to him and Kara for.
00:03:59 Speaker 5
A great run involved.
00:04:00 Jason Calacanis
The but yeah they they they they had Steve Jobs at the first one for speaker and.
00:04:04 Jason Calacanis
You can look.
00:04:05 Jason Calacanis
It up, I got to ask him a question.
00:04:06 Chamath Palihapitiya
Jay Cole, I don’t know if you remember this.
00:04:07 Jason Calacanis
So nice.
00:04:07
But you and.
00:04:08 Chamath Palihapitiya
I were there when gates and Jobs did that speech together.
00:04:14 Jason Calacanis
What an incredible legacy that she documented all of this for the industry.
00:04:17 Chamath Palihapitiya
Well, it’s really credible, like, I mean the number, the amount of.
00:04:20 Chamath Palihapitiya
Memories I have from.
00:04:21 Chamath Palihapitiya
That place and then.
00:04:21 Jason Calacanis
Chris Creighton so we’ll see where the.
00:04:23 Jason Calacanis
Poker game goes next year, probably on Sunday.
00:04:25 David Friedberg
And so I think the all.
00:04:26 David Friedberg
In stomach could have been that.
00:04:28 Jason Calacanis
It’s heartbreaking.
00:04:29 Jason Calacanis
It’s heartbreaking.
00:04:29 Chamath Palihapitiya
I agree.
00:04:30 Jason Calacanis
I’m not saying that I’ll be hosting the code conference next year, but.
00:04:33
You know they’re looking for.
00:04:34 Jason Calacanis
An impresario, this is the.
00:04:35 Jason Calacanis
Problem with this pot is we’re drawing too many high profile people in now.
00:04:38 Jason Calacanis
But interestingly, Freberg 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.
00:04:49 Jason Calacanis
I won’t say which ones, but.
00:04:51 Jason Calacanis
They’ve all asked us to do like a sit for a profile.
00:04:54 Jason Calacanis
We’ve said no, but just because the one that loves me.
00:04:57 David Friedberg
And I said why?
00:04:58 David Friedberg
Don’t we do a profile of?
00:04:59 David Friedberg
Them who’s to make them the media?
00:05:01 David Friedberg
No, no.
00:05:02 David Friedberg
I mean, it’s super flattering.
00:05:04 David Sacks
Our competitors, our competitors want to do a piece on us why we cooperate with that, you know, it’s going to be a hit, the hit piece.
00:05:07 David Friedberg
We’ve got the audience.
00:05:08 Speaker 6
I don’t know.
00:05:11 Jason Calacanis
It probably happiest.
00:05:12 David Sacks
Yeah, of course, ’cause we’re.
00:05:14 David Sacks
Work stealing influence and clicks and views away from them.
00:05:19 David Sacks
It’s definitely sides.
00:05:20 David Sacks
They’re ideologically motivated anyways, though.
00:05:22 David Sacks
Their their message police.
00:05:24 David Friedberg
Sex you don’t think you’re ideologically motivated?
00:05:26 David Sacks
Listen, if you contract the official narrative, then they write a hit piece about you.
00:05:30 David Sacks
That’s how they try to enforce discipline and.
00:05:32 Jason Calacanis
It’s hard actually, but not all outlets.
00:05:34 David Sacks
That is Fritz.
00:05:35 Jason Calacanis
I like the independent ones I do, I have.
00:05:36 Speaker 5
To say like this whole.
00:05:38 Jason Calacanis
You know sub.
00:05:39 Jason Calacanis
Stack movement in independent artists or independent journalists becoming even more India.
00:05:44 Jason Calacanis
In fact, Kara Swisher is more Indian now.
00:05:46 Jason Calacanis
She’d left the New York Times.
00:05:47 Jason Calacanis
Specifically because they.
00:05:48 Jason Calacanis
Were, you know, giving her a hard time about certain guests or certain conversation.
00:05:53 Jason Calacanis
And now she’s, you know, doing her pockets independently with Vox, Publishing it for her.
00:05:57 Jason Calacanis
So you’re seeing more and more of the voices go independent.
00:05:59 David Sacks
New Republic is doing a hit piece on me right now.
00:06:02 David Sacks
I have no idea why it’s.
00:06:03 Jason Calacanis
I know that they emailed me and I support them, and I was like, here’s my official comment, I can’t wait to visit sax when he’s in the White House in 20 years.
00:06:03 David Sacks
Think Dang it, yeah.
00:06:11 Jason Calacanis
And the guys like, so you’re saying sax is writing for a president.
00:06:13 Jason Calacanis
I’m saying no, I’m saying that you.
00:06:15 Jason Calacanis
Don’t understand a joke.
00:06:16 Jason Calacanis
That was a joke.
00:06:18 David Sacks
And then and then after you copied me, then they’re like, Oh yeah, we were reaching out to David two to get in.
00:06:24 David Sacks
No, they hadn’t reached out.
00:06:24 Jason Calacanis
Yeah, and had to reach to you.
00:06:25 Jason Calacanis
Yet right?
00:06:26 David Sacks
Had it reached out anyway?
00:06:27 David Sacks
Yeah, so they were.
00:06:28 Jason Calacanis
Going a little.
00:06:28 Jason Calacanis
Sneaky, sneaky they were trying to get.
00:06:29 Jason Calacanis
Me to talk about you before.
00:06:30
It doesn’t matter.
00:06:30 David Sacks
I don’t have time.
00:06:31 David Sacks
I don’t have time to.
00:06:32 David Sacks
Talk to, you know.
00:06:32 Jason Calacanis
New republics are nice.
00:06:34 Jason Calacanis
That would be a nice profile I.
00:06:35 Jason Calacanis
Think nobody breathing in sacks they’re gonna look at that picture as.
00:06:36 David Sacks
Yeah, it’s it’s it’s not what it used.
00:06:38 David Sacks
To be if.
00:06:39 David Sacks
It were.
00:06:39 David Sacks
If it were Michael Kinsley running the New Republic, I’d be happy to, you know, take the time.
00:06:43 David Sacks
But it’s not that anymore.
00:06:45 David Sacks
It’s just another left wing rag that’s into police.
00:06:48 David Sacks
In speech, you know, they asked.
00:06:50 David Sacks
They sent us a bunch of questions, like, you know why?
00:06:53 Jason Calacanis
Read the questions.
00:06:54 David Sacks
Well, I don’t.
00:06:55 David Sacks
I don’t have them in front of me, but they’re like, they’re basically like, why did you support the recall chasing booty and stuff like that?
00:07:00 David Sacks
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?
00:07:07 David Sacks
Because he explained this.
00:07:08 David Sacks
Like, abundantly for the two years he was advocating for this.
00:07:11 Jason Calacanis
Like every week we talked about it.
00:07:12 David Sacks
Every week we talked about this and the guy was like, oh.
00:07:14 Jason Calacanis
There’s about 8000 words sitting there in the transcripts.
00:07:16 David Sacks
Right.
00:07:17 David Sacks
He’s like, oh, he talked about in the pod, he.
00:07:19 David Friedberg
The guy didn’t listen to a bot.
00:07:21 David Sacks
He’s like he.
00:07:22 David Sacks
Tweeted about this.
00:07:23 David Sacks
No, he just thinks.
00:07:24 David Sacks
I’m like some right wing donor.
00:07:26 David Sacks
Who was like trying to get chase it kicked out, that kind of narrative, you know?
00:07:31 David Sacks
So I’m like, this is a total waste of my time.
00:07:33 David Sacks
Go read all my tweets, go watch the all in pod and then come back with any questions that haven’t been answered.
00:07:38 Jason Calacanis
It’s this lazy reporting on the New Republic part.
00:07:40 Jason Calacanis
Why would you do a profile if?
00:07:41 Jason Calacanis
You didn’t actually revisit users.
00:07:42
Two you are.
00:07:43 Speaker 6
Having serious conversation must be bored.
00:07:46 Speaker 6
It’s knocking.
00:07:47 Chamath Palihapitiya
Around in his back.
00:07:48 David Friedberg
What is this background?
00:07:48 Speaker 6
He’s laughing.
00:07:49 David Friedberg
What is that?
00:07:50 David Friedberg
It’s a future city in Saudi Arabia.
00:07:52 David Friedberg
Were also planning.
00:07:53 David Sacks
On doing a hit piece about us.
00:07:54 Jason Calacanis
OK, so the information reached out.
00:07:59 Jason Calacanis
And we said no.
00:08:00 Speaker 5
Right. Move there.
00:08:00 David Friedberg
Are you going?
00:08:01 David Friedberg
Are you saying this actually on the?
00:08:02 David Friedberg
Show right now like I guess.
00:08:03
I got gas.
00:08:03 Chamath Palihapitiya
I think this movie.
00:08:04 David Sacks
Should deal with all inbound press inquiries is we’ll tell him no, and then discuss it on the pod if they want it if they want.
00:08:07 Chamath Palihapitiya
I agree. Yeah.
00:08:09 Speaker 6
They could.
00:08:11 David Sacks
To quote listen.
00:08:12 David Sacks
To our pod and then transcribe what we say on the spot.
00:08:15 David Friedberg
Or reverse it if they ask, if they ask us.
00:08:16 David Sacks
My quote for the New Republic is that if Michael Kinsley was still the editor, I’d be happy to spend my valuable time talking to you.
00:08:23 David Sacks
But you feel they, will they?
00:08:23 David Sacks
He’s not. They’ve degraded.
00:08:25 Jason Calacanis
You feel it would be a fair profile?
00:08:27 David Sacks
Of course, it’s not going to be fair.
00:08:28 David Sacks
There are the speech police now and the fact that he didn’t even know, the fact he didn’t even know that I wasn’t just a donor on the Jason Budine saying I was the first person that I’m aware of, at least within Silicon Valley, who called out Jason Budine for the horrible job he was doing.
00:08:43 Jason Calacanis
Well, I mean that.
00:08:44 Jason Calacanis
That was bipartisan, by the way.
00:08:46 Speaker 6
It’s not like.
00:08:46 Jason Calacanis
David Sacks 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 chess abuddin out so they can he.
00:08:57 Jason Calacanis
Can’t spend that one.
00:08:58 David Sacks
You’re categorizing me as, like, just a partisan.
00:09:01 David Sacks
That’s not really how I come at these issues.
00:09:04 David Friedberg
Can we go back to your quotes?
00:09:05 David Friedberg
So that was your comment for New Republic Jaikel do you have comments for?
00:09:09 David Friedberg
New York Times and then none of the information.
00:09:10 Jason Calacanis
Well though it started with Eric.
00:09:11 Jason Calacanis
I got your service.
00:09:12 Jason Calacanis
Eric newcomer who’s awesome, who worked at the information started his own sub stack which.
00:09:16 Speaker 6
Jimmy Smith.
00:09:16 Jason Calacanis
Is really good by the way.
00:09:17 Jason Calacanis
And he comes on my other pod.
00:09:18 Speaker 6
He’s gay.
00:09:20 Jason Calacanis
He’s awesome.
00:09:20 Jason Calacanis
And so I’m going to be a guest on his pod ’cause I promised him, and he does my part, but I’m not going to be a guest.
00:09:25 Jason Calacanis
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 ’cause.
00:09:30 Jason Calacanis
I don’t want to take him and all in profile, we agreed as a group, we’re not doing it all in profile right now.
00:09:35 Jason Calacanis
So up to 10% can be about all in, but the other 90% gotta be my other projects.
00:09:39 Jason Calacanis
And he said totally fine.
00:09:40 Jason Calacanis
He understands.
00:09:41 Jason Calacanis
But he asked 1st and actually I would be inclined to do with him because he’s.
00:09:45 Jason Calacanis
If we were going to do it, but then.
00:09:46 David Sacks
What do they need?
00:09:47 David Sacks
I mean like we create like hours and hours of content every.
00:09:51 Jason Calacanis
And the drama is out here for everybody, terminally.
00:09:51 David Sacks
Month each week.
00:09:53 David Sacks
Like I don’t understand like what is?
00:09:55 David Sacks
What do you need our cooperation for?
00:09:56 Jason Calacanis
I think you wanna no?
00:09:58 Jason Calacanis
You wanna maybe frame and get a couple of.
00:10:00 David Friedberg
Chat suite.
00:10:02 Jason Calacanis
No, you want.
00:10:02 Jason Calacanis
You just want to get a couple of quotes that are.
00:10:04 Speaker 5
Unique, so that’s worth reading.
00:10:06 Chamath Palihapitiya
Guys have shoved their heads up each others ***** so.
00:10:10 David Sacks
Don’t think.
00:10:10 David Friedberg
It looks like it’s.
00:10:11 David Friedberg
Like a surface surface, you’re clear up here.
00:10:15 David Sacks
Clean Bill of health sacks.
00:10:17 Jason Calacanis
So anyway, Eric newcomer asked.
00:10:18 Jason Calacanis
And then the information.
00:10:20 Jason Calacanis
Asked and then Kevin rude.
00:10:21 David Sacks
No, the New York Times disaster.
00:10:23 Jason Calacanis
Kevin roose.
00:10:25 Jason Calacanis
Yes, read my comment there.
00:10:25 David Friedberg
Make your comment.
00:10:27 Jason Calacanis
Times is a.
00:10:29 Jason Calacanis
Yeah, enjoy the pod while it lasts.
00:10:31 Speaker 6
OK, alright.
00:10:31 Jason Calacanis
We try to.
00:10:32 Jason Calacanis
Keep it together.
00:10:33 Chamath Palihapitiya
It’s a problem.
00:10:33 Jason Calacanis
I mean I’ll say the other big issue is I got approached by a couple of by.
00:10:36 Jason Calacanis
Two different people who want to.
00:10:39 Jason Calacanis
We want to represent the pod.
00:10:40 Jason Calacanis
They say there’s seven and a half, $1,000,000 in advertising.
00:10:43 Jason Calacanis
We’re leaving on.
00:10:43 Jason Calacanis
The table, by the way, 150LB.
00:10:44 David Sacks
Good what?
00:10:47 Jason Calacanis
And literally, that was awesome.
00:10:48 David Sacks
I want that number to grow to 10 million, 20 million.
00:10:52 Jason Calacanis
Killing me, realize I would have a.
00:10:54 Jason Calacanis
Plane if you guys just let.
00:10:55
Me sell the ******* heads on this thing.
00:10:57 Jason Calacanis
I could get like.
00:10:57 David Friedberg
A million and a half dollars in jet sweep, but you would have a plan if you just did one other thing.
00:11:02 David Friedberg
You’re doing a higher different.
00:11:02 Jason Calacanis
Long chain.
00:11:03 David Sacks
Thing to see one thing, I’ll tell you what it is.
00:11:05 David Sacks
You have a plan if you were smarter.
00:11:10 Jason Calacanis
That’s not that’s not nice.
00:11:12 Jason Calacanis
That’s not nice.
00:11:13 Jason Calacanis
I would have a plane if I.
00:11:14 Jason Calacanis
Got luckier?
00:11:14 Jason Calacanis
I will say whoever said this is going.
00:11:16 Jason Calacanis
To help our.
00:11:16 Jason Calacanis
Core businesses, and that’s the reason I think might be neutral.
00:11:20 Jason Calacanis
I am raising my 4th fund. I am doing at 506 C which is public. I tweeted about it. I had 1200 people.
00:11:30 Jason Calacanis
Sign up for the webinar.
00:11:33 Jason Calacanis
And this means I might have to increase the size of my 4th venture fund because so many people listen to this pod and want to hang out.
00:11:41 Jason Calacanis
So but thank.
00:11:42 Jason Calacanis
You to everybody who listens the pot, I think.
00:11:44 Chamath Palihapitiya
Hey bro, I’m Bobby.
00:11:45 Jason Calacanis
Well, I mean it’s just nice, you know, I, I, you know, I, I struggled to raise the first couple funds, you guys.
00:11:50 Jason Calacanis
Backed me, but like I couldn’t breakthrough.
00:11:52 Jason Calacanis
As a solo GP.
00:11:55 Jason Calacanis
With the with the big LP’s, but I’m hoping to get one big LP.
00:11:57 Jason Calacanis
This time, and you know it’s I’m going.
00:11:59 Jason Calacanis
To be oversubscribed with all the high net worth individuals and everything, but I’d like to get like a memorial Sloan.
00:12:03 Jason Calacanis
Kettering or somebody doing Cancer Research just to feel good about it, you know?
00:12:06 David Sacks
I just want to say that I supported J.
00:12:08 David Sacks
Cole as a friend.
00:12:09 David Sacks
In fact, I was the first LP check in your fund, but that does not mean.
00:12:11 Jason Calacanis
Or something like.
00:12:13 David Sacks
That I had.
00:12:13 Jason Calacanis
You torsin anyway.
00:12:13 David Sacks
Worked in any way that anybody else had.
00:12:16 David Sacks
Come in.
00:12:17
I mean, whatever you’re.
00:12:19 Jason Calacanis
Like, I don’t want to say the performance, but you’re doing OK, let’s.
00:12:22 Jason Calacanis
Leave it at that.
00:12:24
And I would like to.
00:12:24
Right.
00:12:24 Chamath Palihapitiya
Say that I was not the first, but I was the biggest.
00:12:28 Chamath Palihapitiya
Yeah, you did.
00:12:28 Jason Calacanis
You did pretty big, yeah, absolutely.
00:12:30 David Friedberg
And I will say that I’m still.
00:12:30 Speaker 6
Right.
00:12:31 David Friedberg
Waiting for that moment to join you guys in Jack Coulson.
00:12:35 Jason Calacanis
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So.
00:12:36 Speaker 5
We will have a party together.
00:12:37 Jason Calacanis
And I’ll just keep coming to your LP meetings and entertaining your FPS.
00:12:40 Jason Calacanis
Thanks, pal.
00:12:41 Speaker 6
Entertaining, yeah.
00:12:42 David Sacks
Wait, is Jake Allen investor and production board?
00:12:44 Jason Calacanis
No, we have done we’ve agenda syndicate together.
00:12:46 David Friedberg
Thank you.
00:12:47 David Friedberg
You are my smallest investor.
00:12:51
I know how.
00:12:51 David Friedberg
That happened, but yeah, hey.
00:12:52 Jason Calacanis
Now let’s get to work.
00:12:53 Jason Calacanis
As soon as I’m sure you stay here.
00:12:53 David Sacks
Do you guys?
00:12:54 David Friedberg
Want to talk about the Queens, the passing of the Queen real quick?
00:12:56 David Friedberg
Before we start or.
00:12:57 David Friedberg
Is that I would like to go ahead.
00:12:57 Chamath Palihapitiya
India I was.
00:12:58 Chamath Palihapitiya
Born in Sri Lanka, I was.
00:13:00 Chamath Palihapitiya
Raised in Canada, so and now I live in the United States.
00:13:03 Chamath Palihapitiya
Obviously been a citizen of all three countries, so two of the three countries.
00:13:09 Chamath Palihapitiya
I’ve been a subject.
00:13:12 Chamath Palihapitiya
To the queen, I mean, I’m part of the.
00:13:13 Chamath Palihapitiya
Commonwealth and I.
00:13:14 Chamath Palihapitiya
Just want.
00:13:14 Chamath Palihapitiya
To say it was really sad for me, like these last couple days when I had said that.
00:13:19 Chamath Palihapitiya
She was sick and then she had passed.
00:13:21 Chamath Palihapitiya
I really honestly like it really touched.
00:13:23 Chamath Palihapitiya
Me she is.
00:13:25 Chamath Palihapitiya
And I can’t describe to you guys.
00:13:29 Chamath Palihapitiya
For someone who is part of that, young had Porter.
00:13:32 Chamath Palihapitiya
She is as a person and then you know if you’ve seen.
00:13:35 Chamath Palihapitiya
You know the.
00:13:38 Chamath Palihapitiya
The show on Netflix, it kind of romanticized little bit, but you know, she had 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.
00:13:52 Chamath Palihapitiya
So yeah, I’m a little.
00:13:53 Chamath Palihapitiya
Sad and I think she’s.
00:13:54 Chamath Palihapitiya
An incredible person, and even if you.
00:13:56 Chamath Palihapitiya
Don’t agree necessarily with monarchies in general.
00:13:59 Chamath Palihapitiya
I think you have.
00:14:00 Chamath Palihapitiya
To be super positive about her.
00:14:01 David Friedberg
Or the history of imperialism.
00:14:02 David Friedberg
There’s a lot of people that are kind of using this.
00:14:04 David Friedberg
As a moment.
00:14:05 David Friedberg
To be negative, right?
00:14:06 Chamath Palihapitiya
And Jamaica wants to become a Republic.
00:14:08 Chamath Palihapitiya
Australia wants to become a Republic.
00:14:10 Chamath Palihapitiya
They’ll prosecute that in due time, but.
00:14:12 Chamath Palihapitiya
For right now.
00:14:14 Chamath Palihapitiya
I just think that we have to celebrate this incredible woman who lived to an incredible age, who saw incredible things.
00:14:21 Chamath Palihapitiya
And who dedicated her entire life?
00:14:24 Chamath Palihapitiya
To the public service and lived it totally neutrally, which in today’s world nobody else does.
00:14:30 Chamath Palihapitiya
Everybody else takes a video, everybody else.
00:14:31 Jason Calacanis
That’s a good point.
00:14:33 Chamath Palihapitiya
Everybody else tries to.
00:14:34 Chamath Palihapitiya
Basically like, you know, create a schism.
00:14:37 Chamath Palihapitiya
She never did that in 70 years as the Queen.
00:14:40 David Friedberg
Yeah, like Bernie. Stoic. Very.
00:14:42 David Friedberg
Stoic and a symbol of service, not a symbol of dictatorship, right?
00:14:46 David Friedberg
I mean, there seems to be a very different role that she’s taken as a monarch then I think what has maybe historically been the role, which is pretty profound, right?
00:14:53 Chamath Palihapitiya
He’s incredible.
00:14:55 Jason Calacanis
It’s extraordinary that somebody would put 70 years of service and be that diligent and I think stoic and.
00:14:56 David Friedberg
It’s incredible.
00:15:01 Jason Calacanis
It in there for her.
00:15:02 Jason Calacanis
People, and to the people who are, you know, suffering and grieving you.
00:15:07 Chamath Palihapitiya
Know that word you said really resonated with me.
00:15:09 Chamath Palihapitiya
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 your sadness.
00:15:18 Chamath Palihapitiya
Not many people. Not.
00:15:20 Chamath Palihapitiya
Many people Jake out.
00:15:21 Chamath Palihapitiya
You know this exhibit that.
00:15:22 Chamath Palihapitiya
At all but then.
00:15:23 Chamath Palihapitiya
Definitely don’t exhibit it over 70 years.
00:15:26 Jason Calacanis
It’s it’s extraordinary and yeah, it’s.
00:15:29 Jason Calacanis
I I know a lot of people are.
00:15:30 Jason Calacanis
Grieving right now, so you you have our.
00:15:31 Chamath Palihapitiya
Somebody as a citizen of the monarchy.
00:15:33 Chamath Palihapitiya
I am at the Commonwealth, brother.
00:15:35 Chamath Palihapitiya
Thrilled Queen Elizabeth and deeply saddens me to see that she passed away.
00:15:38 Jason Calacanis
All right, listen.
00:15:40 Jason Calacanis
We got to talk about winter is coming.
00:15:41 Jason Calacanis
I’m not talking about Game of Thrones.
00:15:43 Jason Calacanis
Let’s talk about something serious is going on here.
00:15:45 Jason Calacanis
And, you know, we don’t like to be too repetitive here, but I think.
00:15:49 Jason Calacanis
We correctly predicted that you know this, this Ukraine.
00:15:54 Jason Calacanis
I think maybe, Sax, you pointed this out.
00:15:55 Jason Calacanis
Of this you print.
00:15:55 David Sacks
Yeah, what do you mean we kemosabe?
00:15:58 Jason Calacanis
All right, listen, I’m trying to give you ******* crediting interrupting.
00:16:00 Jason Calacanis
Can you just take?
00:16:01 Jason Calacanis
The *******
00:16:01 Jason Calacanis
Win, you’re such a miserable.
00:16:03 Jason Calacanis
******* I try to give you one.
00:16:05 Chamath Palihapitiya
******* win.
00:16:05 David Sacks
OK, finish, finish what you’re saying.
00:16:07 Jason Calacanis
And you cut me off all.
00:16:08 Jason Calacanis
Right, listen, we’ve been talking about this Ukraine thing stacks correctly predicted.
00:16:11 Jason Calacanis
If this goes to winter, this is.
00:16:15 Jason Calacanis
Going to get a cute and of course right on cue here we have it.
00:16:19 Jason Calacanis
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.
00:16:31 Jason Calacanis
They basically say a turbine broken in it magically at this point in time.
00:16:35 Jason Calacanis
Right before winter, this turbine broke according to.
00:16:37 Jason Calacanis
Putin and he needs a turbine, and if they give him a turbine, he said he’s going to turn it back on.
00:16:43 Jason Calacanis
This in the face of Europe saying they were going to cap the price of Russian gas, I don’t know how that works exactly, that you tell people what they can charge for gas.
00:16:51 Jason Calacanis
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.
00:17:02 Jason Calacanis
Is 4 times level year ago in eight times the level of EU.
00:17:07 Jason Calacanis
S obviously we.
00:17:08 Jason Calacanis
Are have gotten incredibly lucky to find all this natural gas here, and we are a.
00:17:12 Jason Calacanis
Huge exporter of.
00:17:14 Jason Calacanis
Natural gas and oil in the United States, so we’re good.
00:17:17 Jason Calacanis
This is the highest power prices have.
00:17:19 Jason Calacanis
Been in three decades.
00:17:22 Jason Calacanis
And the perfect storm is not limited to oil and the Russia and the Ukraine War, Francis 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.
00:17:39 David Sacks
That’s not the main issue here.
00:17:40 David Sacks
The main issue is.
00:17:41 Jason Calacanis
Well, I’m just saying.
00:17:41 David Sacks
The Russian gas.
00:17:42 Jason Calacanis
This is there is a perfect storm.
00:17:43 David Friedberg
Here, it’s not just that 40% of Europe’s energy consumption comes from Russian natural gas.
00:17:50 David Friedberg
40% and so you could see variants. There’s a baseload requirement for lighting and electricity, and then there’s industrial production and then there’s heating and cool.
00:18:00 David Friedberg
Heating and cooling.
00:18:01 David Friedberg
Demand is linearly tide to the number of degrees or above or below 65 Fahrenheit on average.
00:18:08 David Friedberg
And so as the temperature goes up, people turn air conditioners on. As the temperature goes below 65, they turn their heaters on.
00:18:13 David Friedberg
So there’s a linear demand for power consumption at those.
00:18:16 David Friedberg
So number one is you could kind of you could either.
00:18:19 David Friedberg
Cut base load which is.
00:18:20 David Friedberg
Lighting and basic.
00:18:21 David Friedberg
Kind of operations #2 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 in the in the continent that are dependent on natural gas.
00:18:33 David Friedberg
And #3 is excluding heating and cooling and that really ends up being kind of a market driven function, which is how pricey is this stuff ’cause there’s limited supply?
00:18:42 David Friedberg
You could normally in a normal year see fluctuations around five 1015% maybe with good kind of action and behavior. 40% of energy being cut is a massive, massive problem. There will be significant price.
00:18:56 David Friedberg
Climbs for these kind of variable demand and heating and cooling and so on, but for the price to go up by 6X7 X 8X10 X 15X over normal prices for someone.
00:19:09 David Friedberg
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 be shutting off of 40% of the energy supply.
00:19:29 David Friedberg
To the continent leading into winter.
00:19:31 David Friedberg
Winter is coming where energy demand spikes because of the needs preceding.
00:19:36 David Friedberg
Is going to cause real kind of problems.
00:19:38 David Friedberg
So there’s the cataclysmic problem of people actually being able to keep their homes, there’s the industrial problem of parts of that economy shutting down, and then there’s the currency.
00:19:48 David Friedberg
Problem of the governments needing to step in and bail out industry by super expensive gas give it to their citizens and their businesses at a discounted price and seeing their national and sovereign debt skyrocket, which is now expected to happen and as a result the British pound is trading at its lowest level since 1980.
00:20:07 David Friedberg
Five, and as a result, people are rushing to the street from Prague to Cologne, Germany, even in London, proclaiming that the governments aren’t doing enough #1 to stall the rate of inflation to make energy prices cheaper through action by having the government subsidized and #3, which I think was inevitable and is now becoming.
00:20:27 David Friedberg
Kind of the surprise factor to the Ukraine crisis, citizens are saying.
00:20:31 David Friedberg
End this war now.
00:20:33 David Friedberg
Get to the table with Russia, come up with a settlement and get the heck out of Ukraine.
00:20:37 David Friedberg
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.
00:20:49 David Friedberg
And so we’re seeing, you know, I think a big shift in attitude and a big shift.
00:20:52 David Friedberg
In kind of the societal perception of this war, particularly in Europe, because they’re still acutely feeling the effects and we are not in the US, 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.
00:21:06 David Friedberg
And we need to figure out a resolution, stop supporting Ukraine.
00:21:09 Jason Calacanis
So now what is the?
00:21:09 David Friedberg
And that’s so that’s, that’s a voice that that’s a voice that did not exist very loudly.
00:21:13 David Friedberg
Yeah, in the beginning and it’s and.
00:21:14 David Friedberg
It’s starting to swell running out of.
00:21:16 Jason Calacanis
Food or, you know, running.
00:21:17 Jason Calacanis
Out of heat to keep your kids warm.
00:21:19 Jason Calacanis
I mean, these are pretty.
00:21:20 Jason Calacanis
Acute situations Trump what’s the vibe in?
00:21:22 Jason Calacanis
The Middle East about this or are?
00:21:24 Jason Calacanis
They looking at it and seeing it.
00:21:25 Jason Calacanis
As an opportunity.
00:21:26 Jason Calacanis
They’re looking at it and seeing it as.
00:21:29 Jason Calacanis
You know, uh, manageable.
00:21:30 Jason Calacanis
Crises and or what do they?
00:21:32 Jason Calacanis
Consider their participation in this to be.
00:21:34 Chamath Palihapitiya
There’s a very structured framework for energy production which is owed back in OPEC plus and you know.
00:21:42 Chamath Palihapitiya
They have done.
00:21:44 Chamath Palihapitiya
Not just the Middle East, but frankly the Middle East plus.
00:21:47 Chamath Palihapitiya
The United States the best job possible to basically get the maximum demand so that there’s as much energy as possible.
00:21:55 Chamath Palihapitiya
The reasons that Europe are in an energy crisis really should be discussed.
00:22:02 Chamath Palihapitiya
Honestly, so #1.
00:22:06 Chamath Palihapitiya
An entire continent.
00:22:08 Chamath Palihapitiya
Essentially allowed a 16 year old girl to dictate their energy policy.
00:22:14 Chamath Palihapitiya
And when Greta Thunberg.
00:22:16 Chamath Palihapitiya
Was able.
00:22:16 Speaker 6
To shame.
00:22:18 Chamath Palihapitiya
An entire continent into basically walking away from nuclear and not really evaluating how you can actually have energy independence that they did was they put Europe in an incredibly fragile position.
00:22:34 Chamath Palihapitiya
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.
00:22:43 Chamath Palihapitiya
But now it’s absolutely clear, which is that.
00:22:45 Jason Calacanis
How did you?
00:22:46 Jason Calacanis
Not feel at your mouth.
00:22:47 David Friedberg
We set it on the credit card, we set it on the pod in February, he said.
00:22:49 Jason Calacanis
And how did they not?
00:22:51 Jason Calacanis
I mean, Trump.
00:22:51 Jason Calacanis
Said it years ago.
00:22:52 Jason Calacanis
I mean it’s, how is it?
00:22:52 David Friedberg
The first thing we said.
00:22:54 Jason Calacanis
Not obvious the.
00:22:55 Chamath Palihapitiya
Problem is, you have these.
00:22:56 Chamath Palihapitiya
Look, to be honest, you have these two goofballs.
00:22:59 Chamath Palihapitiya
You had a goofball on the left which was a 16 year old girl who knew nothing and had a goofball on the right, which is a president whose language turned people off even though the message that he was dealing.
00:23:10 Chamath Palihapitiya
Bring it was 100% right when when Trump went to the United Nations.
00:23:15 Chamath Palihapitiya
He was clear, he was precise.
00:23:19 Chamath Palihapitiya
And in hindsight, and I’m saying this as a Democrat, he was right about the German reliance on Russian gas and and the European reliance on gas.
00:23:24 Jason Calacanis
Same, right? Yeah.
00:23:29 Jason Calacanis
What did they think would happen?
00:23:31 David Sacks
The important thing was, was the reaction.
00:23:33 David Sacks
Remember that German delegations snickering while he was talking?
00:23:35 Chamath Palihapitiya
They were laughing.
00:23:36 Chamath Palihapitiya
They were laughing.
00:23:37 Chamath Palihapitiya
But but what we’re missing the real lesson.
00:23:40 Chamath Palihapitiya
The real lesson is that in all of our.
00:23:43 Chamath Palihapitiya
Least to basically overtly judge Trump because of his delivery and his, you know, his personal style or whatever.
00:23:52 Chamath Palihapitiya
We’ve ran towards a 16 year old person who has no ruling in science or technology to dictate the energy policy of an entire continent.
00:24:00 Chamath Palihapitiya
I mean, the she was.
00:24:02 Chamath Palihapitiya
Nominated for Nobel Prize.
00:24:05 Chamath Palihapitiya
Just to remind you guys.
00:24:07 Chamath Palihapitiya
This is how insane all of these people were.
00:24:10 Chamath Palihapitiya
So in an effort to virtue, signal to the hilt and beyond that we essentially did what the entire world did was turn a blind eye to science.
00:24:21 Chamath Palihapitiya
And turn a blind eye to mathematics and simple understanding of supply and demand.
00:24:26 Chamath Palihapitiya
And so now you have a situation where.
00:24:29 Chamath Palihapitiya
The entire continent of Europe is probably on the precipice of island, the minimal recession, but frankly there’s a lot of scenarios where it could be meaningfully worse.
00:24:39 Chamath Palihapitiya
And I think what it does is ultimately it is first the Russian ending and that Russian end game is essentially the following, which is that.
00:24:51 Chamath Palihapitiya
Germany will probably be the first to capitulate.
00:24:56 Chamath Palihapitiya
But it’ll be a combination of the United States and Europe who negotiate some kind of a settlement.
00:25:03 Jason Calacanis
They have to fold.
00:25:04 Chamath Palihapitiya
And and the reason, well, without calling it folding, I would just say there’s a settlement.
00:25:10 Chamath Palihapitiya
And the reason this settlement is necessary is you’re going to start to impact.
00:25:14 Chamath Palihapitiya
10s of millions of people lives in an incredibly arduous way.
00:25:20 Chamath Palihapitiya
And those people?
00:25:23 Chamath Palihapitiya
Are asking their leaders to tell them why it’s worth it.
00:25:27 Chamath Palihapitiya
That’s why you’re seeing protests all around Europe.
00:25:32 Chamath Palihapitiya
People have decided that this war has gotten two or three steps beyond what they thought they were getting into, and that it was.
00:25:41 Chamath Palihapitiya
Shining light on a whole set of decisions.
00:25:43 Chamath Palihapitiya
That never should have been made.
00:25:45 Jason Calacanis
Saks, what’s I I think what people most want to know and I’ll go to Freeburg after sex free burger, then people going to want to know.
00:25:52 Jason Calacanis
How do they close this gap in terms of the 40% dependency so you can start thinking about that?
00:25:56 Jason Calacanis
But tax?
00:25:57 Jason Calacanis
How do we resolve this issue with Russia without enabling them ’cause?
00:26:01 Jason Calacanis
Nobody wants to enable them and reward them for invading countries, but here we are.
00:26:05 Jason Calacanis
They didn’t settle this thing in the whatever nine months we’re in now and they don’t have any more cards to.
00:26:11 Jason Calacanis
Play they they need heat.
00:26:12 Jason Calacanis
They need people can’t freeze the deaths in Germany, so they’re going to have to fold in some way and it doesn’t seem like there’s any.
00:26:19 Jason Calacanis
Gap that can.
00:26:19 Jason Calacanis
Be closed here in terms of there’s not enough firewood to go around.
00:26:22 Jason Calacanis
It’s all these stories about stockpiling firewood that doesn’t seem practical. Sure, you could reduce consumption by 10:20, maybe 25%. That does seem reasonable.
00:26:31 Jason Calacanis
But there’s still.
00:26:31 Jason Calacanis
A huge gap here, so.
00:26:33 Jason Calacanis
What’s the end game, sacks?
00:26:34 Jason Calacanis
I mean it.
00:26:35 Speaker 6
Well, first, just.
00:26:36 David Sacks
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.
00:26:44 David Sacks
This came out on September 8th, and it says here that the price of natural gas in Europe it used to just be €20 per MW hour is now above.
00:26:55 David Sacks
200 per MW hour, so we’re at 10 times.
00:27:00 David Sacks
The 10 year average in the market and when there isn’t even here, so you know Europe is the Titanic winner is the iceberg.
00:27:09 David Sacks
The main difference between this and the Titanic stories that everyone can see?
00:27:12 David Sacks
The iceberg and yet no one is really changing course.
00:27:15 David Sacks
So Liz trust the new Prime Minister of the UK so that Ukraine can depend on UK.
00:27:20 David Sacks
For support in the long term, Olaf Schultz said that Germany will support Ukraine as long as it takes mccran you know from France, so that NATO will stand together and prevent Russia from winning the war.
00:27:31 David Sacks
Or so you know.
00:27:32 David Sacks
Leader after leader is doing the opposite of what you and and Timothy just said, which is try to figure out a compromise.
00:27:39 David Sacks
In fact.
00:27:40 David Sacks
In the last.
00:27:41 David Sacks
Week or so new information came out about actions Boris Johnson took back in March or April, when they remember when there was discussion about a peace deal about a month into the war.
00:27:52 David Sacks
It turns out that Boris Johnson went to Ukraine and said no deal, do not take the deal.
00:27:56 David Sacks
We need to weaken Putin and Russia, not compromise with them.
00:28:00 David Sacks
So the fact.
00:28:01 David Sacks
Of the matter is that.
00:28:03 David Sacks
The European leaders are increasingly out of touch with their own people.
00:28:08 David Sacks
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.
00:28:18 David Sacks
They are serving this larger foreign policy agenda.
00:28:20 David Sacks
This is why you’re seeing people in the streets in Czechoslovakia.
00:28:24 David Sacks
These other countries, and This is why the crisis will only grow in winter, I think you guys are just assuming there’s going to be a compromise.
00:28:32 David Sacks
I’m not sure that’s true.
00:28:33 David Sacks
These leaders are stubborn.
00:28:34 David Sacks
So This is why, for example, we’ve already now seen in the UK Boris Johnson.
00:28:40 David Sacks
Lost power, although list Rough, basically has the same policy Mario Draghi has basically lost in Italy and Bulgaria replaced their PM.
00:28:49 David Sacks
So the leaders, the dominoes are starting to fall in Europe and I think there’s going to be a lot more of this and who knows what governments we’re going to end up with in Europe in six months?
00:28:58 Jason Calacanis
What’s the end?
00:28:59 Jason Calacanis
Game then, I mean.
00:29:00 Jason Calacanis
What do you what do you predict will happen?
00:29:01 Jason Calacanis
Do you think they’re going to hold their ground?
00:29:03 Jason Calacanis
And not have a compliment.
00:29:04 David Sacks
So Tramont pointed out the mistakes that.
00:29:07 David Sacks
These leaders made following Greta Thunberg.
00:29:10 David Sacks
I think there’s another mistake.
00:29:11 David Sacks
Dave May, which is, I think all these leaders have pulled a Tony Blair.
00:29:15 David Sacks
Do you remember Tony Blair?
00:29:16 David Sacks
Tony Blair was the Bill Clinton of the UK after Margaret Thatcher.
00:29:20 David Sacks
He was the first Labour PM to get elected.
00:29:23 David Sacks
He was incredibly talented as a politician and he was very popular in the UK until he did one thing.
00:29:30 David Sacks
You know what?
00:29:30 David Sacks
That one thing.
00:29:31 David Sacks
Was he went along with George W Bush’s Iraq war? The people of UK did not want to get involved in that war, and Blair acted as W’s lapdog and went along with it.
00:29:43 David Sacks
And bought into all of the lies about that war and today he has 0 credibility in the UK.
00:29:50 David Sacks
It’s really actually a sad story.
00:29:52 David Sacks
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 now.
00:30:03 David Sacks
Let’s turn to Freeburg.
00:30:05
Which is you?
00:30:05 David Sacks
Talked about the fig leaf, that the Russians are blaming this on a turbine.
00:30:09 David Sacks
I don’t think that’s even really true anymore.
00:30:11 David Sacks
I mean, the Russians are facing threats.
00:30:11 Speaker 6
Well, of course.
00:30:12 Jason Calacanis
Putin’s lying, of course, yeah.
00:30:13 David Sacks
Yeah, but but I think the Russians have basically said that.
00:30:17 David Sacks
That, listen, this is about your sanctions, it’s about sanctions, right?
00:30:18 Jason Calacanis
But we could.
00:30:19 Jason Calacanis
Also because of yeah, they’re like.
00:30:21 Jason Calacanis
And a turbine, it’s like, pick one.
00:30:23 David Sacks
Right.
00:30:23 Jason Calacanis
That can’t be both.
00:30:23 David Sacks
But listen, but the the point I’m trying to make it look, obviously this is retaliation by the Russians.
00:30:28 David Sacks
The problem is the stupidity of Western leaders in not thinking there’s going to be retaliation.
00:30:35 David Sacks
I mean all you’re hearing.
00:30:36 David Sacks
Right now from Western leaders is indignation that Russia would play the only card they have, the card that was obvious they were going to play, you know, meanwhile, look at.
00:30:46 David Sacks
What we’ve done.
00:30:49 David Sacks
So you’ve got administration officials?
00:30:52 David Sacks
Talking about the fact that we have commanders on the ground in Ukraine, you’ve got administration officials bragging about the fact that we are helping to pay targets on the backs of Russian generals so they can be killed.
00:31:03 David Sacks
You have administration officials boasting about providing the the artillery spotting so we could say.
00:31:09 David Sacks
The mosqueira the.
00:31:10 David Sacks
The Russian flagship.
00:31:11 David Sacks
I’ll provide receipts for all these things, OK, you’ve got Biden saying that Putin cannot remain in power.
00:31:16 David Sacks
You’ve got Lindsey Graham.
00:31:17 David Sacks
Saying he must be assassinated?
00:31:17 Jason Calacanis
OK, we don’t know all.
00:31:18 Jason Calacanis
This, but, well, let us let’s go forward.
00:31:18 David Sacks
Hold on a second.
00:31:20 Jason Calacanis
How does?
00:31:20 Jason Calacanis
It resolve you’ve.
00:31:21 David Sacks
Got Lindsey Graham saying they need.
00:31:22 David Friedberg
To be assassinated like Caesar.
00:31:24 David Sacks
You’ve got the US appropriating 40 billion. Hold on. Second in weapons G planes. So my point is this OK?
00:31:25 Jason Calacanis
That’s we got 2 hawkers.
00:31:31 David Sacks
The US.
00:31:32 David Sacks
And the Western alliance, they are doing everything in Ukraine except pulling the triggers.
00:31:38 David Sacks
OK, they are doing the return product.
00:31:40 Jason Calacanis
You get the point?
00:31:41 Jason Calacanis
We didn’t listen, son.
00:31:41 David Sacks
OK.
00:31:41 David Sacks
So the point is we are.
00:31:43 David Sacks
In a proxy war with Russia.
00:31:45 Chamath Palihapitiya
What did you?
00:31:45 David Sacks
Expect was going to happen.
00:31:47 Jason Calacanis
These leaps going forward, what should happen going forward?
00:31:47 David Sacks
Leaders are not even playing checkers.
00:31:49 David Sacks
Hold on, hold on a second.
00:31:51 Chamath Palihapitiya
Here in the River marathon.
00:31:52 David Sacks
Forget about playing chess.
00:31:53 David Sacks
They’re not even playing checkers, meaning they cannot even anticipate what the Russians are going to do next.
00:31:58 David Sacks
It was eminently predictable.
00:32:00 David Sacks
Imminently predictable that the Russians were going to turn off European gas and create this crisis, So what should they have done?
00:32:07 David Sacks
What they should have done was work out a wet steel.
00:32:10 Jason Calacanis
I know that, but we’re kind of repeating the same position you have every week here.
00:32:14 Jason Calacanis
I’m trying to get to going forward, so Freeburg, what should we do going forward here, both on an energy basis?
00:32:20 Jason Calacanis
And a political basis.
00:32:22 Jason Calacanis
That’s the thing, I guess.
00:32:23 Jason Calacanis
That the sort of breakdown of what occur here in your position sacks, but what do you think Freeburg should happen going?
00:32:28 Jason Calacanis
Forward how do we resolve this?
00:32:28 David Friedberg
I thought you said there’s that there’s an acute energy shortfall.
00:32:31 David Friedberg
You can’t just make that up, you can’t convert oil into natural gas to heat people homes.
00:32:36 David Friedberg
It’s impossible structurally right now in the time frame that it’s needed.
00:32:39 Jason Calacanis
So what should the US and what should the EU be doing now?
00:32:40 David Friedberg
So we’re just.
00:32:42 Jason Calacanis
That they’re not doing.
00:32:44 David Friedberg
I I think that there’s going to be this inevitability that we’re going to need to broker a deal with Russia and there’s and and what I think you’ll see over the next couple of months, particularly because winter is coming.
00:32:59 David Friedberg
Is you need to. There’s going to be a lot of saving space. 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.
00:33:19 David Friedberg
And I think that there are certain strategic regions and certain strategic assets that it’s pretty clear and evident he wanted.
00:33:25 David Friedberg
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.
00:33:38 David Friedberg
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 fives.
00:33:53 David Friedberg
Meanwhile, Putin smiling ’cause, he got exactly what he wanted.
00:33:56 David Friedberg
I think that’s where this is all going to end up.
00:33:58 David Friedberg
Over the next several months, I think that’s that’s if it doesn’t, there’s going to be significant rioting 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 center or lower enough cost energy supply.
00:34:18 David Friedberg
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.
00:34:26 David Friedberg
The economy will be shattered, economies will be shattered and people will be really unhappy.
00:34:31 David Friedberg
Food will climb and the currency will be destroyed.
00:34:35 David Friedberg
And you know what happens when currencies get destroyed?
00:34:37 David Friedberg
All imports become inflated in price, and then you have inflation.
00:34:41 David Friedberg
If there isn’t a resolution in the next few weeks, there will be civil unrest, there will be a really cataclysmic concerning.
00:34:48 Jason Calacanis
And you think that forces the government?
00:34:50 Jason Calacanis
To just fold to Putin and give him some portion of the Ukraine.
00:34:52 David Friedberg
Yeah, and I think the thing that we don’t know for sure is what are they going to do from a face saving move perspective, what are?
00:34:57 David Friedberg
They going to say they got from Sweden.
00:34:58 Jason Calacanis
So do Ukraine or the alliance.
00:35:00 David Friedberg
The West plus Ukraine.
00:35:01 David Friedberg
We are going to have to plow so much money into the Ukraine to make them feel OK about what we’re going to ask them to do in order to remove or to end the crisis.
00:35:13 David Friedberg
And so there’s going to be this huge check, this huge investment in Ukraine, the Western investment in Ukraine, the the, the support mechanism.
00:35:20 David Friedberg
For the country, for the people left behind in order to get this thing resolved.
00:35:24 David Friedberg
And so my guess is huge amount of money from the West and EU going into Ukraine.
00:35:29 David Friedberg
Ukraine agrees to let Putin keep some region, some assets.
00:35:33 David Friedberg
Putin agrees to remove himself from certain regions and give up certain assets.
00:35:37 David Friedberg
Sanctions are partially lifted, but they’re partially lifted enough to get the flow of gas going and to get the economy turning again.
00:35:44 Jason Calacanis
Trebach, any final thoughts here as we turn around third base here on this uh, lessons learned and how?
00:35:51 Speaker 6
And it’s me.
00:35:51 Jason Calacanis
To avoid this in the future.
00:35:53 Speaker 6
You may you.
00:35:54 Chamath Palihapitiya
May want to find the quip Nick from.
00:35:55 Chamath Palihapitiya
July where I said.
00:35:57 Chamath Palihapitiya
The tip of the spear in the.
00:35:58 Chamath Palihapitiya
Fall was going to be the European energy crisis.
00:36:01 Speaker 5
Oil is at 105 bucks a barrel. Russia is basically trying to break the back of Europe by now messing with their Nat gas supplies.
00:36:10 Speaker 5
The German Energy minister yesterday said that if that happens, it.
00:36:15 Speaker 5
Could be a.
00:36:15 Speaker 5
Contagion equivalent to Lehman Brothers with respect to energy you’re already starting to see.
00:36:22 Speaker 5
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?
00:36:35 Speaker 5
A much bigger contagion like Freeburg 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 1,000,000 barrels to minus two in a heartbeat.
00:36:50 Chamath Palihapitiya
Yeah, my final part of the following, which is.
00:36:52 Chamath Palihapitiya
That I think that the.
00:36:55 Chamath Palihapitiya
European system is going to be put under stress because there are really a bunch of different countries with very different incentives, right?
00:37:04 Chamath Palihapitiya
Now, where some countries are in desperate need of energy, some countries can probably stave it off for a little bit longer.
00:37:13 Chamath Palihapitiya
Other countries are so adamantly focused on their position on Russia over and above.
00:37:22 Chamath Palihapitiya
Any source of energy that they may need or don’t.
00:37:24 Chamath Palihapitiya
Have so I just think like this is a.
00:37:27 Chamath Palihapitiya
Really good point.
00:37:29 Chamath Palihapitiya
To take a step back and realize that.
00:37:31 Chamath Palihapitiya
In all of these conflicts.
00:37:35 Chamath Palihapitiya
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.
00:37:43 Chamath Palihapitiya
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.
00:37:52 Chamath Palihapitiya
It affects you.
00:37:53 Chamath Palihapitiya
And Jason, you’ve said.
00:37:53 Chamath Palihapitiya
This, but is it like you’re only one?
00:37:55 Chamath Palihapitiya
Meal away from.
00:37:55 Chamath Palihapitiya
A revolution that rose at the face.
00:37:56 Jason Calacanis
Yeah, 3 miles away.
00:37:57 Jason Calacanis
Yeah, and I.
00:37:58 Jason Calacanis
Think it would.
00:37:58 Jason Calacanis
Be uh, you’re only like 5 days away from having no heat before people ride on the street is.
00:37:58 Chamath Palihapitiya
It is like.
00:38:03 Jason Calacanis
Probably the equivalent.
00:38:03 Chamath Palihapitiya
OK, but that, but with that.
00:38:06 David Friedberg
But that’s the lesson.
00:38:07 Chamath Palihapitiya
Which is that at the.
00:38:08 Chamath Palihapitiya
End of the day it.
00:38:09 Chamath Palihapitiya
Is when you’re.
00:38:11 Chamath Palihapitiya
In a position.
00:38:11 Chamath Palihapitiya
Of comfort you can focus on forward and out looking new.
00:38:16 Chamath Palihapitiya
Through 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.
00:38:28 Chamath Palihapitiya
All bets are off.
00:38:29 Chamath Palihapitiya
And I think this just goes to.
00:38:31 Chamath Palihapitiya
Show you that.
00:38:34 Chamath Palihapitiya
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 at a massive Achilles heel, which is energy.
00:38:47 Chamath Palihapitiya
And then you know.
00:38:48 Chamath Palihapitiya
The minute that they were forced to basically act.
00:38:48 Jason Calacanis
Well, they struck, tested it.
00:38:49 Jason Calacanis
Now they’re gonna have to take this much more seriously going into next year, because they’ve enabled the madman.
00:38:53 Chamath Palihapitiya
So I’m disappointed.
00:38:54 Chamath Palihapitiya
Let’s not going to Christmas.
00:38:56 David Sacks
That is the dominant narrative.
00:38:57 David Sacks
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.
00:39:06 David Sacks
And my point is that this conflict has always been more complicated than that, OK?
00:39:11 David Sacks
And if you really want to understand this conflict, you have to go back and understand the history of it.
00:39:16 David Sacks
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 was an excellent piece by William Perry, who is Bill Clinton.
00:39:29 David Sacks
Defense Secretary, OK, she said how the US 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.
00:39:40 David Sacks
Question what? Perry points out number again. He was Clinton’s Defense Secretary in the 1990s. He almost resigned in protest.
00:39:49 David Sacks
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.
00:40:05 David Sacks
In any event, that’s when NATO expansion began was the late 90s.
00:40:09 David Sacks
Perry was against it because, like George Kennan, like former ambassador of the Soviet Union James Matlaw, he understood that it would be provocative.
00:40:18 David Sacks
It would be seen as a provocative move by Russia.
00:40:21 David Sacks
OK, he was against that policy.
00:40:23 David Sacks
The other thing he points out is that.
00:40:25 David Sacks
In the 1990s, the Russian economy collapsed because they moved off of the Soviet system and we did absolutely nothing to help them. As a result of that, we bred the conditions for a strongman to our merge, who basically.
00:40:42 David Sacks
Prioritize the restoration of Russian pride, dignity, and strength.
00:40:47 David Sacks
OK, so he points out the ways that our policies helped create Putin.
00:40:53 David Sacks
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.
00:41:07 David Sacks
OK, what are the Russians basically demanding?
00:41:10 David Sacks
What were their demands?
00:41:11 David Sacks
Partlist war?
00:41:12 David Sacks
There are two things they really didn’t like.
00:41:13 David Sacks
OK.
00:41:14 David Sacks
Number one was they didn’t want, they didn’t want Ukraine limited to NATO and.
00:41:15 Jason Calacanis
NATO at their doorstep.
00:41:16 Jason Calacanis
We’ve been over this, yes.
00:41:19 David Sacks
Then #2.
00:41:20 David Sacks
Is they didn’t want American missiles right on their border that could hit Moscow in 5 minutes.
00:41:25 David Sacks
OK, those were their two demands.
00:41:27 David Sacks
The fact of.
00:41:28 David Sacks
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.
00:41:39 David Sacks
Well, look.
00:41:41 David Sacks
We never earned the right to call those a pretext.
00:41:43 David Sacks
If you want to call them a pretext, you take those issues off the table.
00:41:47 David Sacks
Then if the Russians invade.
00:41:49 David Sacks
You know, they’re liars.
00:41:50 David Sacks
The truth of matter.
00:41:50 David Sacks
Is we refused?
00:41:52 David Sacks
Could negotiate in any way with, right?
00:41:52 Jason Calacanis
We never played that.
00:41:54 Jason Calacanis
We never played that move, and so we’ll never know.
00:41:56 Jason Calacanis
I I don’t disagree with you about that point.
00:41:58 Jason Calacanis
OK, the.
00:41:59 Jason Calacanis
Listen here.
00:41:59 David Sacks
Metric you’re asking so weird.
00:41:59 Jason Calacanis
If they need the EU, the European Union needs to learn the lesson of energy independence.
00:42:03 Speaker 6
But which is this mystery?
00:42:05
Is so much cheaper.
00:42:05 Jason Calacanis
And not spending.
00:42:06 Jason Calacanis
More money with Putin?
00:42:06 David Sacks
Hold on, I I want.
00:42:07 David Sacks
I want to keep going with this because I think this issue is so much deeper.
00:42:10 David Sacks
OK, listen, one of the problems we have in this country is that when a war doesn’t work out, we just go.
00:42:17 David Sacks
We never talk about Afghanistan anymore.
00:42:19 David Sacks
We never talk about Iraq anymore.
00:42:21 David Sacks
We understand they were gigantic mistakes, but who is analyzing why they happened?
00:42:25 David Sacks
Who’s responsible for the failure?
00:42:28 David Sacks
The fact that matters have been no accountability.
00:42:30 David Sacks
The same people who drove our disastrous foreign policy in the Middle East are the same people who.
00:42:37 David Sacks
Have driven our Ukraine policy in Eastern Europe.
00:42:39 David Sacks
There is no accountability.
00:42:39 Jason Calacanis
The industrial military concept.
00:42:41 David Sacks
Not just as.
00:42:42 David Sacks
The foreign policy elite in this country, OK.
00:42:44 David Sacks
So my point my point is this.
00:42:44 Jason Calacanis
I don’t disagree with you that there.
00:42:46 David Sacks
Fox yeah. OK, so my.
00:42:48 David Sacks
Point is this, it sounds to me like you’re willing to now say what compromise can we find?
00:42:48 Jason Calacanis
And your to China should be more dogs.
00:42:52 David Sacks
To get out of.
00:42:53 David Sacks
This war, OK, my point is.
00:42:54 Jason Calacanis
Well, I think that way since.
00:42:55 Jason Calacanis
I’ve been trying to avoid war from the beginning.
00:42:57 Jason Calacanis
I I do.
00:42:57 Jason Calacanis
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?
00:43:07 Jason Calacanis
And who we don’t.
00:43:08 Jason Calacanis
Know if they ever offer that.
00:43:10 Jason Calacanis
Or not, but it doesn’t seem like they did.
00:43:10 David Sacks
No, we do now.
00:43:11 David Sacks
Actually there was there.
00:43:12 David Sacks
Was new information that came out of the.
00:43:13 David Sacks
Last couple weeks, OK. Yeah.
00:43:14 Jason Calacanis
Obviously they should have offered that.
00:43:15 Jason Calacanis
I mean the 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 Nora.
00:43:26 Jason Calacanis
He would be neutered right now.
00:43:27 David Sacks
OK, but we knew that.
00:43:28 David Sacks
We knew that.
00:43:29 David Sacks
So so if.
00:43:29 David Sacks
You’re playing.
00:43:31 Jason Calacanis
You’re not even saying it actively.
00:43:32 Chamath Palihapitiya
It’s not that.
00:43:33 Chamath Palihapitiya
If he didn’t have, notice that doesn’t exist without.
00:43:36 Chamath Palihapitiya
An entire other counterparty agreeing to it.
00:43:38 Jason Calacanis
I agree.
00:43:39 Jason Calacanis
If Germany had kept their nukes going, and if they had made other plans, perhaps with.
00:43:45 Chamath Palihapitiya
OK, but but BB intellectual runs so.
00:43:45 Jason Calacanis
The middle.
00:43:45 Jason Calacanis
East or oil or or the United States.
00:43:47 Jason Calacanis
And if we?
00:43:48 David Sacks
Well, and don’t forget.
00:43:48 Jason Calacanis
Had the infrastructure what?
00:43:49 David Sacks
Biden canceled our energy independence the first day he was in office.
00:43:51 David Friedberg
And by and by the way, it doesn’t matter that it’s a dictator on the other side.
00:43:55 David Friedberg
There is a dependency on the other side and that.
00:43:58 Jason Calacanis
I agree, I’m been for.
00:43:58 David Friedberg
Is an issue.
00:43:59 David Friedberg
It doesn’t matter that it’s more than that.
00:43:59 Jason Calacanis
Energy independence since the beginning.
00:44:01 Jason Calacanis
I’ve been talking about nuclear since the beginning.
00:44:03 Jason Calacanis
For decades I’ve.
00:44:04 Jason Calacanis
Been talking about this.
00:44:04 David Friedberg
But Jaikel, 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.
00:44:15 David Friedberg
And so we see this around the world with food, with energy, with manufacturing.
00:44:19 David Friedberg
China manifests.
00:44:19 Jason Calacanis
Would that be a bad thing with?
00:44:20 David Friedberg
That would be a good.
00:44:21 Jason Calacanis
Thing with oil, wouldn’t it?
00:44:22 David Friedberg
China manufacturers.
00:44:22 Jason Calacanis
If there was no market for it.
00:44:24 David Friedberg
If there was no market for oil, then a lot of countries that are a lot of countries that do not have energy stocks locally would not be able to acquire energy stocks.
00:44:26 Jason Calacanis
Or less romantic.
00:44:33 David Friedberg
And so a more free.
00:44:35 David Friedberg
More global, mark it if you’re domestic.
00:44:35 Jason Calacanis
It doesn’t make sense.
00:44:37 Speaker 5
If you if you’re saying.
00:44:38 Jason Calacanis
If we lowered our use of oil, that would make it cheaper, which means that developing countries would pay less.
00:44:44 David Friedberg
Jacob, just just let me finish with my point for one second.
00:44:48 David Friedberg
In every country you are either an importer or exporter.
00:44:52 David Friedberg
You’re an importer of manufactured goods or an exporter of manufactured goods.
00:44:56 David Friedberg
You’re an importer of energy.
00:44:57 David Friedberg
You’re an exporter of energy, an importer of food and exporter of food.
00:45:00 David Friedberg
It doesn’t matter, and we often use this as a way to characterize.
00:45:04 David Friedberg
The leadership that these countries as being bad when we end up in conflict with them, it doesn’t matter that.
00:45:09 David Friedberg
This person is that there’s an autocracy on the other side, or if there’s a democracy on the other side.
00:45:14 David Friedberg
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 fault for being dependent on the supply agreement and then allowing conflict to end seals.
00:45:24 Jason Calacanis
I don’t think what you’re saying is accurate, and I’ll explain why.
00:45:28 Jason Calacanis
Reasonable parties who are democracies, if they get into a trade dispute, generally do not invade each other country.
00:45:36 Jason Calacanis
So that’s where your argument breaks.
00:45:37 Jason Calacanis
And it would be absolutely fantastic if the lesson the European Union learned here was let’s not be dependent on audits.
00:45:43 David Friedberg
Should the United States do to Afghanistan?
00:45:45 Jason Calacanis
Let’s hold on, hold on.
00:45:45 David Friedberg
What did the United States do to Iraq?
00:45:47 David Friedberg
OK, did we not invade those countries?
00:45:49 Jason Calacanis
I’m not talking about I’m.
00:45:49 David Friedberg
Is that so?
00:45:50 Jason Calacanis
Talking about the dependency in.
00:45:51 David Friedberg
That is what you just said.
00:45:51 David Sacks
Libya to live here too.
00:45:52 David Friedberg
He said that democracies do not invade and let me help.
00:45:55 Jason Calacanis
I said true democracy is true democracies 2.
00:45:55 David Friedberg
I think we did invade.
00:45:56 David Friedberg
And we are to.
00:45:57 Jason Calacanis
Democracies that are in a trade war are generally not going with each other.
00:46:00 Jason Calacanis
We invaded Afghanistan since this is 911, OK? And the the first Iraq war we invaded, we protected.
00:46:01 David Sacks
Well, I see that.
00:46:08 Jason Calacanis
Kuwait, right.
00:46:09 Jason Calacanis
And so, you know, I’m not here to justify every word the United States, but in I’m just talking about, in this situation, the EU lowering their dependency.
00:46:17 Jason Calacanis
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.
00:46:22 Jason Calacanis
Is not not logical to you Freeburg or fair statement, unfortunately.
00:46:24 David Sacks
That there there is a, there is.
00:46:25 David Sacks
A neoliberal view whole second, there was a neoliberal view, I’d say corded neoliberalism.
00:46:30 David Sacks
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.
00:46:36 Jason Calacanis
Yes, China was the perfect example, right.
00:46:38 Jason Calacanis
That’s true.
00:46:38 David Sacks
Try once, for example.
00:46:39 David Sacks
There was also a belief that as trying to become richer, they become more democratic.
00:46:42 David Sacks
That hasn’t worked out so well and say, economic interdependence theory hasn’t worked out so.
00:46:45 David Sacks
Well, either.
00:46:46 David Sacks
So this is a core failing.
00:46:48 David Sacks
Now you’re modifying the theory to say, well, only economic interdependence among democracies.
00:46:52 David Sacks
But that was not the view.
00:46:53 David Sacks
That was not the view for the last 20 years.
00:46:56 Jason Calacanis
And in fact, we don’t.
00:46:56 David Sacks
It was.
00:46:56 David Sacks
A Cortana, neoliberalism.
00:46:57 Jason Calacanis
Know if we’ve avoided war with China because of the dependency, so it might happen.
00:46:58 David Sacks
Well, let’s look at.
00:46:58 David Sacks
That if we make ourselves dependent, if we make ourselves dependent on these other countries and somehow it’s going to lead to peace.
00:47:05 David Sacks
No, it actually is.
00:47:06 David Sacks
This led to dependency was a foolish policy.
00:47:09 David Sacks
We should have been energy independent.
00:47:11 David Sacks
Europe should have been energy independent.
00:47:13 Jason Calacanis
I see you’re coming with me.
00:47:13 David Sacks
They could not have made them.
00:47:14 David Sacks
I do agree that it was pulling for.
00:47:15 Jason Calacanis
OK.
00:47:15 Jason Calacanis
Yeah, we’re in agreement.
00:47:16 David Sacks
Them right?
00:47:16 Jason Calacanis
Yes, your disagreement with city parks.
00:47:17 David Sacks
But but no, no, I’m not discriminate.
00:47:18 Jason Calacanis
Got it.
00:47:18 Jason Calacanis
OK.
00:47:19 David Sacks
Really, I think but.
00:47:20 David Friedberg
But by the way, I’m not.
00:47:21 David Friedberg
I’m not a proponent of people not being energy independent.
00:47:24 David Friedberg
The reason I think people can.
00:47:26 David Friedberg
Be energy independent today is.
00:47:27 David Friedberg
Because of technology like nuclear.
00:47:28 David Friedberg
And I think that all these.
00:47:29 David Friedberg
Every country in the world should find a way to get energy independence.
00:47:33 David Friedberg
I’m also an advocate of global trade.
00:47:35 David Friedberg
I am an advocate because I think that global trade enables economic progress.
00:47:39 David Friedberg
It allows the consumer to get the cheapest product possible and for the producer to find a market for the products that they make.
00:47:45 David Friedberg
And that there’s an element of this, which is energy.
00:47:48 David Friedberg
But energy doesn’t need to be a trade traded market as much anymore because of technology, manufactured goods, food.
00:47:54 David Friedberg
We still haven’t cracked the nut on learning from those.
00:47:55 Speaker 5
OK.
00:47:57 Jason Calacanis
We we are then in agreement Freeburg, so I.
00:47:57 David Sacks
It means that.
00:47:59 Jason Calacanis
Don’t know why it sounded.
00:47:59 David Sacks
I mean look, this is, this is from the this is sort of ancillary point, but I just want to say that historically there’s been no basis for believing in economic interdependence theory.
00:48:00 Jason Calacanis
Like they weren’t.
00:48:08 David Sacks
If you go back to World War One, Germany and the UK were each other’s largest trading partners before War One didn’t stop him from getting into war War Two.
00:48:15 David Sacks
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.
00:48:22 Jason Calacanis
Bad man theory, right?
00:48:23 David Sacks
It doesn’t, yeah.
00:48:24 David Sacks
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.
00:48:34 David Sacks
But look, this is sort of.
00:48:35 Jason Calacanis
Can I ask you a question?
00:48:35 David Sacks
A side influence.
00:48:36 Jason Calacanis
Sack so with it, with the.
00:48:37 Jason Calacanis
China policy ’cause.
00:48:38 Jason Calacanis
I think this is a very important discussion.
00:48:41 Jason Calacanis
We’ve discovered which is.
00:48:42 Jason Calacanis
Energy independence is one thing, and then you have trade which is another.
00:48:46 Jason Calacanis
And does this actually push off wars?
00:48:49 Jason Calacanis
Do we actually know that we?
00:48:51 Jason Calacanis
We might have actually pushed off a war with China because we make.
00:48:54 Jason Calacanis
IPhones together.
00:48:55 Jason Calacanis
Could we have been in a?
00:48:56 Jason Calacanis
Conflict earlier if.
00:48:57 Jason Calacanis
We weren’t so independent and have we actually pushed out a potential conflict with Taiwan etc, Hong Kong?
00:49:01 David Sacks
No, I think, I think with the benefits of benefit when 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.
00:49:03 Jason Calacanis
Because of the interdependency.
00:49:06 Jason Calacanis
Yeah, Matthew. Yeah.
00:49:17 Jason Calacanis
It was.
00:49:18 David Sacks
It was because we made China rich.
00:49:22 David Sacks
You go back to the beginning of Deng Xiaoping began getting his economic reforms.
00:49:26 Jason Calacanis
Should be battletech.
00:49:26 David Sacks
The average Chinese made $2.00 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.
00:49:38 David Sacks
The South China Sea, they’re basically being aggressive towards their neighbors.
00:49:42 David Sacks
We fed that Chinese tiger until it became a dragon that was capable of challenging us for global preeminence.
00:49:50 David Sacks
That was a foolish, foolish strategy.
00:49:53 David Sacks
The fact the matter is.
00:49:54 David Sacks
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.
00:50:05 David Sacks
And the fact the matter is that China benefited disproportionately far more than we did from the China trade over.
00:50:12 Jason Calacanis
The Charter argument we’ve made on this podcast is pending. Freeburg made it is that we lifted 500 million people.
00:50:12 David Sacks
Last 30 years.
00:50:17 Jason Calacanis
I think I made it as well out of abject poverty in China, but as you’re quite well, yeah, it’s.
00:50:23 David Friedberg
Going to a civilian now.
00:50:23 David Sacks
We have created, we have created the return of a, we’ve created the return of great power rivalry. We have created a competitor to the US.
00:50:25 Jason Calacanis
We may also have created an appetite.
00:50:33 David Sacks
Who has roughly almost our same sized economy and that is going to challenge us for.
00:50:39 David Sacks
Privacy and innate.
00:50:40 Jason Calacanis
We need diplomacy, we need very sophisticated diplomacy, because this situation with China.
00:50:45 Jason Calacanis
It’s not a clear path to.
00:50:46 David Sacks
Well, what? What? What?
00:50:48 David Sacks
Why is it that you think we need diplomacy?
00:50:49
With China, where we didn’t need it.
00:50:51 Jason Calacanis
With Russia, no, I I do think we did.
00:50:53 Jason Calacanis
I I finally conceded.
00:50:54 Jason Calacanis
That we should have avoided.
00:50:56 Jason Calacanis
We should have taken it off.
00:50:57 Jason Calacanis
The table.
00:50:57 Jason Calacanis
I said that from day one.
00:50:58 David Sacks
Listen, it’s really important to not just say that, oh, we failed to play chess here, that this policy isn’t working.
00:51:06 David Sacks
Like, let’s not forget how we got into this conflict.
00:51:09 David Sacks
We got this conflict because the administration said I think there are four main pillars to our current Ukraine strategy.
00:51:16 David Sacks
Number one, that Ukraine could basically defeat Russia if we basically just gave them weapons. That has not happened yet, #2.
00:51:24 David Sacks
The administration said that sanctions would weaken Russia, maybe even destabilize its leadership, and collapses economy.
00:51:32 David Sacks
That has not happened.
00:51:33 David Sacks
The rubles at an all time high and because gas prices have gone up so much, their economy has suffered.
00:51:39 David Sacks
But on the whole it’s still doing pretty.
00:51:41 David Sacks
Well, the third.
00:51:43 David Sacks
Contention that was made by advocates of this proxy war is that the sanctions would hurt Russia more than Europe.
00:51:50 David Sacks
That has not happened.
00:51:51 David Sacks
Europe is already hurting more than Russia, and it’s about with winter coming, it’s gonna hurt even more.
00:51:56 David Sacks
And then the last thing.
00:51:58 David Sacks
The last contention that was made our support for Ukraine would rally the world around us and would strengthen the Western alliance.
00:52:05 David Sacks
And I think what?
00:52:06 David Sacks
We’re starting to see.
00:52:07 David Sacks
Is that the Western alliance is fracturing and you see these gigantic protests and fog in these other countries.
00:52:13 David Sacks
So listen, these were the pillars of our.
00:52:18 David Sacks
Ukraine policy and they have all turned out to be flawed and wrong, and they’re becoming more wrong by the day.
00:52:24 David Sacks
And yet there is no reappraisal of our policy that’s coming out of Washington or London or Paris.
00:52:32 David Sacks
None of these leaders are saying that there’s a problem.
00:52:35 David Sacks
So I think we’re headed for not just an economic crisis.
00:52:38 David Sacks
The local crisis in Europe, because the fundamental.
00:52:42 David Sacks
Mission between the needs of these people, which is.
00:52:45 David Sacks
To basically preserve.
00:52:46 David Sacks
Their economy and to stay warm in their homes and the ideology of their leaders were 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.
00:52:59 David Sacks
It was even available in March or April.
00:53:01 David Sacks
That disconnect.
00:53:02 David Sacks
Is the fundamental problem.
00:53:03 David Friedberg
All right, let’s go.
00:53:04 David Friedberg
Come on, let’s.
00:53:05 David Friedberg
Talk about Kim K.
00:53:06 Jason Calacanis
Come on, there’s no word on how much money she’s raised for her private equity firm from Russian.
00:53:10 Jason Calacanis
Oligarchs, but Kim will.
00:53:12 Jason Calacanis
Serve as Co founder and Co managing partner at the firm was co-founded with 16 year Carlisle veteran J Sammons, who run day-to-day OPS.
00:53:23 Jason Calacanis
People may not know this, but Kim founded skims, that’s her undergarment company, in 2019. It was last valued at $3.2 billion, and 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.
00:53:40 Jason Calacanis
Responded with his race.
00:53:40 Chamath Palihapitiya
Mr beast.
00:53:41 Chamath Palihapitiya
Actually, Mr Beast actually just passed.
00:53:43 Jason Calacanis
OK, so those are two examples of people who can put a consumer package good in the world and make it #1 instantly. Gavin Baker, a friend of ours, tweeted that she adds massive value in this exact regard.
00:53:49 Speaker 6
OK.
00:53:57 Jason Calacanis
What do you think?
00:53:59
Boys, is she?
00:53:59 Jason Calacanis
Gonna have a good life.
00:53:59 Speaker 5
So here’s why I think here’s.
00:54:01 David Friedberg
Why I think this is so important?
00:54:03 David Friedberg
I have a really strong belief that in the next 30 years or so all traditional brands are going to die.
00:54:10 David Friedberg
And I think that what we’re seeing happening right now with the with the power of democratized media like us creating a podcast.
00:54:20 David Friedberg
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.
00:54:33 David Friedberg
On podcasting and as a result they become the trusted sources of influence in its wider called influencers.
00:54:39 David Friedberg
And ultimately.
00:54:40 David Friedberg
These influencers are becoming the brands.
00:54:43 David Friedberg
They can like Mr Beast launched the chocolate bar, became like the number one chocolate bar in the country.
00:54:48 David Friedberg
He just opened up a burger restaurant last week to number.
00:54:51 Jason Calacanis
One in April showed up.
00:54:51 David Friedberg
Number one, no more than that. Like 100,000 or something. It was insane. It was like the number one Burger restaurant opening or #1 restaurant opening in history.
00:55:00 David Friedberg
Kylie Jenner launches the makeup brand, takes off, becomes this billion dollar brand. Kim Kardashian launches a clothing brand, becomes a $3 billion brand. These are not just brands, their business.
00:55:12 David Friedberg
And here’s what I think is the most prescient M and a transaction of 2022. And you guys can tell.
00:55:17 David Friedberg
Me? I’m crazy.
00:55:17 David Friedberg
I think the most important M and a deal of 2022 was when Penn Gaming bought Barstool Sports because it shows that every consumer packaged good or every consumer services business ultimately needs to be a content business. And if you don’t naturally have.
00:55:33 David Friedberg
Content creation in your blood.
00:55:34 David Friedberg
You have to go and buy a content business or you are going to die.
00:55:37 David Friedberg
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.
00:55:48 David Friedberg
And instead, what we’re going to see is influencers and individuals that create content, build and distribute consumer goods and consumer.
00:55:57 David Friedberg
Services in a more efficient way because guess what, they’ve got distribution built in just for distribution is the number one problem with all consumer services and.
00:56:02 Jason Calacanis
It has been built.
00:56:02 David Sacks
In this course.
00:56:05 David Friedberg
Consumer goods.
00:56:06 David Friedberg
So I think in the future it’s CAD vertising, yeah, all advertising and marketing gets replaced by content creation and content creation direct to consumers through the the social media platforms becomes the mechanism by which people are aware of and bike goods and services.
00:56:21 David Friedberg
Shimano that’s why I think this deal is so important, and I think it’s a it’s a, it’s another one.
00:56:25 David Friedberg
Of what we’re seeing in 2022.
00:56:26 David Friedberg
Which is the stacking away towards the end of nameless, faceless brands and the evolution of the influencer.
00:56:32 Chamath Palihapitiya
I think Kim Kardashian is incredible.
00:56:35 Chamath Palihapitiya
She is an incredible businesswoman and the fact that she can stand up there would probably be like a multibillion dollar private equity fund.
00:56:44 Chamath Palihapitiya
And and frankly the company that she investment has a little compelling chance of being successful because she basically pour so much visibility in more variety and awareness of a brand.
00:56:58 Chamath Palihapitiya
Into that company, but that cap table, if I was a director I would say of course.
00:57:02 Chamath Palihapitiya
Given the door she wants.
00:57:05 Chamath Palihapitiya
So that’s the first thing.
00:57:08 Chamath Palihapitiya
And the second thing I would say is that.
00:57:10 Chamath Palihapitiya
I think what Schubert says is completely right.
00:57:13 Chamath Palihapitiya
I think we’re at a point in time where the biggest thing that if you want to build the consumer business, my advice to you as an entrepreneur is you need to build direct distribution scale, because what that translates into what Kim Kardashian proves with Mr Beast is proving.
00:57:30 Chamath Palihapitiya
Is it’s all about subsidized cap or you don’t strip off the backs of customer acquisition so you are not paying dollars?
00:57:39 Chamath Palihapitiya
To Facebook and Google.
00:57:40 Chamath Palihapitiya
But instead because you have direct distribution in a relationship with 10s or.
00:57:45 Chamath Palihapitiya
Hundreds of millions of users.
00:57:46 Chamath Palihapitiya
You can pour them into different experiences.
00:57:49 Chamath Palihapitiya
And when we can do that at basically virtually 0 cost?
00:57:54 Chamath Palihapitiya
Your entire margin structure valuable to consumer business has changed overnight.
00:57:58 Chamath Palihapitiya
So that’s what they’ve proven.
00:57:59 Chamath Palihapitiya
They’ve proven that you need to 1st build the brand and then you can put convert that brand is your distribution panel and then to basically pull all kinds of services into it and none of the services as translates in our private equity funds.
00:58:13 Chamath Palihapitiya
So I think it’s incredible.
00:58:14 Chamath Palihapitiya
And I hope she’s super successful.
00:58:16 Jason Calacanis
Saks, getting this influencer uh.
00:58:20 Jason Calacanis
Strategy is here for and going to have a major impact on the venture business.
00:58:25 David Sacks
I think it’s pretty interesting.
00:58:25 Jason Calacanis
I mean we’re soaking it, but.
00:58:27 David Sacks
I think it’s pretty interesting in the consumer space for the reason, Freiberg said.
00:58:31 David Sacks
Which is distribution is so hard, so creating a great product is hard, distributions even harder, and this is a realization I had.
00:58:38 David Sacks
Yeah, many years ago and which is when I started doing Yammer and then you know craft started focusing on SAS which is at least when you do a B to B product, you know software as a service you can charge enough money for it.
00:58:53 David Sacks
That you can get a sales team to pencil.
00:58:55 David Sacks
So in other words you charge an enterprise enough money for the software that you can then pay a sales person to go out and sell it.
00:59:03 David Sacks
So there is always a distribution model built in.
00:59:05 David Sacks
For B to B.
00:59:07 David Sacks
And that’s why I’ve always liked that as there’s a playbook there where if you just build a good enough piece of enterprise software, good enough product, there’s always can be distribution for it.
00:59:16 David Sacks
However, that’s not true with consumer.
00:59:18 David Sacks
Because consumer products are usually ad based, you can’t generally charge that much.
00:59:23 David Sacks
If you can charge at all, they have high churn rates and so therefore.
00:59:27 David Sacks
B to C.
00:59:27 David Sacks
Only works if you can find a very low cost, scalable distribution channel.
00:59:32 David Sacks
And I think that’s what the Freebirds pointing that’s what the Kardashians are offerings clearly worked for their own products.
00:59:38 David Sacks
I guess we’ll see how extensible it is, but this?
00:59:41 David Sacks
Is really the.
00:59:42 David Sacks
Key challenge with all consumer stuff is just how do you find a very cheap way of distributing it?
00:59:47 David Sacks
In the past.
00:59:48 David Sacks
The consumer products I’ve been involved in.
00:59:51 David Sacks
Like PayPal or investing in social networks like Facebook.
00:59:54 David Sacks
They were viral, then they were exponentially viral, so they were able to basically grow virally for free.
01:00:00 David Sacks
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.
01:00:10 David Friedberg
And what we’re seeing is the base of doing that is to create content.
01:00:14 David Friedberg
Mr Beast created content for years before he built a big enough audience to do that.
01:00:19 David Friedberg
Kim Kardashian did content for years before she had a distribution to do that.
01:00:23 David Friedberg
Dave Portnoy and Barstool Sports.
01:00:25 David Friedberg
I mean the guy.
01:00:26 David Friedberg
Dave Portnoy.
01:00:27 Jason Calacanis
AC power panel.
01:00:27 David Friedberg
And this is incredible.
01:00:28 David Friedberg
Jason calacanis?
01:00:29 David Friedberg
Yeah, seriously, I mean.
01:00:31 David Friedberg
Portnoy without rating pizza and you know, now he has all these other kind of, you know, media and content.
01:00:36 David Friedberg
Kind of branches of his platform, but it’s all content creation and on top of that content creation.
01:00:41 Jason Calacanis
Yeah, not everybody is good at it.
01:00:43 Jason Calacanis
Freeburg that’s the other problem is.
01:00:44 David Friedberg
I get it, but.
01:00:45 Speaker 6
Like, yeah, OK.
01:00:45 David Friedberg
That’s not what I’m saying, and that’s my.
01:00:47 David Friedberg
Point so let’s say coca.
01:00:49 David Friedberg
Cola tried to build a content Business Today.
01:00:50 David Friedberg
How good would they be?
01:00:51 David Friedberg
Not very good.
01:00:52 David Friedberg
That’s why they’re gonna end up dying or they’re gonna end up needing to buy a really interesting concept, I mean, do you think?
01:00:55 Jason Calacanis
That’s not.
01:00:58 Speaker 5
Mr Beast Burger could beat.
01:01:00 David Friedberg
McDonald’s, yes, and that’s what I’m saying.
01:01:02 David Friedberg
That’s my.
01:01:02 David Friedberg
Point. That’s why I.
01:01:03 Jason Calacanis
That’s kind of insane when you think.
01:01:03 David Friedberg
Opened up by saying.
01:01:04 Jason Calacanis
About it, if Mr Beast had.
01:01:06 David Friedberg
5000 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.
01:01:23 David Friedberg
Not technology advantage businesses.
01:01:25 David Friedberg
I’m talking about core consumer goods and services.
01:01:27 David Friedberg
They don’t Penn gaming.
01:01:27 Jason Calacanis
It’s got to be good, honey.
01:01:29 David Friedberg
Penn Gaming does.
01:01:30 David Friedberg
Setting you know, there’s no real advantage embedding you build a sports book.
01:01:33 David Friedberg
That’s it.
01:01:34 David Friedberg
The reason Penn Gaming bought Barstool is they now have an audience that they can drive to their sports books, right?
01:01:38 Jason Calacanis
Yeah, no, we get it.
01:01:39 David Friedberg
And so the same will happen with Mr do therapists.
01:01:40 Jason Calacanis
We still have to make a great product though.
01:01:42 Jason Calacanis
I mean that that’s the other challenge here is can you also be a product savant?
01:01:47 Jason Calacanis
Can you be a virtuoso in?
01:01:49 David Sacks
Yes, Sir.
01:01:49 Jason Calacanis
Building the products in addition to being an influencer.
01:01:51 Jason Calacanis
I think that’s what Kim gets right.
01:01:53 Jason Calacanis
She makes great product and Mr Beast, his first burger was not good, but now this new burger from what I.
01:01:58 Jason Calacanis
Understand is awesome.
01:02:00 Jason Calacanis
So you have to have both things.
01:02:01 Jason Calacanis
Switch on I believe.
01:02:01 David Friedberg
But think about think about what’s easier and what’s harder.
01:02:03 David Friedberg
What’s easier.
01:02:05 David Friedberg
Building an audience of 2 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.
01:02:13 Jason Calacanis
It depends on the product.
01:02:13 David Friedberg
And So what will happen for car you car?
01:02:16 Jason Calacanis
Is really hard.
01:02:17 David Friedberg
Yeah, it’s not.
01:02:18 David Friedberg
I’m not talking about complicated cars and stuff or electronics.
01:02:21 David Friedberg
I’m talking about basic consumer goods, cereal, beverages, food.
01:02:25 David Friedberg
Why not?
01:02:26 David Friedberg
You know, music, audio, like, like all this stuff that’s commodity, you know, betting, I mean, this is not.
01:02:31 Jason Calacanis
Chocolate bar, yeah.
01:02:31 David Friedberg
Like betting is not a differentiated service offering to consumers.
01:02:35 David Friedberg
So ultimately, how do you differentiate?
01:02:37 David Friedberg
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.
01:02:42 David Friedberg
And so This is why I just want to point out.
01:02:44 David Friedberg
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 1000 ways.
01:02:59 David Friedberg
Not just putting friggin ad spots on YouTube, but there’s 1000 products you as an as an influencer.
01:03:05 David Friedberg
Can build on top of your audience or sell to your audience.
01:03:07 David Friedberg
Boom, it really changes the whole landscape for CPG and services and so.
01:03:11 Jason Calacanis
Well, not to bring everything back to Mr.
01:03:12 David Friedberg
This is where.
01:03:13 Jason Calacanis
Beast, but a large number of his videos he told us, UM, he lost money on, so the videos at some point started.
01:03:21 Jason Calacanis
Losing him money.
01:03:22 Jason Calacanis
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 Ohanyan from you know Reddit fame and venture capitalist 76 is a.
01:03:32 Chamath Palihapitiya
776, yes.
01:03:34 Jason Calacanis
Fun he went to go see the burger place.
01:03:36 Jason Calacanis
And he’s like.
01:03:37 Jason Calacanis
What like there?
01:03:39 Jason Calacanis
Were at that point in time 10,000 people online, Mr Beast.
01:03:42 Jason Calacanis
Had to tell people please do not show up, which of course handwired asking people show up?
01:03:46 Jason Calacanis
Anybody have plugs or anything that they want to get off their chest sacks?
01:03:50 Jason Calacanis
Anything else?
01:03:50 Chamath Palihapitiya
I do, I do, I do.
01:03:50 Jason Calacanis
And hug it.
01:03:51 Jason Calacanis
Out with you.
01:03:51 Jason Calacanis
OK, we gotta plug it.
01:03:54 Chamath Palihapitiya
There is a.
01:03:56 Chamath Palihapitiya
An epidemic right now of the overprescription.
01:04:00 Chamath Palihapitiya
Of amphetamines to children who are diagnosed with ADHD, it it is.
01:04:08 Chamath Palihapitiya
An enormously important issue that doesn’t just touch kids anymore, but now also touches adults.
01:04:14 Chamath Palihapitiya
You’ve seen.
01:04:17 Chamath Palihapitiya
A lot of really kind of bad companies that are over prescribing this stuff get shut down.
01:04:23 Chamath Palihapitiya
And get sanctioned.
01:04:25 Chamath Palihapitiya
So I just want to let anybody who’s listening no.
01:04:29 Chamath Palihapitiya
And this is me talking my book, so take this with.
01:04:31 Chamath Palihapitiya
A grain of.
01:04:31 Chamath Palihapitiya
Salt, but there’s a company that I’m.
01:04:33 Chamath Palihapitiya
Involved in that has a video game that has been approved.
01:04:37 Chamath Palihapitiya
By the FDA.
01:04:40 Chamath Palihapitiya
To be a useful treatment for kids who have been diagnosed with ADHD.
01:04:45 Chamath Palihapitiya
So if you have an.
01:04:46 Chamath Palihapitiya
8 to 11.
01:04:47 Chamath Palihapitiya
Year old.
01:04:48 Chamath Palihapitiya
You can go and talk to your pediatrician to find out about the solution.
01:04:52 Chamath Palihapitiya
It’s called a kill.
01:04:53 Chamath Palihapitiya
And it will allow you to prescribe to them a video game.
01:04:57 Chamath Palihapitiya
That they play 30.
01:04:58 Chamath Palihapitiya
Minutes a day.
01:04:59 Jason Calacanis
You want to.
01:05:00 Jason Calacanis
Make sure people hear the name.
01:05:01 Jason Calacanis
It’s Achille AK I lie so if.
01:05:04 Chamath Palihapitiya
Hey, Kayla.
01:05:04 Jason Calacanis
You Google search for.
01:05:05 Jason Calacanis
Achille, AK Ily interactively will find it.
01:05:07 Chamath Palihapitiya
And gotop, so talk to your pediatrician if you are.
01:05:10 Jason Calacanis
Make a good decision, yeah.
01:05:10 Chamath Palihapitiya
A parent with a child that’s dealing.
01:05:11 Chamath Palihapitiya
With this you go and read the label.
01:05:13 Chamath Palihapitiya
Had the doctor decide.
01:05:15 Chamath Palihapitiya
OK, so I’m not telling you to go do this, but I’m asking you.
01:05:18 Jason Calacanis
Look into it.
01:05:18 Chamath Palihapitiya
This applies to those.
01:05:19 Jason Calacanis
Just look into it.
01:05:20 Chamath Palihapitiya
But the idea is that there are drugs that affect.
01:05:25 Chamath Palihapitiya
Your brain and now we are increasingly able to design software that exquisitely targets certain aspects of your brain, and we’re able to train them.
01:05:36 Chamath Palihapitiya
And this is really the first example.
01:05:38 Chamath Palihapitiya
Of such a.
01:05:39 Chamath Palihapitiya
Thing that the FDA.
01:05:40 Chamath Palihapitiya
Who has reviewed all kinds of?
01:05:44 Chamath Palihapitiya
Clinical data hasn’t decided to approve and so it’s launching in.
01:05:49 Chamath Palihapitiya
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 are 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 posting those, I just encourage you to run both.
01:06:06 Chamath Palihapitiya
That is a plug.
01:06:07 Chamath Palihapitiya
And you know all the disclaimers.
01:06:08 Jason Calacanis
I know it’s a great slug.
01:06:08 Chamath Palihapitiya
That’s kind of 1 building, but.
01:06:09 Jason Calacanis
We, I think we shared at the end, just talk about some things we’re working on and this is.
01:06:12 Jason Calacanis
An incredible one.
01:06:14 Jason Calacanis
The number of kids.
01:06:15 Jason Calacanis
On these you know ADHD drugs, attention drugs, depression device in value drugs.
01:06:19 Chamath Palihapitiya
1,000,000 millions. 1,000,000 millions.
01:06:20 Jason Calacanis
It is out of controls.
01:06:22 Jason Calacanis
There is an listen I don’t want to tell parents at a parent but I will say this is becoming a dependency and the number of.
01:06:29 Jason Calacanis
Drugs? I don’t know.
01:06:30 Jason Calacanis
If you saw that New York Times server, they put this one girl on 10 drugs.
01:06:33 Jason Calacanis
They’re prescribing multiple drugs.
01:06:35 Jason Calacanis
And we don’t know.
01:06:36 Jason Calacanis
Exactly what the long term effects of children using these are, and there are other solutions.
01:06:40 Jason Calacanis
I’m not judging any parent, I’m not judging any teachers who’s advising this, but this country and our society needs to really look deeply at this issue and say should children ’cause we didn’t go on these drugs when we were kids, they didn’t exist.
01:06:52 Jason Calacanis
And they haven’t existed for all of humanity.
01:06:54 Jason Calacanis
We need to think, what kind of experiment are we running on?
01:06:57 Jason Calacanis
102030.
01:06:57 Chamath Palihapitiya
You were stating something so incredibly important.
01:06:58 Jason Calacanis
Million kids in some schools.
01:07:02 Chamath Palihapitiya
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.
01:07:12 Chamath Palihapitiya
All of that.
01:07:14 Chamath Palihapitiya
You’re exactly right, we don’t.
01:07:15 Chamath Palihapitiya
Really know what the outcomes are.
01:07:17 Chamath Palihapitiya
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 nuclear pandemic or epidemic and I think like that’s.
01:07:31 Chamath Palihapitiya
The thing that breaks down with this.
01:07:31 Jason Calacanis
That’s exactly the analogy Schmuff 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% from 2015 to 29. We are prescribing these at an alarming rate.
01:07:46 Jason Calacanis
I have many parents at 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.
01:08:05 Jason Calacanis
Kids were behaving.
01:08:07 Jason Calacanis
10% as badly as I did.
01:08:09 Jason Calacanis
In middle school or high school?
01:08:11 Jason Calacanis
This is being used.
01:08:13 Jason Calacanis
I believe this is my personal belief.
01:08:16 Jason Calacanis
I know there are.
01:08:16 Jason Calacanis
Some kids who need these drugs or I?
01:08:18 Jason Calacanis
Assume that.
01:08:18 Jason Calacanis
There are, but I think this is being used to keep kids in their seats and to make it easier for parents to have.
01:08:25 Jason Calacanis
To deal with water.
01:08:27 Jason Calacanis
Normally the hardships of teenager, you know teenagers and just be very careful parents.
01:08:33 Jason Calacanis
About the extent to which, you know, you might be being pressured, perhaps parents have told me they felt bullied into giving their kids these drugs.
01:08:40 Jason Calacanis
It really is infuriating to me.
01:08:41 Jason Calacanis
I think it’s really great that you with.
01:08:42 Chamath Palihapitiya
We are here in County Council.
01:08:42 Jason Calacanis
Investment people should look into it.
01:08:44 Jason Calacanis
Exercise, talking to your kids.
01:08:46 Jason Calacanis
These things also work.
01:08:47 Chamath Palihapitiya
We had a guidance counselor.
01:08:47 Jason Calacanis
They sound like ******* Tom Cruise.
01:08:50 Chamath Palihapitiya
We had a guidance counselor at.
01:08:53 Chamath Palihapitiya
At our school tell me that they thought that one of my children should just get put on his drugs.
01:08:59 Chamath Palihapitiya
And I was like.
01:09:02 Chamath Palihapitiya
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.
01:09:15 Jason Calacanis
Do you want to kill their spirit?
01:09:17 Jason Calacanis
I had the same.
01:09:18 Jason Calacanis
I don’t want to get into it too much.
01:09:20 Jason Calacanis
You know, I think that.
01:09:22 Jason Calacanis
These teachers now, and I’m not saying.
01:09:24 Jason Calacanis
It’s all teachers.
01:09:25 Jason Calacanis
They are like, it’s just.
01:09:27 Jason Calacanis
Easier to manage kids who are on focused energy drugs.
01:09:30 Jason Calacanis
And then there are some parents who want their kids to do really good on standardized testing.
01:09:34 Jason Calacanis
I would have been better on.
01:09:34 Jason Calacanis
Standardized testing if I was.
01:09:35 Jason Calacanis
On Adderall or whatever these intention drugs are, we everybody would score 10.
01:09:40 Jason Calacanis
Them better.
01:09:41 Jason Calacanis
But what does it do to the quality of your life long term?
01:09:44 Jason Calacanis
That’s the question we need to ask about this stuff, and we don’t have answers for it.
01:09:47 Jason Calacanis
I don’t want to be.
01:09:48 Jason Calacanis
Tom Cruise on this podcast.
01:09:49 Jason Calacanis
But there are other ways to keep.
01:09:52 Jason Calacanis
You know, kids.
01:09:53 Jason Calacanis
Healthy and to deal with these issues.
01:09:55 Jason Calacanis
And I think these things are to say they’re overprescribed is going to be a huge understatement.
01:09:58 Jason Calacanis
We look at this like the opioid crisis.
01:10:00 Jason Calacanis
I guarantee it.
01:10:01 Jason Calacanis
I think that’s exactly if you.
01:10:02 Jason Calacanis
You start dopesick, right and.
01:10:04 Jason Calacanis
People thought they were doing the right thing.
01:10:06 Jason Calacanis
All these people have pain.
01:10:07 Jason Calacanis
This drug manages pain.
01:10:09 Jason Calacanis
And then they.
01:10:09 Jason Calacanis
Found out like oh.
01:10:10 Jason Calacanis
Yeah, this drug also makes.
01:10:12 Jason Calacanis
It could make you an addict and could.
01:10:13 Jason Calacanis
Ruin your life?
01:10:15 Jason Calacanis
Great job on that investment and I hope it worked.
01:10:18 Jason Calacanis
Yeah, yeah. Thank you. Fax, anything else? Any company here portfolio want to give a shout out to? We might as well get something on this ******* pod since we’re leaving $7 million on the ******* table and you guys won’t even let me run all in Summit 2 so I can get 1/2.
01:10:30 David Sacks
Really, I don’t have anything to plug, right?
01:10:32 David Sacks
Now, but I’ll be sure to let know.
01:10:33 Jason Calacanis
No company you invested in you need a plug for.
01:10:35 Jason Calacanis
How about you super God?
01:10:36 Jason Calacanis
Can we get some super gut common here?
01:10:38 Jason Calacanis
These bars taste great.
01:10:40 Jason Calacanis
I love this movie, but I literally just ordered another pack of them.
01:10:40 Speaker 6
Thank you. Thank you.
01:10:44 David Friedberg
I’m good. Thank you.
01:10:45 David Friedberg
Great product.
01:10:45 Jason Calacanis
Delicioussupergodjeffsupercut.com what is it?
01:10:48 David Friedberg
By the way, this is where I’m having yeah supergod.com, but I’m this is actually one of my DTC companies where I’m having a lot of these conversations about how do you actually avoid just buying ads on Facebook and.
01:11:00 David Friedberg
And Google and how do you actually build an audience, right, how do you ultimately convert your customers by creating content?
01:11:07 David Friedberg
And so it’s a big part.
01:11:08 Jason Calacanis
This was originally unique, right?
01:11:10 Jason Calacanis
And then you.
01:11:10 Jason Calacanis
Changed the brand new chair.
01:11:10 David Friedberg
That’s right.
01:11:11 David Friedberg
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:11:11 David Friedberg
Based on the science around around resistant starts and how it changes the gut Biome.
01:11:16 David Friedberg
And so, but this is general, I’m I’m on the board of a couple of DTC companies and it is universally the conversation right now ’cause in the last year, the cost of DTC direct to consumer marketing on Facebook and Google doubled, tripled.
01:11:28 Speaker 5
It’s brutal.
01:11:30 David Friedberg
And a lot of unit economics are falling apart on DTC businesses.
01:11:33 David Friedberg
Because of it, you know, costs a lot more to acquire the customer than you make from them.
01:11:37 David Friedberg
And so everyone scrambling to figure out, OK, how do I acquire customers?
01:11:40 David Friedberg
And that’s where this content Grayson strategy is becoming a critical linchpin for most consumer businesses.
01:11:46 David Friedberg
Now it’s a really important part of business.
01:11:47 Jason Calacanis
I think a couple of us are investors in aid sleep and they were like, please let us advertise them all in US.
01:11:51 Jason Calacanis
Like, sorry, no offense, but I’ll shut.
01:11:53 Jason Calacanis
You out here lately?
01:11:54 Jason Calacanis
It’s great product.
01:11:55 David Sacks
I have a plug but I want.
01:11:56 David Sacks
To save it so.
01:11:58 Jason Calacanis
******* drop a plug, for one.
01:11:59 David Sacks
No, the product hasn’t launched yet.
01:12:02 David Sacks
You mean like a?
01:12:02 David Sacks
Month, right?
01:12:03 Jason Calacanis
Alright, yo. And if anybody wants to be a venture investor, jason@calacanis.com to come to one of my.
01:12:09 Jason Calacanis
Webinars and see my list.
01:12:10 David Sacks
Fun since we started allowing.
01:12:11 David Friedberg
Are all investors.
01:12:12 David Sacks
All these plugs, I thought.
01:12:13 Jason Calacanis
Yeah, I mean it was just.
01:12:13 David Sacks
We would be like not to do this.
01:12:14 Jason Calacanis
Set up so it was a setup, I just want to do a round of applause so I can get mine in.
01:12:17 Jason Calacanis
So it’s being general work plan worked, I got you on the hook for yours.
01:12:20 Jason Calacanis
What was your, what was your stuff?
01:12:22 David Friedberg
Plug were you doing your venture fund?
01:12:24 David Friedberg
Doing much fun?
01:12:25 Jason Calacanis
Four well for.
01:12:25
Right.
01:12:26 Jason Calacanis
I’ll be oversubscribed that Jason at Calacanis dot.
01:12:26 David Sacks
Stuff I’ll, I’ll plug, I’ll plug the call and ask.
01:12:29 Jason Calacanis
Com if you.
01:12:29 David Friedberg
Wanna call it up?
01:12:30 David Friedberg
We’re all.
01:12:31 David Sacks
There’s a lot.
01:12:31 Jason Calacanis
Of calling let’s you know we should do a call.
01:12:31 David Friedberg
Everybody should be out, yeah.
01:12:34 Jason Calacanis
Then we should all do.
01:12:35 Jason Calacanis
Like an after hours where we take questions from the audience.
01:12:38 David Friedberg
That would be great that I would do that.
01:12:39 David Sacks
Yeah, we clicked on.
01:12:40 Jason Calacanis
I would do that.
01:12:40 Jason Calacanis
Can I get a point?
01:12:41 Jason Calacanis
Alright, let’s see.
01:12:42 Jason Calacanis
This has been all in episode 90.
01:12:43 David Sacks
Let’s do it.
01:12:43 Jason Calacanis
Five, let’s create more balance feelings.
01:12:43 David Sacks
Wait, wait.
01:12:44 David Sacks
Should we do that?
01:12:45 David Sacks
Hold on, J.
01:12:46 David Sacks
Cole, that wasn’t that.
01:12:47 David Sacks
That was another.
01:12:48 David Sacks
Deal you turned down just like the Ukraine deal.
01:12:52 David Sacks
This kind of theme here is that you turned down deals you later regret.
01:12:55 Jason Calacanis
So, Ukraine, Dale the quality guy, should I be regretting calling deal?
01:12:56 David Sacks
Then nine months.
01:12:56 David Sacks
Later you have minutes, right?
01:12:57 David Sacks
Nine months later.
01:12:58 David Sacks
You admit I was right.
01:12:59 David Sacks
You should have taken the deal.
01:13:00 Jason Calacanis
I should take.
01:13:01 David Friedberg
McFarland and how hard timoth is.
01:13:02 David Friedberg
Crashing right now.
01:13:03 David Friedberg
Look at him.
01:13:04 Speaker 5
At all?
01:13:04 Speaker 5
About what time is it there?
01:13:06 David Friedberg
It’s like 11:30, right?
01:13:08 Chamath Palihapitiya
11:30 it’s 11:30 I right? Yeah, I’m using my Bible. I lost my voice. I lost my voice this morning.
01:13:10 David Sacks
That’s OK.
01:13:16 David Friedberg
And send us an invite for AMA for the four of us on.
01:13:19 David Friedberg
I’ll do that.
01:13:20 Jason Calacanis
Calling her directly.
01:13:21 Jason Calacanis
John calling.
01:13:21 David Sacks
Yeah, we should do.
01:13:22
That OK.
01:13:22 Jason Calacanis
Yeah, just remember all seeing from Proxmox.
01:13:23 David Sacks
Right, like after this episode.
01:13:24 David Sacks
Gaps maybe?
01:13:25 Jason Calacanis
Yeah, live AMA, live with calling.
01:13:27 Speaker 6
OK.
01:13:28 David Friedberg
I’m gonna show up for J.
01:13:29 Jason Calacanis
I’ll see.
01:13:29 David Friedberg
Cole, you smell up.
01:13:30 Jason Calacanis
I’ll share.
01:13:30 David Friedberg
Or Dutch?
01:13:30 Jason Calacanis
I’ll show up maybe, I said.
01:13:31 David Friedberg
Yeah, she must.
01:13:32 David Friedberg
Come on.
01:13:33 Chamath Palihapitiya
Jake yeah, I’ll, I’ll show up.
01:13:35 Chamath Palihapitiya
I’ll be happy to do it.
01:13:36 Chamath Palihapitiya
I’m back in the United States tomorrow.
01:13:39 Jason Calacanis
Alright, well let me play poker.
01:13:40 Jason Calacanis
In 14 hours, in two hours if you get you could answer.
01:13:44 Jason Calacanis
It comes like puppies airport will pick you up.
01:13:44 David Sacks
We’ll miss you.
01:13:46 Jason Calacanis
From the airport you’ll think of.
01:13:47 Jason Calacanis
The airport will play Chinese poker.
01:13:48 Jason Calacanis
In the back of the car, everybody Episode 95 better than we thought it would be.
01:13:49 David Sacks
Alright, so I think.
01:13:51 David Sacks
You need a lawsuit, sakalas.
01:13:53 Jason Calacanis
Little honey.
01:13:53 David Sacks
You need to make that.
01:13:54 Chamath Palihapitiya
I I have something.
01:13:58 Jason Calacanis
Garguilo, Hawaii.
01:13:58 Speaker 6
I love you guys.
01:13:59 Jason Calacanis
Love you, baskis.
01:14:00 Jason Calacanis
See you soon.
01:14:02 David Sacks
Let your winter lie.
01:14:05 Jason Calacanis
Rain Man David sacks.
01:14:07 David Sacks
2nd we open sourced it to the fans and they’ve just gone crazy with.
01:14:13 David Friedberg
Him love you, I just, we.
01:14:15 Chamath Palihapitiya
Know if you want.
01:14:22 David Friedberg
Best isar?
01:14:25 Speaker 5
That’s my dog.
01:14:26 David Friedberg
I think at least in your driveway.
01:14:30 Speaker 6
Oh man.
01:14:32 Speaker 5
Yeah, we could all just get a room and just have one big, huge Georgie ’cause.
01:14:36 Speaker 5
They’re also useful like this, like sexual tension, but they.
01:14:38 Chamath Palihapitiya
Just need to lose somehow.
01:14:46 Jason Calacanis
Where did you get murgese?