All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg - E18: Inauguration talk, breaking down the $1.9T stimulus, the case for recalling Gavin Newsom & more
Episode Date: January 23, 2021Follow the crew: https://twitter.com/chamath https://linktr.ee/calacanis https://twitter.com/DavidSacks https://twitter.com/friedberg Follow the pod: https://twitter.com/theallinpod https://linktr.ee/...allinpodcast Intro Music Credit: https://rb.gy/tppkzl https://twitter.com/yung_spielburg Intro Video Credit: https://twitter.com/MikeSylvan Referenced in the show: M1 Money Stock https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M1 Friedberg's Spy Situation https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/chinese-national-who-worked-monsanto-indicted-economic-espionage-charges Sacks' thoughts on Wilkinson cancellation https://twitter.com/DavidSacks/status/1352432977460957185 Show Notes: 0:00 Bestie intro, Inauguration talk, Impeachment implications 20:22 Trump as a successful change agent, Facebook's Oversight Board overseeing Trump's appeal 34:07 Will Big Tech be regulated like utilities? Friedberg tells a spy story 44:15 Breaking down the $1.9T Stimulus package, needs for infrastructure bill, worst-case scenarios 55:06 How the tech ecosystem plays into inequality & how to fix it 1:04:00 Recalling California Governor Gavin Newsom, California's lockdown incompetence 1:17:32 Sacks rebukes cancel culture, this time from the right-wing mob
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Hey everybody, it's me Jason Callocaineus. Welcome welcome.
Hey everybody, it's me Jason.
Thank God Trump's out.
Hi, Kate.
Trump and I love myself. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha And I said we open sources to the fans and they've just got to reason. Love you, West Nice.
Queen of King Wild.
I'm going to leave.
Hey everybody.
Happy days are here again.
Champagne, kind of bottles popping.
Of Clicco again.
Happy days are here again.
Yay, Sacks.
It's so happy.
Trump's out of office.
He gave an amazing speech about how great Biden's inauguration was.
Welcome to the All-in podcast.
Oh my god.
With me today in our post inauguration, after glow,
is the dictator Trump on hapatia, the queen of Kenwa, David Friedberg,
and riding the blue wave diving in. No more red pills. The blue wave is David,
Rainman sacks is with us. David, how did it feel to watch Biden's inauguration speech, which you said hit all
the notes and I see you wearing blue today. Let me have a sip of my Vovklico and tell
us you've got the blue jacket, the blue shirt and the blue headset on. You've ridden the
blue wave. Tell us how you feel with Biden in office. I'm gonna trick my love. Jason, I'm just happy to see that you're happy.
Does this mean that your Trump derangement is over?
You've gone cold turkey, you're on the wagon.
I'm just happy to have my friend back and not have you part of this.
This Trump derangement zombie horde
that you've been in for the last few years.
I'll tell you two quick stories.
The first one turned out not to be true,
but there was a New York Times alert
that came out this weekend saying that
they were gonna lift the travel blend. And for a moment, I was
a little in shock. I'm Canadian. My family's in Canada. I haven't seen them in a year.
My mom is 80 years old. I haven't seen her in a year.
And then the second was on the day of the inauguration, Biden signed an EO, I guess that, you know,
starts to basically create a path to citizenship. And there are, you know, two women in my life,
who I think are just lovely, lovely people, who I've never been able to hire.
And now this gives us a path to hire them and compensate them and the way that we wanted
to.
And so in these moments, I started crying.
And I've probably had three or four moments and I realized like, holy shit, I have had
so much pent up emotion waiting for, honestly, just like a normal average day.
And like simple, humane, good things.
And I'm not, I'm not trying to sort of jump on the Biden-Bandwagon.
I think that he's got a lot of work to do.
But I do think that just at a level, simple, basic level of humanity, it was a different,
it was a big sea change.
How did you take it, Freeberg?
I'm curious.
Did you cry as well?
I observed the inauguration.
It was interesting.
Oh, it was an uproar to your firm.
We were sorry.
We were supposed to push the two David firmwares for the ability to cry.
But did you feel any emotion of the three emotions we've given you in your programming?
Did any of them move at all?
I don't remember, I mean, I don't remember the origin
of my non-emotional characterization, Jason, but...
Yeah, I think it was...
It just based on every interaction
we've ever had with you, but continue.
Right, I guess that makes sense.
So I feel like the Biden moment on inauguration day,
I feel like the Biden moment on inauguration day, it really did feel like a sigh of relief because so much of Trump love him or hate him has been driven by a degree of tension.
I mean, he came in to office on the premise that he was going to drain the swamp.
I mean, that's kind of a very kind of active, you know, position. He's going to go away. He's going to change things. And I think, you
know, the Biden tone is like, let's take it down a notch. Let's all take a deep breath. And I feel
like that that generated a collective sigh of relief. I'll also say that I watched that with the
eyes of someone who voted for Trump. I didn't vote for Trump,
but I don't think I voted this year.
I can't remember, it was in the middle of the pandemic,
but I basically feel like there is a lot of folks,
it's easy to say lets unite the country
when you're on the winning side.
And when you're not, and you're sitting there,
and your guy got kicked
out of office, and your guy claimed that he got kicked out because of fraudulent activity,
and you're one of the 46% of Americans that are already disapproving of Biden's performance
in his first two days of office. You don't look at that as a moment of relief. You don't
look at that as a moment of respite. And't look at that as a moment of respite.
And I feel like there's a little bit of a missed point of view in terms of how we're all
covering it and talking about it.
It certainly feels good to take the tension down and take a deep breath and have leadership
not be putting the tension out there.
But there's a lot of anger and disappointment still festering out there.
And I think we need to be very cognizant of why and what we can do.
And it would have been nice to see Biden not just say let's unite, but actually step over the line and declare
some of the policies and points of view of the other side as being valid and engaging more directly
on those points versus saying we'll all work together in the future. And we're already seeing this
riff with McConnell and others in terms of how to deal with the filibuster in a unified senate.
And we're already seeing this riff with McConnell and others in terms of how to deal with the filibuster in a unified Senate.
And I just don't think that we're there.
So yeah.
Yeah, sacks, what are your thoughts?
And then we'll go to your trimmer.
Yeah, I mean, look, I'm not going to swoon over an octogenarian reading clichés off
a teleprompter.
I'm sorry, I just can't do it.
Now, that being said, you know, the inauguration speech struck all the right notes of, you
know, reconciliation, lowering the temperature, coming together. these are the things you're supposed to say at an
inauguration. These are the presidential layups, if you will. It's kind of a weird thing that Trump
could never quite get these layups in. Biden did what he was supposed to do. And I agree that
there is a sense of relief in the temperature being lowered and the situation in Washington feeling a bit depressurized.
And so I think he deserves credit for that.
That's all for the good.
I think the problem Biden's gonna have is not just sort of
the Trump right opposing him,
but the uncivil warriors in his own party,
uncivil warriors I think was party, uncivil warriors, I think, was the most memorable line
in his speech.
There are people, I think, on the left,
who aren't really on board with a reconciliation agenda.
I mean, shortly after the election,
you had AOC proposing a Truth and Reconciliation Commission
to go after everyone from the Trump era.
I don't think that's exactly the kind of reconciliation
by it's talking about.
You have, I think the impressive hand of big tech
playing into this revenge agenda
by acting as a speech cartel.
And now we have the rest of the tech stack
jumping on board with the speech cartel.
You had an announcement from a whole bunch
of finance companies, PayPal Stripes Square,
that said they would cancel the accounts
and by implication livelihoods
of anyone connected to January 6th. Well, what exactly does that mean? I mean, there were
many thousands of people at this rally on the mall. Only a few percent of them
breach the capital and even smaller percentage engaged in violence. But everybody who is at
the mall and really everyone in the mag of movement is, quote unquote, connected to to that protest.
So how many degrees of Kevin Bacon are we going to play in acting out these reprisals?
And I think the worst part of all is that now we have in Congress a bill put forward by
Adam Schiff that basically would create a domestic Patriot Act to create giant new
surveillance powers for the state to go after people they deem to be traders and seditionists
and domestic terrorists.
And I actually tweeted a letter by Rashida Tlaib of the squad opposing this.
It's the first time I've stood with the squad. I was proud to because the last thing the state needs right now is more surveillance powers. And this idea that we're fighting a
war against fellow Americans based on basically political dissent, that's not going to create
reconciliation. That's going to lead to the next step in this horrible tit for Tat
game. Just to build on this for a second, there is a Rasmussen poll that came out today today's
Friday, January 22nd.
So two days after the inauguration and Biden's disapproval rating is 45%.
And all of a sudden, you can think again, as you said, three days ago, a lot of people
were on the losing side and are now on the winning side.
And today, a lot of people that were on the winning side,
our quote unquote, on the losing side,
and you see how reflexive the reaction is.
It's like an auto hate, right?
It's like auto disapproval.
And so if that's the case, it just begs the question,
how much room and how much tolerance will we have as a society
if we start to go after folks that is, you know, that effectively have an enormous amount
of political dissent? Are there fringes of both parties that need to get basically found
out exposed and put in jail, whether they're Antifa on the left or the far right extremist on the right.
Absolutely.
But hopefully the FBI already has enough power to do that and that's already their remit
and what we're not going to have to do is pass an enormous number of laws.
I mean, I've said this before, the Patriot Act was so crazy because it was a foreign
actor and a foreign event on domestic story that created it.
But between the pandemic and now what happened in the capital,
a biological Patriot Act, a domestic Patriot Act,
these are all in the offing.
And I think what we're going to have to do is,
again, it sounds cheesy, but find the common ground
so that we can expose who are at the fringes
of both parties who are the real crazy people,
round those folks up and deal with them
with the laws that we have today, because otherwise the unintended consequences for the overwhelming
majority of the Americans who are just normal folks is going to be a little scary.
I thought a really interesting reconciliation moment happened with the woman who stole
Nancy Pelosi's laptop.
I don't know if you guys have read that story, but this woman who stole Nancy Pelosi's laptop, I don't know if you guys have read that story,
but this woman who stole the laptop and was considering selling it to the Russians or
something, she's 22 years old.
She's obviously was misguided in doing this.
And the judge basically explained to her that she was releasing her to her mother's care
and that her mother would go to jail if she did
anything further. But she said, listen, you're a beneficiary of the constitution. You are getting
a speedy trial, you are getting representation. And she used it almost as a civics lesson.
And I think we had a discussion, maybe two episodes when the pot got a little hot,
which was great for ratings,
by the way. And for our relationships, and it resulted in a reconciliation dinner that
we had, a little wives dinner, or wives brought us together for dinner to just make sure
everything was on the... Well, Jamoth brought us together for dinner. And Brawis.
And Brawis, yeah. No, I mean, it was a good thing because, frankly, Jason, I was starting to hate you.
Just a little bit.
Just a little bit.
But I could feel the hate, you know.
And Chimoff being empathetic as he is, recognized the situation.
And so we've decided to do, you know, at least a quarterly bestie's dinner to make sure
that, yeah, that the contentiousness does not get out of
hand and interfere with our friendships, which are more important than our politics.
Ultimately, that's what we all hope is comes out of this podcast, which is a deeper understanding
of reconciliation of issues that we disagree on. Breaking bread, having a meal, or having a
civil conversation, even if it gets a meal, or having a civil conversation,
even if it gets a little heated,
keeping it civil is important.
I thought that this is the way to handle it.
A lot of these, we're gonna be able to use
some amount of judgment on the people
who storm the Capitol and say,
okay, this person's misguided, they took a selfie.
This person broke windows and then this person,
you know, threw a fire extinguisher at a cop.
And we have to make sure that the justice system is deployed
in a fair way and more surveillance and more investigation.
I don't think that's the solution.
I think more surveillance, no, more investigations.
Absolutely, because I think the FBI has the power today to do
that. And I think they should, like I said, they should find
every single person involved,
find the appropriate crime, make sure that they're punished.
But the idea of passing broad sweeping surveillance powers
over every American citizen is fucking nuts.
Bunkers.
And the way all that's gonna do
is create these honeypots for foreign governments
to want to attack anyways.
Because if that capability exists,
it exists in code,
on servers somewhere, and folks in China and other places
will want to find out where that is,
and they will be attacking it all day long.
And so the last thing we need is we're already leaking
enough information about ourselves online,
willingly and unwittingly.
I don't want there to be a honey pot.
That's the first thing.
The second thing I just want to say is,
I thought it was incredible.
What Mitch McConnell did,
just back to your comment, Jason,
about making sure folks get the right adjudication.
I think Mitch McConnell set the stage
to have Donald Trump impeached.
And the reason I think that is this was the first time
he was completely unequivocal,
which is that Donald Trump provoked all these folks.
And I think what it allows the Republican Party to do
is to get together under closed doors,
you know, behind closed doors,
circle the wagons and say it's either him or us,
we choose right now,
and I think what's gonna happen, if I had to guess,
is that that allows a lot of people to break ranks
and support the impeachment in the Senate
that's gonna start on Monday.
And I think there's a real chance now
that this impeachment goes through
and he gets convicted.
I think it's worth just thinking
about the implications of that.
If you did that, there are Trump loyalists,
there aren't really GOP loyalists.
And I guess there are GOP loyalists,
but there are a lot of Trump loyalists
that are not loyal to the GOP at this point.
And Sachs, you know, correct me if I'm wrong, but if Trump does actually create a fringe party, does create a
Patriot party as he suggested he might, you could see up to 20 million Americans joining that party.
And, you know, that would reduce the ranks of the Republican party significantly. And in kind of minor signings in political theory, what would result is you always have a balance
in the parties. And so the party is kind of a just left or right to create that balance.
Ultimately, it's just kind of the organic way this works. In order for the Republican party
to gain, you would probably see a lot of membership move over to the Republican Party, which means
that the Democratic Party is going to move further left.
Think about the implications of that.
If Trump actually kicked Trump out of the party and he does set up a French party, you will
likely see the Democrats move further left creating a much more conflicting story for some
of the centrist than what they're telling today of what's gonna happen in the future
And that's a very different America in the next two to three years that could be created if they took that risk
And I think they have to associate that calculus
When they're making this decision. You know, you can talk about justice and wanting to kick him out of the party
But the implications of him leaving the party are rather profound
Oh, it would fracture the Republican Party. It would be, I guess, the best historical analog would be when Teddy Roosevelt left the
party to form the Bull Moose Party.
He actually fractured the Republican Party and that allowed, I think, Woodrow Wilson to
win the presidency, beating Taft.
Yeah, I mean, the Republicans would basically lose every election from now until Trump
is no longer a force in American politics, if he created.
I guess the...
Or they'd have to move left, right?
I mean, in order for them to gain more people, they'd have to get the centrist Democrats,
they'd have to move left, and that'll give the Democrats the ability to move left.
Yeah, I mean, it would be a dream scenario
for the Democrat Party.
I'm surprised.
I'd be surprised at the end of the day
if enough Republicans went along with this
to fracture the party.
But look, I understand that on some basis, Trump caused
what happened at the Capitol.
He convened everybody.
He rabbble roused. But I think that frankly, if you have a trial, I think the
question we have to ask is like, what agenda does this serve? Does this serve a
reconciliation agenda or does this serve a revenge agenda? I mean, the guy is
already out of office. I thought we canceled the Trump reality show. And this
is like bringing it back for another season because this trial is gonna be a shit show just like all things Trump.
You have a trial in the Senate and it's gonna turn into a total farce.
Okay, and you know look I think cosmically Trump was reckless he was responsible but when you actually look at the legal definition of incitement it's actually very hard to prove incitement.
So now Trump's going to get his lawyers up there and they're going to be pushing back
on this and it's going to consume the country for months.
And I just think we should be moving forward right now.
The guy who's going to be three days and done.
Why would it take months?
I'm curious.
You're just saying you're hang from it?
Well, they're going to start at mid-February, right?
It's not going to be three days.
This goes on until the trial's over.
I mean, it'll be at least a week of discussion, right?
Sex?
So, sex, is it, do you think the GOP preventing Trump
from being able to run again is worth the week
of animosity, let's call it?
I don't, I think we should just move on as a country.
At the end of the day, I think that's what's good for Biden's agenda.
This will become very consuming.
What's good for the GOP though?
As a person who would align themselves with Republicans mainly, I would say, what do you
think is best for your party, the party you're part of?
Just moving on, just moving forward.
What if Trump comes back and gets the nomination in 2024?
I mean, I think that is definitely a risk you take.
But I think that-
You want to set that risk?
I'll leave it to the voters to decide what makes sense.
Interesting.
I think that the only salvation for the Republicans
is to repute a Trump.
I actually agree with Freedberg.
I think that this creates the opportunity for this, I think Trump wants to call it the
Patriot Party, to be sort of center right.
I think Democrats probably add over time, center left.
Then the Republicans actually are this interesting power broker because they
can actually tack to the middle and be centrist about a social safety net combined with small
government. If you could somehow tip toe and balance on that line, I think that is the
winning strategy that people want.
But I think that's my point. The Republican party is going to have to move left in order to
create balance between the two parties again because party is going to have to move left in order to create balance
between the two parties again because they are going to lose 20 million voters to the Patriot party.
That's the profound shift that's going to happen. When the Republican party moves the left,
the Democrats are going to move further left.
Maybe. I don't think that moving that far left is a really winning strategy for them.
I think Free Brook is right. As an example, I think I can say this,
but like I had a call this week with the mayor of Miami,
Francis Suarez, what an unbelievably impressive guy,
holy fucking shit this guy is amazing.
What he's done in Miami is incredible.
I mean, the GDP growth is like Chinese GDP growth, 10%, 8%, 6% and a half percent.
He's running fiscal surpluses.
Crime is down, down, down.
He's done an incredible job.
This guy's a fundamental centrist.
And when you talk about what his beliefs are, I was like, what is this guy?
Is he a Democrat?
Is he a Republican?
I was like, he's like, honestly, I'm a centrist, you know? And so my point is, if whoever tax to the middle
will find the ability to attract incredible leaders that I think are our next generation
set of leadership.
So, in that way, Trump, as a change agent, Sachs, was a success in that he broke the system.
And this was Peter Tiel's kind of concept when he put him in, and I know you don't speak
for Peter, but Peter's idea was, hey, this person is a change agent.
He's going to be this drain this one person.
Maybe that didn't happen, but he has basically made everybody reconsider what party they want
to be part of and what they actually won on the political agenda.
And now we're so we've never been more focused on politics and how our country runs in our lifetime.
Have we?
Well, Trump, you're right that Trump was a classic disruptor.
You know, Keith Ravoy has this line about founders that disruption is created by disruptive people.
And Trump was, you know, one of those very disruptive people.
I mean, just to take two examples, he created a total re-enlimit on our views around China.
I think it's now a bipartisan consensus that we should not keep feeding China and keep
feeding the Chinese tiger and turning into a dragon.
Everyone seems to think now that that's
some reappraisal is warranted. And the other the other big issue was the forever wars in
the Middle East, you know, I think Trump first created a realignment within the Republican
Party when he said no more bushes. He met no more of these stupid foreign wars. And I
think that was an important realignment. So yeah, I mean, he's been a very disruptive figure.
I think that everyone's breathing a sigh of relief
because we've moved on.
I think that he unnecessarily was incendiary
and sort of pressurized the situation.
But I think the best thing at this point
is to move forward and not keep rehashing the Trump era.
Speaking of rehashing, I don't know if you guys know
about what is happening with Facebook,
but they have an oversight board they created last year in the spring.
And the oversight board is not to do the day-to-day policing of Facebook and Instagram and
WhatsApp activity, but it is to be a place where people who have had content removed or
have had their accounts suspended to appeal.
They have taken the Trump case, as it were,
and given it to their Supreme Court,
which is the oversight board,
and the oversight board is gonna make a judgment,
basically, on should Trump get his social media accounts back,
they have complete autonomy
from Facebook. They are funded by Facebook with 120 or 130 million dollars over the next
six years. So they're getting like 20 million dollars a year to run this. They've got a
really amazing bench of intellectuals, public intellectuals, and they're sort of above
Facebook in this regard. What do we think should happen to Trump's social
media accounts? Should he have a path to reclaiming them? And with this board that exists as this
abudment, as I talked about in the last episode, what do we think of this process? And do we
think maybe Twitter and YouTube should join this oversight board?
Let's separate these two things. And actually Jason, you just framed it perfectly.
Let's separate the two issues.
One is, is any of us comfortable with a random set of people that some people will
like and other people not like making these decisions on our behalf that are not
necessarily trained to make these decisions?
I mean, these aren't elected trained judges or lawyers that sit for a bar exam.
These are just, you know, private, ultimately at the end of the day.
I think that if you allow this to happen at scale, there's going to be a bunch of decisions
that you'll be okay with in support.
I think a lot of people probably are cheering when Trump got blocked.
But if you can abstract it away and think about all the people that you actually care about,
what if the administration was on the other side and now all of a sudden, these people to curry favor with the administration went into a different direction and people that
you cared about, guplocked. It is an untenable situation and I think this is the slippery slope that
the framers never intended. I don't think it should be people like this making any decision
like this. And in many ways, it's a it's a fake leaf for these companies to pretend they're
doing the right thing
while they're really shirking the real responsibility.
Friedberg, do you agree?
It's hard to say on this specific.
So I think we should just take a broader point of view on this, which is how do tech companies
create independence in the platforms that they're building so that they don't get scrutinized as monopolists?
And so there are several examples of this being done,
both successfully and not successfully
across the tech ecosystem.
Google made Android open source.
And by making the Android operating system open source,
they were able to have their own forked versions
that they were able to install on phones
with partners like HTC and Samsung and others
that they could
then have their search engine be the primary search engine.
So the entire Android operating system is available for anyone to work on, for anyone to
fork, for anyone to use, and then Google's iteration of that open source platform and Google's
contributions, which they were making regularly.
Allow them to kind of have a great commercial outcome without being the owner of the operating
system, having learned from the owner of the operating system,
having learned from the mistakes of Microsoft in the past.
Facebook tried to take a similar approach with Libra, and it was a total shit show on a disaster.
I don't know where it is today, but they tried to create this also independent board
to provide oversight and to kind of do the, you know, all the open source work on the Libra currency and Facebook
was going to then use that on their platform as their kind of, you know, token cryptocurrency
solution.
And obviously, there was so much scrutiny because no one believed the independence.
And I think we're hearing the same thing now about the Facebook oversight board.
Jack Dorsey is now taking the same approach with Blue Sky, which is meant to be this open sourced, you know, independently managed social media protocol system. And so
Twitter would effectively become an application layer on top of this open sourced approach
to how do you decide what goes on social media, how do you decide what's inappropriate and appropriate,
and what technology protocols are available
for everyone to use, and what business
and arbitration protocols are available
for everyone to use in an open-source way.
And we'll see where Jack goes with Blue Sky,
he seems to be doing a better job messaging
and organizing teams of people to work on this.
And I don't see the pushback that Facebook
is getting with their oversight board.
So unfortunately, a lot of these, the big tech platforms in order to avoid the monopolistic
allegations and the allegations of control and influence, they're creating independent
systems and the titter-miss.
And I don't think we yet know.
I think in the next year or two we'll see how Blue Sky, Libra, the Facebook oversight
board and some of these other platforms.
What would you do, David?
Deep platform.
Deep platform.
What would you do?
Let me just put it to you.
If you were in charge, you were the CEO of Facebook or Twitter.
Would you have a path to reinstating Trump, yes or no?
Can I jump in on that?
Yeah, let me just get free, Bergs.
Would you, yes or no, reinstate Trump?
Oh, yeah, 100% we should have a path to it.
I think, like I've said in the past, having some objective,
I think that number one, I don't think it was inappropriate
for them to kick him off the platform
from a legal perspective.
I don't, Saxon, I might disagree,
but we can probably argue for an hour,
but I think from a freedom of speech point of view,
they're private companies with private accounts
and they did what they wanted to do.
Was it the right thing to do?
I don't think that was the right thing.
So you give them a path to getting his account back
for the sake of-
And so I think you need to create an objective system
and you need to give everyone,
whether it's Krump or whomever else,
everyone has to have the same set of standards
that they're held to,
and then a universal approach that anyone can appeal
and-
Okay, but that's the approach.
But knowing what Trump did on January 6th,
would you let him back on your platform if you were CEO?
Is the question, I'm trying to get out of you, Freiburg,
but okay David, you go. Yeah, I mean, so here's the fundamental
problem is that the Town Square is now owned by Facebook and Twitter. The
Town Square got privatized and our speech rights are now in the hands of
Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey as a practical matter. I mean, you do not have
speech rights in the modern world if you get de-platformed by big tech. And
until now, there's been no way to appeal their decisions.
We have had no transparency into their decisions.
So I think Facebook creating this appeals board is a step in the right direction, but they're
calling it their Supreme Court, but I'll tell you, my Supreme Court is the Supreme Court.
At the end of the day, we all know that the most important part of a trial is jury selection.
And Zuckerberg is still picking these 20 people.
And they're people.
Actually, just in case in point, he picked the top, he picked the four and the four picked
the next 16 and then they don't have an ongoing ability to pick the next ones and they have
some amount of terms.
So just to give you that.
Okay, well, fair enough.
And like I said, look, I don't want to criticize this move on its own
because it is a step in the right direction.
We need an appeals process when people get canceled.
Okay.
That part is good.
But what I would like to see, like I said, my Supreme Court is
a Supreme Court and they've spoken to this issue.
And I would like to see these social networking monopolies apply
a first amendment standard, a speech policy broadly consistent with the first amendment.
And sometimes that will mean allowing speech we don't like,
but it will result in a greater level of speech protection
for all of us.
It will allow you to teach back on the platform.
No, but hold on a sec,
if you're gonna go by that standard.
The problem is with this oversight board concept,
is that it completely violates exactly
what the Supreme Court is meant to be,
which is a country by country set of governance and standards and laws. Like I'm just looking
at the oversight board people right now, these people look incredibly well,
credentialed. Emmy Palmore of Israel, Catalina Botero, Marino of Columbia, Nika Adad from Pakistan,
Halle Thorning Schmidt from Denmark, Catherine Chen from Taiwan, Jamal Green from the United States, Alan Ruspriger from UK, Andreas Sajjo from Hungary, and it goes
on and on. How are we supposed to adjudicate a set of standards at a national level? Like,
when we have the, are all these people from all these different countries supposed to apply
on US Constitutional right-of- free speech and have a deal with it.
The idea would be they would use some global standard, but then also taken to consideration
local standards.
That's what they've stated purposes and why they're so diverse.
The setup for that though, Jason, is that then when there's a, you know, the Hindu Nationalist
BJP party has a specific point of view.
And so when Modi wants to get elected, there's going to be specific kinds of free speech
laws there. You know, Poland's going to have a different point of view.
And they're not going to respect what's happening in the oversight board case in point.
Australia passed a potential law, or it's considering passing a law, which is basically
around if, you know, treating Facebook and Google as quasi publishers and that, you know,
there, I think that they have to pay some kind of royalty now for articles that are shared or published or whatever.
And Google said, I'm out.
And then Facebook said, I'm out too.
And so what does that mean for, you know, 200 million people, you're out.
What does that mean?
You're out.
You can make money when the getting's good and all of a sudden you build this public infrastructure
when the country's rules change. I actually respect that more than trying to create some of this
broad holistic governance committee because I think it's a shit show. You can't cherry pick which
laws you want to observe and respect and then which laws you don't.
You know, I think Jamalath makes an excellent point about how difficult this is going to be to
implement. Let me propose an alternative that actually comes from a former law professor of mine at
the University of Chicago, Richard Epstein.
He made the point that he wants to apply common carrier regulation, at least in the U.S.
to these monopolies.
And the example he gives is that the railroad monopolies could not deny you service based
on your political views.
And this is a real issue.
Imagine going back in time, we had the Lincoln Douglas debates, for example, the way that Lincoln
and Douglas went around the country was by train.
Imagine if some railroad magnate, some oligarch said, Mr. Lincoln, I don't like your views,
I'm not going to give you passage on my railroad monopoly. The common carrier rules would have prevented them from doing that.
And what Epstein suggests we do is if you're essentially a monopoly, a speech monopoly in
the US, one of these platforms that has the gigantic network effects, you have to apply
the common carrier rules.
It's an interesting concept, I think.
Let's move on to the economy.
And it'll be interesting.
Well, we'll monitor obviously what this oversight board does
and we're going to monitor what's going to happen
with this January 6th.
But then, sorry, Jason, the last thing on this is,
you can tell, if you've graphed,
and I'm sure somebody
listening to all-ent can graph and tweet this, but if you graphed the price to earnings ratio
of big tech as all of these issues have come out, like, you know, if you look at a time series of their PE and you put on their, you know, things like George
Floyd, things like the Capitol riots, you know, all of these things that have created these
flashpoint issues around free speech, flashpoints, the massacre in New Zealand and Christchurch
that was live streamed on Facebook, all of this stuff.
What you'll see is at least capitalism is voting that these companies will not be allowed
to be companies much longer.
So the smart money is betting that they're going to be regulated and something's going to change.
It's going to be a quasi-governmental organization exactly that the level of regulation at a
government but government level is going to be so onerous as to make these companies quasi-non-profits
that work on behalf of countries. They're going to become utilities, right? They're going to get regulated like utilities at some point.
Or they're going to have to adopt some governance like we've talked about, or other options
will emerge.
And I think what Jack is doing with the, is it blue skies, what they're calling it?
Blue sky, yeah.
Yeah, what they're really doing with blue sky is saying your profiling, your data is
going to be stored on some blockchain or some decentralized system. Yeah, what they're really doing with Blue Sky is saying your profiling your data is going
to be stored on some blockchain or some decentralized system like Bitcoin or like any other peer-to-peer
service, which means it's not on their server.
Twitter just pulls all that data together.
So we would all have our own domain names in calacannas.com or sacks.com slash profile dot whatever the HTML
equivalent is. Let's just call it dot social. You know, your sacks.social URL would be your profile
on Facebook, Twitter, and everywhere else. And when you posted to it, it would post to Facebook
and Twitter. Therefore, they could say, we don't actually host the stuff. We're just pulling it
together, which then destroys their business model, Purchmots Point.
What do we think as a little aside is going to happen with the TikTok case.
Now that Trump is out of office and Biden is in office,
we sort of alluded to China,
SACs being a super important thing that we all have consensus on.
Now, what should happen with TikTok?
Do you think Biden will go after TikTok and say, Hey, we got to get this out of here because it's essentially spyware.
And Jock Ma was just resurfaced. And let's just talk about China for a second.
Yeah, I think the sad reality is that the whole TikTok thing is going to get swept under
the rug. I think there'll be no restrictions on TikTok. I think what we need, the issue with banning TikTok, though, is that
it's just one place where China can collect data on all of us. I mean, the reality is there's
thousands of places. And so, I do think that taking some action on TikTok is warranted, but it would,
it is a little bit of selective enforcement. But what I would like to see is some guarantee, some assurance
that that TikTok is not, it is collecting data in the way they're saying they're collecting
it and that there's not sort of spyware within the app. And I don't think we know for sure
whether they're spyware or not. I'll say, I'll say it slightly differently. I've maintained
this for a while, but it is inconceivable that inside of Big Tech, every single
company that you define Big Tech is not at least one spy
from Russia, China, India, Israel, Pakistan.
Saudi Arabia.
Did I tell you guys I had a spy working for me at climate? No, you got a rest. Did I tell you guys about had a spy working for me? A climate?
No.
You got a arrest.
Did I tell you guys about this?
No, tell us a story.
It's public, so I'll share it.
We had a data scientist named Hightower, great guy,
worked on our remote sensing team,
and worked on our nitrogen model,
which predicted nitrogen content and soil,
and was very deep in the code base and everything.
And shortly after I had left, I found out this so climate, content and soil and was very deep in the in the in the code base and everything. And
shortly after I had left, I found out this so climate just for the audience, my company
I started in ran was acquired by Monsanto in 2013, which is a big seed company. A lot
of people know it for other things. And so I left and I found out that the guy quit,
went to the airport and the FBI intercepted him at the airport
and they found tucked into his bag, a thumb drive
and he had downloaded all of our code base
for our nitrogen models
and he was taking them to give them to the Chinese government.
And so he's in jail right now,
he's in prison in the US right now,
but this was like the most non-descript, super nice,
scientist, data scientist guy you've ever met,
like you would have had zero suspicion.
And it turns out it was a part.
How many of those exist in Facebook?
And it was so easy for him to get access to our code base
and he pulled all the stuff down and he had the whole model.
And you know, there's a lot of articles
about what happened in our case.
But you're right, it's happening all over the place.
And I don't think that we fully appreciate
like how much of America's IP is stored in software and data
and how accessible that is to employees inside of these organizations
and that the security is not adequate to protect that data and that IP.
And then the crazy thing is like, you know,
when just to connect the two dots here on this Jack Muffin,
like when you saw that video is like, you know, when just to connect the two dots here on this jack muffin, like when you saw that video,
where like, you know, basically he was forced to, you know, show feel to, I'm okay.
I'm okay. And you know, this is all about the Chinese party held captive.
My gosh, like, I mean, these are all quasi governmental companies.
Holly Baba exists because of the large S of the Communist Party in Xi Jinping. If that wasn't clear
after last week, I mean, and so to your point, like, you
know, if any company gets a hold of of US user data or
otherwise, it's effectively the Chinese government getting a
hold of that data.
Yeah, we don't need proof, David, when Jack Ma disappears and
then comes back and looks, he looked nervous on that video.
I'm no expert, but he did not look like he was the Jack Ma disappears and then comes back and looks, he looked nervous on that video.
I'm no expert, but he did not look like he was the Jack Ma
who was giving speeches and inspiring people.
And I don't know what this does to entrepreneurship in China,
but I mean, who in China is gonna start a company now
and want to be the next Jack Ma or Jeff Bezos?
No, I think Jason, it's even simpler.
What happens?
It makes entrepreneurship even simpler, meaning,
for those entrepreneurs that thought that there was a balance
between financial imperative and moral imperative,
there's no balance.
You can flush the moral imperative down the fucking toilet.
They, China will allow you to get super rich
and super successful as long as you super-toe the line.
And that's the message.
Right, it's like what Putin did with Kordakovsky in Russia.
It's like he basically told all the oligarchs,
you work for us now.
And that's basically the, it worked.
That's basically the message from the CCP to Jack Ma
and to every other entrepreneur in China
is you work for us now.
And by the way, civil military fusion was part was a policy, especially announced by
President Xi.
You know, one other data point on this, I think it's really interesting, is that Biden
just announced that he was keeping on Christopher Ray as the head of the FBI.
Christopher Ray gave a speech back in July at the Hudson Institute about the counter
espionage efforts that the FBI has engaged in.
He was saying that the FBI has more cases now related to Chinese counterintelligence.
He said that the FBI is opening a new China-related counterintelligence case every 10 hours. Wow.
And two a day.
And of the nearly 5,000 active FBI counterintelligence cases
currently underway across the country,
almost half are related to China.
So this is directly from a speech he gave in July.
So I think it's really interesting.
Now, at the time that he gave this speech,
you know, a lot of people were saying,
well, this is just Trump's more of Trump's China baiting.
But I think that by Biden keeping on Christopher Ra, there's a continuity of policy there.
And I think, you know, focusing on TikTok is probably the wrong thing.
We need a more comprehensive policy to deal with counterintelligence.
Well, it's a good start, though, to say, if you hit scale, we're not going to let you
operate here and we want reciprocity adding to this outgoing secretary of pump out is the day before the inauguration tweeted I have
determined that the people's Republic of China is committing genocide and crimes against humanity
in China targeting the weavers Muslims and members of other ethnic and religious minority groups
that's quite a bomb to leave the day before
and i think this signals we are
gonna keep resetting this relationship
and what an incredible opportunity for us to bring factories back here bring
as we've talked about here
manufacturing back correct reber
that's what i think
that's gonna take it off we got we got three million
three million factories in China.
I think we've got less than 100,000 in America.
Let's go.
It will be so glorious.
It will be so fucking glorious.
Think about this.
Look, think about the amount of money.
At the end of the day, what is a government's purpose?
Is it to run our profit?
No.
That's our job.
Is it to run, add, break even?
I would actually say no. I think it's to basically
promote the prosperity of current and future generations of its citizens. And so you should
be investing. So if you should be investing. So if we're going to be printing, you know, trillions
of dollars, and you know, we should talk about the stimulus bill because Biden's going to rip in
another two trillion, which I think is the perfect and then for the way. And then by the way,
and then after that, there's going to be this, it's amazing infrastructure
bill.
Put the money to work.
Let's reclaim a bunch of this capability on short and let's rebuild America.
Okay.
Freeberg, you looked at the $1.2 trillion stimulus package that Biden is proposing.
How much of that goes towards rebuilding factories in America?
Well, none.
So remember, there's a,
well, yeah.
But it's 1.9 billion.
It's 1.9 trillion.
1.9 trillion, yeah.
I'm sorry.
And so just to put that in context,
Wall Street has talked about there
were going to be four massive stimulus bills.
Since last April, May, I think they've talked about this.
And we're seeing this come to fruition now,
and Shamao has correct me if you've heard differently,
but there's always been the expectation
we would have the big first stimulus,
which we have last March.
Then a second stimulus,
people have been waiting for the state stimulus
or the local government stimulus,
which this one now captures.
And then the fourth program
was always gonna be infrastructure.
And we haven't seen details of the proposed Biden infrastructure plan yet
But I'm pretty sure it's going to have a lot of green energy stuff tied up in it
But let's just let's just hit the numbers right so in 2009 post financial crisis to keep the global economy from collapsing
Congress passed an 800 billion dollar
eight package saying, Congress passed an $800 billion aid package. $800 billion was extraordinary at the time, and we'd never seen anything like it.
TARP.
And last March, if you'll recall, we passed this emergency $2 trillion package, more than
2X, what we had during the financial crisis.
And now, just in December, right before the year wrapped up, Congress passed another $900 billion package. And now we're talking about this $1.9 trillion package getting
passed. So we've eclipsed anything you could have ever considered possible in terms of fiscal
stimulus. At this point, the M1 money supply, which I sent a link out ahead of this for
Senator has gone up by 75% in just the past year.
Now, if we break down the $1.9 trillion stimulus bill, a huge chunk of it, and this is what
Wall Street's been waiting for, is $350 billion is going to state and local governments.
Think about San Francisco or the state of California, the city of Chicago, the city of
New York.
All of these folks have seen their revenue decline
and they've had to run massive emergency programs.
Where's that money coming from?
They haven't been able to raise taxes.
They've had to put a hold on receipts.
And so this is meant to bridge the gap at the local level.
And this is really important
because so much of capital markets
still very much fund local and state governments through municipal
bonds.
And those bonds, if they start to default, are going to have a dangerous rippling effect
in the economy.
So bridging the state and local government budgets with this $350 billion package turned
out to be an absolute need and be Republicans prior to the election.
We're pushing hard against this and saying,
let those states fail. They're mostly blue states, let those cities fail. They're mostly blue cities.
They're mismanaged. They're being stupid about how they're operating. So this is a big deal.
There's 160 billion for COVID fighting, some of which I throw up on $20 billion for vaccination,
which equates to about $150 per person they expect to vaccinate, which is an extraordinarily high cost if you actually think about it on a first principles basis.
It's ridiculous how inefficient they're going to be at this.
$50 billion for testing, $40 billion for protective gear and supplies.
What this indicates to me is so much of what goes on in government and government spending
is skating to where the puck used to be, not skating to where the puck is going.
And it's almost like by the time this money gets deployed, I'm not sure we're going to
need as much protective gear and supplies.
I'm not sure we're going to need as much testing if we can actually get the vaccinations
done in the next 90 to 100 days.
And much of the country starts to recover from this.
You know, you've now got a $150 billion program sitting out there that doesn't need to
be out there and it's a waste of money.
What we should be doing is taking that money and investing in bio-manufacturing infrastructure
so we can more quickly develop and deploy vaccines in the future.
What would it cost to build a factory just back at the envelope that was capable of making
the next, let's call it, one billion vaccine shots.
Yeah, it's not a lot.
I'll give you guys the Uniteconomic Build
and you can do the math at home.
Four grams per liter is the expected yield
of a bio-manufacturing facility.
And a liter is like, you know,
how many liters of water do you have in a tank?
You can build half million liter facilities
for a couple hundred million dollars. And that's
four grams per liter every seven days. And as vaccine or the the the antibody
therapies that we've seen the antibody therapies are about two grams and that'll
save someone's life. The the vaccines are a fraction of a gram. And so you can
start to kind of do the math on how just a few billion dollars invested in
building some of these biomanufacturing facilities that are modular and can be very
quickly reprogrammed to make a new molecule, can be used to support the future vaccine supply
chain and the future antibody therapeutic supply chain, which is critically needed in
this country.
And if I were to take $160 billion for COVID fighting, give me 10% of that, and we'll be ready for any virus
in the future, and we'll be able to print out vaccines
for the whole country within 30 days.
And so a little bit again of this is not really
forward thinking it's scientists and doctors
saying what they need, what they're talking about
is last year's need.
They're not thinking in terms of what the industrial supply
chain needs are going to be in the future on an ongoing basis
for this country.
At this point, I'm not seeing it.
And so I feel a little bit let down by that. And I hope that the infrastructure programs that are going to be in the future on an ongoing basis for this country. At this point, I'm not seeing it. And so I feel a little bit let down by that.
And I hope that the infrastructure programs that are going to be proposed in the next
building in the next bill will start to encompass some of that work.
Paradoxically, it's going to cost a trillion dollars to upgrade our nuclear weapons.
We're literally going to spend a trillion dollars over the next decade upgrading our
nuclear weapons.
That's not an interesting thing.
Is that true? That's nut nuclear... That's an interesting thing.
Is that true?
That's nutty.
That's right.
I'm reading a headline right here.
Here's my little wish list for this infrastructure bill.
I think when you look at some of the most compelling work that's happened in the developing
world, so like if you're going to go and build a massive water facility or an energy installation.
A lot of people are worried, hey listen, I have to deal with local currency risk, I have
to deal with corruption, I could have the government take away this facility from me without
notice.
The rule of law may not be strong.
And the World Bank has this mechanism where you can basically go and ensure, you
know, for I think it's like one or two percent of your project costs the whole project.
And it really makes things work. I would love to see the US government effectively create
a program that is similar but different in the following way. There are some enormous
things America needs to do where the IP exists with our allies, and there is
an enormous fear what would happen if that IP leaked specifically to China. One example
is if you believe and you care about climate change, and the making of batteries, there's
an enormous amount of IP that sits with the Japanese,
that if we could license and work with as a country, we could build factories all over the country.
And we would be the leader in climate. But that'll take the US government to basically work
bilaterally with the Japanese government to basically say, listen, if it takes the NSA to
fucking protect this shit, we will do it. But you can
show them. We could just give them their sovereignty and those facts.
These are for-profit companies that are relatively risk-averse. They're not going to rip in
10 million bucks, 10 billion dollars to build a cathode plant in the US. I would, other people would.
But that's my hope in the infrastructure bill is that we take some of these things that have
worked in the developing world and we use it to grease the infrastructure bill is that we take some of these things that have worked in the developing world
And we use it to grease the skids in how we rebuild America. It would be fucking glorious
Also, just think about how much a nuclear power plant costs is like six to nine billion dollars to build a nuclear power plant
And we haven't built many new ones and we're on the way there
But if part of this trillion dollars we could build ten more of those energy independence
Would continue and global warming would go down
Anything to add there David looks like you want to come well. I just did just one final word, you know the
The the great Senate leader
Everett Dorkson famously said that you know billion here a billion there pretty soon. You're talking about real. And now we're talking about a trillion here and a trillion there.
And these are really big numbers.
And I think we should be very concerned about debt and deficits.
No one's really talking about this yet, but all of this money has to be paid back at some
point.
Well, what's the worst that can happen, David?
Let's actually do that.
I mean, I'm asking the question in a non-joking way.
What is the worst that can happen?
Oh, I mean, inflation.
Inflation.
Well, not just so inflation, because the government
will eventually have to monetize the debt
by printing more money.
The dollar stops becoming the world's reserve currency.
Maybe Bitcoin becomes the world's reserve currency.
Maybe it's something else does.
It could be lead to, you know, very severe,
to basically a debt crisis in the future.
What would that look like for companies and citizens of America?
Well, if you're middle class, your savings get wiped out.
If you're super rich, the reality is there's already been tremendous asset inflation.
There's already been a lot of inflation, but frankly, if you are very rich and own assets
in the stock market,
you're sort of, you're protected, you know?
But if you're a middle class person
with most of your savings in your bank account,
that money is not worth a lot less.
And you're destroyed, or you're home.
Yeah, you get destroyed by that.
It's really very sad.
So if you are equities and the market is on a rip,
you know, paying an extra couple of million dollars
for your second home is not a big deal because know, paying an extra couple of million dollars for your second home
is not a big deal because your equities have gone up more than that or equal to that. And if you're
somebody who makes income, we have a separate issue. Well, look, this is a big issue. But I
think we should talk about this at some point because this is what the grand fallacy of technology
was supposed to be. Like, you know, if you break down capitalism into its two most natural states,
you have labor and you have capital, right?
You have workers and you have owners.
And the biggest problem that technology did was it drove a wedge
and it created an extremely small owner class
on an extremely massive labor class.
And so the reality is that a very few, very,
a handful of people can get extremely wealthy
by being owners of these next generation assets.
And then everybody else is essentially rendered as labor.
And so this wealth inequality just grows
and grows and compounds.
And so we have to figure out a way.
Yeah, how's that different than the past?
Because I think it's got, I think technology
accelerated that dynamic. Well, I think technology accelerated that dynamic.
Well, I think is jumping in on this.
I mean, I think that technology creates bigger winner-take-all outcomes,
and that's fed into inequality.
But the good thing about tech or the tech ecosystem is that, frankly, we have option pools, right?
We have broad-based ownership of these companies.
If you go work for a Google or Facebook, whatever, you get a huge amount of grants.
Yeah, but that's not true.
That's 10,000 people.
That's 10,000 people.
That's no one, right?
And they're replacing two million jobs with 10,000 people.
I mean, this is why we need to have
a hundred percent participation in the markets
by everybody in the country.
Joe Greenblad, who I had on my podcast recently
is a proponent of this tumult.
They say, are you tweeting about it?
When you're born in the United States,
we should put $5,000 in a 401k
that you can't touch until you're 65 years old.
That is in whatever index funds.
And every person born gets that $5,000 and cannot touch it.
And then we see where it winds up.
I'm not sure everybody has a state.
But it doesn't solve the problem
that a lot of people have to climb up a hill first, right?
They take on a lot of debt to get education,
to put themselves in a position,
to ultimately be able to generate the income to do that.
And I think, you know, sure, give them $5,000
in the beginning, but it's not gonna get them
where they need to be.
But it does solve one portion of the problem,
which is they don't have participation
and we could take out the wondering
both of you are right.
I think both of you are right.
I think like there needs to be something that allows people
to have a line of sight to savings.
Like a lot of about being invested in anything
where you own it, whether it's real estate
or whether it's a piece of artwork
or whether it's stocks and bonds.
So many people don't even know how to begin
and don't understand the concept of ownership.
And so they are stuck in being in the ghetto of labor.
And I think like one of the biggest things we can do is you can give them the taste
of ownership so that they understand that difference so that they want to be an owner.
Yes. Okay. Number one.
Yes.
And then to David's point, number two is we still have a responsibility to educate
people so that they can actually have skills that they can monetize. And we have a responsibility to educate people so that they can actually have skills that they can monetize.
And we have a responsibility to do that. And right now, we make it so fucking hard,
and we trick people because like we send them down the path of getting a $200,000 art history
degree, and then they end up working at a Starbucks, and then they're, which is impossible to monetize.
I mean, it's frantic. You can't monetize that. You can't. By the way, what you're saying, Tomob, is the reason I think
retirement accounts were set up in the US was to shift away
from pension fund models where people were getting a fixed
income at retirement and shifting them to a model of equity
and ownership in the markets where they could participate
actively on a tax-free basis. But obviously it hasn't done
enough. You know, I think the big difference between the
industrial revolution,
the first and second industrial revolution and where we are with software in the last two to three decades,
is the capital required, right?
It's very little capital to build a highly valuable software business.
It required a lot of capital to build oil infrastructure and railroad infrastructure and factories.
And so to your point, you get extraordinarily different outsize returns today than you
did 100 years ago as an owner versus labor, and the bridge to try and give people ownership
through retirement accounts certainly hasn't been enough.
So to your point, David, I saw this study.
It was fucking crazy.
I'm going to get the exact numbers wrong, but the trend is accurate. When people used to actively manage their 401K,
there was a very small participation rate, but the mean return was off the charts, and the amount
of dollars as a function of their paycheck was off the charts. Call it 50, 60 cents of every
theoretical dollar you could put into it. The minute that we went to passive and that, you know, you could sort of trickle money in, the number of people that participated
literally more than doubled, but then the amount of that max dollar went off of a cliff.
And so the problem that we've had is we haven't taught people. You know, we've misdirected
some of them to say, have a 401k, it replaces your pension as if it's
the solution.
That's still not the solution.
And we need to have ways of teaching people how to actually manage it.
It's not that hard and the basics can be taught very simply.
But right now we are massively exacerbating this wealth gap, the way that we behave, and
that all of this money that's going to go in, this 1.9 trillion, whatever, how many trillion
comes afterwards, is frankly, for the few that are smart enough to take
advantage of it, will be amazing, but it'll still push the overwhelming majority of Americans
who are stuck in labor, deeper and deeper into that ghetto and they'll never get out.
It is definitely every little bit helps, right?
If you have the 401K, that helps. And then, you know, educate people.
And I think if we gave everybody an ISA at birth
or an income sharing agreement
for these 20 professions in the government, provided.
Oh, why?
Jason, why is it that, you know, for example,
if to invest in a startup,
you either have to have more than $5 million
or more than, you know, a million bucks a year.
It's more than, and they're gonna,
it's blockchain, and so if you're a year. It's more than, and they're gonna, it's about to change it.
And so if you're a product manager
that's like really, really talented,
or if you're like, somebody else
who's just got a PhD in nuclear biology
and frankly is decided to teach for 60,000,
and you can't participate even though you have
the intellect to judge.
Like we're just like kind of like compound.
It's even worse than that.
The person who's changing the accreditation laws
at the SEC and working on this said,
I cannot, I'm writing the accreditation laws.
And because I make 150K a year, whatever it is,
under 200K, I can't participate.
And I'm the one responsible for the law.
That person must be one of the most sophisticated people
in the world.
It literally is the most sophisticated person in the world
when it comes to accreditation.
This is what we need to move to sophisticated investor,
not accredited.
And just some test.
And if you did that, every single Uber driver,
Lyft driver, Postmates driver, Airbnb host,
or a person who used the cash app or PayPal
would have said, I can, as one of the first users,
I have access to buy shares.
I'm just going to say this.
I'll buy them.
This problem has to get fixed because I think in the next 10 or 5 now.
I think in the next 10 and 20 years, the United States is going to fucking reemerge like a phoenix.
And the reason is going to be because of innovation around climate change and agriculture and biotechnology
and technology.
These four areas are going to recast GDP.
But what that also means is that if we're going to create, you know, 20 or 30 trillion dollars
a year for the next 10 and 20 years, 300, 500 trillion, how the fuck do we make sure that
more than 18 people participate?
Absolutely.
Well, I agree with a lot of what you guys are saying, but I can tell you every single one
of the companies that I've invested in are looking to hire people right now.
They cannot hire people soon enough.
It's their biggest challenge.
And it's not just coders, it's salespeople, it's marketing people, it's HR people, it's
every role in their company, they have trouble trying to hire the right person. They give options to all those people.
It's not just a small number of founders getting equity.
This is basically a new category of call it entrepreneurial labor.
It's labor who gets ownership in the company that's never existed before.
Really, what this comes down to is we need more people participating in the new economy.
If you participate in the new economy, then you get economy. If you participate in the new economy,
then you get ownership.
And if you're in the old economy,
then you really are stuck in labor.
And so what we need to do is spread the opportunity
that technology represents to more people across the country.
Part of the minimum wage,
maybe we should have a minimum equity participation.
So we have the minimum wage over here,
but if you're working for an entrepreneurial enterprise,
why not get a minimum, you know,
participation in the equity? Because the free market takes care of that. I mean but if you're working for an entrepreneurial enterprise, why not get a minimum, you know, part of the equity?
Because the free market takes care of that.
I mean, if you have the right skill, that's the free market has.
No, no, no, the free market has.
I agree with David.
The free market has the problem is that how does a person working at Walmart ever participate
in the Walmart appreciation of that?
That's the point.
They will, they will leave and go to a company that gives them equity.
And that's why you'll see this, this, this, be interesting, but if you're more of a than a job within an hour of their house, it's not
They got to have the right skills Jason and so this all comes back to education
You know, we got a we got a good one. Let the people who are in rank and file jobs the 30 million truck drivers cashiers
Etc have equity participation as a right. I think I think you're saying something different should they?
have equity participation as a right. I think you're saying something different.
Should they?
Absolutely.
Should the company that does that be created?
Absolutely.
Will they be rewarded with all the people
that want to work there?
Absolutely.
So now somebody should go and start that fucking company.
Okay.
I just think it's an interesting concept.
I mean, we do have a minimum wage.
Why not have a minimum?
Jason, you're saying participation.
You know, the same woman that ran Elon out of California.
Lorraine Genzala.
She's doing another thing now.
Just proposed a new bill.
Like, do you want her to be,
basically, pick the equity thresholds?
Because that's what you're saying.
No.
Let's pivot to California.
Okay, let's pay for another disaster.
California.
So the recall is well on its way. They need to get 1.5 million signatures.
We're at 1.1 or 1.2, but we actually really need two
because there's some verification process that goes on.
So in all likelihood, we will see Gavin Newsom recalled.
We agree on that.
I'll tell you the stats I heard, there's about a million,
call it a million, million one signatures. They've seen about an 85% verification rate today. Sacks correct me if
I'm wrong on this, they're getting, they're getting about 200,000 signatures a week. They're,
you know, the cost for marketing and attracting people to get these signatures is coming in at
like three to six bucks, a signature. So it's really not a lot of money is needing to be spent to get this done. And even if the verification rate drops to 75 or 65%, you're still on track at this rate
to hit the recall target by March 17th, which is the deadline. And so it appears highly likely
they're going to get there. Sax, am I right on all that?
Yeah, I think they're at 1.2 million signatures. that's what I heard. And they're trying to get to 2 million to have a buffer
so that they don't get pushed under the one.
But 1.5 is the number they need.
Yeah, they need 1.5 million certified signatures.
70% of the way they're according to the website
RecallGavin2020.com, which I think they will get there.
I think they'll get there.
And then the Rec recall election would take place
about four to five months after that.
There's a couple of months where it moves
through the finance committee,
the recall election has to be budgeted.
And then Newsom would have the opportunity
to set a date with and I think 60 to 80 days roughly.
So I think we're looking at July for
a recall election. And sex, how do you get, how does it candidate get on the ballot? Because
Chimac is asking for a friend. Wait a second. I want to be on to that. Can't, should we have
all four besties beyond? Yeah, we should all run. We all are.
Let the voters decide.
We're probably going to have four Kardashians on there.
And what X-card's that?
Yeah, so it's stunningly easy to be a replacement candidate.
We should expect, they'll probably be about 150 replacement candidates on the ballot. Every third tier, sealist celebrity is gonna, you know, like,
you know, back to Gary Coleman did it like, you know, 20 years ago, they're all very
sealist celebrities. What you talking about, Zach? Yeah, it's a trying booster Q rating.
I'm sure we'll see Kathy Griffin on there. I mean, what she been doing. And so it's going to be a farce.
It's going to be a farce.
What if I had to sell Bob Andy Dick?
Andy Dick is going to run for Dick.
Can we just kill him?
Can we just kill him?
By the way, can we talk about why he's getting recalled?
Because I do get this question a lot from people
in tech and out of tech.
And I just want to highlight some of the reasons I've heard.
And I'd love to hear why you guys think he's,
why there is this push against him.
But from people within the tech community,
I've heard that the ad hoc lockdown rules
have really pissed a lot of people off
in terms of when businesses are allowed
and not a lot of the open and kind of the responsiveness
and the guiding principles around this during COVID.
Obviously, the inability to fight against the tax rate,
but no one wants to be publicly saying that.
The failed vaccine rollout, the failed testing.
You know, Sachs,
Chema, Jason, what do think number two is the virus.
We've only deployed 37% of our doses in California.
And that makes us, you know, of the major states that are putting out a lot of these vaccines,
one of the worst performers.
Second, we're in Florida and New York are the other large states and they're at 56,
49 and 50%. We're still Florida and New York are the other large states and they're at 56 49 and 50 percent. We're still stuck at 37 percent
California the cradle of innovation and technology and this bum. He's a bum
37 percent point. We should be leading to 70 percent. He's a bum. Can I get a new suit wait wait?
It's it's new some derangement syndrome. Oh my god
You got your besties Jason just has a problem with anyone in authority You know, it's the hair. It's a problem. It's a great fucking hair
It's the hairs too good French laundry the hypocrisy and then get to work
Personality personality for you is the biggest driver is that right Jason? No, it's literally the performance of their Washington,
to see West Virginia, North Dakota, South Dakota, all 66 to 73% of their vaccines
are going to double us. Now it's smaller states, but still we're
goddamn California. Here's what I would say as a list.
Number one, we're the most heavily taxed.
Number two, we are, we have some of the worst infrastructure
in the country.
We have some of the lowest and poorest performing schools
in the country.
We have the highest homeless rates for veterans
in the country.
We have the worst preparedness for climate in the country.
And so it's basically just a complete bungling at every level.
And so, and then the fourth or the, then the nest, which is the biggest one is we have
now created an inhospitable culture for innovation.
And the biggest problem with that is if these climate jobs and these technology jobs and these biotechnology jobs pivot to more accepting and progressive
local and state management like Austin, Texas and Miami, Florida, we lose these things forever.
This is a multi-generational decay that we're starting.
So if we care about the state, I love California.
I love San Francisco.
I love how eclectic and unique and different it is.
I was always happy to pay 10, 11, 12, 13, 14%
because it was worth it.
Now, I don't know what we get for it.
And so I think we, I think he should get recalled.
I just think he's trash.
And just to underscore the point on lockdowns,
we now have certainly more cases, we have more
deaths, and we have more deaths per capita than Florida, despite the fact that Florida has no
lockdowns and a much older population. And so I was just in Florida a few weeks ago, like
Jamoth was saying, you know, Su far as the mayor there has created a really,
a land of the free, I mean, it's really unbelievable.
You can go to bars, you can go to restaurants,
there's no lockdown whatsoever.
They don't have as big a problem
as California does right now.
Why do you think that is?
Because, well, because I think that the lockdowns.
On a scientific basis, yeah.
I think the lockdowns only forstalled the problem.
Eventually, the virus finds a way around them.
I also think the thing that's happening in Florida is that, okay, so my aunt lives there.
She's in her 70s.
She's not going to bars and restaurants because she knows she's highly at risk.
Just because the government doesn't lock down doesn't mean that people don't take sensible
precautions on their own.
I think that what's happened is that people are going out to bars and restaurants are low risk and they're keeping the economy going over there. And
instead in California, we have this very draconian lockdown policy and it's put all these small
businesses out of out of. No, no, no, it's worse. It's not a draconian lockdown policy.
It's a whipsaw. Oh, it's open. Okay. Great. Now go and invest in a bunch of cat backs to make
sure there's outdoor dining. Oh, hold on, you're close. What is that?
That's just, that's just stupid.
It's in common.
Tons of tons of restaurants and bar owners in San Francisco spent on average $30,000
building outdoor seating for their facility, only to have it all shut down three and a half weeks later.
In common.
Can you imagine being an owner of that business?
What the experience?
No, it's unfair.
No, I mean, you would literally, they're going to kill themselves.
Meanwhile, you get the tragedy of it.
People will lose everything and there'll be suicides. No, I mean, you would literally, they're going to kill themselves. This is the tragedy of it.
People will lose everything
and there'll be suicides, depression, domestic violence,
guys, and then this guy is having dinner
at French laundry during the whole,
I mean, it's just such a no-hash, I just got a note
that he's actually been banished
from being at the French laundry.
Apparently, it's been renamed the Sri Lankan laundry
and some notable Sri Lankan billionaire has bought the French laundry. And it's been renamed the Sri Lankan laundry and some notable Sri Lankan billionaire has bought the French laundry
They got a 2.6 million dollar PPP long that got forgiven so you know
There's a lot of heat on the French laundry as a whole what is it cost to go to French laundry 800 dollars a person?
Anybody who want who's listening to this who wants to go to the French laundry stay at home
Pour a bunch of salt on whatever you're gonna eat.
Okay.
Melt the stick of butter in the microwave.
Melt the stick of butter in the microwave, drink it,
and then basically take $1,500,
light it on fire, you bit to the French laundry.
You're welcome.
Here's what you do.
Take a really great steak.
Trash.
And put it into a trash.
And throw out 80% of it.
That place is trash.
And then put the cube in the middle of a big large plate.
That's not even newvo reach.
It's just newvo stupid.
Oh my gosh.
Oh my gosh.
So all you well people are down in Texas getting a brisket burrito for $4.
But I think California really needs to fix this.
We need to figure out what's going on.
And I just want to ask one more question of you guys.
You don't think that this, you know,
because I was having this debate with my family about New
Sim and I was telling them about the perspectives
I was hearing from tech people and why everyone's so
against New Sim and I've heard all these different things
that you guys have shared today.
And, you know, they're very, you know,
and I'm hearing a lot of people kind of making the counterpoint.
Like, this is a very difficult time.
It's been an impossible year for everyone everywhere.
So, first of all, you know, Newson was dealt a pretty difficult hand to play.
And at the same time, we are all psychologically primed to look for grass being greener on the other side.
I think a big part of, you know, certainly there's a lot of people leaving California,
my belief, for Texas and Florida
Primarily because of taxes and then you justify it with all the things that are wrong with California
But we're all really primed right now
With this notion that that that it's a difficult place to be
But we're also really having a shitty year. We've had this pandemic businesses have been shut
You know everyone's sick the economy's having issues. I mean, you know, this is a really difficult hand
that's been dealt.
Well, I don't buy that as an excuse for Newsom.
I mean, look, it is true that we're going through
a very difficult time, but the reason I don't buy that
as an excuse for Newsom is because this is not April
or May of 2020 when we thought the futility rate was
7%, and you know, lockdowns could,
lockdowns could be justified then,
but we now have so much more data. We've seen that states that 7%, and lockdowns could be justified then.
But we now have so much more data.
We've seen that states that did not do lockdowns like Florida and Texas, frankly, have been
no worse off than those that have done very severe lockdowns.
And so what is the point of continuing with this facade?
And that is what I think we can legitimately blame Newsom for is the failure to learn and
to change course based on data.
To adapt.
And where is the LSD-
That's the briefing on what's happening.
I think, and I know most of the spread is not happening at businesses,
it's happening in homes and in California,
we have a particularly difficult problem because of multi-generational family homes,
especially in the Latino communities that have been hardest hit by COVID.
And the transmission rate.
Also, I'm just here with diabetes as well.
Yeah, the transmission rate in those communities is 3 to 5x, what it is elsewhere.
And I think, you know, and that is not a result of businesses being open.
In fact, those communities are also suffering the biggest hardships because businesses are
closed.
Well, by the way, this goes to the vaccination strategy just being so idiotic.
Like, you know, if you wanted to be equitable,
then why weren't we just rolling through
and basically getting those families
to be vaccinated first independent of age?
You know, you're, you're a,
apparently those are all these vaccination sites
nobody shows up.
I spoke to SFDPH, Department of Public Health
about this last week and they told me
that they cannot get those communities.
They're very non-trusting at a vaccine, and they're having a real struggle getting people
to sign up to take the vaccine.
The problem is, even if that is the case, the problem is you should not be holding up
vaccines for one community while we're using this vaccine.
Then get everybody else vaccinated so they never sex.
You cut the head off this fucking transmission.
Right.
Or, over 60 gets it.
That's it. There's nothing to discuss.
Let's wrap up.
Everyone gets it, but you allocate a certain number of doses to...
You basically have a TSA pre-check line.
If you're over 60 or you're in certain communities,
you jump to the front of the line and that's it.
But everyone can stand in line and put fucking shots and arms
because everyone I know that's over 65 can't even get an appointment
and it's bullshit.
And the whole thing is incompetence.
So I think what Sakset is so right, it's like in these moments, J. Cal and Freeper, like
a light gets Sean on the ability for people to figure things out.
And then you know what the intellectual capability of these people are.
And like look, we saw the intellectual in capability of Trump.
Because we all said this guy could not adapt. Okay. And, um, and so we are now seeing the
intellectual in capability of Gavin Newsom. And I just think they're, they're part of the same
lot. They're just kind of, you know, people who are, um, in over their head. And they're beholden to people who got them there.
And their number one concern is staying in office,
which means appeasing a bunch of special interests.
Speaking of special interests,
David Sacks is still on tilt about
conservatives being canceled.
David, you wanted us to wrap with this Wilkinson cancellation.
So every podcast we're gonna have a right-winger who's canceled
and David's justification for putting them back on the platform. God, David.
Well, actually, so yeah, this is this is the issue.
It's like the week with David. No, it's yes, yes, it's well, this is actually it's not a it's not
a left wing. So this is the issue to draw on social media right now is that a writer named
Will Wilkinson was just fired from his job in canceled. But here's
the thing, it was he's not a conservative. He's actually a liberal. What? And it was
yes. And it was a right wing tweet mob that got together to get him fired.
Yes. And so how did you get this mob together to get him canceled?
Yeah. So we're back everybody so much for the wives dinner.
Oh my God.
Yeah.
I don't need another wives dinner.
Well, no, I look, I feel the need to speak out on this because I got to make it really
clear that I do not support cancel culture when perpetrated by the right against the left.
I think it's what did he do?
Okay.
So he posted a tweet making a joke that maybe
was in Porte's not that funny, basically saying that if we want unity, the one thing that
like the Trumpers and the Biden supporters can agree on is hanging pants, you know, it's
what? It's hanging, lynching Mike Pence. Yeah, lynching. Yeah, it's the usual lynching
or hanging. He said, he said, hang, I think. No, I think he said hang. I said hang.
Oh, maybe it's a box of waste.
And it's inciting violence on the march.
But go ahead, Saks.
It's in port taste.
Well, no, look, it's a joke that's not actually
that funny and maybe in port taste.
What he's referring to is the fact that the,
you know, that there were people on January 6th
who were going after Mike Pence, right?
That was sort of the joke.
Anyway, look, he, that's not the point.
He deleted it, he apologized for it,
his boss is still fired and for it.
Nobody believes that he was trying to incite violence, okay?
I mean, come on, we all know that was not inciting violence,
but the mob pretended that he was in order to create
its phony outrage.
And then his bosses have to pretend that he was in order to appease the mob.
And they pretend like it was incitement to violence so they can fire him.
And then he even had to pretend that he was inciting violence because he had to then
objectly apologize for it.
And that's the thing about cancel culture I really don't like.
It's just so fake and phony.
We all have to pretend and things that aren't true
in order to pacify some, you know, tweet mob
whose outrage is manufactured anyway.
And I don't like seeing the right doing this.
And that's what I tweeted about.
And then we had all these people on the right
responding to me saying, I for an I, you know,
you know, the left deserves this too.
Now they're gonna get a taste of their own medicine.
And the problem with that is, look, you know,
you're, you might win this particular battle,
but you're losing the war because you're now buying
into the premise of cancel culture.
You're now buying into this idea
that we need to economically cancel people
who disagree with us.
And I really reject that.
It's certainly bad timing to say,
Lynch or hang, whichever word he used,
obviously, and Lynch is a much worse word.
After people were chanting, hang Mike Pence,
but he was making a commentary on that.
The joke didn't land.
And when the joke doesn't land,
you need to just take ownership of that
and say that you shouldn't be canceled.
Just say it was a poor attempted humor, I apologize. Right. And Jason, you know better than anybody else.
When a poor joke wins, when a joke doesn't land. So, yeah, I mean, this is my, here's one
thing to learn about comedy. People don't remember the jokes that don't land. They remember
the ones that land. Okay, everybody. It's like investing in startups. It's like, you
got a lot of losers to find the few winners. Absolutely. That's my, I'm a volume guy. You know that. Gov. Traumov.com, Gov. or sacks.com, Gov. Freeberg.com, Gov.
And gov. Sorry. Can I just say Jason, Jason, if, if Newsom is recalled, I would like to
put my name on the ballot. And my, my, my commitments are quite simple. I just want
to, I'm going to cut the taxes to zero. And I'm going to basically create an incredibly pro climate change
Jobs and protect jobs and pro biotech jobs
Economy and I'm going to raise teacher salaries and I need to give everybody a school voucher
Okay, we maybe maybe on the next episode we can all
Declare that we're running for governor and present our platforms. Well's do that. Let's do that. Next Friday.
All right, five ready-go to governor.
Gov.com, governorsax.com, governor.
Wait, let's register our domain names.
But register your domain name before the podcast.
I registered all four of them.
What you do, all redirect to my Twitter handle.
Thank you, guys.
I'll show you what else.
We'll see you all.
I'm going to love you boys.
Fight on the oil and podcast.
Love you besties.
Love you, sacks.
Back at ya. Back at podcast. Love you besties. Love you sacks. Back at ya.
Back at your seabird.
I'm going on a beach.
We're like your winners ride.
Brain man David Sack.
I'm going on a beach.
We open source it to the fans and they've just gone crazy with her.
Love you besties.
I'm going on a leash.
What?
What?
What are we going to try?
A pro-wrestling.
Besties are gone.
Go through.
That's my dog.
Take it away.
Wish you a driveway.
Sit next.
Wait, I don't think it is.
Oh, man.
My ham is a disaster.
We need to be at least a minute.
We should all just get a room and just have one big hug.
Because they're all just like this like sexual sexual tension that we just need to release that out
What you're that beat?
What you're a beat?
We need to get merch these aren't that bad
I'm going on lean!
I'm going on lean!
I'm going on with it!