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hey everybody welcome back to the Allin podcast with us again today yawning from
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Milan your favorite the chairman dictator chamath poopaa you look a little tired my friend how you doing
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over there buddy I left Monday I flew to Singapore I was on the ground for two days and I flew here I'm here for two
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days and then I go to London for five days I'm you are on a worldwind tour I mean
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I'm Bas I'm flying around the world literally flying around the world moving West man right I'm tired and this is all
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service I mean at our age you feel it it hits differently when you when you pass
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40 and I'm assuming this is 8090 business we out there selling you're selling you're selling grock you're
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selling 8090 you're out there doing BD little selling little closing and then I'm speaking at the Oxford Union on
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Wednesday okay okay well that sounds fancy check in The Bucket List oh okay there you have it and in his camo hat
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and in his election Afterglow look at the glow he is in that Afterglow he is post quitus here post election anybody
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got a cigarette I need to I need to light up a cigarette that was a close one I didn't think I
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was going to make it but you did do you like my C hat Jal this is this is a hat well it says Trump F you look like we
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fud what does it say you're hunting lives no remember remember when uh Tim Waltz rolled out the camo hat yes and
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you said it was going to win the election for Harris it might it might I thought that he might have a shot yes
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yeah I was wrong about that one be belly belly quiet we got all the camo guys they voted for us hunting Wibble
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nobody's going to get this uh but it's very good it looks good on is that Elmer fud that's Elmer fud be belly belly
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quiet we're hunting wibbles that sounds like Mike Tyson well I'm gonna mess up that Jake Paul how about I wear a
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different Trump hat every week for the next four years absolutely fantastic I mean the ratings on this show good ones
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I mean all I care about at this point I'm getting Savage in any way possible all I care about is ratings now let's go
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you're fine Maga get in the comments let's get these ratings up and with us of course the CEO
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of ohalo ohalo David freeberg how you doing there little buddy thanks for having me again
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J thank you all right well it's good to be here yeah how you doing I'm chilling man you know just
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nice to the executive producer to have you on the show yes I've been producing you here well it's uh you know always
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I'm always thinking about your best interest I was hearing a little I I heard you on a phone call before you
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said you had a perfect body what was that in reference to makes me go yeah she makes me go to the dermatologist
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where they she examines your whole nude body to look for moles so this morning I
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went in early to the dermatologist she examined it she said perfect I said does she have to wear sunglasses because
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you're just so white like it just like it's blindingly white she or woman did she get Hazard pay the poor that poor
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dermatologist my God she's like she's like thank you for the experience this is why we need to uh in all seriousness
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this is why Sachs we have to legalize psychedelics this poor woman has PTSD after that we need to get get out of
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here get out of here it was a wonderful examination she was thrilled I mean right okay and uh of course I'm Jason
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kakanis and uh you know there's been a lot of scuttlebutt sacks I don't know if you know this but uh comedy might still
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be legal here on the all in podcast but there's been a lot of scuttlebut a lot of debate lot of energy dare I say
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around are we gonna break the rules today finally I don't know we'll see anything's possible people get a little
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sensitive sometimes with the com do I have to put my pronouns back in my zoom chat put your pronouns back in shabath
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paapa douche back uh here we go you you you might not know this but a lot of appointments are being made sax
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did you know this are you aware that the appointments are being made I'm aware yeah it's happening you have SE you've
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seen the flow of them well I got a dump I'm not going to say who sent these to me but I actually got the next five or
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six announcement that Trump's going to make I'm not gonna say who gave it this is gonna this bit has the potential to
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be so good I'm so tired but you've got me awake I'm I'm awake too ready well here's our first one here's our first
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one this is a very interesting one yeah here it is this is a statement from Donald J trump it is my great honor to
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announce that Hunter Biden of Delaware will head a new the Bureau of founder mode procurement founder mode
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procurement you notice saak dropped off he doesn't want to uh have a reaction shot here uh next one up this is
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interesting Tony henchcliffe I don't know if you know him he has been appointed into a new role he's the
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ambassador to Puerto Rico Cham he's that's a good one chamath actually uh your wish has come true you are now
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your sole duty is to ensure all executive branch knitwear is on point the sweater inspector General
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everybody's going to have perfect Nar knitwear absolutely knitwear and uh I by the way just so you know that's a that's
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a lurana Kashmir sweater in that picture apparently apparently I'm actually decided I would flip I've gone full Maga
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here I am I have been appointed as Chief virtue signaler that I like that I like
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every time podcast you're GNA be uh you're gonna have stiff competition from Mark cuan for that for that post I know
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I beat him out I beat him out yeah yeah I went down to he deleted he deleted all of his proa tweets have
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you done the same uh no no I haven't yet you're going have to work on that you get look at the Lusty eyes in this
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picture yeah I know it's pretty great that's it really you you have there you have not found a virtue you didn't want
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to just burrow yourself absolutely not absolutely not hey freeberg you've been appointed here we go uh as Bobby
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Kennedy's Whipping Boy and you will be officially his little uh anything any Innovation you come up with is
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officially blocked and here he is my great honor to announce David Sachs is now the chief retribution officer
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congratulations well done retribution must be had J Cal payback is a there were a lot of
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people who are out of line just a little bit a little bit they deserve to get smacked around a little bit just On's
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goingon to get his shoe shine box just on a little bit just a little bit let your winners ride
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Rainman David and in said we open source it to the fans and they've just gone crazy
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[Music] with there's been a lot of talk about a holiday party free BR you want to give
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us an update on the holiday party quick plug on the party so the party is coming
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up in three weeks the all-in Holiday Spectacular Steve Aoki Andrea bz Gary Richards AKA Destructo are gonna be
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DJing several I'm doing a secret DJ set I may it's actually good idea beat we will have chess challenges with Alex
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botes several sections are sold out VIP is sold out uh draymond's joining us Draymond Green from the Warriors he's
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gonna come and do a little bit with us on stage it'd be great he's great so should be great get your tickets at
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allin.com events all right let's get into it everybody I just want to start with a a little bit of Finance here
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Bitcoin and Finance stocks way up since the Trump win which was now 10 days ago uh Bitcoin peaked at
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92,000 unbelievable it's dropped down to 89 but obviously that's an alltime high
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and as we all know we talked about it on the show Trump heavily heavily coed the
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crypto industry during his campaign in addition to the bitcoin news since early August AFF firm Robin Hood PayPal
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coinbase all up double or 50% it's an extraordinary run in July Trump headlined a Bitcoin conference he laid
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out his plans number one he was going to fire SEC chairman Gary Gensler here's the clip on day one I will fire Gary
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Gensler and appoint a new SEC chairman this who I didn't know he was that unpopular
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fire a fire too bad for G I didn't know he was that unpopular let me say it again on day one I will fire Gary
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G whoa there it is okay enough with that technically president can't fire the SEC
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chair but he can appoint a new one when Gary's term ends in 2026 or Gary could resign when Trump takes office that
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happens uh sometimes and uh folks are speculating gansler has already made that decision to step down he uh put out
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a press release with a quote in it that a number of people took note of where he
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said it's been a great honor to serve with them the people who work at the SEC doing the people's work and ensuring our
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Capital markets Remain the best in the world Trump also said the federal government will never sell never ever
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sell its Bitcoin Holdings uh which they own through criminal assets as you know and number three he said he would create
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a Bitcoin and crypto presidential advisory Council where Trump said quote the rules will be written by people who
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love your industry not hate your industry and he also advocated that all future Bitcoins would be minted in
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America I don't know that he gets to make that choice but they have it freeberg any thoughts here
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on the crypto market and this incredible bull run here we've seen in the last you
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know 10 days and then before that couple month I mean I think like you said it's
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not limited to crypto crypto is One Market of several that have been significantly affected by the Outlook
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based on Trump's election uh I think that Trump's election has a couple of key features that are changing market
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dynamics one is folks kind of view some of his policies to be obviously stimulatory with lower tax rates and
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more deregulation this is you know theoretically going to drive up investment and economic growth the
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deregulatory nature on its own benefits markets that have been encumbered by regulatory oversight and Regulatory
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challenges like crypto finance and fintech so those types of businesses are are clearly going to benefit or expected
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to benefit significantly by being able to launch products more quickly and have Fe and ways that they can generate
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Revenue that they might be challenged to do Under the current Regulatory schemas
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and then uh there's also this element of kind of things being inflationary the the feature of tariffs if we don't get
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spending cut fast enough there's an effect on markets so you know we're still seeing 10year treasury sit at
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about 4 and a half% up from 3 and a half perc which is where we were right around
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the rate cut beginning in September and remember since those rate Cuts began in September we've cut 75 basis
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points and uh and and we're still seeing the kind of tenure treasury hold High which in kind of implies that there's
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expected to be persistent inflation in fact the October inflation number accelerated again so it's back up not
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going down it's I think it went up to 2.6% up from 2.3% the month prior these General kind of effects that are
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predicted from the Trump policy plans is having an effect in different markets obviously in equities we're seeing more
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kind of risk-seeking risk-taking and then in the bond markets because of the 4 and a half% treasury yield there's a
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really in Dynamic and and I I kind of sent this this link out yesterday but if you look at the spread on yields between
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us treasuries which have historically been kind of considered and talked about and are deemed the the risk-free rate
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and the yield that corporates have to pay to borrow money we haven't seen a spread this low in 26 years so it's a
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17-year low for the spread between the yield that companies that issue junk bonds have to pay from treasuries and
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it's a 26-year low for credit grade bonds so this means the market is either more
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risk-seeking meaning they're looking for more yield and they're going into corporates because they feel like there
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is a higher probability that these companies are going to be successful in the future they're not going to have
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higher default rates Etc so the market is becoming much more risk-seeking or the alternative is that parts of the
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market are reassessing the risk-free nature of treasuries M themselves if spending doesn't get under control the
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treasury market appetite is decreasing so there's this kind of spread that's shrunk in the last couple of months so
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we're seeing Capital flooding into the markets for risk-seeking assets and this is obviously affecting crypto equities
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and and bond markets all across the board and we'll talk a little bit about IPO and m&a later great shath your
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thoughts aside from yum yum I mean yum yum you could say it it's a it's a yum it's gonna be a just say it
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no I mean look what did I say at the beginning of the year was G to be the biggest risk
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asset winning trade yeah it's great bitcoin's great oh my Lord I haven't seen you this
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[Music] Happ what made you more H happy getting to Milan and spending time with your
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white truffle dealer or watching Bitcoin break 90k which one was more exciting for you you know honestly you know what
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I think about I actually think about all the Bitcoin I sold yeah you I had Bitcoin I had a
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bunch of Bitcoin in my funds when I managed outside Capital you know that's a I don't know a
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three or four billion dollar mistake in growing now because my partners at the time capitulated and I wanted to be a
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good team member and we distributed and it was profitable but obviously I shouldn't have sold it would have made
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them a lot more money and then I think about like I bought some land I remember Taho it was in the Wall
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Street Journal I'm sure you can find it but yeah how much is that worth now probably couple hundred million dollars
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maybe more rough TR R but you you do have Bitcoin holding can can I ask you a question why do you say sold Bitcoin as
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opposed to converted Bitcoin into Dollars like when you think about Bitcoin just as as a participant do you
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think about Bitcoin as a dollar denominated asset that you go and buy Bitcoin and then you're eventually going
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to sell it turn it back into dollars and use the dollars or are you like what do
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you think about the purest kind of idea that Bitcoin should be the deao currency
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and store of value in the future and the dollar doesn't matter and we shouldn't necessarily be talking about the the
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value of Bitcoin in dollar denominated terms as something I'm going to eventually turn it back into it hasn't
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happened yet and so until it happens I think you have to view it as like a very good gold proxy
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but it's a largely dollar denominated asset now why do you see it going the other way like
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so a lot of folks thought that as a safe haven it should do well when there's a negative economic Outlook but it has
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traded the last couple of years kind of totally correlated no it's tot it's a totally correlated asset I mean yeah
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there will be a point and it's probably an hour lifetime where it is an independent asset and a non-speculative
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store of value there will be that day but that day is not now and I think it's very important to see the conditions on
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the field as they are versus what you wish it to be and and the reason is that it allows you to risk manage more
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appropriately because if you don't see it then when something happens to the dollar complex good or bad or when
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something happens to rates good or bad or when something stimulative happens good or bad you're not going to react
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properly if you're in the business of managing it as a risk asset so if you're in the set it and forget it bucket and
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there are some people I think it's great none of these conversations matter but like most
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people you're probably going to be motivated to do something and I think if you're
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motivated to do something or you have filo that stimulates you to do something whatever the psychology is that leads
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you to action it's probably important to just view things as they really are versus how you wish them to be and so I
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think the purists may eventually be right I think they will be right at some point in my lifetime but they're not
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right now and that's why these things are correlated and youly the other the other thing I'll say just broadly about
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the market is I think that there's a tremendous amount of optimism about the economy I think that's why you see risk
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spreads get crushed definitely yeah yeah and I think that as long as we see the kind of prognostications that the Trump
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Administration is putting out I think people are going to be mostly bullish I think the way that this
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trade turns around is when something actually breaks in terms of the inflation picture or in terms of the
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deficit picture and if those things look like going into 2025 that President Trump's actions are not
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going to be able to course correct it then I think you're going to see people go massively risk off which I think will
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not be great for markets obviously but right now we're not in that point and you don't think the tenure reflects that
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already at 4 and a half% I mean that's showing some degree of inflation and concern about the
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deficit right it's like I think I think the tenure could be at 7% yeah what does 4 and a half% mean I mean if
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you're if you're going to run 8% of GDP level deficits for the next four or five or six years
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yeah you're going to have the tenure at seven to %. that's just mathematical right sax your thoughts on uh crypto
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before we get into IPOs and m&a if any yeah just on crypto the House Republicans already passed a framework
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for crypto regulation earlier this year it actually got 71 Democrats to to join it it was called the financial
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Innovation and technology for the 21st century act or fit 21 and it would classify digital assets
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like crypto as Commodities regulated by the cftc if the blockchain they run on is is quote functional and decentralized
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that's the key requirement if their blockchain is functional but not decentralized then they would be
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considered Securities and fall under the purview of the SEC I think the the crypto industry basically wants a really
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clear line for knowing when they're a commodity and they want Commodities to be governed governed like all other
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Commodities by the cftc so that's what the Republican bill would do I think with the Republicans now winning the
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Senate the prospects for that bill to get enacted are now greatly improved especially because shered Brown who used
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to run the Banking Committee just lost to Bernie Moreno this was a a seat in Ohio Elizabeth is still going to object
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to this legislation but she's just going to have way less influence and like you
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said it's not clear that Gary gendler is going to be sticking around very long at
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the SEC so look the bottom line here is that I think that we are close to having
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clear rules of the road codified by Congress which is what the crypto industry's been asking for and the days
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of gendler terrorizing crypto companies by issuing Wells notices without clarifying what the rules are that he's
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in Prosecuting those days are about to be over over so I think this is why the crypto markets are
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rallying and so to your point if it's centralized or partially centralized you're going to be a security if you're
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decentralized anybody can join the network no one person controls the network and I guess most people would
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consider that Bitcoin versus say Ripple which is partially decentralized but largely centralized and that's going to
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be I guess the new rules of the road in addition to that there are new rules that are being fored that hopefully
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Trump fit 21 passes right this bill is called fit 21 but I think much much higher likelihood that it or something
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like it now can get through the Congress Mak sense yeah and then there's also legislation that's already been enacted
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that's there's multiple ways multiple paths but accredited investors there's going to be a path to becoming an
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accredited investor with a test so that is something that is also on the docket we'll see if it happens let's talk about
00:21:56
IPOs and m&a yum yumo is just a level set here with the audience here's the number of IPOs per
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year and as you can see the last three years have been some of the lowest since 2008 and 2009 the Great
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Recession for those of you who are old enough to remember it and if you look at VC the number of
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distributions have been absolutely on the floor for the past three years in fact if you look at the distributions
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from 2022 through 2024 those three years combined it's been around 200 billion Which is less than 2019 in total and uh
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with this year projected to be about a 100 billion in distributions that's about 14% of the peak Zer era when in
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2021 we had 710 billion do in distribution here so the back room Buzz is that Donnie from Queens is going to
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make m&a great again couple of reasons there Sachs the wrath of Lena KH coming to an end Max Heaven sitting on massive
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amounts of cash and that cash is growing as people have laid people off and they're focused on getting fit obviously
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we all know the FED did another quarter point cut last week although some people
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maybe don't know that because it seems to have gotten lost in the election news and psychologically I think everybody's
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feeling very optimistic so maybe these IPOs are back on the menu chath I don't know if you saw it but clar just filed
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for their IPO that's a Swedish fintech company they were kind of the Pioneers in buy now pay later what are the other
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IPOs we could see file in 2025 data brick stripe whiz canva plaid Rippling and air table there's a long shot that
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people have been buzzing about I don't have any inside information but people have been speculating SpaceX could IPO
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starlink their starlink unit and if you want to get really crazy jth maybe there's a long shot that Sam Alman jumps
00:24:02
the fence and decides he's going to take open AI public during this window that people expect to be opening what do you
00:24:08
think choth what's going to happen here in terms of m&a and IPOs in 2025 I think it's going to still be
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pretty subdued subed okay I don't I don't think that you're going to see these crazy m&a deals that I think
00:24:25
everybody is expecting I also don't anticipate a lot of these big companies going
00:24:35
public at least in the first half of the year and the only reason I say that is I
00:24:39
just think that like this year and the first half of next year what's the difference the IPO
00:24:47
Market is what the IPO Market is and if the 10e is back to you know four and a half 5% that's not a compelling strategy
00:24:54
for some SAS company or some internet business that didn't take an opportunity to go
00:25:01
public when rates were at zero so if you just look mathematically at what the actual fair value of these companies
00:25:09
should be I don't know it's not like such a great IPO market then on the m&a side if all you're doing is waiting for
00:25:17
Lena Khan to not be there to me I think that that betrays what m&a is supposed to be which is you're supposed to
00:25:25
underwrite some industrial logic from first principles where things are very accretive and very accretive
00:25:33
things should not hang by a thread on the emotional regulation or disregulation of
00:25:40
the FTC commissioner so I kind of think that you would have seen some of this stuff already as well if if the
00:25:47
industrial logic was so high and again when rates are non-trivially high I just think that it's not the easiest thing in
00:25:54
the world to pull off like a really big m&a event nor is it a really easy thing to off to pull off a huge IPO when again
00:26:01
there's a reason why Warren Buffett has $325 billion sitting in t- bills making 4 and a half% a year he owns more t-
00:26:09
bills than the United States government he's making about $15 billion dollar a year in interest when you can do that
00:26:16
with absolutely no risk again relative to stocks at least yeah what is this IPO going to give you
00:26:23
Jamal's right like the 10 years at 4 and a half% you're basically paying 20 times
00:26:27
cash flow to own a risk-free bond the US treasury bond or you can pay 23 times to own a
00:26:34
totally risky asset yeah it's 30 times to own the S&P 500 right now it's yeah it's but but there is a lot of
00:26:41
risk-seeking Shifting happening chth right so I mean we talked about like some of the crypto stuff some of the
00:26:46
fintech stuff deregulation that the PE might seem high today but if you forast out 10 years for some of these
00:26:54
businesses in a deregulated deted environment enironment or reduced tax reduced regulation
00:27:01
environment that the earnings should accelerate in a way that outpaces the the multiple you're getting today right
00:27:07
so I mean this is part of why some of the fintech companies are ripping right now why some of the finance companies
00:27:12
are ripping right now if under Trump and the Republican control of the House and
00:27:17
Senate laws don't pass and regulations get reduced theoretically earnings are going to rip and you should pay a higher
00:27:23
multiple today because you're actually buying these things at 8 to 10 times earnings 5 Years From now so there seems
00:27:29
to be some risk appetite there but I do agree with chamat on the m&a point if you think about what's gone on over the
00:27:35
last couple years hold on a second can I ask you a question do you think that regulation is the reason why these SAS
00:27:40
companies have never made a dollar of profit no no I'm not talking about SAS I'm not talking about SAS I'm talking I
00:27:46
guess we then you're talking about industrial companies no the fintech market right so we were talking about
00:27:52
ftech and some of these assets earlier some of these equities that have been RI it's a very narrow part of the
00:27:58
economy right like if you look at Broad like on a broad-based basis the tens and
00:28:04
tens of trillions of dollars of market cap that exist I do agree with you that deregulation benefits a bunch of those
00:28:12
companies but it benefits sort of the non-te businesses more than the tech businesses the tech businesses right now
00:28:18
are relatively lightly regulated yeah I would think that it benefits Pharma businesses it benefits a businesses it
00:28:24
benefits real estate companies it benefits a whole a whole whole swath of the economy but we've started to see
00:28:31
that reating and maybe we'll see a lot more so maybe Jason the more Nuance answer to
00:28:36
your question is the kind of m&a that I think you want to see that I mean let's face it that we all want to see here
00:28:41
because we all have the vested interest which is really specifically Tech m&a I don't think that any of this
00:28:47
deregulation particularly accelerates that but maybe a more Nuance take on this would be that these other more
00:28:55
regulated parts of the economy could do well and catch up to some of the earnings potential or the forward
00:29:01
pricing of the tech businesses but again now you get into this weird trade where
00:29:07
you can buy steady cash flowing businesses that can grow in valuation as fast as a as a fast growing but money
00:29:15
losing Tech business but then you trade both of those two things off and it has effectively the same yield as a
00:29:23
tenure what do you do yeah yeah I you know I think there's a lot of back up inventory where venture capitalist
00:29:32
boards and Founders people who control and make these decisions on m&a if they would sell the company to a larger
00:29:39
company I think there's a lot of exhaustion in the market and that will drive the capitulation on valuation
00:29:45
talking think the valuations will be yeah exactly I'm watching it right now I mean
00:29:51
you think Warren Buffett's going to take 325 billion of cash and but he won even
00:29:56
buy his own stock so going to pay in terms of a multiple I think it'll be more like Salesforce or Microsoft or
00:30:02
Google or Amazon getting off the sidelines because they've looked at and said you know the juice ain't worth the
00:30:07
squeeze we might as well put our efforts and our Capital into buying big hardware
00:30:12
and building new products and services but if they think hey I got a chance of pulling this through I'm sitting on all
00:30:17
this cash what if I hit another YouTube an Instagram you know really great Acquisitions that were transformative
00:30:24
for those two companies meta would not be where it is right now Facebook you know that well Jam if they hadn't gotten
00:30:29
Instagram and certainly you know freedberg as in alumni of Google if they didn't get YouTube it would be a
00:30:35
completely different picture for that company right now I think there's a lot of those type of Acquisitions I think
00:30:40
there's a lot of those Acquisitions that have been sitting there waiting and I'm
00:30:43
watching the secondary markets to your question what's the discount going to be the discount was last year I kid you not
00:30:51
780 90% off the last round for SAS companies and this year it's 20 or 30 I'm seeing this when I'm getting offers
00:30:58
to buy our shares in some private SAS companies some private fintech companies and then I also think if you're a CEO
00:31:06
and you watch Robin Hood Uber Reddit door Dash and instacart those five have actually after getting a a little bit of
00:31:17
a ass kicking when they first went out they have all rebounded massively and for the people who held on to their
00:31:23
Reddit shares Robin Hood shares Uber shares they have been rewarded massively massively for having faith in you know
00:31:30
through this storm so I think those two things the capitulation of all these boards and Founders are going to say you
00:31:37
know what let's take the haircut let's go public and let's tell our story and and see if we can make it work as a
00:31:43
public company and then the people who feel one step weaker than that I think they want to cash their chips in they've
00:31:48
been in some of these Investments Jam it's year 11 12 13 14 for some of these private companies there is capitulation
00:31:54
on those boards people are exhausted so that that I just I'm going to I'm going to take the side of the argument on this
00:31:58
one I'll kind of play along so I think and and I'll disagree a little bit for couple different reasons these big tech
00:32:07
companies the ones that have had you know media businesses or because remember there's Tech that's Tech right
00:32:14
Nvidia does not have a media business but there's been a conversation over the last couple of years where we need to
00:32:19
break up big Tech has been kind of part of the conversation with the Dems and now the Republicans are coming in and
00:32:24
they're saying the same thing we got to break up big Tech so there I think are a
00:32:27
few of these companies Google being one of them that are very much handicapped right now with respect to what kind of
00:32:33
m&a they can do without dealing with the regulatory Sledgehammer coming down on them so I don't think that those guys
00:32:40
are buyers JL I don't think that Google's in a place right now where they can go out and make a bunch of
00:32:43
Acquisitions they're going to do everything they can to avoid the regulatory Sledgehammer that's coming
00:32:49
their way first it was coming from the Dems now it's coming from the new Administration there's a bunch of other
00:32:53
companies you know that don't really fit that bill like Microsoft probably doesn't fit that bill Nvidia Adobe maybe
00:32:59
they'll make some Acquisitions but I don't think it's as simple as well we'll sell at a low price we'll buy at a low
00:33:05
price I'm just not sure they really need to do that agree with you I completely agree I I
00:33:11
think that these big tech companies will need to pay a pound of Flesh for the deplatforming and the censorship that
00:33:20
they did and this is a perfect time if we're going to go to the political angle to bring you in Sachs what are The Vibes
00:33:27
my per is Trump likes to win and Trump wants to see the economy soar that is his
00:33:33
platform he's a business guy I think he wants to see fluidity I know JD has been
00:33:39
not a fan of like the Googles Etc so maybe you could help us navigate this who's right here what's the possibility
00:33:46
of m&a becoming more vibrant in a trump uh Administration well there's no question
00:33:52
that in general president Trump wants to have the most vibrant economy we can have and I think to that and you're
00:33:58
going to see the end of this era of deceleration of regulatory capture and lawfare I think all those things are are
00:34:07
over I think that equities that have been straining or or tamped down under the weight of these abuses you see them
00:34:16
ripping now for example Tesla it's gone from roughly 250 to 320 a share just since the election and you could call
00:34:24
that the lawfare discount I mean that basically is the discount Tesla stock because the market was pricing in the
00:34:31
risk of retaliation if the Republicans lost there's a widespread belief that the Democrats would go after Elon and
00:34:38
his company so you can actually measure the lawfare discount based on regulation
00:34:44
right because there's a lot of regulations around self-driving rocket ship launches all those things he's
00:34:48
involved in there's a lot of Regulation there yeah there was this crazy thing where they they made some regulator made
00:34:53
them put a headset on a seal did you see this to test the effect on seals of loud
00:34:59
noises the sonic boom sonic booms yeah this poor seal do you see this poor seal had like a head I don't don't do that to
00:35:06
freeberg put the no don't put it on the screen put it in post don't put it on the screen that's
00:35:12
freeberg is gonna anyway so they subjected this poor seal to exactly the thing that they were worried would harm
00:35:18
seals in any event the seal seemed totally fine it didn't they torture seals to make a point I got it yeah
00:35:25
anyway it's really crazy so yeah look this crazy what about this JD help us navigate I know JD is the VP and then
00:35:32
you have Trump is the CEO chamok pointed out maybe there's a little on the GOP anger resentment
00:35:41
residual because of the you know Banning of trump from YouTube and and some of these other platforms do you think that
00:35:47
makes its way into m&a or not I guess sax like let me be specific to jal's question not all tech companies are the
00:35:54
same in that point of view right Tech m&a generally is a thing but specifically the companies that have had
00:36:02
social media platforms may be kind of in a different lens from a regulatory perspective is that
00:36:10
fair yeah I mean look I think that not everything Lena Khan did was bad in fact she definitely has some fans among the
00:36:19
populist Republicans and yeah you know some of them who've spoken out on her behalf in various areas have been JD
00:36:25
Vance Matt Gates as well she did do some good things specifically she was willing
00:36:30
to take on the big tech companies I mean companies like Amazon Apple Google frankly they just had a free ride for
00:36:37
the last couple of decades where they were allowed to do anything and she came in and said there's a new sheriff in
00:36:42
town and she was actually willing to apply pressure on them to not engage in anti-competitive tactics so I think she
00:36:49
deserves credit for that I think she did change the conversation I think that we've talked about on previous pods that
00:36:56
perhaps there was not as targeted and surgical an approach was used and as a result of
00:37:03
that it did have a chilling effect on m&a and so it hurt the you know the small Tech environment and so I think
00:37:10
that we need to fix that part of it but I hope that whoever repl as Lina con will continue to apply pressure to Big
00:37:16
Tech because they are monopolies and they will abuse their power if they're allowed to and they need to be
00:37:22
controlled sax if you had to handicap the probability of of a lawsuit or some kind
00:37:33
of attempt to dismantle Google and Facebook would those be the two companies at the top of your list and
00:37:43
how would you handicap that so my view is that Google should be broken up there's abundant reasons for that
00:37:49
there's at least three monopolies in that company there's the search business the advertising business and YouTube I
00:37:55
think they should be busted up what are the that that happens it's hard to say but what are the odds that that is
00:38:03
pursued in the next Administration in some capacity or at least investigated I'd say hi I'd say Facebook or meta
00:38:13
lesso I don't see the compelling need to to bust them up but quite frankly I think the issue that meta is going to
00:38:20
face is just there were a lot of abuses in terms of censoring the Free Speech rights of Americans now I don't think
00:38:27
that was all the company's idea I think a lot of pressure was put on the company
00:38:33
by the Biden Administration I think they wanted to do the right thing and just didn't show enough backbone I think El
00:38:38
Zuckerberg's been clear that he regrets and the knee now he's like listen I I'm not a letter yeah he published a letter
00:38:47
and maybe it was done to some degree to inoculate himself against the result of this election but I'd say to his credit
00:38:53
it wasn't clear at all who's going to win the election when he put out that letter and he basically Ally said that
00:38:58
he regretted the fact that meta had gone along with the censorship requests by the Biden Administration and he
00:39:04
specifically referred to that whole Hunter Biden story that got censored in 2020 that was election interference it
00:39:11
was a completely True Story by the New York Post it got censored by big Tech at the request of these 51 former
00:39:19
intelligence officials who were lying through their teeth claiming was Russian disinformation so he clearly regrets
00:39:26
going along with that in any event I think there are better ways of handling the speech issue on social networks than
00:39:32
busting up Facebook but I I I do think though that Congress should investigate or
00:39:39
continue investigating what went wrong there and what exactly is the involvement of the intelligence
00:39:45
community and the Deep state in the censorship request that we saw exposed by the Twitter files remember can I
00:39:52
bring up something maybe tangential and you can react to this just speaking of of like censorship and then just the the
00:40:00
media complex that we have I saw today that Trump filed like a 10 or 15 billion dollar lawsuit against the broadcast
00:40:08
networks maybe this is old news but I and maybe I just saw the news I saw a headline go by on X I don't I don't saw
00:40:16
as well yeah didn't make and then separately with Bobby Kennedy's nomination to HHS one of the things that
00:40:22
he has said that he wants to put an end to is the advertising that Pharma does on these broadcast
00:40:31
stations if you put these two things together where you deprive these folks of their largest revenue source and at
00:40:37
the same time they have to sort of like answer for censorship or manipulating content it does do you think that that
00:40:45
changes the landscape of how all these companies behave in the future or how do you think that that plays up yeah I mean
00:40:53
absolutely so all right let's take each one of those so on the the broadcast and we've talked about this before the
00:40:59
big broadcast networks and their Affiliates receive free Spectrum licenses from the FCC and they get some
00:41:07
of the most valuable Spectrum there is through those licenses in exchange for certain requirements that their
00:41:13
broadcasts are in the public interest namely they have to follow a fairness Doctrine which is supposed to mean that
00:41:19
you give equal time to both candidates well in the final weeks of this campaign we saw some really egregious abuses NBC
00:41:26
brought on KLA Harris but not Donald Trump for a very favorable segment on Saturday Night Live the week before the
00:41:33
election separately you saw 60 Minutes deceptively edit in an interview with KLA Harris where they actually took one
00:41:41
of her answers from one question and put it as the answer to another question I mean really deceptive so you have a
00:41:48
couple of examples with both CBS and NBC which were violating the equal time requirement were're were clearly working
00:41:57
on half the KLA Harris campaign and when you look at the coverage itself this election was the most unequal in terms
00:42:05
of favorable coverage it was something like a 60 point difference something like KLA KLA Harris received 80
00:42:12
something per favorable coverage and Trump received something like 85% negative coverage so it there's no way
00:42:19
who's that according to do you know yeah there's um it's a report by Brent bazel's uh media Watchdog group it's
00:42:26
been around for has been recording this stuff in every election for the last 30 years in any event I think that there's
00:42:33
a very strong argument that the broadcasters have not been Fair that's a violation of their licensed requirements
00:42:38
and we should be re-evaluating their Spectrum especially because it's not the highest best use the great irony of this
00:42:44
though saxs is that they have already been demolished I don't know if you saw but a bunch of the anchors at CNN are
00:42:51
not renewing because their advertising is so far off that like Chris Wallace I think was making 8 million a year 9
00:42:57
million a year and he just said I'm going to go do podcast because they I think they low balled his offer and if
00:43:02
they lose well there's a bunch all that advertising from Pharma which I think in
00:43:06
some of these networks is a third or half and that's all networks that's from Fox to CNN every MSNBC everybody
00:43:12
combined if they lose advertising from Pharma it's over like these those news networks are going to lose half their
00:43:21
revenue overnight that would be a that would be a death blow jamath to your question yeah well let me me let me get
00:43:27
back to that so so just on CNN and MSNBC you're absolutely right that they're announcing a bunch of layoffs their
00:43:32
ratings are destroyed I think they're down MSNBC ratings are down like 50% since the election what that tells me is
00:43:38
that their own audience wait sorry since the election % yeah and what that what that tells me is that their captive
00:43:46
viewer base who's been tuning in for years to all of this TDS have has now realized that they were deceived by
00:43:52
MSNBC and they've lost credibility even with their most fervent support ERS so there's no question that CNN MSNBC
00:44:00
they're hurting now jcal dis toate one small modification they do not receive they do not have Spectrum licenses from
00:44:06
the FCC right because they're cable network so they're in kind of a different bucket they don't have to
00:44:12
abide by the fairness doctrine that CBS and NBC do right but they have different
00:44:18
problems and to your point about Pharma there's absolutely no reason to be allowing Pharma advertisements on these
00:44:26
uh TV networks the fact of the matter is the people who are viewing those networks can't buy you can't
00:44:32
buy Pharmaceuticals without a prescription right it's up to doctors to write you the prescription and this is
00:44:38
why most countries most Western countries prohibit Pharma advertising on the networks and I think Bobby Kennedy
00:44:45
has a very strong argument that it would serve the public interest not to allow this we don't
00:44:51
allow advertisements for tobacco right so I guess the thing that doesn't make sense to me sax is you're so such a
00:45:01
First Amendment absolutist in free speech absolutist isn't it and I'm not saying this my opinion but you know my
00:45:09
my challenge to you would be is tell me about freedom of speech and expression in relation to being able to do
00:45:16
advertising for these products well I mean aren't aren't consumers smart enough to figure it out the point of the
00:45:23
advertising is I think is not at the end of the day to influence consumers because consumers can't buy
00:45:28
Pharmaceuticals they have to go to doctor they saying it ask your doctor about the purpose of the advertising is
00:45:33
to buy favorable coverage that's the point and there are many examples okay explain that expl well there are many
00:45:39
examples of people who've worked in these networks saying that they had a story that was negative about Pharma
00:45:46
companies and that story got spiked because the Pharma companies are the biggest advertisers in fact I think it
00:45:52
was there was a story about Fox News and who who um who's the guy Roger ALS well
00:46:00
there's been a number of stories I know what you're talking about there's been stories about Anderson
00:46:05
Cooper who's the the the guy who does international coverage on the weekends GPS is the name of his show I'm drawing
00:46:12
I can't remember right nowed Zakaria thank you fared Zakaria yes um I think a bunch of those shows were like literally
00:46:18
brought to you by fizer brought to you by these things and so those shows potentially would just go away and then
00:46:24
there were there was reporting on the number times they would report on those companies and it showed they didn't so
00:46:30
what what do you think freeberg of should Pharma companies be allowed to advertise to Consumers to ask their
00:46:37
doctors to ask them about viagra what's your take he's thinking for those of you at
00:46:48
home listening he's giving a deep thought while he's thinking JK let me just say that I think I think there is
00:46:54
there is a free speech issue that that has to be weighed okay so I don't want to be totally dismissive of that however
00:47:00
I think that the Viagra example is a is on the like far end of the spectrum of a
00:47:05
drug that by you know by advertising it you could actually get consumers to request it from their doctor I don't
00:47:11
think most drugs are like that and I think my contention would be that the real reason they're paying all this
00:47:18
massive advertising is not to influence consumers but to influence the coverage that they get and there is something
00:47:24
very corrupt about that and I think Bobby Kennedy has a really strong point that if you were to remove that
00:47:31
incentive that many people inside the industry have admitted exist then You' get much fairer coverage of these Pharma
00:47:38
companies and we would actually get to be a healthier country because you wouldn't allow them to basically
00:47:44
manipulate the public debate so I that that's the argument freeberg you want to chime in
00:47:51
on it or no I I I mean I feel like there's some Market correction that takes place here which we're already
00:47:57
seeing which is the consumers are moving away we just talked about moving away from cable news moving away from Legacy
00:48:05
Media they don't trust it the trust is at an all-time low I don't know if it's necessarily the government's job to
00:48:13
determine who advertises what where how and why I don't like the government having that sort of degree of authority
00:48:20
generally speaking because it can then lead into the government having overreach and oversight to control
00:48:26
entities that maybe are competitive with the government in different ways I do believe that the the beef with big Tech
00:48:33
is a result of big Tech's influence over the population where big government wants to have that degree of influence
00:48:40
over the population so it's actually a battle between government and private entities over who can influence the
00:48:46
population and who has the ability to control the narrative and I think that the general concept that the government
00:48:52
should be determining who advertises where what how and why is not a great one and I don't think that consumers are
00:48:59
dumb I think that consumers are showing their proclivity for Independent Media and independent news sources because
00:49:06
they don't trust the influence that's been kind of imparted upon these other channels and these other sources and
00:49:12
they're moving away from it so I don't know if it's as much kind of a regulatory question and big Pharma needs
00:49:17
to be affected I I think that the market to to some degree does its job I don't think the consumers are dumb I will also
00:49:23
just kind of counter one of Sax's points I I think that there are drugs like multiple sclerosis is a good example
00:49:31
there was a drug introduced a couple years ago called acus and it was a new therapy for for multiple sclerosis that
00:49:36
is extremely effective it's a it's a really a big step change in in biological therapies and a lot of people that were
00:49:44
on Ms and have had Ms for decades take kind of old school old school drugs that maybe aren't that effective so to create
00:49:52
awareness and they're not regularly seeing their doctors they may not go in and see their doctor every year like
00:49:55
they're supposed to so the the Pharma companies are creating awareness that there's this new modality
00:50:00
and this new product that could help them to get them to go into the doctor's office you know so I I don't want to say
00:50:06
that these are all like evil you know trying to control and influence like there are good drugs that come to Market
00:50:11
they are beneficial to people and people don't know about them how else are they
00:50:14
supposed to get that word out if they're not able to advertise so I don't think that it's all like negative and all
00:50:19
malicious you know kind of behavior and manipulation of media people we all have
00:50:24
the resources we all have the capacity and we are all likely very frequently going to doctors most people don't and
00:50:31
so most people that have chronic disease or have health issues there there has to
00:50:35
be a mechanism for you know making them aware of new options New Alternatives new products that are coming to Market
00:50:40
so I'm not super like putting my foot down saying Pharma company shouldn't be able to advertise shouldn't be able to
00:50:45
buy media out there and put ads up and tell people about stuff that they've discovered or that they've invented
00:50:50
that's been regulated that's been tested that's been approved and that works and
00:50:53
can help save lives I think they should have the freedom ability to do that so I
00:50:58
think there's a there's a bit of a Nuance here to how this gets handled is my point yeah I mean look I I I'm not
00:51:04
saying that there's no benefit at all to letting Pharma companies advertise some
00:51:10
products I think the question you have to ask is why is so much money going from Pharma to these news outlets
00:51:19
because most of the products you know that you generally can't buy them I'll tell you the reason the reason is that
00:51:25
the Pharma companies make so much money off of government funded Insurance programs let me just state that again if
00:51:31
we only had private insurance or if consumers had to pay for their drugs and their therapies themselves the cost of
00:51:38
drugs would go way down the reason the cost of drugs has gone way up is because so much of the government insurance
00:51:45
programs don't negotiate drug prices and there are all these middlemen and all these people that sit in between that
00:51:51
have been regulated through regulatory capture into the system that has allowed an incredible inflation in the of drug
00:51:57
prices therefore there is a lot of money to kind of continue the capture of the system I don't think that it is right
00:52:03
and I think that the free market generally or having a less regulatory captured Market will allow an
00:52:09
appropriate kind of pricing of therapies an appropriate kind of adjustment in the
00:52:13
market which doesn't exist today so so much money to kind of keep the market the way it is needs to kind of keep
00:52:19
flowing that's my sense of this it's I don't think it's about bad drugs need to kind of stay in play as much as it is
00:52:25
this Market's been allowed to inflate and the cost of healthcare and the cost of drugs has inflated in a way that's
00:52:30
simply untenable and it doesn't make sense and I think that it's because of regulatory capture and I think that that
00:52:36
needs to change and I'm hopeful that that it does that's the second reason then to get the this farma money out of
00:52:42
advertising because you're basically explaining it as like a self- looking ice cream cone but again there's another
00:52:48
reason as well I think that explains the sheer magnitude which is its influence buying it's influence ping to your point
00:52:55
sax it's that was what I was about to bring up you know there it's very subtle you're not going
00:53:01
to have somebody at NBC or CNN or fox come down and tell Tucker Carlson or Rachel mat or Anderson Cooper hey you
00:53:09
can't cover the story but there is a bunch of self-censorship that occurs I believe where people just don't select
00:53:18
certain stories to be on the docket and they just shape the coverage so they might not say something positive or
00:53:24
negative about fizer or or Johnson and Johnson whoever it is they they'll just avoid that story H because these anchors
00:53:32
are getting paid or have been previously paid 10 10 million 25 million a year do
00:53:38
you think they're going to like really go hard at fizer or somebody like that no they're just not going to I've been
00:53:44
inside the machine they just avoid those stories okay let's keep going through the docket here I think it was pretty
00:53:51
good conversation I and by the way I just wanted to say to the Trump Administration if you want the economy
00:53:57
to rip let m&a Rip but my one caveat is is a really simple way to do this if you're under a trillion dollar valuation
00:54:05
let those companies buy and sell each other because then we could go from a MAG 7even to a MAG 70 that's where I
00:54:11
think actually it makes the most sense if you actually are concerned about the consolidation of power in the top seven
00:54:17
let them sit out acquiring more companies and let the people under that who are the mid-market cap companies let
00:54:24
them do the buying and selling because then you might have a 8 N9 and 10 show up that's not talking my book it would
00:54:29
be better for me freedberg to let the mag 7 participate because they can pay higher prices they're not price
00:54:34
sensitive but I do think the mid-market companies buying and selling would make a healthier environment for competition
00:54:41
so you think sorry you think it creates more competition which will that'll benefit consumers and grow the economy
00:54:47
well look at it this way if somebody wants to buy let's say wayo gets spun out somebody wants to buy it if Amazon
00:54:53
can't buy it and Tesla can't buy it and Amazon can't buy it but they could merge with Uber Lyft door Dash you know
00:55:03
all those mid Airbnb if those companies could consolidate can you imagine what would happen if a Amazon couldn't buy
00:55:10
those companies but you could see weo spin out and then partner with door Dash and partner with Airbnb and you had that
00:55:17
as one company now you got a $400 billion doll company that is nipping on the heels that is aggressively competing
00:55:23
with Amazon that's what you want in the market is more competition for the MA 7 you don't want the Magnificent 7 to run
00:55:30
away with it and we could create the eighth nth and 10th so just imagine that freeberg if there was a another trillion
00:55:36
dollar company like I actually I think Tesla just became a trillion dollar company again so now that they're up in
00:55:41
those ranks great don't let Tesla don't let Amazon Etc Nvidia buy more companies let those
00:55:48
that mergers and Acquisitions and that strength happen under the trillion dollar Mark what do you think of that
00:55:54
General concept freeberg yeah I generally think competition is good I generally think free markets should be
00:56:00
allowed to operate and I've shared my point of view I think bigger is going to drive more Innovation than lots of
00:56:05
little so okay again wayo wouldn't exist if not for Google plowing billions and billions and I don't know about you guys
00:56:11
I took weo around the city yesterday pretty sick like it is legit I don't go to the city yeah it's pretty legit and
00:56:20
um I I think toxic cess pool and by the way I will say my other comment is I think San Francisco has gotten 10x
00:56:28
better now that I've been working downtown the last week or two 10x better from a toxic pool just means success
00:56:35
pool I think part of the fact part of the reason is all of Walgreens is gone there's no no Walgreens left you can't
00:56:41
buy deodorant problem solved there's nowhere to do crime anymore how toil drug that doesn't ex San Francisco how
00:56:48
do you do that you got to ask Jason Jason get an Amazon package delivered yeah I don't man I'm in Texas you can do
00:56:57
whatever you want here Jason gets his supplies aird dropped in once a month what are you talking about I'm bullish
00:57:04
on the San Francisco turnaround because I think Dan Daniel lurry getting elected
00:57:08
mayor was huge and this doesn't get really as much attention but it's very important the board shifted the radicals
00:57:14
got voted off The Board of Supervisors so the Board of Supervisors are less Progressive Daniel's in the mayoral
00:57:20
office it and I think I think the city's already like turning around I've been super blown away the last couple weeks
00:57:27
I've been downtown I'm like why am I not working downtown every day it's actually
00:57:30
really nice it feels like San Francisco 20 years ago let's see I'm pretty bullish I mean safety is the number one
00:57:36
thing if they can and this budget need to get put under control San Francisco spends one and a half x per capita of
00:57:41
what New York City spends and that's something that Daniel and his team have kind of said they're GNA address sort of
00:57:48
like their own Doge and there's a team going in there to address this so I'm really bullish on what's going to happen
00:57:52
with the city it's just such a great place it seems like power resides in the supervisors and they seem to have
00:57:58
flipped two or three of the really lunatic ones right saaks they got rid of Dopey de Preston who was the other guy
00:58:05
peskin peskin he was an idiot and they those guys are done so that's progress do you want to talk about the Trump uh
00:58:13
candidates JL yeah let's get to that in a second but before we get to that FBI raid the home of poly Market CEO Shane
00:58:20
copelan he was on the election night stream he was raided on Wednesday November 13th 8 days after the election
00:58:28
they say poly Market is Bloomberg says poly Market is being investigated for allegedly accepting trades from us-based
00:58:34
users here's the backstory in 2022 po Market paid 1.4 million to settle a case with the cftc for offering option
00:58:43
contracts without proper designation the commodity Futures Trading commission also ordered the
00:58:50
company to prevent us Traders from making bets they recently said poly Market that is that they had taken
00:58:55
additional to block Americans from trading at the same time Ki and Robin Hood were able to offer presidential
00:59:01
prediction markets because Ki it seems like they won their lawsuit against the cftc last month so that allowed some
00:59:09
betting markets to happen but poly Market is still banned from the US because of that settlement in 2022
00:59:14
here's the poly Market claim they claimed the raid was obviously political retribution by the outgoing
00:59:20
Administration against poly market for providing a market that correctly called the 2024 presidential election and Shane
00:59:27
posted on X discouraging that the current Administration would seek a lasti effort to go after companies they
00:59:33
deem to be associated with political opponents bunch of conspiracy theories flying around Peter Tel and founder fund
00:59:41
have made an investment into the company and Nate silver is an advisor I guess I'll just point out accurate they
00:59:49
were much more accurate than they toally accurate yeah so how manipulated can it
00:59:53
be if they got everything right yeah I mean that's literally the point I was about to make and um I'll just end with
00:59:59
this and then give it to USX for red meat Americans are not allowed to participate in a lot of different
01:00:07
markets and these kind of actions have been taken many many many times as we all know poker crypto real estate and
01:00:15
prediction markets have all had actions like this taken against them and they typically are a the offices too or just
01:00:21
his house just his house according to the information we have right now they bust into his house at 6: am and they
01:00:28
took his phone by the way shout out to no but like like if you were breaking the law why wouldn't
01:00:35
they all that off yeah it's a great great speculation and important to note this action came after the election is
01:00:43
resolved so it's obvious the FBI knew that doing this beforehand would be seen as political and doing it after I guess
01:00:52
the decision no no I know what you're saying I'm adding something else which is they obviously knew this would be
01:00:57
political sacks and so they did it after they knew if they did it before that would be looked like you know really bad
01:01:04
that the prediction Market that's predicting Trump a trump win was rated so they did it after what do you think
01:01:10
sax what's going on okay I think it's political or not I guess question we don't know what was driving this it's
01:01:16
certainly an extreme action to bust into someone's home at 6:00 a.m. with the FBI
01:01:20
and take take your phone so it's very curious I think there's three theories that I've heard that I think could
01:01:27
explain this and I want to just be very clear that there's no proof on any of this it's just speculation yeah it's a
01:01:34
speculation going onul yeah but by the way just before I get into it I think Shane Copeland had one of the funniest
01:01:39
tweets I've ever seen new phone who yeah new phone who this Nick you should show
01:01:45
that I mean that was like ballsy the FBI bus in your house takes your phone and that's the person means this is a that
01:01:51
means that this is probably not a serious situation but anyway go ahead well who who knows but yeah or he's
01:01:56
confident is I what I would say yeah yeah okay so Theory number one is that what the feds are looking for is whether
01:02:05
any domestic whales were illegally wagering on the election outcome because theoretically the money is all supposed
01:02:13
to be offshore because domestic wagering on the election was illegal however a Court rule just days before the election
01:02:20
that domestic wagering was legal so that so Theory number one doesn't really make
01:02:25
a lot of sense because the FBI would be enforcing a a rule or a law that the courts had just overruled just days
01:02:33
before the election so but that's Theory number one Theory number two and this theory was raised by Fortune Magazine is
01:02:40
that this that poly Market was rif with what's called wash trading which is a form of Market manipulation where Shares
01:02:46
are bought and sold often simultaneously and repeatedly by the same people to create a false impression of volume and
01:02:54
activity liquid this is illegal the us and it does occur in crypto markets so they could have been going after that
01:03:01
but again it does seem like a very extreme thing to bust into his house why don't you just ask Shane what Authority
01:03:08
would the US government have if it's all offshore in that context I don't know I'm justay out I'm laying out possible
01:03:14
theories but Fortune Magazine did did raise that theory but again if that's what your claim is just subpoena poly
01:03:21
market during business hours I don't know why you need to raid the the guy's home or Raid the office that's where the
01:03:26
files are right now let me let me lay out Theory number three okay which is going to be a little bit more
01:03:33
controversial here we go but uh get the chin foil if if somebody was manipulating these sites okay then on
01:03:43
whose behalf were they doing it and what you'd have to say is that they were doing it on behalf of the comma campaign
01:03:49
because in the last few days of the election there was a weird blip where poly market and and Kia especially Kia
01:03:57
even more than poly Market all of a sudden flipped to Kamala and you could see this particularly in Pennsylvania
01:04:04
where all of a sudden there was a big flip at the end away from Trump towards kamla that turned out to be totally fake
01:04:10
and Trump won Pennsylvania pretty pretty handily and so you got to wonder wait a
01:04:16
second was a Comm supporter maybe trying to push the narrative that there was a last minute surge to Kamala because
01:04:24
that's what the action seemed to imply and remember that at the same time this was happening there was a big there
01:04:31
was like a media push to create a narrative by her supporters in the media that there was a late break for Harris
01:04:39
yes by Independence and so you have to kind of Wonder was somebody trying to push the prediction markets at the last
01:04:46
minute to feed a media narrative that they were trying to create look I have no evidence for this whatsoever but the
01:04:52
the action in the betting markets and the narrative they were trying to create in the media do line up so if somebody
01:04:58
was going to investigate election manipulation this is what they should look into Jam you have any thoughts
01:05:04
here no zero thoughts I mean yeah you know my thoughts on it are I I don't see him ever doing anything risky or illegal
01:05:13
so it makes no sense to me I'm guessing that somebody made him aware pure speculation of something in the system
01:05:23
and that probably was on his phone and they probably wanted to get that and it's probably like a speeding ticket
01:05:27
ticky tacky thing and you just have the law still working its way through the system
01:05:33
because they Sachs were under an order to not take us but Ki had gotten the mark the law changed with their
01:05:40
successful lawsuit or they had defended their their case so I would say it's all
01:05:45
allegedly folks and so wait for more information is always a good idea all right Trump is building his team and uh
01:05:55
it's a long list we've got I guess dozens of names right now so let's start with the four who's your favorite
01:06:03
job well my opinion probably doesn't matter all that much but let me go with the four that uh are creating the most
01:06:10
Buzz let's let's create the let's go with the four that are having the most buzz and then I'll let you each tell me
01:06:16
what you think J one you you love the one I yeah there is one actually I love but let's I'll sa that don't know who's
01:06:23
that I'm curious actually genuinely curious vake and Elon doing doge is my absolute favorite yes anything else that
01:06:32
I am fascinated by Bobby Kennedy going in and trying to make the country healthier
01:06:40
and the country is the most sick country I think of uh all of the Western countries and I think our food system
01:06:47
has massive problems so I'm very excited to see what he does inside of the health
01:06:53
and human services department I think it's a little little bit controversial obviously but I don't see how it could
01:06:59
be any worse than what we currently have how do you feel about that who's your favorite I guess we can just go
01:07:05
with people's favorites if you want to go that way the way I interpret his cabinet picks is that he's creating a
01:07:11
coalition so I view it more as like a package deal jcal I'm not going to pick out one or two although I do have my
01:07:17
favorites the person who I think very astutely understands what Trump is trying to do is Charlie Kirk who's a
01:07:23
major influencer on the Republican side and he says that that what Maha which is
01:07:32
make America healthy again they get RFK Bobby Kennedy HHS obviously the Libertarians get Tulsi at dni I would
01:07:38
add to that that they also get Elon vake at Doge the base the populous base gets
01:07:44
Matt Gates they get Heth at DOD they get homman and then the peace through projecting strength crowd which is kind
01:07:51
of a nice name for neocon gets Rubio as Secretary of State and stefanic get the UN so I think that Trump is basically
01:07:59
trying to have his cabinet reflect the diversity of views within the Republican Party he's not decisively choosing one
01:08:08
side over another what this means is that during his presidency he's going to get all the views and all the options
01:08:16
within the that's the collective view that's an interesting way let's go Point by Point through the most controversial
01:08:21
ones Matt Gates is obviously the most controversial that's what's all young that's another
01:08:27
Trend yeah and he has uh been put up as attorney general he has to be confirmed by the Senate obviously he's the house
01:08:33
rep from Florida saaks how qualified is he for this job on a scale of 1 to 10 I think that Matt Gates would be a breath
01:08:40
of fresh air at at doj I mean look here's why is that the doj has been involved for the last eight or nine
01:08:49
years in a completely fabricated effort to portray Donald Trump as an agent of the Russians it started with the steel
01:08:58
dossier they then opened an investigation based on that phony piece of opposition research funded by the
01:09:03
Hillary campaign they lied to the fisa court to spy on Donald Trump's campaign they then worked with the various
01:09:11
intelligence services and with uh the media to create this like hoax that went on for years and years there's been no
01:09:19
accountability for that furthermore in the 2020 election you also had that effort to essentially cover up the
01:09:26
hunter Biden hard drive that the FBI and doj were sitting on that for roughly a year they created a a phony story that
01:09:35
it was Russian disinformation when it turned out to be completely authentic so you believe there's a lot to clean up
01:09:39
there how qualified to 10 what the president what the president ran on was that the doj needed to be de weaponized
01:09:51
that it had been turned into a partisan political apparatus for the Democrats I don't think anyone can argue with that
01:09:57
at this point I think the American people clearly bought into that argument now in order to clean it up you're going
01:10:02
to have to bring in a total Outsider who's willing to break some eggs and shake things up is Matt Gates the only
01:10:08
person who could do that no there are other people who could do it but Matt Gates is definitely qualified for that
01:10:12
role he was one of the most outspoken critics in Congress of this weaponization of the FBI he was never
01:10:19
fooled by the Russia gate hoax most The Establishment was con anybody anybody who bought into the Russia gate hoax is
01:10:25
not qualified to run the doj at this point okay any concerns well there's a bunch of
01:10:31
unproven smears and accusations have been made against him put that any other concerns about him excuse me aside from
01:10:40
the the the investigations and whatever and the smears there's a bunch of unproven yeah smears and accusations
01:10:46
been made against him and my own view on that is that if there was really something there I think Merck Garland's
01:10:52
doj would have acted on it two or three years ago so I personally discount all these smears without there being any
01:11:00
evidence whatsoever and I think it's very predictable that what we're seeing with both Matt Gates and with Tulsi is
01:11:05
that the worst accusations get made without any evidence in the media when the blob or the establishment wants to
01:11:13
stop a true populist reformer from cleaning up their backyard free your thoughts on M Gates I that seems to be
01:11:19
the most controversial one any concerns you think he's the most suited guy for the
01:11:24
job I I don't want to comment on mat Gates but I'd like to talk about why not because I'd like to talk about a
01:11:31
broader point of view on it okay so I think there's this kind of thing that happens in biology called Evolution and
01:11:44
a lot of people think evolution is this continuous process but it's not evolution is this process by which there
01:11:49
is some significant growth for a period of time and then there is an an Extinction event or an external force
01:11:58
that causes what ultimately becomes what's called punctuated equilibrium so the whole kind of system resets and then
01:12:03
the healthier stronger species survive and they grow and they persist and if you look at the first
01:12:11
chart Nick that I pulled up this will just show you guys past Extinction events large amounts of biomass over the
01:12:18
past half billion years get wiped out when these Extinction events occur and then Evolution occurs because the
01:12:24
species that concern survive the extinction event persists in the environment and they grow and that's how
01:12:30
Evolution kind of actually takes place is there's an external force that changes what survives and what doesn't
01:12:36
it's kind of a testing Force if you look at federal spending and this is a crazy
01:12:40
link but here's federal spending over the last couple of decades and I would argue that many of the
01:12:48
agencies much of the bureaucracy many of the jobs created many of the spending programs many of the operating models
01:12:54
many of the behaviors can kind of be viewed as a specie or species within this ecosystem that have kind of grown a
01:13:02
lot over the last few decades and I think what Trump's mandate was by the people and people don't want to hear
01:13:09
this and they don't like it but his mandate was to be kind of the extinction event and whatever agencies whatever
01:13:16
operating processes whatever individuals whatever bureaucratic systems exist within the federal government that can
01:13:23
withstand the scrutiny of the the individuals that Trump is going to put in charge of each of these agencies that
01:13:29
they can survive and they can come out the other end there is certainly some degree of strength and resilience and
01:13:35
hardiness this is not about right or wrong this they deserve to exist if they can this is going to bring in this is
01:13:41
going to bring in the most disruptive force that federal agencies have ever seen and the intention with Trump isn't
01:13:47
to find some person to keep running things the way they have been run in the past his mandate from the people who
01:13:53
elected him based on the message put out there is to do the opposite which is to
01:13:57
go in and be as disruptive and damaging and destructive as possible and whatever
01:14:01
comes out the other side will be stronger will be harder and theoretically will'll be you know more
01:14:09
resilient and I think that that's the event that's underway now the people who are getting exactly what they want in
01:14:16
Trump's candidacies are the Democrats they were saying Trump is going to put a bunch of crazy lunatics in office and
01:14:22
he's going to make them the cabinet and they're G and they're and now they're able to kind of clap their hands and
01:14:26
saywe told you so we told you so and I'm not sure that if they're really getting
01:14:31
the message which is that the intention here isn't to keep things running the way they have been running but to really
01:14:37
fundamentally test the systems and test the systems with the most challenging oppositional forces the systems have
01:14:43
ever been tested by which is the candidates or the individuals that he's putting in charge of each of these
01:14:47
agencies so I I'm not saying it's right or wrong one way or the other but I'm making an observation that this is going
01:14:53
to be kind of an extinction level event that Trump's decisions on who he's putting in place I think are going to
01:14:58
drive an outcome on the other end that's going to make the government look very different and I you know I'm not going
01:15:04
to sit around and say this person's good this person's bad because I don't think
01:15:06
the point is to find someone that's quote qualified to do the job the intention is actually quite different
01:15:12
and the outcome may actually be positive for America if you fast forward a couple
01:15:16
of years in some cases and there's some cases where things could get really messed up and people could suffer and
01:15:20
jobs will be lost and all sorts of bad things will happen but we can continue the way we have been with respect to
01:15:27
federal spending with respect to federal spending bureaucracy and inefficiency in
01:15:31
the federal government and so something has to happen and if this is the path by
01:15:34
which this gets resolved in The Limited window that's in front of this this particular Administration which is
01:15:40
probably two years maybe four maybe this is what has to happen shabat where do you stand on free Berg's interesting
01:15:48
metaphor here that we're sending meteors into each of these departments to blow them up and see if they survive and
01:15:55
extinction level event I saw you nodding do you think this is uh an interesting framing great take I have nothing to add
01:16:01
to Freed Berg's take got it who's your favorite yeah you asked me the question I answered who's your favorite well I
01:16:08
think let's take Elon and VI off the table because that's an obvious one that we' all been behind since the beginning
01:16:14
yeah and no and we all support the idea who's not against more efficiency I mean
01:16:18
you'd have to be an idiot to be against efficiency it's like the easiest one to say you love I think the highest beta
01:16:23
pick so far has been Bobby Kennedy I think the second highest beta pick is Matt Gates explain highest beta pick in
01:16:32
this context please I think the third is tulsy gabber that there is the potential
01:16:38
for an enormously positive two or three sigma outcome but there's also the chance that
01:16:46
it can really not work that was exactly why I pick Bobby Kennedy because he's going to shake it
01:16:52
up right Peter teal just did this podcast with bar wi and it was fantastic by the way highly recommend highly
01:16:58
recommend awesome the one of the great things he said is that he was talking about science but I
01:17:04
think the example works here as well which is that we didn't have enough skepticism and we had too much Dogma he
01:17:11
was talking about sort of like the the death of Science and I think that that idea
01:17:17
applies here as well which is that the federal bureaucracy has not really been challenged and VI put out a very
01:17:26
compelling post on X where he basically said like look when you on the one hand there's going to be radical transparency
01:17:33
but on the other hand there's a lot of case law that we can use to kind of try to really dismantle the government
01:17:41
apparatus and they're putting themselves on a shot clock to do it by 2026 for the
01:17:46
250th anniversary so I think I'm really predisposed to this idea that it'll Force the government to be very
01:17:58
resilient at the end of this process and I think that's a good thing and it'll probably be very different than what it
01:18:03
is on the way in and I think that that can be very positive all right so we got shth and myself actually giving some
01:18:11
specific names that we thought were interesting I'll go back to you Sachs maybe I'll phrase it
01:18:16
as to chat's phrasing which one do you think has the greatest chance of creating a massive potential change that
01:18:23
could be positive but also has some possibility of a destructive downside in other words it could go either way but
01:18:30
man if it goes the right way it could be brilliant and amazing and great for all
01:18:33
Americans who would be your number one number two in that regard well you have to identify what the potential downside
01:18:40
is I think the single biggest risk in a second Trump term is that somehow the United States gets into an unnecessary
01:18:47
War a war that we don't need another Forever War I it's certainly not what president Trump wants he's been
01:18:52
abundantly clear on the camp campaign trail that he wants to avoid Wars he wants to avoid World War II it's clearly
01:18:59
where all of his instincts are but the fact of the matter is we have a very fraud and difficult International
01:19:04
situation right now the Middle East is on fire we have a proxy war going on with Russia so there is the chance that
01:19:11
things could always spiral out of control and you need I think within the cabinet not just hawkish voices but also
01:19:17
dovish voices so that the president has the full range of options at his disposal and so in that sense I would
01:19:25
say that you know Tulsi as being one of the more dovish voices is incredibly critical just to balance out some of the
01:19:32
other voices who are more hawkish and so in that sense I think you know just making sure that the president gets to
01:19:39
hear from a a wide spectrum of views I think that that part's very important so that would be Chelsea Chelsea would be
01:19:47
your pick for like yeah just because like tulsy could literally make the difference between whether we get in a
01:19:52
un necessary Forever War or not I would also just say that with respect to the other picks there's obviously a
01:19:59
lot of Hysteria going on a lot of hyperboy about the downsides I don't think it's going to be like a meteor
01:20:06
hitting the earth I don't think it's that destructive I think that it's more like will some eggs be broken up to make
01:20:13
an omelet right that's that's the analogy I would use rather than the meteor and the thing I would just say is
01:20:20
that we all agree the United States is currently on an unsustainable fiscal path we know that we're spending too
01:20:26
much money we know that the bureaucracy is too big what's the downside of shaking it up there's just way more
01:20:31
upside than downside in terms of shaking up this bureaucracy because the current
01:20:36
path is bankruptcy exactly so why do we have to act like that it's so risky to bring in Outsiders and populists and
01:20:44
reformers into these agencies we know there's going to be huge resistance to them the biggest risk frankly is inertia
01:20:52
taking over and the reformers aren't able to do enough and we all doing nothing is not an option yeah and then
01:20:58
we go bankrupt that's the big risk why is Chelsea getting attacked what's the Russian connection people are saying
01:21:05
like I don't I don't know any of the history here so tell me it's obvious it's because Washington is a very
01:21:11
hawkish place it's basically run by the war machine there's there's no money going to Washington to lobby for peace
01:21:18
all the money in Washington is coming from the military-industrial complex so by definition it's extremely hawkish and
01:21:26
it's geared towards war and tuls is there some history with Tulsi and Russia yeah just to finish my point yeah Tulsi
01:21:33
has been one of the few consistent voices advocating for peace so of course the establishment wants to basically get
01:21:39
her nomination vetoed but again I think you have to see the cabinet as a package
01:21:44
deal I think it's very important to have pulsi as one voice for peace within a larger cabinet that already has many
01:21:51
hawkish voices got it okay all right everybody for your of science from ohal David freeberg the chairman dictator
01:22:00
jamat ptio from 090 and David Sachs from Craft Ventures I am Jason kakanis your host here at the Allin podcast and this
01:22:10
week in startups we'll see you next time on the all-in podcast byebye back at you
01:22:16
Chief retribution [Music] [Applause] officer your Winner's ride Rainman David and instead we open source it to
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the fans and they've just gone crazy with it love queen [Music] of Besties my dog Tak your driveway
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scks man oh man my habiter will meet me at we should all just get a room and just have one big huge orgy cuz they're
01:22:57
all this useless it's like this like sexual tension that they just need to release
01:23:01
[Music] somehow we need to get [Music] mer I'm doing all [Music]