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E3: Modern Cold War, politicizing the pandemic & more with David Sacks & David Friedberg

May 21, 2020 / 01:06:37

This episode features a discussion on life during the COVID-19 pandemic with guests David Sacks and David Friedberg. Topics include mental health, business operations, and the political implications of lockdowns.

David Sacks shares his experience of quarantine in Mexico, noting the deserted tourist areas and the effectiveness of remote work for his venture capital firm. He emphasizes the importance of returning to offices while acknowledging the challenges of working from home.

David Friedberg discusses the mental health struggles faced by employees in various companies and highlights the success of businesses in the food supply chain during the pandemic. He stresses the need for social interaction and a structured daily routine.

The conversation shifts to the political aspects of the pandemic, with both guests expressing concerns about the polarization surrounding lockdown measures and mask-wearing. They reflect on the economic impact and the potential long-term changes in work culture.

Finally, they address the implications of the pandemic on U.S.-China relations and the future of manufacturing in America, considering the need for a more resilient supply chain.

TLDR

The episode discusses COVID-19's impact on mental health, business, and politics with David Sacks and David Friedberg.

Episode

1:06:37
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hey everybody welcome to the all-in podcast with  Jason Calacanis and shimoff poly Hypatia we record
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this podcast well on on a really unique schedule  to mouth what's our schedule right now whenever
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we feel like it basically it is whatever our  significant others get so sick of us they kick
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us off and say don't come back yeah we get  throw to the pool house we decide to pop up
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the podcast you're in Atherton I'm in the city  in San Francisco Thank You Duke of discretion
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is there anything else you'd like to tell them  why gate code you know we had two guests on that
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people just went absolutely crazy for the two they  weren't available so we have two amazing David's
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in our lives David Freiburg and David sacks and  they are super smart super effective at their
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work everything we're not come off and so with all  we bring them back on the podcast and we'll do a
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little round table here and talk about life in the  age of corona so welcome back to the podcast David
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sacks yeah good to good to be back with you and  also David Friedberg thank you guys happy to be
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here all right fantastic so I just want to start  off with our check how is everybody doing in this
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quarantine has everybody's mental health let's  start with you sacks well as we might be able to
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see we've moved our bunker to undisclosed Mexican  location you know and it's been great you know we
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you know I think it's really kind of sad because  where we're at is is a tourist City that would
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normally be at peak season and it's just deserted  right now all the construction stopped normally
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you see lots of you know hotels and houses being  built and that's all stopped and there's no
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tourists so it's all just kind of cleared out but  I think it's quite safe you know every worker that
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I've seen here since we landed at the airport  - you know got transported to to this community
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where at I mean has been wearing a mask much  more consistent than I think in the US and um
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you know I think it's been it's been fine now  of course you founded the craft venture capital
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firm and people know before that you obviously  did Yammer and sold that Microsoft for a billion
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dollars plus and before that you are the CEO of  PayPal what's going on with your business are you
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actively investing and how is your firm running  remote it's it's it's worked very well I mean
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we've always been super collaborative as a firm we  were always we were already on zoom' and we were
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you know we share everything on the amur and so  for us just moving to zoom wasn't that difficult
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we've done four or five deals I think since the  whole kind of quarantine started I'm sorry sorry
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sorry did you did you say that you actually use  Yammer now 2020 we're still using it oh my god is
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Yammer still hook available that's insane I mean  it's kind of got a little bit buried inside of
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Microsoft but you can certainly still get it and  no we love it I mean the whole firm kind of works
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works in the amur and it works very well for us  and now what's gonna happen with this incredible
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office that you have this beautiful office you  have in San Francisco and commercial real estate
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now that are you going to come back to work we  saw Twitter and square the jack collection of
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companies they're not going to come back to their  offices or work from home primarily going forward
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what are you gonna do well it'll be a great asset  for us in the year 2025 or something like that no
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I mean we will eventually go back to work there I  think that the team still likes having an office
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I think you know the idea that everyone wants to  work out of like a small room and you know extra
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room in their house I think probably getting is  probably a little overrated I think people would
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like to get back to the office but do we have to  have one no I mean I think we've proven that we
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can do our jobs via zoom and you know we've done  a lot of we've done like I said we've done four
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or five deals since the started where we haven't  met with the entrepreneur in person you know it's
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all been done by a zoom nanus it's worked great  all right trim off how are you doing what house
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which are a mental health like you know I get to  see you once in a while on CNBC throwing bombs
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but how are you doing I was really excited for  phase 2 of the shelter in place to start here
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in San Mateo County so that's been really good  a new poker table that I had built arrived today
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which I'll be installing after this and what I  mean by I'll be installing you'll be supervising
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I'll be supervising watching as people do real  work watching and it's a beautiful table I saw
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the pictures have a digital infinity edge is it  an infinity edge table no no no no but I'll send
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you a picture when it's all done but it just looks  stunning and I really want to try to organize the
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game soon so that I can get you guys back into  the into my little cave here yeah I am ready for
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this shelter in place to end I'll just be honest  and I think that my sentiments are the sentiments
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of a lot of people it's it's really tough really  really tough I I'm losing all my motivation to be
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quite honest it is weird to not see people even  and you're an extrovert David you're an introvert
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and then David Freiberg also on the line David how  are you handling all of this I'm fine I think one
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of the things that made a huge difference for  me is the creating a rhythm in the day because
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there isn't one when you kind of normally get  up and you go to work and then you come home at
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the end of the day from work that's a rhythm and  you're you kind of get kind of adjusted to it so
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not having that a lot of people I've been hearing  at struggling with that I was certainly struggling
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with it having sleep issues and I sit on about a  dozen boards some of which have small companies
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some of which have a couple hundred employees  and I've been hearing pretty consistently mental
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health issues across all the companies and I  think it's just been really grating on people
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I think it number one kind of says we probably do  need to be together and have social space as David
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said like being in the same office people really  miss that and you get a lot of value from that
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and I've been getting up everyday in the last  couple of weeks and going off-site going out of
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my house to go work we're actually working on  another place and I have like a little office
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there and I go kind of work there and so that's  made a huge impact honestly on my mental health
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being able to do that every day so just doing  that's been been helpful I not everyone has
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that privilege but I think it speaks a lot to  why we're gonna need to go back to offices when
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this is all done and what do you think about but  what's happening with your businesses obviously
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you're running a startup studio I guess would be  one way to describe it where you create companies
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and then spin them out what's been the business  interruption if any we have a couple of hardware
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and lab companies that's most of what we've  done and so those operations are paused so
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that's been really frustrating the teams have  all found ways to adjust and work from home so
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our companies are not predominantly software  based there's a lot of software but it's not
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predominantly software so it's been difficult on  those scientists and engineers that work in a lab
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or in a physical environment that they have to go  to to do their work the larger companies we have
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a number of food businesses that happen to be in  the food supply chain one way or another frankly
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those businesses are doing fantastically well and  there's been just this incredible success in the
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era of kovat on kind of a focus on fundamentals  like food supply chain efficiency availability of
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things that people need and we were doing a lot in  human health and we've kind of benefited from that
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so yeah I think there's kind of a mix for us but  I think every business is bifurcated one way or
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another during this kind of moment of punctuated  equilibrium yeah I think one thing I'd like to
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sort of talk about is we've had you both on the  podcast early on at the start of the pandemic
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and I'm curious chum off now that we're here over  two months in quarantine sheltering in place and a
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lot of information a lot of cards have turned over  here right we've seen the flop I think we haven't
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seen the the turn and the river so to speak what  is your assessment of what we were talking about
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you know a month or two ago and what we thought  about this and what's become reality and what
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hasn't what are you more optimistic about what  are you more pessimistic about your month let's
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start with you I think that we will have this  pandemic or this disease within two years and
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so whether it's a combination of a therapeutic  and a vaccine or just a therapeutic I just think
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that we're gonna kick its ass and so that's made  me more optimistic I think that the thing that's
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made me more pessimistic though is the return to  normalcy has been sort of cut on political lines
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and it's been so massively politicized I mean when  David talks about the fact that you know you can
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go to a developing country like Mexico and all  of a sudden you know everybody can get around the
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idea of masks it's because that there's a level of  common sense there that trumps politics and in the
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United States that just isn't the case and so what  you're seeing in in this crazy way I think is sort
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of the center left and the left probably sticking  very firmly to the ideology of sheltering in place
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and a lockdown probably on the sort of hope that  it gets Trump out of office and on the other side
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sort of the red states I think have basically said  hey I would rather get sick from coronavirus and
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take my chances than the hundred percent chance of  failure that I have in my professional life if you
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leave me at home for another week or month or what  have you so that's been a huge disappointment of
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how political this whole thing is got and sacks  you've been talking about like common sense
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procedures sort of same question to you what you  first thought and you had been talking about you
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thought an l-shape recovery so we'll get into also  the economy here but in terms of the disease what
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did you think two months ago that you don't think  now and what do you think yeah well in preparation
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for this I kind of went through my Twitter feed to  see what I was saying the last time I was on the
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pod and how well it was holding up and two months  ago today I tweeted that pandemic but that under
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reaction caused the pandemic and overreaction  will cause the depression and I think that's
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kind of where we are right now we still have this  pandemic with us but now we're also potentially
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facing I think a potential because of the way were  we're overreacting we're still in lockdowns in you
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know huge swathes of the country and no one can  quite understand why I mean the original reason
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for the lockdowns was tobias time so that the  hospitals wouldn't become overwhelmed like Italy
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well nowhere in the country did the hospitals get  overwhelmed and we're still in these lock downs
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and and so you know I I think that it's long  overdue for it to end now at the same time you
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know where I agree with Gemma that this whole  thing's become politicized where you know the
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the people who generally want to get us out of  lock downs don't believe in doing anything you
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know they're not even a lot of them already been  willing to wear masks which i think is just kind
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of insane so you know where I come out on this  thing is that I think we should end lock downs
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but wear masks and it's very hard to find anybody  you know in the in the political spectrum who who
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agrees with that because you know one side wants  to keep the lockdowns going indefinitely and the
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other doesn't want to store mass and it makes no  logical sense obviously and if you think about
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our political system the left is so far left  that the moderates on the left side don't have
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a place to live anymore and then on the right  the Conservatives which I would put you in the
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group of who were you know looking for fiscal  conservatives conservatives they don't have a
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home anymore either and so the most reasonable  approach is clearly to start going back to work
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for people who are not at risk and who wear a  mask yeah I think I think there's been since the
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last pod that we did together I think there's been  three kind of major discoveries or sets of facts
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that have come out about the virus number one  the official fatality rate has been over which
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is about six percent you know it's a very high  fatality rate it's very scary but we now know
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that that's overstated by probably at least 10  acts because it doesn't take into account all the
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asymptomatic cases or mild cases that just never  got tested and this is the fatality rate of people
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who contracted the virus right as exactly as  opposed to people whose case the the the problem
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with the it's kind of a debate between the the IFR  versus the CFR the infection fatality rate versus
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a case fatality rate the the problem with kind of  the official CFR numbers is that only the people
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who got really sick or you never got tested and  you know freiburg was the earliest person I know
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to start talking about the need for wide scale  population testing and these plots are all G
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tests and other kinds of tests to establish what  the real baseline is but regardless of like and
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there's been a whole bunch of different tests with  different results I you know we don't know exactly
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what the truth is far is to this day but we do  know it's probably closer to half a percent than
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to 5% so that's sort of discovery number one I  think discovery number two is and we knew a little
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bit saw a little bit of this from the wuhan data  but now it's really clear that witch populations
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are at risk and it's you know the data seems  to suggest that people under 60 who are healthy
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don't have sort of pre-existing conditions or 50  times less likely to develop or there's there's
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a 50 X greater chance for those over 60 in terms  of a of the you know having a really bad outcome
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and so for people under 60 you don't have these  pre-existing conditions it's you know it's just
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not yes there's always you know examples to the  contrary but it's not this this sort of gigantic
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risks and so for two-thirds of the population they  don't have a huge risk and we're still locking
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them down I think the third thing the third  study and not just study there's there's been
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studies and there's been models and then we've  also seen practice is that wide scale use of
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mass or ubiquitous mass wearing is sufficient to  control the virus meaning to stop the exponential
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'ti of the virus we've seen you know in the Asian  countries or Czechoslovakia other places even able
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to get the you know the so-called are not that  the the viral coefficient to go below one with
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you know why skill use of mass and so we have a  way to prevent the virus from going exponential
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that doesn't require lock downs and so the thing  you know I I blogged about but the last time I
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was on your show was why would you do this to most  severe thing these lock downs and not do this easy
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thing that's just merely inconvenient which is a  mess Freiburg when you look at it and you're the
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I think have the deepest science clearly of the  deepest science background of all of us what what
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how do you look at this pandemic now that we're  75 days into it here in the Bay Area and obviously
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you know they started in December it looks like  in China what's your take on it now what did you
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get right early and what have you changed your  mind about recently I'm actually fine when you
00:16:21
say that I just pulled up the original w-h-o joint  mission on Kovac final report and the date of this
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report by the way is February 20th so there was  this big thing they published 40 pages long from
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the whu-oh and in it they highlighted you know the  this fatality rate estimate inside of who Bay you
00:16:41
know Wuhan and outside of who Bay they you know  we knew from this data very early on that we were
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at about a half percent fatality rate and then  you know we saw all of this other stuff happen
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with Korea and the princess cruise ship and the  NBA players very early on we saw all these people
00:16:56
that were roughly asymptomatic and we're starting  to get to kind of explanations for why that is but
00:17:02
from the beginning I felt really like you know  this is gonna be a largely asymptomatic kind of
00:17:09
spreading infectious vector what what I got wrong  was when we went into lockdown I don't know CH
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amok if you remember this when we talked the first  time on Jason's on your guys's podcast I asked you
00:17:20
guys or you guys asked me when I thought we'd be  back and I was like Oh April 7th we'll be back to
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work and I also had a bet going with you guys and  I said we're gonna have less than 20,000 deaths
00:17:28
in the u.s. I so overestimated the effectiveness  of the lockdown and I think that was kind of you
00:17:35
know one of the the more kind of like striking  things to me is the quote unquote lockdown and I
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just sent the video to Nick you have it can you  tear it up so basically I this is what I think
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has happened in the United States like pull this  thing up I was in Berkeley on Saturday and I went
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to play to meet some buddies and we played frisbee  golf on campus and had a beer some college buddies
00:17:55
of mine and so I'm walking around in Berkeley  and there is frat party after frat party going
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on no mast everyone's on top of each other you  can see the video right here I took a video beer
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pong yeah they're all paying beer pong there's  like girls and drinking and people are passing
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around bottles of vodka and there's no mask and  this was the entire campus of Berkeley like and
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I think this is what's gone on like around the  country so the belief that you could just kind
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of like lock away the virus I believe like oh  my god there's it's so extreme it's so draconian
00:18:23
we're gonna shut down the world and this thing  is gonna get stopped in 30 days like happened in
00:18:28
China that is not what happened in the United  States of America like people want to be free
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people want to party people want to live their  life they want to go to work they want to see
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their friends and family and they they're not used  to being told no by the government and so I think
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that's been to me the biggest surprise is just  like how ineffective the quote-unquote lockdown
00:18:45
has been and I think it really speaks to the need  that David mentioned which is this lockdown isn't
00:18:50
binary you can't just say lock everyone down  or let them all out you've got a nuanced your
00:18:54
way to a solution which means like masks which  means watching out for nursing homes which means
00:18:59
temperature checking before letting people in the  buildings of over 100 people like all the stuff
00:19:03
that I think needs to be done for this to be kind  of effective at you know tracking and tracing and
00:19:08
we can't just assume that you know a quote-unquote  lockdown is gonna keep people inside and keep this
00:19:14
thing from spreading because the frat party  as you'll see is the perfect representation
00:19:17
of what what's really going on out there all right  circling back around to you trim off what what do
00:19:23
you think of what the two David's sort of outlined  there in terms of the path forward and how we all
00:19:30
handicapped what was going on well I think the  reality is that by hook or crook we're gonna
00:19:39
basically exit this lockdown sooner than we think  because I think people just can't take it anymore
00:19:44
so there's no point in having a shelter in place  order if everybody's running around playing beer
00:19:49
pong and so it's not doing anything and so you  might as well get the productive value of the
00:19:57
economy going again by letting people go back to  work you know we we and just finding some simple
00:20:05
ways that people can look past the politics and  just do the right thing we're a goddamn mask and
00:20:13
shut the [ __ ] up and go back to work it's it's  really like I mean when you think about it it's
00:20:18
like why is this such a big deal get everything  you want and just put a little bit of cloth over
00:20:25
your face I mean a lot of the folks that push back  on this you know they're better off wearing the
00:20:30
mask yeah I mean it is pretty striking when you  watch the protest and you see a bunch of people
00:20:37
who are you know obviously older and obviously  zerbies so those are not the best looking knives
00:20:42
in the drawer let's just put it that way if not  definitely not and pickled dull and rusty I would
00:20:47
say well I'm you know they're carrying guns and  they've never served a day in the army I mean it's
00:20:51
they're literally cosplaying that way this whole  mass thing is not such a big deal just if you can
00:21:01
wear a mask and get back to being productive and  get back to a job I think you should be allowed
00:21:04
all right so we had a big debate v-shape w-shaped  you shaved a low shaved recovery I was in the I'm
00:21:11
aspirationally v-shaped but I'm expecting a you  sacks you were the AL and I think shimoff you
00:21:18
were the the W the U or the L we've had a V how do  you explain shimoff what is going on in the stock
00:21:24
market because you said it was the end of days you  said this is gonna be a disaster is it going to
00:21:30
be disaster is this the end of the days and we've  got some false rebound and this v-shaped recovery
00:21:35
is not sustainable what how do you explain this  inexplainable v-shape responsibility response
00:21:42
there's two things to keep in mind first of all  the economy is completely [ __ ] so don't don't
00:21:48
question you know don't look at Facebook Apple  Amazon Microsoft Google and a handful of you know
00:21:54
internet SAS companies and kid yourself we have  30 million American men and women out of work
00:22:00
that is every fifth person you see walking down  the street does not have a job what happens when
00:22:06
lockdown ends if we if with the lockdown ends in  June as expected for mobility but how many people
00:22:11
are hammers in the foundry pound yeah yeah no so  so look here here's the thing that we've had we've
00:22:16
had trillions of dollars of money printed into  the system and when you print that money into the
00:22:23
system which the Federal Reserve has done it hits  the asset markets and it is basically stabilized
00:22:29
the bond market and the incremental dollar sits in  the hands of an individual who must put the money
00:22:36
to work because when you look back on this this is  not you know a random person managing their 401k
00:22:43
the overwhelming majority money sits and that sits  in the hands of hedge funds or pension funds or
00:22:48
sovereign wealth funds or mutual funds they have  a job to do and so you have to think about what is
00:22:54
their incremental decisions so even if the stock  market made no sense on any valuation metric the
00:23:01
incremental dollar that they have which they're  paid to put to work will get put to work and so
00:23:05
what you've actually seen is a dispersion and  what I mean by that is if you graph the S&P 500
00:23:12
index versus the unweighted S&P 500 index which  basically means the first one ranks companies
00:23:21
by market cap and gives the biggest companies  more weight the other one ranks every company
00:23:25
equally there's been a massive split a dispersion  and what it really shows is that companies that
00:23:32
traffic in bits so software businesses have a  bid and companies that trafficking atoms have
00:23:38
gotten completely decimated and they are literally  worthless and so when you put all these things
00:23:45
together the real economy is in the toilet there  are tens of millions of you know men and women
00:23:50
out of work the earnings power of real companies  that do physical things in the world are cheaper
00:23:57
and lower than they've ever been meanwhile the  companies that have high velocity high margin
00:24:04
software driven businesses have gone to the moon  so it's unfair to look at 30 or 40 businesses and
00:24:11
paint that as a as a v-shaped recovery it is a  equity market that is buoyed by fed dollars that
00:24:17
is not mapping to the reality of what's happening  on the ground okay so Sachs you're you're pretty
00:24:23
plugged-in to the you think about this a lot what  do you think the recovery looks like is this going
00:24:28
to be two three four five quarter recession is it  going to be depression era like some people are
00:24:35
apt to say what keeps you up at night thinking  about the economy and what gives you hope well
00:24:42
I it kind of depends if there are other shoes  to drop so I agree with drum-off that you know
00:24:48
the state economy right now is terrible and it's  divorced from the financial markets because of you
00:24:54
know all the money printing and interventions that  the Fed and Treasury or you know have been doing
00:25:01
you know one way to think about it is well the the  stock markets denominated in u.s. dollars and if
00:25:07
you know they just printed a whole bunch more of  them those dollars are worth less and so you know
00:25:13
the the price of the stocks are gonna rise but  but yeah I think looking forward you know I it's
00:25:21
probably going to be a two to three year process  to get out of this unless some other shoe drops
00:25:25
which could make it much worse Europe you're  betting on two to three years to get back to
00:25:31
let's call it single digit unemployment um we'll  see we're at like what fifteen percent right now
00:25:38
or something like that so you know thirty five  million people get down to you know ten million
00:25:46
again twenty million it's it's hard to say it's  gonna take a long time to create all those jobs
00:25:51
you know a lot of these businesses are not just  gonna come you know racing right back so yeah I
00:25:58
think it's probably like a two three or process  to get back to some sort of you know and by the
00:26:02
way the thing you have to remember is like look  the unemployment numbers that we have had in
00:26:06
the last probably seven or eight years so during  Obama and Trump have been completely manipulated
00:26:12
because the number of people that are entirely  leaving the workforce is quite high and so you
00:26:18
know it's not just a numerator problem we have a  denominator problem too there are fewer and fewer
00:26:22
workers that you know are willing to work because  some of them just give up right or it's just not
00:26:29
worth it for the pay that's available is another  states open so the thing that we're gonna have
00:26:33
to figure out is like how many of the people that  are leaving the workforce may never come back and
00:26:38
has a societal toll and weight that we all have  to bear yeah there's gonna be a lot of people
00:26:44
who maybe are in their 60s or maybe even late  50s they got 10 20 years left that they could
00:26:50
be working in management sales whatever it is  and they just say you know what it's not worth
00:26:55
it I'm gonna go try to find a place to stay and  maybe not rejoin the workforce early retirement
00:27:02
or just capitulation yeah well and but you know  remember I said about other shoes dropping I mean
00:27:10
we we're still in the early I think we're still  in the early stages seeing the repercussions of
00:27:15
what you know but to three-month shutdown the  economy you know what what that's gonna look
00:27:21
like and so the you know the wave of defaults  is just beginning and you know who knows what
00:27:27
happens with cities and states and so on down the  line I mean who knows you know does do the debt
00:27:34
markets have kind of an inexhaustible you know  desire for you know to buy US debt or could we
00:27:42
reach some sort of saturation point and then that  triggers the next you know set of crises so we
00:27:49
just don't you know I would say like that the two  to three our outlook is is the one that's kind of
00:27:54
like what it looks like today but if there are  these other big shoes to drop it could turn in
00:28:00
something much worse I think Friedberg we're all  in agreement that there will be a second wave of
00:28:05
some type just depends on how big the spike is do  you think there'll be another new york city level
00:28:10
outbreak where we'll see you know 2,000 people  1,500 people dying in a certain region every day
00:28:16
for some sustained period of time what are the  chance of that happening Freiburg I don't know
00:28:22
I mean I think going forward the you know the  New York situation people's behaviors have been
00:28:27
shocked so you know to the points earlier the most  effective thing you can do is stop coughing on
00:28:32
your hand touching a railing someone else touches  the railing and touches their mouth I mean that's
00:28:35
kind of how this goes you know there's been early  on some weird like arrows stylized aerosolized a
00:28:45
study that kind of said hey this thing spreads in  the air and so on it's really you know you got to
00:28:49
be in a closed kind of confined space if people  are wearing asks now so the likelihood of the
00:28:54
transmission happening at the rate that we saw in  New York great paper out of MIT by the way that
00:28:59
shows how this happened on the subway oh really  identified I did identify the subway as kind of
00:29:04
the primary vector that droves transmission in New  York City that was always my thesis and I remember
00:29:10
talking about it and saying how is this not  obvious to everybody that 8 million people ride
00:29:14
that thing every day or something like it's so I  didn't make they did an incredible job proving it
00:29:18
so it's not like people running in Central Park  or spreading crota virus to each other's everyone
00:29:21
in these confined spaces coughing in the air and  then you kind of get this stuff and 20 people get
00:29:26
on and off at every stop that's the other thing  people don't realize is that it's not just a bunch
00:29:30
of people it's not an aeroplane we have X number  of people going in one direction for three four
00:29:35
five hours this is 20 people getting on and off  every five minutes it's almost like you couldn't
00:29:40
design a better incubator for it and I don't think  a city in the United States approaches the density
00:29:45
that you have in New York so remember these are  not deterministic factors these there's like a
00:29:49
spectrum of a probabilistic spectrum here so you  have a lot of people they have a certain type of
00:29:54
behavior they're not wearing masks you kind of add  these up and you end up with this really high kind
00:29:58
of vector that drives this this rapid spread as  we saw in New York City you know you're not gonna
00:30:03
see that in Dallas you're not gonna see that in  Houston you're not gonna see that in San Diego
00:30:07
you're gonna have more of the slow steady burn as  some risk is taken in the environment some risk
00:30:12
is taken by frat parties and people not wearing  masks and people touching their mouths but it's
00:30:17
not gonna have the same sort of massive effect you  saw in New York so I wouldn't expect us to have a
00:30:21
New York style second wave I do expect there to  continue to be this like slow burn going forward
00:30:27
of new cases and it's certainly going to be more  obvious now that we're testing a lot more and so
00:30:32
Tremont at this point we're basically putting  a price on life and saying hey some amount of
00:30:37
deaths is worth taking the risk and as Americans a  unique group of people in the world in how we look
00:30:44
at personal freedom Americans are just making the  choice hey listen if you don't want to take the
00:30:49
risk stay home but the rest of us if we want to  take the risk we're gonna go take the risk that's
00:30:53
what this has come down to in your mind yeah I  think that it's very difficult for Americans to
00:31:03
envision a world where like you know their  personal freedoms are infringed upon I mean
00:31:07
it's sort of like kind of one of the founding  principles of the entire country this is why I
00:31:12
think that the the tragedy of this thing is that  the the way to get everybody what they want is
00:31:17
so simple as David said it's like you know above  sixty five you stay home you work remotely under
00:31:23
sixty five you temperature check and wear a mask  and you know you're ninety five percent of the way
00:31:27
there but it's become a left versus right decision  to do it you know the mask wearers are still in
00:31:32
a lockdown and the non mask wearers want to get  back to work and basically like there's there's
00:31:37
it's just it's just another kind of culture war  between the left and the right it's it's really
00:31:45
just shocking I mean I might for what it's worth  you know if I was I am a betting man so I'll just
00:31:50
tell you you know my line now is that I think  that Donald Trump is overwhelmingly likely to
00:31:58
win as a function of people's frustration  and about the lock downs and I think that
00:32:03
the Democrats best hope of winning in November  is ending these things sooner rather than later
00:32:08
it's amazing we're talking about a pandemic a  once in a hundred year pandemic it looks like
00:32:14
and we're literally looking at our reaction to it  through the lens of this president being reelected
00:32:21
or not like literally that's the determining  factor on the advice we're giving to people
00:32:25
we're telling people they can't go to the beach  but they can be on an airplane they can't go to
00:32:30
the Tesla factory but they can ride the subway  I mean on a communication basis because they're
00:32:34
any worse way we could have communicated this to  the populace well the communication was bad but
00:32:41
the I think the bigger problem quite honestly  is that the Republican Democratic governors
00:32:46
in the United States can't get on the same page  and at the same time there's just a tendency to
00:32:53
support Donald Trump or not support him in a very  reflexive instinctive way that isn't helpful right
00:32:59
now and and there just doesn't seem to be enough  political wherewithal and courage to just stand up
00:33:05
and do the right thing independent of what your  what your political persuasion is so but but I
00:33:12
think on the margin now I think you have different  but very similar boundary additions to 2016 where
00:33:20
there all these people that kind of like told you  one thing and did another there all these people
00:33:24
right now that probably are you know preference  falsifying as we speak and you know they'll show
00:33:28
up into the voting booth and they'll be angry  if they're not back in their jobs especially
00:33:32
if they've been laid off by his as a result of  not being able to get back and they would blame
00:33:38
that on the Democrats not the Republicans and  therefore Trump gets his next term well because
00:33:43
the the it's it's the democratic states that are  pushing the hardest basically like you know you
00:33:47
saw the craziness in Los Angeles but like you know  Eric Garcetti was basically like we will enter the
00:33:52
shelter in place and you know December of 2022 and  it's like this is it's Los Angeles yeah it's not
00:33:59
gonna happen you know players got a play I mean  like this is just as unbelievable yeah well the
00:34:05
that III do I agree the lockdowns the or the the  unwillingness to end the lockdowns gives Trump an
00:34:14
issue for November assuming this continues that  supersedes the incompetence of the kovat response
00:34:22
which is that you know our lives and livelihoods  are not owned by politicians to you know meter out
00:34:31
and give back to us in drips and drabs and as they  see fit that is the issue that the lockdown crowd
00:34:38
is is giving to Trump and I do think it will if  it's still the issue in November it will supersede
00:34:43
the the you know the initial unconference of  the kovat response and what did you think of
00:34:50
this whole what's the drug that Trump said he  was taking David sacks I draw hydroxyl : yeah
00:34:56
so what or Friedberg maybe you take it we talked  about that early on and that I think you properly
00:35:03
said like if you took it earlier this could be  you know could has potential taking it later
00:35:08
it's probably too late I think you nailed that  on the pod last time why is this become such a
00:35:12
political issue in what are your thoughts on that  drug specifically and its potential efficacy look
00:35:19
I'm not a doctor but it from what I understand is  there is a so just so you know there's like side
00:35:28
effects to this drug for a small percentage of  the population and this drug can actually inhibit
00:35:33
energy production in certain cells which can cause  organs to dysfunction and it particularly shows up
00:35:40
in the heart so people end up with what's called a  long QT interval and potentially some heart issues
00:35:45
that can be pretty dangerous and deadly depending  on your body so it's really a little bit of an
00:35:51
unknown there's also issues longer-term with  with vision impairment can damage your retinal
00:35:55
cells and cause vision loss so there's risk  to this drug it's not like taking you know an
00:36:01
Advil it is a it is a measured risk it's a low  probability but the severity can be high and so
00:36:08
typically with a scenario like that doctors and  scientists like to see you know phased clinical
00:36:14
trials and you kind of do you know randomized  and you have placebo and testing and so that
00:36:20
hasn't necessarily been done for this particular  virus this particular condition and often the the
00:36:25
design of those studies matters a lot so you could  give it to a bunch of quote unquote Ovid patients
00:36:31
but if it's not being given to Kovach patients  either before or right as they're getting sick
00:36:34
maybe it doesn't show the results that you would  expect from a prophylactic treatment meaning
00:36:39
you're getting it before you're really sick and  that's where it may be the most efficacious and
00:36:44
so some people are saying wait we don't know  enough don't do it it's not worth the risk
00:36:47
because of that small percentage high severity  problem while others are saying oh my gosh it's
00:36:52
totally worth the risk is the downside if you get  coronavirus can be really bad and you know and so
00:36:57
so there's a lot of room for debate here and when  there's a lot of room for debate you usually kind
00:37:02
of revert to some sort of base belief or some base  kind of political point of view or something and
00:37:06
I think that's what's going on here this isn't a  clear-cut the Sun is yellow on this guy's balloon
00:37:11
kind of conversation this is like I can interpret  this a lot of different ways it does seem that
00:37:17
like look this drug you know like a lot of has an  effect in the same way that a lot of other that
00:37:23
this drug might have on a lot of other viruses  and this especially plus zinc you know and this
00:37:28
z-pak this as if from icing which is an antibiotic  together may be really effective and so yeah if
00:37:35
you weigh the downside and the probability of that  downside for a patient against what the potential
00:37:39
upside would be depending on their risk factors  now that we know those better for kovat you can
00:37:43
make an educated decision and maybe just be left  in the hands of doctors versus like have some
00:37:48
national statement about it I don't know but yeah  it's certainly a lot of room for debate and thus
00:37:52
a lot of kind of you know political engagement  on this Sax's there's a lot of talk about what
00:38:00
the bay area looks like after this whether it's  commercial real estate with Twitter and square
00:38:05
going full work from home and people not wanting  to work in cities what are your general thoughts
00:38:11
on what the world looks like a year from now  and maybe five years from now if there is going
00:38:16
to be some permanent change what do you think it  would be well there could be a big resource that
00:38:25
I rescind emic it's something we kind of end up  living with but you know so so look if it does I
00:38:34
mean if you're like over 70 are you really gonna  want to stay in a place like New York City or you
00:38:38
don't want to go somewhere else and so I could  imagine if this does become this long-term thing
00:38:43
that's just endemic yeah we don't know if we don't  have a vaccine I could see cities resorting where
00:38:49
you know New York is people who are come full  with ghovat risk and you know it's I think San
00:38:56
Francisco's the the big issue with San Francisco  is that there were always a bunch of reasons not
00:39:03
to want to live there I mean that the city too  seems like chronically mismanaged so he sees
00:39:09
lots of poop the huge homeless problem you know  public health issues with that there's there's
00:39:15
a lot of crime there's and we were responded to  properly so there's all these like reasons not to
00:39:19
live there but the reason why people chose to  live there is because the tech industry had a
00:39:24
very strong network effect and you needed to be in  Silicon Valley or San Francisco in order to have
00:39:30
access to these these jobs and opportunities and  if those jobs opportunities are now available via
00:39:35
zoom and you can be doing them from anywhere are  people still gonna choose to live in San Francisco
00:39:40
you know with you know with the the the cost of  living and housing and apartments and all the
00:39:47
rest of it that that goes that goes along with it  so yeah I mean I think there is some chance that
00:39:53
this whole remote work thing could break Silicon  Valley's Network effect and that would be really
00:39:59
bad for places like San Francisco which you know  otherwise might not be the greatest places to live
00:40:05
yeah I might thesis on this in terms of getting  out of the recession I think remote work could
00:40:13
lead to a level of efficiency and profitability  in the companies that we have never seen before
00:40:19
if you think just about every manager now knows  how to manage remote workers right you learned
00:40:25
that in like three four weeks you figure out how  to manage people remote even people who hated
00:40:31
managing people remote all these Gen Xers and  boomers who are managing you know Millennials
00:40:36
and earlier Gen Xers they now know how to do it  and what they quickly learn is these three or
00:40:42
four people in my team are crushing it these two  or three people don't need to be here they're not
00:40:47
actually adding any value so I think what's  gonna happen is they're gonna cut the bottom
00:40:51
people then they're gonna cut their office space  now you've removed I don't know call it 30% of
00:40:58
the cost basis of a business forty percent in its  operating better and people are happier and then
00:41:03
when you do hire somebody there's gonna be more  talent available and you've just opened it up
00:41:07
that you can hire somebody anywhere in the world  without an office and you don't have to relocate
00:41:13
them and you don't have to pay I don't know what  you guys think the average additional cost is to
00:41:19
be in San Francisco but I'm gonna say $30,000 so  a $40,000 a year job or a $50,000 your job becomes
00:41:25
a 70 or 80 something like that and if all that  happens these companies are gonna be so profitable
00:41:32
that they're gonna start growing and that leads us  out of the economic downturn any thoughts on my my
00:41:38
thesis that's not a thesis that's a hope yeah  hopes not a [ __ ] strategy Jason yeah well I
00:41:45
just think it's a potential way out I think it  I mean what do you think in general about this
00:41:50
trend of remote then drama I think it's great  and I think that we're realizing that you know
00:41:56
there's no monopoly on innovation and companies  can be really productive remotely that most of
00:42:03
the work in an office is busy work and politics  and you can cut it all out and you can do the
00:42:10
same amount of work much less time which gives you  more time to frankly be with your family or take
00:42:15
up a hobby or learn a second language or a third  language I mean I just think it's so much better
00:42:20
for people to realize like we got a you know it's  it's not like you you know it's not it's not 1820
00:42:26
or 1920 it's 2020 so we're gonna live to a hundred  years old like we have a long time to be in the
00:42:33
grind and so you know working and accomplishing  what you used to in half the time and not having
00:42:40
to commute and being able to live where you want  your people you like man that has a huge positive
00:42:46
impact to your kids you your community it's just  way better I just think offices are just complete
00:42:57
kind of like it's all Shakespearean theatre  at the end and cutting it all out is great and
00:43:01
specifically San Francisco's just a complete  cesspool dump of [ __ ] and so you know being
00:43:07
able to just get out of that city all right  everybody welcome to the you're listening to
00:43:12
the Oliver I read on stats yesterday that were  just so unbelievably shocking like the number of
00:43:18
break-ins the number of number one in the country  they're number one in the country did the the
00:43:24
amount of disease that like communicable disease  like typhoid and I'm like typhoid I was born in a
00:43:32
country and scratched and clawed to emigrate as a  refugee to leave a country that had typhoid as a
00:43:39
disease welcome o to survive nothing to end up  back in that in San Francisco thats brought it
00:43:45
with you that's an absolute joke so yeah yeah I  mean the idea that I'd never have to go to San
00:43:51
Francisco ever again is oh my god it brings joy to  me it is a it's an unmitigated disaster this and
00:43:58
I think this will be part of the boom-bust cycle  that you know David you were part of when you here
00:44:02
at Stanford you know getting an office in San  Francisco or having an apartment it was cheaper
00:44:07
I think in the city than it was down in Palo Alto  wasn't not well back in yeah when we move the amur
00:44:12
to San Francisco which was 2009 I think we were  able to get space for $20 a foot per year crazy
00:44:19
that's what I paid 2007 I read it I read it I read  a crazy article it was about the Kushner's and
00:44:29
this building that they own that Brookfield Asset  Management was gonna buy and and it said that they
00:44:36
bought this building and so the Kushner's moved  to like Park Avenue the General Motors building
00:44:40
overlooking Central Park or something right it's  a beautiful building and it actually quoted in
00:44:46
there the price that they were paying and it was  incredible because it was like a hundred bucks
00:44:50
a square foot per year and I realized oh my god  they're paying less for Central Park views in New
00:44:57
York than I'm paying for a warehouse in Palo Alto  not as a [ __ ] is going on this makes no sense
00:45:03
whatsoever gotta be supply and demand right there  and I thought to myself like this is this is crazy
00:45:09
like California is so expensive the taxes are so  high it's I think people are gonna leave in droves
00:45:16
honestly what do we think of Elon selling all his  homes and then actually saying he's gonna leaving
00:45:23
you know move tests out I mean I don't think it's  a practical reality to move Tesla out of out of
00:45:30
California I think that the incremental facilities  can be built wherever he wants him to be built
00:45:35
based on where he gets a tax incentives well but I  think the Tesla Freemont was a really good example
00:45:41
of this sort of like cultural war that's going  on this this political battle over lock downs
00:45:46
and you know you had kind of a mid-level health  the department bureaucrat in Fremont had locking
00:45:54
their factory and saying they couldn't go back to  work whereas if he was in Texas he could and then
00:46:00
you know around the same time yet this whole like  Chile Luthor thing in Texas where she was a small
00:46:05
business owner you know owns a like a haircut  place and she was basically put in jail for a week
00:46:13
for giving somebody a haircut and there was like  a you know dust-up over that so you know I I think
00:46:20
that like you know the the country is certainly  ready to get back to work and and if this is the
00:46:25
political debate you know in November I'm not sure  we'll be because six months is a really long time
00:46:30
from now but there was it four or five months but  if this is a political debate I you know this this
00:46:36
will be the way that the Trump gets re-elected  mm-hmm yeah I think there's gonna be some pretty
00:46:43
significant benefits because the reaction you guys  are speaking to it's not just about people moving
00:46:48
but it's a reaction to a regulation and that could  have some pretty profound effect that to benefit
00:46:57
certain sectors and businesses and accelerate new  outcomes one of the things that you know I have a
00:47:04
strong belief in it's like I think in 20 years we  could kind of eradicate all infectious disease the
00:47:10
only thing holding that up is regulation because  the science is known the engineering is basically
00:47:15
there and it's simply a function of getting these  things approved in getting across the finish line
00:47:19
doing gene editing and humans for genetic  mutations that cause harm to humans this is
00:47:25
a technique that we've known for twenty years and  there was a guy a patient that died in 1999 from
00:47:32
one of the first AAV treatments that viral vector  gene-editing treatments after that there was this
00:47:37
clamp down and suddenly everything stopped and  there was like no longer any progress in this
00:47:42
space and they're just now starting to come back  and there's a lot of you know really interesting
00:47:48
technology that has been kind of hindered I mean  you know not being able to put Tesla's out I
00:47:53
think is the tip of the iceberg of what people  are seeing regulation can do to business and
00:47:58
look I'm I'm by no stretch you know a libertarian  party card carrier but I do think and I see it in
00:48:06
businesses that I'm involved in all the time that  this you know incredibly onerous like overreaching
00:48:12
regulatory burden and bureaucrats really hinder  great new things from happening in the world and
00:48:19
it's just become so friggin apparent how inept  the people are that are making the decisions that
00:48:23
are doing this to us are during this crisis and I  think it could have a profound benefit on kind of
00:48:29
deregulation and accelerating the adoption of new  tools and new technologies that could really help
00:48:35
us all so I view the positive side of this it's  not just like everyone's gonna leave California
00:48:40
like this inept bureaucrats and over-regulation  everywhere let's talk to you politics for a moment
00:48:45
shamatha you know you heard the president called  the wuhan virus obviously there's no doubt that
00:48:51
it came from there there is a debate was this  something that was not created in a lab but that
00:48:56
was being studied in the lab and accidentally got  out and that's how the jump happened and there's
00:49:01
some tension there between China and the US what  do you think the global reaction is going to be
00:49:06
and the fallout will be for China if any Japan is  paying factories I read and help me subsidize them
00:49:14
to move factories out of China so they can move  that dependency we always saw the dependency on
00:49:18
PPE and drugs being made actually in Wuhan in that  area and how we don't have a supply chain that we
00:49:25
can rely on for really mission-critical stuff  how will we look at this Chinese relationship
00:49:29
in the United States and globally post pandemic  this is the beginning of the modern Cold War and
00:49:37
so it's America versus China except that China is  a much more worthy adversary for us than the USSR
00:49:49
SSR was at their peak and the reason is because  China has been making strategic investments for
00:49:57
the last thirty years you know the biggest thing  that prevents China from really going guns blazing
00:50:03
broadside attack on the US is that the u.s.  dollar is still the reserve currency of the
00:50:07
world but even there China you know is trying to  do a digital currency and a stable coin and these
00:50:14
are all these state-sponsored initiatives that  come from frankly just strategic decision-making
00:50:19
to try to usurp the United States as the most  powerful country in the world and so again it
00:50:26
goes back to is this a political issue or is this  an ideological issue or is this an exceptionalism
00:50:31
issue or is just as the practical reality that we  do not want another country being number one and
00:50:36
can we all agree and if we can all agree then  I don't think they'll win where do you where
00:50:43
do you sit on it for you is it practical as an  ideological completely practical I have zero
00:50:48
like yeah you know I've been thinking about this  a lot because I have not done any investments and
00:50:54
I just did by first oh so it's been three months  and I did it was a credit deal so it's not even
00:51:00
equity and you know I was and I was reflecting on  what what am I trying to do because I felt myself
00:51:09
frenetically you know spending and working too  much and you know looking at all these different
00:51:15
opportunities and I realized wait a minute like my  job here is not to win some finite game like this
00:51:21
is not ending like a basketball game or a soccer  match this is like I'm trying to be in this thing
00:51:25
for 50 years so my goal is to survive and the  reason why I say that is my ideology is very fluid
00:51:33
I have to be able to adapt to market conditions  as they change because if I want to be irrelevant
00:51:37
you know person in the world and 50 years from  now first rule of business is don't go out of
00:51:43
business second rule of businesses don't forget  rule number one run you know so in that context
00:51:49
I think it's a very practical thing that we just  have to deal with China and make sure that they do
00:51:54
not use syrup America's standing in the world as  the most important country of the world just for
00:52:01
me it's ideological I just don't want a communist  country I don't care but that is torturing their
00:52:06
citizens as the number one how do you in the world  I think it's really dangerous I have a real issue
00:52:10
with this like I don't think you have the right  to judge just like Californians can't judge Texans
00:52:15
and Texans can't judge Floridians oh no it's that  you're wrong you absolutely should judge people
00:52:20
know are torturing people and not allowing people  that freedom of speech yeah you should judge them
00:52:25
actually actually to human rights violations I  think you should judge people I I think that we
00:52:30
there's there's a lot of that stuff in America  that you stay silent no that's not true I am
00:52:34
absolutely for cannabis anybody who's arrested for  cannabis violations and low-level drug things I
00:52:39
think we they should be let out of Freight out  of jail just like JB Pritzker did in Chicago
00:52:44
I mean and I think the death penalty should be  repealed too because we don't apply it properly
00:52:47
those are the number one and two things probably  the United States that go against the human rights
00:52:52
the Declaration of Human Rights and I'm actually  very Pro fixing those things I was totally against
00:52:58
waterboarding and I think that was the worst  moment in my in American history hiya I honestly
00:53:02
I honestly think that like China's gonna do China  you know India is gonna be India and instead of
00:53:08
getting caught up in our own ideology you should  change it in your own country and then make sure
00:53:16
that the other country doesn't win well and  that's my point is do do you believe engagement
00:53:21
with China leads them towards democracy and better  human rights conditions for their citizens or not
00:53:25
and I think the fool's errand that is an absolute  it worked for East Berlin and it did work and
00:53:31
saving Europe from the Nazis so that the boundary  conditions are entirely different and China has
00:53:35
proven that it works Europeans were genetically  bred to be lazy oligarchs okay everybody I think
00:53:44
we just got kicked out of the iTunes Store saxy  poo yeah China hawk-dove engagement isolation
00:53:52
where do you stand you heard Sharma say his  position where do you stand yeah decoupling from
00:53:58
China is gonna be a bipartisan issue now I think  but both can it's now will be well Trump is gonna
00:54:05
is gonna run blaming China for for what happened  and I don't think Y is gonna be defending China in
00:54:14
fact they're gonna try and pecking with the whole  Beijing Biden label and he's Paul Guinea to try
00:54:19
and out Trump Trump on on China so decoupling is  gonna happen it doesn't really make sense for us
00:54:25
to be dependent on China for our antibiotics  for our medicines for our PPE for it you know
00:54:31
any of these you know any of these products that  are important for national survival I think all
00:54:39
that stuff is gonna come back home I think you  know trading with them for other things might
00:54:44
be poison all things had to start fundamentally  strategic the same way I think that can continue
00:54:51
but you know the thing about trade is it creates  interdependence and I don't think that this
00:54:58
country's going to want to be dependent on China  for anything strategic anymore two questions for
00:55:02
you David what is China's liability if any at this  point with this pandemic obviously if they you
00:55:11
know didn't they withheld information or silenced  whistleblowers that's a whole different level and
00:55:16
then tick tock should we allowed to talk in this  country should we if we're not allowed to have
00:55:24
Facebook or Twitter in China take those questions  either what do you want well the on liability I
00:55:30
mean I think yeah the reliability is is huge I  mean there's still a bunch of questions we got
00:55:37
a answer around where exactly the virus came from  but the the really fateful decision that I think
00:55:44
China made is when they shut down travel to Wuhan  to and from Wuhan you know with respect to other
00:55:53
parts of China but they let people from Wuhan just  kind of you know leave to go all over the world
00:55:59
and so you know they weren't letting people from  Wuhan go to other parts of China but they were
00:56:06
able to come to the US and so I think they do have  a huge liability but are we gonna hold them to it
00:56:13
no I mean as a practical matter you know we're not  gonna you know it'd be it'd be a mistake to to try
00:56:21
and change the principal sovereign immunity and  the courts but I think in terms of popular opinion
00:56:26
they do have they're not there ways to there are  other ways to quote-unquote punish them like I
00:56:32
mean and the US is already doing it so you know  for example the u.s. is limiting and constraining
00:56:36
kua ways ability to get access to 5g and so you  know it really forces China to either by European
00:56:43
and American equipment which is essentially  to say that you know the the five eyes will be
00:56:47
able to basically spy into China or they have to  basically you know storm into Taiwan and take over
00:56:54
TSMC I mean so there are there are all these other  gambits and strategies that one can take without
00:57:00
getting ideology ideologically caught up and you  know Chinese human rights because they're not
00:57:05
going to change yeah I mean look all wealth comes  from trade you know whether it's at the level of
00:57:12
individuals or nations wealth comes from trade  and so it'd be silly for us to say that we're
00:57:17
just never gonna have trade with China but I think  that you know trade also creates interdependence
00:57:23
and so we're not gonna I don't think continue to  engage in to depend on them for thing as an idol
00:57:28
to our national survival and so you know that  that's gonna be the change and the other thing
00:57:33
is you know we're gonna demand that the trade be  more reciprocal take the tic-tock example well you
00:57:40
know what we're probably gonna happen is that the  the tic-tock will probably be caught up in some
00:57:44
larger negotiation and you know is the quid pro  quo well test like SS all cars in China and tick
00:57:51
tock has to operate in the u.s. maybe but you  know III don't think tick tock it sort of falls
00:57:58
into the you know necessary for national survival  category so it really falls into the reciprocity
00:58:05
you know principle and the question I guess will  be are we getting enough in return to allow them
00:58:11
to operate here and I think that's the way that  all this commerce is gonna is gonna start working
00:58:15
and that's the thing at least we can like confront  our hypocrisy so Jason I don't disagree with you
00:58:20
about how you know gross the human rights record  is I just think it's a joke that we all sort of
00:58:26
like cry foul like it's like the biggest thing  in the world when we can't even clean up our own
00:58:31
yard and then meanwhile we continue to trade  with them that's just utterly utterly yeah so
00:58:34
that's why I think we have to continue to work  on cleaning our backyard while continuing to
00:58:40
innovate and find our own backyard meanwhile win  the game against China and winning the game is not
00:58:45
basically pushing for human rights reforms it's  making sure as David said we have a better trade
00:58:50
balance and making and making sure that like you  know that the critical parts of the supply chain
00:58:54
and infrastructure that America needs for national  security isn't dependent on a third party who have
00:58:59
completely different incentives than we do and  then there's also like soft things like why is
00:59:04
the you know why are we taking American movies  and changing the ends in order to have them sold
00:59:11
in China like they're literally corrupting our  art and that incremental dollar that Hollywood's
00:59:17
getting or whichever you know person trading with  China is getting I think it's not worth giving up
00:59:21
what makes America unique and a leader in the  world Freiberg you thoughts on China there's
00:59:25
about a hundred and twelve million people in  China that work in factories factories in China
00:59:31
are purpose-built so they're built to make a thing  and then they got to get retooled if you want to
00:59:36
make another thing you take those two facts it's  very hard to kind of replace China that's a source
00:59:43
of production for a lot of what we consume in this  country that's the reality so there's two ways you
00:59:50
could go and then there's two kind of necessities  and you end up with a matrix of like two by two
00:59:55
you could be couple from China and basically  recreate that same production system here in
01:00:02
the United States and that just wouldn't [ __ ] be  possible like we don't have enough people to work
01:00:06
we don't have the ability to do that the cost of  everything would go up by 5x we could invent new
01:00:12
systems of production which we have the ability  to 3d printing bio manufacturing all these other
01:00:18
kind of really interesting ways of making stuff  that could replace the old factories that are run
01:00:22
in China similar to kind of what maybe Elon has  tried to do with his automated you know factory
01:00:28
with Tesla and so through automation through 3d  printing through bio manufacturing you can kind
01:00:33
of change the methods of doing this stuff if we  could do that then we could be couple from China
01:00:37
so the reality is like I don't know like how we  continue to consume things at the you know it's
01:00:44
a percentage of wallet chair for that come from  China without rebuilding how you make stuff no
01:00:49
but that's the whole point by the way I think the  reason why that's valuable is that that's the best
01:00:53
way for us to actually get back to an inflationary  psycho as well so I completely agree with you it
01:00:59
is incredibly inefficient it'll be incredibly  costly but that's where I think you shift the
01:01:03
balance of power so that instead of all the powers  sitting on the side of Capitol you shifted to the
01:01:10
side of labor labor demands for wages and then all  of a sudden cost go up input cost go up prices go
01:01:17
up inflation exists and that fixes a lot of our  debt problems it fixes our deflationary supercycle
01:01:23
it fixes a lot of things and so so if things got  more expensive it would be good for vehicle yeah
01:01:29
even but even look even with maximal like looked  at replaced 112 million workers in China with some
01:01:36
number of Americans you know I'm not sure you  could make all the stuff you need to make here
01:01:41
yeah I mean there's other countries too I mean  I think people are moving factor Japanese or
01:01:47
moving factories to Taiwan and Vietnam yeah yeah  but if we create new methods of production which
01:01:51
were uniquely positioned to do we can completely  reinvent the wheel at a lot of industries and
01:01:56
actually produce for the world yeah right now you  know China exports physical goods the US exports
01:02:02
of virtual goods and if we want to get into the  business of making physical goods we have to just
01:02:07
do it 10x better we have the ability to do that  we just got to get the [ __ ] will so if I were
01:02:11
to take three trillion dollars of federal money  and you know Treasury bonds and hope that they
01:02:16
don't turn into junk bonds I would basically turn  that money into reinventing the systems of like
01:02:21
how do we made stuff using these new technologies  that the u.s. is uniquely positioned to capitalize
01:02:25
on and you know I love this one read Burghley  one u.s. we're having to make a could make the
01:02:30
same thing that a hundred Chinese workers right  there you go I love it that's and I think that's
01:02:34
where we got to an hour into this Freiberg  you win you got the best and the hottest tag
01:02:39
you know a group is if we are gonna bring back  manufacturing let's leapfrog it let's just go
01:02:44
let's just you don't have to keep letting a make  you know socks or iPhones but you know let's make
01:02:51
the next automated factories and the 3d printing  factories here and by a manufacturer anybody have
01:02:56
anybody have anything they need to promote or  plug at the end of the podcast anything they're
01:02:59
working on that people should know about no but  I love you guys I [ __ ] miss you I wanted to
01:03:04
kiss all of you on the belt Wow just exactly what  I was thinking sure Martha I was about to so back
01:03:10
at you I've been I've been locked down for three  months I'm lost my mind I mean this is May 12th
01:03:16
for me and I think we all got to go to Mexico  and see Sachs for a yeah let's add some friends
01:03:22
come down and we play golf and no one wore masks  within our little circle and nobody got sick and
01:03:28
you know and you're all be tested we haven't been  tested but we don't know any symptoms I got tested
01:03:35
twice negative both times and it was a very weird  thing because I'm think I'm Freiburg correct me if
01:03:41
I'm wrong I would I should be rooting that I had  it and it didn't do anything to me right totally
01:03:46
by the way let me just say one more thing that's  a really interesting finding this paper came out
01:03:52
a few days ago that shows that 40 to 60% of the  population that has never been exposed to SARS
01:03:58
coronavirus to the current corn virus already have  activated t-cells to the virus and the reason is
01:04:04
that they've had other coronaviruses there  were common cold and they've developed this
01:04:10
immune response so this may explain why a large  percentage of people are just so asymptomatic and
01:04:14
totally fine it's a pretty astounding finding  and so you could get checked for those other
01:04:20
antibodies or you know B's B's activated t-cells  and know if you're in a good position to kind
01:04:25
of ward off the microRNA Larson that's another  thing we should probably do that's 60% of people
01:04:29
that already have this by the way that won't stop  the spreading that person will still get infected
01:04:34
and spread but they're you know immune response  is such that they'll shut the thing down pretty
01:04:39
quickly so would you call this like some parallel  or shadow herd immunity or individual immunity
01:04:46
its individual immunity and it's related to just  process reactivity with other coronaviruses and
01:04:52
so we've already developed it immune response  to other Crona viruses that gives us seem like
01:04:55
seemingly a pretty good response to this corona  virus for you know more than half ok veedu
01:05:00
population on a percentage basis how how much do  we know about this virus just as we wrap up here
01:05:07
if you had to state a percentage of like in two  years we're gonna know a hundred percent or ninety
01:05:12
percent about the virus whatever it is what do we  know now we know everything about the virus itself
01:05:19
we are very like like with any virus we know very  little about how it effects a specific human based
01:05:26
on their genotype meaning based on your health and  your your genes here's what this virus is gonna do
01:05:32
to your body and we're not going to know that  in two years and we're not gonna know that we
01:05:35
don't know that for most viruses for humans today  the matching of genotype to genotype of viral but
01:05:40
I've if we understand X amount about the HIV virus  or Ebola what do we know now if you Jimmy maybe a
01:05:48
bola would be the best one like we have pretty  good knowledge of that after X number of years
01:05:52
what do we know now and a percentage basis of  course we had to guess I get we we know everything
01:05:56
about the virus itself like 100 percent or okay  about this yeah the human response to the virus
01:06:01
and why it's called yeah these weird symptoms  with different people and so on yeah I'd say
01:06:05
we're probably I don't know forty percent thirty  percent we've kind of mapped the outcome but we
01:06:10
haven't mapped the progress to the outcome in the  human body all right listen great job mouth great
01:06:15
job David Sachs great job David Freiburg if you  want to subscribe to the podcast type in all in
01:06:20
with trim off and love you guys besties yeah all  right shuffle up and deal can't wait to see that
01:06:28
new table and let's get back to where you goddamn  masks people wear a mask wear a mask okay be safe

Episode Highlights

  • Life in Quarantine
    The hosts discuss their mental health and adjustments during quarantine.
    “It's really tough, really, really tough.”
    @ 05m 27s
    May 21, 2020
  • Pandemic Optimism
    Chumoff expresses optimism about overcoming the pandemic within two years.
    “I think we're gonna kick its ass.”
    @ 08m 57s
    May 21, 2020
  • The Politics of Lockdowns
    The discussion shifts to the politicization of lockdown measures and public health.
    “It's been a huge disappointment of how political this whole thing is.”
    @ 10m 11s
    May 21, 2020
  • Economic Disparity
    The stock market is thriving while the real economy suffers. 'The real economy is in the toilet.'
    “The real economy is in the toilet.”
    @ 23m 45s
    May 21, 2020
  • Recovery Outlook
    Experts predict a long recovery process, possibly lasting two to three years.
    “It's probably going to be a two to three year process to get out of this.”
    @ 25m 21s
    May 21, 2020
  • Political Lens on Pandemic
    The pandemic response is viewed through a political lens, affecting public behavior.
    “It's shocking how we're viewing a pandemic through a political lens.”
    @ 32m 14s
    May 21, 2020
  • The Cost of Living in California
    The rising costs in California are driving people away, with many questioning the future of business there.
    “California is so expensive, the taxes are so high.”
    @ 45m 09s
    May 21, 2020
  • Eradicating Infectious Disease
    A bold prediction suggests that with less regulation, we could eradicate infectious diseases in 20 years.
    “I think in 20 years we could kind of eradicate all infectious disease.”
    @ 47m 04s
    May 21, 2020
  • Engagement with China
    The debate on whether engagement with China will lead to better human rights conditions continues.
    “Do you believe engagement with China leads them towards democracy?”
    @ 53m 21s
    May 21, 2020
  • Understanding Virus Impact
    Experts discuss the limited knowledge of how the virus affects individuals based on genetics.
    “We know very little about how it affects a specific human based on their genotype.”
    @ 01h 05m 19s
    May 21, 2020
  • Estimating Knowledge Progress
    A percentage estimate of our understanding of the virus's effects on humans.
    “We're probably... thirty percent we've kind of mapped the outcome.”
    @ 01h 06m 05s
    May 21, 2020

Episode Quotes

  • It's really tough, really, really tough.
    E3: Modern Cold War, politicizing the pandemic & more with David Sacks & David Friedberg
  • Why is this such a big deal?
    E3: Modern Cold War, politicizing the pandemic & more with David Sacks & David Friedberg
  • We're basically putting a price on life.
    E3: Modern Cold War, politicizing the pandemic & more with David Sacks & David Friedberg
  • Offices are just complete Shakespearean theatre.
    E3: Modern Cold War, politicizing the pandemic & more with David Sacks & David Friedberg
  • I think in 20 years we could kind of eradicate all infectious disease.
    E3: Modern Cold War, politicizing the pandemic & more with David Sacks & David Friedberg
  • We know very little about how it affects a specific human based on their genotype.
    E3: Modern Cold War, politicizing the pandemic & more with David Sacks & David Friedberg

Key Moments

  • Quarantine Check-In01:10
  • Mental Health Struggles05:33
  • Pandemic Optimism08:57
  • Political Disappointment10:11
  • Lockdown Effectiveness18:41
  • Recovery Predictions25:21
  • California's High Costs45:09
  • Percentage Estimate1:06:05

Tension Over Time

Words per Minute Over Time

Vibes Breakdown