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hey everybody welcome back besties are back
and it's a bestie spax giving congratulations
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to the queen of quinoa his second company david
freeburg announces today hours before the taping
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of this special thanksgiving pod that he is taking
metro mile public through us back and that best ec
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and here is the quote that as only chamath can
tweet buffett had geico i picked metro miles
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i would just like to say that's how you
move markets uh lebron james has three rings
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uh freeburg tell us what is metro mile uh and um
well this isn't a self-promoting podcast is it i
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mean no no but i think it's just you know it's
your second company i started the company in
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2011 when i was running climate when i was the
ceo there and um you know we were climate was
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offering insurance at the time we learned a lot
about the insurance markets and figured like hey
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you know telematics or connecting cars to the
internet is going to be a big deal and we're
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going to be able to completely change the auto
insurance industry so we set up this company i
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was the chairman from the founding in 2011 and
you know been been chairman and i've been an
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active investor in the business in every round
since then um so the business has built some uh
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you know really compelling uh value proposition
for customers and you know it's got really good
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unit economics and it's um you know needed its
last round of capital to get profitable and turns
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out you know as we were thinking about that this
summer that a stack was a really good path for the
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business given the inflection point it's at um and
the basic premise of the business is instead of
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paying for insurance by month or time period the
innovation here is you pay per mile yeah insurance
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today is like you know you fill out a form and
you get a price for insurance you pay that rate
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for six months of coverage but you know depending
on when you're driving and how much you're driving
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you should be paying a different price right so
we we kind of changed the model to a rate per mile
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and so if you don't drive you save you know
so the average customer doesn't drive a lot
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with metro mile they save 47 over what they were
paying with like geico or progressive reassurance
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uh and you do that with that odb port it's like
a little plug-in device and increasingly we're
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actually doing it directly by connecting to
cars direct through ford and a couple other
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big automotive oems now have this ability
to send the data directly out of the car
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because they're all internet connected now
so um so that allows us to just basically
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you know see how many miles you're driving and the
rate per mile is what we bill you each month times
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the number of miles you drove on your on your
car and you you didn't mention how you drive
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i think that was a controversial concept for
a while you know if you speed if you're right
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is that on the roadmap yeah that is part of it
today but frankly 70 of the price difference you
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get in auto insurance is from the number of miles
you drive and only 30 percent is really in this
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variance around behavior you know most people are
generally pretty good drivers so believe it or not
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so the real variance in terms of you know your
risk to the insurance companies how many miles
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you drive so that really is the predominant factor
so if we can accurately track that now what's
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interesting is like in a world of autonomous
cars where you're like turning on the car
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to be autonomous or fully self-driving
at some point you know it's on and off you should be getting a different rate
for those miles right so if the car is
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if your tesla is on autopilot on the freeway
that should be safer than you on the freeway
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you shouldn't be paying as much even better you
can you can kind of think about how this moves
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into a world where everything is dynamically
priced and dynamically built usage priced yeah
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usage price and that and also fair so you know if
you're a good driver and you're driving well or if
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you're using autonomous features you shouldn't
pay as much and ultimately that translates
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uh you know into a truly kind of more dynamic
service and that's really where the world has to
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go because those low mileage drivers or those good
drivers or those drivers using autonomous features
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should be paying considerably less so they'll
start using our service and that'll force the
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other guys to raise their rates and it creates
this huge you know kind of market mode um great
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we're in that we're in the we're in the very
early days i mean it's like the first inning still
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so we're you know we're we're just getting going
chimav you chose to do a pipe um with the spac
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explain to the audience what a pipe is people
don't know and what you loved about metro mile
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sure um i think the uh what what is a pipe a pipe
is a a private investment in a public enterprise
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and basically what that means um is that uh you're
making the round bigger right so it's kind of like
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sequoia does your series a and invest 10 million
i would come in and put another 10 million and
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now your series a is 20 million um same terms as
the um as sequoyah's round except you're now just
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grossing up the amount of capital um why are why
is that helpful well what it does is it allows
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somebody to price the deal so in this case david's
back sponsor priced the deal did the diligence and
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decided to underwrite metro mile at that price and
then they came to me and said hey um you know do
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you want to come and join this round essentially
and um i got to know the business um a lot
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of things that david said basically are true
the the thing that i will say is like you know
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everybody talks about um the value of machine
learning right and data oriented learning
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um the most obvious thing that you can do is
if you learn on top of a huge subset of data
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especially out in the real world like driving
data or any other kind of information is you
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should be taking risk on top of it and this
is why sort of these next generation insurance
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companies to me are so interesting because
it's probably where you're going to see
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machine learning um be used that just massive
massive scale because you're just gonna reprice
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risk and make it as david said much more dynamic
so anyways they showed it to me i um i really
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like the the product the metrics are uh really
amazing and so um i joined it's great i'm really
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excited for i'm really excited for uh friedberg
yeah congratulations great jamaat and i've never
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worked on anything together so it's awesome we're
doing our first project here on the all in podcast
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together all right so it sounds like a brilliant
idea and i'm just pissed so i'm not part of it
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i know i'm feeling like i i read i read that
like you're from me and sax yeah jason do you
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know about this i don't know anything i get i'm
the latest cut out of it first we're both out of
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it i need to get my beak wet you two we got the
wet thorpe can't get my beak you two narcissistic
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besties have been have been running around all day
touting every single unicorn you guys a bit of fun
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and robin hood i missed my allocation or uber
or whatever yeah all right new bestie rule new
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bestie rule everybody gets a slice even a little
tasty poo everybody gets their beak like the old
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neighborhood like the old neighborhood back a
little share let's jason why don't you start
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an angel listen ticket for every all-in podcast
listener yes all in podcast syndicate it will
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be on the syndicate.com ageless but yeah okay
yeah we'll do it we'll do with us into kit.com
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all in podcast and then we'll aggregate all
these uh subscribers can i just say twenty
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percent carry and you guys can suggest ideas we'll
do zero carry and we'll allow all the listeners
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to participate in our deals which i think would
be pretty cool um yeah listen i love how every
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time you loop my business into this whether it's
podcasting or syndicates you take out the money
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and the process i tell you what i have an idea
how about we spec this week in startups and uh
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you do it for no participation i'm the father of
growth you know how you grow by making things free
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you want to maximize demand just make
it free by the way uh on this topic uh sexy poo had this incredible tweet
this week which was basically like
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wow this is like my 95th uh unicorn that went
that filed to go public i mean literally every
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single unicorn that filed the speak tickle public
sacks was an angel investor which is incredible
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but the best follow-up to eat was zach weinberg
the co-founder of flatiron health whose tweet was
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i just want to congratulate myself on nothing for
having not been a part of any of these companies
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i would like to congratulate myself for making no
bets and taking no risk and getting no reward no
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i thought i thought zach's tweet was the best
sex don't you find it tiring like all these
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investments that you've made like don't these guys
call you and want to do meetings and chat all the
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time i mean you know this has got to be like a
huge amount of effort right well not not not i
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mean not just put the money in and turn around
well you know if you're not on the board your
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obligation is basically to respond when somebody
asks you for something and as an angel investor
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it is a little different when you're actually
like leading around and you're a board member
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i was making these investments back in 2012
2013 that's when these seeds were planted right
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these were 50k 100k 250k checks right so the
responsibilities proportional to the dollar amount
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so somewhere a little bigger than that
actually but um i mean i've written i've
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written checks you know seven figure checks in
some of these companies well sex according to
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your personal balance sheet that we got from
your accountants this week yeah phil hellmuth
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we see here a transaction for houzz is it true
you did the series b of houzz the entire series b
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no no i heard it was you led the series no no nea led that round i mean i invested
a lot as an individual i did co-lead um
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the series b or c of atapar um that was one that
i did as an individual that's incredible yeah
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that's amazing gonna be huge i have no idea
what that company is but that sounds awesome
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they manage funds they do portfolio software
yeah it's coming up on you know 100 million
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i'm just kidding i'm totally
kidding i'm totally kidding let's start the pod jkl where are we gonna start
well i mean i think now that we've also promoted
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exactly well i'm just happy to hear that that
jason was cut out of your deal as much as me when
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i yeah when i read about it on twitter i'm like i
better not be the only best to cut out this thing
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all right you're right you're totally you're
right you're right it is it is getting awkward
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now because people who watch this podcast
assume that we do everything together like
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literally they're like well you guys go grocery
shopping together you go on vacation together
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you guys live in the same time house yeah it's
that's not how it works um i i think the first
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thing we should we should talk about is just this
amazing uh moment in time when because of science
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you know in this podcast started during the
pandemic we have had as predicted by freeburg who
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gets to take two victory laps he said by the end
of the year we'd have vaccines and they would have
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because of this mrna if i remember
correctly 90 95 efficacy and sure enough the week after trump uh wins i'm sorry loses sorry
sacks he lost actually um the week after trump
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lost i know you didn't vote for him um the week
after he lost modern a pfizer then the next week
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moderna and then the next week oxford and
i understand johnson johnson is about to
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announce something and all of these have 90
to 95 percent efficacy and that they're going
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to be 40 50 and 60 million doses in december
january and february just from the first two
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in america alone so friedberg if you were to
put a number on when herd immunity hits because
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probably 20 or 30 percent of people have had it 20
30 percent of people have um some natural immunity
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how long is this going to take and could we be
out of be doing this from you know a warriors game
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next year when are we going to be able to do this
in person i think i don't know if it was test yeah
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i don't know if it was fouchy or someone that's
closer to the operation shared that they do think
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they can get 70 of americans immunized by may so
um my may yeah so you know if you'll remember a
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few podcasts ago i think i tried to explain a big
part of the budget that went into this operation
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warp speed was to parallelize production of
these vaccines while they were being tested
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and so we've been scaling up the production
and the manufacturing of these and if they
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weren't going to work we're just going to crash
them right a couple billion dollars who cares
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it's a good option for the american people
so we've got a ton of doses that have been
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produced it's about packaging and distribution
now and that's you know supposed to be kind of
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underway with the plan to be that on december
11th or 12th when they uh give the emergency
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use authorization these doses start showing up
uh we went all in we basically went all in blind
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like we just shoved the chips in and said we're
gonna make these vaccines even you know if they're
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not like it's more like a spray and pray um angel
investment portfolio you know we we bought uh a
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but we bought like four different things or five
different things we made it bets in all of them
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and hope that one of them pays off and it turns
out they're all going to pay off so you know or
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or chunk of them are going to pay off and we get
to have them ready you know in time to kind of
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make a difference here now all that being said if
you look at the case numbers in the us right now
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we could be as high as 30 percent of the american
people have already been infected with coronavirus
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based on some estimates so as of the june 30th
paper that was published from those dialysis
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patients and they did a pretty good statistical
interpretation of looking at antibodies in
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people's blood they estimate 10 of the american
population was infected by coronavirus as of
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june 30th and then if you look at the number of
people that have been infected since then and you
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apply this similar sort of multiple that you would
assume based on tests you know there's an estimate
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that we could already be up to 30 percent
of the u.s population has been infected wow
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and therefore immune and they're theoretically
mostly immune let's just say that right and
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so sure there's anecdotes and so on
but yeah let's just say generally yes immune and so you combine that with these vaccines
starting to roll out and we get you know a pretty
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kind of comfortable position in terms of the
pandemic and hopefully a couple of months here
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and that's why the market's going nuts and that's
why everyone i mean i don't know about you guys
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but i got some conference invites this last week
for conferences for next year that have been
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canceled this year and we're being put on
hold yeah so oh wow people are starting to
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lean for what time frame third quarter or fourth
quarter uh summer july yeah so people are now
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assuming that and they're booking hotel spaces
based on it that is extraordinary sacks you shared
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this new york times story why don't you
summarize it for the audience and i'd love
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to get your thoughts in addition to this as to
what this recovery might look like if in fact
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we have more vaccine than we need and even you
know a reasonable number of americans take it
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and don't believe that it's a conspiracy theory by
bill gates to control and the illuminati and all
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that stuff yeah i mean this new york times story
is pretty remarkable it's called politics science
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and the remarkable race for a coronavirus vaccine
this came out i think it just came out today in
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the new york times actually sorry it's published
it published november 21st updated november 24th
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um and it's pretty remarkable it describes
the effort by operation warp speed by the
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administration by pfizer by maduro and that kind
of gives you the behind the scenes play-by-play
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and reading the article you have to come away
thinking that the trump administration did
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a pretty good job with this whole warp speed
project um i don't know if the new york times
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uh realizes that it's making the trump
administration look so good or maybe they don't care anymore because he's he's
lost the election but the article does make
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um the administration look very good i mean
competitive first very confident first of all
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they shoveled money to the right people they you
know they offered fiser money pfizer didn't want
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it or need it but modernity did so they got a few
billion dollars moderna uh they parallel processed
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a bunch of different attempts here so that if
one company failed the others might succeed
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there was a sort of a reaganite cutting of
bureaucratic red tape wherever they could
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there were examples in the story of a drug company
needing something some supplies or what have you
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and they would call the administration and
they would you know make it happen and then
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finally the administration didn't do anything
to um to kind of mess with the science you know
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um in fact they describe how this the um this
new experimental mrna technique that they used
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to generate the vaccine they had the code for that
within two days they actually had the vaccine sort
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of printed if you will within weeks and really
what took all this time were the human trials
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with you know the three stage human trials which
the administration did not do anything to speed up
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and probably the irony of ironies the
supreme irony is there's a story there's a
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there's a bit in the story it actually begins with
the uh this guy slowly who's the head of the trump
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administration's effort to produce the vaccine he
actually slowed down the moderna human trials by
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about three weeks because they weren't including
enough minorities in the you know in the in the
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trial and that cost him three weeks if it weren't
for those three weeks the modernist vaccine
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would have happened before pfizer and it would
have come out about a week before the election
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so you gotta wonder like trump has got
to be pulling out his hair about um what
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about about about this twist of fate david
how does it attribute credit for warp speed
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and i'm going someplace with this so i'm just
asking you the question well i don't the article's
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not trying to attribute credit they're just kind
of describing the behind the scenes of of how
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pfizer moderna came up with their vaccines and um
it just but but in in describing you know pfizer
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modernity did the work of creating the vaccine but
in describing the ways that warp speed contributed
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they did things that were only helpful and nothing
that was harmful and so in that sense it made the
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trump administration look quite good yeah i think
the point is that the warp speed folks which
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is probably the least well-known working group
working on coronavirus to the rest of the public
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is because it was a lot of wonky insiders it was
sign of almost proving the exact opposite of what
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trump typically does which is you know some
idiotic nepotistic leaning where it's his
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daughter or it's his son-in-law running around
um you know completely and effectively you know
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uh doing something um where they become sort of
front and center for taking credit um in this
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case it was just a bunch of policy walks you never
heard about the project we only know about warp
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speed because a handful of us have talked about
it um and it turns out to actually have been good
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because they knew what they were doing and they
do enough to to not try to seek the credit and
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just get out of the way i mean it it proves almost
the antithesis of how the trump campaign you know
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managed their time in the white house well i mean
i you have a point where you know i was kind of
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reading this article wondering you know where was
jared kushner because if kushner knew about this
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there's no way he slows down the moderna vaccine
by three weeks um i mean that might have made the
00:19:38
difference right there and whether trump wins or
not can you imagine the effect on the election
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if the vaccine had come out one week before
november 3rd decide i think trump would have won
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decidedly if he had a vaccine or two out with 90
percent but i think he had no credibility even
00:19:54
though modern and pfizer were saying late november
and he said the the vaccines are around the corner
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his whole tenure was based on so much lying he was
the boy who cried wolf he's he was the president
00:20:07
who cried wolf by the time he told the truth
and he was telling the truth about the vaccines
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he it was like oh my lord he he told the truth in
the final three months can i give you the opposite
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david of that which is that if modernity basically
says hey guys we have a vaccine that works
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for white people and a disease that's you know
disproportionately killing blacks and you know
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hispanics and brown people uh native americans um
and all of a sudden people are like wait what the
00:20:37
maybe they would have gone into georgia and
they would have just crushed them even more
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and then you would have actually had the senate
flip too so you could have had a whole kind of
00:20:43
distribution of outcomes there in a different
case because you could have had an angry reaction
00:20:48
as well we don't know um i guess well yeah i mean
i i think it's ironic that an administration that
00:20:57
was constantly accused of white supremacy probably
lost the election because they slowed down
00:21:04
this vaccine trial group to include more
minorities no i know but i think what we're
00:21:08
saying is it wasn't the actual administration it
was somebody it was somebody that actually knows
00:21:13
what they were doing we call that redemption
in the movie when the person actually loses
00:21:18
because they did the right thing it's kind of
redemption free book when you look at these mrna
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vaccines you were educating us about them
last night um and also for a long time uh
00:21:31
tell the audience just one more time how um these
work briefly and what the potential for them is
00:21:39
in the future because i think a lot of us now are
starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel
00:21:44
this is going to be over we're going to be at
conferences or going traveling to europe or
00:21:48
whatever it is next summer but we all are
all going to be scarred for life thinking
00:21:53
you know when is the next coronavirus just like
for a decade we were on pins and needles when
00:21:57
is the next 911. so this is going to be scar
tissue uh for a generation or two of people
00:22:04
when the next covid comes how quickly will warp
speed 2.0 go yeah it's it's a it's the right
00:22:11
question um because our approach to doing
vaccines may have just changed permanently
00:22:17
um so you know every cell has your dna and dna
basically codes proteins uh every three letters
00:22:24
of dna makes an amino acid codes for a specific
amino acid there's 20 amino acids the way that
00:22:31
dna turns into proteins is through rna so rna is
kind of like a mirror copy of your dna it floats
00:22:37
into these things called ribosomes in your cells
and outcome proteins and those it's like a printer
00:22:42
right and so those ribosomes make your proteins
using those amino acid sequences coded by the
00:22:47
rna so the way that the vaccines work historically
is you'll get a dead virus which is basically the
00:22:54
protein of a virus your immune system then learns
to kill that or that protein oh man jesus my dog
00:23:03
your immune system then learns to remove
that protein from your body uh and that's
00:23:07
how you develop this memory uh your immune memory
to a specific protein and so they put this dead
00:23:13
art vaccine virus in your body and hopefully
your immune system learns a good response to it
00:23:17
mrna basically puts the rna in your body that
codes for that protein your cells then make that
00:23:24
protein and because it's making a lot more of
the protein in a more consistent you know way
00:23:29
theoretically the idea is your body develops a
much more robust immune memory and immune response
00:23:34
without it overloading your system with all
the immune cells trying to wipe that protein
00:23:38
out right away and so on the challenge is you're
putting rna in your body and we've always been
00:23:43
worried about we don't know what the side effects
of mixing rna in your body would be is it going to
00:23:46
change your dna is it going to change your genetic
makeup is it going to cause other delicarious side
00:23:50
effects so this technology this capability
this knowledge has been around forever i'm
00:23:54
not forever but for you know a long time and the
idea has always been we could use rna in this way
00:23:59
but you know no one wanted and we've used it in
animals and we've used it in plants and we've seen
00:24:03
the capabilities of using rna to do different
things like this but this is a big leap and so
00:24:09
uh you know we kind of left forward here
getting to the point that we felt comfortable
00:24:13
with you know rna as a treatment like this
and it's um it's working so in theory in the
00:24:17
future as sax points out you could take any
virus or any bacteria you could read its dna
00:24:22
you could do that in an hour then you could take
chunks of that dna and code rna force that your
00:24:26
body makes those proteins and theoretically
produce an immune response so that that's the
00:24:30
that's the science of like how do you how do you
create a new magazine i think that's the amazing
00:24:34
part is the way it's described you know in this
article is that it's almost like laser printing
00:24:40
or 3d printing a vaccine it's kind of like the
equivalent of that you just take the genome of
00:24:45
the virus and you know boom you've got the vaccine
and then all the other delay is about human trials
00:24:52
and testing of it but imagine if that there
was the next coronavirus is 10 times as deadly
00:24:59
you know something that says spreads as
contagiously as smallpox and as you know as deadly
00:25:05
as ebola or something like that we could have
a vaccine the next day you know like you could
00:25:11
we could have a challenge david would be as
we'd have it the next day like we did here
00:25:16
but we would be going through this
three-phase trial and so i want to take a moment here and talk to chamoth about
something which is challenge trials um in the
00:25:24
uk they will start doing challenge trials for
those people who don't know what a challenge
00:25:28
trial is essentially they expose you to something
dangerous i.e a virus like covid and then
00:25:35
they give you the vaccine and then they give
you uh the virus as opposed to how we do a
00:25:41
three-phase trial which is you give the vaccine
to 30 000 people and placebo to 30 000 and then
00:25:48
you come back three months later and see how
many people got infected and it takes time
00:25:51
and money whereas challenge trials only take
risk on the individuals who are part of it
00:25:57
chamath hundreds of people in the science
community signed a letter and in the uk they're
00:26:02
going to be doing the first challenge trials in
january the united states is not doing these i'm
00:26:06
certain china is um do you think it's a moment in
time where we need to think about the ethics and
00:26:14
morality of challenge trials specifically and then
if so how do you execute them with that how do you
00:26:20
execute a challenge trial without it being unfair
um or too dangerous for people obviously you're
00:26:26
not going to just go into a prison and say hey
anybody want to get 10 years off the sentence join
00:26:29
the challenge trial that seems morally bankrupt
but we let people climb mountains without ropes so
00:26:35
right well i think this speaks to a whole bunch
of other issues that we've talked about on the
00:26:40
pod before you know another example of this
was section 230 before when we talked about it
00:26:45
we had a body of law that was created in a
moment of time that essentially was about
00:26:51
framing and understanding a specific pathway and
a way to use technologies that today look archaic
00:26:57
and we have to rewrite the laws in order to just
compensate and understand for where we are so if i
00:27:04
if you double click on trials as an example you
know if you have a solution for a rare disease
00:27:09
you can go in a specific pathway with the fda
and get breakthrough and fast track approval
00:27:14
but if you for example have uh you know a novel
immunotherapy cancer drug you probably you cannot
00:27:19
you know you have to do a multi-phase trial a
typical three-phase trial you have to solve for
00:27:23
very typical things like fatigue etc etc all these
things slow progress down now in a world where we
00:27:32
were somewhat flying blind 40 or 50 years ago we
didn't have you know things like crispr we didn't
00:27:38
have you know a real understanding of the genome
we didn't have delivery mechanisms like cartie you
00:27:43
would say okay yeah we should be really really
careful but i would say that the more you know
00:27:52
the more you can ease up on the rules because
you can actually empower people with a lot of
00:27:56
information and it shouldn't take a disaster
scenario for us to be iterative and experimental
00:28:03
so i think the challenge trial is really important
i think the concept of them make a lot of sense
00:28:08
i think a lot of government should employ
incentives to figure out who is eligible
00:28:14
and why but if you're a healthy adult male or
female and you want to participate in a trial for
00:28:20
whatever set of reasons you should be allowed to
do so and companies that want to run those trials
00:28:26
should be allowed to run them similarly if you
want to find a complementary pathway through
00:28:32
regulatory agencies to get drugs to the starting
line you should be able to do those too and i
00:28:38
think what we have to do is multi-path um these
compounds going forward because i think that's
00:28:43
where you accelerate all these technologies
ability to actually solve these diseases
00:28:47
freeberg why is it so controversial that um a
rocket ship company uh or you know people who want
00:28:56
to climb on mountains without ropes or or a rocket
ship coming like there are experimental pilots we
00:29:00
have astronauts they they take unbelievable risk
we send thousands of troops into harm's way for
00:29:08
many different reasons many of which sadly die and
they volunteer for those activities those people
00:29:15
are volunteering and compensated but when we
look at science and we look at a challenge trial
00:29:21
scientists say this is morally reprehensible to
compensate somebody for taking risk when that's
00:29:27
exactly what we do in the army we do it with
police officers and we do it with astronauts
00:29:32
help us understand how scientists think so
differently than say war i don't know if it's
00:29:38
scientists as much as it is you know regulatory
framework like the some people would call it a
00:29:45
nanny state and you know there are things
that the nanny state assumes individuals
00:29:50
uh don't have the capacity to understand the
extent of the potential loss or the or the nature
00:29:56
of the risk this is true for angel investing right
you have to be a qualified investor to invest in a
00:30:01
private company without appropriate disclosures
and it's true in a lot of other contexts so
00:30:07
um you know to to give people the authority to
make decisions like this it seems like my i have
00:30:13
no point of view that i'm kind of making here but
it seems like the the the the government assumes
00:30:18
or the elected officials assume or the populist
assumes that there are things that people aren't
00:30:23
really equipped to make decisions on because they
can't understand the risk because they're not
00:30:26
qualified and that and they get excluded from
those activities but sacs is the uh issue how
00:30:32
should we reframe stuff yeah yeah well i think
how should we frame it yeah i think assumption
00:30:38
of risk is is a is a really good principle and
it is a way for people to engage in potentially
00:30:47
harmful behaviors just because the behavior is is
potentially harmful doesn't mean you don't get to
00:30:51
do it um in the united states you're allowed to
do things that are manifestly harmful to yourself
00:30:57
like smoking well you know even worse if you're
an organ you can now do all kinds of hard drugs
00:31:03
i mean you can assume that risk for yourself so
you know if in portland oregon you can now take
00:31:09
heroin openly in the street with no consequence
but you can't participate in a trial that could
00:31:14
basically cure a cancer that's insane to me
i'll tell you what's the script yeah i'll tell
00:31:19
you i'll tell you the flip side of it um you're
allowed in nevada to play roulette i mean what the
00:31:25
[ __ ] like you know it's got a negative expected
value statistically factually for individuals
00:31:31
but the individual doesn't have the capacity
generally speaking that's playing roulette to
00:31:35
recognize that every dollar they're spending
at the roulette table is likely going to be
00:31:38
you know taken away from them like there's some
percentage of that that's going to be taken away
00:31:42
there's a five percent edge for the house on that
uh on that game and um and so we make the argument
00:31:47
in some cases that people don't have the capacity
to understand risk but in other cases it's okay
00:31:52
for them to not have the capacity to to take
risk and i think that there is this notion of
00:31:56
what some people call regulatory capture
that probably encompasses both of these
00:32:00
which is that there is some degree of profiteering
that has created some set of laws that kind of
00:32:05
manifestly capture that system in a certain way
so there are profitable casino enterprises that
00:32:10
say let's get people to spend their money
in a risky way that they don't understand
00:32:14
and that becomes the law and then
people in nevada are allowed to do that there are also pharmaceutical companies that
will say we need to have huge regulatory burdens
00:32:21
so once we make that big investment and we get
patent approval and we can lock in that drug
00:32:25
we can charge a lot of money for it so i would
argue to some extent that the regulatory capture
00:32:30
associated with the profit hearing that happens on
the back end in pharmaceuticals has in large part
00:32:35
driven the structure around risk taking in in drug
trials particularly in the u.s i mean you can go
00:32:43
get whatever drug you want over the counter in
mexico right i mean we have a very different
00:32:47
system um it's the most it also happens to be the
most expensive in the world and the the rationale
00:32:52
is well you're the most protected right well the
dr drug infrastructure here has created to your
00:32:57
point because of regulation the entire um you know
cro industry which is a multi-multi-billion dollar
00:33:03
industry which basically is um
essentially a retardant of r d velocity right its entire job is to slow things down create
these double-blinded studies by the way and so
00:33:16
many of these studies are not even double-blinded
they're not even actually scientifically rigorous
00:33:20
they get basically blown apart after the fact
so what are they really in the business of doing
00:33:25
it's because they're exploiting a business model
that was created by laws laws that were written
00:33:29
by regulators regulators that were in the hands
of lobbyists none of those folks truly understood
00:33:34
at the time but especially today what's really
possible so um you know it it does not make sense
00:33:41
in the united states of america just writ large
simply put that you can buy alcohol and drink
00:33:46
yourself into the ground buy cigarettes and smoke
yourself to death you know jump pull away your
00:33:51
money gamble away your money where your negative
ev or open you know openly do illicit drugs
00:33:59
but you can't participate in a thoughtful
trial backed by scientific research in fairness jamath you can get away with smoking
fentanyl uh in san francisco and oregon but
00:34:11
it is illegal to use that plastic straw so be
careful folks the laws are very clear here that
00:34:16
plastic straw is going to get you in a lot of
trouble i don't know what the fine is but it is
00:34:23
i mean it would it wouldn't be so crazy if it
weren't true but to your point like you would
00:34:27
actually get arrested for having a plastic
bag then you will for having fentanyl in san
00:34:32
francisco absolutely they'll they'll arrest you
for the bag that the fentanyl is in but chester
00:34:37
boudin will not arrest you for the fentanyl in
the plastic bag uh stacks we've totally lost
00:34:42
the script but uh chamath sort of bridged this
with the 230 um discussion of common carrier and
00:34:51
hey you know uh we we had great intent with this
law but nobody saw social networks becoming this
00:34:58
dominant addictive et cetera so we need to be
more nimble as a government in changing these
00:35:03
regulations whether it's straws fentanyl challenge
trials or 230 you wrote a blog post about it
00:35:09
after we had our 2 30 discussion a lot of people
started talking about it have you come to some
00:35:12
conclusion as to an exit ramp for 230 or a
way to maintain it without you know throwing
00:35:19
the baby with the bath water yeah yeah well
okay just can i make one concluding thought on
00:35:24
sure of course so the reason why innovations
happen so fast on the internet is because of
00:35:30
you know one word permissionless right
permissionless innovation nobody who has
00:35:34
an idea for a startup needs to go get permission
from someone in the government you know repeatedly
00:35:39
that's really what makes a difference you know
mark zuckerberg as a you know sophomore in college
00:35:43
can just build his project larry and sergey as
phd students can just build their project ship it
00:35:50
start you know getting users and they don't
have to get the permission of a regulator whose
00:35:54
incentive by the way is just typically not to get
fired by approving something that might rebound on
00:36:01
them in some you know in some bad way and to keep
their job yeah keep their job i mean imagine if
00:36:06
you know imagine just taking like a random example
when elon launched starman remember where he put
00:36:12
the like he launched the tesla into space and
there's like a astronaut in there and it was
00:36:17
like this kind of really cool moment i assume he
just did it i assume he didn't get permission from
00:36:24
anybody to do it but could a moment like that have
really happened if he did have to get permission
00:36:29
no way it'd be like making its way up through
the chain no one would know what to think of it
00:36:33
no one would know whether they could be the one to
approve it and then what if something goes wrong
00:36:39
what if the tesla comes back down to earth and
you know turns into a meteor or whatever those
00:36:44
the scenarios that be running through their heads
nobody would have allowed it right and so when you
00:36:48
just let entrepreneurs do things like good things
happen right and that's why we've had so much
00:36:53
progress on the internet and in so many of these
other areas we've had much less progress because
00:36:59
you know what what a system like that selects for
is your ability to go lobby regulators as opposed
00:37:04
to just building your project and shipping it
i think that um one of the things that maybe
00:37:10
happens is that you know we we're all expecting or
maybe some of us i have definitely some version of
00:37:15
a new deal and some grand bargain and i wonder
maybe whether the new deal and our sort of like
00:37:21
our version of fdr over the next i don't know
10 years is the person that actually says guys
00:37:28
we're going to have a wholesale rewrite of
the regulatory infrastructure to account
00:37:32
for technology just period we're going to start
someplace reasonable and small and we're going to
00:37:37
make common sense reforms just observing the times
as they exist today right and we're going to go
00:37:43
and systematically try to make these industries
a little bit more resilient a little bit more
00:37:48
entrepreneurial you know a little bit uh less
corrupted by regulatory capture and lobbyists and
00:37:54
laws that just don't make sense 100 years later i
mean it'd be great if we could do that the reason
00:38:01
we can't is because how do you reform the law
without the lobbyists getting their fingers in it
00:38:06
right and and the problem is there's no
there's no lobbyist for the company that
00:38:11
doesn't exist yet right for the founder for the
entrepreneur who's got an idea in their head but
00:38:15
they haven't built their company yet there's
nobody representing that person in washington
00:38:21
right and what happens is you get new regulations
in washington some agency gets created they reach
00:38:27
out and touch an industry now every player that's
affected has to create their own lobbying you know
00:38:34
not true and david what do you think about this
what if the the advocate for the entrepreneur
00:38:40
or the uncreated company an uncreated product
is really the same as just individual civil
00:38:45
liberties and rights how are they really that
different because really what it's doing is saying
00:38:52
the entrenched organizational infrastructure
that runs my life gets deconstructed and then
00:38:58
power gets pushed down to be the individual
that's tantamount to the same thing i think
00:39:02
well we we have seen some we have seen some
pushback well i mean there is some silver
00:39:08
lining here if you look right now the citizens
of california obviously people have been fleeing
00:39:13
and we've been talking about california and the
one party system here causing so many problems
00:39:18
but we did have prop 22 uh pass and we
now have 900 000 people have signed to recall governor newsom uh and these
seem to be some pushback against this
00:39:32
sort of nanny state uh where people can't
make decisions and then additionally uh
00:39:37
today the sec announced um that they will
allow gig working companies to give stock
00:39:47
to employees as part of their compensation up
to 15 of their compensation in fact uh hester um
00:39:56
uh how do you pronounce her last name it's not
pierce um you can't pronounce the word pierce
00:40:02
purse first person no it's spelled pierce but a
hester purse is worth following on the twitter e
00:40:07
h-e-s-t-e-r-p-e-i r c e hester purse i had her
on my pockets this week in startups and she um
00:40:14
they're they're really getting aggressive in
changing the accreditation law so anybody's
00:40:18
gonna be able to be an accredited investor you
become sophisticated through a testing mechanism
00:40:22
and now they want to let gig workers get by
the way sorry here's a perfect example of um
00:40:29
a regulatory body and infrastructure
that actually has changed with the times i think the sec in fact i think we maybe we
talked about this a little bit the last time
00:40:39
i actually think one of the best trump appointees
has been jay clayton um and i actually think jay
00:40:45
clayton has done an incredibly good job and a
lot of what he's done is just deconstruct this
00:40:50
kind of nanny state and say people can become
educated and make good decisions for themselves
00:40:55
and because it's in some it's an area that's
relatively benign i.e investing people kind of
00:41:00
just let it happen without a lot of pushback and
everybody kind of generally supports it democrats
00:41:05
support it republicans support it and the outcomes
are really good to your point jason which is in
00:41:10
a world of zero rates how do you expect any just
you know average ordinary middle american who just
00:41:16
works a decent job to save for their retirement
to actually make enough money well they're going
00:41:20
to have to get educated and they're going to have
to find a way of putting their money to work in
00:41:24
in uh in assets that have a better return which
literally was illegal up until very recently
00:41:32
you were systematically letting the rich stay
rich and you were blocking the poor from having
00:41:37
an opportunity to advance like what if apple
store employees could get their paycheck and
00:41:41
say i want to take my paycheck 70 cash 30 you know
restrict restricted stock units at this discount
00:41:49
like we could let apple store employees make you
know a million dollars after five or ten years
00:41:55
of working there 10 20 years from now and have
generational wealth change david sacks you had
00:41:59
comment well i was going to astromoth do you
think this type of deregulation is going to
00:42:04
happen in the biden administration yes what you're
discussing is like a very really kind of classical
00:42:10
republican reaganite idea right i i agree and and
i think what's going to happen is you're i think
00:42:15
you're going to continue to see deregulation
in areas that are benign and non-controversial
00:42:22
so i think the sec um the fcc i think all
of these places you'll see movement i think
00:42:31
you'll probably actually see a lot more choice and
deregulation effectively in in medicare and cmmi
00:42:41
i think those places will move first and then
i think it'll be up to some leader politician
00:42:49
to then really rally the troops on some higher
order bits um and one of the biggest higher
00:42:54
order bits would be sort of around the broader
healthcare infrastructure um social security
00:43:01
education education is probably the
biggest one that's that's like the it's just too sacrosanct for the democrats you
cannot get elected without the teachers and so
00:43:09
unless there is a startup that completely disrupts
teacher pay and teacher compensation um then the
00:43:16
public school teachers unions will continue to
dominate a lot of the federal and uh state policy
00:43:25
for the worse unfortunately freeberg if
you had one um regulation or series of regulations or regulatory body you would most
like to see change for the good of humanity
00:43:38
and you know americans and the rest of humans
on the planet what would it be um uh probably
00:43:44
health uh yeah it's probably the drug process
the drug development process you know there was a
00:43:51
um a gene editing uh program that ran and
someone died this was what year was this 97 99
00:44:02
and they basically halted all
gene editing programs for 13 years you know how many people died during that
time it was [ __ ] it's a crazy crazy um uh
00:44:12
fact uh where you know they're the um
you know the one death is too many rule um you know basically doesn't take into
account the uh the kind of broader implications
00:44:24
um on the downside so yeah i think that one's
probably pretty important but you know there's
00:44:30
a good interview if you if you want to hear some
interesting thoughts and uh again uh not trying
00:44:36
to be an advocate for any political point of view
but um charles coke goes on tim ferriss have you
00:44:41
guys heard this podcast interview i've listened to
it yeah yeah and he highlights a couple of really
00:44:46
good examples about this regulatory capture
problem like if you're poor and you want to
00:44:51
become a hairdresser and you know start a salon
or go work in a salon and make money cutting hair
00:44:57
the cost and the burden for you to go get
the necessary approvals from the cosmetician
00:45:02
association is too burdensome for you know
the average person who's poor needs to
00:45:07
become a hairdresser and it's just insane
that you can't just go be a hairdresser
00:45:13
um the government government needs to ensure
that people don't get bad haircuts it's worse
00:45:19
yeah you could you you can you don't
need a license to be the engineer that writes the machine learning code that either
drives a car autonomously or that you know uh
00:45:31
helps propel disinformation in the social network
but you do need to have a license to give someone
00:45:36
a buzz cut oh that's a bingo statement right there
yeah i mean in fairness i'm i am checking out
00:45:42
sax's new haircut here and i'm kind of thinking
so there should be more regulation there might be
00:45:47
i was practicing without a license you work
i mean yeah did you do that you can't see the
00:45:52
result of this one you're so you're so white and
pale you're you're blending into the background
00:46:00
shade it's impossible to see where your skin ends
your hair starts and the shade but i feel like the
00:46:07
the regulatory if you think about the framework
you know it extends into education too
00:46:11
like you can't go get an entry entry-level
job without a quote-unquote college degree
00:46:15
how [ __ ] useful is a college philosophy degree
to someone that's trying to get an entry level job
00:46:19
working at x y or z bank right like it's um it's
a bit absurd that the structure is set up so that
00:46:25
there are whether it's you know government or not
but there is effectively a hurdle um which is this
00:46:32
alternative to regulatory capture but it's like
call it embedded system you know capture it like
00:46:37
uh there is a significant kind of hurdle that
you have to get through that costs a lot and
00:46:41
the point of entry has gotten too high for most
and it really stalls things out and it's gonna
00:46:45
cause more damage than good well and it's also
been completely disconnected from the reality
00:46:51
of your employment potential people are going
into debt for two hundred thousand dollars in a
00:46:54
liberal arts degree that provides no skill that
is do we all agree that that makes sense like
00:46:59
does anyone on this in this group argue for
needing a bachelor's degree for everyone no
00:47:04
i don't think i i think i think it's useless
what do you guys think of isas income sharing
00:47:10
agreements these have become kind of lambda
school does them a bunch of other schools
00:47:15
david you saw a startup we just invested
in that's doing them and i think you liked
00:47:18
them at the demo day we did uh with kraft maybe
you know this idea is who should take the risk
00:47:25
for an education and when you look at an isa an
income sharing agreement what they're saying is
00:47:30
uh the school takes the risk they let you come
to school for free they give you what would be
00:47:34
the equivalent of let's say a fifteen thousand
dollar coding camp or growth marketer uh risk then
00:47:41
you pay double that amount over five six seven
years as a percentage of your income but if you
00:47:46
don't get income if you don't break 50k a year you
don't have to pay it back if you decide to go back
00:47:51
to school or your income drops below 50 you don't
have to do it can you imagine if a college had to
00:47:56
make that promise they should do it they should
start in college sports but they should do it
00:48:02
imagine you you know duke basically went
recruited kids and said listen we're going
00:48:06
to pay you to come to duke we're going to get
you educate educated we're going to teach you
00:48:10
how to play basketball better than anybody else
and we're going to take five percent of your
00:48:13
future earnings yes or no you're not going to
have to go to boosters you're not going to have
00:48:17
to take money you're not going to have to do any
of this stuff on the side but just be your best
00:48:21
learn to play the game we'll get you a reasonable
education we'll give you a good infrastructure
00:48:25
and we take five percent of the back end with
the so you could cap the upside right or maybe
00:48:31
maybe there's no cap and and but why do we always
have to care about all of this like it's like
00:48:35
you know it's like whatever maybe it's five
percent for the rest of your life you're going to
00:48:38
pay the government 50 you get nothing in return
so if you pay 5 and you get coach k to teach
00:48:43
you how to shoot a jumper it's better than that
right so why why isn't it possible and i remember
00:48:48
how people had this unbelievably paternalistic
allergic reaction to income sharing agreements
00:48:54
when they were first talked about they called
them indentured servitude and modern compared to
00:48:58
slavery and it was like oh my god oh so insulting
to but it's no different than signing a contract
00:49:03
with an agent to represent you when you first
start out in any industry music or or sports or
00:49:08
uh film or whatever one you could sign an agency
agreement where the agent is your rep for 10 20
00:49:13
years right i mean some of those agreements can
have long tails on them and that's effectively
00:49:17
the same you know look at what's happening look
at look at uh we can talk about this in a second
00:49:22
but like you know did you see what happened
with chappelle the last couple of days where
00:49:26
yeah let's go did you watch the video i loved it
yeah the video was incredible video was incredible
00:49:32
so the the the quick story on this is chappelle
basically did um he had a request he went to
00:49:36
netflix and he said take down chappelle show
netflix took it down and he did a little stand
00:49:41
up it's on his instagram it's like 18 minutes it's
it's fabulous as most chapelle stuff peaks peak
00:49:47
chapelle and he basically told this story which
essentially the punch line is like you know he
00:49:52
signed a contract where he just got completely
[ __ ] and he's like this is happening every
00:49:58
single day in so many markets and so the idea
that then you have actually a different market
00:50:05
which disrupts something by actually creating
transparency and something reasonable is all
00:50:10
of a sudden completely immoral makes no sense
to me so there's abuses happening all the time
00:50:15
that is but the the contract that chappelle
signed was indentured servitude he doesn't
00:50:20
even have the rights to his name he cannot
they took his name and likeness right yeah
00:50:34
this is a perfect tie back to the earlier
statement about uh you know do you have the
00:50:38
appropriate kind of um understanding of the risk
you're taking or the benefit that you're getting
00:50:43
um i think kanye's been doing this whole thing
about he doesn't own the masters to his music
00:50:47
originally right at the moment that he signed that
contract when he signed over all the masters you
00:50:53
know the master recordings and all the future
revenue rights to his music he was getting paid
00:50:57
a ton of money in his mind at that time he said oh
my gosh i'm getting whatever it was let's say it's
00:51:01
five million dollars i'm getting five million
dollars the most amount of money i've ever seen
00:51:05
it is absolutely worth me giving over the masters
of this music and the future royalty rights to
00:51:10
this music for 12 songs or whatever it is for me
to get five million dollars today and i can live
00:51:14
an amazing life and it will change everything for
me who is to say that he was not um you know of
00:51:20
the appropriate sound mind and understanding to
decide in that moment to take that five million
00:51:24
dollars and give up all future royalties to his
music well chappelle's chappelle's argument was
00:51:30
the people who are in that ecosystem are
all friends they're all working together
00:51:34
and they've commoditized the artist and they
collude to do this kind of uh and decide limiting
00:51:41
deals and i think what makes silicon valley so
special is that we collude the other direction
00:51:47
we want people to have equity participation and
we want the social contract of silicon valley is
00:51:52
i'm giving you equity i hope your your penny stock
becomes worth fifteen hundred dollars and that you
00:51:58
create multi-generational wealth and you become
an angel but i don't know look if i if i'm an
00:52:02
angel investor or want to be an angel investor and
some schmo tricks me into investing in his shitty
00:52:07
company and i just lose twenty thousand dollars
but i didn't know how to determine whether that
00:52:11
company was shitty or not because i've never done
investing before my book is it for the government
00:52:15
to regulate that circumstance and say you know
what you need to be a quote-unquote qualified
00:52:19
investor to be able to discern a good company for
a bad company or [ __ ] from not and it's going to
00:52:23
mean for these contracts right like i mean so you
know we're making the argument i think for the the
00:52:29
you know the regulatory framework for preventing
people from being able to have freedom of choice
00:52:34
and i think like earlier you know that the case
was made like people should be able to make
00:52:38
have freedom of choice at any point why should the
government kind of step in and make a decision for
00:52:41
me i think that they're i'm not i'm not advocating
advocating for government intervention my only
00:52:46
point is that there are morally reprehensible
things that are happening today using contracts
00:52:52
and that you know something like an income
sharing agreement actually rights the ship
00:52:56
in so many ways that's definitely the burden of
capitalism ultimately you know it devolves to that
00:53:00
right where like oh you're sick you have cancer
pay me a million dollars i'll give you this drug
00:53:05
so hollywood's a little bit of its own
beast where there's all these gatekeepers
00:53:10
and the gatekeepers are always trying to get
control over you know the creative product
00:53:15
and so yeah like you know signing contracts with
those sharks is always a dangerous thing to do
00:53:22
um i think silicon valley is very different we
have much more of a culture of of equity i think
00:53:27
the income sharing agreements are much more in
that vein and i think they're a great idea for
00:53:32
like any trade that demonstrably increases
your earning power right so the beauty of
00:53:38
lambda school is they pay for you to get an
education being a coder it then increases your
00:53:44
salary and they get a piece of that that's like
a win-win for everybody i think where this goes
00:53:49
if these isas are successful is that every trade
that's valuable will get its own isa type school
00:53:57
and then that gets peeled out of a university
education so what's left for colleges to do it's
00:54:03
basically you know all the stuff that doesn't
add value they're museums they're basically
00:54:08
like these monasteries again right they go back to
being monasteries not places where you get skills
00:54:14
we need to set we need to celebrate vocational
capability because i think like you know we have
00:54:18
we have so celebrated this mythical bachelor's
degree and it just means [ __ ] nothing it's
00:54:24
like it doesn't learn a trade and that's just
as frankly that should be as respected or more
00:54:30
but in the american culture you don't do that
right now i've never understood that if you go
00:54:35
for example to different countries around the
world europe's a good example actually of this
00:54:40
because it's the closest analog in terms of
quality of living to america there's a real
00:54:45
celebration of uh people who choose vocational
traitcraft because there's an entire educational
00:54:50
infrastructure that you can onboard yourself into
you can become a skilled person and you can have
00:54:55
a really good decent life and there's pride in the
work and there's pride in that work and in america
00:55:01
you know you covet this piece of paper the
piece of paper is really just a scam that
00:55:06
allows you know administrators to basically pay
themselves millions of dollars and or run an asset
00:55:12
management business as a the trojan horse of that
purpose um it just doesn't make any sense and so
00:55:18
you know i don't know it's i just think it's i
just think the most amazing thing about these
00:55:23
companies i've i've been digging into them
because i'm looking for more to invest in and
00:55:28
um these companies these uh companies that are
the trade schools that are basing themselves
00:55:33
on isis and there are ones who are doing welding
and plumbing and all kinds of different things and
00:55:37
there are isa platforms that are providing isis to
any school that wants them and doing like the sort
00:55:43
of aws of isis anyway these um for what this firm
told me was inside of one of these trade schools
00:55:51
they spend 50 percent of their time on placement
50 on education and that out of college they
00:55:57
spend 99.x amount of time on uh the education
and less than one percent on placement which
00:56:03
kind of attracts right i mean when we went to
college i don't know if it's changed much but
00:56:07
the career services center was like this
two-person office like in the worst part of campus
00:56:13
and they don't when you're doing an isa if you
accept more people who are unqualified and can't
00:56:20
aren't ready for the education are not motivated
for it it works against you because they're not
00:56:25
going to pay back the isa so you then get
sharper you know you sharpen the blade of
00:56:30
who gets accepted you start accepting the right
people these colleges they would accept anybody
00:56:34
who would come in and take the loans that was your
qualifier is did you pass your loan the isa as a
00:56:41
service idea is a brilliant idea i would invest in
that i like that idea as an investment way better
00:56:47
than running one of these uh schools you know
that that's basically issuing the isis themselves
00:56:53
but how amazing is that that we live in a country
where people are willing to you know as a movement
00:56:59
now people are willing to fund your education
because they know it's going to increase your
00:57:03
earning power and then they'll get paid on the
back end that's like fantastic and like that's all
00:57:08
like happening all that innovation is happening
right now without the government needing to get
00:57:12
involved or a big government loan program and the
historic people getting saddled people calling
00:57:17
it inventory literally like the voxes and the new
york times of the world and uh is having a 250 000
00:57:27
debt that you've got to pay down and you can never
get rid of in bankruptcy for the rest of your life
00:57:31
yeah that's real indentured service i think the
problem is that you know east coast left-leaning
00:57:38
um editorial publications um they
have to themselves justify their 190 000 um bachelor philosophy from oberlin college
so you know if you if you take that you know
00:57:52
oberlin is the number one listener base
we have on this podcast yeah you just lost
00:57:57
yeah but you're right once you've taken out every
valuable trade and and move them from a university
00:58:02
where you've got to pay a hundred thousand a year
to a an isa where it costs you nothing like what's
00:58:08
left it's just gonna be people studying
philosophy oh yeah people intersectionality
00:58:12
intersectionality standards they'll be
studying the past they'll be studying the past
00:58:16
yeah what a disaster to collapse upon itself
all right as we wrap up here um let's just
00:58:22
take a moment to think about what some people
are calling the big reset um it's thanksgiving
00:58:28
uh we have a change in management in the country
which is is obviously polarizing so i'll put that
00:58:34
aside but i think what's happened with these
vaccines in science is truly miraculous and
00:58:39
let's face it a lot of people is a lot of pain
and suffering this year a lot of people lost
00:58:43
their jobs a lot of people lost their restaurants
a lot of people are suffering from mental illness
00:58:49
some people are having to take care of their
kids and get to know them i mean it's been hard
00:58:52
for a lot of people sorry about that sex i wasn't
trying david do you know your children's names now
00:58:57
yeah i do now what's it like to spend three hours
with one of your children he's got flash cards in
00:59:04
front of him right now there's pictures
on the back the names on the other side
00:59:10
so anyway i was trying to be sincere the kids
would even occasionally run into my office during
00:59:15
coved you know yeah they want to talk to you and
hug you and show affection crazy they're like
00:59:19
excuse me sir who are you i'm your father actually
i am i thought i was just working for my office
00:59:27
and all these kids show up and tell me it's their
home so well we i just wanted to announce to the
00:59:33
all-in uh audience that we have upgraded friedberg
and sax's chips just last week uh chamath and i
00:59:38
pushed the update for the joy 1.7 update and uh
how's it been going to the two davids now that you
00:59:45
have a third emotion we now have emotion of joy
do not use it it feels good and warm inside body
00:59:54
do not use it all in same day spread it out
over a month hey david did you think that
00:59:59
trump uh actually resigned two days ago was that
was that was that the equivalent of a like or the
01:00:04
concession tweet it was acceptance of um you're
talking about when they he authorized the gsa to
01:00:12
release transition funds to biden yeah i mean that
that that that was his concession right there um
01:00:18
that that's that's basically what you're gonna
get out of him that's his acceptance of the of
01:00:22
the election result so after anger he's now went
into bargaining uh and then he was depressed and
01:00:29
now he's accepting well what basically happened
is you you know you had rudy and sydney powell
01:00:36
and you know that legal team going to court to try
and challenge all these rules the wack pack yeah
01:00:41
try to go to court to challenge all these rulings
i think rudy was like one in 35 meaning i think he
01:00:47
won one ruling and lost 35 so it was going very
very poorly so like you versus alan keating go
01:00:53
ahead yeah but yeah that's a whole separate story
we'll get into but uh but the thing that really
01:00:59
like ended it was when sydney powell came out with
this elaborate conspiracy theory that actually
01:01:05
trump lost the election because um communist code
writers had effectively you know infected this the
01:01:14
software that was running the election and somehow
hugo chavez was behind this even though he's been
01:01:20
dead for seven years hugo the republican governor
of georgia and secretary of state were in on it
01:01:28
anyway it was so wild and crazy that basically the
narrative just cracked and so then you had like
01:01:36
steve schwartzman come out and then sort of the
republican business community and and pat toomey
01:01:41
you know republican senator from pennsylvania came
out and they all just said look this is this is
01:01:46
ridiculous and so that that was the moment i think
at which th this narrative that the election was
01:01:52
stolen kind of cracked is and i think she kind of
she did everyone a favor by being so like off the
01:01:59
reservation that it just brought the whole thing
to like a meltdown sydney powell always whenever
01:02:05
i see her i always i i just think that she's one
second away from her dentures flying out of her
01:02:09
mouth and hitting the camera i mean that's your
crazy aunt that's the crazy aunt of thanksgiving
01:02:14
like she said she was gonna release the kraken
and i guess she meant the i think she might smoke
01:02:21
i think it was the hair dye running down
rudy's face yes exactly that's the crack
01:02:24
rudy's the kraken i mean i'm glad that it was
a total meltdown it was a total [ __ ] show
01:02:30
i'm glad the gop finally after trump's defeat
decided with 55 days left to go that they would
01:02:39
take a stand against well let me let me tell
you why let me tell you what i think is going
01:02:44
to happen now is i think that this new york times
article we talked about the top of the show about
01:02:49
the fact this operation warp speed that it was
a big success i think that the best narrative
01:02:55
for trump if he wants to maintain this idea
that he was robbed is not that he was sort of
01:03:00
legally robbed with fake votes or fake voting
software but rather just that if these pharma
01:03:05
companies have put out the news a week earlier
yes it would have meaningfully changed like
01:03:10
and i think he has an amazing story there i would
agree it's kind of yeah and it's kind of like you
01:03:16
know um when you have like a major sporting
event there's like a bad call by the refs
01:03:21
and all the fans basically said oh we were robbed
well you can't get that like result overturned it
01:03:26
is what it is you lost but you have a talking
point forever that you lost i mean if you go to
01:03:34
saint louis or whatever and you mentioned there's
an asterisk yeah there's an asterisk yeah yeah
01:03:40
when the national lebron association suspended
draymond in that series there are all these
01:03:44
sporting events with asterisks by them i mean like
you know if you go to st louis and mention the
01:03:49
name don denkinger you know people will know what
you're talking about the i think the car he was he
01:03:56
the saint louis cardinals lost the 85 world series
because of a first base umpire's call or at least
01:04:02
that's their view of it right and so i think you
know what what trump can do is is say that look
01:04:08
we were robbed because we never got credit for the
vaccine now if i i do think the economy is going
01:04:15
to bounce back really strong next year because of
the vaccines right i think you got to say that if
01:04:21
these vaccines end covert in the next three four
five months 2021's gonna be a great year so if
01:04:26
trump hands biden these vaccines and the economy
does well next year but something bad happens
01:04:32
between now and four years from now he'll say
i handed this guy everything on a solar platter
01:04:37
he screwed it up and that'll be his narrative
for four years from now good could happen i'm
01:04:42
just saying what do you what do you think about
um what do you guys think about the pick so far
01:04:48
janet yellen for treasury secretary
is great thank god elizabeth i do think the biggest challenge we're gonna
face is um is this monetary policy issue i mean
01:05:03
the dollar is is you know in decline we printed
30 of the us dollars in circulation in the last
01:05:10
six months and everyone's cheering that the dow
is at 30 000. it's like well you know there's
01:05:15
30 more dollars so everything's gonna inflate
so i think there's a lot of work to do it's
01:05:20
great to have someone sitting in that seat who
understands economic policy really clearly and
01:05:25
and the title monetary policy uh yeah i think the
picks so far have been have been really um really
01:05:31
top-notch tony blinken friend of a couple of hours
for secretary of state he's a star um yellen's a
01:05:38
dove which i think is really good for just you
know did you guys know the chief of staff sacks
01:05:42
do you know who this guy he's been like biden's
aid for a long time kind of is that the deal
01:05:48
he was the founder of revolution with steve case
yeah yeah he comes from a venture background
01:05:52
all of biden's picks have been people
who've been long-time washington hands who he's had personal relationships with for
a long time he really seems to value that
01:06:01
personal loyalty and they've also been kind
of you know nice and boring safe experience
01:06:08
i think he's delivering on kind of what
he promised to be which is a present we
01:06:14
can forget about yeah just tone it down that's
gonna be a caretaker president yeah what do we
01:06:19
do without trump to talk about on this podcast
because it's been about 34 we're going to need
01:06:24
a new topic to rotate in here we might need
to put in little netflix um as we wrap here
01:06:30
um what are you thankful for and what are you most
looking forward to next year um vis-a-vis just
01:06:38
it's been a rough year um i mean listen it's been
nice for people's equity portfolios of course
01:06:43
um but it's really what do you hope for america
for humanity for yourselves your family for your
01:06:48
friends you know what are you thankful for um
and uh i'll let you freedberg it looks like
01:06:54
your processing unit has delivered a result so
let's hear it the emotion bank has been cleared
01:07:05
uh it i look i don't think that this
year was any uh any cup of tea for anyone so i think like everyone you kind of
value your friendships and your family
01:07:16
so it's uh it's been uh it's been a year you know
going into covid i was in the office every day
01:07:22
spending more time at home being closer to my
children i know their names by the way sex i'll
01:07:27
teach you how to learn them they're it's been it's
been actually really special being at home a lot
01:07:32
and being with the family a lot and realizing like
how much that stuff matters and how being close to
01:07:36
everyone matters because when you're in the run of
the life before you kind of get knocked back and
01:07:40
just put everything in perspective you miss
those moments so that's been really special
01:07:45
and important to me this year in a really kind of
personal way and just having friendships right i
01:07:51
mean it's great for us to all be able to to talk
as we do every day and have people you can kind of
01:07:55
connect with even if you're not sitting in person
i do think that everyone realizes they need that
01:08:00
so anyway it's been a it's been an insightful year
money aside it's yeah i was [ __ ] terrorized at
01:08:06
the start of this year about money and the end of
the year here you go finally there it is it's all
01:08:10
a [ __ ] roller coaster sold the first company and
now you got the second ipo congratulations mazel
01:08:15
sacks has your processing unit overloaded with
this question or are you going to be able to
01:08:20
articulate something thankful for and appreciate
it i i i agree with with all the things that
01:08:25
freeburg said um you know the flip side of working
from home all this time is you do get to spend a
01:08:30
lot more time with the kids um i personally have
i like this shift to remote work where i can do
01:08:38
a meeting from anywhere you know you don't
have to go to the office that's been kind of
01:08:43
kind of nice upside i think i think we've
probably all learned how self-sufficient
01:08:47
we can be i have learned how to give myself
a haircut apparently you guys don't think
01:08:52
i've done a very good job with it but um
well it's better than you have long hair yeah
01:09:00
so yeah but look i mean i'm thankful for um you
know knock on wood we all have our health and um
01:09:07
you know and uh it weirdly the the economy
silicon valley is doing still doing great
01:09:13
technology is doing great still the future and
i think the country is even though covet is kind
01:09:20
of at its worst right now i do think it's going
to get rapidly better as soon as these vaccines
01:09:24
come to market so i do think we'll we'll work
i do think 2021 will be a much much better year
01:09:30
chemoth um in this really crazy way
i actually now am pretty thankful um for what i've learned during the pandemic i
mean i wish we didn't have to go through it but
01:09:46
um i think that it was the most psychologically
stressful period of my life um just to be
01:09:52
so isolated from everybody um and i learned
something about myself recently which is that uh
01:10:03
in psychology it's called repetitive com
compulsion which is sort of like you know you
01:10:08
repeat the sins of your father or in this way you
know i repeat these tired ways of behavior from my
01:10:15
teens and my 20s that were just unproductive and
in the day-to-day life of just running around and
01:10:22
going to meetings as david said like flying around
go to a meeting go to the office go here go there
01:10:28
you can make a lot of excuses for shitty behaviors
that you carry with you um and so what i'm really
01:10:34
thankful for is in this lockdown i've been forced
to really find the things that that i don't really
01:10:41
like about myself and try to fix them um so you
know uh i'm i'm really thankful for that because
01:10:48
i think uh hopefully everybody has something
positive to look at at the end of this and that's
01:10:52
definitely one thing for me it's very touching and
actually quite appropriate as we wrap here because
01:10:58
sax and free broke and i had some things we don't
like about you chamath that we wanted to bring up
01:11:04
you kind of knocked one off the list
already so we got four more to go it's good you're doing this work
01:11:12
we were planning an intervention for this end of
the pod but you got to open the door so here we go
01:11:19
you know i'll wrap up was just saying you
know family and friends are the obvious
01:11:23
you know things that you appreciate at
this time i i am thankful also for the hope
01:11:30
uh that we've seen from uh you know what we
can do collectively as a society when we put
01:11:36
our minds to something warp speed comes to mind
uh these frontline workers i mean we we really
01:11:42
maybe have seen what a global uh rec a challenging
problem being solved can do and hopefully that can
01:11:49
translate into something like nuclear disarmament
a sustainable energy global warming et cetera and
01:11:55
so i think on a on a macro level the most macro
levels the species us humans as a species have now
01:12:01
had an enlightening moment just like world wars
uh and you know hiroshima and nagasaki kind of
01:12:07
changed people's perspective the entire world jade
and i were talking about that the other day how
01:12:12
the people looked at the world differently after
those uh horrific bombs went off i i think after
01:12:16
this bomb goes off we're gonna look at the world
and say hey we can solve problems right and maybe
01:12:20
we can be proactive about that and then finally i
think for the people suffering from mental illness
01:12:25
uh who maybe i was callous and made fun of uh or
maybe just didn't relate to i can relate to now
01:12:31
because i've felt depressed i have felt anxious
i have felt exhausted from this right and it's
01:12:36
the first time in the 49 years i've been on the
planet that i ever would say i felt depressed i
01:12:40
didn't understand what that meaning was when sax
would tell me how depressed he was i just never
01:12:46
never hit me i'm joking he never said that but
uh it's a good joke i am joking but i i you know
01:12:52
i think for people suffering from mental just
get help and and you know talk to people and and
01:12:56
i think this really opened my my eyes to that
and of course this podcast uh you know and and
01:13:02
our podcast was the best thing that that in one
of the best things in my life that came out of
01:13:07
this whole period i think for me too um and
you know i've heard that from a lot of the
01:13:11
people who listened to it and i'm sure if sax
and friedberg had a fourth emotion they would
01:13:16
they would agree frankly i think this podcast
has been doing nothing but costing me money
01:13:22
you know because i painted you out
to trump support god knows how many you are not a trump supporter yeah god knows
how many deals i've lost because jason keeps
01:13:30
trolling me as a trump supporter and then on top
of it i get cut out of the only good bestie deal
01:13:37
if you would i thought at least
i would get this best seat deal and you guys cut me out of it uh
okay listen i just want to be clear
01:13:46
sax is a conservative and a republican he
is not a trump supporter he did not vote for
01:13:51
trump this time he'd not vote for trump last
time he does not support trump's behavior you
01:13:55
can't out what he's voting dude sorry but he
told me he didn't vote for him well he did it
01:14:01
which one which one of us which one of us is going
to try to hire jared kushner as a general partner
01:14:07
uh no definitely not if you are saying most likely
because now you're reinforcing the theme that's
01:14:12
actually if you had to pick actually if you had to
pick a venture fund that is most like the higher
01:14:16
uh as a gp andreas anything from
are they still around founders fun no i don't think peter wants to share the
spotlight uh okay um i go in jason don't
01:14:29
do anything to get a press release i don't
think that guy needs a fun to go work at true
01:14:35
yeah he'll just go buy another no he did get three
middle east peace deals done so but you know david
01:14:44
by the by the way by the way i mean talk talking
about inheriting incredible dividends but is it
01:14:50
the most incredible thing that um you can come
in and get middle east peace done but if you
01:14:55
really unpack middle east peace do you think
that middle east peace would have happened
01:14:59
if the cost of solar was not cheaper than
the cost of oil honestly be like if if if you
01:15:06
if you didn't see an end in sight to oil
do you think that the middle east peace
01:15:10
i don't think so well i i know what you're saying
which is that if the middle east wasn't becoming
01:15:15
less strategically relevant to us you know that
that creates degrees of freedom i think but um
01:15:22
yeah that's had profound benefits for silicon
valley too right like i mean all of a sudden that
01:15:26
went into the vision fund and the the money from
qatar and the money from like all these sovereign
01:15:32
wealth funds in the middle east has funded a lot
of venture funds has gone into direct late stage
01:15:36
rounds in a lot of companies and it's really been
a great boom for silicon valley people can make
01:15:41
fun of the companies getting overfunded and the
nonsense that's gone on all they want but like
01:15:45
money right it filters out into more angel
investing it filters out into more venture
01:15:50
lps and it ultimately gives the motivation this
ecosystem so i i i think that the damage to
01:15:55
oil has been great for silicon valley the most
incredible dividend of climate change is peace
01:16:01
it's like it's a it it has made radical islam
a failed startup you know a hyped series a that
01:16:08
couldn't raise its series b it's made you know
sworn enemies over thousands of years cooperate
01:16:14
together all for what reason because you got to
pull the oil out of the ground now and monetize it
01:16:21
because otherwise the cost of wind and you have
to divert solar yeah and you have to diversify
01:16:25
because otherwise the cost of wind and the cost
of solar is going to make pulling the oil out of
01:16:28
the ground economically and feasible within three
or four years yeah already can't do it all right
01:16:34
they took saudi aramco public they started selling
off their shares and they invested that capital
01:16:38
in tech and other stuff around the world and
that's it's been helpful but there is there is a
01:16:43
another factor at work which is the
fear of iran is now greater than on the part of saudi arabia and israel that their
fear of iran is is now greater than whatever
01:16:56
mutual hostility they used to have and so it's
it's kind of bringing people together that way
01:17:01
but you got to give kushner credit for still
getting those deals done you know no one thought
01:17:04
he could do it i remember everyone was blocking
him i agree he's not he's not a [ __ ] and he's
01:17:10
not um he's the opposite of an abrasive guy and
he's very thoughtful and apparently very uh i
01:17:16
don't know if you guys know him personally
but he's supposed to be very smart and um
01:17:19
i'm sure that wherever he ends up next he's going
to do very well and he's going to get invited to
01:17:23
be in a lot of places yeah no it's clear he did
a very good job on the middle east stuff yeah by
01:17:29
the way how crazy is it that trump delivers on
hottest economy ever peace in the middle east
01:17:35
and three vaccines for coronavirus and he's
still lost who would you well it does go to
01:17:41
tell you what what people think of character
yeah character if you watch how he tweets but
01:17:47
he tweeted himself out of his if he acted normal
sacks he could actually take those victories if
01:17:51
he stopped the personal attacks if he stopped the
grifting he would have won he could he could have
01:17:56
been he actually it would have been more than one
if he could have been raymond if he could he could
01:18:00
exactly what i was thinking if he came in in 2016
calm cool and collected with the team where there
01:18:07
was dial down the insecurity and dial up sort of
the intensity of actually calling people out for
01:18:14
not passing progressive change he would have been
elected in a landslide people would have said well
01:18:19
on the way in we were afraid but after four
years the guy could have been magnanimous is what
01:18:23
you're saying yeah and uh it was a real missed
opportunity for him i still think much of trump
01:18:29
is he's a wwe superstar and that's what people
voted for it's why jesse ventura got elected
01:18:34
governor of minnesota that's why arnold
schwarzenegger got elected governor of california
01:18:39
the average you know person that's looking at that
guy versus you know the old dude that doesn't talk
01:18:44
and you know saying some weird stuff about policy
it's like oh man that guy looks awesome let's put
01:18:49
him in office like this is going to be [ __
] fun and if he turned it down when he got in
01:18:52
office he'd be much less appealing i think to a
lot of people i think well then my caricature of
01:18:58
himself that makes him so so appealing then i'd
like to go i'd like to go on the record with my
01:19:03
15-year projection then or uh which is
that the rock is gonna run for president
01:19:10
uh i i think you know the iran situation just
to put that in perspective david if you look
01:19:15
at the age distribution on the
chart i just put in the chat it is just extraordinary how young that country
is the median age is i think 20 or 29 years old
01:19:24
and the they're barely holding on to power
there and it is going to flip into a much
01:19:31
more progressive society um than it is now they
are barely holding on when you look at how many
01:19:36
25 year olds and 30 year olds there are in
that country who are drinking and watching tv
01:19:43
and they have the internet and
they're watching porn and they're gambling i'm sure and buying bitcoin and doing all
this crazy stuff that country's barely holding on
01:19:52
it's going to be a crazy civil war and let's
just hope they don't have nuclear bombs when
01:19:56
that civil war yeah guys guys guys like being
being like extremist it's just like it's just
01:20:01
a bad product market fit now you know it's just
like not worth it there's there's no money to fund
01:20:07
it nobody cares that much anymore everybody's
moving low nps score yeah would you recommend
01:20:14
extremism to a friend or family member too all
right uh this has been another all-in podcast
01:20:24
for bestie c the rain man david sacks and the
queen of quinoa on his coming out party today
01:20:30
ipo coming up for metro mile congratulations to
friedberg congratulations to chamoth on the pipe
01:20:36
sax and i we're gonna have to figure out
a way to lick our wounds and wet our beaks
01:20:40
let's put our thinking caps on and over the
break find a deal we can exclude these two from
01:20:47
we gotta we gotta get in early get thirty percent
of a company and then we gotta have chamoth
01:20:51
spack it and freeburg do the late stage
deal with all this metro mile money yeah and we'll see you all next time on the all-in
podcast that was [ __ ] great best one yet yeah
01:21:01
you guys want to see something funny you guys see
that video my wife just sent me that's my uh dog
01:21:05
taking a [ __ ] on your driveway sex wait i don't
see it oh man where is it i want to see that deuce
01:21:21
can you take a [ __ ] on his model x
oh my god and we'd all have code 13. oh no everybody we rolled over the credits