00:00:00
David sax had a last minute board meeting so he will not be joining us I'll be David sax please do your best
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impression can you imagine hi Jason hello sister how are you Jason do you know what I'm about to do I'm so excited
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I'm so excited tell me do you remember fake jth of course yes do we have the login did you know who that is of course
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right oh you're gonna reveal who fake jth is I'm revealing oh wow it's a big reveal years later I want that handle I
00:00:30
would like to get that handle and give it to someone to be I I hand it to you whoever you want well trust me there's a
00:00:35
lot of people who would love to have the fake Troth handle well how do I get it do I ask the TW can I ask Linda at
00:00:40
Twitter for it yeah I you know we might know somebody at Twitter who can reach can help me I am so credible as the
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person who deserves that password of all the people who've suffered spending time
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with chamath you're you're at the top of that list anybody has the right to mock
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chth I mean you've had to watch his growth over 20 years you've had to suffer I raised him I raised jamat and
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he raised me right back let your winners ride Rainman David and instead we open source it to
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the fans and they've just gone crazy with it queen of all right welcome back to the program
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everybody one of the guests we've always dreamed about having on the show is considered one of the great business
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operators of all time in Silicon Valley for the past 20 years Cheryl Samberg was
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a key some might say the key pece in building the two largest advertising and technology companies in the world Google
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and Facebook paradoxically they they don't go by those names anymore alphabet and meta when she joined Google in 2001
00:01:50
it had 20 million in Revenue they were private and when she left in 2008 they had $22 billion in Revenue when you
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joined Facebook in 2008 it was at2 $70 million in Revenue when she left it was at 117 billion market caps of those two
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companies have grown 100 billion and 950 billion during her ten years and today both are worth over $3 trillion combined
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and are the number four and number seven market cap companies in the world however to our crew she will always be
00:02:20
bestie Dave Goldberg's dream girl as he once described it to me he told me he pursued her relentlessly until she
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finally gave in dated and then married and started a beautiful family together Dave Goldberg passed away nine years ago
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this week uh in 2015 in an alternate universe on a different timeline Goldie would have been one of the four people
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on this panel because he was the most wise funny super mench of the entire 10-person
00:02:47
core poker group the original poker group in fact he was twice the man of any of us which given the low Benchmark
00:02:55
we've set isn't that difficult we can get at least three shows is worth of wisdom
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from our current guest but that's not why she's joining us today she made a documentary and we're here to talk about
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that and we'll have some time for business talk at the end which is going to be a very hard pivot uh given the
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nature of the doc the doc she co-produced is called screams before silence I watched it on the flight back
00:03:17
from New York I had to take three breaks and it took a lot of tissues if I'm being honest it is one of the most
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difficult hours of viewing I've ever had in my life it is focused on the ual violence committed by Hamas during and
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after the October 7th attacks and which tragically in all likelihood continues today with the hostages who are still
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somewhere in Gaza the documentary also takes on flames in our polluted journalistic conspiracy filled media
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landscape that claim none of this happens she traveled to Israel to conduct interviews for it and outside of
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comforting the victim she spends less than 90 seconds speaking in it herself the stories of course speak for
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themselves now the this isn't a disclaimer but some context about this podcast for those of you who are here
00:04:03
for the first time might be helpful we realize we're waiting into a conflict that is thousands of years old and it's
00:04:09
shrouded in pain and suffering with a foundation on the most deeply held religious beliefs Humanity has ever
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formed when we do podcasts like this and have guests we'll be championed by one side and derided by the other but as you
00:04:21
know we don't shy away from the hard discussions on this podcast we go all in on them equal time will always be given
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and we welcome all sides on these difficult discussions it goes without saying that we're not here to be your
00:04:33
expert or final Authority we're here to have a first principal discussion and to
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personally learn alongside each other in good faith in good faith this is a really important concept because it's
00:04:43
hard to have these discussions in good faith today so with that I'll welcome to the all-in podcast our bestie Cheryl
00:04:50
Samberg well saying two things you just said that Dave would have been on this podcast I've thought that actually um
00:04:57
and calling me a bestie because I've been friends with of you for so long means a lot to me yeah uh Jason you
00:05:03
dedicated your book to Dave that meant everything to me David freeberg and I have been traveling around together to
00:05:08
conferences sitting in the backseat of cars and shath it's a really special moment to be here with you we uh we lost
00:05:15
Dave nine years ago yesterday we were at our dear friend Phil Jo's 50th birthday
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party it happened suddenly uh I was in shock everyone was in shock chamath sprung into action took
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care of every logistical thing you could have possibly needed but then he did something you did something shath even
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more important which is you showed up for my children not just for the days and weeks
00:05:39
but for the months and years afterwards and one of the many things you did is you taught them to play poker because
00:05:44
what you said is if Dave were alive he would have taught them to play poker and last night on the 9th anniversary of his
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loss my kids were in that room playing poker and that is very much to your credit shth and I will always always be
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grateful for that and grateful Jason David and all of us for for Dave um so the world lost something really big when
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we lost Dave and I think a lot of people know a lot of the things we lost I lost
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an amazing husband and father to my children you all lost a best friend the world lost a lot of wisdom but there's
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actually one thing that the world also lost that we've never shared and I'm prepared to reveal right now right here
00:06:27
right now because last night Rob gold Dave's brother and I decided we decided it was time to share people may have
00:06:36
known there was a fake chth Twitter handle I built Facebook Rock the angel world and now on the
00:06:42
Warriors my motto don't be a dag that's my job and people have questioned who this was I mean some people think it was
00:06:48
Jason calana some people think it was Choice all right I got to say some people think it was trath
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himself but you know what number one choice yeah the number one choice yeah was fake
00:07:00
jam now he didn't write all the tweets himself I know all of you helped him but he wrote a bunch of them and he used to
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literally lie in bed next to me write something and just big Bell remember Dave's big laugh he would laugh out loud
00:07:14
God and there are so many things the world lost but can you guys imagine the field day Dave AKA fake chth would be
00:07:21
having with this podcast oh my God fi day a field day field day fi day all you'd have to do is just take excerpts
00:07:29
from the show put on Twitter I mean it's one of the great things about the the great challenge I
00:07:35
remember workshopping some tweets here with Dave with Goldie and the the the the big laugh we would have and David
00:07:43
Lee from The Warriors was involved in this mug I mean we just had like a whole group who lived to write these tweets
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and sometimes chat's tweets were so insane and deranged that we couldn't top them so we
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tried come on like this one from fake Shaman pin is the new hot company this is a great one Pinterest is a new hot
00:08:06
company in the valley I don't understand why a site for girls with cats is worth
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300 million now that's something that would be a benign tweet from really here's a great one from October
00:08:19
29th 2011 lot of demand for me to appear in commercials like others but I am holding out for Cartier Mercedes is
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beneath me I mean this predated Laura Pi Laura Piana yeah free you got this next one give us this next there is
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a Laura Piana one in there yeah yeah reason number 756 to go to Vegas no sales tax on Laura Piana this was in
00:08:42
2012 by the way very precious if you dress like me I won't initially think you are a dbag and there's no way Dave
00:08:49
know what Laura piano was there's no way Dave wrote this someone else wrote this
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one for sure absolutely who was thee of the time on Laura Piana at that time very good I mean it's just incredible
00:08:58
people think theur thing is like recent history it was 12 years ago I mean this is when I Meer before we get
00:09:05
started cherl should read that last one that's really good all right Char you get the last
00:09:10
one my newest investment is so good jet time you can random video chat with other people who are also on their
00:09:17
private chat G55 to Hawker yeah Dave Dave loved this group of friends and he loved being faked jth yeah loved it
00:09:26
anyway the secrets out the secrets out guess is that s that that Twitter handle is about to get popular again it's gonna
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get pretty popular and I will just say as much as they've loved being fake shth he he could it's like half the amount
00:09:40
chamath loves being at chth so keep let's just keep that in mind here folks oh my God I haven't cried oh my go
00:09:49
and laughed so hard in five minutes as I did just now I mean actually in some way
00:09:54
Cheryl you're you're you're our fifth bestie as well you're always welcome to come on the
00:10:00
and I I just also for a little bit of housekeeping here when guests come on this podcast we don't prevent questions
00:10:05
no questions are off limits and nobody gets to strike or or do anything nonsensical uh with the product
00:10:11
everybody comes here to we're not journalists we're not we're not journalists we're not traditional
00:10:15
journalists we're friends talking trying to understand stuff and just to be clear
00:10:19
I know a lot of commentary comes back well why didn't you say this or ask this and you know I I think we're just when
00:10:24
we have guests on we just want to talk with them like we would in a living room and have a conversation so right which
00:10:30
means no gotcha journalism although I'll ask a tough question once in a while that may get me in a little bit of
00:10:36
trouble but David freberg you um set this all up and and I know you and Cheryl have been talking about these
00:10:42
important issues and of course we're going to have all sides on so you don't have to email me and and say what about
00:10:49
this side what about that side all sides are welcome to come on the Pod but freeberg why why don't you kick us off
00:10:53
here we're going to talk about this important film uh and a lot of the debates going on about this horrific
00:11:00
attack on October 7th and and then what's going on in Gaza today but then we also are going to try to make that
00:11:06
hard pivot to business and get some of Cheryl's insights on what's happening in the world today of business so freeberg
00:11:11
why don't you kick us off well I just want to zoom out because I think Cheryl um we had I I believe a couple of
00:11:19
conversations after October 7th amongst other folks I've heard that there's been a lot of
00:11:28
disappointment that institutions organizations ideologies that have been supported by folks like yourself or
00:11:36
maybe you can speak I don't want to put words in your mouth suddenly emerged to be something
00:11:41
quite different when threads of anti-Semitism started to emerge and folks began to deny certain
00:11:50
things based on their ideology about the oppressor oppressed concept being applied to
00:12:00
Israel and Palestine and and maybe you can tell us a little bit about the surprise and journey that you've been
00:12:06
through since October 7th with respect to some of the groups that you've supported that suddenly seem quite
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different than what maybe we all thought they were prior look it's a great question
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because I mean sorry and that's the conversation Cheryl and I have been having that led to saying hey why don't
00:12:23
you come on the show this week and let's talk about this and and other topics particularly given the timing with the
00:12:28
release the film it's a great question I mean if you had told me on October 6th the following
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is going to happen terrorists are going to parachute into Israel they are going to kill 12200 people they are going to
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sexually brutalize brutalize and rape multiple women and men I would have said you're crazy then
00:12:52
if you would have told me that people were going to deny the reports were going to start coming out people were
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going to say I'm a first responder I saw naked bodies I saw women bloodied leg spread but then people were
00:13:04
going to deny that this happened I would have said you were crazy and then if you
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had told me that what we would be doing on college campuses is not protesting sexual violence as a tool of War by the
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hands of Hamas Hamas misogynistic homophobic terrorists who are right now holding not just Israelis but Americans
00:13:25
hostage yet we would be protesting and college kids would be screaming we are Hamas I would have said you were crazy
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and that's Hit me hard and for me as a woman as a very outspoken feminist it's all hard but the part that has hit me
00:13:39
the hardest is the denial of the sexual violence that has just been horrible and
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so the reports were coming out in November I wrote an oped and what my oped said was no matter what you believe
00:13:52
should happen in the Middle East I believe in a two-state solution no matter what flag you're flying March
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you're going to you can all be United on one thing which is sexual violence should never be used as a tool of War
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then I did a video that went pretty viral but people are denying it and they're attacking articles and attacking
00:14:12
reports and so I went to Israel and I sat down myself with a video crew this was generously financed by this great
00:14:22
philanthropist Joey low and his wife and I sat down there and I asked people what
00:14:28
did you see with your own eyes we sat down with a released hostage who told her story and this is because people are
00:14:38
actually denying or ignoring this and that is a horrible place for us to be and truly shocking truly shocking
00:14:48
let's double click into that word denial so it's a very heightened moment everybody is taking sides everybody's
00:14:56
trying to interpret what they think think is the right point of view whether it's in that moment or historically in
00:15:03
the Arc of how Israel and Palestine have been in Conflict where does that aspect of
00:15:10
denial come from have you have you spent time trying to unpack like how do you start to get to a place where you say
00:15:17
clearly people were killed but then when it goes into war crimes and sexual violence
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we're actually going to stop it there because it basically pulls our cause back so we can't agree that that
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actually happened how how does that happen why is that happening I mean you're framing it exactly right shamat
00:15:36
that's exactly what happened so I mean you all talk about this a lot but there's huge polarization what does that
00:15:41
mean polarization means I have a view that is so firmly entrenched that I see the word as black and white everything
00:15:47
has to fit into my view and my narrative and when it doesn't fit I don't know what to do so I reject it and that's I
00:15:53
think what's happening that there is there are people out there who believe that October 7th was resistance I want
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to be clear I'm not that person I do not believe that I'm horrified by what's happening in Gaza every life lost is too
00:16:05
much I want two states living peacefully beside each other I really want that but
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let's say you think October 7th was resistance then all of a sudden you're like wait a
00:16:18
second Mass rape genital mutilation of men and women women and men women tied to Tre trees naked bloody
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leg spread that doesn't fit your narrative so what can you do you can wow think maybe The World Isn't So black and
00:16:35
white maybe I have to rethink my narrative or you can say this didn't happen and I think it is a travesty and
00:16:43
a tragedy that anyone could say that and I want to be clear Jason you started this by saying you always have positions
00:16:50
you always give people room for two sides and that's fantastic I think there are not just two sides multiple sides to
00:16:56
the Middle East story multiple sides to the history multiple sides what's been going on there are not two sides on this
00:17:03
this is sexual violence there is one side one side and we are against it and that's relatively new in the world to
00:17:10
take you back quick history lesson which you all know but I'd love for all your viewers to
00:17:14
know for a long time the history of mankind women's bodies were part of War you got the village you got the gold you
00:17:22
got the women and it was only 30 years ago after the mass rapes of the DRC Bosnia the former Yugoslavia that people
00:17:29
said no rape is not a tool of War we will prosecute it as a war crime and a crime against humanity and the feminist
00:17:38
groups were the ones who made that happen the civil rights groups the human rights
00:17:41
groups they've held since then in this moment if our politics drive us to give that up think about what we give up
00:17:48
because as we're doing this podcast right now there are hostages in Gaza that we know are being sexually
00:17:55
assaulted there are women in Ukraine Sudan Ethiopia around the world who are being sexually assaulted right now right
00:18:03
now and we can't let that go this is the one place we need to be United why are the feminist groups finding themselves
00:18:13
aligning more with Hamas than they are with this core what seems to be and should be a core
00:18:21
ideology so look we can't paint them all with one brush there are feminist groups
00:18:25
that have spoken out on this that have said you know now did it the new Nal did it they said
00:18:32
we are against the sexual violence care did it there are groups that have done it no matter what else they're working
00:18:38
on a bunch of them have said to me privately I I know you're right of course sexual violence isn't okay and of
00:18:44
course this happened but I can't speak out because all my employees are going to get upset I can't speak out because
00:18:49
the young people and that makes me really sad but explain that what does that mean young people will be upset to
00:18:55
know that that both things happen you've got to be able to hold two thoughts at the same time again not my
00:19:03
thought but if you believe October 7th is resistant you can still believe sexual violence happened the fact that a
00:19:09
group of feminists none I'm particularly close to have actually signed letters saying this didn't happen is crazy
00:19:19
absolutely crazy I mean look I'm going to read this the UN special representative on sexual violence prila
00:19:24
Patton traveled to Israel and here is what she wrote she said Witness eyewitnessed in Israel were scenes of
00:19:30
unspeakable violence perpetrated with shocking brutality catalog of the most extreme and inhumane forms of killing
00:19:36
torture and other Horrors including sexual violence that's the UN they're not exactly a pro-israel
00:19:44
group Cheryl let me ask because I I think it's important to note some people will counter and say look at this
00:19:50
article from gry Zone greyzone said Western media concocts evidence that the UN report on October 7th sex crimes
00:19:57
failed to deliver from March 7th they said Western media promoted a un report as proof homosexually assaulted Israelis
00:20:04
yet the reports authors admitted they couldn't locate a single victim suggested Israeli officials staged a
00:20:09
rape scene and denounced inaccurate forensic interpretations I just want to give you an opportunity to respond to
00:20:14
Grey zon's article because I think a lot of folks have pointed to that article and the articles that that organization
00:20:21
has put out as being representative of an alternative view that the sexual violence may maybe didn't happen as
00:20:28
evidence in your film maybe you can address it give you a chance to do that yeah well The key thing you said there
00:20:33
is where are the they're asking where are the victims well let me tell you where the victims are they're dead
00:20:39
they're dead that is why we called this film sorry screams before silence I have
00:20:46
a story in this film this woman tally I went with her to the trailer where she hid she was at the Nova Film Festival
00:20:53
she's a nurse she hid in a trailer I walked in with her to that trailer the first time she'd been in
00:20:58
there and you could see her body like shake and she we didn't this didn't make the final cut of the film but she picked
00:21:03
up a black sweater and I think she might have been wearing that sweater I was afraid to ask her but she was like
00:21:08
shaking she hid in that trailer for I don't know five six seven hours and she heard sometimes she would hear like a
00:21:15
little scream like ah someone's pointing a gun at you in a shot but sometimes she
00:21:19
would heard scream over and over and over stop stop and then for like a long period
00:21:27
like 15 minutes and then a shot and then when she got out of that trailer they were naked bodies where she
00:21:34
heard those screams the victims are dead most of them are dead there is exactly one
00:21:41
person who has an escaped to a released hostage her name is amet Sana she gave a
00:21:45
video interview you all saw it we have the only video interview in this documentary and she tells her story very
00:21:51
clearly she was held hostage for months she was chained to a bed and as she said
00:21:57
it he her C forced him to do a commit a sexual act on her this woman is so brave
00:22:04
and she told me she's speaking out because there are still hostages there but she is the only living witness who
00:22:10
speak out we think there are a few more who are in deep trauma but there were 1,00 people killed and at least dozens
00:22:19
of them were sexually brutalized assaulted and that is why they're not speaking out just as a followup what is
00:22:26
the social and political motivation of a group likey Zone and other appointed deniers what are they trying to
00:22:32
accomplish by denying they're trying to accomplish their narrative that October 7th was justified
00:22:39
resistance because even they understand that it is not because the sexual violence taints it in a way right as
00:22:47
opposed to just being soldiers killing Soldiers the sexual violence aspect of it taints the Valor of the resistance is
00:22:54
that a fair way to summarize it even they don't believe and it's interesting saying Hamas has been proudly talking
00:23:02
about who they killed but even they deny the sexual violence that wouldn't happen
00:23:05
it's against our religion the sexual violence doesn't fit the narrative but I want to be clear the sexual violence was
00:23:13
multiple locations systematic meets the definition of a war crime a crime against humanity and was
00:23:20
part of the plan if there was no sexual violence would it be fair to call it a resistance I would not call it a
00:23:27
resistance one of the things that happened after the Holocaust was there was still a small
00:23:34
coh of people that denied that it ever happened and I think that there was to use the word systematic again a
00:23:42
systematic effort to document right there's pictures there's museums there's memorials you can think what you want of
00:23:52
World War II or Jews in general but you can't deny that that happened and the documentation of it
00:23:59
is pretty unambiguous or completely unambiguous when you spend time there is there an effort to start doing this and
00:24:06
here's where I'm getting to which is kind of a morbid question but there's a moment in this documentary where this
00:24:13
woman who was the doctorine the morg I guess is talking about all of these bodies and unfortunately where my mind
00:24:20
went to but I think it's the kind of the right thought is I hope that there was rape kits done even if it's
00:24:29
poly because that's the trail of evidence that allows one to know squarely inside of a box this is
00:24:38
the totality of what happened as a learning lesson for everybody including not just the people that disagree but
00:24:44
the people that agree and then to reinforce some of these basic rights that we thought we've all signed up for
00:24:50
I mean it is such an important question there were not rape kids done 1,200 people killed in one day I don't anyone
00:24:57
was people they wats were burned people were trying to identify them I've actually looked into this a bunch and in
00:25:02
a lot of sexual violence in war situations there are no rape kits so that's actually sometimes they're used
00:25:07
but often in chaos there is none there are very few pictures there are some and I saw them in this
00:25:14
documentary and they are sorry they are naked women with nails and they're groin
00:25:24
like I'm sorry I saw these pictures but what's interesting interesting about it is the people who are the First
00:25:30
Responders are taught not to take pictures particular particularly of gruesome things they don't have the
00:25:36
victims the victims you know victims rights yeah but the man I interviewed he said 24 hours in he thought to himself
00:25:46
no one's going to believe this I got to take pictures and against the training he had he took the pictures and he
00:25:51
showed me on his phone he was like I took this and another guy from zaka they're a first responder group that
00:25:56
goes in this is an unheard of situation I mean I said to him you've been processing sorry
00:26:04
maybe that's not the right word you've been I guess processing dead bodies all over the
00:26:08
world how many times in your experience are they naked and he just looked at me and said never they're never naked and
00:26:16
what meets the legal criteria for proving crimes against humanity are witnesses eyewitnesses and what's
00:26:24
important about the documentary that we did but also important about the efforts Israel is
00:26:29
doing Israel is doing that documentation not Israel the country a woman in Israel
00:26:34
named kav leevy who's fantastic she is from a private university with private funding doing that documentation which
00:26:42
at this point are mostly considered of interviews but there are hundreds of them and look I hope people watch in the
00:26:50
documentary I go into a field with this guy Ramy I'm sure you guys remember this
00:26:55
he because he's huge right he yeah huge he like this tall over me private citizen this guy is the biggest hero
00:27:02
I've ever met in my life Sirens go off he gets into his car takes his gun and drives to where incredible bravery
00:27:11
rescued hundreds of people himself himself but he got to a field and I stood in those trees and he said these
00:27:21
trees he thinks about 30 women were there and raped or sexually brutalized when he saw them they were naked tied to
00:27:28
Tre his legs readed blooded like bloodied in the regions you would be bloody if you were
00:27:33
raped and he what he said in the film is I got there I covered their bodies so no
00:27:38
one else would see he didn't take pictures I wish he had but well I I guess I don't know do I wish he had I
00:27:44
don't know but you understand why but he said I saw this with my own eyes and what you saw in the film is this huge
00:27:52
man who's so brave fought terrorists himself crying CU he didn't get there early enough to save those Wom women but
00:27:58
the good news is while the victims were killed the good news is the First Responders are alive and their testimony
00:28:06
which as eyewitness testimony meets the criteria of any International or or Global Court absolutely crimes can be
00:28:14
proven by I by by eyewitnesses for sure sure what is the response what is the response in
00:28:21
Israel how do you how do you judge what Netanyahu is doing both in reaction to the events but then in reaction to these
00:28:31
specific aspects of the events what are they doing that's different or what would you
00:28:37
wish they were doing differently or can you just give us a sense of how people are processing this
00:28:43
aspect I mean look we need peace we need two sides and two leaders that are committed to peace like long-term peace
00:28:53
and there's a lot going wrong you know but on this aspect you violate someone said it in the film
00:29:00
you violate a woman you violate a country there's a reason sexual violence is used as a war crime there's a reason
00:29:08
it was used in the DRC and Bosnia and it's being used in Ukraine today because and I can see it in your reaction I mean
00:29:14
to humiliate it's to humiliate a people right it's to humiliate a country right you humiliate look at look at the three
00:29:20
of you like you all don't cry a lot like this is traumatic because you all have mothers and daughters like you can feel
00:29:30
what happens to a country and that's why this was done this was not an accident this was on purpose and unfortunately it
00:29:39
works sexual violence I I I think I think a like for us to have a path towards peace there has to be a
00:29:48
degree despite the pain being felt a degree of empathy for the other side's desires the other side's pain the other
00:29:59
side's feeling that they were enacting a resistance against an oppression how does one side Embrace that aspect having
00:30:08
gone through this how how do we get to a point that a people can say I have empathy for the resistance after feeling
00:30:18
this sort of pain and this is the age-old story of War I for an ey it never ends it always goes on what's the
00:30:25
right path here to hear the other side to hear the kids on campuses to hear the the people in Palestine uh to hear the
00:30:34
the world saying we feel free Palestine um after going through this well I can tell you what I believe I believe we
00:30:43
need peace I believe we need two states I believe that those States need to be run by peaceful leaders who want
00:30:49
prosperity for the other side look I believe we should be able to look at anyone anywhere in the world but
00:30:55
certainly the Palestinian people living in Gaza and say any death is too much one death is too much no innocent lives
00:31:03
should be killed no women no children no innocent lives should be killed but I think also as part of that
00:31:09
path to peace there needs to be forgiveness but there needs to be a clear clear articulation of what is not
00:31:18
acceptable ever and the sexual violence is not acceptable ever if you were if you were Netanyahu what would you do
00:31:27
differently sorry for cutting you off no no I mean I don't have an answer to peace in the Middle East I don't I mean
00:31:33
I wish I did but I do have a very strong view that we are not going to get to peace when we are apologizing or denying
00:31:42
crimes against humanity and crime Mass rape of women well that is not the path to peace the path to peace is not saying
00:31:48
this didn't happen the path to peace is saying this happened no matter what side
00:31:53
of the fence you're on no matter what side of the world you're on if you're the far right the far left anywhere on
00:31:57
the world we're not going to let this happen again and we're going to get to peace to make sure denial is not going
00:32:03
to get us there why has the other side captivated so much of the youth in the United States what you're very close to
00:32:09
Harvard maybe tell us what's gone on at Harvard over the last few years how did we end up in this place where so much of
00:32:14
the youth is so sympathetic to the Palestinian cause and not as moved as you are um by
00:32:22
the trauma experienced on the other side I mean y'all are I would throw that question right back to I know you've
00:32:28
talked about you know narratives and oppressor and oppressed and again polarization is where you can only have
00:32:36
one View and you cannot tolerate anything that doesn't fit one View and I don't know of anything that's that clear
00:32:43
and that simple I mean I'll throw that right back to you you all have been articulate on this and I think have a
00:32:48
lot to say well I mean this you said it earlier Cheryl this tolerance for ambiguity this ability the cognitive
00:32:55
dissonance to be able to hold in your head that the people of Gaza are suffering
00:33:00
perhaps I guess the other side would say you know they would they would start down this whataboutism it's not my
00:33:05
position but what about what Netanyahu is doing what about Aid to people suffering Gaza you've addressed that you
00:33:11
don't believe anybody should suffer but I just want to talk a little bit about this conspiracy theory that it didn't
00:33:20
happen also in the documentary The savagery you chose not to show the graphic photos that uh you saw and that
00:33:32
you're clearly traumatized by and uh a lot of us New Yorkers had a similar experience with 911 and watching that up
00:33:39
close it is what terrorists do terrorists do these things to cause massive trauma to make it impossible to
00:33:45
deescalate that is the sadism that is the pure evil of of of this brand of terrorism is to make it impossible for
00:33:53
the good people of the world to unwind or or deescalate and and it's I think part of the process is accepting what
00:34:02
happened and and coming to some truth and the truth can be there are people dying unnecessarily in Gaza there are
00:34:08
people starving in Gaza there are children who are not getting food and water all of those can be true and this
00:34:15
horrific sexual uh sadism and violence that occurred is also true you and in that was awesome I
00:34:23
couldn't have said that better that that was exactly right Jason that is exactly
00:34:28
the point and the path sorry please continue that was I mean I'm I'm trying to make sense of this I I and I and I
00:34:34
come to it with humility you know uh you know this podcast you know hits certain
00:34:39
notes with people and oh how can people in Silicon Valley or whatever discuss these topics listen we're all discussing
00:34:45
them we're all trying to make sense of of a very confusing world but you made two choices in the documentary one was
00:34:51
to leave yourself out of it largely your role in the documentary is you know to hug people and and to cry onside them
00:34:58
and to witness the stuff you talk for I think 90 seconds in the whole documentary I think this was a an
00:35:03
important decision you made and then you made a decision which I'm not sure if I
00:35:07
agree with which is to not show the photos I am of the belief that people should see what happened on 911 as a New
00:35:14
Yorker who witnessed it and my brother's in the power department and I had PTSD from it I think people have to see these
00:35:20
things you chose not to out of respect for the family should put a note at the end explain this choice because I know
00:35:27
you must have struggled with it and there are photos that you've seen of women with their breast cut off I hate I
00:35:34
I don't want to say these things I know it's very traumatic but I believe people
00:35:37
have to understand what's in these photos that you saw Nails in women's private parts breasts that have been cut
00:35:44
off this is undeniable if you want to deny the rapes happened or whatever you cannot deny the photos that you
00:35:50
saw he chose not to put them in I understand that decision respect for the family is there not a take us into that
00:35:57
decision because maybe there's a maybe you need to and the and and the woman who who
00:36:04
chose to do the interview with you she's so brave she said I had to do this because I wanted to combat the denialism
00:36:10
and I don't know who the gry zone is you know the the I don't know why people are
00:36:14
giving it a ton of attention but they you know they are considered the first line the Wikipedia page is it's a fringe
00:36:19
website so just leave it at that I don't know if it is or if it isn't but that that's the first one on the Wikipedia
00:36:23
pitch is there not a case to be made for making a version of the documentary that
00:36:30
shows exactly these things so people can stop denying it because then they you would have to come to the place that
00:36:36
these that the people who are one-sided created fake images well that's is that is that where we're we're getting to in
00:36:44
this conspiracy filled world that the dozens of people you interviewed are part of a grand conspiracy and the
00:36:51
photos are doctored so just talk about that decision you you must have had an important meeting uh about about
00:36:58
that look we didn't really have a choice I agree with you I think the world seeing this would probably be necessary
00:37:08
at some point I do think the deniers will deny they'll say oh you can doctor any
00:37:13
photo so you're going to have to believe the person who took them anyway we didn't have that choice these photos are
00:37:19
held by people who have taken a vow as part of their work as First Responders of processing and getting bodies ready
00:37:27
for burial that they won't show them it also you know we've made this freely available on
00:37:33
YouTube so anyone can watch it no fire walls you know anyone can watch this thing if you're over
00:37:39
18 it wouldn't make YouTube standards so that would be taken down I mean we we can't show them right now for those two
00:37:45
reasons but I think over time we the world may have to see some of them but I also want to go back to what shamat said
00:37:52
because there are not that there are photos there are clear photos and there are clear Witnesses but story he took no
00:37:58
photos and he will tell you why he took no photos he covered those bodies so no one would see yeah so it's traumatic and
00:38:07
and and that's why Israel is documenting this or not Israel actually I shouldn't
00:38:11
say it someone in Israel is documenting this but again no matter what else you believe I love the way you said it Jason
00:38:18
you can absolutely believe I absolutely believe that every single person particularly the private citizens not
00:38:26
the terrorists in Gaza should live in peace and Harmony they they should of course get aid but they shouldn't need
00:38:32
Aid because they should have a thriving economy and a state that's their own that doesn't mean sexual violence
00:38:40
didn't happen because it is clear it did and the denial is crazy I was in France
00:38:44
I did a I took some of the witnesses to to different parliaments including in the French Parliament and um Maurice
00:38:52
Levy hosted this beautiful lunch for us and there were all the people who work in civil society and this woman stood up
00:38:58
at this lunch and she stood up and she said I'm French I'm not Jewish I run a nonprofit that works on sexual violence
00:39:06
and conflict I've done this work for 30 years no one's ever questioned my work ever until now and she said I think it's
00:39:17
anti-Semitism you look at that New York Times article and I know there's different views of the New York Times
00:39:22
I'm not defending the paper but that article written by Jeff Gelman and others he has covered sexual violence
00:39:29
for decades he want a Pitzer for his coverage of this in Somalia a Pitzer I did a search no one's ever questioned it
00:39:38
before something is going on here and it is a combination of narratives and polarization and
00:39:44
anti-Semitism which is getting us to a place where we lose yeah sorry let's explore that for a second so when you
00:39:51
see the videos what you see are young people but you see a lot of young women and many of the leaders
00:40:00
of these of these movements on campuses now the spokes people are women the leadership seems mostly to be
00:40:10
women do you have a reaction to that do you have a thought on that when you see these folks and that that they should be
00:40:17
closer to this realization maybe than a man could theoretically Overlook it or try to block it out but it's actually
00:40:27
the leadership of these organizations tend to be mostly women L and they're basically like let's keep going and it's
00:40:32
about this resistance how do you react to that when you see that it really depends what I see like when I see
00:40:38
someone peacefully protesting and saying free Palestine sure why not that's that's good I want free Palestine when I
00:40:46
see people protesting and saying you know we need peace on all sides we need a ceasefire of course we need we need a
00:40:54
permanent ceasefire that lasts I'm for that ready when I see people saying the rapes didn't happen that's unacceptable
00:41:02
you know you saw a student at Colombia I saw it in video I'm sure you did too screaming at a Jewish kid go back to
00:41:08
Poland right I saw or October 7th's going to happen to you over and over that's not okay and so it really depends
00:41:16
what they're saying but again I'm hoping people watch this documentary so they can see it for their own eyes I'm hoping
00:41:22
people wake up and realize that they are capable of holding two thoughts at the same time they just are what's going to
00:41:28
happen at Harvard what's going to happen at the IV leagues I don't know what's going to happen at any of these schools
00:41:33
but I'll tell you I'm a parent of college age kids you know I've got a kid who was in college for a year I've got a
00:41:41
kid going off this year in the fall colleges have a responsibility to keep our kids safe full stop and protect them
00:41:49
from hate full stop and they have the ability to do this they have the ability to do this it's up to them do you think
00:41:57
Colombia has done a good job well if you were president of Harvard what would you
00:42:00
have done differently sh I I'm not close enough it's all merging together in my mind I don't know exactly which protest
00:42:06
has happen at which schools but here's here's what I would do yeah I would have very clear rules which by the way all
00:42:13
the schools have it's a question of enforcing them right the schools that are letting this happen are not
00:42:17
enforcing their own rules schools are actually I think look free and open dialogue is important college is the
00:42:23
place you should go to talk about the issues from all sides to have thoughtful conversations to have
00:42:30
deep conversations even maybe to have Angry conversations yeah but not I went to Berkeley it wasn't lunch without a
00:42:37
protest I mean that's like the daily thing you do there you know you go grab a sandwich and you go protest you go
00:42:42
back to class like that was great and I bet you had thoughtful conversations because that's what's made you you look
00:42:47
how look how complic look at your views David you're able to articulate multiply
00:42:52
complex views and I bet some of that was from Berkeley where you probably sat with your fellow students and talk to
00:42:57
them right that's not what's happening I think things are very different yeah I think things are very different these
00:43:04
colleges have rules some of the colleges there most colleges have a rule that you
00:43:09
can't protest in the president's office there are colleges where the faculty and
00:43:13
administration when people are protesting in the president's office they're serving them food there are
00:43:18
colleges that say you're not allowed to protest here go outside but if you feel if you feel deep down in your heart that
00:43:24
it's a matter of life or death don't you feel Justus ified that having an encampment setting up a tent living
00:43:29
there showing that that degree of conviction is necessary because you're saving lives versus hey I think
00:43:36
something is a good idea let me go protest for an hour during lunch and then I'll leave it's never going to move
00:43:40
the needle the question I'm asking as a young person is how do I move the needle
00:43:45
and there's not a lot of ways that people feel empowered to move the needle so it seems rational to me to some
00:43:50
degree that they want to go into these encampments and they want to do something strong and show their
00:43:55
conviction but again I think that there's a question on how much truth or is anyone willing to see how much are
00:44:02
folks willing to embrace the other side how much are they willing to listen I I see very little listening very little
00:44:07
dialogue going on because then you put up a list of Demands that are unmet and you know you deny anyone to
00:44:14
have a conversation and you deny listening to the other side and you take this hardened view that doesn't allow
00:44:20
for progress and I think it's the hardened views on all sides that's limiting progress entirely unfortunately
00:44:26
the youth have been sub by this and it's really frustrating to see because I worry about what that it's not
00:44:33
necessarily the youth meaning I think you're seeing it in some very specific places that cater to a very specific
00:44:40
kind of Youth you see them at colia Harvard there are these specific Berkeley UCLA that are bastions of
00:44:48
privileged kids for the most part these are extremely Elite institutions that typically allow in kids that have been
00:44:57
coached their entire lives to get into those schools and I think that they're coming there with a lack of fulfillment
00:45:04
and it reminds me at some level of how people reacted to Occupy Wall Street meaning there were a whole bunch of
00:45:13
young people there that probably didn't even know what the whole Occupy Wall Street movement was about well they said
00:45:19
themselves chth it was a platform for whatever your grievance was that was their state in Mission yeah and I think
00:45:25
what they found a decade and a half ago or so was community in this weird way yes right the physical interaction of
00:45:31
other people where you had this intimacy around a thing I'm not condoning Occupy
00:45:35
Wall Street just like I'm not condoning what's happening on campuses but I think
00:45:39
psychologically what kids are looking for is that level of attachment and to your point David something that they can
00:45:45
feel strongly about and I think they end up getting to the age of 18 and 19 not having felt strongly about anything
00:45:52
because they were working on playing Nine Sports and 14 instruments and all this other bullsh to go to these schools
00:45:59
and then they get there and they feel a little empty and sometimes negative things can fill the void what I was
00:46:05
going to say is I think the the answer lies in what you're in what we're saying David you started out by saying how are
00:46:10
we going to get to progress well screaming at each other is not going to get to progress I don't have an answer
00:46:15
for peace in the Middle East but we're you know universities play roles in getting there thoughtful hard
00:46:21
conversations let's look at the real history let's look at who the leadership could be let's let look at what kind of
00:46:27
leaders we need on both sides let's look at what the International Community could be doing those answers could come
00:46:34
at a universities some of those college students if they weren't reading five things they don't understand could help
00:46:39
us get there and I think these protests are getting in the way of the thoughtful
00:46:45
dialogue and I honestly think part of what happens with cancel culture I don't want to listen to another view on all
00:46:53
sides really why don't you say I want to listen my friend Adam Grant wrote a great book called think again I wish
00:47:01
everyone in the whole world would read that damn book think again think again means you like might not be right about
00:47:06
everything think again means you need to like listen to the other side we're never going to get there without that
00:47:13
kind of thoughtful dialogue well yeah and that's that's exactly where I wanted to go with the cherl which is if you if
00:47:18
you steal man if you look at their perspective and you look at the beauty of feminism and femininity uh and you
00:47:27
wrote a book lenan and you are an expert on this and having compassion for people who are
00:47:33
suffering is absolutely beautiful it it is the best of humanity and and I think it's the best of femininity and women is
00:47:41
that they have this Incredible Gift of of empathy that as men maybe we we are so far behind and so it does not
00:47:48
surprise me that women lead these organizations when they see suffering and if you see children suffering women
00:47:53
are in a unique position in their life experience to understand the value of children of family and of suffering and
00:48:01
you know I can understand an impressionable young person seeing the videos coming out of Gaza of a baby
00:48:07
dying in a bombing and collateral damage and being devastated and saying you know
00:48:10
what I have to fight for these poor children it is completely Noble in their mind in fact it might be Noble uh I mean
00:48:19
to to fight for peace and so you know I can understand their their positions and
00:48:26
I don't actually disagree with them but then you you start looking at the reality of getting the hostages back and
00:48:35
if this was an American situation and and we actually have a coral are 911 we we didn't go to Afghanistan to
00:48:43
get hostages we went there to get retribution so if America went there to eliminate
00:48:51
this threat and and we also took out another country just for good measure that that wasn't even involved in it you
00:48:59
know it's such a complex issue and we're in the fog of War I think everybody pausing for a second here and just
00:49:04
remember how confusing it was after 911 how confusing it was and and we had to figure out wait a second these were
00:49:11
Saudis these were this radical group the Splinter Group like it takes a while to
00:49:15
figure out what's going on here and I I do think on these campuses they should allow them to protest but there's
00:49:22
outside agitators that seems to me to be completely unacceptable to have 40506 are Lifetime agitators on these campuses
00:49:30
allow these kids to to protest but to chase Jewish kids around the campus and then surround them
00:49:37
and threaten them in 2024 I I mean I AG I I can't understand what's happening and how how we got How
00:49:45
Could An Administration Cheryl allow students to threaten other students and not immediately snap a snap decision
00:49:54
it's a decision you just said it it's a a decision absolutely expelled if a Jew a set of Jewish students surrounded a
00:50:02
Palestinian student an Islamic student a Muslim and chanted at them about what happened October 7th and made them feel
00:50:10
threatened expelled them as well there's just some basic basic rules of the game
00:50:15
they're not enforcing it's absolutely infuriating uh but I just want to make sure I steal them on that other side and
00:50:20
and you did you know I think very eloquently say you also agree with the suffering Palestine needs to end I know
00:50:28
we're out of time can I say one thing I really want to saying Cheryl as much as you like you have time I really want to
00:50:34
thank you all for this because two things happened in the last hour with you one is that you were really
00:50:42
passionate against this sexual assault and really clear and as much as we need women to believe this we need male and
00:50:49
male leaders and so your voices like I could feel the passion on this and I'm really grateful because that that gives
00:50:56
me hope like I am it's such a dark moment it's such a dark moment for democracy it's such a dark moment for
00:51:02
Jews it's such a dark moment for women but this really gave me hope and the second is um your tears for
00:51:10
Dave thanks it's been nine years a lot of we've moved on you have friends um I have a wonderful life that
00:51:19
I'm so grateful for um but the world still lost a really really really special person and I I can see how much that
00:51:30
means I knew this but there there are very few things as you gr older that you realize in life that matters and thank
00:51:37
you um friends are that's it just friends you know at the end of the day trath what family and your friends
00:51:44
that's all you have I I I I I think about Dave frequently and um I just think at the end of the your life what
00:51:53
you have is but a collection of memories and the memories we have with Dave the laughter The Joy the fake chth fake just
00:52:04
his wit his insights you know we would be sitting at that poker table and it was like we're all like 15 16 year olds
00:52:12
and we got this big brother who's 20 and you know we'd be bickering and laughing whatever he'd come in and say
00:52:18
hey guys how about this and this so chath and I would be drawing each other he' hey guys let's calm it down a little bit
00:52:26
and let's have a good time whatever thank you guys so much I have to go to my board meeting this was this was like
00:52:32
as deeply meaningful as it could have been seriously we we didn't get to talk about anything business I I you to come
00:52:40
back to the either come to the summit and are shorten video we just need to know it's a
00:52:46
hard hard also what's your view on crypto uh if you were to change any paragraph of the Leaning book we'll save
00:52:57
all this for the Sun come on really big hug thank you guys and thank you for watching thank
00:53:03
you wow I need to take a deep breath here chth freeberg this was um super emotional for me man I didn't know if I
00:53:11
could do it I'll be honest I have so many emotions jamath about Dave I have so many feelings about this situation
00:53:17
when I watch the documentary I thought the most important thing is there are these you said it
00:53:23
Jason in the fog of War there are things that happened that are just wholly unacceptable I
00:53:31
remember when I was getting older and I was curious why did my family not go back to Sri Lanka and what
00:53:41
do the tamils which is a small minority Hindu minority in the majority Buddhist population why did they feel so out of
00:53:48
sorts and we were part of the Buddhist majority and when you insert yourself into that struggle and understand where
00:53:55
they're coming from it's jarring because you have to really like re underwrite okay what are we
00:54:02
fighting for what are they fighting for and the most important thing that I got to is what is
00:54:06
allowed because then you would see things and the unfortunate part of Sri Lanka Sri Lanka's history was in the
00:54:14
final parts of the war that ended it there were some incredible atrocities that were committed and you know the
00:54:21
United Nations and international court system tried to find Justice for the Tamil minority population in what
00:54:29
happened in those Final hours of that war I I don't think that they did for for for the most
00:54:35
part but it's just to show you that these things leave deep wounds that frankly can be
00:54:43
reopened in a moment so it's very important that I think these things are and I hate to say it so unemotionally
00:54:50
but documented absolutely absolutely for those that have that don't even understand Holocaust if you go to the
00:54:57
Holocaust Museum if you're lucky enough to do it in Israel I would encourage you
00:55:00
to do it but even in Washington you know the totality of what happened there's there's certain places
00:55:07
that document these important moments in history and if and if this is one of those moments to the Israeli people I
00:55:13
just encourage them please make sure that you minimize the Miss and disinformation as complicated as that
00:55:21
may be to do it is incredibly important so that you can create and doing so does not dissolve empathy for the other
00:55:30
side's cause or for the other side's motivations or objectives having empathy for the circumstances that happened here
00:55:38
is the equivalent of having empathy for the plight of the Palestinian people and
00:55:42
what they're dealing with today following October 7th and I think that we need to recognize that both things
00:55:48
can be true we can have empathy for both sides yeah and by the way humans have a
00:55:54
way of making decisions which I think is pretty predictable which is once you have a point of
00:56:01
view there are things that you believe are facts and then there's all this other stuff that you have degrees in
00:56:07
which you believe that are essentially conjecture the most important thing in really important debates is to move
00:56:15
something from that Gray Zone into the box of facts so to speak and that is the only way that causes people to rewrite
00:56:23
their principal views it doesn't matter what topic we're talking about so the more that we're able to document and
00:56:30
actually make these things unambiguous I think it actually has a really important
00:56:35
role to play in how these young people view what it is that they're part of I'm totally Pro protesting I'm totally in
00:56:42
support of you know standing up for the things that you believe in I'm not in support of overlooking
00:56:49
atrocities I mean it's it's well said chamat and you know the response I I can tell you to you know this this episode
00:56:57
and the response I got for just tweeting you know hey this is important documentary to watch is you know the
00:57:03
whatow baptism the other side and documenting what's happening in Gaza and you know we we have this search for
00:57:10
truth right now which is very difficult because institutions have a lot of self-inflicted wounds we live in an age
00:57:19
of conspiracy theory you know and and there are reports of Crisis actors you know in
00:57:27
Gaza creating fake deaths and fake videos so you know now you have one side saying oh the the people of Palestine or
00:57:36
Hamas are the numbers aren't correct of the number of people died the the suffering is not correct these images
00:57:41
aren't correct the fog of war is going to be thick for a while here folks and it's going to take us a while and
00:57:46
Shaman's exactly right you got to document this you got to get to some ground truth you got to get to some
00:57:50
common facts so we can all objectively look at those common facts and you know listen um it's it's a shame David sax
00:57:57
couldn't make it today but it would have he's really missed here because you know
00:58:00
we have that same thing with the the the war in Ukraine and it's very hard for us in this current media landscape
00:58:08
where we're quoting from new sources and Anonymous Twitter accounts fake videos it's going to get worse with AI it's
00:58:17
going to be harder and harder to find the truth and this is where your own personal morality ethics and and I'm not
00:58:22
sure who brought this up during our talk cuz I'm emotionally spent I got to be honest um it's a little hard for me to
00:58:29
collect myself here but man you know it you you have to have some basic moral principles
00:58:36
here children women rape sexual assault we we all can agree on this you said this in the week after October 7th
00:58:46
freeberg you had a very powerful moment on the show that that you don't want to have to decide between between October
00:58:54
7th being horrific and children dying in Gaza being horrific and you don't want to have to
00:59:00
be painted with one side or the other you want to believe as a moral person that all suffering needs to end and we
00:59:09
collectively as a species in 2024 on this planet can work together to to just agree that certain things should never
00:59:20
happen and and to try to resolve these horrible conflicts I'm I'm I'm so spent right now and it was very difficult for
00:59:26
me to watch that documentary I don't know where we go from here gentlemen I I'm fine ending the show here or taking
00:59:32
a 10-minute break and then maybe doing one or two news stories take a break we'll come back let's take five 10
00:59:39
[Music] minutes all right everybody welcome back to the program yep it's not easy to do a pivot
00:59:51
here but we collected ourselves took a deep breath and you've all been asking for a science corner and so there's a
00:59:59
really important story that freeberg has been educating us about on the group chat there's a startup that just open
01:00:05
sourced an AI Gene editor Yes you heard that right open source Gene editor powered by AI it's called profluent bio
01:00:13
am I correct profluent uh yeah Berkeley based startup profluent bio great have we talked about crisper and Gene editing
01:00:19
before on the show or no I think we have mentioned it it would be good as a primer for you to just explain from
01:00:25
first principal what is crisper why it's important and then get into this so there's debate around who discovered
01:00:31
crisper cast systems first and found their application but but generally who side are you on the Jennifer Duda side
01:00:37
or the MIT is it is I'm an open source guy which is why I'm excited about this topic today because I I don't give a sh
01:00:44
I think things that are in nature are in nature and I don't think you should be able to Pat I don't think you should be
01:00:48
able to patent stuff that you discover in nature so let's step back for a second freberg explain what crisper is
01:00:53
to somebody who's heard the term but doesn't actually know in your ability to explain science yeah crisper C crisper c
01:01:02
c c proteins Cas proteins are proteins that can go in to a cell and they have what's called a guide RNA little piece
01:01:14
of RNA attached to them that allows that protein to find its way to a specific point in DNA in that cell in the nucleus
01:01:22
of that cell and when that protein hits that specific location it cuts it like scissors and so the protein finds the
01:01:30
part of the DNA it's looking to cut attaches itself cuts the the DNA and a cut is made and so this capability was
01:01:37
discovered actually in bacteria and it was an evolved system that bacteria developed to actually protect themselves
01:01:45
from viruses so the crisper Cass complex emerged through Evolution where bacteria
01:01:52
started to figure out that they could cut up viral DNA so they made these proteins these proteins would attach to
01:01:58
viral DNA and destroy the viruses that came into the the um the bacteria cells so scientists arguably from Harvard from
01:02:06
Berkeley and from other places around the world in the early 2010s started to do research and identified ways that we
01:02:14
could leverage these proteins that we were discovering in nature to do targeted DNA editing in human cells and
01:02:21
plant cells and other cells so rather than them just being used as a defense mechanism by bacteria that we could
01:02:27
harness these proteins and make them useful to go in and do specific Gene editing now why would we want to do Gene
01:02:33
editing Gene editing if done precisely enough and efficiently enough would allow us to go in and fix
01:02:42
genetic diseases in humans for example it would allow us to take tea cells and reprogram them to go and attack cancer
01:02:51
cells back in the human body it would allow us in the case of Agriculture which I'm very close to and what I work
01:02:56
on every day to figure out ways to make specific changes to the genes of a plant
01:03:01
to make that plant grow in higher yield or change itself to be disease resistant
01:03:06
or drought resistant or other features that might be helpful to Agriculture and to humanity so Gene editing became this
01:03:12
amazing toolkit that emerged around 2012 2013 and just blew up on the market and
01:03:18
the main original foundational patents which are now mostly held after a lot of litigation by the broad Institute which
01:03:26
is you know there's this kind of joint patent arrangement with the broad and MIT and
01:03:31
Harvard are being used in medical applications they're being used in agriculture applications they're being
01:03:36
used in all these different tools but they're patented there's royalties there's fees all this stuff and in the
01:03:41
years that followed many other cast proteins started to get discovered all these different types of proteins were
01:03:47
discovered and the reason you want to use different proteins is you want to improve the efficiency so how frequently
01:03:52
or how good are these proteins at editing the cell and eliminate off Target effects meaning the
01:03:58
protein isn't making Cuts or making changes to other parts of the DNA that you don't want it to so there's been the
01:04:04
search underway for the last decade for new cast proteins and developing new cast proteins and dozens have been
01:04:10
discovered people are trying to patent them people are trying to make them uh do special things they can only change
01:04:16
one letter all these different tools are emerging so we went from having absolutely no ability to do Gene editing
01:04:22
just over a decade ago to suddenly having all of these different tools that could do Gene editing really efficiently
01:04:29
really cheaply really really affordably really scalably and more precisely so this company profluent they actually
01:04:35
used an AI model what they call a protein language model to create and train an entirely new library of cast
01:04:44
proteins that do not exist in nature today so they basically took 26 terabase so 26 trillion letters of assembled
01:04:54
genomes and genomes this is from other from various species and start to simulate new cast proteins that could be
01:05:02
useful to replace the ones that are on the market today or improvements on what's in the market today and they
01:05:08
found one that they called open crisper one and they made it publicly available under an open- Source license so any
01:05:16
startup any research lab any individual any scientists can use this particular cast protein to go in and make without
01:05:26
having to deal with patent and IP and claims on who owns what that they found in nature and this particular protein
01:05:34
that they identified is 400 mutations away from anything that they've seen in nature so basically the AI model started
01:05:43
to learn what sequence of DNA generated what structure of protein that was really good at being a gene editor and
01:05:52
they started to discover and iterate on building new ones and AI started to predict hey this would be a good Gene
01:05:57
editor this would be a good Gene editor and they came up with dozens of new Gene
01:06:01
editing molecules that don't exist in nature today they identified one that they then sequenced they created it they
01:06:08
put it in a lab they tested it and it turned out to be much better than cast n so the one so they use an AI model
01:06:17
to find a new guide RNA to find a new cast protein so the guide RNA is just RNA that's like that's like the
01:06:26
key think about a crisper cast system has two components one is the cast Protein that's the giant protein that
01:06:35
goes in and cuts DNA and it attached to it is what's called a guide RNA that guide RNA is the specific letters and
01:06:42
those specific letters are like a key and a lock they go attached to a particular part of the DNA and then that
01:06:46
giant protein Cuts in that exact spot and so what they what everyone's been working on is new proteins and they've
01:06:52
been trying to find new cast proteins that aren't going to go do of Target cutting they aren't going to make
01:06:57
mistakes that are going to be perfect at making the exact cut you want to make so
01:07:00
everyone's always trying to improve the efficiency and reduce the off Target effects of these systems and so what
01:07:06
they did is they tried to create a new protein that doesn't exist by learning from all of these other cast proteins
01:07:11
that exist in nature today and identifying the three-dimensional structure of them and allow the model to
01:07:17
predict a cast protein that might actually be better than anything that's found so it works around every single
01:07:22
existing patent well that's going to be t in the courts later I'm sure but they open
01:07:27
sourced it so they they're not claiming any IP on it they're not making any claims on it with the patent office and
01:07:32
they're saying look it's free and available I'm on the same page as you if this is if this was occurring billions
01:07:37
of years ago and it just took us billions of years to actually observe it occurring
01:07:42
naturally in nature it's absolutely ridiculous that a patent would be granted on that now the implementation
01:07:47
of that in a commercial use case that's fine be able to this is happening I guess in the Psychedelic space with s
01:07:55
thin MDMA some of those such a that's such a leap no no I'm just saying there are drug companies now that are real
01:08:02
realizing the efficacy at Johns Hopkins Stanford where they're doing these and then they're trying to figure out how do
01:08:07
we take something that's occurring naturally so cent in mushrooms referred to colloquially as
01:08:12
magic mushrooms and then how how do we get our how do we bear hug this so that we can patent it how can we own the
01:08:17
implementation of it as you're saying and so there it's fascinating to me taking nature and trying to patent
01:08:24
nature right there's a simple truth to all this which is every single life sciences lab on Earth is using this
01:08:32
technology today it has absolutely revolutionized Life Sciences it has changed everything it has reset the
01:08:39
trajectory of human health of Agriculture and of industrial biotechnology those are the three major
01:08:44
markets where Gene editing is useful it is changing everything and so it is already a ubiquitous tool we basically
01:08:51
created software engineering for DNA for life capability and so this system that
01:08:57
these guys just published on I think is a really wonderful manifestation of how AI is allowing us to open source and
01:09:04
create improved tools and uh it's uh it's really important for Humanity and so I think
01:09:11
it's just great to to see happen yeah okay two questions for my baby brother with the with the science brain number
01:09:17
one the llms here how maybe you speak to the efficacy of llms when applied to this
01:09:25
vertical because it's a constrained data set I believe so it feels to me analogous to code whereas like human
01:09:33
language images videos you know building an llm around them you have like pretty
01:09:38
large Corpus it seems to me code is contrained a video game's contrained and of course
01:09:43
maybe maybe Gene editing is contrained I'll let you answer that and and the llm component here and then maybe you could
01:09:48
speak to what this will do to the startup Community being able to leverage this open source tool have have startups
01:09:56
started to pop up around this yet is there a. org.com kind of equivalent here where you have wordpress.org open source
01:10:04
version of Wordpress wordpress.com the hosted paid version and are we going to see a bunch of Doc versions of this in
01:10:10
different startups take it whichever way you like the two questions I'm not super
01:10:15
familiar I've met the profluent guys a couple times I'm not super familiar with what their business models going to be
01:10:22
MH but I hate that startups are worried or feel encumbered by the patent landscape associated with crisper cast
01:10:37
systems and that they can't build novel products and move Humanity forward okay so it's a blocker for Humanity I'm
01:10:44
hopeful that we do see more of these open source like tools become available in ubiquitous it's almost the equivalent
01:10:50
of having Linux where everyone can now you know as an operating system or HTML being you know standard uh code I don't
01:10:59
know if you remember to use um before HTML 5 a lot of people were using macromedia flash of course it was a huge
01:11:07
blocker yeah it was a huge blocker so you had to pay the license fee to to create flash content and then you had to
01:11:13
I don't know if they sold consumer plugins well yeah and then you could get rug pulled right they could change their
01:11:18
mind trying and they were trying to make money on both sides and so in order to show Microsoft did to try to be a
01:11:24
blocker and own the open so in order to put yeah in order to put multimedia on the internet you have used to have to
01:11:29
pay license fees and then HTML 5 basically created multimedia capabilities native to the HTML which is
01:11:36
open sourced and so everyone could do it and I think that it's really important that we see that happening with Gene
01:11:42
editing I think all the applications of Gene editing should be patentable and protectable but the core tools are so
01:11:47
powerful and important that I think it's very difficult and hard to see how we are accelerating Humanity's progress
01:11:55
by keeping these things at Bay and it's really great to see open sour tools like
01:12:00
this hit the market and I think it's really important to and I think it's really
01:12:05
amazing cre yeah tell me about the llm side here the large language model being built around this data how how what's
01:12:12
the efficacy of that going to be like and is my analogy of a constrained data set meaning it'll be able to perform at
01:12:19
a higher level like we see with code and then co-pilots for code well they created their their own llm they call it
01:12:27
a a protein language model so they took all of this genome data that is generally very publicly available
01:12:34
there's a lot of the stuff published in open genome databases you can download it ingest it and use it for whatever
01:12:40
purposes you want as a life sciences researcher so they took 26 trillion base pairs of data and
01:12:48
basically use that to train their model and then using that train model they then started to run inference on it to
01:12:56
say come up with cast systems that are are novel that could theoretically have efficacy greater than what we see in
01:13:02
nature with the natural cast systems and then the model started to Output all of
01:13:06
these novel proteins then they started to test them and they found that this one worked really really well after
01:13:12
testing in the lab so actually here's a great image so here you can see basically in training the model so it's
01:13:18
it's a little bit technically complicated what they did in the steps to generate this system but ultimately
01:13:23
the system yielded something that they could then create put in a lab environment and in the lab environment
01:13:29
test how well it worked and what they showed was that it actually worked better than cast 9 which is the primary
01:13:35
Gene editing protein Ed today so you know pretty powerful set of steps and all unlocked by again freely available
01:13:42
data and building their own model and now ultimately open sourcing the best output of it so cool amazing job if you
01:13:52
missed any of those Graphics you're listening to the podast go to YouTube and search for all in
01:13:57
podcast if you want to see those Graphics all right gentlemen this has been another amazing episode of the all
01:14:03
in podcast 4 your Sultan of science David freeberg the chairman dictator uh and David saaks who could
01:14:10
make it today I am the world's greatest moderator rest in power Dave Goldberg Goldie we love you we miss you and we'll
01:14:18
see you all next time on the all podcast love you boys besties byee let your winner
01:14:26
ride Rainman David and instead we open source it to the fans and they've just gone crazy
01:14:34
with it love queen [Music] of Besties my dog taking driveway oh man my habiter will meet me
01:14:54
at should all just get a room and just have one big huge orgy cuz they're all this useless it's like this like sexual
01:14:59
tension but they just need to release [Music] somehow we need to get mer [Music]
01:15:16
our I'm doing all [Music]