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hey everybody welcome back besties
are back for the all-in podcast the queen of quinoa freeburg is here the dictator
chamoth and of course rain man david sachs
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and it's been a big week here in silicon valley
with airbnb and wish both going public for over
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a hundred billion dollars combined anybody
get their beak wet on that one oh hey guys
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oh what how are you david yeah i might i might
have gotten my be quiet on on a couple of those
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so oh a little bit well uh you know what in
celebration of your recent victory with airbnb
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wish i will oh no i can't zoom in on my merch
but i've got my unofficial wet your beak
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mug so for those of you wondering we have to
uh get a little bit of housekeeping out of the
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way at first here uh the merch has gone crazy
have you guys been watching merch on twitter
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of course anybody anybody my favorite market i
got some of those mugs i think they arrived today
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they look great it's amazing and you know the
best decision we made was was not to let you
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sell t-shirts jason because you would have you
would have you would have uh milked this for
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every every nickel you could and said and instead
we we open source it to the fans and they've just
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gone crazy with it i mean they're literally i know
that hurt you i know that hurt you a little bit
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i mean the the problem i'm having here no
advertising i'm picking up all the production
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cost here i'm sending you guys equipment you
maniacs lose the equipment every time you go from
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one of your estates to another estate i'm
sending equipment to four different places anyway
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we've got a special very special episode for you
today we are doing drum roll please we're gonna
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add some sound effects to this afterwards we're
gonna do the bestie awards today so we're gonna
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go through the biggest winners in politics and
business and cultures and of course the losers
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the flashes in the pan the best business moves
the stupidest business we got a lot to get through
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um but just in terms of housekeeping again the
all-in syndicate is up and running i think there's
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four thousand people have applied in 10 days
let's just talk about the market cap of airbnb
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wish for that matter what round did you invest
in airbnb uh seriously was that the founders
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fund around yeah yeah congrats thanks oh that's
so yummy but to be honest that was already over
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a billion dollar evaluation correct yeah it was it
was i mean it's still like 80 or 100 x it's like
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a 40x right 48 it's like a 40 it's like a 40x or
something like that so thank you thank you thank
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you brian chesky thank you peter thiel peter led
that round and um brian was looking to include
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founders in the round uh and in addition to it
being led by founders fund and so peter introduced
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me and that's how it happened wow fantastic i
did not get my big wet on that but i did mention
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airbnb on my podcast and that you know i've
been trying to get brian on the podcast for
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i don't know a decade and i said you know i
know you guys want to have him on the pod i've
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asked him like literally every year for 10 years
but i don't think he likes me and then he emailed
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me said i listened to the podcast i like you and
i was like oh okay great will you come on he's
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like i'll come on so he's going to come on this
year i think which will be great right for this
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week and certainly well i think i think uh brian
and the whole team really did a masterful job
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of uh navigating through the whole kovic crisis i
mean everybody forgets how negative the publicity
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was people were talking about airbnb as covid
roadkill back in april i i tweeted a cnbc headline
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from back in april wondering whether
airbnb was even going to survive and they navigated the crisis they did have
to cut head count but they made the company
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much more profitable uh but they also did
um great things for uh both the renters and
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the hosts um at the company's expense they
refunded something like 250 million dollars
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to the to to to users who had cancer
reservations but they gave the money to the host to keep them afloat so they really
did a great job navigating this whole crisis
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it's a pretty great company he obviously cares
deeply um it was very uh hard i think for him to
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cut all that staff at that time right it was kind
of a tough decision but they were very generous in
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how they did it yeah so congratulations on getting
the beak wet sacks and uh chamath i got a bunch of
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inbound uh you had file to sell some shares of
virgin galactic i saw you tweeted about it and
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you wanted to be transparent people asked for you
to address it on upfront on the show so go ahead
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yeah i have a lot of uh projects that i um intend
to fund in 2021 i'm probably going to put another
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i don't know i think the forecast
was almost 2 billion dollars to work and uh i needed to manage my liquidity
for this year and make sure that you know
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i could continue to make all
those investments and fund my fund all of the other things that i
need to do and that's why i did it
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and you're still a significant shareholder
i assume and you believe in the company
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yeah i mean uh i remain completely committed
to that business um you know i i it would have
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been better if i could have sold something
else but it's not quite possible and when
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we're entering it when we when you leave the tax
year you just have to make these decisions to
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lock in some gains against other losses and um
would have loved to have uh i've not had to do it
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but i needed to manage my liquidity and so i sold
you know it's a small portion of what i own so
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yeah that was sort of my point this is the state
small portion of what you own and i mean this is
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something that you know in poker and in
business you got to manage your chip stack
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and you got to manage your bankroll so today
we're gonna do the besties uh this is our first
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uh attempt at talking about uh uh it's our award
show for 2020. let's leave it at that let's start
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out with the biggest before before we hold on
hold on a second um how much weight did you lose
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because it's either that you're still fat and you
have it wait wait it's either you're still fat and
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you have an incredible camera or you've actually
lost weight and this reminds me by the way
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oh and i'd like to tell a story no no no no four
years ago oh my god here we go jason jason and i
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make a weight bet okay just don't say the dollar
amount it was like you know it was like i think
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it was like uh ten thousand dollars a pound
whatever and uh jason jason he would get ten
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he was about to do and this is incredible jason
comes to us five years ago and says guys you
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won't believe it i'm doing a show on nbc uh a
reality tv show that's true pilot and with not
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please beat that out okay beep that
up don't get canceled oh my god that guy that guy seems like a train wreck but okay
that's fine you're going to do this pilot with
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people don't nbc an nbc and don't you need to
you know be in fighting shape and he said yes i
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need motivation so i said here's motivation let's
make a weight but you need to be under 190 pounds
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and i'll pay you ten thousand ten thousand dollars
a pound that you're underneath you pay whatever
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thousand pound over yeah it was like six months
later and we're hosting i'm hosting a poker game
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and i realized oh my god this is the last this
is the last day of the bet the day before well
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we started the day before and then the last day
of the bet is midnight yeah i wait till midnight
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and i jump up and i'm like wait ben and so i say
jason you gotta be under 190 190 2.5 or 193 pounds
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yeah he literally goes ash and white and he says
more white than i am now okay because i just ate
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and i was maintaining my weight he says he says
okay okay that's fine he had been eating pizzas
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and then he says he says freeburg you won't
believe this he goes guys i just need five
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minutes before the weigh-in and then he goes to
our guest bedroom and crosstalk that's not true
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what is that there was no 13 in this story
fabricating now he tried he tried to leave
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after eating all that pizza and
cheese and nachos and everything anyways he loses the weight bet and he
says jamal this is completely unfair
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i'm not gonna pay you he was like 196 pounds i'm
not paying you this money like one pound over
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and he said uh this bet is not over until
midnight the f obviously yes obviously yes
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24 hours in fair enough so i said all
right fine jake i'll find he goes home he literally takes every diuretic
known to man come on and then he loses
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two pairs of sweatpants and sweated it out
i checked in with this guy 10 times this day
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he walked like 12 miles he took four shits you
know i sweated it out steam room he lot bath
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he did a colonoscopy he did a colonoscopy to his
credit he lost five pounds by midnight and he
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did drop it but then i said then i said you know
what because there were two different weigh-ins
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uh we were gonna go play in a poker
tournament so we went and played in the poker tournament i said chamath
buy me into the poker tournament
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whatever we win we'll chop it up if it happens
so we just made it into a friendly thing
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um and obviously but great now that story is out
there and now i'm going to everybody's going to
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be on twitter with the code t-shirt and i hope
somebody in the all-in-army does the t-shirt
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that just says 192.5 and we'll all know what it
means which is the way that the one idea was 193.
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192. which is crazy that i'm one it was 193 anyway
here we go getting into the categories our first
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category is the biggest winner in politics biggest
winner in politics i'm going to ask you gentlemen
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to raise your hand if you have a strong feeling
on this i'll call on one of you who's got a a
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big winner in politics go ahead chamoth joe
biden toe body okay going down the limb there
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i mean let's be honest there's nobody bigger
and actually if you wanted to abstract it what
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i would say is centrism was the big winner and
uh and it kind of feeds the losers which is sort
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of the extreme left and the extreme right but i
would say that centrism and joe biden were the
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huge huge huge winners well i'll give a i'll give
a um an orthodox pick which is uh xi jinping the
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chairman of the chinese communist party you would
have thought he would have had a bad year starting
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off with you know kovid uh starting in
his country at the beginning of the year
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but he wasn't evil they you know that a global
plague came from china but they were able to kind
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of uh they were able to use a a very gullible wh
o to launder uh responsibility for the catastrophe
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and they took advantage of the crisis to build
more client states and asia and africa with
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promises of vaccines and and money and
finally his uh biggest global nemesis uh trump and then you know pompeo lost in the
election so you have to say he came out on top
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at the end of this year free yeah i i um i put
i have the exact same answer as saks i put the
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chinese communist party as a whole actually
and i feel like um on the world stage they're
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uh they're strengthened uh in in the post-covered
world so i had yeah because she went from
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the famous quote in the debates there was a little
girl in california who was bust to school that
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little girl was me where she took on joe biden
and then she winds up getting the vp slot and
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i think she winds up actually becoming president
and will be the first female president of the year
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of the of the history of the united states and
that could happen in the first term or if joe
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biden doesn't run for a second term and they do a
halfway decent job kamala plus pete bootage edge
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is a pretty great ticket as well who's the
biggest loser who's your biggest loser chamath
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impossible uh donald j trump okay the obvious
answer stream left the extreme left and the
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extreme right got it i'll i'll i'll i'll i'll
agree with that but i'd also add uh nancy pelosi
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the speaker of the house uh her impeachment of
trump at the beginning of the year went absolutely
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nowhere wasn't even an issue in the election and
her majority in the house has almost completely
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disappeared she lost a dozen seats i think the um
the the i think she's down to about four or five
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seats as a razor thin majority in the house and
she's set to lose more in the midterm elections
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i predict that she is set to not be speaker
anymore in two years and headed for retirement
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okay freeberg you got one biggest loser i have i
have the uh institution of american democracy is
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the biggest loser of 2020. i feel like we're
coming out of this year with like no belief
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that our election was valid for a vast majority
for for a sizable minority this country that um
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some democrats believe that the election was
fraudulent now too i mean if you say something
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enough times everyone believes it so um you know
here we are coming out of this year where with a
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crippling um lack of faith in our electoral system
and uh it's scary that american democracy is being
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fundamentally questioned by its own constituents
so um so i think that's the biggest loser i i had
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i had uh two choices here one of them was already
said i said the hysterical left as my runner-up
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bernie and warren just dismissed by biden
and kamala they they are not even part of
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the discussion anymore and they didn't even get
cabinet positions so the hysterical left and the
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socialist communist party is out of the democratic
party thank the lord but my biggest loser
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i have to say that this is the worst run of any
politician i've ever seen in a year which is rudy
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giuliani under investigation for les pardes and
eager fruhman then the bogus lawsuit elections
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then farting during a hearing then doing the
barat shirt tuck i don't know if we have feelings
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on if that was a tuck or if he was trying to
wake up the genie and then he bleeds hair dye
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then he starts bleeding hair dye wake up the genie
and he got covered no then he got covered and he's
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do you think you had a shitty
year i think there's gonna be the fans of the show are now registering
domain names of things we say
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the upside for him is that donald trump's campaign
is paying him twenty thousand dollars a day in
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legal fees no i think it was two hundred no it's
20 grand a day oh it's only 20. that's his going
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rate for making a a fool of himself i have a i've
ever feeling that rate was adjusted when uh rudy
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couldn't get uh the case to the supreme court well
we all know that trump pays his bills on time so
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it shouldn't be a problem right all right uh now
we're gonna have some more fun biggest winner in
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business biggest winner in business freeburg you
want to lead us off you haven't let us off yet
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i'll take this one i think that the biggest winner
in business this year is a company that started
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a few years ago called moderna this company had a
ipo in december of 18 at seven and a half billion
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dollar market cap it traded between four and five
billion throughout 2019 and all of a sudden covet
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hits and this becomes a vaccine candidate uh
driver for moderna and the stock shoots up it's
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worth 60 billion today this company has not had
a product that's gone to market prior to covid
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and they struggled uh getting this business um i
wouldn't say struggle but they they never really
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had a an application for their mrna technology
they looked at it for years iterating and
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pivoting this business and covid un like a lot of
other businesses really gave them an unbelievable
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uh kick and i might even say i shot on the
arm i shot in the arm and tonight they got
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approval from the fda and they're going to be
shipping starting to on monday i think saks who
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you got for the biggest winner in business we're
moving on a good pace here elon musk uh our friend
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rose to become the six second richest man in the
world ahead of bill gates uh and you know right
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on the heels of jeff bezos uh his company
tesla had something like a 8 or 10x gains
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over a 500 billion dollar company of course the
products are awesome it joined the s p 500 and
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spacex is doing amazing as well uh we saw
the launch of starship the other day and
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i have just been mesmerized by all these
unboxing videos for starlink which you can
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see on youtube and it is just magic that you can
unbox this little satellite dish plug it in and
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you have broadband internet from space so um i
think you know elon seems to be on track to be
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uh not only the world's richest man but the
world's first trillionaire wow big uh big uh
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big ups there to e uh chamath what do you got
for the biggest winner in business of 2020 yeah
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i have to agree with saxypoo uh elon is the elon
basically has had over the last 10 or 15 years
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an incredible amount of challenges that he's
overcome he's had an incredible amount of haters
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he's had probably had to deal with stuff
that most of us would have broken under
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and uh he just fought through it and the guy just
basically bended all the haters until he crushed
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their souls and i just think that that's
incredible absolutely so elon musk is the
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hands down the biggest biggest most obvious winner
of 2020. that's the obvious winner um i'll give a
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couple of runner-ups here um i thought also on the
runner-ups uh after elon zoom beating skype slack
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video google hangouts and fixing all their china
issues and getting to a hundred billion dollar
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valuation is notable obviously amazon did a great
job um because of the pandemic uh and then just as
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an oddball out there i just thought adam silver in
the nba bubble was an incredibly bold project that
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was executed so well and was such a delightful
business moment and also a cultural moment
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that you know you had the nba shutting down
during the pandemic remember that dramatic night
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on a thursday night and they cancel the games and
then they do the bubble and it works and that gave
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me hope that we could get through the virus so
those were some of my other runners-up all right
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the biggest loser in business in 2020 go ahead
chamath facebook and google exiting the year with
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umpteen anti-trust lawsuits um i think morale must
be pretty brutal over there there's no amount of
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money at some point that people are willing
to get paid to walk in the door every day and
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just have to do have to deal with
those kinds of accusations and so um for all the good in the world that they do
um which so it just must be really tough that
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they have to deal with it but uh those guys
are i think are the biggest losers in business
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what do you got sex the small business person
um you know whether it's restaurants retail
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hospitality what have you small business
people really took it on the chin this year
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i agree with dramath about you know companies
like google and facebook losing esteem in
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the eyes of the public for good reason censorship
and so on but tech still our you know stocks are
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at all-time highs the politicians got to keep
eating at french laundry but it was a small
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business people who got absolutely decimated
by these lockdowns which don't even work
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and so they are the big loser
of twenty twenty free berkeley i'm a little more vanilla than the rest of you
guys i went with amc entertainment holdings talk
00:21:03
about a [ __ ] business in covid restaurants
at least you can do takeout you can't take out
00:21:07
a movie from amc they're they're shut down all
over the country their creditors are telling them
00:21:12
to declare bankruptcy it's a total [ __ ] show
no one's gonna go back to the movie movies you
00:21:16
don't think they come back i don't think they go i
don't know what the hell like amc's gonna do what
00:21:20
do you do with all those theaters they're awesome
i love going in the movies but i'm not going to
00:21:24
the movies for at least another year so and it's
sad because honestly like movies are a big part of
00:21:29
my life always have been and it's sad to see movie
theaters you know they're gonna come back strong
00:21:34
they're gonna come back stronger i think amazon
will buy one chain i think netflix buys the other
00:21:38
and then with your membership you get to go and
see all the range of stuff and maybe even see like
00:21:43
queen's gambit in the theater it's such a great
experience right yeah yeah i would have loved to
00:21:49
see queen's gambit in the theater totally there's
so much you could do with theaters and i think
00:21:53
there's an opportunity but man did those guys
get screwed this year well i always thought
00:21:56
they should do an extended edition so imagine
if when hbo or one of those did you know game of
00:22:01
thrones if they had it out the day before in movie
theaters or the week before uh or two days before
00:22:07
and they did an extra 10 minutes people would love
that my biggest loser was of course same as david
00:22:13
uh real world businesses absolutely demolished
and the government after that first stimulus
00:22:18
which was incredible trump did an amazing job
of just dropping buckets of money whether it was
00:22:23
that pp loans and ppe loans whatever the ppp loans
ppp loans all this stuff was incredible and then
00:22:31
what complete utter [ __ ] and incompetence from
our government that they couldn't get the second
00:22:36
one done it's absolutely [ __ ] infuriating that
the democrats and the republicans these selfish
00:22:44
[ __ ] couldn't get another billion dollars
dropped who was that and here we are in december
00:22:49
that [ __ ] needed to drop in august or september
not december it's just absolutely disgraceful
00:22:55
it's they're i'm just disgusted that
they couldn't even get some more money to people who are suffering unemployment and these
restaurants a hundred thousand restaurant closures
00:23:07
by the end of 2020 it's just unconscionable that
the the stock market is ripping and we can't get
00:23:14
just some money in people's
pockets just drop the money to infuriate and we're sitting here at the taping
of this that it might actually happen um okay
00:23:23
biggest winner in culture who's got a big winner
in culture anybody got one i got the um the black
00:23:30
lives matter movement and i think it um i think
it was such a like meaningful um and impactful uh
00:23:39
um kind of shift in how people were thinking
fundamentally about behavior in society it's
00:23:45
still persisting you know there's corporate action
there's state action there's regulatory action
00:23:50
um and i think it's uh it's a meaningful movement
that's going to persist i think it came at a time
00:23:55
when we all felt like you know a lot of people
felt locked up in their homes people were angry
00:24:00
people were frustrated with the system and um
just uh it just was a very poignant moment uh
00:24:06
especially occurring during covid that it
really took hold um and i think it's gonna
00:24:11
last and i think that the uh the movement
itself is gonna spawn a lot of change
00:24:16
yeah i think it's well said david
who do you got uh in culture uh baby yoda uh star so you went pop culture
on that one yeah star star of the mandalorian
00:24:28
show uh that his his ascent uh icon status
uh helped disney get 86 million subscribers
00:24:36
for for disney plus uh which just blew away
expectations and uh has established disney plus
00:24:42
as the main rival to netflix do you think netflix
uh you think disney will pass netflix correct
00:24:49
i don't know if they'll pass them but
they're now certainly going to be a major
00:24:52
rival to them i think that i think they
passed them okay chamath who do you got
00:24:56
i would pick a combination of fortnite roblox
and among me which i think has for at least um
00:25:08
a lot of high school and middle school uh kids
but i may be a lot of adults the only form of
00:25:15
social interaction that we've had for an entire
year what a great what a great selection and
00:25:21
and i think it's important to understand how much
lonelier we all would have been and how much more
00:25:26
mental illness and depression we all would have
dealt with if we couldn't have even just talked
00:25:30
to our friends and i think that there's something
really beautiful that those games did for people
00:25:35
that's a good one that's a good one i i went
with podcasting i think on a cultural basis
00:25:39
joe rogan and what's happening in podcasting
these long-form discussions even this podcast
00:25:44
um has become just an amazing amazing movement
and people are having better discussions and i
00:25:50
consider it the antidote to what's happening on
social media when people hear us discussing stuff
00:25:57
on this podcast they feel like they ate something
nutritious they had a great salad they had some
00:26:03
healthy food and then when they're on social media
and they consume the same tweets that we're doing
00:26:08
they feel like it's junk food right and
so i think that podcasting long form discussions listening to each other maybe you know
republicans and democrats left right everybody
00:26:18
listening to each other and podcasting is just
such a great meeting medium for discussion who is
00:26:25
the biggest loser on a cultural basis in 2020 mr
david sacks the media starting with the new york
00:26:32
times and other sort of elite media they rip
the umpire jersey off their backs to go after
00:26:38
trump well they got him but at what cost half the
country will never trust them again this makes
00:26:43
conspiracy theories more likely it makes cultural
divides deeper and they've been revealed to be
00:26:49
corporate journalists journalists who subscribe
to and serve an agenda of their corporate masters
00:26:56
they've lost the public's trust freedberg
what do you got on the biggest cultural loser
00:27:03
uh climate change it took a back seat
this year um it you know it had momentum as a as a cultural meme it's uh it's lost its
uh its luster and it's been shadowed a little
00:27:17
bit this year with blm and uh and covid and lack
of faith and institutions and all the other stuff
00:27:23
that's been going on do you think that people now
when they see the collective response to kovid
00:27:29
and the pen uh the the vaccines and us our ability
with science and technology to solve the pandemic
00:27:36
we will have a newfound appreciation for
coordinated global action on global warming david
00:27:41
preber i think are you asking
me i think um i think the uh i think the faith in institutions has eroded
tremendously this year the who telling people
00:27:51
not to wear masks and then telling them hey
masks are good uh the efficiency that hits the um
00:27:58
i think just a global warming movement as well
yeah i think the lack of faith in institutions as
00:28:03
well as in the media makes it really difficult for
things that require a coordinated effort uh and a
00:28:09
coordinated cultural shift uh to take hold um you
know are really challenged in this new kind of
00:28:16
model where where you don't know what to believe
and you don't believe institutions and you don't
00:28:19
believe old school and you don't believe states
and you don't believe you know anything structural
00:28:24
anymore so it's it's a scary it's a scary kind
of moment i don't know i think climate change is
00:28:29
going to have momentum with the new administration
at least coming into office in the u.s but um
00:28:34
but generally like institutional guidance is
is lost at celester traboth what do you got
00:28:41
business culture wokeness i think when you now
look at the realization of what we've gone through
00:28:49
um people have realized that you know you can
you can be extremely anti-racist and think
00:28:57
latinx is just a stupid label you know you can
be an entirely complete 100 000 million percent
00:29:04
supporter of lgbtq but think that you know all
these complicated pronouns aren't really necessary
00:29:11
and i think that people are coming to
a point where you can have um nuance and i think that that's really important i think
that this whole cancer culture and wokeness was
00:29:23
um incredibly corrosive um and i think that that
they lost i i think it's actually a great um
00:29:31
i think it's i think it's a great point you're
making chamath because on the last episode
00:29:36
i fumbled the word mx which none of us had ever
seen we all laughed about it and then i just had
00:29:44
this little thing i was like okay i guess this is
when i get canceled because i laughed at the fact
00:29:49
that or i mispronounced it right and the fact that
i thought even for a second that mispronouncing
00:29:55
this term mx which i then did research on and
i said does anybody know how to pronounce word
00:29:59
mx on twitter so i figured i would preempt
the dropping of the um podcast by bringing
00:30:05
it up on my twitter and people are like
are you trolling i'm like no i'm asking
00:30:09
and i found videos and it turns out there is an
actual controversy in the trans community where mx
00:30:17
some people believe means mixed am i xed other
people think it's um mx as x the variable as
00:30:25
in the variable x and so they're having their
own debate they're figuring it out that's great
00:30:29
everybody loves them everybody supports them
but the fact that i mispronounce it you know
00:30:37
yeah well jason can i tell you can i tell
those people that are struggling with whether
00:30:41
x equals anything or x equals mixed hum
just to touch upon friedberg's point um
00:30:48
the human race has caused eight percent of
all the species in the world to go extinct
00:30:54
and we have put another 22 percent of every single
other species at the at the brink of extinction at
00:31:01
the same time we have now expanded our footprint
to touch 75 of the earth's land surface so until
00:31:09
somebody fixes those problems i don't actually
want to know what the x stands for yeah i mean we
00:31:15
we're this idea that we're going to count until we
put until we put it until we put stimulus checks
00:31:21
put the [ __ ] stimulus checks into people's
hands get these small businesses back to work
00:31:25
then you can tell me what the x stands
for yeah okay my biggest loser on culture
00:31:30
was the same exact as you david we're thinking
similar i have taken the red pill you gave me
00:31:35
i crushed it up i've been snorting these the
red pill like crazy people think i'm turning
00:31:39
into a republican but i thought mainstream
media and late stage journalism sacrificed
00:31:45
objectivity specifically to get subscriptions
and they used the anti-trump feelings and they
00:31:50
worked them and got the the ratings from them and
they literally used that new york times as the
00:31:57
is the the best example i think the work
you guys use for best example is canonical
00:32:02
of like using their anti-trump feelings to get
people to take out their wallets and subscribe
00:32:07
everybody realizes it they drove out barry weiss
they drove out their editor of the page from
00:32:13
making people feel unsafe with their words and
then new york magazine drove out andrew sullivan
00:32:19
and then glenn greenwald gets leaves his
publication i mean anybody who descends inside
00:32:24
of one of these publications they canceled
them inside of a publication for an opinion
00:32:29
on an opinion page it's crazy okay let's keep
everything moving here biggest turnaround in
00:32:35
i guess this is biggest turnaround anything but
i did business i'll lead off with mine my best
00:32:41
turnaround was airbnb they laid off 25 of the
company in july 1900 of 7 500 employees they
00:32:48
cut their marketing budget by 800 million and then
the ipo five months later uh and they had raised a
00:32:55
billion dollars at an 18 billion dollar evaluation
according to pitchbook and now worth 88 billion
00:33:02
a week after the ipo that is a turnaround
of all turnarounds david who did you have
00:33:08
this is where i had joe biden he finished
fourth in iowa fifth in new hampshire no
00:33:13
candidate has ever bombed that badly in the first
two contests and gone on to win the nomination
00:33:18
biden roared back in south carolina
and then won big on super tuesday and wrapped up the party nomination by
march uh biggest political comeback ever
00:33:28
who do you got freeberg i got airbnb as well
i mean from yeah and here's the here's one of
00:33:36
the craziest stats they're sitting there in
q1 with a great business revenue dropped 67
00:33:41
in q2 can you just imagine the experience of
67 of your revenue going away in one quarter
00:33:47
uh cash burn skyrockets and just having
to respond quickly and still maintain integrity with your customers and
your employees as a leadership team
00:33:56
i mean it was an incredible leadership
um uh demonstration it's a five alarm fire right i mean it's literally you got to
get everybody out of the building here we go
00:34:18
sensor censorship censorship existed in in
draconian and the dark ages of our of our journey
00:34:25
as a country and in the world and it came roaring
back this year the amount of people that have been
00:34:31
muzzled stifled the amount of fact and science
that literally just gets judged willy-nilly by
00:34:38
our distribution points like facebook and twitter
and medium it's really scary so censorship made a
00:34:45
roaring comeback in 2020 i i like it i like
it a lot okay now we go on to the biggest
00:34:51
flash in the pan you can interpret this
any way you like what do you got sexy poo
00:34:59
the w-h-o the w-h-o nobody knew who the dub the
world health organization nobody knew what the
00:35:09
who was before this year then they have become
you know somehow this global authority on covid
00:35:15
despite getting everything wrong they initially
said that we didn't need to wear mass they didn't
00:35:19
update that until june 5th this was about 10 weeks
after my blog saying that you know mass were a
00:35:24
good idea they got the method of transmission
wrong they were saying that transmission mainly
00:35:29
occurred through fomites which is contagious
surfaces instead of respiratory particles
00:35:34
they initially said that lockdowns worked then
they modified their policy on that because of its
00:35:40
impact to marginal groups and so the who has just
gotten everything wrong this year and despite that
00:35:47
fact you now have to chamas point google youtube
and even sites like linkedin or nextdoor are now
00:35:54
censoring people's statements if they contradict
the who apparently without irony because nobody
00:36:01
has contradicted the who more than the who itself
i look forward to next year when nobody cares
00:36:08
about the who anymore great freedberg
what do you got flash in the pan uh i put hydroxychloroquine you guys remember that
was good it was gonna it was gonna save the world
00:36:24
for a minute or two and then you know here we
are and uh so i'm just gonna leave it at that
00:36:30
yeah here we okay yeah everybody knows you may
have heard of hi joe quinn okay miracle some
00:36:38
people say it's america i took it it's great what
do you got it's a flashlight it's actually quite
00:36:44
related to this and i thought that she was
marvelous but i do think she will disappear
00:36:48
off the scene which is sarah cooper which uh you
know basically in the last month of the campaign
00:36:55
um kind of just disappeared and now is uh i don't
think uh anybody knows who sarah cooper is and
00:37:02
probably in a year from now won't but for for the
pure for the for those dark months of the pandemic
00:37:08
her mockery of trump was some of the funniest
stuff on twitter that i know oh sorry cooper's
00:37:13
amazing yeah she she got a netflix and i don't
think she'll be a flash in the pen i think
00:37:18
she'll come back um i would have loved to pick
um who was the press secretary for um with the
00:37:26
southern accent for for trump sex sarah huckabee
sanders yeah huckabee she but i think she was gone
00:37:35
in 20 by 2020 so i can't pick her but she was
amazing at defending trump she's like you all are
00:37:44
dumb and trump is smart and he has a 150 iq and
he owns mar-a-lago and he has a jet and his jedi
00:37:53
and you are the fake news media and i don't care
what you say america public know what you say
00:37:59
and trump is amazing in bed he was banging porn
stars when y'all were jerk i mean he's just she
00:38:05
would defend him i that's who i want as my pr
person she defended him for all time my biggest
00:38:11
flash in the plan though i think you need a pr
person yeah i don't need a person i got this we
00:38:16
got this podcast now we don't need the press or
pr we just go right to the audience um nicola
00:38:23
trading at 34 billion dollars they took your
precious spax chamoth and they perverted it with
00:38:32
a [ __ ] milton who was on my podcast and couldn't
answer basic questions it's now worth 6 billion i
00:38:39
predicted it will be worth 60 cents i kid you not
this company will go to zero is my prediction if
00:38:45
you are buying companies and i made jason jacobs
you were gonna scare all founder all founders ceos
00:38:52
are gonna avoid coming on your podcast now no
no no no i i'm delightful but for this kid um
00:39:05
no he's under investigation the thing's a disaster
they're obviously riding on elon's coattails he
00:39:10
couldn't make a decision it was hydrogen powered
cars or electric trucks or whatever and uh the
00:39:17
companies in chaos and i i made a rule which is if
a company has not released their product and it's
00:39:24
worth over a billion dollars be careful because
it could be a fraud um or it could be a disaster
00:39:29
that's my biggest flashlight nichola um biggest
breakthrough freeberg you want to start us off on
00:39:34
this one i have an idea i think i know what you're
going to say i'm going to say alpha fold you know
00:39:39
that we talked about in the last podcast i think
um alpha fold feels to me like what arpanet was
00:39:44
which was the origins of the internet you know uh
back when it was first installed and no one really
00:39:50
kind of grappled with the ramifications of what
would emerge and i think you know once we have the
00:39:55
ability to design proteins to do things um a lot's
going to change in the world of medicine and human
00:40:01
health and longevity and the kind of environment
and it's going to be pretty powerful so i'm
00:40:05
excited about alpha fold creating a foundation
for for humanity's ability to do those things
00:40:11
what do you got a hundred percent alpha fold by uh
there's not a close second to be honest okay saks
00:40:20
well as a as a close second i guess i would
i would mention the mrna vaccines which we
00:40:26
talked about on the show the ability to basically
print a vaccine in two days and hopefully they'll
00:40:33
follow our advice about challenge vaccines so
the next time we have one of these pandemics
00:40:37
challenge trials challenge trials we can uh we can
respond much more quickly and then just quickly
00:40:42
in politics i thought the biggest breakthrough
was uh pete butterjudge he made the unlikely
00:40:49
leap from mayor of south bend indiana to being the
first credible openly gay candidate for president
00:40:55
he won iowa sort of uh along with bernie sanders
and was a very close second in new hampshire
00:41:02
uh he's going to be uh the the um he's going to
be director of the transportation department in
00:41:08
the binding administration i i want to just
point something out on your sorry jkl but
00:41:15
um you know the mrna vaccine technology
has been around for like 15 years and regulatory barriers and regulatory constraints
have largely kept this stuff from coming to
00:41:24
market and it's interesting how you know in a year
where we have this pandemic emergency we can take
00:41:29
this technology that has been around and has been
available to us for so long and suddenly you know
00:41:34
all the regulatory barriers get dropped and things
come to market to change the world i think it's a
00:41:38
great highlight of like what's possible when some
regulatory constraints are diminished a little bit
00:41:44
and technology is really allowed to flourish and
see the light of day um and you know we all act so
00:41:49
surprised that this technology works but it's been
here for a while it's pretty uh pretty astounding
00:41:54
that it hasn't worked or hasn't been allowed to
work in the past in a previous just an observation
00:41:59
i think it's worth yeah i think it's a really
valid one because it wasn't a breakthrough that
00:42:02
occurred this year the breakthrough was they broke
through the regulations you said you wanted to
00:42:07
wait and see some people get the vaccines first um
and then that led to some accounts on the twitter
00:42:15
saying are you still anti-vaccination and i i
had to correct them you've never said you were
00:42:21
anti-vaccination to be clear i'm not antibiotics
not at all no no no you said you wanted to yes no
00:42:29
no i think my point is um i think a lot of people
are going to latch on sorry let me just be really
00:42:34
clear i think a lot of people are going to latch
on to the small number of cases that are going to
00:42:39
be amplified of people having adverse reactions to
this you know new technology vaccine in alaska the
00:42:44
other day like two days ago there was a nurse
who got the vaccine and she had a really bad
00:42:49
anaphylactic reaction to it she had to be given
epinephrine twice to survive and she came out
00:42:53
and she was fine but it's that storytelling that's
like you know they they assume it should be some
00:42:59
small percentage of people will have some reaction
to this thing but that is the storytelling that
00:43:03
will keep people from doing this and i think that
is the the biggest kind of concern and that's why
00:43:07
you've got guys like mike pence doing the the
vaccine tomorrow you know he's going to do it
00:43:11
on live tv and uh celebrities like ian mckellen
doing it they're they're trying to kind of create
00:43:17
wait are we going to see mike pence's
naked shoulder and bicep on television because mom
00:43:32
actually mother's going to give it to him because
if if a woman doctor gave it to him it would be
00:43:36
kind of like cheating because she stuck something
in him you know and it's just not right um uh okay
00:43:44
uh i can't wait to take it if anybody doesn't
want their vaccine i will take it because i'm
00:43:48
losing my mind and quarantine i mean for
the love of god uh smartest business move
00:43:54
chamath i think uh 2020 was
uh the year of this back i think that it is uh it is it's an incredibly
it's done it's it's done something really really
00:44:10
really important in the capital market so that
uh can you give child his bestie award now jkl
00:44:16
yes accepting his best award give it to him by
himself himself would you like an accepted speech
00:44:24
the smartest business move i would like
to thank the smartest business move me saks what was your smartest business move or
the smartest business move in business well i
00:44:36
i'd like to thank chamoth for the smack thing
too because i was in open door and uh i was in
00:44:41
porch and both of them are spacking this year so
oh i think i'm in desktop metal i'm going to go
00:44:46
with we have to agree thank you for the best in
business you've wet you've wet all of our beaks
00:44:51
so yeah i mean i mean actually if you think
about it i i've done uh six deals this year
00:44:58
are we still talking about me are okay we have to he's been nominated three times
but this is the only besties won
00:45:16
i really wanted to be in that
reality show with you and i mean talk about dodging a bullet
we went with this trailer to
00:45:29
the top five studios they all wanted it in
the room nbc says we'll take it in the room
00:45:38
the the head of nbc says we'll take it we taped
the pilot and then beeps whole career life blows
00:45:44
up and thanked the lord that show didn't get on tv
because i it would have been executive produced by
00:45:52
beep uh and yeah that would have been bad
so uh no reality tv for me uh i had i had
00:45:58
another smart business move i just wanted to
point out which was salesforce buying slack
00:46:02
i think it's brilliant for them i think
they're going to look back on the 10 they paid of their capital for slack and
i think slack will be more important than
00:46:11
salesforce ultimately in business it's a huge
the most important brand there what a crown jewel
00:46:16
what a great what a great move by benioff and
and brett taylor and i just think what a great
00:46:21
asset would be better for them than youtube is
for google or instagram is for i think i think
00:46:27
it's on that level actually i think it's of that
order of magnitude where the importance of those
00:46:32
assets to those companies slack will be the sales
force cost cost 20 times 30 times as much though
00:46:39
so less upside but less upside but but in terms
of like lock-in and value and you know the
00:46:45
prevention of churn uh over time i think it's
gonna be huge i mean it could be at some point
00:46:50
the company is slack sales force like slack will
be the preeminent brand there dave did you go
00:46:57
for this for smartest business move i i agree
i agree with both the ones you've already done
00:47:02
okay i'm gonna i'm gonna i'm gonna i'm gonna
rattle one off real quick i got i think people
00:47:08
missed this but at the bottom of the market
silverlake did this massive debt deal into airbnb
00:47:13
which if you'll remember is reminiscent
to me of warren buffett you know giving
00:47:16
five billion dollars to swisserie
and goldman sachs and he earned a 12 coupon and got warrants in both those companies
and it just paid a tremendous return for him
00:47:25
silverlake swooped into airbnb in april gave
him a 12 debt deal for a billion dollars and
00:47:30
they got warrants that the warrants today
are worth um about 1.4 billion dollars
00:47:36
and this debt is probably worth three times
what they put in so in like five months six
00:47:41
months these guys have basically turned a billion
dollars of debt into four billion dollars of value
00:47:46
uh it was an incredible deal incredibly gutsy
if you think about what we were all feeling in
00:47:50
early april about the market and where the world
was headed we had no [ __ ] clue for these guys
00:47:54
to swoop in and do that i thought it was super
impressive the other one i i i had a couple on
00:47:59
this because i just i want to rattle these off
bill ackman bought a [ __ ] s p put sorry bought
00:48:04
an s p put for 27 million dollars that he sold
for 2.6 billion dollars he bought he bought credit
00:48:10
default insurance on a whole strip of default
insurance yeah but he turned a 27 million dollar
00:48:17
insurance instrument into 2.6 billion of
returns for his fund and he still didn't sell
00:48:21
his portfolio in fact he bought at the bottom
and i mean the the the foresight this guy had
00:48:26
going into the down market ahead of march he saw
that the market was going to tank because of kovid
00:48:31
um he made a bet on it it was a tiny bet for
him but man to turn 27 million at a 2.6 billion
00:48:37
in like 60 days or 90 days unbelievable and then
he bought stock and his companies at the bottom um
00:48:43
what a gutsy investor and then i was like anything
was there anything fugazi on that with where he
00:48:49
had gone on cnbc and talked and he did this whole
big you know longer yeah he did it afterwards but
00:48:56
i think he's i think he's great i think he's great
yeah i think it was it was incredible and my third
00:49:00
one which we don't talk about a lot is larry
ellison bought a billion dollars of tesla stock
00:49:05
less than two years ago that is now worth over 10
billion dollars and he did it he joined the board
00:49:11
and um you know you put your money where your
mouth is and you take ownership and um you know i
00:49:16
don't know much about larry but uh there was a lot
of naysayers about tesla saying they were bubbly
00:49:21
and overvalued at that time and it was really cute
he did it in the middle of the tesla q shorting
00:49:27
movement and now he can buy not just lanai but he
could probably get kauai to go with it he could
00:49:33
buy another island anyway those were three gutsy
bets that i thought were worth highlighting that
00:49:37
that just really impressed me and and you know
it's when the markets are down when you're facing
00:49:41
the abyss when everyone else is telling you you're
wrong and you make a big bet like that um and it
00:49:46
pays off that's the kind of stuff that i think
returns are made from and characters built and
00:49:50
those are those are just really impressive moves
for me that there's a lot of impressive moves this
00:49:55
year the tide went out and came back in real quick
so there were some dumb business moves as well
00:50:02
sax you got a dumb business move
that was a highlight for 2020 the city of san francisco biting the hand that
feeds it for years these politicians have been
00:50:14
[ __ ] on the tech community acting like the tech
community was somehow a parasite on san francisco
00:50:20
well you know now because of covid
congratulations the tech community has the option to leave you have a lot of people leaving
and there are gigantic budget deficits for the
00:50:30
city the schools have giant budget deficits it's
not clear how they're going to close these things
00:50:36
and it's looking that more and more like it
wasn't tech that was a parasite it was the
00:50:42
politicians who are the parasites and nobody uh
knows how to fix the city of san francisco anymore
00:50:50
yeah okay uh dumbest business move chamath um i think it was one i think it was probably
for me um the governor of california's handling
00:51:06
of um well i guess that's more political than
business but um well no i mean it did impact
00:51:12
businesses so i think you're you're i think that
i'll allow it i'll allow it i think that i think
00:51:17
that what he showed was how naked partisanship was
in decision making that had that should have been
00:51:24
based on science in fact and the quality of the
decision making just eroded every single decision
00:51:31
that he made and then now you know as david said
it's kind of like you have this just just you know
00:51:37
um you have this moment where it's like
you know the justi cake moment where he's
00:51:43
eating at french laundry and the day after he's
basically shutting the whole world down again it's
00:51:48
it's very frustrating so so i think he also was
shutting down beaches right and then you know the
00:51:53
stay-at-home orders and not letting people leave
their house and go to a beach or eat outdoors
00:51:59
all that is send them inside they're gonna have
a party inside their house well there's a great
00:52:04
tweet stupid there's a great tweet that said
um you know i'm not allowed to go to the store
00:52:09
i'm not allowed to go to the shopping center
but i'm gonna take my child on a walk and if
00:52:13
anybody stops me i'm just gonna tell them i'm
taking her to the nail salon and the reason is
00:52:18
because you couldn't walk to the park but you
could you could go to the nail salon and so
00:52:23
you know this tweet was just reminiscent of just
how arbitrary and random this stuff was and it had
00:52:28
just so many downstream ink packs so i think that
was a huge fail nobody loves hypocrisy i picked
00:52:33
my smartest business move with salesforce buying
slack conversely i'm picking my dumbest business
00:52:38
move with slack's board selling slack this is the
stupidest thing i've ever seen i understand they
00:52:43
felt like maybe uh it was a great deal but i would
have much rather them see seeing them do what
00:52:49
i can honestly to be honest with you i mean
i left the board and i just don't know why
00:52:54
i wish i could have gotten the call because i
would have bought it yeah i i agree with you
00:52:59
i think network effects are incredibly unique
assets they're very very rare i think we've all
00:53:05
been around them we've worked in them david has
david the other david has i have jason you have
00:53:10
it is the single most incredible moment momentum
driver and you know sort of tailwind and when it
00:53:17
exists you just never give it up and so i agree
with you i would have bought slack if i could
00:53:20
have if they would have given me a shot we ride
our winners and you appreciate network effects
00:53:26
if you look at what jeff lawson did at twilio
he started with much less i think uh he started
00:53:33
with nothing started with twilio jefferson grid
and segment their market cap has gone 12 it was
00:53:44
it's 12x market cap they went from 29 a share to
365 a year in three years they're at 60 billion
00:53:51
slack should have been buying other companies
with their equity and they sh and they should
00:53:57
have built and rolled up all of the other
hub spots or whatever else is out there
00:54:03
by zendesk whatever i'm not sure that the m a
strategy was the hard part i just think that
00:54:09
it's when you're in the bowels of these companies
as we all know it's super hard right so i mean
00:54:13
i don't think you can fail stuart uh and the
team but i think that somewhere along the way
00:54:21
just the realization of how special and unique
that network effect was um didn't happen because
00:54:28
it would have given a different team a level of
energy or comfort to kind of really go for the
00:54:34
brass ring as you said and but you know hopefully
they'll be able to execute it at salesforce
00:54:39
okay did i get everybody's dumbest business move
my dumbest business move was myself um so i will
00:54:46
take uh i will take pictures of the award for
being a schmuck is me and anyone else that
00:54:53
[ __ ] hedged or shorted the market or sold during
the dip in march uh i learned the most valuable
00:55:00
lesson i've learned in my investing career to
date you just want to invest in whole chairs
00:55:06
and great businesses and not try and time markets
because that's always a loser's game and a fool's
00:55:10
errand um and i think you know worrying about the
market going down or up as long as you hold shares
00:55:15
and great businesses it doesn't matter trading is
not for me it was stupid um and i just feel like
00:55:22
a lot of people learned that lesson this year i've
heard a lot of people that kind of freaked out and
00:55:26
got out of the market and then they regretted
it and tried to get back in it was too late and
00:55:30
yada yada i um i read a document um that
someone wrote um for me um and she wrote
00:55:38
this incredible quote that i had never heard
from buffett and i'll give it to you friedberg
00:55:41
because it's right it's very uh apropos of this
buffett had this statement which is that you know
00:55:47
it's not about timing the market it is about time
in market and i just think that's so that's so
00:55:55
beautiful because it's so simple but it basically
summarizes exactly what you said which is get in
00:56:01
close your eyes and if you if again unless
for liquidity you just don't ever sell yeah
00:56:10
it's a fool's errand to try to time the
market sit on your hands ride your winners
00:56:14
uh and and he always said listen if a business
is on if i own this business and i love it
00:56:19
and it's at a discount i should want to own more
of it i believe that was another buffet i don't
00:56:23
know the exact quote uh let's go to smart's
political move and we'll go to our token
00:56:28
uh republican david sacks for that well uh well
it's it's it's yeah it's funny you identify me
00:56:36
that way because uh my my smart the smartest
political move goes to congressman jim clyborn
00:56:41
uh democrat of south carolina for endorsing joe
biden just before the south carolina primary uh
00:56:47
a number of people on the buying campaign
were panicking they wanted him to do it
00:56:51
early because biden had bombed in iowa and new
hampshire and uh clybourne kept his powder dry
00:56:58
and endorsed biden at the absolute perfect
time it caused by him to win south carolina
00:57:04
and that led him to sweep on super tuesday jim
clybourn was the king maker of 2020 without him
00:57:10
joe biden would not be president wow okay who
you got freeburg smartest political move of
00:57:16
2020 was joe biden staying quiet hanging out in
his bunker and letting trump do his own damage
00:57:22
end of story i feel like i feel like if
you know that biden knew that it wasn't
00:57:27
his election to win it was trump's election to
lose and i think he let him go out and lose it
00:57:31
and um and that to me was uh smart advice and and
smart action yes so he just checked and he's just
00:57:37
he just he just slow played aces he hit his set
he just checked and he watched him fire uh who do
00:57:44
you got chamoth smartest political move smartest
political move which you will not see until 2022
00:57:51
or 23 but laid the groundwork this year and i
thought it was brilliantly done was nikki haley
00:57:57
who i think will be the republican nominee
for president in 2024 and she did an
00:58:04
unbelievable job of tricking trump to believe that
he was her supporter then getting distribution and
00:58:11
then basically subtly telling everybody that she
thought that he was an idiot and i thought that
00:58:17
she was brilliant in so she didn't look like a
rat leaving the ship she looked like you know a
00:58:24
rebel or something getting off i think i think
if you want to find um somebody to consolidate
00:58:30
center-right politics in 2024 uh my money would be
on nikki hilly all right i went with the smartest
00:58:37
political move i also went for the long game
pete buttigieg going on fox recently i think
00:58:42
he did obviously a masterful job you had that sax
earlier but he started going on fox and basically
00:58:49
being really spicy with them and supporting the
hell out of um biden and then he gets himself this
00:58:57
secretary of transportation and i think he's
set up to either be the vp or the presidential
00:59:02
candidate uh in the future and he's i think he's
going to be one of the bright stars i also would
00:59:08
uh i think andrew yang it did nothing happened
for him this year really i don't know but i felt
00:59:13
like he also is my understanding is he's going
to run for mayor of new york that was another
00:59:19
amazing political winner in all of this i don't
know if anybody has feelings on either of those
00:59:25
i love i love andrew yang i think he's
uh fabulous uh he's coming on the podcast
00:59:32
pragmatic centrist smart capable
competent um good listener he attracts it he attracts a plurality of people yeah and i and
i think he's spoken out against uh cancel culture
00:59:46
and so you know whenever i see somebody in the
left speaking out against cancer culture and
00:59:51
censorship like the way chamoth has that
definitely to me elevates them in my book
00:59:58
are you saying chamoth is someone from the left
well it's amazing how much we agree on you know
01:00:03
well i mean i think that there's you have this
left and right definitions which have become
01:00:07
very hard to understand and i think what we
have to get back to is the american principled
01:00:11
idea of freedoms and opportunity right and and
and i don't think either of the parties actually
01:00:17
were representing that properly dumbest political
move of the year i think i know where everybody's
01:00:22
going to go with this but i would like rudy
giuliani rudy giuliani's press conference
01:00:28
at the sex shop i mean just i mean how amateurish
is that group of people the four seasons gardening
01:00:37
we're gonna be at the fourth was they were
they trolling us and trying to get press for
01:00:41
it i don't understand that one unbelievable
rudy truliani for the dumbest political move
01:00:45
saks what do you got i have a feeling i know
what sac's got well i got i got a tie here
01:00:50
uh between uh one was uh defund the police you
know as a political slogan the whole country
01:00:57
you know the blm movement had the whole country
on its side uh after the you know the george floyd
01:01:03
video came out everybody was in favor of sensible
reforms to control the use of force by the police
01:01:10
and then they they introduced the slogan of defund
the police and it scared voters across the country
01:01:16
into voting for uh republicans in congress and
it probably cost joe biden not the presidency but
01:01:23
uh congress and the my my tie the other half of
that was uh donald trump refusing to wear a mask
01:01:32
or to endorse mass uh he finally did it
but it was two or three months too late
01:01:37
if he had just gotten on board with mass
it would have been a very easy thing to do
01:01:41
uh politically personally uh that could have
made the the margin of difference he might
01:01:46
still be president if he had gotten on
board with mass about three months earlier
01:01:51
freeberg what was your dumbest place i actually
yeah i put making masks political more broadly
01:01:56
um both the left and the right pointing fingers
about masks i mean this is like a human life issue
01:02:02
and um you know uh kind of shaming the republicans
for not wearing masks and making it about we're
01:02:09
the right guys you're the wrong guys everyone
should have avoided pointing fingers and avoided
01:02:15
um not doing it because the other side was doing
it and it should have never ever been allowed to
01:02:19
become political it was pure science it was
about saving lives and i think both sides are
01:02:24
to blame um for you know the democrats tried to
make the republicans look bad because they were
01:02:29
advocating for masks and they shouldn't have
done that and the republicans should not have
01:02:33
tried to avoid wearing masks because the democrats
were telling them to wear masks and it was just
01:02:37
a total cluster um really sad and you know could
have made a big difference for thousands of lives
01:02:43
i too put trump not advocating for masks
as my dumbest political move i believe he
01:02:49
nailed the stimulus that first stimulus where
he just dropped the 1200 checks and the ppp and
01:02:54
everything he obviously nailed uh you know the
operation lightspeed and the vaccines he didn't
01:02:59
get credit for it um i don't know if that was
political or not that they dropped them the week
01:03:04
the weeks after the election i think it was i'm
i'm i'm a little bit cynical about that but my god
01:03:11
is there nobody that this man would listen to um
and they must have all been telling him in unison
01:03:17
hey [ __ ] put the mask on we'll win the election
the in july and august the numbers started to go
01:03:24
down precipitously and everybody fauci everybody
with half a brain was saying second wave is
01:03:30
coming wear masks and he refused to take that
stance and not only to that he doubled down
01:03:36
like the [ __ ] he is and started doing rallies
this person is such a complete idiot grifter and
01:03:44
just imbecile that he couldn't see the clear path
to victory and he was tempting fate and of course
01:03:53
he winds up getting coveted i mean the idiocracy
of the moment is just so profound he absolutely
01:04:02
would have sailed into that second term we were
sitting here on this very podcast and we all
01:04:06
believed he was going to sail into the second term
when the market started ripping back and the coven
01:04:10
numbers went down and because of the stupidity of
not wearing masks thank god we got him out but to
01:04:17
the families who lost loved ones he's a murderer
period we're moving on best political theater
01:04:28
into his body and then taking the
polyclonal antibodies to heal himself and show the american population that it's just
not that bad it was the best stunt the best act
01:04:40
the best theater i've seen and um uh you know i i
don't know what what the hell else uh could have
01:04:46
beaten it this year i mean the guy literally
literally it could be he buckled himself in
01:04:53
you know buttoned up his jacket he stared
out the lights in his face he was glowing
01:04:57
he had the antibodies rushing through his body he
was healing his body he was on speed man i thought
01:05:03
i thought the best i thought the best political
theater was when the democratic leadership
01:05:09
did like the colin kaepernick one knee in
kinte klotz at the in the rotunda congress
01:05:19
can somebody nick you just throw
the picture of that up there i mean i mean half of them or some of them
are so old they couldn't get down on them
01:05:29
we picked them back up they all hit
their life alert they got the life alert i've fallen i can't get up like 20 life
alerts i've never got off in the same room
01:05:42
but the kinte cloths were just so over
the top like you didn't need the kitten they really weren't kidding
01:05:57
my best political theater is um i i
don't know who this congresswoman is but i am falling in love with her um her name is
katie porter oh my god she takes out a whiteboard
01:06:14
she just she's fabulous no she's so great
she she owns people with that white board
01:06:20
it's the greatest she basically does math
and people are just i mean she's done
01:06:26
this now two or three times where she just
takes people down and she did it to mnuchin
01:06:31
like she was like is today tuesday and he's like
you know today's tuesday she's like can you tell
01:06:37
me if today's student she just destroys people
um like i i just never seen anything like it um
01:06:44
and uh she's awesome so best political theater
for me i don't know uh david did we get yours well
01:06:51
um yeah i mean so i thought the the the french
laundry photos you know the all these politicians
01:06:58
uh violating their own lockdown policies uh was
some with some pretty good uh theater yeah the
01:07:05
actor theater yeah you had you know you had you
had uh gavin newsom and uh london uh bri dining at
01:07:12
french laundry you had nancy pelosi going to that
hair salon any republicans do something like that
01:07:19
well um i i would i would tell you if i knew of
anybody trump rallies the republicans but yeah but
01:07:25
the republicans haven't been supporting lockdowns
so um you know look if there was a republican who
01:07:30
was how about the rose garden uh supreme court
where they had a super spreader event at the
01:07:34
white house but they weren't but but that wasn't
political theater because they weren't violating
01:07:38
their own policies oh they were saying that
people could take the risk um got it okay i i i'm
01:07:44
i'm picking these um politicians because because
they're happy yeah it's the hypocrisy uh the one
01:07:50
i loved the best out of all the hypocritical
politicians was the one who was like please
01:07:55
stay it was the governor of some place colorado or
something and he's like please stay home with your
01:08:00
family do not travel for thanksgiving it's gonna
be too dangerous and then they find out he did
01:08:06
that tweet while at a southwest gate going with
this family to thanksgiving and they literally
01:08:13
have pictures of him on his phone and the picture
was timed at the time stamp of the tweet if i have
01:08:19
my understanding correct i forgot the guy's
name but there were so many of these yeah
01:08:24
well let me give you another one there was uh
la uh the la county supervisor uh sheila cool
01:08:29
cast the deciding vote to shut down outdoor dining
in los angeles only to be photographed eating at
01:08:35
uh for nayo in santa monica two hours later so
it's just completely hypocritical and um you know
01:08:42
this is why there could be a big recall next year
in california i think we have to put political
01:08:47
theater as one category of just loathsome
political theater because we're going on to worst
01:08:52
political theater and the stuff we've seen has
been pretty horrific i'm going to lead us off with
01:08:58
my worst political theater which was the banning
of tick tock was absolutely the right thing to
01:09:03
do and then they just handed it off as like a
gift to oracle to make money and maybe be their
01:09:09
server farm i don't understand we were supposed
to ban it and get the [ __ ] out of the app store
01:09:14
and that was just terrible political theater
anybody else got more political theater that we'll
01:09:18
put in our loathsome political theaters well you
uh jason just so you uh understand that i'm being
01:09:25
uh politically even-handed this is where i had
rudy giuliani and his uh tour of self-immolation
01:09:37
right from from the press conference
in front of the crematorium to the the the hair dye meltdown to the
is a foreign video all right we need to
01:09:49
hold on hold on i'm gonna make i'm gonna
call an audible i'm calling an audio here
01:09:53
we're gonna have a new category to get it covered
worst rudy giuliani moment can we have a giant
01:10:08
what is the worst thing the worst giuliani moment
oh i think i think the saddest moment was the uh
01:10:15
in the borap thing that was sad because you just
felt you just felt like this is an old broken man
01:10:22
yeah um it was creepy and it was just sad
he was like desperate and he was creepy
01:10:26
and it was but giuliani's the worst though was
was actually if you listen to the testimony when
01:10:34
he farted uh it was really terrible it was really
terrible actually if you listen to the testimony
01:10:40
you're just like what is this guy saying it's out
of control well the also i think we have to cut
01:10:45
into here the poor woman sitting next to him who's
clearly in range i mean she's in the blast zone
01:10:55
he rips it he rips it and she looks him she
gives him side eye but she is so like scared to
01:11:07
react to such an obvious carpet bombing that she
just keeps a straight face but her eyes go poop
01:11:19
that was unforgivable must have been a
stinker i mean it was loud it had resonance
01:11:26
if it was yeah um can i can i give one can i give
one other example and i don't know whether this
01:11:32
is best or worse theater um but um but the the
the the congressional uh hearings with the tech
01:11:40
ceos where the senators grilled all the tech ceos
and it was definitely it was definitely political
01:11:47
theater but on the other hand they all deserved it
and there's going to be more of it next year okay
01:11:56
political theater because i thought what
was so depressing about it was how little
01:12:00
the congressional um the congress people actually
understood of these businesses and they went off
01:12:07
on rants and and tirades about you know you're
blocking republican voice on twitter and you're
01:12:12
doing this and none of it actually focused on
you know the the monopolistic practices that was
01:12:16
the intention of the hearing in the first place
when they actually got into those points when
01:12:20
they tried to talk about how the ad networks work
and how targeting works they didn't have any clue
01:12:24
i mean it was really inside these companies don't
even know how it worked and they built it i mean
01:12:28
these things no i'll tell you like i just i
just think it's really sad that um that that
01:12:32
folks in congress um honestly are so disconnected
from understanding technology and understanding
01:12:38
you know modern business practices um and they
can't actually you know tackle the real issues
01:12:44
um and it neither does the squad i mean aoc
didn't understand what a tax break was i mean
01:12:50
so yeah even the young ones don't understand
stuff i mean we just we're getting the worst
01:12:54
possible representation okay now we're gonna go
to lightning round with our final two categories
01:12:58
uh best meme uh for me it was the funeral
dancers uh followed up by michael jordan i
01:13:03
took that personally and i of course loved
chamat's mix-up that one of you maniac all
01:13:09
in army members made uh who do you got for
who got best memes and he got a best meme
01:13:15
tuban forever a cautionary tale about what not to
do on a zoom call yes yes that would be okay
01:13:28
arguably in political theater let's say no
uh anybody else got a meme best or worst
01:13:36
i like the funeral dancers but uh the answers
are pretty great yeah david anything for you
01:13:43
i just want to say to everybody that's listening
i really hope that you guys have an incredible
01:13:48
holiday and um we can put this year behind us and
i hope for all of you guys that have gone through
01:13:55
hard times just know that um you know hopefully
you got some friends to talk to and family to see
01:14:01
and talk to and we love you and we really
appreciate that you take the time to listen
01:14:06
and guys i just want to say to you guys i
love you guys with all my heart thank you for
01:14:09
helping me get through a very difficult year
uh back at you and uh i was very touched by the
01:14:16
uh birthday present you sent me last week that
was just oh you want to tell them what what you
01:14:20
got you want to tell them what you got big
boy i mean listen i don't want to chamoth
01:14:26
i i get a big crate at the house it was i was born
in 1970 and he got some of the best ones from 1970
01:14:34
and put them in a box and you know i i literally
had to put them on a shelf and say do not drink
01:14:40
these these things cost as much as the tesla's
in the driveways i mean some of these bottles are
01:14:45
ridiculous and uh i hope to crack them all open
with you guys at the house in happy honestly happy
01:14:51
happy 50th birthday big boy it's a big big muscle
well you know i was it was a little bittersweet
01:14:57
obviously you know i was gonna have some kind of
party or anything like that and then what made it
01:15:01
particularly hard and challenging was my birthday
was on saturday and my friend tony shea died on
01:15:06
friday uh on that day and i had been dealing with
tony shea being in a coma for the fives for the no
01:15:14
for ten days before that and then i found out that
that afternoon that they uh tragically had to pull
01:15:20
the plug um or i assume that's what happened i
shouldn't say that i don't speak out of a turn
01:15:25
but uh this has been a shitty year and i really
hope uh that anybody out there who is suffering
01:15:32
from mental illness uh or struggling in any way
call a friend and i think the reason this podcast
01:15:40
uh has resonated with so many people and i hear
this from people when they listen to the pod
01:15:44
is our friendship and they and they they
they hear us talk and they hear us laugh
01:15:48
and they hear us joke and the value
of friendship and the love and the joy and people just can't believe uh when chamat
says and and men say to each other they love
01:15:58
each other and they can't believe that
sax almost is able to say it and they and
01:16:04
people think by episode 25 stacks will be
able to say back to us but we'll try right
01:16:10
now we'll see if we can close 20 20 21. we're
all going to say i love you david sacks and then
01:16:17
let's just see if this can work i love you david
sacks and i love you david sacks back at you
01:16:26
we'll take it we'll take it i love you guys love
you guys happy holidays love you guys see you guys
01:16:33
the new year bye bye besties