00:00:00
okay besties are back besties are back going
around the horn rain man david sacks calling
00:00:05
in from an undisclosed location suffering through
two code 13s in one lifetime and david friedberg
00:00:13
is here the queen of quinoa spacking everything
in sight living the life calling in from
00:00:21
a nondescript ritz-carlton room it appears to
be and of course the dictator himself chamoth
00:00:29
poly hopitia tackling like a fool welcome
back everybody this is what you pay for with
00:00:36
your subscription to the all-in podcast
brought to you by slack uh if you didn't
00:00:42
own slack shares raise your hand it's been an
incredible uh week um on a number of levels
00:00:51
we're going to talk this week about uh salesforce
buying slack trump and section 230 uh the coinbase
00:00:59
the ongoing coinbase saga uh freeberg found some
interesting science that could save humanity
00:01:07
and of course the trust fund socialists in the
new york times who hate their parents for giving
00:01:13
the money uh let's start off let's start with
off the most important thing what is that shirt
00:01:19
undershirt combo you're wearing i mean look
it's just it's you have buttons on buttons
00:01:25
break the layering rule you can't you can't
fool us if you're going to layer properly
00:01:30
you can have only one layer of buttons but to
have two layers of buttons that's not how it
00:01:35
works jkl went in and got it oh no layers are
for players not me no he's like an almond milk
00:01:41
cappuccino and he's like i like how that barista
dress is and i'm gonna wear that from now on
00:01:46
wait a second can i ask a technical question can
can i have buttons i can't have buttons on buttons
00:01:51
but can i have buttons and then a zipper up like
with the no you can't do that either um listen
00:01:57
had a weird aversion to buttons ever
since he spent the time in italy did you was he button-shamed in italy i wasn't
i was a little button-chained but i'm looking
00:02:06
at sax's buttons on his collars which just makes
no sense saks is wearing the same brooks brothers
00:02:12
shirt that he graduated high school in at brooks
he owns 17 of brooks brothers at this point from
00:02:18
the number of blazers he's bought there all
right let's get off to it we've insulted each
00:02:23
other i don't think freeberg's taking the brunt
of anything yet anybody have any uh chop busting
00:02:28
they want to do with free burgers that's just sort
of built in no freeburg took the tablecloth that
00:02:33
i used for a picnic in the summertime and made
it into a shirt you know you have to be frugal
00:02:41
at this time and also free bird cares about the
environment he's not going to just land a picnic
00:02:48
it was a hemp based tablecloth and so i knew
it was going to get taken and stolen i love how
00:02:52
i choose to spend my time with you guys it just
pays off here we go all right can we kick this off
00:02:59
all right let's kick it off with our advertisement
for nobody because tomorrow will not let me make
00:03:05
any money off of this podcast uh and thanks again
for the suggestion that we launched a syndicate
00:03:11
with no carry now a bunch of [ __ ] on twitter are
like hey when is the all-in syndicate starting i'm
00:03:16
like never i need to make a living i need to get
my beak wet and this week i'm sorry but i think
00:03:22
a an all-in syndicate would be super super
disruptive and cool i'm totally fine with
00:03:28
running it as long as we can have the 20 carry
and i'll manage the whole thing we got four
00:03:32
people on the call four or five we each get five
percent carry but we gotta make a living here
00:03:38
not everybody's made a chima not everybody's
got spacks a through z or had all of their slack
00:03:44
shares bought i think we'll kick it off with that
chamath we saw this week in fact just two days ago
00:03:51
salesforce in a record transaction for a sas
company i think it's the highest ever paid for
00:03:56
a sas company 27 billion dollars 27.7 billion
dollars for slack which has only been public
00:04:03
for just over a year i think you were i think did
the series be in slack right after they did their
00:04:08
pivot at social capital i don't know if that was
in one or two but phil hellmuth is serious about
00:04:14
it it was a series b in tiny spec but it was
the series a in slack and um there's a really
00:04:20
important story which is that um myself and raco
um who's my partner at social capital we've worked
00:04:28
together now for my gosh i think it's probably 15
years um wrote a really great memo justifying the
00:04:37
investment in slack and it had to do with one
thing and one thing only we ignored the revenue
00:04:42
and ar i mean it was fine and nice and good but
the single biggest thing that we were attracted
00:04:49
to was something that we looked at and which was
called inter-company edges and even back in 2015
00:04:58
or 16 when we did this original investment there
was this dynamic where people across companies
00:05:04
were communicating via slack channels and i was
completely stunned by this idea because that was
00:05:10
effectively a substitution for email because the
only way you communicate across companies today
00:05:16
is by email you know david is at craftventures.com
and he emails me at socialcapital.com and i email
00:05:22
jason inside.com that's how we communicate
across across businesses except now all of
00:05:27
a sudden you could be messaging and having a much
more real-time interface that to me was incredibly
00:05:33
disruptive and it justified the entirety of
the real forward-looking investment thesis
00:05:38
now fast forward five years later and these guys
have more usage on a daily basis than facebook
00:05:45
which is stunning because you know these guys
have 10 million daus and facebook has 2 billion
00:05:50
so it just goes to show you the
quantity of traffic and and the the volume of information and theoretically you
know productivity that's happening on slack and so
00:05:58
i'm not sure what salesforce bought i actually
think that you know you can make a case why it's a
00:06:06
shame that it got bought a very strong one in fact
but what they did get whether they know it or not
00:06:13
is an inter-company edge effect which is the
most disruptive thing to email and in the hands
00:06:18
of salesforce and that sales team i think it
has the ability to really be a very disruptive
00:06:24
um force for good in enterprise software all right
so sax this is a natural um passing of the ball to
00:06:32
you and the baton because you did yammer sold it
to microsoft for a billion dollars and obviously
00:06:38
slack was the mobile successor to the desktop
version of yammer and you got a lot of your
00:06:45
fingerprints all over this but the
fact is you did a tweet storm about it slack is an unbelievable success stewart
is a great uh founder you know he sold his
00:06:54
first company flickr for 30 million this one
for almost 30 billion so that's pretty nice
00:06:58
but there was one failure and you
pointed out in your tweet storm explain what the one failure if you could pick out
of the hundreds of things thousands of things they
00:07:07
did right there was one thing they did wrong that
uh to jamaat's point would have resulted in them
00:07:13
remaining an independent company that could
have become worth more than 27 billion
00:07:18
yeah it was it was a slowness to embrace the idea
of enterprise sales and and by the way let's put
00:07:26
this in context i mean stuart and the slack team
did a phenomenal job 30 billion dollar exit um
00:07:33
seven years of just about flawless execution so i
don't want to and also you know i was an investor
00:07:39
in the company so thank you to sir for letting
me invest i'm definitely don't want to sound
00:07:43
like an ingrate or a critic i mean they just they
did a phenomenal job but if you were to nitpick
00:07:48
just one one little thing that i think they
could have uh done faster it would have been
00:07:56
embracing enterprise sales the big learning
from yammer uh you know we learned this at
00:08:02
yammer from 2008 to 2012 is that enterprises don't
self-serve right they don't self-close bottom up
00:08:09
sas products are phenomenal for generating
top of funnel basically generating leads but
00:08:14
you have to have sales people close the deals and
enterprises don't just kind of pull out a credit
00:08:20
card and self-serve you they need a sales person
and i think there was um something in the df
00:08:26
dna of snap slack that actually i see really very
commonly uh in the dna of of sort of product e sas
00:08:35
companies product e sas founders which is they
kind of have a reflexive dislike or distaste
00:08:42
for sales and they resist the idea of sales
and they want to believe that they can just
00:08:47
be entirely product driven and and what
i see and across the board as they all come to the same realization that that we had
a yammer which is we have to have a sales team
00:08:58
and i do remember you know back in 2014 the
whole yammer sales team was basically rolling off
00:09:04
um because of you know microsoft acquired the
company in 2012 and there's an integration period
00:09:09
and by 2013 2014 they were all looking for
jobs and i remember you know my my former
00:09:16
cro i think was interviewing at slack and it would
have been such a perfect thing for them because
00:09:22
he had just learned all the lessons of how you
layer on kind of an enterprise sale on top of a
00:09:27
of a bottom-up product and they just weren't ready
to to make that higher yet and so look if you're
00:09:34
going to nitpick look 30 billion outcome no one's
criticizing but if you're to nitpick you know um
00:09:40
it's it's an a plus regardless but you know this
would be the one thing you could you could say
00:09:46
well congratulations all around to everybody
involved especially phil hellmuth who was an
00:09:51
lp in one of chamot's fun so if you need
insights on slack or any of the inside
00:09:57
information you can just follow phil hellmuth
on twitter at being the greatest or i am the
00:10:02
greatest or i'll always be the greatest one
of those twitter handles is but but jason
00:10:06
you basically came to the same conclusion in
your emergency pod right i mean i did i hadn't
00:10:11
seen your i think you tweeted him after the
emergency pod but uh yeah it just seemed to me
00:10:17
this company unlike zoom uh should have been able
to grow quicker and if you look at their numbers
00:10:24
they had 87 companies that had were spending over
a million dollars you put a rabid sales team on
00:10:30
that product and they go in like benioff does with
his sales team i mean he was just hyper aggressive
00:10:38
at just putting huge numbers out there and saying
you have to pay us this much money so much so that
00:10:43
i don't know if you remember elon getting into a
public spat with him where he's like salesforce is
00:10:47
horrible software get it out of the organization
he basically banned it because they came to him
00:10:51
with the bottom up people using of salesforce
and said hey you owe us this amount of money and
00:10:55
elon was like fu banned forever from inside of our
organization we'll build our own software we don't
00:11:01
need it and they didn't have somebody and stewart
didn't have that dna i think to say aggressively
00:11:07
we need to charge what this product is worth and
you saw that in i think one of their strengths
00:11:12
and weaknesses which was they only build you for
people who were actively using the product now
00:11:17
that's a beautiful awesome feature it makes you
not scared to use it but on the enterprise level
00:11:22
i mean that seemed to be like maybe one of
those non-cutthroat things that maybe were
00:11:27
holding them back david do you have any insights
on this or should we go on to alpha photo it's
00:11:31
um it's a it's really important to remember
the the mechanics and the game theory around
00:11:37
m a especially you know big game hunting when
you're doing 30 billion dollar acquisitions
00:11:43
um it's also kind of true at
billion dollar levels but less so um but the bigger the acquisition gets you have to
remember that there's an asymmetry of information
00:11:52
between buyers and sellers and the question is who
does the asymmetry favor right because you could
00:11:57
look at this acquisition and say wow salesforce
is crazy for spending 30 billion dollars
00:12:02
and somebody else may say wow slack was really
stupid for selling it for 30 billion dollars right
00:12:08
the reality is that i think that there was
asymmetries on both sides i think that what
00:12:13
slack probably saw and i don't know because i've
been off the board now for more than a year um but
00:12:18
i think what they saw was as david said just um
you know a level of sophistication and scale and
00:12:26
ability to cross-sell an upsell that was needed
for enterprise scale either you overcome it with
00:12:31
precision and speed or you overcome it by going
the same pace as somebody like microsoft but with
00:12:37
an equivalent product portfolio so that's that's
sort of one realization that that that slack had
00:12:45
but in in the case of you know um salesforce what
they probably had was a realization that they
00:12:51
couldn't go wall-to-wall inside of a customer
because they didn't really have a product
00:12:57
that was useful or usable to every
single individual inside of an enterprise and so both of those two things create asymmetries
there's a level of fear inside of slack and
00:13:06
there's a level of fear inside of salesforce both
of them are about the fear of disruption and then
00:13:11
the question is who gets the better of the other
person in the middle of the acquisition right
00:13:16
so the deal could have probably gotten done at
you know 22 billion it probably could have also
00:13:20
gotten done at 45 billion um and that's again to
a combination of um how well you play poker in
00:13:28
that moment right who blinks first and the quality
of the bankers this is like two people having top
00:13:33
pair on a very textured board it's like pizza and
they're just raising versus each other yeah that's
00:13:38
who i play them because like it's similar also to
like how microsoft bought linkedin right because
00:13:42
if you think about what happened in linkedin if
you remember when that happened it was almost to
00:13:46
a t very much like slack linkedin had a one bad
quarter they got decapitated by i you know and i
00:13:53
owned it at the time in the in our public fund it
got decapitated by like 50 60 70 i mean something
00:13:59
insane for missing numbers by like a few pennies
okay and all of a sudden it took a lot of the wind
00:14:06
out of their sales internally it didn't change the
user momentum at all because you know the users
00:14:10
that were signing up for linkedin didn't care what
the stock price was yesterday today and tomorrow
00:14:15
but it all of a sudden created a fear and i think
microsoft was able to exploit that fear and within
00:14:20
a year this company was bought for 25 billion
dollars not dissimilar you know slack had uh you
00:14:25
know a hiccup and they got re-rated the stock
bounced back um but i think that if salesforce
00:14:33
was smart they probably created you know sort of
like a white knight kind of bid that said listen
00:14:39
you need enterprise scale and the ability to
cross-sell and upsell i can give it to you
00:14:43
and slack probably said listen you need to go
wall to wall so i understand why you need me
00:14:47
and you know the price is what the price is good
free burger if you look at the pricing right
00:14:52
so slack normally the way these big ma you know
public company m a deals get done is the board has
00:14:59
to approve the price and they have to say this was
the right deal for us relative to other options
00:15:04
and one of the ways you assess that is you look at
where the share price has been historically and if
00:15:09
you're getting a premium to where the share price
has been historically let's say 30 40 percent
00:15:13
higher than it's ever been then the board says
great that's a good deal we should take it because
00:15:17
we've got a long way to grow into that value in
this case the deal was done not at a very high
00:15:22
premium to where slack traded just in the summer
uh is that right chamots it looked like it peaked
00:15:28
it's basically if you look at the 10 premium
right 10 premium yeah 10 premium yeah we we
00:15:34
opened the direct listing at 40 or 41 and then
this was at 45. right and so there clearly was a
00:15:42
a sense of weakness from the board which is um
i think why the salesforce stock traded down
00:15:46
afterwards because if they were willing to sell
at that small of a premium the forecast internally
00:15:52
is probably feeling not that strong and then
people translate that into hey salesforce bought
00:15:56
something that's not that strong um you know
there's there's something a little bit amiss
00:16:00
but but obviously to your point they're missing a
lot of the cross-selling and the synergy that that
00:16:04
that i think it's a huge slam dunk acquisition
and i go back to the this uh idea of intercompany
00:16:11
network effects um i think they
exist and i think they're real and i think that the slot the the slack um
product team's ability to innovate around that
00:16:23
was not as fast as it could have been but it
was still very unique and i think it was um it
00:16:29
was a true moat and you know the the tragedy is
we won't see what the terminal value is if they
00:16:36
were um left alone to execute and in this weird
way like i've always struggled with why microsoft
00:16:43
was so overly obsessed with slack because
if you looked at the team's product it was
00:16:47
much more directly competitive with zoom and
to this day still remains much more directly
00:16:51
competitive with zoom than slack but you know
there we have it and if you look at the revenue
00:16:57
um slack was doing 800 million run rates and
we rounded up to a billion and yet salesforce
00:17:02
at 20 billion uh so five percent revenue to
revenue and then they got 10 of the company so
00:17:12
in that way if you look at on a percentage
basis which is you know how you might look at
00:17:15
the facebook instagram and and whatsapp is what
percentage of the existing entity did they get
00:17:21
right the science growing size scoring about 60 a
year and salesforce is growing about 22 something
00:17:27
like that the other thing is the president of
salesforce's uh brett taylor who uh was our
00:17:32
cto at facebook who i worked with and so i think
brett also understands network effects really well
00:17:38
um and you know by the way in in this
interesting twist of fate benioff was the
00:17:42
under bidder i think for linkedin and so um you
know we've uh we've seen mark around the hoop
00:17:48
on these you know social network network effect
business tool um acquisitions before and finally
00:17:54
also twitter he was running he was hanging around
the basket with twitter and then they also brought
00:17:58
his name up for tick-tock which made no sense
so i think benioff is just looking at this like
00:18:04
if if google and microsoft and apple are too
scared to buy things because of antitrust
00:18:09
well i'm under the radar of the antitrust trillion
dollars so i'm i'm the only one right he's uh he's
00:18:16
under the radar because he doesn't have a play in
this sort of communication or collaboration space
00:18:21
and so therefore there are no anti-trust issues um
if microsoft were to do it it would definitely be
00:18:26
scrutinized because you could argue that they're
adding to their existing dominant market share
00:18:31
and and collaboration um but benioff's dream has
always been at least since he uh you know launched
00:18:38
chatter to compete with with us when we were doing
yammer this is back in 2010 2011. is he his dream
00:18:45
has always been to have a product that could get
him onto every seat in the enterprise you know his
00:18:50
current product set has is departmental i mean
you've got kind of the crm product for sales and
00:18:56
they've got the support cloud for customer support
and they've got the marketing cloud for marketing
00:19:00
and so he's gone department by department but
he's never really had a sort of pan like or cross
00:19:06
company yeah something that the entire company
would use like a specific login system right
00:19:11
and slack is that central login system but when
you when he came up against you it was very you
00:19:17
know benioff you're friendly with benioff benioff
came at you so hard he threw three or four hundred
00:19:26
engineers at chatter he took out full-page wall
street journal ads he tried to poach her people he
00:19:32
tried to make the product free he made it personal
against you after you would not sell to him true
00:19:39
or false david sacks i don't i don't think he made
it personal but uh it was definitely do you feel
00:19:44
personal um did he tell you now no no no no no it
he did that's i understood what he was trying to
00:19:52
do that's your way of saying no i mean if we had
sold to salesforce like we we ended up so what i
00:19:56
would say is yeah we got in like a very it was
a very competitive situation he didn't beat us
00:20:02
um you know i was that he fell does that product
even exist yeah um it's sort of like a feed inside
00:20:09
of the the crm product it didn't really succeed
as a standalone collaboration product and so
00:20:15
we won that battle but it definitely i would
say it scared us enough to sell to microsoft
00:20:21
um because you know the what did we we were
about to we were about to enter a new stage
00:20:25
of competition so here's what happened is he
launched his product to kind of be a clone of
00:20:30
yammer inside of salesforce but he was initially
charging fifteen dollars per seat we were charging
00:20:35
like five and so they massively overpriced it and
and the event and then they they were on this like
00:20:42
slippery slope or they kept lowering the price
to compete better with us and then finally they
00:20:46
realized that they should just give the thing
away for free as a strategic move um and that
00:20:51
was when we decided to sell to microsoft is we
didn't know we knew we had a better product than
00:20:55
chatter but we didn't know how it would go if we
were up against a free chat tell us honestly how
00:21:00
much did he offer what was the meeting like where
he made you the offer we yeah so yeah so here's
00:21:10
i'll tell you the back story i mean this hasn't
been public publicly revealed but um here we go
00:21:20
in service of the all-in podcast go
ahead go ahead david give us some ratings and services trying to get us from number
three to number one on the charts um
00:21:32
no you know it's funny we launched uh yammer at
the techcrunch 40 conference that jason as you
00:21:37
know you were the co-founder of and benioff was
like a judge he was a panelist and he was raving
00:21:44
about it and you could just you know from from
the moment we launched he was raving about it
00:21:49
you could see the light bulb go off with him and
um he realized that like social was going to be
00:21:55
it was you know at the time obviously social was
big with consumer social networks but he saw the
00:21:59
potential of social or collaboration inside the
enterprise and so yeah i mean like i think a year
00:22:05
later or something they were interested in buying
the company for around 250 million dollars the big
00:22:10
issue for them though was that benioff had a bunch
of like engineers who wanted to build it in-house
00:22:15
and so they they they actually i don't know what
would happen if um if they you know didn't want to
00:22:24
build it themselves but but basically they vetoed
doing a deal and so they ended up building chatter
00:22:30
and they threw the 300 engineers at it and they
basically spun their wheels for a few years
00:22:36
and um anyway it turned out to be much better
for us because we end up selling the company for
00:22:40
five times as much to microsoft um you know if we
had sold to salesforce in like 2010 it would have
00:22:46
been a much smaller deal um but yeah that i mean
he was very interested from the from the get-go
00:22:53
all right folks so you have a breaking
news in the background on what actually happened congratulations to stewart and the team i
want to ask a question did you guys um keep all of
00:23:04
the shares you you originally invested in um to
the exit here just to set the context for folks
00:23:10
you know you invest in a company it's a
small startup it's actually over 30 billion
00:23:18
for every share that i owned half of it were
half no uh yeah for of of of a hundred shares
00:23:28
that i owned per every 100 that i owned um 10
of them i sold at 38 right at the direct listing
00:23:36
um i want to say 40 of them i sold uh in the
mid-20s and uh the rest of it just got taken
00:23:46
out at this price so your dollar cost average to
the you know whatever high 30s maybe 40 or so yeah
00:23:52
i don't know my exact i mean i i i sold some and
i still own some so um you know i definitely got
00:23:59
my my beak wet from this acquisition but but uh
no but look i i think i probably sold you know
00:24:08
more than half of them you know um and that was a
mistake and you know one of my biggest learnings
00:24:13
as an investors has been to let your winners ride
you know my biggest mistake as an investor has not
00:24:18
been the losers it's all it's been selling the
winners prematurely yeah uber as well david uh
00:24:25
and i sold some uber before but i kept a lot of
my uber maybe most of it or half of it i think
00:24:30
anyway uber facebook i mean facebook you know
when they ipo'd it was worth 50 billion we all
00:24:35
thought that was like unbelievable i mean because
it was over a 50x return but um what's the lesson
00:24:42
just never sell anything if you can help it i uh
i served on my facebook in 2014 and bought amazon
00:24:49
and tesla i think that you have to be able to sell
for two reasons liquidity and moral obligation
00:24:57
yeah i mean that's an exaggeration i mean you
can never it's it's people need to be able to
00:25:02
sell but to the extent you can hold on uh just
don't sell everything you know always you know
00:25:09
keep um yeah keep saying think about the people
who were at apple in the 80s or microsoft in the
00:25:14
80s or amazon in the 90s a lot of those people
got frustrated holding the shares for so long
00:25:19
and i think keeping at least
20 of your shares forever you know could be amazing there was somebody
told me had never sold a single share of
00:25:27
i don't know if that's a true story or not i
told you that you can't be okay okay anyway
00:25:37
more breaking news what we should do is we should do a um we
should put beeps in there nick i was told
00:25:59
had never sold a share of and then we just let
everybody react to it this way nobody knows
00:26:06
what we're talking about i i do know that has
not sold a single share and it has only sold
00:26:12
shares of the fund capital calls
which is an incredible statement to fortitude and vision incredible lord incredible
it's by the way by the way it's not always worked
00:26:21
out because he did the same with those didn't go
as well yeah i mean look you you have to diversify
00:26:28
when when you've got all your eggs in one basket
in one company obviously you have to sell some
00:26:32
shares but um you know one of the things i've just
learned over the last 20 years is probably people
00:26:37
ask me what's your biggest regret or learning
or whatever it's just selling too early is like
00:26:40
one of the biggest mistakes you can make look at
paypal paypal is now a 250 billion dollar company
00:26:46
we sold it in 2002 for 1.5 billion we thought that
was a great deal at the time and we sold it for
00:26:52
less than one percent of what it's worth today
and the product's basically the same you know
00:26:58
is the lesson never sell if it's a winner
ride it you compare okay hold on hold on
00:27:03
i'm gonna put a final nail disc off and then
we're gonna go to alpha fold there's a great
00:27:06
quote by warren buffett which is um if you know
what you're doing the best thing you can do
00:27:12
is be as concentrated as possible nobody
ever got rich in their seventh best idea
00:27:18
and i think that that basically sums it up but you
have to be in a position to have the ability to
00:27:23
have that kind of portfolio allocation and i think
that's hard free birds explain alpha fold please
00:27:30
uh okay let's explain give me two minutes on
i'll explain proteins and then the importance
00:27:35
of proteins and then alpha folds so um the
numbers to remember are 4 3 and 20. there
00:27:42
are four nucleic acids that make up your dna
we all learned this in high school biology
00:27:47
sets of three a c t and g combinations
define an amino acid there are 20 amino acids
00:27:55
um and a protein is a string of amino acids
so in your body and every cell there are these
00:28:01
organelles they make proteins by reading the
dna taking out a copy of it and turning it into
00:28:07
amino acid chains and that's what we kind of call
proteins but what's interesting is when you make
00:28:13
a chain of amino acids so there's 20 of them
that you could put in each point in the chain
00:28:18
it doesn't come out as a long chain what happens
is those amino acids the whole thing collapses
00:28:23
and it turns into a very specific shape and the
shape of that protein is what defines its function
00:28:29
so pretty much every biological function across
all life is uh is undertaken by proteins doing
00:28:38
something some proteins like hemoglobin in our
red blood cells will has a very specific little
00:28:43
pocket where oxygen molecules stick into the
pocket and then it moves the oxygen from your
00:28:47
lungs to your cells it's a pretty amazing protein
to exist uh and it specifically is shaped to do
00:28:53
that exact function there are other proteins
that can for example rip apart other molecules
00:28:58
break a molecular bond there are other
proteins for example that can take nitrogen
00:29:04
out of the atmosphere and put it into plants
cells that the plants can then use to grow
00:29:09
there's an incredible you know a set of potential
on the nanoscale of what you can do with proteins
00:29:15
and we see that in life and we're just shocked
and odd and amazed by it every day but in order to
00:29:20
figure out how to create proteins that do specific
things you have to know how do those amino acids
00:29:25
turn into the shape that the protein ultimately
takes and that's what's called protein folding
00:29:30
um and so the hard thing is um and you know why
is this important it's important because we can
00:29:36
easily read dna and therefore we can figure out
what amino acid sequence is being made to define
00:29:43
that protein but what we don't know really well
is what is the shape of that protein and therefore
00:29:47
how does it undertake the function that we see
it taking in biology and if you think about the
00:29:52
reverse of this the reverse of this if you have a
function you want to undertake in biology you can
00:29:56
design a protein to do that function for you for
example bind to a specific point on a cancer cell
00:30:02
um or you know take carbon out of the atmosphere
or pretty much anything else your your mind can
00:30:07
kind of imagine on the nanoscale proteins can be
designed to do the challenge is how do you write
00:30:14
the code which is the dna to make the protein that
does that thing well we don't know how the code
00:30:20
turns into the shape and that's what folding
the folding problem is so the folding problem
00:30:25
there's a data set and the data set is what's
the three-dimensional shape of a protein
00:30:29
and then what's the dna code that defines the
amino acid sequence that makes that protein
00:30:34
and how do you figure out how to predict the
shape of the protein from the amino acid sequence
00:30:39
it has been an impossibility and um again
if you think about this chain of amino
00:30:44
acids they each have little um you know uh
electrical spaces and and the way that they
00:30:50
bind to each other it's very complicated
you can't just deterministically define it
00:30:55
you know we don't have that level of understanding
on a quantum scale so what alpha fold has done
00:31:01
is they have now been able to predict from a
sequence of amino acids what the protein shape
00:31:06
will ultimately become by learning from a database
of hundreds of thousands of structural protein
00:31:15
shapes that have been defined through really
really really um difficult uh you know scanning
00:31:20
microscopes and other techniques to really
try and scan a protein on a microscopic scale
00:31:25
and then looking at the the dna sequence and
figuring out okay what's the relationship
00:31:30
and the accuracy of their predictive
model now is within the range of error of the microscopes that are being used to
actually scan and measure those proteins
00:31:41
so that's incredible because now theoretically
you could come up with a design for a protein
00:31:46
and you could actually build that protein by
writing the amino acid sequence and that protein
00:31:50
can do any number of things you want to do and
this has been a difficult problem that's been
00:31:54
intractable by humanity and we've been challenged
by it for decades um for this machine learning
00:32:00
breakthrough to kind of be realized in literally
less than three years i mean the these guys were
00:32:05
at a score of 40 last year and this year they're
at like nearly 90. which is incredible and so now
00:32:12
um you know we can now predict what the shape will
be from the from the dna sequence and and this
00:32:17
is going to unlock this ability everyone's now
going to take their model if they license it or
00:32:21
whatever they do with it or people are going to go
learn using the same techniques that deepmind used
00:32:25
um but it just means that it's possible and
then scientists will go away and they'll say
00:32:30
you know what i want to do this particular thing
on a microscopic scale let me design in in three
00:32:35
dimensional space of protein to do that thing okay
now let me go figure out how to make that protein
00:32:39
by writing the dna code which is really easy if
you can use this algorithm to solve that for you
00:32:44
and it is literally dollars and pennies to
make proteins we can write dna on a computer
00:32:50
we can get printed dna sent to us in 48 hours
in a fedex envelope for a dna printing facility
00:32:54
we can put it in a microbe and we can get that
microbe to make the protein for us in a day
00:32:59
the lab cost any high school biology class can
do this now so by being able to actually figure
00:33:03
out what dna to write based on the objective
function of what we want the protein to do
00:33:08
it's going to unlock this universe of things we
can do in medicine in environmental science we
00:33:14
can do things like break apart p-e-t plastics
we can do things like fixing nitrogen from the
00:33:20
atmosphere and getting rid of fertilizer plants
we can create all sorts of new um you know food
00:33:24
solutions health solutions environmental solutions
any chance you can make a pizza that doesn't have
00:33:30
carbohydrates because that's what i'm thinking
about here is is there a way that you can make
00:33:34
a healthy pasta or pizza or something like that
but in all seriousness what do you think the
00:33:39
early wins will be out of this technology and is
this a theoretical win that will benefit from in
00:33:45
20 years or is this a serious breakthrough that
we're going to benefit from in the near term
00:33:51
like no i think one or five years both are true
this is an incredibly important advancement in
00:33:56
machine learning um but the reality is that you
know google will still have to spend a deep mind
00:34:01
will have to spend a lot of time refining it and
then they have some really big ethical challenges
00:34:05
ahead of it how do you expose this technology to
whom and under what conditions and it's the same
00:34:11
situation that openai has with gpt3 although
a lot of people i think you know the scale of
00:34:16
the computer science challenge maybe was a bigger
win in gpt3 because it was a much more open space
00:34:22
and i think this is a much more specific sort
of almost expert system in a way um but the the
00:34:28
downstream commercial implications of this is just
enormous um and so just think about this like this
00:34:35
is where like you gotta you gotta love companies
like google the fact that they exist because
00:34:39
from you know page rank in 1999 to cpc ads in 2003
and four um we have alpha fold in 2020. and that
00:34:48
to me is just that's just this is an argument
against breaking up tech because only a tech
00:34:53
company with this amount of resource knowledge can
then go spend a billion dollars on deepmind i mean
00:35:00
alphabet's burning four to five billion dollars
a year on their quote-unquote other bets line
00:35:05
and people give them a lot of [ __ ] for it but
i mean you hit any one of these things and it's
00:35:09
a hundred billion dollar payday i mean look at
youtube youtube's easily a hundred billion dollar
00:35:12
payday on a billion dollar bet billion six oh
no that's it that's a 250 to 500 billion dollars
00:35:18
applied semantics a lot of people missed
this but applied semantics was 100 million
00:35:21
dollar bet and that's the entirety of
adsense initially android android um is this is this the first commercial application
of deep mind because until now you know they've
00:35:33
had alpha zero it's been so there was a
period of time a lot of people i don't know if
00:35:38
uh let me just think about this for a second
because alpha zero alpha was really good i want
00:35:44
to be careful about this but i do think people
could not disclose no but i i do think i do think
00:35:49
it was disclosed that they've used deep mind uh
to improve ads quality and improve um uh youtube
00:35:56
viewing and as a result of that you get the number
of hours per day of the average user on youtube to
00:36:00
double or triple ad revenue goes by three x and i
think in one quarter google was able to generate
00:36:06
something like an incremental 15 billion
annualized revenue from deep mines and you know
00:36:10
what that deep mind actually did on youtube it
sent everybody to the alt-right info wars and ben
00:36:16
shapiro congratulations be careful when you send
people's minds with artificial intelligence maybe
00:36:21
you just argued to break them up yeah but i i
understand stacks that it's being used broadly
00:36:27
across the products at google in in in in now now
in a much more careful way is my understanding
00:36:33
i'm look i'm a i'm i'm a big ally of alphabet
i'm a big fan and i love you know they were
00:36:38
and i used to work there and i'm very close to
people there so i know who used to be on the board
00:36:42
and was the major backer of that company deepmind
founder's fund founder's fund elon musk too and he
00:36:48
begged them to not sell to google because i
mean 400 million 400 million exit was a steel
00:36:54
40 or 50 scientists i think yeah absolute steel
no elon i mean elon has publicly said that he
00:36:59
thinks deep mind is like the greatest threat to
well he thinks ai is a great start to humanity
00:37:04
and of the people working on ai deep mind is
the furthest along and therefore most dangerous
00:37:10
he tried to stop he i mean he told me straight up
like when he's been very public about this since
00:37:14
that he he said i'll give you an unlimited
amount of money to not sell to google he's
00:37:18
friends with larry page too but he said
don't sell i want you to be independent i
00:37:22
want you to keep working on this but he said
that when he saw the ai there become aware
00:37:26
that it was an ai that that was when he was like
wait a second no wait dude deep mind is not the
00:37:33
alpha's alpha fold or alpha zero is not self-aware
that's it i felt it was becoming self-aware that
00:37:39
it knew what it was i don't know if that was just
elon you know just sort of no it's not it's not
00:37:44
self-aware so i mean i've watched anything yeah i
mean the amazing things that deepmind has released
00:37:51
prior to this were games right they had this
um this chess ai called alpha zero which
00:37:59
rapidly became not just the best chess um it only
beat every human in the world it also beat every
00:38:05
chess engine because computers became more you
know better at chess than humans a long time
00:38:09
ago because of their sheer computational power
but uh alpha zero plays like a human but with
00:38:15
kind of that same computational power and so that
created a whole revolution in chess engines and
00:38:21
then they also did that with a game called go
they created alphago and basically every single
00:38:27
game that you can think of uh deepmind's created
you know an alpha whatever alpha version that
00:38:33
um destroys both humans and computers but this is
the first thing they've publicly announced that
00:38:40
that seems like it will be available to others
eventually that could have tremendous social
00:38:47
impact imagine the government trying to understand
this can you imagine them being brought before
00:38:52
like senators well these are these are these
are the new weapons of mass destruction i mean
00:38:56
let's be honest like if if somebody else had had
alpha fold and probably somebody does and just
00:39:03
hasn't said you know i mean google actually values
transparency so that's the only reason why we know
00:39:08
um imagine what they could do as friedrich said
it's like you know the the opposite of this is
00:39:13
basically to design um a specific protein that
basically um you know destroys organs or there
00:39:20
are proteins called prions which are the scariest
thing known in biology in my opinion a prion is a
00:39:26
protein that it actually finds similar proteins
and based on its shape it gets those proteins
00:39:31
to change and it becomes like a virus and
prions actually um are there's an extremely
00:39:37
uh sad series of diseases that are related to
prions where your body expresses a protein in the
00:39:43
wrong way and then that protein itself gets other
proteins to change and creates copies of itself
00:39:48
and it spreads um it is a fascinatingly scary
um biological phenomenon but you know there
00:39:55
are extremely scary things you can do with the
designer protein capabilities basically you could
00:40:00
make a bio weapon that would be similar to what
the aliens and prometheus and aliens were doing
00:40:05
the engines even much worse even much worse this
is why i think they're going to spend years before
00:40:11
so this is why back to that earlier question it'll
be years before this sees the light of day because
00:40:15
um they are they're smart enough to know what
they've uncovered and i think they did they did
00:40:21
the right thing by talking about it because
i think there's a lot of really amazing r d
00:40:26
but the reality is that google for the next
20 or 30 years will have layers and layers of
00:40:30
oversight because you know it's not like you're
going to allow a company to enrich uranium
00:40:36
in mountain view without oversight and this is
the equivalent it's just a we're we're buying
00:40:41
time until governments realize that they have to
do that they have to do it but let's also remember
00:40:46
the protein data set they trained on is publicly
available you know anyone can access this and with
00:40:51
the you know i should catch up in machine learning
you know capability to deep mind uh infrastructure
00:40:56
wise theoretically you know someone could could
i i think it's it's an inevitability that in the
00:41:01
next 24 months someone else will write this
right now i think what deepmind has done
00:41:06
is showed that specific um techniques of
learning can overcome limitations in compute
00:41:13
but to your point david like we're accelerating
silicon at a fast enough speed where you know if
00:41:18
like if you can throw 5 10 50 100 500 pet ops at
a problem uh you're you know you can run you know
00:41:25
some really really old version of tensorflow and
probably get to the same answer yeah i actually
00:41:30
think they published uh i'm gonna find it while
you guys are chatting but they published um what
00:41:34
the compute needs were on running this uh
i'll find it in a second uh i'll tell you
00:41:41
let me make one sort of slightly descending point
on the whole wmd thing i mean look obviously the
00:41:48
you know who has access this technology needs
to be controlled um we do have to make sure it
00:41:53
doesn't get into the hands of bad actors but the
reality is there's plenty of existing wmds out
00:41:58
there that have been around for a long time that
bad actors could get their hands on um they could
00:42:02
already make you know extremely dangerous
viruses in a lab they could you know take
00:42:08
something that's as contagious as smallpox and
make it as deadly as ebola or something like that
00:42:13
and it's these new technologies that provide a
way for us to combat those those wmds because
00:42:20
you know technology has a tendency to become
democratized um you know um was it uh 75 years
00:42:28
ago the us was the only country that had
an atomic weapon now what like close to 10
00:42:33
have you know nuclear atomic weapons and so um you
know these these sort of nefarious technologies
00:42:40
get democratized anyway and we really need some of
these new technologies and new abilities as a way
00:42:46
to combat them it's like last week we were talking
about the ability now to basically print um
00:42:53
you know a vaccine using this mrna technique
within two days you know you can imagine you know
00:42:59
if if someone tried to use a bio weapon create a
new virus we could print a vaccine the next day
00:43:04
um those are the kinds of capabilities we're
going to need to fight the spread of wmd
00:43:08
i think you're right it's just that you then have
a law of large numbers problem meaning you know
00:43:13
the previous problem before is you had 180 190 200
state-sponsored actors so if you had a one percent
00:43:20
you know rate of people who are just bad you're
talking about two states now when you talk about
00:43:26
five billion people getting access to code that's
basically running an aws or gcp instance someplace
00:43:32
and you have a one percent you know bad guy rate
all of a sudden that one percent really matters
00:43:37
and i think that's the problem it's just
the law of large numbers david applied to
00:43:41
very very small rates of immorality but i
mean you can already do very scary things with
00:43:48
you know recombinant dna taking dna from one
organism putting in another and setting that
00:43:51
organism out and you know uh theoretically you
could have designed a virus that would spread
00:43:56
throughout humanity and cause a lot of death
right i mean there's a lot of this uh capability
00:44:01
people would have found that out because like
you can't run these labs and you're not gonna
00:44:04
get you know monkey models or mouse models it's
like there's there's a trail of breadcrumbs there
00:44:08
that is easier to track wouldn't you agree than
just running an instance in a simulation on gcp
00:44:13
sending it someplace to then have a protein
printer that comes in a fedex envelope too
00:44:18
and you have to hire people as we saw in iran
with you know their chief scientist being whacked
00:44:23
by whoever accidentally whacked him with 60 people
like you need to have the brain power to do this
00:44:29
once you have the brain power to do it you can
track that brain power and we had uh for the last
00:44:34
i think it's like since we even tested nuclear
bombs we've had these special planes flying around
00:44:40
the globe looking for the signature of nuclear
uh detonations or any kind of nuclear fallout
00:44:47
and we've been flying those forever uh i think
i think i think i think biodefense is going to
00:44:52
become probably one of the biggest industries on
planet earth starting in the latter half of this
00:44:56
century because you're going to get to a point
where um digital biology is like a tool just like
00:45:01
software was in the 80s where suddenly everyone
could access it everyone could use it everyone
00:45:05
could do stuff with it you have this ubiquity of
scary [ __ ] happening hackers everywhere hold on
00:45:10
freebird didn't we have that as well and those
same claims about nuclear power and we've been
00:45:14
able to for 100 years with nuclear close to 100
years nuclear and particularly with nuclear in
00:45:20
particular there is a material problem you have to
source and refine material to do something scary
00:45:25
with biology you don't you can do this
anywhere you can do it on your desktop at home
00:45:30
and you know it's getting easier cheaper faster
and you can use software and a printer and you
00:45:35
know a cheap sequencer and do stuff do we believe
that china has this freeburg yes china for sure
00:45:41
yeah i mean look this is yeah i think today's
head of deep mind or behind hundred percent 100
00:45:46
so here's the stats that deepmind put out it took
um the equivalent of 100 to 200 gpus run over a
00:45:51
few weeks uh to build this model that is i don't i
don't care how advanced deepmind is at this point
00:45:57
um so you know if that's the model
then someone else can replicate that uh you know someone else that's what happened
to to alpha zero the d minor chess engine
00:46:06
after they proved it now there's
a whole bunch of uh chess ais yeah a lot of startups replicating this alpha fold
uh technique and then using that to go do drug
00:46:21
discovery and you'll see 50 startups getting
funded 12 to 18 months from now based on some
00:46:25
novel protein idea um and i think that this we got
to get our beach wet on this and the iss everybody
00:46:31
go to this is getting ridiculous everybody's good
slash all in but but we should create a protein
00:46:38
we should create a we should create a protein
folding syndicate yeah absolutely here it is
00:46:43
everybody go to thesyndicate.com all in if we do
this i'm collecting the emails now uh no but i
00:46:50
i will i will i will make my first series of bets
less on the application and more on the protection
00:46:55
i think biodefense 30 years from now is going
to be so important if you want to invest with
00:47:00
the best ease can there is there going to be a
protein that prevents rudy giuliani from farting
00:47:07
i mean what is going on saks let's throw to you as
our resident right wing uh joking sacks don't take
00:47:14
it so personal we know you didn't vote for trump
we know you did a write-in vote for tucker carlson
00:47:22
let me ask you have you have you or have
you not had dinner with tucker carlson
00:47:28
um i call all in uh i i've actually uh yeah
i um no i don't think i've had to know with
00:47:36
tucker but into a party with tucker
carlson no but let me let me get uh here's what's happening is well i feel my
dream of gridlock in washington for the next
00:47:49
four years is slipping away um you know the
the you know i described this as sort of like
00:47:55
it was kind of a dream scenario that you would
have um a divided uh congress and the republicans
00:48:02
you know they won 50 they won 50 seats in the
senate in november and then you know because of
00:48:07
this stupid rule in georgia that you have to you
can't just win you have to win by having over 50
00:48:14
um the republicans would have had uh 51 but now
these there's a runoff for these two open seats
00:48:20
and the republicans were ahead in the polls at the
time they were the more i think it was mostly it's
00:48:25
based on the candidates being more popular than
the democratic candidates but now because of all
00:48:29
these antics around the election the democrats
of both democratic candidates have pulled ahead
00:48:36
and so it's yeah they are now both democratic
in the last couple of last week or so
00:48:42
um ossop is ahead of purdue by about two points
which is a stunner because purdue has already
00:48:49
beaten him before he beat him in the november
election he's i think a better chance though right
00:48:54
and the the most margin right but warnock is seven
points ahead of uh loffler so that one is outside
00:49:03
the margin of error he's clearly uh beating her
and um it you know and now it looks like purdue's
00:49:10
in danger too the republicans just need to win
one of those in order for us to have you know
00:49:15
divided government of washington which i think
tends to produce better results than giving one
00:49:20
party all the levers of power um but but this is
this is the crazy thing and so i think even from
00:49:27
trump's point of view you know i think this
is a branding exercise to you know prove that
00:49:33
he didn't lose the problem is yeah how's that
going well it's not working and it looks like
00:49:39
it's gonna cost republicans the senate which is
something that i think he won't come back from
00:49:43
so if i was advising the president i would tell
him to drop this you know these these legal
00:49:48
challenges they fired sydney powell from the legal
team which i think was a good decision because
00:49:52
of her crazy wild allegations but now rudy's
out there doing the same stuff judy giuliani
00:50:01
giuliani the answer that i gave you is they
didn't bother to interview a single witness
00:50:07
he was adjusting he wasn't waking up the genie he
was he was tucking his pants in laying down in the
00:50:12
bedroom having a drink with a russian underage
age i mean rudy is just i mean fresh off his
00:50:17
his guest starring appearance in the borap
movies i mean it's like he's uncredited yeah
00:50:23
it's like he's reenacting my cousin vinnie or
something in these um in these hearings yeah um
00:50:29
how many things it's gonna cost republicans the
senate yeah i think they're it's so amazing like
00:50:35
the democrats basically have now have a stone cold
free roll because there is a very good chance that
00:50:40
these guys are going to um win these two senate
seats which would just be absolutely incredible
00:50:45
absolutely so so republicans are definitely
figuring this out rich lowry had a great call
00:50:52
he's a editor of national review he's on the right
but i think provides very good objective political
00:50:57
analysis he's his last column sounded the alarm
bells about what was happening in georgia and
00:51:02
look if the if the issue in the georgia runoffs
is are these antics if it's rudy and sydney powell
00:51:08
the republican's gonna lose the seat both seats if
the question of the election is whether democrats
00:51:15
should have a free hand to ram through whatever
legislation they want then i think the republicans
00:51:20
win so the question is what is that election going
to be about and the longer that rudy stays on
00:51:24
the stage making these crazy wild allegations
the worse it gets for republicans when is the
00:51:30
georgia runoff election i think it's january 5th
or 10th it's one of those two january 5th i think
00:51:37
my gosh would anybody hear if they had gray hair
and i know we have three gentlemen on the call who
00:51:44
have gray hair uh freedberg somehow you're you're
you're you might be maybe i've answered this
00:51:49
question just not on his head would any of you
dye your hair if you were a 79 87 year old rudy
00:51:59
giuliani no my hair is white and getting whiter
it's like it is what it is it's a passage of time
00:52:04
i would just move on david would you consider
t just taking that gray right out of your hair
00:52:11
because you have the euro the silver fox as
it stands would you ever consider it you just
00:52:17
you can see the decision i've made
but um look that's not i mean it's yeah i mean that was just like a meltdown
i mean a literal meltdown a little literal
00:52:27
meltdown and uh it was so like representative
of the moment the the congressional republicans
00:52:33
want to use a hook to get rudy off the stage i
mean they cannot wait to get him off the stage and
00:52:38
uh but if they don't stand up and just tell trump
to shut this down i think i think it's coming
00:52:44
it's coming so yeah oh wow so the republicans are
going to stand up to trump with four weeks left in
00:52:50
office wow what a profiling courage freeberg are
you dying your hair do you have gray hair and are
00:52:55
you actually dying or have you not hit the gray
yet just tell us right now it's an emergency pod
00:53:01
no it's the truth david are you dying
you're here yes or no this is it there's so many ways to have an opinion on whether
trump um is allowed to pre-pardon himself and his
00:53:14
kids oh that's exactly where i was going yeah sex
well yes our right wing he could definitely pardon
00:53:20
his kids i don't know that there's a open legal
question whether he can pardon himself can you
00:53:25
pre-pardon um what does it mean pre-pardon in this
definition you mean i don't in the future i don't
00:53:30
know you can only pardon for a committed crime
right i mean that's traditionally not part of it
00:53:35
right well you can pardon for things that
happened in the past um i don't think you
00:53:39
can pardon for things that happen in the future
and you can find it you can what's a blanket
00:53:43
party no i don't think you have to define it
i think you could just do a blanket pardon
00:53:47
um the i would advise trump not to do it if
i were one of his advisors and the reason is
00:53:53
that he can only pardon for federal and the
big problem the trump family has right now
00:53:59
you know the southern district of new york these
mad dog prosecutors who are democrats this is
00:54:05
you know i don't approve of it this is this is
to me this to me this is the criminalization
00:54:11
of political differences i don't i think it'd be
great if he could pardon because i do think that
00:54:17
those guys are again they're trying to criminalize
political differences but but pardoning doesn't
00:54:22
solve the problem with the southern district
of new york and biden has already said that he
00:54:25
doesn't believe in having any uh having these uh
having like a federal investigation of trump and
00:54:33
so i don't think i don't think trump has anything
to worry about federally i think the problem is
00:54:38
god can i just say this it's just so [ __ ] decent
and classy like isn't it refreshing it's actually
00:54:44
boring but isn't it just wait what are you
talking about biden is just so decent who's biden
00:54:51
like i haven't seen that guy has he worked for
us he's been great no i mean like he's well
00:54:55
he's disappeared no he doesn't disappear he's just
not crazy he's bidet biden biden has done a really
00:55:03
has done a few really smart things i mean in his
acceptance speech he did what churchill advises
00:55:09
you to do in victory which is be magnanimous
he's made the right sort of sounds towards
00:55:14
reconciliation i think saying that he didn't
believe in going after trump criminally
00:55:19
i mean look i i don't think that would have been
a good political move anyway because it would have
00:55:23
created a backlash but it was a smart uh thing
to say and so he and then i think the other smart
00:55:29
thing he's done is uh which is very biden anyway
which is he's got an establishment all the way
00:55:34
for his cabinet he has not put he hasn't named
any totally crazy progressives to his cabinet
00:55:40
yet that the republicans could latch on to for the
georgia runoffs and so biden's doing a very good
00:55:46
job right now of appearing non-threatening and
doing nothing to nothing to blow up his honeymoon
00:55:52
he and his advisors have run a perfect perfect
flawless flaw it's been flawless i mean david
00:55:58
you just nailed it like all of all the things he
could have done to potentially put the senate at
00:56:02
risk or to potentially give republicans
sort of something to hang their hats on
00:56:07
he has given zero space right like he has not
created a single opening so you you would have
00:56:13
thought that coming into this election cycle
the way that trump tried to paint biden was like
00:56:18
this you know uh gaffaholic and instead he has
just been picture pitch perfect roxanna well i
00:56:25
think i think i think he's a he's a gaff machine
when he speaks spontaneously which he has not
00:56:29
done i mean every time i've seen him speak since
the election has been reading off a teleprompter
00:56:34
but i think that his campaign has run a really
good they have run a good strategy um and now look
00:56:42
it helps that the press doesn't really challenge
you uh it's like it's like weekend at bernie's
00:56:46
except it's like presidency at bernie's you know
it's like four years they hit him in a basement he
00:56:50
only reaches out to teleprompter hold him up put
him in the on the stage yeah the press let him get
00:56:55
away with it i mean no other candidate could have
gotten away with a basement strategy but the press
00:56:59
was so determined to go after trump that they
really gave him a free pass on what biden believed
00:57:04
and what he was going to do but look biden has
run by biden has run a very good campaign and
00:57:09
a very good transition and really i think the
biggest mistake he made during the campaign was
00:57:14
not declaring definitively that he would not try
to pack the supreme court that was his big mistake
00:57:20
and what happened the voters split the ticket
to give the senate to the republicans so that
00:57:26
biden wouldn't be able to pack the court and so he
wouldn't be able to do it anyway and i think maybe
00:57:30
his administration has learned from that mistake
which is don't do anything or say anything that's
00:57:35
going to give republicans something to latch on
to to say that biden's really a radical we got to
00:57:40
stop him and anyway so to now george is in play
and biden could win the senate that's a perfect
00:57:46
insight sax because what you haven't seen as well
is you haven't seen kamala harris out there all
00:57:51
that much because that's something republicans
could glom on to and you haven't seen aoc bernie
00:57:56
sanders or elizabeth warren they are persona no
grata they are not involved in this wow they are
00:58:02
m.i.a they are m.i.a and they the democrats won't
bring them up and you have bernie sanders like hey
00:58:09
wasn't he supposed to be oh george of like elon
omar wants to cancel rent and mortgages i mean
00:58:14
they're throwing that classic and they're
throwing everything out there just to see
00:58:18
if anything sticks right now yeah but biden
biden has really given uh bernie sanders and
00:58:23
that wing of the party the hi-hat in the in
these uh cabinet choices in fact he just named
00:58:30
uh a woman to to be the head of the uh of omb the
uh the you know the budget director who has a huge
00:58:36
twitter feud with bernie sanders and the bernie
the bernie folks are up in arms about it i don't
00:58:41
think she's gonna get through um but but yeah i
mean biden has really um stiff-armed a lot of the
00:58:47
progressives associated with the hysterical left i
mean it's a why would you want to associate i just
00:58:52
want i also think it's historical i think it's
an appeal to the rights of the right i mean he
00:58:57
is appealing to the right to some extent right i
mean like by by not putting those people in place
00:59:01
i think he's never understood never writer he's
never going to be able to appeal to the trump base
00:59:05
but what he's going to be able to do is prevent
the republicans from from sort of labeling him as
00:59:11
a radical and therefore and therefore you know
went over those independents that he needs and
00:59:16
by the way back to back to trump for one second i
apologize because i wanted to ask you david i mean
00:59:22
the other thing that could tip georgia is this
whole craziness where trump is like i'm gonna veto
00:59:28
the the defense bill unless we repealed section
230 and if you're you know a military person in
00:59:36
georgia you're like wait a second um you're going
to leave my brothers and sisters in arms basically
00:59:42
lollygagging without any financial support because
you don't like twitter's tweet policy it's gonna
00:59:48
seem kind of crazy yeah it was it was one of these
like classic trump moves where you feel like i
00:59:56
think he does have a good point with respect to
the social media companies i do think they've been
01:00:02
engaging in censorship they've overstepped their
bounds they are they they do deserve some sort of
01:00:08
comeuppance or control i personally don't think
that repealing two to eight uh two third was
01:00:13
it 280 um is the section 230 is the way to go
um it um for a bunch of reasons that we could
01:00:21
get into if you want but um but but yeah it
was one of these like reflexive trump trump
01:00:26
you know tweets and you heard republicans in in
the senate were very very quick to shoot it down
01:00:33
um and you know there was an article in politico
where um republicans were quoted well anonymously
01:00:38
saying they're pretty sick of this [ __ ] that
was the quote and so yeah i mean i think that
01:00:44
republicans on capitol hill are kind of ready
for for for those types of antics to be over
01:00:50
okay should he uh or will he pardon himself
and the kids like i mean i guess that's what
01:00:57
it comes down to and then well i think we should
i think i don't i don't i don't think so and i
01:01:02
don't think it'll matter because i think biden
will leave him alone and it will not help his
01:01:06
biggest risk uh and this is by the way why they
tried to get jay clayton to resign from the sec
01:01:11
and move over to the southern district of new york
because they thought maybe he could run some kind
01:01:15
of interference but i mean i think the state ags
will want a pound of flesh here and if i were if i
01:01:24
yeah just if i were advising trump and and
advising him on how to maximize his legacy
01:01:31
it would be you know pardon pardon people in the
administration been treated unfairly there's no
01:01:36
need to pardon yourself um i don't i don't think
he has federal exposure and i would and i would
01:01:44
tell him that you know if republicans lose these
georgia senate seats that he will be blamed for
01:01:51
among the base for a long time and that i think
will be hard for him to get past uh in four years
01:01:57
and so it's very important i think for him to make
sure that that at least purdue wins his election
01:02:02
yeah what do you guys can do can i ask another
question what do you think is gonna happen
01:02:09
with um so trump is trying to make his case um
but no one's listening twitter keeps putting up
01:02:16
his fraudulent you know uh um this is just
disputed claims thing and he's been pushing
01:02:23
newsmax and oann do you think those become
viable and real kind of media businesses now
01:02:29
and are they actually gonna steal an audience away
from fox news 100 percent it's already happened
01:02:35
it's just the increasing fragmentation of media
right cable networks don't pick them up do they
01:02:41
uh the cable companies i've seen i've seen newsmax
newsmax has a cable channel my theory is this
01:02:46
entire twisted like crazy right alt-right mania
just fades into oblivion and the party reinvents
01:02:55
itself no no because they can't win they can't win
david they can't win with this brand they did they
01:03:00
did win they did and they will not in the future
because they just lost their the republicans won
01:03:05
like 10 or 12 uh seats in the house they've almost
got the majority back in the house they almost
01:03:10
certainly will win back the house and retire nancy
pelosi in two years during the midterm election
01:03:16
i'll put money on that right now they held the
senate local elections they held the senate
01:03:21
presidency again with this strategy you think they
can win with the demographic shift with trump in
01:03:26
2024 really yeah uh because people want to go back
to that level of crazy people people don't want
01:03:35
the they don't want the crazy but this idea that
the issue set that trump ran on and one on is dead
01:03:42
i don't i don't agree with that yeah those issues
are still there you'll have a better branded face
01:03:48
and a standard bearer for those issues and if you
say it in a less crazy way and you're generally
01:03:53
less crazy i think that it will resonate with
a lot more people than have already proven that
01:03:59
it resonates with it already resonates with 70
million could it resonate with 75 and could they
01:04:03
overtake the white house it's not inconceivable
so i think i think we can't all of a sudden say
01:04:08
this is signed sealed and delivered it's a fata
complete and all of a sudden it's just democrats
01:04:12
the rest of the way dave is right the down
ballot results for the democrats were not good
01:04:16
and it's a sign that moderate centrism is the only
winning strategy if you really have a strategy
01:04:23
where it's like i really want to win and not just
me but my party and generations of people after me
01:04:29
you have to run a centrist campaign which is why
they're retiring the aoc elizabeth warren bernie
01:04:33
bro contingent right so well yeah there's
there's a house member that group of crazy
01:04:39
right there was a there was a democratic house
member i think elizabeth spamberger um who almost
01:04:46
lost her uh seat i think in like a virginia like
kind of a swing virginia district there was a big
01:04:51
uh call of the democratic house caucus and she
was just laying into pelosi and the leadership
01:04:58
there because she was basically saying don't
ever mention defund the police again you know
01:05:03
if you want me to win my my swing district next
time do not mention this ever again and she was
01:05:09
just this was all in the washington post you know
they um the the call was leaked by about a dozen
01:05:14
different press out outlets which tells you there
was a lot of unhappiness among the house members
01:05:20
who almost lost their seat because of these like
radical ideas the other the other thing is and you
01:05:24
know unless all of a sudden the the folks that are
in their 20s and 30s are radically different than
01:05:31
many many generations before them the reality is
that they will as they get older and wealthier
01:05:38
generally speaking get more conservative and we
are about to go through over the next 20 years
01:05:44
30 trillion dollars of wealth transfer and so you
know i mean you can wear good segue but buttons on
01:05:51
buttons on flannel but at the end of the day when
you're you know mom and dad pass pass away and
01:05:57
all of a sudden you know you have four five six
seven eight million bucks and you have to think
01:06:01
about your children and your children's children i
tend to think people generally do very predictably
01:06:07
get more conservative and so again
another reason why you can't count on um a stayed interpretation of progressivism it
there will be progressivism i think it just will
01:06:20
be a different form of policy and it'll just be
more moderate and centrist and it'll be normal
01:06:26
uh which is a perfect segue to the new york
times story that came out on the friday after
01:06:30
thanksgiving november 27th the rich kids
who want to tear down capitalism socialist
01:06:34
minded millennials millennial heirs are trying to
live their values by getting rid of their money
01:06:40
lately sam jacobs and i'll read just a little bit
of it has been having a lot of conversations with
01:06:44
his family's lawyers he's trying to gain access
to his trust of 30 his 30 million trust fund
01:06:50
at 25 he's hit the age where many heirs can
blow their money on her brain businesses or
01:06:55
stable of sports cards he doesn't want to do
that but by wealth management standards his
01:06:59
plans are just as bad he wants to give it all
away i want to build a world where someone like
01:07:04
me a young person who controls tens of millions
of dollars is possible a socialist college mr
01:07:08
jacob sees his family's extreme plutocratic
wealth as both a moral and economic failure
01:07:13
his parents must be very proud first of all sam
jacobs sounds like an idiot and he shouldn't have
01:07:17
any money so hopefully he gets his wish why did
his parents give him 30 million dollars this trust
01:07:21
fund should be like given to somebody who deserves
it like yeah but but what what's saying what sam
01:07:27
jacobs wants doesn't mean that sam jacobs gets to
decide for everybody else and just because that he
01:07:33
wants to live in a communist country he can go and
find one and the reality is like you know we just
01:07:38
talked about alpha fold well guess what you know
there's four of us on this on this podcast today
01:07:44
that over the next 20 or 30 years are more
than likely going to invest hundreds of
01:07:47
millions of dollars in protein design and uh
i don't do that with any um sense of um shame
01:07:57
um and i'm glad that stuart butterfield made
me you know a lot of money because it's going
01:08:02
to go go back into the world in positive ways and
you know maybe if my children are taught properly
01:08:08
they'll be able to take a small piece of that and
they'll decide that you know there's uh something
01:08:12
else that's important to them but the reality is
that everybody should be allowed to make their
01:08:15
own decisions and i don't want somebody like him
especially a 25 year old [ __ ] telling me or my
01:08:21
kids who even though they're you know under the
age of 15 are probably smarter than him what to do
01:08:27
david when you read this article uh if you did
read it uh what were your thoughts um especially
01:08:33
in regards to parenting and thinking about our own
kids because what i started thinking about i was
01:08:37
like oh my god what if one of my daughters wants
to take her trust fund and just throw it into the
01:08:42
wind i really don't want to comment wait hold
on i just want to say one thing the part that's
01:08:46
completely reasonable and that i respect is this
this 25 year old seems to have come to a decision
01:08:53
what i find completely unreasonable and you
know just completely lathered with insecurity
01:08:59
is his need to then project it and say it
has to be true for everybody else as well
01:09:04
and and the the grand arcing
statements of how it should never be just completely betrays you know what we've
learned in how society functionally works
01:09:14
like if you want democracy the only sort of
economic philosophy that's been partnered with
01:09:19
with democracy to work well as capitalism and
so if you want to change one you're gonna have
01:09:23
to change the other and just the fact that you
know with all of his education the hundreds of
01:09:28
millions of dollars you know didn't get a course
in civics to understand that is kind of sad
01:09:33
i just before you go david i have to read one
comment because it's so deranged that it almost
01:09:39
seems like it was part of a script to like some
billions or secession um heirs whose wealth have
01:09:47
come from specific sources sometimes use that
history to guide their giving there's that's in
01:09:51
new york time saying that pierce still a hunt a
32 year old socialist anarchist marxist communist
01:09:58
or all of the above has a trust fund that was
financed by their former stepfather's outlet mall
01:10:03
empire when i and this is uh mr uh mr i'm sorry
mx i've never seen that before abdullah hunt
01:10:13
how do you pronounce max hunt how do you pronounce
mx mx de la hunt takes non-gendered pronouns
01:10:23
has anybody seen mx i've never seen that that was
the first time yeah that's the first for me so i
01:10:28
guess it's so you can say so you don't have to
say mr or miss or missus it's like latinx where
01:10:34
you just can group a bunch of people into one
thing got it right um this is what uh mx de la
01:10:41
hunt says i'm just trying to figure out how it's
pronounced maxis hunt de la hunt um taking a shot
01:10:50
jason you're you're not showing
respect for his pronouns i don't want to get canceled it
just is kind of hard to pronounce mx
01:10:59
i don't mean to laugh but i need i need
somebody to tell me how to pronounce mx.com um
01:11:08
but this is the quote that is so insane when
i think about outlet malls and i think this
01:11:14
is what we all think about when we think about
outlook walls when i think about outlaw malls i
01:11:19
think about intersectional oppression what's
the first thing that comes to mind freeburg
01:11:24
when you think of an outlet mall certainly
it's intersectional compression or a subway
01:11:29
i just can i just point out like the um the new
york times has become a little bit sensationalist
01:11:34
like you know if you were to ask statistically
what percentage of people that are inheriting
01:11:40
wealth are going to be stupid like this the answer
would probably be pretty low but they find the
01:11:46
one or two characters like this and they build the
story around them and then people extrapolate that
01:11:50
as if that is the persona of the entire population
of people that are going to inherit some degree of
01:11:54
wealth and that becomes the story and i'm just
so sick of it like i don't read the new york
01:11:59
times anymore and look i love the new york times
i would read it every single day i still have it
01:12:03
on my phone i still pay for my subscription but
i'm so sick of the narrative being written by the
01:12:07
author's objective and then they go and find one
or two facts that meet that narrative and rather
01:12:12
than speaking about it statistically and saying
we surveyed a hundred people that were wealthy
01:12:16
this is how many and if it was sixty percent
of them saying i'm gonna go give away all my
01:12:20
wealth and do crazy [ __ ] great like that's the
story but again but picking picking and picking
01:12:25
an individual and building the narrative around
that individual as if that is the game but david
01:12:29
and that's the point like what they do is they
don't even talk about people who want to give
01:12:33
their money away what they do is they create these
caricatures around this like judgment judgment
01:12:38
it's it's all about this like judgment it's like
it's virtu it's like i am holier than everybody
01:12:44
else because of these decisions that i made and
i just find it so offensive now here's can i just
01:12:49
tell you i had my physical last week and i have a
doctor in l.a who's superb and he's he's in many
01:12:54
ways sort of a philosopher king to me he's been
incredibly important in my life and you know dr
01:13:00
agus i talked to his name his name is christian
renna uh at lifespan medicine but uh anyways
01:13:06
um and here's what you're and i talked to
chris about raising kids and chris has seen
01:13:10
you know thousands of people over the course of
his you know journey as a primary care physician
01:13:14
and he's seen the kids of these folks and etc
you know he he boiled it down to me it's like um
01:13:22
you know your job as a parent is to make sure that
your children have incredible tools married with
01:13:29
incredible habits and so some of these things are
very simple like food and you know how to eat and
01:13:35
self-care and exercise but some of these things
are really important which is a world view empathy
01:13:42
and he uses this word which is called awareness
and awareness is this idea that you understand
01:13:49
the world around you and that's an incredibly
difficult thing for parents to be able to teach
01:13:53
their kids but it seems like if you could give
them that that's independent of anything other
01:13:58
than time and care right it doesn't matter whether
you're rich or you're poor it doesn't really
01:14:02
matter whether you're black or white you can
really teach the concept of awareness and empathy
01:14:07
and then the other thing that he taught me was you
know there's a really big difference between folks
01:14:12
like you me meaning guys like me who grew up poor
and who are focused on the generation of money
01:14:18
right meaning making money and some of you make
it some of you don't but you're living in this
01:14:24
existential threat that you feel is hanging over
you and so you go out and you make it and a lot of
01:14:31
it is driven by this insecurity you've had since
you were young but make no mistake your children's
01:14:37
lives is harder than yours and it's about the
utilization of money and whether they want to give
01:14:42
it away or whether they want to use it you have a
responsibility to teach them whether you're giving
01:14:46
them a dollar a million dollars or a billion
dollars and this is where i think somewhere along
01:14:50
the way these kids as parents you know may or may
not have done the best maybe they did the best
01:14:56
they could but somewhere along the way these gaps
are are obvious at least in the telling of the
01:15:02
article and this is where i go back to if you're
really going to talk to about something like this
01:15:06
which actually is quite important because again
we're going to go through the the most enormous
01:15:10
wealth transfer in the history of the world in
the next 20 years 30 trillion dollars that could
01:15:15
so talk about that if if enough people took
their inheritance and decided to eradicate
01:15:19
student debt it would be three percent of what's
going to be inherited over the next 20 years
01:15:24
think about it so obviously you can do some
incredible things but it's not framed in the
01:15:30
right way it doesn't promote the right kind of
discussion and all it is is salacious reporting
01:15:34
that makes these kids look like caricatures and
by the way remember that money today is invested
01:15:40
somewhere so to pull that three percent out would
have a kind of triple kind of rippling and kind of
01:15:46
um probably deleterious effect on on amazon no
no forget about that factories family but this
01:15:55
is this is my point also is i think that there's a
responsibility to these stewards of capital right
01:16:00
they they may be you can call them wealthy all you
want but they really are the people that pull the
01:16:04
strings and where money's moving um and there's uh
i think you know to your point kind of a degree of
01:16:09
responsibility that inevitably has to kind of sit
with this uh this group um here's the problem with
01:16:17
it is if they just want to give their money away
to a charity that they thought was worthy and that
01:16:23
and they were willing to live like you know monks
or something and not need money that'd be fine
01:16:28
you know we could respect that but the reason
why they're in such a hurry to get rid of this
01:16:32
wealth is because they feel like money itself is
ill-gotten that wealth itself is is by definition
01:16:39
ill-gotten it must have come from at the expense
of somebody else right you only could have gotten
01:16:45
that wealth by ripping people off and that is
the thing that that's the idea that's really
01:16:50
pernicious about this sort of like socialism
movement is they don't really understand that
01:16:55
the way capitalism works you only get rich by
selling something to somebody that they want that
01:17:01
makes their life better right i mean all of us are
engaged in the creation of new technologies and
01:17:07
new products and that makes the world better and
people are willing to pay for that and that's what
01:17:12
creates value and and that's what creates wealth
and it's really just kind of sad that people
01:17:17
you know are in this it goes beyond this
article on these trust fund kids but this whole
01:17:22
uh condemnation of capitalism and this attack
on any you know billionaires or whatever um the
01:17:28
problem with it is it doesn't recognize the way
that value is created for everybody can i um can
01:17:34
i give you a quote um from walter williams who uh
just passed away who's a very famous uh economist
01:17:40
prior to capitalism the way people amassed great
wealth was by looting plundering and enslaving
01:17:47
their fellow man capitalism made it possible
to become wealthy by serving your fellow men
01:17:52
and that's really true and some are along
the way folks folks have lost the script
01:17:56
and have all of a sudden gone back to pre-historic
capitalist times and um i think that we don't
01:18:04
have enough good examples of constructive
capitalism that prove that this is not a bad word
01:18:09
yeah exactly yeah i love the walter williams quote
um just to give another example jeff bezos just
01:18:17
gave 10 billion dollars to uh climate change teddy
what's the kid's name teddy schaefer or something
01:18:23
like that the journalist has been writing him on
twitter i think he works for vox or something like
01:18:29
they have basically been attacking bezos since he
made the announcement that he hasn't done enough
01:18:34
and it's like 10 billion dollars is the largest
contribution ever made to a single cause i mean
01:18:41
obviously right bill gates and how did he do
foundation right and how did he do that because
01:18:46
he created amazon which has created enormous
value for all of us imagine if one of these kids
01:18:50
in the article instead of just giving their money
away by the way it looks like there's a bunch of
01:18:55
organizations that have sprung up to scam these
kids out of their trust fund it's sort of you
01:18:59
know a fool in their money in their money are soon
parted there's a whole bunch of of scam artists
01:19:06
who are trying to scam these kids but uh yeah
i mean they're definitely getting scammed but
01:19:10
imagine if instead of just getting scammed out
of their money they were to use it to create a
01:19:13
business that created a new product or technology
that served people then maybe they could turn
01:19:18
that 30 million into 10 billion like bezos did
and and if they lost it they would have done it
01:19:23
in the pursuit of something really grand and so
nobody would actually instead of virtue signaling
01:19:28
instead of virtue signaling on the new york times
yeah like these guys were so glad to be in the new
01:19:32
york times to dunk on capitalists and dunk and
literally dunk on their own parents think about
01:19:36
that you hate your parents so much you have to go
to the new york times and tell them how much you
01:19:40
hate them i mean i don't know how this changes
well by the way speaking of virtue signaling in
01:19:45
the new york times can we talk about the new york
times writing that hit piece on coinbase all right
01:19:50
i mean if you want to go there i mean this is the
first rail of the podcast but we've been talking
01:19:55
about brian armstrong just to set the table
here brian armstrong wrote a memo he said oh no
01:20:00
politics by the way by the way jkl i just posted
an image for nick to put up here just to to don't
01:20:06
don't tell me it's a code 13 that says this is not
a code 13. it's to reinforce your point about the
01:20:11
you know the virtue of capitalism you know this
kind of dates back to these are three three images
01:20:17
three charts from the year 1500 to today and
energy use has grown 115 times well so this is
01:20:24
basically uh a measure of population consumption
and production right and so the the capitalist
01:20:31
incentive has driven um the ability while
population has grown 14x over the last 500 years
01:20:37
it's driven um a nearly 10x increment in what
is available for humans to consume uh per capita
01:20:46
during that period of time i mean think about
that that was driven entirely by industry and so
01:20:51
industry has enabled and production has increased
by 240x so we have a surplus of goods on planet
01:20:56
earth and a surplus of access to goods because
of the capitalist incentive over the last 500
01:21:02
years and whose right is it to say that that was
wrong and all of the people that are employed by
01:21:06
it and live within that mechanism and who are
no longer living in poverty who are no longer
01:21:10
slaves all of a sudden 50 000 people convert
you signal because they're sitting in their
01:21:14
warm homes in america telling everybody else
to [ __ ] off i mean i find it kind of a joke
01:21:19
i mean i i would like you to go and live you know
where i was supposed to live before i emigrated
01:21:24
right sri lanka no heater no roof no food etc they
should go to north korea you go come to sri lanka
01:21:32
i can show you you go to an outhouse okay you
sit there you squat to go to the bathroom okay
01:21:38
um there's no [ __ ] three-ply you know uh bamboo
you know press-free toilet paper to deal with
01:21:45
um you know you you literally what you know you
clean yourself with your hand you brush your teeth
01:21:50
with coal i remember we used to brush our teeth
with [ __ ] coal okay we have a well for water
01:21:57
and so you you have all these people in these
situations where all we wanted was to just give
01:22:02
a chance to run the race and the people that were
born with a silver spoon in their mouth who had
01:22:07
the chance to run the race turns around and tells
guys like me no you can't and it [ __ ] infuriates
01:22:13
me yeah i want to blow up the racetrack by the
way yeah i want to just get rid of the internet
01:22:16
i mean [ __ ] about you it's a serious [
__ ] you to these to these like they were
01:22:22
profited and they benefited from democracy and
capitalism and now they want to revert back
01:22:27
to a system where everybody who's in that space
they're trying to get into this system they don't
01:22:32
understand what feudalism is because there are so
many layers removed through their [ __ ] filtered
01:22:37
lenses and you know country clubs and [ __
] vacations and all this crap that they have
01:22:42
no idea what it's like and i'm telling you i am
first generation of having escaped that [ __ ] and
01:22:47
i don't want anything to do with it but the point
is capitalism has allowed not just the us but many
01:22:54
other countries to change their course in life um
stephen pickner's for all of the controversy he
01:22:59
creates his books on um you know what humans have
really achieved during this great kind of era of
01:23:06
capitalism and industrialism and how we've changed
our course on planet earth uh improved human
01:23:11
health improved longevity improved calorie access
to calories improved access to shelter to medicine
01:23:17
um it's all because of a an incentive a
market-based incentive system and it is very
01:23:23
very powerful it is the most powerful force we
know as a species and it's allowed this incredible
01:23:28
acceleration exponential acceleration of
possibility for our species also from the article
01:23:34
a great quote elizabeth baldwin a 34 year old
democratic socialist from cambridge massachusetts
01:23:41
she plans to keep enough of her inheritance to
buy an apartment and raise a family enjoying
01:23:46
the sort of pleasant middle-class existence denied
to many people of color in the united states
01:23:55
what is that i mean that's just i don't know i
just i i don't think let's just move on let's
01:23:59
talk about brian it's so dumb they they see
they see the world in a zero some way where
01:24:05
you know anything they have means that somebody
else must it must have been taken away from
01:24:09
somebody else they don't really understand
the way that value is created by an exchange
01:24:15
and by people creating new things um and you
know and and that's what technology is all about
01:24:21
you know it's creating news i mean there was a
time when everybody didn't have access to clean
01:24:25
water now we take that for granted there's a time
when everybody have access to affordable food and
01:24:29
electricity and by the way look at how we started
all of this is driven by capitalism and look at
01:24:34
how we started the conversation today alpha fold
i think is the realization of one of the greatest
01:24:39
capitalist enterprises in history if not the
greatest you know alphabet and they're still
01:24:43
getting started and the output of that is going to
be an incredible new tool for drug discovery that
01:24:48
is going to extend human lifespan in an incredible
way there was a window of time where folks who are
01:24:55
really really good at bitching and complaining had
a window of opportunity to [ __ ] and complain and
01:25:00
what happened was they were not able to seize
power and then just in the last few months
01:25:06
literally i think we are nailing that coffin shut
because as you said david you're gonna have to all
01:25:11
of a sudden like look at companies like google
and look at things like affifold and reject them
01:25:17
and i don't know how people do because everyone
will need something that that company will create
01:25:22
now and that alpha fold will be responsible for
we are all going to need a vaccine these are all
01:25:27
coming from for-profit companies that thrived on
top of r d you know all of it was funded by past
01:25:33
drug profits from other things and so you know
we're going to have to really look at ourselves
01:25:37
in the mirror and say did we not want that did we
want to just die on the street to prove a point
01:25:42
and i don't think anybody actually wants that i
mean what is your what is the ultimate criticism
01:25:47
of amazon they made you know iphone chargers five
dollars well the point is 40 you can't have your
01:25:53
cake and eat it too you can't actually you know
complain about amazon on the one hand complain
01:25:59
about no action on climate change on the other
complain about this complain about that complain
01:26:03
about the other thing then you're just a [ __ ]
whiner and nobody wants a whiner around because
01:26:08
they're not additive they're not useful you don't
learn anything from a whiner all right so looking
01:26:15
at the uh new york times uh versus coinbase the
foul new york times fake news sorry i'm just
01:26:24
we'll talk about talk about whining
this is more virtue signaling uh whining by the new york times and actually
the look this was clearly a hit piece because
01:26:36
they don't like brian armstrong's decision to
make coin base in a political workplace if any
01:26:41
workplace has chosen to be political it's the
new york times there's a lot of examples of that
01:26:45
the fact that they ran barry weiss out of
there they ran mario weiss out of the newsroom
01:26:53
they ran james bennett out of there for publishing
a an op-ed by tom cotton remember that he got
01:26:59
kicked out he got forced to resign because he
published one op-ed by a republican senator
01:27:05
okay this is the most close-minded group
the most close-minded political workplace
01:27:12
and here they are lecturing a silicon
valley company that in their view isn't tolerant enough i mean it's ridiculous but the but
the and it was obvious that it was a hit piece the
01:27:21
stories the the examples in the article were years
old um you know the uh they weren't even reported
01:27:28
to hr violation as violations at the time so
there's you know it's it's people cooking up
01:27:34
things that weren't reported as problems at the
time but the but the really interesting thing
01:27:40
about the story i think is that is
the way coinbase reacted to it by preemptively announcing that it was coming which
really made the new york times reporters really
01:27:51
irate you know they called it extremely enough
reporters were upset and they threatened that
01:27:56
they would no longer the journalist said if
you guys are going to front run our stories
01:28:01
we are not going to call you when we have a story
and i responded to that and i was like are you
01:28:05
serious like you're literally going to lose
what little integrity you have left crazy
01:28:10
about fact checking because there's an amazing
somebody wrote a pre-emptive blog post about it
01:28:15
i'll say this about i'll say this about uh brian
armstrong i have a lot of respect for him for
01:28:19
making a stand i think every ceo has that right
and uh i'm glad that at the end of the day the
01:28:24
employees at coinbase were given a humane way of
making a decision to be on the same page with him
01:28:29
or not i will also say that i thought that essay
was not goal written and that uh given the chance
01:28:35
i could have rewritten that for him in a much
better way i've maintained this the whole time
01:28:39
um but i i think he's in the right here wrap
it up tell us what you think well okay that's
01:28:46
that's that's interesting that your mother's
um it's interesting to hear your support for
01:28:50
brian so we've talked about this has become
a recurring topic on the pod um but anyway
01:28:55
i think you know the important thing is the
way that i think the tech community fought
01:29:00
back against this hit piece and it was the like
you said jason the front running of the story
01:29:06
somebody's uh a a wag on twitter had a had a great
comment saying you know um he basically said you
01:29:14
know i try to walk out you i agree with the new
york times on this i try to walk up to somebody
01:29:19
and kick him in the nuts and they cover their
groin you know how dare they you know uh
01:29:26
how unprofessional of them it was a slow motion
kick to the nuts yeah exactly and so coming sunday
01:29:33
it's right but it was day but on sunday we're
kicking you on the nuts so yeah the new york times
01:29:39
the coin base just covered its groin so the new
york times can cover kick him in the nuts and um
01:29:44
and of course the reporters all went hysterical
about that but it you know but but but it was a
01:29:49
really brilliant pr tactic by coinbase because
what it did is it almost like released a spike
01:29:54
protein you know by by sort of a pre-announcing
new york times story it created this
01:30:00
spike protein that trained the immune system of
silicon valley to be ready for this pathogenic
01:30:05
new york times story and the the story
just really fell flat it didn't go anywhere
01:30:11
yeah it was um and they did the same thing with
the away ceo she was too hard on people in slack
01:30:17
all of these stories to go full circle involve
some leak from a slack room so if you're a ceo or
01:30:24
you're managing anybody don't have any difficult
or legal issues discussed on slack just go for
01:30:29
a walk with somebody talk to them face to face
because you're going to get destroyed all right
01:30:32
listen everybody this has been another amazing
episode we had 10 more stories we wanted to get to
01:30:38
that we weren't able to get to uh but while
we were doing this i asked my crack team
01:30:47
sorry at the syndicate whoa what was that
to set up the syndicate.com slash all in
01:30:55
so i'm not saying we're doing a syndicate
yes we are we're going to figure out how to
01:30:58
do something we're going to do something to
let the people who listen invest alongside
01:31:03
us we're going to figure it out in 2021 at some
point but you have to write a review on itunes
01:31:08
no you just got to sign up just got to sign
up at the syndicate.com all in if we do a
01:31:13
folding protein company or a unicorn in the isa
space maybe everybody who listens to the all-in
01:31:19
podcast gets to wet their beak for the rain when
david speak what you're the beak let your feet
01:31:36
the t-shirt guy that listens to us we love you
uh there's a code there's a word but wet your
01:31:41
beak or what the beak we have to figure out which
one's better i think we have a new i think we have
01:31:44
a new tagline for the pod what you're being wet
you're right and code 13. these are great merch
01:31:50
opportunities for anybody who wants to go do merch
you can go do merch on your own we don't care
01:31:55
we're not in the merch business put it up on your
own website love you guys love you besties uh so
01:32:00
for bestie rainman the dictator paulie hoppetea
and the queen of quinoa himself metro mile founder
01:32:09
spacker piper laying pipe and spacks everywhere
i'm jason calaganis for the besties we'll see
01:32:15
you next time which could be in a week or a month
who knows on the all in podcast love you besties