00:00:00
sacks i am gonna give you a thousand
00:00:03
dollars
00:00:04
each to the charity of your choice for
00:00:06
every correct answer [ __ ] it
00:00:07
ten thousand but you have to answer
00:00:11
you have to answer in real time and you
00:00:13
can't [ __ ] around okay
00:00:14
no stalling this is this is to any
00:00:17
charity chooses included tucker
00:00:18
carlson 2024 okay you have to give the
00:00:20
answers
00:00:21
right away you cannot [ __ ] think
00:00:23
about this here we go three
00:00:25
two one first middle and last name of
00:00:27
your children and their birthdays go
00:00:30
um
00:00:34
stopping for time already no you're
00:00:38
already stuck okay go dude oh you can
00:00:40
beat these out nick go ahead go
00:00:42
so is uh january
00:00:46
no year what's the oh uh 2008
00:00:50
[Music]
00:00:53
uh is uh october
00:00:58
um uh 2010
00:01:02
and then little guy little man
00:01:06
first name little yeah you're trying to
00:01:08
stop me with the little guy
00:01:10
little man
00:01:14
uh he was born
00:01:17
october of uh 2016.
00:01:22
all right
00:01:26
that was a struggle i got it i got it
00:01:28
there he got that that's all that
00:01:30
matters is he got there
00:01:31
it is so you're gonna give that you're
00:01:32
gonna give ten grand
00:01:34
yeah ten grand each two all right so
00:01:36
it's 30 grand
00:01:37
to tucker carlson for president desantis
00:01:40
2024
00:01:44
i said charity [ __ ]
00:01:59
[Music]
00:02:03
hey everybody hey everybody welcome to
00:02:05
your favorite podcast the all
00:02:07
podcast where we talk about the economy
00:02:10
technology
00:02:11
politics and well basically anything
00:02:15
that's in the news
00:02:16
with us today again the queen of quinoa
00:02:19
himself
00:02:20
david friedberg how are you doing david
00:02:22
i'm hanging in there today
00:02:24
all right people are looking for the dog
00:02:25
where's the dog monty
00:02:27
he's sitting here on the floor monty
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come here come on come here come on
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monty all right and
00:02:32
from a random palace somewhere in the
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world
00:02:36
the dictator himself chamoth polly
00:02:37
hoppity how you doing see
00:02:40
uh i'm doing great you know i i got
00:02:43
another dog
00:02:44
uh while you were in italy uh i went to
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um the breeder that i got aki from
00:02:52
and uh she had a three-year-old
00:02:55
that was not really you know ever gonna
00:02:59
become a breeding dog or whatever so i
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adopted the three-year-old
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he has a parasite so he's been pooing
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everywhere everywhere
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that's great information for the call
00:03:08
over all over the castle
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all over the castle fantastic liquid
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poop by the way uh but we finally
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diagnosed it today and he's going to the
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to the vet um to get some liquids and to
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get the parasite expunged from his body
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uh okay thank you for that information
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and i don't know nobody cares you no
00:03:29
nobody cares how you were doing i
00:03:31
thought you were just going to say great
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i didn't know we were going to go
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straight to diarrhea we got a new dog
00:03:36
too
00:03:37
you did and it's also it's been kind of
00:03:39
a disaster the kids were like dad we
00:03:40
found this
00:03:41
like i think you know golden that is
00:03:44
really calm
00:03:45
you know like she's just super low
00:03:48
energy and calms like perfect for us
00:03:50
i'm like i don't know i think that's
00:03:52
just like the puppy is kind of asleep
00:03:53
you know like it's gonna wake up they're
00:03:56
like no
00:03:56
no no this is like a special dog it's
00:03:58
like really well behaved whatever so
00:04:00
anyway we get it
00:04:01
sure enough like a week later the puppy
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wakes up
00:04:05
and she's eating everything in the house
00:04:07
destroying everything
00:04:09
it spit yeah so now we're wait is that
00:04:11
dog number two or three for you it's dog
00:04:13
two with the
00:04:14
dog one was a rescue dog who's great
00:04:17
so dog number two is now getting trained
00:04:20
all right
00:04:20
david sax is with us of course the rain
00:04:22
man himself and in related dog stories
00:04:25
i put all the girls to bed and then i
00:04:27
hear screaming i get up i run outside
00:04:30
literally the new bulldog who's nine
00:04:32
months old maximus
00:04:34
went on you know one of his running fits
00:04:37
one of my daughters
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falls out of bed gets like a bruise on
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her
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like lower back and she's wailing the
00:04:44
other daughter feels terrible about it
00:04:45
and then the dog decides that he is
00:04:47
going to
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projectile vomit everywhere all at the
00:04:50
same time
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you guys have had these moments where
00:04:53
like it's just completely utter chaos
00:04:56
it's chaos it's just chaos it's cat dogs
00:04:58
plus kids equals
00:04:59
chaos uh chaos so but get would any of
00:05:03
us have it any other way i love the
00:05:04
combo of dogs and kids
00:05:06
it's just the best it's pretty gross
00:05:08
dogs are
00:05:09
amazing especially when you bring in a
00:05:11
new dog or a puppy into the house
00:05:12
it's chaos but it's a really beautiful
00:05:14
chaos well you know what i think also is
00:05:16
like
00:05:17
think about how overrated everything in
00:05:19
life is people like oh my god this place
00:05:20
with the pasta in italy it's the
00:05:22
greatest life-changing thing and all
00:05:24
this movie was incredible it's the best
00:05:26
movie ever made
00:05:27
and it's never the best movie ever made
00:05:29
or the best pasta ever it's great or
00:05:30
whatever but
00:05:31
i think kids and dogs are underrated
00:05:35
universally have as many kids as you can
00:05:38
possibly
00:05:39
biologically have and can economically
00:05:40
afford as much
00:05:42
one opinion and uh the more dogs the
00:05:45
better i love dogs yeah
00:05:47
all right uh i think we should start
00:05:49
with the cova cases
00:05:50
because this is impacting everything
00:05:53
from
00:05:53
the economy to people's decisions
00:05:56
touching on people's freedoms and it's
00:05:59
hard to know where to start here but i
00:06:00
think
00:06:01
facts are always a good place to start
00:06:04
here in the united states
00:06:05
we had gotten covert cases you know to
00:06:07
that 12 000 a day
00:06:09
average it was pretty amazing and it
00:06:11
looked like it was gonna go straight
00:06:12
down
00:06:13
smooth sailing um and we had had deaths
00:06:15
down at around
00:06:17
uh i saw some seven day averages where
00:06:20
we were at 150 200.
00:06:22
now the weekends are kind of weird um in
00:06:25
terms of reporting but the seven day
00:06:26
average today
00:06:28
is at 248 in other words it's been flat
00:06:31
for a month when you do this on this is
00:06:33
according to the new york times
00:06:34
statistics and google
00:06:36
you can search for google and you'll
00:06:37
find these they have some great data
00:06:40
that they'll just put right in the
00:06:41
search result however cases
00:06:43
have gone from this 12 15 k a day
00:06:46
average
00:06:47
soaring in just 30 days to 60
00:06:51
2000 a day and a 7 day average of 40 000
00:06:54
so we're basically tripled the number of
00:06:56
cases
00:06:57
cases trail traditionally debts by
00:07:00
something in the neighborhood of 10 days
00:07:02
uh i think i'm correct friedberg so what
00:07:05
do you think is
00:07:06
actually going to happen here we're
00:07:08
going to we're going to get up to
00:07:09
10 100 000 200 000 cases a day and maybe
00:07:13
double the number of deaths
00:07:14
from the people who are not vaccinated
00:07:16
yeah you know
00:07:17
the current logic on this is that there
00:07:20
will be
00:07:21
um because of the number of people that
00:07:23
are generally infected
00:07:24
and are spreading what is now an even
00:07:26
more infectious
00:07:28
variant of covid the people that are not
00:07:30
vaccinated
00:07:31
are um starting to get it at a higher
00:07:34
rate and that's where the deaths are
00:07:35
starting to come from
00:07:37
so um yeah we will see deaths climb
00:07:40
and i think like we talked about last
00:07:41
time we're starting to see even gavin
00:07:43
did an interview
00:07:44
yesterday in california talking about
00:07:45
how you know there it's on the table
00:07:48
that we may go back to certain
00:07:50
restrictions
00:07:51
uh behavioral restrictions mass mandates
00:07:53
etc
00:07:55
so there's going to be a set of
00:07:57
reactions and i think as we talked about
00:07:59
last time we saw the market
00:08:00
start to react to the potential of that
00:08:02
on monday
00:08:03
and then very interestingly kind of
00:08:05
reverse course on tuesday and everything
00:08:07
came back
00:08:08
when everyone was freaked out on monday
00:08:09
after they saw the weekend's data which
00:08:11
showed that cases are climbing like
00:08:12
crazy in the u.s
00:08:13
but i think the conventional wisdom is
00:08:15
not that many people are going to die
00:08:17
therefore we're not going to see
00:08:18
you know um uh political leaders
00:08:22
uh force restrictions that are kind of
00:08:24
uh going to damage the economy
00:08:26
and we're going to start to walk what i
00:08:27
think israel is calling the golden line
00:08:29
which is balancing the economy with the
00:08:31
the health of the citizenry so
00:08:34
um so you know we'll we'll see uh it's
00:08:36
going to come down to policy but i think
00:08:37
from a death perspective there will
00:08:39
absolutely be a rise in depths now as
00:08:40
unvaccinated people are the gonna be the
00:08:42
bulk of those deaths and
00:08:44
and this thing is spreading again
00:08:45
amongst people that haven't been
00:08:46
vaccinated
00:08:47
well and then sacks this becomes now a
00:08:50
great raw shock test
00:08:52
of what do you see uh in
00:08:55
this data and in this moment because
00:08:57
it's a pandemic as many people are
00:08:59
saying now i think this is becoming
00:09:01
the meme or the catchphrase it's a
00:09:02
pandemic of the unvaccinated so people
00:09:04
have chosen
00:09:06
to opt in to this pandemic and then a
00:09:08
group of us have chosen
00:09:09
to not be part of it you were part of it
00:09:11
even as a vaccinated person but
00:09:13
you're feeling great you're back to a
00:09:15
hundred percent
00:09:16
so what do you think should happen in
00:09:19
terms of
00:09:22
closings or shutdowns
00:09:25
or mass mandates what's your take on the
00:09:28
pandemic of the unvaccinated
00:09:30
well i think we need to differentiate
00:09:32
between public policy and private
00:09:34
behavior so you know
00:09:36
after last week's episode where i said
00:09:39
you know delta variants real there's
00:09:40
going to be huge spike in cases
00:09:42
um unfortunately i thought we had this
00:09:44
thing whipped
00:09:45
you know a few weeks ago now i think the
00:09:47
data is showing something different
00:09:48
you know everyone there's a lot of
00:09:50
commenters saying saks you've turned
00:09:51
you've been blue pilled
00:09:52
no it's you know i i think there's a
00:09:54
difference between acknowledging what's
00:09:56
going on
00:09:56
and then having the the policy
00:09:58
conversation around it um i think that
00:10:00
the difference now from last year i mean
00:10:02
there's a couple of things one is
00:10:04
that we do have vaccines so i think for
00:10:08
most people getting vaccinated will take
00:10:10
the worst risks off the table
00:10:12
the other is we know so much more about
00:10:14
what works and what doesn't work
00:10:16
and so lockdowns don't work if you know
00:10:19
if they ever did they
00:10:21
they they they we now know looking at
00:10:24
from what different states did last year
00:10:27
that they don't make a difference
00:10:28
there's no reason to go back to that
00:10:29
policy
00:10:30
but also i mean i would even say on mass
00:10:33
it should be wait
00:10:34
do we know that i mean is that i think
00:10:35
so are we sure of that
00:10:37
yeah i think so because um the thing
00:10:40
that the government planners never take
00:10:42
into account is that
00:10:43
private citizens are going to adjust
00:10:45
their behavior in both directions
00:10:47
so in florida they didn't have mandates
00:10:49
but people who are at risk took
00:10:51
you know extreme precautions they would
00:10:53
either lock themselves down or be very
00:10:55
fastidious about wearing a high quality
00:10:56
mask by contrast
00:10:58
in california we had the most severe
00:11:01
lockdowns but they were never really
00:11:03
feasible so there's 10 pages of
00:11:05
exceptions people didn't really abide by
00:11:06
them
00:11:07
and then on top of it you know you have
00:11:09
all these mass mandates but
00:11:10
if somebody wears like a sock loosely
00:11:14
affixed to their face does that really
00:11:15
protect them you know
00:11:17
so you know people if they're if they're
00:11:20
not interested in complying with these
00:11:21
mandates they do it in a half-hearted
00:11:23
way i'm not convinced that the mandates
00:11:24
work in the first place
00:11:26
um so the smart thing to do here is just
00:11:29
to have recommendations and let
00:11:31
private citizens decide what their
00:11:32
response is going to be we know
00:11:34
now so much more about the risks that we
00:11:37
all face
00:11:38
uh than we did a year ago um and so just
00:11:41
let private citizens
00:11:42
decide i mean i'd even say on va on
00:11:43
vaccines i mean look
00:11:45
i'm pro-vax i don't really understand
00:11:48
where the anti-vaxx people are coming
00:11:49
from
00:11:50
but i'm kind of done wasting my breath
00:11:52
trying to convince people to get
00:11:53
vaccinated
00:11:54
you know on this show who don't want to
00:11:56
get vaccinated you know
00:11:58
if they don't want to send those doses
00:11:59
to the developing world where they're
00:12:01
desperate for them let me ask you trump
00:12:02
do you do you agree with sax's
00:12:04
position that listens citizens are just
00:12:06
going to have to make their own decision
00:12:08
here
00:12:08
leave everything open and let's not have
00:12:11
the economy
00:12:12
collapse again and people people are
00:12:14
smart enough to make their own decision
00:12:15
and
00:12:15
is this framing of this is a pandemic of
00:12:18
the unvaccinated the correct framing
00:12:20
wow i'm really of two minds there's
00:12:22
there's the part of me that says that
00:12:24
um you have to give people the right to
00:12:27
make their own decision the problem is
00:12:29
that
00:12:30
in this specific case there's so much
00:12:33
transmissibility and
00:12:36
um as a result of that how this thing
00:12:40
can mutate
00:12:41
that i think that public health has to
00:12:43
take a priority
00:12:45
over any individual individual's rights
00:12:49
in in this very specific narrow narrow
00:12:52
case
00:12:52
because the delta variant is so
00:12:55
transmission
00:12:55
transmissible people are going to have
00:12:57
to lose some freedoms
00:12:59
is one of those showing a vaccine card
00:13:01
when you go to
00:13:03
an arena you wouldn't need that if
00:13:05
everybody was vaccinated or
00:13:07
you had to go through a lot of hoops to
00:13:09
be unvaccinated as an example
00:13:12
i mean and and the reason is because the
00:13:14
longer you allow
00:13:15
this thing to float around in the petri
00:13:17
dish of the unvaccinated
00:13:19
you're increasing everybody's risk and
00:13:22
this is where i think individual
00:13:24
freedoms as long as there's a trample
00:13:26
on collective freedom then i think
00:13:29
live and let live but i think on this
00:13:33
specific issue
00:13:34
uh i think that it's it's it's
00:13:36
unconscionable to be in a situation
00:13:38
where
00:13:39
um we are fighting basically a time
00:13:42
function
00:13:43
where at a certain amount of time you're
00:13:45
going to have a variant
00:13:47
that that is you know basically will
00:13:50
overcome all the vaccines we have
00:13:52
will uh kill enormous numbers of people
00:13:55
including the vaccinated will literally
00:13:57
shut the economy down
00:13:58
and that's a probabilistic event now and
00:14:01
i don't like the fact that i'm
00:14:03
susceptible to that because of a bunch
00:14:05
of people who frankly
00:14:06
aren't doing it for medical or religious
00:14:08
reasons they're just watching fox news
00:14:10
and just spouting off
00:14:11
i agree that we're at risk there but
00:14:12
we're also at risk from accident
00:14:14
vaccinated people in the rest of the
00:14:15
world so
00:14:16
delta variant came from india the lambda
00:14:19
variant i think the wrong came from peru
00:14:21
i mean the fact that matter is
00:14:22
unvaccinated people everywhere
00:14:24
are a potential petri dish for the virus
00:14:26
so i'd rather
00:14:28
i mean this is why we need to send those
00:14:29
unused doses that by the way are at risk
00:14:32
of expiring
00:14:33
we now i mean there was a tweet about
00:14:34
this recently there's
00:14:36
huge stockpiles of vaccine in the u.s
00:14:38
that are going to waste right now
00:14:39
we should ship those anywhere in the
00:14:41
world that people are ready to get
00:14:42
vaccinated specifically to mexico and
00:14:43
canada and canada's
00:14:45
i think this uh month going to even
00:14:47
though we got off to a massive head
00:14:48
start
00:14:49
going to uh eclipse us in terms of the
00:14:51
percentage of accident let me ask it
00:14:52
more pointedly
00:14:53
should a t should teachers be public
00:14:56
school teachers be forced to be
00:14:57
vaccinated
00:14:58
should you be forced to have a vaccine
00:15:00
card to get on
00:15:02
public transportation airplanes or you
00:15:05
know take buses you know long-haul buses
00:15:07
uh long-haul trains uh and then third
00:15:10
should you be forced to show a vaccine
00:15:13
card to get on
00:15:15
to go to sporting events or concerts
00:15:18
let's go through those three
00:15:20
so your personal freedom ends you're
00:15:23
going to
00:15:23
be forced if you want to go to group
00:15:26
behaviors if you want to participate in
00:15:28
a public construct
00:15:29
if you want to consume a public resource
00:15:31
or if you want to
00:15:32
provide a publicly funded good
00:15:36
then it's the broader public's rights
00:15:38
that um
00:15:40
are superior to your individual rights
00:15:42
otherwise work at a charter school where
00:15:44
it's not required
00:15:45
watch the [ __ ] concert from home or
00:15:47
drive your car use a bicycle or take an
00:15:50
uber
00:15:51
the end sounds what do you think and
00:15:52
then freeburg so i i understand that
00:15:54
argument i would
00:15:55
differentiate between public and private
00:15:59
requirements because i i don't like the
00:16:00
idea of giving government the power to
00:16:03
forcibly stick a needle in your arm um
00:16:06
so
00:16:06
what you might said you could stay home
00:16:08
or you could take your bicycle well sure
00:16:09
so
00:16:10
is that reasonable that you don't get to
00:16:12
go to a warriors game because you're
00:16:13
unvaccinated yeah i think you know
00:16:15
the warrior stadium is is privately
00:16:17
owned the team is private
00:16:19
so i think that i think that private
00:16:21
companies should be able to set up their
00:16:22
own rules
00:16:23
for the benefit of their employees and
00:16:25
what about airlines
00:16:27
because that is you know a gay it's
00:16:29
there's a limited number of them
00:16:31
yeah i think so airlines should be able
00:16:33
to force it now what about school
00:16:34
teachers they can't force it but they
00:16:36
can set the requirements for you to
00:16:38
board their planes
00:16:40
you know okay now what about public
00:16:41
schools should if
00:16:43
let's do teachers and students should
00:16:45
teachers
00:16:46
be forced to get a vaccine if they want
00:16:49
to come in because you said
00:16:50
if they don't come to work in the fall
00:16:51
on a couple episodes back you're fired
00:16:53
well why wouldn't they want to get a
00:16:54
vaccine the whole debate with the
00:16:56
teachers unions was that they wanted to
00:16:57
be at the front of the line for vaccines
00:16:59
which isn't an issue anymore because we
00:17:00
have so many
00:17:01
so i don't think that's a serious issue
00:17:03
now requiring the kids to get vaccinated
00:17:05
is um that that would be the real policy
00:17:08
question
00:17:09
and um well let's tackle both should
00:17:11
teachers
00:17:12
be forced to get the vaccine yes or no
00:17:14
you just kind of brushed over
00:17:16
yeah you force it for no i mean i think
00:17:18
it's important to just
00:17:19
to just you know pinpoint this like
00:17:22
forcing teachers to get vaccinated in
00:17:24
order to
00:17:25
you know work at the school i just want
00:17:28
to highlight the precedent it sets right
00:17:30
which is
00:17:30
um you know you just said you don't want
00:17:33
the government to tell people
00:17:34
that they have to go get a shot in their
00:17:35
arm if someone has a personal choice
00:17:38
that they don't want to get that shot
00:17:40
does that mean then that they
00:17:42
you know should lose their job as a
00:17:44
public servant well no i mean no i'm i'm
00:17:47
saying that i i look i i i said it's not
00:17:50
a big deal but like if there's one or
00:17:51
two teachers that say you know what it
00:17:52
is a big deal to me i have a different i
00:17:54
have a set of reasons why i don't want
00:17:55
to get shot
00:17:56
i i think those teachers that's an
00:17:57
assumption of risk i mean if they've
00:17:59
decided
00:18:00
they're going to assume the risk then
00:18:02
you know don't come crying to us
00:18:04
when they get sick well the argument is
00:18:06
that was your choice
00:18:07
the vector of exposure right that they
00:18:09
could have petri dishes
00:18:12
they could be the vector that gets kids
00:18:13
sick in all of these situations there's
00:18:15
an
00:18:15
always a very um obvious
00:18:18
and justifiable exemption for religious
00:18:21
and medical reasons
00:18:23
to not be vaccinated not just for this
00:18:25
but for anything else
00:18:27
so i struggle to understand why all of a
00:18:29
sudden people
00:18:31
who don't have a [ __ ] clue about
00:18:32
science are all of a sudden
00:18:34
these armchair scientists who can judge
00:18:38
whether or not a vaccine is appropriate
00:18:40
for them where they probably
00:18:42
already gave vaccines of all other kinds
00:18:45
to their kids and themselves
00:18:46
they probably take all other kinds of
00:18:48
advice from doctors but on this one
00:18:50
specific issue
00:18:51
they narrowly say you know what i'm an
00:18:53
expert enough because i'm watching this
00:18:54
television show i've made a decision
00:18:56
that to me makes no sense uh yeah look i
00:18:58
i actually agree with you i'm in the
00:19:00
camp
00:19:00
of that everybody barring some
00:19:04
you know um highly specific medical
00:19:06
condition
00:19:07
that renders you ineligible should be
00:19:09
getting vaccinated so
00:19:10
i agree with you about what the right
00:19:12
answer is but i do think that when it
00:19:14
comes to government
00:19:15
it's it's a more complicated question
00:19:17
about how much power you give to
00:19:18
government
00:19:19
to force people to engage in
00:19:22
you know behavior they don't want to
00:19:23
engage in can you i think that's a real
00:19:26
question private organizations are
00:19:27
different we all agree on private
00:19:28
organizations but we we do have to make
00:19:30
some decisions on public transportation
00:19:32
and we do have to make decisions about
00:19:34
teachers and we're going to have to make
00:19:35
decisions on students
00:19:37
so um could you bench the teachers
00:19:40
uh who or otherwise penalize them
00:19:44
who are not vaccinated you know there
00:19:45
are sometimes where you know a cop
00:19:48
or a teacher is put in a you know
00:19:51
not in the classroom not on the beat for
00:19:53
whatever reasons
00:19:54
uh sometimes disciplinary but for other
00:19:56
reasons could you just say listen if
00:19:58
you're not gonna get vaccinated
00:20:00
you're going to not be in the classroom
00:20:02
you're not gonna you'll be a remote
00:20:03
teacher and we're just gonna create two
00:20:05
classes here
00:20:07
i don't i don't think i don't i don't
00:20:08
think there are many teachers who don't
00:20:10
want to get vaccinated but
00:20:12
but i um look i think the virus is
00:20:15
everywhere now it's just endemic
00:20:16
and so to single out like one particular
00:20:19
group and saying you're going to lose
00:20:20
your opinion so you're saying teachers
00:20:22
should not be forced
00:20:24
i'm saying that i mean if they work in a
00:20:27
private school the private school could
00:20:28
definitely require it
00:20:29
public only now we all agree on private
00:20:32
you're saying i think it's
00:20:34
i think it's a really complicated
00:20:35
question because i think there are clear
00:20:37
public health benefits to everyone
00:20:39
getting vaccinated but i also
00:20:41
don't really like empowering government
00:20:43
to force you
00:20:44
because look it's like everything else
00:20:46
the government may be right in this
00:20:47
particular
00:20:48
case but what else is it going to do
00:20:49
with that power and
00:20:51
you know i don't like giving government
00:20:53
that power so look it's a complicated
00:20:55
question i don't you know
00:20:56
it's not um i would i'd probably err on
00:20:59
the side of not letting government
00:21:01
force people to do it but but look i i
00:21:03
think it's a close call i do think it's
00:21:04
a close call
00:21:05
chamoth forced a teacher cfa accident or
00:21:08
not
00:21:09
yes and the reason is because these kids
00:21:13
are already being left behind
00:21:17
even when school is functioning normally
00:21:20
and you can see it in the test scores
00:21:22
you can see it in our readiness you can
00:21:23
see it in our ability to
00:21:25
actually do the jobs that are required
00:21:29
we are not doing what we need to do as
00:21:31
it is in the absence of a pandemic
00:21:34
and now you introduce a reason for folks
00:21:36
to basically check out
00:21:38
and not appear i what do you guys guess
00:21:41
how
00:21:41
how many years were lost in these 15
00:21:44
months
00:21:45
when kids were at home i would say not
00:21:48
15 months no it's more two years
00:21:51
two and a half years three years
00:21:54
depending on what grade they are what
00:21:56
did did your kids miss graduation did
00:21:58
they miss senior prom did they miss
00:22:00
their sats i mean what did they
00:22:02
miss in terms of yeah i mean chamoth has
00:22:04
a good point which is
00:22:06
that if that that when government is the
00:22:08
employer
00:22:09
requiring it on their employees because
00:22:13
it leads to better outcomes for
00:22:16
that institution that is a little
00:22:18
different than government just mandating
00:22:20
that you jason calcano's private citizen
00:22:23
have to go get
00:22:24
a shot in your arm right i mean so there
00:22:26
is a slight difference there like
00:22:27
military for instance right
00:22:29
the military probably wants to vaccinate
00:22:31
everybody so that if they
00:22:33
need to be ready for a combat situation
00:22:36
they're not like you know incapacitated
00:22:38
by an outbreak of covet right so
00:22:41
i can i i think there you know we're
00:22:43
getting into shades of gray here from a
00:22:45
public policy perspective
00:22:47
you know i i don't want uh teachers
00:22:50
missing school because
00:22:51
you know for weeks at a time because
00:22:53
they didn't do the obvious thing getting
00:22:54
the code vaccine
00:22:56
so look i i think there are some really
00:22:58
good poly policy arguments there but i
00:22:59
think again
00:23:01
the the one place where i'd say
00:23:03
government is clearly overstepping is if
00:23:04
they just said listen
00:23:06
you private citizen not an employee of
00:23:08
the government
00:23:09
has to go get vaccinated um as much as i
00:23:12
would like everyone to
00:23:13
to to get vaccinated i don't want to
00:23:15
give government that kind of power
00:23:16
president biden could legally require
00:23:18
military members to get vaccinated but
00:23:20
so far he has declined
00:23:22
to do so july 9th new york times
00:23:25
friedberg where do you stand on this
00:23:28
chamat says
00:23:29
he's all in your teacher you get
00:23:31
vaccinated at the end
00:23:33
saks is kind of close but is a little
00:23:35
concerned what do you say freeburg
00:23:37
i mean another way to frame it is that
00:23:39
there's a new qualification
00:23:41
for a job like you know there's
00:23:42
qualification to be in the military you
00:23:44
have to have certain physical
00:23:46
capabilities jason i don't know if you
00:23:48
would qualify um
00:23:50
i don't think i would i don't think i
00:23:52
can do like for for totally different
00:23:54
reasons
00:23:54
your inability to fight or throw a punch
00:23:57
would be
00:23:58
no maybe j cal could eat the enemy
00:24:02
trust me i would be great in the
00:24:04
military i'm going to be here he'd be
00:24:05
like clemenza he'd be cooking the
00:24:07
meatballs or something
00:24:10
private joker private
00:24:13
a donut there's the i think the reason
00:24:16
their sensitivity to it is because there
00:24:18
are existing teachers in jobs and then
00:24:20
you're telling them that in order to
00:24:22
keep your job you have to go get a
00:24:23
vaccine
00:24:23
now if we were to have zero teachers
00:24:26
today
00:24:27
and we were starting a public school
00:24:28
system from scratch and you said here's
00:24:31
one of the qualifying criteria to be a
00:24:33
school teacher you have to have an
00:24:34
education degree
00:24:35
you have to have maybe a master's degree
00:24:37
in education you have to have
00:24:38
appropriate qualifications and training
00:24:39
and certification
00:24:40
oh and by the way you also have to have
00:24:42
a vaccine if that becomes a criteria
00:24:45
i think people find it less offensive
00:24:47
it's the fact that we are now saying
00:24:49
that there are people that are being
00:24:51
told that you have to go
00:24:52
get a shot in order to keep your job um
00:24:55
and that's the complicating thing that i
00:24:57
think people are trying to wade through
00:24:58
i don't think i don't think that if you
00:25:00
were to say like look it's obvious that
00:25:02
the qualifying criteria to be in the
00:25:03
military is you have to be able to run
00:25:04
and do push-ups or whatever the the
00:25:06
criteria might be
00:25:07
but if you impose that on people that
00:25:09
were already in the military and then
00:25:10
you're going to kick a bunch of them out
00:25:11
people would be up in arms about it if
00:25:14
you had a bmi
00:25:15
requirement yeah and that's the concern
00:25:17
i think that arises
00:25:18
with you know imposing these kind of um
00:25:21
you know personal body
00:25:23
uh criteria upon
00:25:26
you know specific jobs when people are
00:25:27
already employed in that job
00:25:29
um and it's there's there's absolutely
00:25:31
no answer right like
00:25:33
if you're gonna do it you're gonna have
00:25:35
incredible backlash and trouble and pain
00:25:37
um and if you were to and we're not in a
00:25:39
circumstance where we can build these
00:25:40
organizations and these institutions
00:25:42
from scratch
00:25:42
look there's a lot of social issues
00:25:45
where
00:25:46
you know particularly on the liberal
00:25:47
side people do not want the government
00:25:51
uh prohibiting them from getting certain
00:25:53
medical procedures right well
00:25:56
um you know i'd say it's even more
00:25:58
invasive you're talking about people
00:25:59
transitioning
00:26:00
or you know or the issue of abortion you
00:26:02
know very hot button social issues where
00:26:04
people
00:26:05
are saying the government should not
00:26:06
have the right to legislate
00:26:08
what happens with what's happening what
00:26:11
happens with my body right well
00:26:13
force it you know giving government the
00:26:15
power to forcibly
00:26:16
inject you with something is you know
00:26:19
that is
00:26:20
that is invasive and um so i do think
00:26:23
there are like rights
00:26:24
implications to that but i want to be
00:26:26
very clear
00:26:28
if you want the services that are
00:26:31
offered to you by the collective whole
00:26:34
if you want to consume and be a net
00:26:38
drag on the resources that we share
00:26:43
then you need to sign up for the compact
00:26:45
that we all sign up for
00:26:46
that's that's my over arching argument
00:26:49
the the thing with abortion where i'm on
00:26:51
the other side of the issue
00:26:53
just to be very clear is like it is a
00:26:56
woman's body
00:26:58
i don't think i have any right to
00:26:59
dictate what she does i don't understand
00:27:02
what she goes through i don't understand
00:27:04
what situation she's
00:27:06
in i don't think i have the judgment to
00:27:08
do that it should and it doesn't have an
00:27:09
impact on the collective
00:27:11
and her decision to carry or not carry a
00:27:14
baby
00:27:14
doesn't theoretically come with a
00:27:17
probabilistic
00:27:18
chance that i may die it does not right
00:27:22
but when you choose to not get
00:27:23
vaccinated to a highly transmissible
00:27:25
respiratory disease that could kill me
00:27:28
or mutate yeah i'm not saying that i
00:27:30
have a say
00:27:31
but i do think i should have a say if
00:27:32
you're then all of a sudden going to
00:27:34
consume the same resources that i
00:27:35
consume
00:27:36
where i've signed up to that compact for
00:27:38
public health based on all this here's
00:27:39
where i come to
00:27:40
what if we gave teachers an off-ramp
00:27:43
listen
00:27:43
if you um you you need to be vaccinated
00:27:46
to be in the classroom
00:27:47
if not you're going to get a one-year
00:27:48
buyout or whatever one month or two
00:27:51
months for every year of service so if
00:27:52
you've been with us for 20 years
00:27:54
you're gonna get 20 months of pay and or
00:27:56
you could say
00:27:57
if the virus is spreading at under this
00:28:00
rate
00:28:01
in other words you know we we've got
00:28:03
under one percent of the population
00:28:05
infected or whatever
00:28:06
the the criteria is then you can come to
00:28:08
work in the classroom but if this thing
00:28:09
is spreading
00:28:10
you're out and that's it and there's an
00:28:13
off-ramp here
00:28:14
to to david's point unless there's an
00:28:16
arrow like look i i do think you can be
00:28:17
a conscientious objector for
00:28:19
legitimate reasons again like we we have
00:28:22
these very specific definitions for
00:28:23
religious
00:28:24
or for health specific reasons that you
00:28:26
ch that you don't get vaccinated
00:28:28
i think those should be respected it's
00:28:30
not that cohort of people we're talking
00:28:32
about it's everybody else
00:28:33
that right now wants to not think for
00:28:36
themselves
00:28:38
and as a result put everybody else and
00:28:40
themselves
00:28:41
in danger yeah i i think the most
00:28:43
compelling part of your argument shamath
00:28:45
is that where is the health externality
00:28:48
right that
00:28:49
that that each person's decision
00:28:52
does have an impact on whether they
00:28:55
could be transmitting
00:28:56
you know multiplicative contagious
00:28:59
particles and this is why i was in favor
00:29:01
of a mass mandate at the beginning of
00:29:02
the pandemic is
00:29:04
it's not just an individual decision
00:29:06
your
00:29:07
your choice actually does affect whether
00:29:09
other people get sick
00:29:11
so you know this is why i i do think it
00:29:14
also wasn't very expensive correct sacks
00:29:15
i mean was your other point
00:29:17
yes exactly potentially high benefit for
00:29:19
very low cost
00:29:21
i think we're but but but the thing that
00:29:23
maybe
00:29:24
i didn't necessarily take into
00:29:25
consideration is you know people
00:29:28
complied in such a half-hearted way i
00:29:30
mean i do think the mass makes a
00:29:31
difference
00:29:32
if it's an n95 quality mask that you put
00:29:35
on correctly
00:29:36
right right but when people just strap a
00:29:38
sock to their face it's loosely fitting
00:29:40
and they don't give a [ __ ] i mean does
00:29:41
that really make a difference i mean i'm
00:29:43
very skeptical let me ask you a question
00:29:45
sax and then we'll go to freeburg and
00:29:46
then we'll flip to the next topic
00:29:48
if we were on our third pandemic or
00:29:51
let's god forbid a second pandemic
00:29:53
starts a totally different one
00:29:55
you know ebola type or something and
00:29:57
we're on the fifth variant and people
00:29:59
are dying at a higher rate
00:30:00
does your calculus change tax because
00:30:03
sure because
00:30:04
because the the uh the downsides that
00:30:06
the cost of
00:30:09
you know not not imposing those more
00:30:12
restrictive regulations goes up
00:30:13
considerably i mean
00:30:14
definitely my thinking today is highly
00:30:17
influenced by the fact
00:30:18
that that if you're vaccinated you're
00:30:22
call it 95 likely to be taking the most
00:30:26
deadly or serious risks off the table
00:30:29
and so the people who are choosing not
00:30:30
to get vaccinated
00:30:32
are essentially assuming the risk you
00:30:34
know it's like it's like smoking in a
00:30:35
way
00:30:36
where when i made the movie thing for
00:30:37
smoking christopher buckley told me you
00:30:39
know
00:30:39
he's the author of the book and he said
00:30:41
look there's something uniquely american
00:30:43
about defending people's right
00:30:45
to do something that's manifestly
00:30:47
harmful right
00:30:48
the main character and thank you for
00:30:50
smoking as a spokesman for big tobacco
00:30:52
and he's engaging in
00:30:53
political spin but his argument is look
00:30:55
people have the right to engage in this
00:30:57
behavior even if it is
00:30:58
known to be harmful to them maybe
00:31:01
america is the only place in the world
00:31:02
where people
00:31:03
buy into arguments like that but i do um
00:31:06
i
00:31:06
you know look that is that is um that's
00:31:08
freedom is letting people do stupid
00:31:10
things
00:31:11
you know and um and so we have to weigh
00:31:14
the benefits of of freedom against the
00:31:17
against the costs
00:31:18
and by the way sorry can i just say
00:31:20
something um
00:31:22
smoking is a perfect example because as
00:31:24
you know
00:31:25
there is now um a non-trivial amount of
00:31:29
law
00:31:30
around the liability related to
00:31:32
individuals that enabled
00:31:34
um secondhand smoke both the smoker
00:31:37
but also other things condo boards other
00:31:39
places where all of a sudden
00:31:41
you didn't choose to [ __ ] have you
00:31:43
know tara and nicotine
00:31:45
my dad worked in bars where people it
00:31:47
was a cloud of smoke for
00:31:49
30 years 30 years right they told him he
00:31:52
was essentially a smoker it's not it's
00:31:53
not just the detrimental activity at the
00:31:55
time
00:31:56
remember we've socialized the cost of
00:31:58
treatment
00:31:59
for people uh through public health
00:32:02
systems and because of that
00:32:04
it's not just an individual's choice if
00:32:06
there is a socialized cost
00:32:08
for everyone that's now got to pay the
00:32:10
price but the government is so
00:32:12
omnipresent all of our lives there's
00:32:13
always going to be a social cost to any
00:32:15
bad choice people make
00:32:17
and to toma's point i mean everybody
00:32:19
uses government services to some degree
00:32:21
so that alone can't be the reason i i do
00:32:23
agree that the
00:32:24
no no but david what about people
00:32:27
speeding on highways at 125 miles an
00:32:29
hour like it's
00:32:30
illegal that's illegal but but i think i
00:32:32
think your mother is right that the
00:32:33
smoking example is a good one because
00:32:35
we do regulate secondhand smoke because
00:32:37
there's an externality there's a health
00:32:39
externality to everybody else
00:32:41
if you smoke in a public place and so we
00:32:43
restrict that but
00:32:44
we don't make smoking illegal we don't
00:32:46
stop you from doing it in your own homes
00:32:48
or in private places and the argument is
00:32:50
listen if you want to do something
00:32:52
that's harmful
00:32:53
primarily to you that's your choice as
00:32:56
an american
00:32:57
you know and i know people a lot of
00:32:58
people don't like that actually this is
00:33:00
a
00:33:00
this i posted a tweet that i got just
00:33:03
because
00:33:04
an opinion is wrong doesn't mean it
00:33:06
should be censored
00:33:07
just because the behavior is harmful
00:33:09
doesn't mean it should be
00:33:10
prohibited just because something is
00:33:12
beneficial doesn't mean
00:33:14
it should be required right
00:33:17
it's a completely reasonable tweet yeah
00:33:20
i thought it was a pretty inoffensive
00:33:21
anodyne tweet
00:33:22
just reminding people that just because
00:33:26
again something is is positive doesn't
00:33:27
mean you force people to do it and just
00:33:29
because some behavior is
00:33:31
harmful you don't you don't ban it i
00:33:33
think smoking is a great example of that
00:33:35
right we let people
00:33:37
engage in behavior that's harmful to
00:33:38
them because freedom
00:33:40
is a value in and of itself um for this
00:33:43
i was attacked as a selfish [ __ ]
00:33:45
by um by this other pod and i i really
00:33:49
like
00:33:49
swisher and professor cold takes
00:33:53
professor what cold takes that literally
00:33:55
made
00:33:56
um an index of all of professor g's you
00:34:00
know
00:34:00
takes that macy's would be incredible
00:34:02
and amazon will lose its money and
00:34:03
yada yada he's kind of obsessed with
00:34:05
youtube chamath prof g
00:34:08
yeah who just got his show canceled on
00:34:09
bloomberg but they were a little kara
00:34:11
swisher was
00:34:12
called sacks an [ __ ] well triggered
00:34:14
it was bizarre that they would get
00:34:16
so triggered by this inoffensive tweet
00:34:18
but i think what you see here is an
00:34:19
example of the way
00:34:21
that the woke mind thinks which is well
00:34:24
hold on i don't think kara's woke
00:34:26
are you kidding me she's like that she's
00:34:28
like the madame du farger the woke
00:34:30
revolution she's
00:34:32
always
00:34:35
was this character in the french
00:34:36
revolution who admit the names
00:34:38
of the next person to be guillotined and
00:34:40
uh
00:34:41
she was you know one of the the the
00:34:43
leaders of the sans q laws no look cara
00:34:45
is constantly ginning up the mob to try
00:34:47
and you know guillotine
00:34:48
some no non-woke person yeah i don't
00:34:51
think that that's true that's true
00:34:52
i think she's kind of moderate you're
00:34:54
trying to you're trying to curry favor
00:34:55
with her so you don't know we're not
00:34:56
there
00:34:57
no no she i mean she did get it right
00:34:58
you are an [ __ ] i mean you are an
00:35:00
[ __ ] she got that
00:35:01
she got that she's not old and failing
00:35:02
well you are kind of old you look dope
00:35:05
you look cool she's effectively saying
00:35:07
we're all [ __ ] because i think all
00:35:08
of us have talked about this you're
00:35:10
[ __ ] i'm an [ __ ] yeah i love it
00:35:11
own it
00:35:12
[ __ ] it i'm not
00:35:16
what's your other choice being a whiner
00:35:18
on the sidelines
00:35:19
what we've said on this show is that we
00:35:21
have a moral imperative to get to get
00:35:23
back to normal do we not
00:35:24
that is what we've said and for that
00:35:26
she's basically saying that that is a
00:35:29
let the meat covered position right that
00:35:32
we are basically we don't care if people
00:35:34
get sick and die because of covet that's
00:35:35
not true
00:35:36
you know we just have about liverpool
00:35:38
here i think we should
00:35:40
make people get vaccinated
00:35:43
yeah and you're pretty close to getting
00:35:44
people vaccinated i asked you
00:35:46
saks if there were three more variants
00:35:48
and this was an acute situation you said
00:35:50
you would force
00:35:51
oh look if we had if we had a variant of
00:35:54
covid that was as deadly
00:35:56
as ebola and as transmissible as delta
00:35:58
variant
00:35:59
it 100 percent changes the game there's
00:36:01
no question about willing to change
00:36:03
the government's ability to put a
00:36:05
shotgun based on it's a benefit
00:36:07
it's a yes it's a benefit cost analysis
00:36:10
and that's reasonable but look i give
00:36:12
freedom
00:36:13
a lot of weight and part of my
00:36:15
calculation is the fact
00:36:17
that i can get vaccinated to take to
00:36:19
most likely take
00:36:20
the most serious risks off the table so
00:36:23
while i i am
00:36:24
impacted to some degree by other
00:36:26
people's choices i'm much less impacted
00:36:28
now that we have
00:36:30
functional thinking about this i still
00:36:32
have a problem with the way you're
00:36:33
thinking about this because you're
00:36:34
using you're viewing this as a linear
00:36:36
problem
00:36:37
this thing is transmutating and so i
00:36:40
know
00:36:40
but there are still billions of people
00:36:42
all over the world who are unvaccinated
00:36:43
and we'd be better off
00:36:45
focusing on getting them a marshall plan
00:36:48
for the vaccines all these unused doses
00:36:50
we're wasting our breath
00:36:51
in the united states trying to get these
00:36:53
vaccine hesitant or anti-vax people to
00:36:55
get vaccinated did you guys see that
00:36:57
um uh emmanuel macron of france
00:37:01
uh you know basically tightened all
00:37:03
these restrictions around
00:37:05
access to public places going into bars
00:37:07
and cafes they basically put all these
00:37:09
rules in place that you have to be
00:37:10
vaccinated and you did it in a public
00:37:12
address on tv
00:37:12
22 million people watched it and then
00:37:15
after he did this
00:37:16
suddenly the vaccination signups went up
00:37:18
to like 20 000 a minute they got four
00:37:20
million people sign up to
00:37:22
get vaccinated i mean
00:37:25
in france what's the point of being
00:37:27
alive and then let me throw a wet
00:37:28
blanket on
00:37:29
uh the framing of this on whether all of
00:37:32
this talk about forcing vaccinations
00:37:34
even makes sense or is possible i
00:37:37
have been to like three events over the
00:37:39
last month or two
00:37:40
where i was required to be vaccinated
00:37:43
and i literally just took a photo of
00:37:44
this index card
00:37:46
that i got from this person and sent it
00:37:47
to them which i could go make at kinko's
00:37:50
or i could print at home
00:37:51
it's like there's i don't my point is i
00:37:54
don't think that
00:37:55
there's not a great digital system today
00:37:57
to enable
00:37:58
the level of restriction that we're
00:38:00
actually talking about
00:38:01
how are you actually going to know that
00:38:03
people going to the warriors game are
00:38:04
actually vaccinated how are you actually
00:38:06
going to know
00:38:06
they did it at madison's work and they
00:38:08
they literally had you pull out your id
00:38:09
and they matched your name to your vax
00:38:11
card and i think printing out a vax card
00:38:13
and
00:38:14
faking it if it could be a fine could be
00:38:16
a ten thousand dollar fine
00:38:18
and so you would do it like anything
00:38:19
else you could you could make a bogus
00:38:21
driver's license
00:38:22
it's not digital right there's no
00:38:24
there's no kind of centralized system
00:38:26
where we know who's actually been
00:38:27
vaccinated who's not so so much of this
00:38:29
is just this like analog paper trail
00:38:31
thing of like here's this piece of paper
00:38:32
that says i'm vaccinated
00:38:33
i think that you're you're never going
00:38:35
to really close the hole on this thing
00:38:36
now you certainly will see the sort of
00:38:38
psychological behavior that they saw in
00:38:40
france which is
00:38:41
you just announce the restrictions you
00:38:42
announce these rules everyone signs up
00:38:44
or some number of people will sign up
00:38:46
but i you know i'm not sure this
00:38:48
actually ends up becoming this truly
00:38:49
enforceable mechanism of behavior
00:38:51
in society uh over the next uh you know
00:38:54
short while i mean maybe over time we
00:38:56
digitize all this stuff but we'll see
00:38:57
yeah i mean the best the best case
00:38:59
scenario is that because delta is so
00:39:01
transmissible we get to hurt immunity
00:39:03
because all the people who didn't get
00:39:04
vaccinated just get it and
00:39:06
get the natural antibodies and hopefully
00:39:07
this thing crosses
00:39:09
that because we have 60 of adults in the
00:39:11
united states
00:39:12
have had one shot or more uh which is
00:39:15
why debts probably aren't going up
00:39:16
because that's like 75 percent in people
00:39:18
over
00:39:18
60 i think so freeburg in your
00:39:20
estimation as our science guy
00:39:23
with what we have like 30 million people
00:39:25
who've been infected
00:39:26
uh that we know of you got to triple
00:39:28
that number right because there's people
00:39:29
who we don't know and then you have 65
00:39:31
you have 60 percent so we got to be in
00:39:34
the range of 70
00:39:35
have been exposed or been vaccinated so
00:39:38
when does it kick in
00:39:39
or are we experiencing you know um herd
00:39:42
immunity right now with these low debts
00:39:44
um we talked about this before but there
00:39:46
are
00:39:47
um you know there's a spectrum of
00:39:49
infection right you're
00:39:51
you're you you can have viral
00:39:54
replication happening in your body and
00:39:55
then your body clears out the virus
00:39:57
before you even know because you've got
00:39:59
enough antibodies to that particular
00:40:00
strain of a variant of a virus before
00:40:02
your body even
00:40:04
you know you start to feel symptoms and
00:40:06
there are cases where the virus kind of
00:40:09
replicates in an uncontrolled way for a
00:40:10
period of time and you have incredibly
00:40:12
bad symptoms and you have inflammation
00:40:13
all the stuff that follows
00:40:15
and so you know in terms of how you
00:40:18
measure this stuff
00:40:20
it's really difficult to say that you're
00:40:22
going to stop all viral replication
00:40:25
by getting a certain number of people to
00:40:27
be to have been exposed as we've seen
00:40:29
even when you have a broad and diverse
00:40:32
antibody
00:40:33
pool in your body because you've been
00:40:35
exposed to a vaccine
00:40:36
we are still seeing that some of these
00:40:38
variants can break through for some
00:40:40
period of time because there's not
00:40:41
enough of the antibodies that can
00:40:42
actually bind to that specific variant
00:40:44
and so the rate of transmission slows
00:40:47
the rate of
00:40:48
severe infection goes way down and so on
00:40:51
so it's not as binary as hey we hit herd
00:40:53
immunity and now we're done
00:40:54
it seems this is you know as we talked
00:40:57
about earlier and as i think everyone is
00:40:58
coming to terms with
00:41:00
this is going to be an endemic virus and
00:41:03
that means that it's going to be
00:41:04
circulating in the population
00:41:06
in a modest way causing sometimes severe
00:41:08
sometimes you know modest outbreaks
00:41:10
for likely a very long time no matter
00:41:12
how many people get it no matter how
00:41:13
many people get vaccinated because you
00:41:15
have different
00:41:15
levels should we ignore it at what level
00:41:17
should we just say listen that
00:41:19
is the steady state how many cases a day
00:41:21
how many debts a day
00:41:22
do you think is the steady state that we
00:41:24
should just say we just go to work and
00:41:26
ignore it
00:41:27
i am a brutal cold-hearted libertarian
00:41:30
on this point and i have been since we
00:41:31
first talked about this last year
00:41:33
i've always been of the mind that we
00:41:35
need to balance the
00:41:37
um the the follow-on life effect
00:41:40
from the economic fallout associated
00:41:42
with making certain behavioral changes
00:41:44
and restrictions relative to the actual
00:41:46
loss of life
00:41:47
right so you can never go i i i really
00:41:50
think this point about zeroism and this
00:41:51
term about zeroism is an important one
00:41:54
you can never get to zero cases what is
00:41:56
the acceptable number of cases and what
00:41:58
is the cost to keep that case load down
00:42:00
the balance of those two is a very
00:42:02
difficult leadership decision
00:42:04
put a number on it but it's about saving
00:42:07
lives right so like there are a certain
00:42:09
number of people whose lives are going
00:42:10
to be ruined
00:42:11
who are some of them will commit suicide
00:42:12
some of them won't be able to earn an
00:42:13
income again their businesses are going
00:42:14
to get shut down what is the economic
00:42:16
cost of that
00:42:17
versus the economic cost of the loss of
00:42:19
life versus what i'm saying is what is
00:42:21
the number we had an average of 250
00:42:23
deaths 250
00:42:24
000 case known cases a day at the peak
00:42:27
we had a peak
00:42:28
deaths of 4 100 a day we are now at 200
00:42:32
people dying a day and you know 30 000
00:42:35
cases
00:42:36
is there a number at which you say let's
00:42:38
just focus on getting back to work
00:42:40
and is that number where we are now i'm
00:42:42
trying to get it
00:42:43
yeah again i wouldn't simplify it to
00:42:45
those data points what i would do
00:42:47
again i would look at you know at what
00:42:49
age are people dying how many life years
00:42:51
are we losing and how can we address the
00:42:52
acute
00:42:53
populations that are at risk and the
00:42:55
acute populations that are that are
00:42:56
potentially
00:42:57
going to be exposed manage those
00:42:59
populations differently than you manage
00:43:01
the broader population that has a lower
00:43:02
likelihood of risk
00:43:03
of death and a lower likelihood of
00:43:05
fatality and the restrictions that you
00:43:07
then impose to
00:43:08
you know start to manage uh the risk and
00:43:10
the exposure to different populations
00:43:12
gets weighed against the saving of life
00:43:14
and the loss of life in both
00:43:15
circumstances
00:43:16
so it's it's not easy right it's it's
00:43:18
and everyone wants to sum this whole
00:43:19
thing up to like
00:43:20
how many deaths a day is appropriate
00:43:21
that's not the right answer right
00:43:23
because
00:43:24
well you're saying how many that part of
00:43:26
it is so obvious right that
00:43:28
and we should have known this last
00:43:29
summer the obvious part being
00:43:31
that what you want to do is focus your
00:43:33
prevention on the part of the population
00:43:36
that's
00:43:36
the most at risk and what do we do with
00:43:38
lockdowns we literally locked down the
00:43:40
entire population
00:43:41
every business it was completely insane
00:43:44
we should have focused it on protecting
00:43:46
the most at-risk populations isolating
00:43:49
the sick
00:43:50
or the people at greatest risk not
00:43:52
everybody it was just insane
00:43:54
and um i mean i can't believe we're
00:43:55
still having that conversation a year
00:43:57
later
00:43:58
can i uh before we move on to the next
00:44:00
topic can i read the best
00:44:02
can i read the best best comment from
00:44:04
sax's tweet so sax's tweet
00:44:06
just because an opinion is wrong it
00:44:08
doesn't mean it should be censored
00:44:10
just because the behavior is harmful
00:44:11
doesn't mean it should be prohibited and
00:44:13
just because
00:44:14
something is beneficial doesn't mean it
00:44:15
should be required the best response
00:44:17
goes to
00:44:18
distantly social rumple whose
00:44:22
full name is at wendell shirk who said
00:44:26
this message brought to you by the
00:44:28
generic self-serving platitude alert
00:44:30
network
00:44:31
we now return you to your regularly
00:44:34
scheduled episode of the bland soap
00:44:36
opera
00:44:36
with the pablum sisters well yeah i look
00:44:40
there there's there's an element of
00:44:41
truth to that which is i i
00:44:43
almost didn't tweet it because i thought
00:44:44
it was too much of a platitude but the
00:44:46
fact that
00:44:46
people on the other side got so
00:44:48
triggered by it
00:44:50
shows why it was actually useful to to
00:44:52
tweet it is
00:44:54
they think that if you're calling for
00:44:56
any
00:44:57
modicum of freedom or return to normalcy
00:45:00
you're basically
00:45:01
a selfish [ __ ] i mean it's insane i
00:45:04
mean they
00:45:04
want to stay in this world of zero s
00:45:07
covis
00:45:07
restrictions forever we've got to move
00:45:09
on we're 45 minutes into covin so we got
00:45:11
to move on but
00:45:12
i think if this is in the influenza
00:45:15
plus or minus hundred percent zone
00:45:18
we got to pick a number where we decide
00:45:21
we're moving forward as a society
00:45:23
and you know local communities can make
00:45:24
decisions if they have outbreaks but
00:45:26
i kind of think if this is within you
00:45:28
know 2x
00:45:29
of our yearly deaths from
00:45:32
you know influenza and just the normal
00:45:34
cold i think we move forward
00:45:36
as best we can do we want to go to china
00:45:38
cuba i think
00:45:40
just real quick before we move away from
00:45:41
this i really want to just highlight the
00:45:43
deep mind announcement from this morning
00:45:44
because i think it's actually
00:45:46
quite relevant to the tracking of
00:45:47
variants and what's been going on
00:45:49
okay so this morning you know deep mind
00:45:52
which published
00:45:53
alpha fold and we talked about this a
00:45:55
few uh owned by google it's their ai art
00:45:58
it's an air owned by google and they
00:46:00
basically took
00:46:01
protein structure and uh tried to
00:46:04
predict what a protein looks like
00:46:05
physically as a function of
00:46:07
uh the dna or rna that codes the amino
00:46:11
acids that make up the protein and so
00:46:12
again like when you have a string of
00:46:13
amino acids
00:46:14
they combine and they fold into a wave
00:46:16
it's really hard to predict and that's
00:46:18
the shape of the molecule that we call
00:46:19
the protein
00:46:20
and then it does something in the body
00:46:22
and historically we've had
00:46:23
very hard times understanding how
00:46:25
genetic code
00:46:26
translates into physical structure of
00:46:28
protein which would allow us to predict
00:46:30
what that protein can then do
00:46:31
in the body so this morning deep mind
00:46:34
incredibly
00:46:35
published a database with the predicted
00:46:38
structure of every protein in the human
00:46:40
body
00:46:41
and in 10 other species using this this
00:46:44
capability that they now have what does
00:46:45
it mean in english
00:46:46
and so you know what this means is we
00:46:48
now have a physical
00:46:51
model of every protein that human dna
00:46:54
can make
00:46:55
and that model would allow us to
00:46:57
basically now predict
00:46:59
what that protein does how it does it
00:47:01
and how certain drugs can bind to those
00:47:03
proteins
00:47:04
and how certain drugs can affect those
00:47:05
proteins and how we can alter human
00:47:07
health
00:47:08
by making new molecules or adjusting
00:47:12
the genetic code to change the shape of
00:47:13
those proteins in specific and targeted
00:47:15
ways
00:47:16
so it's an incredible data set that was
00:47:17
just published
00:47:19
it's almost like you know releasing the
00:47:21
rosetta stone
00:47:22
in my opinion uh in terms of we now have
00:47:24
this ability to translate human genetic
00:47:26
code into the physical form of the
00:47:28
molecules that run our body and do
00:47:29
things in our body
00:47:30
they did it for 10 other species and
00:47:32
they said that they're going to publish
00:47:33
this proteome database and scale it for
00:47:35
all other species of life that we have
00:47:37
the sort of data set around
00:47:39
for which they expect will achieve over
00:47:41
a hundred million unique proteins
00:47:43
in this database over the coming months
00:47:45
freely available and searchable and let
00:47:47
me just explain and i know i'm on a
00:47:48
monologue here so i'll win the monologue
00:47:50
it's a good one it's a good one um but
00:47:51
let me just explain why this is relevant
00:47:53
the delta variant what it is is that you
00:47:56
know the the the sars cov2
00:47:58
rna sequence is about 30 000 base pairs
00:48:00
long
00:48:01
10 of those or about 3 000 base pairs
00:48:04
make up the spike protein which is the
00:48:05
protein at the tip of the
00:48:07
cove virus like the coronavirus that
00:48:09
gets into the cells
00:48:10
and you know for every 10 people that
00:48:13
are infected with coronavirus
00:48:15
there's about one nucleoside mutation
00:48:17
one of those base pairs changes
00:48:19
and the virus evolves and we don't know
00:48:22
how that
00:48:23
change in that genetic code translates
00:48:26
into a different structure of the
00:48:28
protein
00:48:28
and so we suddenly discover empirically
00:48:31
and you know by looking around suddenly
00:48:32
all these people are getting more
00:48:33
infected
00:48:34
than we're getting infected before we
00:48:36
look at the genetic code and we're like
00:48:37
oh here's the changes that happened
00:48:39
but we could have with this capability
00:48:41
from alpha fold
00:48:42
predicted what changes make the spike
00:48:45
protein
00:48:46
do a better job binding to human h2
00:48:48
receptors on the cells and getting into
00:48:50
cells
00:48:50
and what other changes could be made in
00:48:53
the whole genome of the sars cov2 virus
00:48:56
that could cause this virus to be more
00:48:57
transmissible more deadly
00:48:59
all these sorts of factors because we
00:49:00
can now estimate the
00:49:02
physical form of that protein by
00:49:04
changing the base pair
00:49:06
and so this tool that was released today
00:49:08
i think highlights that over the next
00:49:09
decade
00:49:10
these sorts of things that are going on
00:49:11
with viruses mutating and variants
00:49:13
occurring
00:49:14
that are affecting our population can be
00:49:17
better estimated and tracked
00:49:18
digitally and it gives us the ability to
00:49:21
start to prepare tools and defense
00:49:22
mechanisms against them
00:49:24
uh with new drugs and new variant models
00:49:26
and new um
00:49:27
vaccines well ahead of the oh my god we
00:49:30
just got hit with a nuclear bomb let's
00:49:31
clean up the mess kind of in the future
00:49:33
so it's an exciting day an exciting
00:49:35
moment would they have been
00:49:37
released this david if it hadn't been
00:49:41
for covid coming out do you think
00:49:42
deepmind just pivoted their entire group
00:49:45
because they have about a thousand
00:49:46
people i understand and by the way they
00:49:48
pay something in the order of six or
00:49:50
seven hundred thousand a year on
00:49:51
average and there's many people there
00:49:53
who are getting paid millions of dollars
00:49:54
a year
00:49:55
so just think about the scale of what
00:49:57
google is spending on this
00:49:58
you guys know that they probably sh
00:50:01
shifted a large number of people to work
00:50:02
on this
00:50:03
you guys because i have long deep roots
00:50:05
at google
00:50:06
and um i will tell you that the value
00:50:08
system of
00:50:09
people there you know the press and the
00:50:11
public will think what they want
00:50:13
but i think that the value system of
00:50:14
people there drove them to realize the
00:50:17
importance
00:50:18
of this work that they're doing with
00:50:19
alpha fold and it is important for
00:50:20
humanity and it's important for the
00:50:22
health broadly of people they could have
00:50:23
kept it all inside
00:50:24
and used it to build therapeutic drug
00:50:26
companies and make money from that
00:50:28
and i think the importance of this
00:50:29
discovery and this capability
00:50:31
um was uh was realized and is published
00:50:34
for that very reason
00:50:35
there's a lot of work that deepmind does
00:50:37
to optimize ad targeting and ad spending
00:50:39
and all this stuff and they make
00:50:40
tens of billions of dollars of
00:50:42
incremental revenue for google per year
00:50:44
based on those capabilities
00:50:45
and then there are these things that
00:50:46
benefit all of us and by putting this
00:50:48
out publicly
00:50:49
it's a great good for humanity and
00:50:52
uh you know they're they're making it
00:50:53
freely available and searchable
00:50:55
um and so i i don't think that covid
00:50:57
kind of instigated this because they've
00:50:58
been working on this for a very long
00:51:00
time since before kovid
00:51:01
and this is a very hard biological
00:51:03
problem that is key to
00:51:05
understanding biology and how biology
00:51:06
works that's been going on for decades
00:51:08
they've unlocked it with software and
00:51:10
they're making it freely available
00:51:11
um and you know there will be hundreds
00:51:13
of drug companies that will now start
00:51:15
because of what's in that database i
00:51:16
mean this is a this is a mitzvah
00:51:18
uh to society to humanity does it change
00:51:22
the fact that google is spending uh well
00:51:23
over a billion dollars a year in deep
00:51:25
mind and doing projects like this does
00:51:26
this change any of your thinking about
00:51:28
breaking them up tremoth or
00:51:30
you know how we look at big tech that's
00:51:33
a good question no
00:51:38
we learned something very disturbing
00:51:40
about big tech this week actually
00:51:41
um this is quite a bombshell that jen
00:51:44
pasake dropped from the white house
00:51:46
press briefing
00:51:48
we got to talk about this she just sort
00:51:49
of casually mentioned
00:51:51
that oh yeah by the way the
00:51:52
administration is flagging posts
00:51:55
for a social media company for big tech
00:51:57
companies to take down to remove
00:51:59
accounts they're talking about specific
00:52:00
accounts and posts yeah and she just
00:52:03
kind of met just casually mentions oh
00:52:05
yeah the big tech companies are very
00:52:07
you know eagerly cooperating with the
00:52:09
administration to take down these
00:52:10
accounts
00:52:11
accounts she even said that when one
00:52:14
of these companies takes down an account
00:52:17
the rest should do it too
00:52:18
implying that the white house is
00:52:20
providing the central coordinative role
00:52:23
in the censorship global block list yeah
00:52:27
let me let's let's take the most
00:52:28
charitable view here i know that it's
00:52:30
very easy to make this a left versus
00:52:32
right
00:52:32
there censoring yada yada trump got
00:52:34
banned but if somebody was saying
00:52:37
this was microch this was an account
00:52:39
that was claiming that microchips were
00:52:40
in the vaccine
00:52:42
would it not be how would the and it was
00:52:46
hitting scale
00:52:48
you know what would be the way for the
00:52:49
white house to inform social media
00:52:52
that there was an account that was
00:52:53
saying falsely that microchips
00:52:56
were in there and that that was trending
00:52:58
the white house or its officials are
00:52:59
free to put out
00:53:00
their statements and their position but
00:53:02
this is different this is the white
00:53:03
house
00:53:04
coordinating behind the scenes with big
00:53:06
tech companies well they're not behind
00:53:07
the scenes they're saying they're doing
00:53:08
it right here to everybody
00:53:09
correct correct the behavior was behind
00:53:11
the scenes but pasaki just admitted it
00:53:13
which is why it's such a bombshell look
00:53:15
even the aclu if you were president
00:53:17
and there there was an account on
00:53:20
facebook youtube twitter that was saying
00:53:22
there was a microchip from bill gates
00:53:23
this is a
00:53:24
this is a blatant violation of the
00:53:26
people's first amendment would you
00:53:28
then tell them how would you you are
00:53:29
allowed your the first amendment gives
00:53:31
you the right to say things that are
00:53:33
untrue
00:53:34
it is not the business of government to
00:53:36
declare
00:53:37
what is true and what is false okay even
00:53:40
even hold on
00:53:42
even the aclu came out of retirement we
00:53:45
hadn't we haven't heard from them for
00:53:46
the last
00:53:47
year during any of these parts of the
00:53:49
aclu yeah we haven't heard from them
00:53:50
during the past year
00:53:51
during all this um activity that's been
00:53:53
going on with the counts being blocked
00:53:55
and ghosted
00:53:55
they finally came out of retirement to
00:53:58
say that
00:53:58
that this is a dangerous violation
00:54:02
of people's first amendment rights you
00:54:03
cannot have the government
00:54:05
saying what is true and what is false
00:54:07
and then denying people the right um
00:54:10
to express their opinions based on what
00:54:12
the government thinks is the truth and
00:54:14
by the way there's been a very subtle
00:54:17
change here in the language that's being
00:54:19
used
00:54:19
if you remember what the argument used
00:54:22
to be that we have to stop
00:54:23
disinformation
00:54:24
does uh now it's shifted to we have to
00:54:27
stop misinformation
00:54:28
so those two things are very different
00:54:30
it's kind of like that well it's kind of
00:54:31
like the difference in the term equality
00:54:33
versus equity they sound similar
00:54:35
but they actually mean very different
00:54:37
things so disinformation
00:54:38
is actually a campaign of a purposeful
00:54:42
purposeful campaign of propaganda and
00:54:44
lies usually
00:54:46
put forward covertly so it's the fsb
00:54:49
you're some intelligence agency putting
00:54:51
out whatever
00:54:52
putting out disinformation usually under
00:54:54
false accounts so
00:54:55
in that case we can say no you can't do
00:54:58
that because you can't engage in
00:55:00
deception
00:55:01
around who you are right but
00:55:03
misinformation
00:55:05
is simply information that's being put
00:55:07
out that frankly you disagree with
00:55:09
okay and or it could be discernibly
00:55:11
wrong wait you're
00:55:12
you're kind of framing that work it
00:55:13
could be you're putting out information
00:55:15
like there's a microchip in the vaccine
00:55:17
that is explicitly known to be wrong
00:55:19
look the the lab leak theory was
00:55:21
considered misinformation by these same
00:55:22
people three months ago
00:55:24
okay but let's take the specific example
00:55:25
of there's a microchip
00:55:27
if it was the case that they said
00:55:29
there's a microchip in the vaccine would
00:55:30
you be okay with the white house
00:55:31
contacting
00:55:32
social media coming saying hey you got
00:55:34
these accounts that are saying there's a
00:55:35
microchip
00:55:36
you might want to look into it they're
00:55:37
not saying take it down they're saying
00:55:38
take a look into it
00:55:39
that's not the white house's business do
00:55:41
i believe in the microchip theory no of
00:55:42
course not it's absolutely ridiculous
00:55:44
but it is not the business
00:55:46
okay who to ban and who to block list
00:55:51
i think they didn't tell them to ban i
00:55:52
think they told them to be aware of it
00:55:53
go ahead chime off
00:55:55
i think your framing's wrong sex guys no
00:55:56
no swasaki said
00:55:58
that when one site takes it down they
00:55:59
should all take it down and then biden
00:56:02
on top of it comes out and pours
00:56:04
kerosene on the fire by saying that
00:56:06
social media sites
00:56:07
are literally killing people well yeah
00:56:09
by allowing by allowing this
00:56:11
misinformation so here we go
00:56:13
let's be honest is the president of the
00:56:16
united states using the bully pulpit
00:56:18
to call social media uh sites mass
00:56:21
murderers
00:56:22
by virtue of allowing people to have
00:56:24
free speech trump never used language
00:56:26
that intemperate i don't remember him
00:56:27
ever calling
00:56:32
this is the exact reason you you can't
00:56:35
have
00:56:36
a strangle hold on distribution because
00:56:39
it will
00:56:40
get perverted and then we either have
00:56:42
people we like or people we don't like
00:56:44
in these positions of power or people we
00:56:47
like or people we don't like regulating
00:56:49
and it's constantly flipping
00:56:51
and we're all just doomed and bound to
00:56:53
get [ __ ] over
00:56:54
so back to the thing that friedberg
00:56:57
brought up before i think alpha fold is
00:56:59
incredible
00:57:00
i think google has been an incredible
00:57:01
company they make money hand over fist
00:57:05
they waste an enormous amount of money
00:57:07
and all kinds of trash so it's good that
00:57:09
they were actually able to do something
00:57:10
useful here
00:57:13
i generally think that companies like
00:57:15
google and facebook
00:57:18
and amazon unfortunately
00:57:21
do not allow
00:57:26
the constructive form of capitalism that
00:57:28
people want in today's society they're
00:57:30
just too big
00:57:30
tremoth makes a great point which is
00:57:32
we've got these big tech monopolies
00:57:33
who've become gatekeepers over content
00:57:35
okay
00:57:36
and what the administration has done and
00:57:38
their allies in congress is
00:57:40
hang a sword of damocles over the heads
00:57:42
of these big tech companies
00:57:44
they've appointed lina khan to be the
00:57:45
enforcer at the ftc
00:57:47
they've got their six bills in congress
00:57:48
right now they've held congressional
00:57:50
hearings around taking away section 230
00:57:52
protection which is very economically
00:57:54
advantageous for these big tech
00:57:55
companies
00:57:56
so they position the sword perfectly
00:57:58
over the heads these big
00:57:59
tech companies threatening to break them
00:58:01
up and rein them in
00:58:02
and then jen pasake and the white house
00:58:05
go to them and say we want you to take
00:58:06
down
00:58:07
these accounts that we don't agree with
00:58:09
this is misinformation
00:58:11
okay that is a huge danger to free
00:58:13
speech it's basically
00:58:15
like the administration saying to these
00:58:16
big tech companies nice little social
00:58:18
network you got there it'd be a real
00:58:20
shame if anything happened to it look at
00:58:22
what's going on
00:58:23
don't you want them broken up i do want
00:58:25
them broken up but what i don't know
00:58:27
which is if you want them to hold the
00:58:28
sword or do you not want them to hold
00:58:29
the sword i actually want the sword to
00:58:31
come
00:58:31
crashing i actually want the sword to
00:58:32
come out swing the sword not hold it
00:58:35
over and then use it for extortion
00:58:36
yeah that's actually a great explanation
00:58:38
then freedom yes
00:58:40
i'm trying to moderate here freeburg do
00:58:42
you give a [ __ ]
00:58:44
we've talked about this spent all day on
00:58:46
his phone he has not
00:58:48
dialed into this puzzle i'm with you
00:58:49
guys i thought we
00:58:51
just went over the alpha fold stuff way
00:58:53
too fast i mean
00:58:55
the arguing over freedom of speech is
00:58:58
happening and all of this debate
00:59:00
freedberg at the same time
00:59:01
that we are making incredible
00:59:03
life-changing moments for humanity
00:59:06
two different companies went to space
00:59:08
last week
00:59:10
with civilians and then we are
00:59:13
basically uh defining the blueprint
00:59:17
for the human and every other species on
00:59:19
the planet
00:59:20
and we're fighting over people too
00:59:22
stupid
00:59:23
to take a goddamn vaccine that would
00:59:26
save everybody's life and let us
00:59:27
continue on and people are dunking
00:59:30
on bezos for not reading the room i
00:59:33
don't know if you saw this freedberg
00:59:35
but how do you think about the space
00:59:38
race in relation to reading the room etc
00:59:40
progress technologically
00:59:43
um will only arise with capital
00:59:46
so you can assume that that progress you
00:59:48
know it's not like someone stumbled into
00:59:50
a cave and discovered a rocket ship or
00:59:52
stumbles into a cave and discovered
00:59:54
alpha fold
00:59:55
uh there are years of toiling and labs
00:59:57
like edison did
00:59:58
making the light bulb um edison had to
01:00:01
raise a ton of money
01:00:03
uh to get that light bulb uh project off
01:00:05
the ground if you guys haven't read uh
01:00:07
i'm trying to remember the biography
01:00:08
there's uh
01:00:09
uh wizards of something um it's got
01:00:12
wizards in the title it's a good
01:00:13
biography of medicine
01:00:14
and um uh you know and and i feel like
01:00:18
we're at this moment where
01:00:20
the wizard of menlow park yeah i think
01:00:22
that's the the wizard of oz park that's
01:00:23
right and
01:00:24
the amount of capital that it takes to
01:00:27
make these breakthroughs at alpha fold
01:00:29
or at waymo uh or what bezos and
01:00:32
elon are doing um is so extraordinary
01:00:36
that you have to be in a position where
01:00:38
you can fund this work
01:00:39
you're not gonna get a bunch of
01:00:40
kickstarters to fund a spacex like
01:00:43
project or a
01:00:44
you know blue origin like project and so
01:00:47
i think that the benefit
01:00:49
of scale that comes out of some of these
01:00:52
businesses
01:00:53
is that we can do research and
01:00:54
development and we can progress
01:00:57
our capabilities as a species forward in
01:01:00
a way that would have never been
01:01:01
possible
01:01:02
if not for the capitalist system and the
01:01:04
ability for these businesses to
01:01:05
accumulate a large enough pool of
01:01:07
capital to take on
01:01:08
multiple billion dollar bets and like
01:01:11
chimoff said waste a lot of money and
01:01:12
lose on nine out of ten of them
01:01:14
but if that one billion dollar bet works
01:01:16
it's worth 500 billion dollars
01:01:17
and that money continuously gets
01:01:19
reinvested and look at what google did
01:01:21
with waymo they put over a billion
01:01:22
dollars in that project before everyone
01:01:24
woke up and said my god self-driving is
01:01:26
real it's possible
01:01:27
and it kick-started an industry and i i
01:01:29
just feel like the amount of money and
01:01:31
not to mention the fact that like
01:01:33
these are free markets so these
01:01:34
businesses google
01:01:36
you don't have to search on google you
01:01:38
don't have to buy from amazon but
01:01:39
everyone benefits from searching on
01:01:41
google everyone benefits from buying on
01:01:42
amazon
01:01:43
and the capability of these businesses
01:01:45
is rooted entirely on the fact that
01:01:47
consumers are choosing to use their
01:01:49
products and their services
01:01:50
because they are so good and so i don't
01:01:53
feel like these guys are
01:01:54
um screwing people over you can consider
01:01:57
the small business model as being like
01:01:59
you know hey maybe we shouldn't have had
01:02:01
small business retailers for as long as
01:02:03
we did because at some point
01:02:04
distribution was going to be
01:02:05
economically advantaged by being
01:02:07
centralized
01:02:08
and therefore all consumers are going to
01:02:09
benefit by centralizing
01:02:11
is there really a right to maintain
01:02:13
local distribution sites that we call
01:02:14
small businesses that should remain in
01:02:16
business forever
01:02:17
maybe there's a way to help them
01:02:18
transition into a new business model or
01:02:20
a new market but
01:02:20
same with what happened with the taxi
01:02:22
industry technology will force these
01:02:24
evolutions
01:02:25
the capital accumulates and that capital
01:02:26
can be invested in things that we would
01:02:28
have never imagined
01:02:29
um on a smaller scale but go ahead show
01:02:31
up yeah no i do think sympathetic to
01:02:33
what you were saying
01:02:34
i do think that if you look at every
01:02:35
platform innovation that's ever happened
01:02:37
so whether it's
01:02:38
you know we go from no print to print
01:02:41
you know to newspapers to radio to
01:02:44
television
01:02:45
you've always first started with a
01:02:47
pendulum that was very much firmly in
01:02:49
the camp of centralized
01:02:51
monopolistic or oligopolistic
01:02:56
kind of early outcomes and either
01:02:59
through legislation or through
01:03:00
innovation
01:03:01
then the pendulum swings to
01:03:02
decentralization that's typically
01:03:04
happened right and you can look at all
01:03:06
of these industries that's gone through
01:03:07
that
01:03:08
so it stands to reason that technology
01:03:10
will be not dissimilar to those things
01:03:12
and everybody says the argument is well
01:03:14
no because technology has these specific
01:03:16
features of
01:03:17
network effects and lock-in but i think
01:03:19
that
01:03:20
betrays this idea that legislatively you
01:03:22
can come and just basically
01:03:23
destroy the china and the china shop and
01:03:25
you have to just start all over
01:03:27
so it's likely that we're going to move
01:03:29
to a place that's a healthier outcome
01:03:30
for everybody
01:03:31
and obviously we want things like alpha
01:03:33
fold to exist
01:03:35
and we want things like waymo to exist
01:03:37
the question is
01:03:38
how should they exist and if they come
01:03:41
out of
01:03:41
the goodwill of google it is just so
01:03:45
easily as likely
01:03:46
that some other person let's say it
01:03:48
wasn't sundar
01:03:50
and ruth peratt but two other people who
01:03:52
didn't like it
01:03:53
these things could have been very
01:03:54
different forms and shapes and not
01:03:56
existed at all
01:03:56
and i think that's the arbitrary nature
01:03:58
of it which is not necessarily free
01:04:00
market capitalism that doesn't benefit
01:04:02
us
01:04:02
should we chamoth be upset that bezos
01:04:06
is going to space and spending tens of
01:04:08
billions of dollars that he made from
01:04:09
amazon
01:04:10
he had a bad press conference let's just
01:04:13
be clear at the end of the day
01:04:15
he has wanted to do this his entire life
01:04:17
he built an incredible company
01:04:19
he was able to take a lot of that
01:04:21
capital
01:04:22
and invested in it he's invested
01:04:24
billions of dollars in other
01:04:26
things 10 billion dollars in climate
01:04:28
change his ex-wife has
01:04:29
invested you know six billion dollars
01:04:31
just last year alone in all kinds of
01:04:33
good works
01:04:34
so those two individuals because of
01:04:37
their success i think will generally do
01:04:39
and have done the right thing
01:04:42
let's not get that confused with a
01:04:43
horrendous press conference
01:04:45
where he just was well i think you said
01:04:49
it you know
01:04:50
the thing that he said around uh you
01:04:52
know i just want to thank the customers
01:04:53
and the employees for paying for this
01:04:55
it sounded flippant and it didn't
01:04:59
really acknowledge the incredible amount
01:05:01
of heavy lifting and hard work that he
01:05:03
did acknowledge in the clip
01:05:04
from 2000 on charlie rose right so if
01:05:07
you if you actually played those two
01:05:10
things back side by side you'd say is
01:05:12
this the same person
01:05:14
one was thoughtful extremely respectful
01:05:16
the other one was
01:05:17
now maybe he was just amped up i mean i
01:05:19
could see him
01:05:24
and so and so he just wasn't thinking
01:05:26
about it but you know honestly like look
01:05:28
he is smart enough and that team is
01:05:29
smart enough to say we're assuming
01:05:31
you're coming back
01:05:32
so here are some [ __ ] talking points
01:05:33
why don't you just look at those on the
01:05:35
way down as you float down to earth
01:05:37
and let's just make sure we nail this
01:05:38
and put our best foot forward that
01:05:40
is where i think he probably has some
01:05:42
regrets based on how people reacted this
01:05:44
bezos
01:05:46
space flight was a real rorschach test
01:05:48
because he took heat from both the right
01:05:50
and the left but the criticism was very
01:05:52
different you know the
01:05:53
critique i heard from the right was that
01:05:56
uh he's having some sort of mid-life
01:05:57
crisis and the rocket looked too much
01:05:59
like a phallus okay
01:06:00
fine whatever that the criticism from
01:06:02
the left
01:06:04
was um it had much more to do with a
01:06:06
real
01:06:07
contempt for private initiative and
01:06:09
private enterprise you could almost
01:06:11
see them being horrified and dismayed
01:06:14
that you know
01:06:14
why was he doing this with his own money
01:06:16
you know if this had been a nasa flight
01:06:18
i don't think they would have had a
01:06:19
problem with it and so you see here
01:06:22
that even though bezos has been so much
01:06:25
more effective
01:06:26
using his own money uh to do this that
01:06:29
the leftist reflexively
01:06:31
hates that uh and and and and they kept
01:06:34
saying well how dare he use this money
01:06:36
the money could have been used on
01:06:38
something else so much better well
01:06:40
what do you think of that argument yeah
01:06:41
i think it's wrong in a couple of
01:06:43
respects it basically implies
01:06:45
that the purveyors of these social
01:06:47
programs are better distributors
01:06:49
of societal resources than our greatest
01:06:51
inventors
01:06:52
and i don't think that's true you look
01:06:53
at these social programs
01:06:55
they want to keep doubling down on
01:06:57
they're not working you know
01:06:58
these programs our policies towards
01:07:01
homelessness is not failing because of
01:07:02
lack of funding
01:07:03
there's a tremendous amount of funding
01:07:05
in san francisco they're spending 60
01:07:06
thousand dollars per tent per year
01:07:08
they're spending 300 000 in social
01:07:10
services per homeless person per year
01:07:12
lack of funding is not the problem the
01:07:14
approach is the problem
01:07:15
we spend something like twenty five
01:07:16
thousand dollars per pull per pupil
01:07:18
in california schools the test scores
01:07:20
are going down
01:07:21
so you know these people who are
01:07:24
criticizing bezos don't know what to do
01:07:26
with the money
01:07:27
they don't know how to spend anything
01:07:29
they're not good at executing
01:07:30
however bezos or elon these are two of
01:07:33
our greatest inventors
01:07:34
let them go let them go because you know
01:07:37
they are pushing the boundaries and i do
01:07:39
believe
01:07:40
there will be great engineering and
01:07:41
scientific breakthroughs that come as a
01:07:44
result
01:07:44
of what they're doing with this new
01:07:45
space race it's also super uninformed if
01:07:48
correct me if i'm wrong here but
01:07:50
they were saying that they they should
01:07:52
have been doing more initiatives on
01:07:53
earth
01:07:54
if you actually and they were kind of
01:07:55
talking about climate change and the use
01:07:57
of these fuels to get to space
01:07:59
and number one uh the the rocket ship
01:08:01
fuel my understanding in these
01:08:03
is less than the what happens in a 747
01:08:06
so put that aside
01:08:07
and then second elon has done more for
01:08:10
global warming with tesla than anybody
01:08:12
in the and the battery packs i think in
01:08:14
modern society i can't think of somebody
01:08:17
in the private sector who's done more
01:08:18
and then has there ever been a get
01:08:20
there's never been a gift
01:08:21
of 10 billion dollars to one cause let
01:08:24
alone one cause which bezos gave which
01:08:26
was climate change
01:08:27
no no nobody has done it also hasn't you
01:08:30
would know
01:08:30
chamoth i thought richard branson had
01:08:32
done a lot for globe warming i thought
01:08:33
he was very involved in the carbon
01:08:35
uh credits space i think that we're
01:08:37
witnessing something
01:08:38
that can best be described as people
01:08:42
who have reached a point in their life
01:08:45
where they've
01:08:46
realized that they're impotent
01:08:49
getting incredibly angry at people who
01:08:52
are willing to be wrong
01:08:53
but want to just have a chance to be on
01:08:55
the field and try
01:08:57
and have the freedom to do so and that
01:08:59
just literally
01:09:00
infuriates a certain class of people it
01:09:03
proves itself out by what david said
01:09:04
we are not in a funding crisis we are
01:09:07
running
01:09:08
10 20 trillion dollar deficits you know
01:09:12
or sorry uh 10 you know hundreds of
01:09:14
billions of dollar deficits 10
01:09:15
20 trillion dollar debt levels that are
01:09:17
increasing every year
01:09:18
we have a surveyed of money we print
01:09:22
money whenever we want we don't have a
01:09:24
shortage of money
01:09:25
we have a shortage of capable people who
01:09:27
know what to do with that money
01:09:29
and in the absence of people being able
01:09:33
to do things
01:09:34
they would rather other people not do
01:09:35
things not because it's not the right
01:09:36
thing to do but because it makes them
01:09:38
feel impotent
01:09:40
right and and so what what is what is
01:09:42
driving that i think you
01:09:43
there's a real contempt for private
01:09:45
initiative
01:09:46
and and jason you're right you see it in
01:09:48
the hatred towards elon nobody has done
01:09:50
more
01:09:51
to actually reduce carbon emissions than
01:09:53
elon
01:09:54
i mean even the best gifts period end of
01:09:57
story i mean
01:09:58
the bezos gift to some philanthropy i
01:10:00
don't know if that's going to make a
01:10:01
difference or not you're right that
01:10:02
he's putting his money where his mouth
01:10:05
is on that issue but
01:10:06
it's indisputable that elon the electric
01:10:09
car industry would not exist
01:10:11
without elon and yet there is contempt
01:10:13
and hatred
01:10:14
for the fact that he did this through
01:10:16
private initiative if they became
01:10:17
because he does it in a way that is not
01:10:21
checking the boxes for this cohort of
01:10:24
people
01:10:25
who feel incredibly insecure and fragile
01:10:28
emotionally they don't like that he says
01:10:31
what he wants
01:10:31
they don't like that he does what he
01:10:33
wants they don't like that he dresses
01:10:35
the way he does
01:10:36
they don't like any of it because it's
01:10:37
not conformist enough it's not about the
01:10:40
look people it's also about the money
01:10:42
that's the wealth that's been
01:10:43
accumulated too
01:10:44
well no no hold on i don't think that's
01:10:45
what it is at all no i actually think
01:10:47
what it is is psychological it is
01:10:49
nothing about money
01:10:50
i think what we are witnessing and i
01:10:52
think social media has just blown the
01:10:54
cover off it
01:10:55
is a psychological awakening that people
01:10:58
have
01:10:59
which is that they were comfortable
01:11:01
knowing that there was a class of
01:11:03
insiders
01:11:04
and a huge cohort of outsiders and they
01:11:07
just believed the world would function
01:11:09
as it should
01:11:10
now you see people migrating through
01:11:12
this membrane
01:11:13
achieving enormous amounts of success
01:11:16
basically eclipsing every single insider
01:11:18
possible by orders of magnitude
01:11:20
and it breaks people's brains because
01:11:22
they don't like it because now they
01:11:24
think
01:11:25
why didn't it happen to me why not me
01:11:27
and the thing is
01:11:28
because you're not capable and at
01:11:30
somewhere along the way
01:11:31
hard working you're not dedicated you
01:11:33
didn't try or you didn't try
01:11:35
they didn't act with agency i mean look
01:11:38
every day
01:11:39
every day the greatest thing that i've
01:11:40
learned about the public markets now
01:11:42
having been you know purely on the early
01:11:45
stage technology side
01:11:46
building running then investing is i get
01:11:49
a mark
01:11:50
every day right now to do both
01:11:52
businesses i get a score scorecard every
01:11:53
day
01:11:54
and some days i really think to myself
01:11:57
maybe i'm just not good enough today
01:11:59
and i say to myself that is true today
01:12:03
and then the the difference is tomorrow
01:12:05
i have a choice which is i wake up and i
01:12:07
decide
01:12:07
am i going to go back at it or not and
01:12:10
i'm going to game
01:12:11
and i'm not going to hate on other
01:12:13
people who had a good day today just
01:12:15
because i had a bad day
01:12:18
and that's what i think we're going
01:12:19
through we're going through and social
01:12:20
media allows it to happen
01:12:22
and it allows you to put it out there
01:12:24
you can hide behind a screen name
01:12:26
you can basically say whatever you want
01:12:28
to vent
01:12:29
this pent-up frustration watching
01:12:32
journalists doing it
01:12:34
of course of course because these
01:12:35
journalists are doing it too
01:12:37
they're just so bitter that they feel
01:12:39
dunking
01:12:40
on the greatest inventors of our time is
01:12:43
a productive use
01:12:44
the difference is journalists do it with
01:12:46
a real screen name under the guise of
01:12:48
journalism everybody else does it with a
01:12:50
fake screen name
01:12:51
and it's all just a bunch of trolling in
01:12:53
order to do something really great like
01:12:54
bezos or like elon you have to believe
01:12:56
that you have
01:12:57
agency over your own life you have to
01:13:00
believe that you can accomplish great
01:13:01
things
01:13:02
you have to you know act with with
01:13:04
purpose and
01:13:05
is that really what we're teaching kids
01:13:06
to uh today in schools what we're
01:13:08
teaching them
01:13:09
is they're either victims or oppressors
01:13:12
it's some intersectional framework
01:13:14
we're not teaching them about earned
01:13:16
success we're teaching them about
01:13:17
privilege
01:13:18
which is you know is presumptively
01:13:20
ill-gotten and it's all about a
01:13:22
transference
01:13:23
of privilege and um
01:13:26
and basically money from people who are
01:13:29
oppressors in this framework to people
01:13:31
who are victims
01:13:32
but no one's talking about how you
01:13:34
actually create
01:13:36
changes successfully abundance right
01:13:38
abundance it's all
01:13:39
a negative sum it's always a negative
01:13:41
sum game free bird go ahead
01:13:42
i dance back to the kim kardashian sex
01:13:45
tape
01:13:46
i think that there was this moment where
01:13:48
someone who was
01:13:50
didn't do anything didn't have a career
01:13:51
wasn't doing anything work wise but was
01:13:54
kind of a pseudo celebrity for being a
01:13:56
celebrity it's like the paris hilton
01:13:58
nicole richie era right like uh
01:14:01
folks who don't really have much to talk
01:14:03
about except that they're the
01:14:04
ones that people are talking about and
01:14:06
then that sex tape
01:14:08
turned her into a superstar and then she
01:14:10
became a billionaire
01:14:11
a few years later and so um you know
01:14:14
there
01:14:14
there is this kind of poignant moment i
01:14:16
think where folks are like
01:14:18
wait a second you don't have to do
01:14:21
anything to get really rich in this
01:14:22
country you don't have to do anything to
01:14:24
achieve all this fame
01:14:25
therefore the ex the kind of assumption
01:14:28
is
01:14:28
hey you know what there are people that
01:14:30
just get stuff and get
01:14:32
to do what they want to do and the rest
01:14:33
of us don't
01:14:35
um and i do think that social media is
01:14:37
the magnifying glass that takes those
01:14:39
those moments and makes them very big
01:14:42
and kind of then that becomes the
01:14:43
assumed standard
01:14:44
when the reality is i mean all four of
01:14:46
us worked really [ __ ] hard
01:14:49
all four of us came from nothing i don't
01:14:51
know about sax but
01:14:52
i mean the rest of us his dad was an
01:14:54
immigrant doctor from south africa and
01:14:56
he moved to
01:14:57
south asia i'm just doing 80s well i
01:14:59
mean
01:15:00
i mean i think all of us graduated
01:15:01
college deeply in debt
01:15:03
and then we all worked our way out of
01:15:05
debt and we all found ways to work
01:15:07
really hard and find opportunities for
01:15:09
ourselves in this incredible country
01:15:11
and to build value and to build
01:15:13
businesses to realize those returns and
01:15:15
we don't start out as elites
01:15:17
we were never elite we were always the
01:15:20
struggling
01:15:21
you know immigrant entrepreneurs that
01:15:24
got ourselves to where we are
01:15:25
because we clawed and we pushed and we
01:15:27
fought and we had grit we had
01:15:28
determination and we had smarts and we
01:15:30
had put in the effort
01:15:31
and i think that that's not really and
01:15:33
so did bezos
01:15:34
and so did elon and i don't think that
01:15:37
there is any standard of elitism
01:15:39
that endowed in them like maybe in you
01:15:41
know the british the days of the british
01:15:42
monarchy
01:15:43
these kind of inalienable rights to have
01:15:46
the freedom that they have
01:15:47
and i think that that and i think that
01:15:48
that's so important because people miss
01:15:50
that point and they think that kim
01:15:52
kardashian
01:15:53
or the random bolt of lightning or the
01:15:55
elite
01:15:56
is the kind of endowed upon people in a
01:15:58
way that's unfair
01:15:59
they're misreading the situation
01:16:01
everyone else is missing out
01:16:02
yeah they misread the situation so a
01:16:05
couple things
01:16:06
kim kardashian may have gotten some
01:16:08
initial fame because of her sex tape
01:16:10
but [ __ ] if she's not an incredible
01:16:12
business person because from there to
01:16:13
now
01:16:14
that's execution totally there's a lot
01:16:16
of there's a lot of toiling
01:16:17
hard work good decision-making she
01:16:19
[ __ ] nailed it
01:16:21
was i lucky to have actually joined
01:16:23
facebook versus myspace
01:16:25
yes but when i was there did i [ __ ]
01:16:27
hit the cover off the ball
01:16:29
god damn yes you know was i lucky to
01:16:31
have started
01:16:32
social capital and be able to raise
01:16:34
capital sure but then did i have to
01:16:36
help find a team coach that team work
01:16:38
with them make good investments
01:16:40
that's [ __ ] hard and i think what
01:16:42
people forget
01:16:44
is that this takes a lot of hard work
01:16:46
that there's
01:16:47
all kinds of levels of success that you
01:16:49
can be proud of all kinds of different
01:16:51
accomplishments what i loved is when
01:16:52
friedberg
01:16:53
used us and elon and bezos in the same
01:16:56
sentence
01:16:57
because i catch myself where i'm ashamed
01:16:59
sometimes or i'm like
01:17:00
i am not as good as those two guys so
01:17:03
how dare i use
01:17:04
my name in the same sentence as their
01:17:06
name and then i think wait a minute what
01:17:08
the [ __ ] am i quibbling over
01:17:10
like this is insane in any way shape or
01:17:12
form we've all made it
01:17:13
sure there's different degrees but it's
01:17:15
beyond that it matters at this point
01:17:17
and this is what i think we're living in
01:17:19
a society where it really
01:17:21
distorts you so if how do we change it
01:17:23
how do we change people from thinking
01:17:25
that it's random and that you can't do
01:17:27
it because there are a group of people
01:17:28
who
01:17:30
but there are a group of people who
01:17:30
believe the system is rigged i cannot
01:17:33
become chamath
01:17:34
and i'm stuck i'm stuck in a rut and i
01:17:36
can't get out i can't get out how do we
01:17:38
change that belief yeah the whiners and
01:17:40
the complainers and the haters are stuck
01:17:41
in a massive run
01:17:43
and i think the thing that happened and
01:17:45
i said it last part i'll say it again
01:17:46
and maybe i'll just say it every [ __ ]
01:17:48
pod
01:17:49
it is not about winning and losing it is
01:17:51
about trying and learning
01:17:54
and that is a huge thing it's about a
01:17:56
learning
01:17:58
mindset it's about this idea that things
01:18:00
are changing so [ __ ] fast
01:18:02
the only thing that i can do to stay
01:18:05
safe is to learn how to learn because
01:18:08
things will constantly be changing
01:18:09
underfoot but what do you say to the
01:18:11
single mother with three kids
01:18:14
who who is in a town where the the
01:18:16
factory is shutting down and she's
01:18:17
losing her job and she doesn't have the
01:18:19
resources to move she
01:18:21
she is not the person that hates elon
01:18:22
musk or jeff bezos i will [ __ ] do
01:18:25
because aren't there institutional ruts
01:18:27
in the united states yeah
01:18:28
i understand these are two completely
01:18:30
different topics my point is
01:18:32
if you go online it is filled with
01:18:36
p a small cohort of people that are
01:18:38
positive
01:18:39
and then a large cohort of people that
01:18:41
are silently
01:18:42
trying to just gain information and a
01:18:45
small
01:18:46
vocal minority of bitter people who
01:18:47
can't do [ __ ]
01:18:49
and all i'm talking about privileged
01:18:50
people well who knows if they're
01:18:52
privileged but i'm just saying
01:18:54
they're getting paid a hundred thousand
01:18:55
to work at the election i just think
01:18:56
that these people have been check boxers
01:18:58
their whole lives
01:18:59
they tried to play the team sports they
01:19:01
were told to they went to the schools
01:19:03
they tried to do the
01:19:04
the cfa the mba the this or that
01:19:07
nothing worked for them they work in an
01:19:09
environment where they don't feel
01:19:12
any equity actually this is where equity
01:19:14
is important
01:19:16
they feel disenfranchised and they're
01:19:18
angry
01:19:19
and as a result they just want
01:19:21
everything to be different so that
01:19:22
nobody wins because they can't win
01:19:25
but if they were winning they would be
01:19:26
the first one to say shut the [ __ ]
01:19:28
door behind me
01:19:30
i'm convinced of it 100 yeah the irony
01:19:32
is that the people you're talking about
01:19:34
all went to these elite institutions
01:19:36
and and they imbibed these ideologies
01:19:40
and philosophies and
01:19:41
i think the people who have been
01:19:43
successful
01:19:44
went to those not in all cases but they
01:19:47
went to those places and then
01:19:49
rebelled against it or just shut it out
01:19:51
here's what we should do here's what we
01:19:52
should do we should all contribute 5 or
01:19:53
10 million bucks into a
01:19:54
into an llc we should call pegasus
01:19:58
we should use pegasus to infiltrate all
01:20:00
the fake screen names on twitter
01:20:02
and then index that to linkedin to
01:20:04
figure out where they all went to school
01:20:06
and what they do and just publish a new
01:20:07
database of all the haters
01:20:09
well i mean it's how funny would that be
01:20:11
i i
01:20:12
it's very interesting because i'm
01:20:14
watching a group of these
01:20:16
complainers leave traditional mainstream
01:20:19
media because
01:20:19
i'm focused on journalists because i was
01:20:21
one and i'm watching them leave
01:20:23
journalism a small group of them and
01:20:25
become entrepreneurs
01:20:27
on sub stack or their own products and i
01:20:30
feel like there's a little group of them
01:20:31
who are realizing holy [ __ ] i can make a
01:20:32
million dollars
01:20:33
if i apply myself and i quit the new
01:20:35
york times and i go start my own
01:20:36
publication
01:20:37
right and i actually say something
01:20:39
interesting and differentiated not just
01:20:40
towing the party line at the new york
01:20:42
times exactly
01:20:42
there's a whole little there's a little
01:20:44
crack here in this like i'll say
01:20:46
i'll say they are just as successful as
01:20:48
elon musk
01:20:49
and jeff bezos the the financial
01:20:53
quantum may be different but i bet you
01:20:55
the personal [ __ ] satisfaction
01:20:57
quantum is the same
01:20:59
and this is a little key this is the key
01:21:01
you could be running a 500 000
01:21:03
your business and you could feel like a
01:21:05
million [ __ ] bucks
01:21:08
yeah you have a nice house you have a
01:21:10
nice family you employ a couple people
01:21:12
you provide a good life you do what you
01:21:14
want to do when you want to do it
01:21:16
the sense of freedom that comes with
01:21:19
that and
01:21:19
agency and agency is the same as them
01:21:23
and maybe in some ways
01:21:24
the super richest guys in the world
01:21:25
actually have less agency than these
01:21:27
guys would
01:21:28
because they're so you know scheduled
01:21:30
and people are coming after them all the
01:21:32
time
01:21:33
one of my big takeaways from being in
01:21:34
the tech industry for 20 years
01:21:36
is that if you're smart hard working and
01:21:39
don't have behaviors that sabotage
01:21:40
yourself
01:21:41
you will be successful in this industry
01:21:44
you know over two decades i mean
01:21:45
i've just seen how could you not you
01:21:47
have such tailwinds
01:21:48
at your back there's so much value being
01:21:51
created
01:21:52
we saw over the past year more money
01:21:54
more lp dollars have gone into venture
01:21:56
capital by far than any other year and
01:21:58
more money more returns is coming out
01:22:00
that's why more money is going on no i'm
01:22:02
on the call
01:22:02
when you say anybody could be successful
01:22:05
just by showing it right and
01:22:07
and you said that but the first part is
01:22:08
the critical part you just said who are
01:22:10
not prone to self-sabotage
01:22:11
there is an enormous number of people
01:22:14
who are prone to self i was one i am
01:22:16
still one
01:22:17
but i broke yourself yourself your ego
01:22:20
he blew up his
01:22:23
that's firm but i think he blew it up
01:22:26
because there was creative destruction i
01:22:27
think he wasn't enjoying it and he
01:22:29
needed to start
01:22:29
oh he's talked about it publicly he said
01:22:31
it but the blowing up of when how do you
01:22:34
reconcile the blowing up of the firm
01:22:35
chamoth
01:22:36
whatever number of years later this is
01:22:39
all old news it's like
01:22:40
you know the amount of success and
01:22:41
capital and money that we've made
01:22:46
is undisputable and uh i've made it
01:22:49
under all kinds of weather conditions so
01:22:51
you know it all kind of speaks for
01:22:53
itself but the problem is again
01:22:55
if you ask an average person i don't
01:22:57
think they care i don't think they know
01:22:58
i don't think they have an opinion
01:23:00
if you ask some you know i'm interested
01:23:03
in how you
01:23:04
reconcile or look back on it now it's so
01:23:06
much distance i'll tell you from an
01:23:07
outside perspective how i reconcile
01:23:09
chamath's decision there is i think that
01:23:11
as you become more successful
01:23:13
your tolerance for doing stuff you don't
01:23:14
want to do really goes down
01:23:16
zero it goes to zero hundred dollars
01:23:18
about this got to a point where
01:23:20
he didn't want to be doing it and he
01:23:21
blew it up zero by the way that that
01:23:23
that is a characterization as well that
01:23:25
you know
01:23:26
sometimes in in your career you have to
01:23:28
make it and in your personal life you
01:23:29
have to make a tough decision
01:23:31
and there is there is no good outcome
01:23:33
there is no good
01:23:35
way there's no grateful way to do it but
01:23:36
there are these moments where you got a
01:23:38
rock falling on you from one side and a
01:23:39
rock falling on you from the other side
01:23:41
and you're gonna have to make a tough
01:23:42
decision to get out of the way i said to
01:23:44
myself a long time ago
01:23:46
that if i was ever lucky to actually be
01:23:48
wealthy enough where
01:23:50
um my wealth would change by um
01:23:53
meaningful amounts every order of
01:23:55
magnitude i would do something different
01:23:58
um and so you know you can do the
01:24:02
[ __ ] math
01:24:02
so there it is it's interesting
01:24:05
being friends with you and watching it
01:24:07
and then also i hate to give
01:24:09
you know any credit there it is but
01:24:11
being friends with phil hellmuth
01:24:13
and watching him set outrageous goals
01:24:14
for himself in poker
01:24:16
i just thought you know what you got to
01:24:17
set some outrageous goals for yourself
01:24:19
and that's how i
01:24:20
sort of broke through as i just said the
01:24:21
minute i want to be number one at
01:24:22
everything i do i want to be the largest
01:24:24
syndicate
01:24:25
the most jason prolific investor the
01:24:27
minute i realized that i
01:24:29
was basically going to become you know
01:24:33
a billionaire because of my facebook
01:24:34
stock i [ __ ] quit and the craziest
01:24:36
thing about it is i left
01:24:38
so much stock on the table it's like two
01:24:41
three billion dollars of [ __ ] stock i
01:24:43
couldn't care less
01:24:45
and then and then you know once i
01:24:46
figured out that there was something
01:24:48
that you can do with capital that's even
01:24:50
more meaningful than just investing in
01:24:52
companies at a small scale but now you
01:24:53
can
01:24:54
you know control companies and really
01:24:55
allocate and shape how economy flows
01:24:58
i made a different set of decisions and
01:24:59
now i'm here and if i increase it by
01:25:01
another order of magnitude i'll make a
01:25:03
different set of decisions and
01:25:05
that's poorly understood by folks
01:25:07
because again it doesn't map into a
01:25:08
world view
01:25:09
but the point is it maps into something
01:25:11
that keeps me whole and sane
01:25:13
and it allows me to not be zero-sum
01:25:15
about everybody else's success
01:25:17
and that's what i think we need to teach
01:25:19
people try stuff
01:25:21
it's okay to fail because that's as long
01:25:23
as you're not self-sabotaging yourself
01:25:25
david said it so well
01:25:26
you will eventually be successful what
01:25:29
have you learned david
01:25:30
you know in this next chapter being an
01:25:32
investor capital allocator
01:25:34
that me yeah david you well
01:25:38
just yeah no it's what i said i mean
01:25:40
just
01:25:41
well i mean the thing that's happening
01:25:43
right now is just the
01:25:44
tech economy keeps getting bigger and
01:25:45
bigger it's just an explosion there's an
01:25:47
explosion in the number of unicorns
01:25:49
explosion of the amount of funding
01:25:50
that's available explosion and the
01:25:52
amount of returns
01:25:53
being generated there are now so many
01:25:56
vcs
01:25:57
that vcs are literally throwing money at
01:26:00
people i mean any half-decent idea now
01:26:02
gets funded
01:26:04
the idea that somehow this ecosystem is
01:26:06
elitist or exclusionary
01:26:09
it's absurd right i mean you've got
01:26:11
micro vcs now
01:26:12
who no one has to go to sand hill road
01:26:14
anymore right i mean
01:26:15
there are so many ways there's nobody on
01:26:17
hill road it's a ghost town remember a
01:26:18
traffic jam
01:26:19
i went i went down there the other day
01:26:21
and there was no traffic jam i was
01:26:23
speaking at stanford and
01:26:24
literally i was like i got to put 15
01:26:26
minutes into my drive to get through
01:26:27
that sandhill road because it was at 8
01:26:29
30. right i zipped down central road to
01:26:31
stanford
01:26:32
there was two cars the the tech
01:26:35
ecosystem
01:26:36
is so osmotic it's so permeable in terms
01:26:39
of allowing new people and in fact it's
01:26:40
sucking in
01:26:41
all the talent it can find because it
01:26:43
can't hire enough people even in the
01:26:46
worst economic conditions
01:26:47
and yet when it comes to talking about
01:26:51
social and political talking about
01:26:53
opportunity in social and political
01:26:55
terms
01:26:55
the only thing you ever hear is that
01:26:59
you know the ecosystem is somehow
01:27:00
elitist or exclusionary and
01:27:02
that's old that's old news that that
01:27:04
might have been valid 15 20 years ago i
01:27:06
know when i went to santo road for the
01:27:08
first time 15
01:27:09
20 years ago it was a bunch of white
01:27:11
partners who went to stanford or
01:27:13
had a mbas from you know harvard but
01:27:17
that's not the case now it's a bunch of
01:27:18
people with rolling funds and micro vcs
01:27:20
and syndicates totally
01:27:21
and everything in between if you're so
01:27:23
wrapped up in in being a social justice
01:27:25
warrior
01:27:26
that you've just missed that there is
01:27:28
like basically infinite opportunity
01:27:31
you know then it's on you you're
01:27:32
sabotaging yourself and then five ten
01:27:34
years later
01:27:35
you're still stuck in that role and then
01:27:37
you become bitter and then you become
01:27:38
better to jamal's point
01:27:40
free brook how hard was it for you to
01:27:41
leave google and what was that like
01:27:44
i was at google for two and a half years
01:27:46
uh i had gone through
01:27:47
i joined before the ipo i was like a
01:27:50
couple hundred employees just under a
01:27:51
thousand employees and then
01:27:52
we went public i got this huge
01:27:55
bonus from sergey to stick around uh
01:27:58
when i was thinking about huge i mean
01:28:01
for me it was like um
01:28:02
seven figures it was yeah it was a
01:28:06
couple thousand shares of stock
01:28:08
and like 250 000 of cash and i gave it
01:28:11
up
01:28:12
um you know be worth a lot of money but
01:28:15
i just felt
01:28:16
like and i learned so much at google and
01:28:18
i had such an appreciation
01:28:20
uh for the team there in the company and
01:28:21
by the way i worked at google and all of
01:28:22
a sudden
01:28:23
the company went public and i could buy
01:28:25
a house i mean it was an incredible
01:28:26
moment for me
01:28:28
and and and i suddenly felt what jamaat
01:28:30
talked about which is this freedom
01:28:32
in my life suddenly i had hit that that
01:28:35
next plateau
01:28:36
of wealth where i now had a couple
01:28:37
hundred thousand dollars of net worth
01:28:40
and i could leave or i guess i had over
01:28:43
a million dollars of net worth and i
01:28:44
could now leave and go do something i
01:28:46
wanted to go do with my
01:28:47
no i had a couple hundred thousand
01:28:48
dollars and i could go leave and do what
01:28:50
i wanted to do
01:28:52
which was to build my own business and
01:28:53
have the freedom to make decisions
01:28:55
and um and so i honestly felt
01:28:59
like really fine just leaving all that
01:29:01
money behind i left i left millions of
01:29:03
dollars behind
01:29:04
uh for when i left google after being
01:29:06
there for two and a half years to start
01:29:07
my company
01:29:08
um and you know it was a struggle right
01:29:10
like i mean as you guys know building a
01:29:12
business which i
01:29:12
did from 2006 to 2013 um
01:29:15
was a nightmare every day was a
01:29:18
nightmare
01:29:19
i i say uh in entrepreneurship i said
01:29:22
this publicly before but it feels like
01:29:23
every day you're taking a step backwards
01:29:26
and one out of five days you take a five
01:29:27
step leap forward
01:29:29
so at the end of a week you're one step
01:29:30
ahead of where you started but your
01:29:32
existential memory is that you're
01:29:33
failing every day
01:29:35
every day and suddenly you wake up and
01:29:37
seven years have gone by and you're like
01:29:38
oh [ __ ] we've got an amazing business
01:29:40
and someone wants to buy it for a
01:29:41
billion dollars and um if you don't have
01:29:44
the grit and the guts
01:29:45
uh and the determination to push through
01:29:47
those those daily battles and deal with
01:29:49
that that hardship
01:29:50
uh you know and i don't think that being
01:29:52
in the comfort of the big system of
01:29:54
google
01:29:54
felt right for me i think being in the
01:29:57
playing field
01:29:58
and battling it out every day is right
01:29:59
for me um and so it was the right
01:30:02
it was the right call for me obviously
01:30:03
it worked out but you know still
01:30:05
i i make choices in my life in terms of
01:30:07
what do i want to do do i want to go
01:30:08
live on a yacht or
01:30:09
have some luxury or do whatever and i
01:30:11
prefer to just make great businesses and
01:30:13
turn science into into commercial
01:30:15
opportunity and that's how i choose this
01:30:16
that might never
01:30:17
and i just wanted to send this out to
01:30:18
the whole panel do you ever think
01:30:22
you know having hit the home runs and
01:30:24
having the cash to literally retire at
01:30:26
this age and then just
01:30:28
you know kite board or do whatever do
01:30:30
you ever think about
01:30:31
retirement and not going into work [ __ ]
01:30:34
no
01:30:35
okay yeah you wanna do you feel you
01:30:38
wanna work harder
01:30:39
yesterday yesterday as an example was an
01:30:42
incredible day
01:30:43
because i was able to um
01:30:47
bicycle with nat and uh
01:30:50
the youngest to go get a gelato
01:30:54
i had a kickoff meeting for i had a
01:30:57
kickoff meeting for a startup
01:30:59
that's doing something incredible uh in
01:31:01
batteries
01:31:03
where you know starting from scratch
01:31:06
series a
01:31:08
co-founders me and the other into the
01:31:10
other director
01:31:13
and we're starting literally starting
01:31:15
and i remember the feeling of having
01:31:17
done this now 30 or 40 times and it's
01:31:19
the best
01:31:20
feeling
01:31:21
[Applause]
01:31:23
and then i and then i had a call because
01:31:25
i'm trying to put a you know more than a
01:31:26
billion dollars to work
01:31:27
in a different battery idea and i
01:31:30
thought to myself
01:31:31
god like i'm so [ __ ] lucky
01:31:35
um and it's it was a grindy long day
01:31:38
and i had never felt more thankful so
01:31:41
why would i
01:31:42
you know you could and i don't know i i
01:31:44
feel just so blessed
01:31:47
saks you ever think about hanging up um
01:31:49
or
01:31:50
are you more motivated to go to work
01:31:51
every day are you annoyed yeah
01:31:53
i mean the thing that's giving me the
01:31:54
most energy right now is we're in
01:31:56
uh a private beta on call-in near this
01:31:58
app that we incubated
01:32:00
and um i mean it's better it's it's good
01:32:03
and it's getting better every day and
01:32:05
i'm really enjoying tinkering
01:32:06
on it and i feel like you know i've you
01:32:09
know it's kind of like
01:32:10
a tinkerer by the way you're a good
01:32:11
product that you're good you're good at
01:32:13
the tickling you know we tried to hire
01:32:15
sax's vp of product at uh facebook
01:32:18
what yeah what would that have paid him
01:32:22
i used 2 000 sacks
01:32:30
no no because i did yammer instead and
01:32:32
you know yammer was successful and i got
01:32:33
to be my own boss and that was better
01:32:35
you know so i don't know if i probably
01:32:37
wouldn't have made as much money but
01:32:38
look i've done like you guys i've done
01:32:42
made lots of decisions that made me less
01:32:43
money if i just stayed at paypal
01:32:45
for 20 years my stock would have been
01:32:48
worth many many billions right that's
01:32:49
why i tell people
01:32:50
don't sell everything let your winners
01:32:52
ride at least partially
01:32:54
yeah i mean look my i was an investor in
01:32:56
facebook if i just kept all of that
01:32:58
stock that'd be worth a billion dollars
01:32:59
today
01:33:00
so it's pretty crazy well sell some just
01:33:03
don't sell everything
01:33:04
that's my new philosophy yeah so your
01:33:06
point about
01:33:07
your point about what gives me enjoyment
01:33:09
i mean i'm really having fun
01:33:11
tinkering with this app and you know
01:33:13
what it's like it's like
01:33:14
it's like a new season if you're in like
01:33:16
the nba or something it's like can we
01:33:18
make a championship
01:33:19
run can we get one more ring you know
01:33:22
and so you're like you know it'd be like
01:33:24
saying to somebody hey
01:33:25
you already got you know to a nba an nba
01:33:28
champion hey you got three rings why do
01:33:30
you want a fourth you know
01:33:31
and it's like are you kidding me while
01:33:32
i'm still in this league
01:33:34
well i'm young enough and healthy enough
01:33:36
to make a run
01:33:38
at one more at one more ring how could
01:33:41
you not want to do that
01:33:42
you know you got to go for it i've got
01:33:44
to go forward i can see you where you're
01:33:46
engaged
01:33:46
which is great to see all right listen
01:33:48
it's been an amazing episode
01:33:50
uh we will see you all next week if you
01:33:52
like the show
01:33:54
thanks the end we're not going to be
01:33:57
something everybody go try to do
01:33:59
something anything
01:34:00
possible try it just try outside
01:34:04
your comfort zone read something that
01:34:05
you wouldn't have otherwise read
01:34:07
love you guys but yeah i love you guys
01:34:09
love you back see you soon
01:34:10
love everybody listening to everybody i
01:34:12
mean literally if you're listening to
01:34:14
this
01:34:14
and you are buying into this that the
01:34:16
system is right neutral
01:34:18
don't be a troll don't be a douche like
01:34:20
the system is not rigged if anything the
01:34:21
system is rigged
01:34:23
for you to participate and succeed join
01:34:26
the party the system is malleable the
01:34:29
system is
01:34:31
if you want to change the world the
01:34:33
system is malleable enough
01:34:35
that if you pursue it in the right way
01:34:36
you can make it you can make a
01:34:38
a dent you can uh who is this who is
01:34:41
this little
01:34:42
search hey look how happy you are
01:34:46
who's the best dad where's your dad all
01:34:49
right we'll see you all
01:34:50
next time on the all-in podcast bye bye
01:34:54
we'll let your winners ride rain man
01:34:58
david
01:35:04
and they've just gone crazy with it
01:35:17
[Music]
01:35:25
we should all just get a room and just
01:35:26
have one big huge orgy because they're
01:35:28
all just
01:35:29
it's like this like sexual tension that
01:35:30
they just need to release
01:35:32
[Music]
01:35:36
your feet we need to get mercury
01:35:43
[Music]
