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hey everybody Merry Christmas happy
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holidays it is the end of 2022 and once
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again we're doing our
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bestie Awards yes at the end of the year
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we do our bestie Awards this is where we
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give Awards to the biggest winners
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losers and many other
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categories that you love with me again
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of course the Sultan of Science deep in
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his Kurosawa uh Vibes how are you doing
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Sultan it was great to see you guys for
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dinner last night sax we missed you that
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was a lot of fun we all got together
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twice this week for dinner uh while we
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were on vacation and uh during our
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dinner we took a vote and sax you are
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now the director of the all in Summit
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congratulations yes congratulations yes
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the Griff design My First Act is to veto
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it okay there you go sorry to the fans
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also with us of course is the dictator
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himself chamath polyhapatia deep in his
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turtleneck phase and his Vibes tell us
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about uh your winter Vibes bestie
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I mean I can't believe that we all took
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over Lake Tahoe for a week together
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it's cool it's been a lot of fun I gotta
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say socks you'll be surprised jaycal has
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the life hack of life hacks here he's
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figured out how to basically get
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everything pre-wired
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all the restaurants all the reservations
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it's been great I've loved it we've had
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a wonderful time it's an eight person
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table for every night and he does it
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what months in advance
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every two weeks out I get a table of
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eight uh for five six nights in a row
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and then I invite my besties out and
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oddly it turned out there was only one
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person from Jake outside just himself
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yes there was always a room for the rest
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of us to show up we had a wonderful time
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uh I picked up the check for the nachos
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and tremath brought six thousand dollars
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worth of wine
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I brought my own also
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to the restaurant yesterday so we could
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open the wine properly it was wonderful
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we've had a wonderful time and of course
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with us looks like he had to work over
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the Christmas break uh sax how are you
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doing brother you working today I'm good
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I'm
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just hanging out somewhere well come on
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you could be honest you're at the
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Twitter HQ I recognize that incredible
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architecture and design they spent so
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much money on that office space
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beautiful that's definitely beautiful
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often it's got their own bespoke coffee
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shop here called The Perch we're the
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people that work there
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too soon too soon the people are working
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too hard to be hanging out in the coffee
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shop
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[Music]
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[Music]
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okay so let's get started with our
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bestie Awards this is uh very
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controversial we start with a political
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award
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and uh last year you know this is our
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just so we're clear this is not the
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prediction show that next week will be
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the prediction show this week is our
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winners cue the music yes cue the music
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right there okay here we go 2022
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predictions this is what we predicted
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for the bestie award for biggest
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political winner
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I said Ron DeSantis and so did David sax
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we predicted in 2022 after me you said
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it after me and the way you introduced
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it you said what did Tucker Carlson's
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Writers come up with I said to santis
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and then you said to santis are you
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starting already literally
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okay take it easy you're gonna get your
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flowers
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so Ron DeSantis obviously a big winner
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uh so those were those were great
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predictions
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Freeburg with a wild card there he
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predicted Putin would be a winner in
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2022 that one fell a little flat did it
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not our friend Freeburg not a winner no
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I think he you know I mean my projection
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was really built on what I thought would
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be a big kind of influence that he would
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gain this year you know whether he's
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viewed negatively or positively he's
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certainly at the center of the stage
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right now now chamoth you're 22
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prediction this is your prediction last
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year for this year was that the biggest
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political winner would be Xi Jinping
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okay
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now we go
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to our actual biggest winner this is
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where we tell you who we thought was the
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biggest winner of 2022. let's start with
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you sax who is your biggest winner for
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2022 political base winner this was the
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prediction that I nailed as as you
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mentioned it
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so the Red Wave fizzled everywhere else
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but it crashed over Florida hard so
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DeSantis is my pick he won re-election
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by about 20 points and his coattails
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carried four new GOP House Seats which
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happens to be the exact size of the GOP
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majority uh several polls have now shown
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him beating Donald Trump by significant
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margins for the 2024 GOP nomination he
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is shattering fundraising records
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Florida is now the fastest growing state
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so he is my pick for the biggest winner
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uh political winner of 2022. great
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who is your biggest political winner I
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mean it's obvious it's uh Xi Jinping
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you know there is no single person in
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the world that is now as powerful as
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this one man he
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um has complete authoritarian control
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over 1.2 odd billion people and 20 of
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the world's GDP and a large amount of
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the world's debt including a lot of U.S
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dollar debt
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and so you know it's pretty there's
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there's it's hard to find anybody that
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won nearly as much as he did okay now to
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you Friedberg who is your biggest
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political winner of 2022. I mean I think
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you're the santis and Xi Jinping calls
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were really like good I think the
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biggest surprising winner for me is like
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you know unexpected and that would be
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zelinski um from the Ukraine I don't
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think going into this year
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people paid as much attention to him he
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was certainly not a sung hero but coming
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through this conflict and I think
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leading the storyline about our common
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enemy of the West
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um and common enemy of democracy being
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Vladimir Putin uh really kind of made
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him a superstar and a hero on a global
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stage and I think that's evidenced by
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the fact that he was in the white house
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and he gave an address to the U.S
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Congress yesterday so I would make him
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kind of the biggest winner of the year
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it's hard to go against desanta so
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um you know he he clearly uh has as sax
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correctly pointed out gone into the lead
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we'll see if he can beat Trump in the
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primaries I have my doubts but he does
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seem to be pulling in some of those
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moderates right I don't understand why
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you guys say he's a political winner
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what did he win he hasn't won the
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nomination yet
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he got re-elected to a state that he had
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before 2022 so what did he win exactly
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well I think a couple of things one is
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when he won election to the governorship
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four years ago it was by less than one
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percent it was a tiny margin of Victory
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this was margin of almost 20 percent he
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had coattails and he is now the front
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runner for the GOP nomination in 24. I
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think you can argue you can make the
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case that maybe he's peaking too soon
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well I'm glad you brought that up
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because if you look at the data you know
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I think in the last
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seven or eight nomination Cycles the
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person that's been leading the
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popularity contest going into the Iowa
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caucuses has not won the nomination he's
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peaking too soon almost that's a
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possibility uh because when you're the
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front runner everyone takes shots at you
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on the other hand he if he stays this
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dominant he will drive out
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other contenders out of the primary and
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he may be able to solidify it and if if
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it can just be distances versus Trump in
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the primary he has stands much better
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shot than if it's Trump versus a bunch
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of other Challengers and I think that if
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he continues to pull this well within
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the Republican party I think Trump might
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not run again because Trump definitely
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does not want to risk being a loser in
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the Republican primary so yeah there's
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always front-runner risk but it's hard
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to say that coming out of this year that
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he wasn't a huge political winner okay
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if we're going to challenge other
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people's picks I would maybe challenge
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the zielinski there's no question that
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he's been a global media hero but
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two-thirds of Kiev is currently without
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power eighty percent of Keith doesn't
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have water 30 percent of the Ukrainian
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power stations have been destroyed
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nearly half of the countries without
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power uh there's something like 8
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million
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displaced
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ukrainians in the country and over a
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hundred thousand ukrainians have been
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killed in this war so yes he's been a
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very strong charismatic War leader for
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them but Friedberg your response I'm not
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advocating for his performance as a
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leader I'm advocating for his
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accumulation of political Goodwill and
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that's it okay uh and he is winning the
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war uh so
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is that winning
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well in in war they say there nobody
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wins uh but it's certainly better than
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having your country taken over by Putin
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so some would argue that's winning let's
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go to biggest losers biggest losers uh
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in 2022 we predicted again this is our
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predictions from last year and then
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we'll go on to our actuals for this year
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uh last year we predicted uh chamat said
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the progressive left sack said Nancy
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Pelosi Friedberg you said U.S influence
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globally interesting and I said the
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extremes both Biden and Trump let's go
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with our predictions I'm sorry with our
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actuals for this year chamoth why don't
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you go first this time who is your
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biggest political loser for 2022 I mean
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I don't think it's as written about as
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much but the progressive left did see
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as much failure as the Maga right
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so they were a huge loser I mean to the
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extent that anybody thought that leftist
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you know quasi-socialist policies and
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politics was a winning strategy I think
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that was pretty soundly refuted even in
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places that were
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pretty staunchy Democrat it was really
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difficult for the progressive left to do
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much of anything but lose so I think
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that was a really powerful and important
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repudiation
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and I think it it's marginalizes them to
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a bunch of you know Kooks almost
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and I think that that's really healthy
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for politics going forward so your
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prediction and your actual are going to
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be the same then yeah I think they were
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the biggest political loser in the
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United States at least okay yeah
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Elizabeth we don't hear people talking
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about Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders
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much this year yeah and I think that the
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biggest political loser outside of the
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United States was probably the European
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Union okay you want to expand on that a
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little bit if you just think about the
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coroner that they painted themselves
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into
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how much they had to basically literally
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go 180 degrees away from what their
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policies were you know there was a huge
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raft of whether it was green ESG kind of
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woke liberal politics that manifested
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itself in all kinds of National Security
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decisions and energy decisions that in
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this last year they literally had to
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undo in order to stay alive and
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um that makes that whole political
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construct I think very fragile so they
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were they were a pretty big political
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loser outside of the United States okay
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sax
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it's gonna be hard here to guess this
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one but sax who is your biggest
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political loser in 2022 I have no idea
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who you're going to pick here by the way
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I got Pelosi right last year that she
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did lose the gavel so you've got to say
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that the war in Ukraine was the biggest
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event of the year and obviously you can
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spread the blame around to a lot of
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people starting with Putin because he's
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the one who ordered the invasion but I
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would say this is a slightly different
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take on the category which is biggest
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political blunder occurred on January
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27th of this year when blinken said that
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NATO's door is open and must remain open
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and that is our commitment he basically
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shut the door he kept NATO's door open
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but shut the door on any means of a
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diplomatic off-ramp to end this conflict
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by promising Russia that Ukraine would
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not become part of NATO that was the
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single biggest diplomatic blunder of
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this year or maybe the last couple of
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decades because there's a good chance we
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could have avoided this disastrous War
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if we had just been willing to close
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NATO's door wonderful great crisp answer
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thank you for that nice and tight
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Friedberg who's your biggest political
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loser for 2022. it was a tie for me
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between Jerome Powell and Liz truss Liv
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trust just has to get recognition here
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for only being in office for 45 days as
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prime minister of the United Kingdom I
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mean I think that is uh cannot be
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overlooked uh the uh uh some of the the
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policy and folks that she put in in
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office uh caused you know massive chaos
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it was just a clear dysfunction over a
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very short period of time uh Jerome
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Powell I think this was a big surprise
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this year to see how the Fed chair
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became
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um so politicized and his role became so
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politicized both kind of the the left
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and the right finding reasons to
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question uh his leadership
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um in his decision making the failure to
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raise rates soon enough led to massive
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inflation is what you'll hear from one
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contingent of politicians and the public
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at large and then the rate at which he's
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raising rates now to catch up to the and
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to calm inflation is causing people to
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complain on the other side so there is
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really no one that seems to be happy
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with Jerome Powell and I think that uh
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that that was a a shooting star that
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seems to have completely lost its luster
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okay so the FED yes good pull there okay
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mine is pretty clear and objectively it
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is of course the GOP the Red Wave failed
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it turned into a trickle uh Trump is
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back and I believe there's a good chance
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he will win the primary Roe v Wade a
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complete unmitigated disaster four
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Republicans they caught the car and plus
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marriage equality and having to deal
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with that women and the LGBT community
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vote and they have long Memories the GOP
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the biggest political losers for me
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okay I'm sure Saks has no rebuttal there
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so we will move on to the next category
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uh which is oh by the way if you say it
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that way then you know the biggest
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political loser in 2022 were women look
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at like fundamental human rights were
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Stripped Away
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from 50 of the population so that's not
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cool
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and they could have left it alone and
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they could have left it alone well if if
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what you mean is that the issue was sent
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to the states and each state then gets
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to decide then you're right but but if
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you look at the battles that have
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happened at the states even red States
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like Kentucky and Kansas have rejected
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the the subsequent political push to
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Outlaw abortion so it has not turned out
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to be just by the fact
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that all of these red States basically
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re-confirmed and enshrined a woman's
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right to choose may actually go more to
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show that the Supreme Court is totally
00:15:12
out of touch and that they didn't need
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to touch Roe v Wade and the fact that
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they did opened up you know a huge can
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of worms in 50 states that now go and
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need to go and adjudicate this thing
00:15:23
where it looked like actually that
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decision
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even back in the day even though the way
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that it was done you know there was a
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lot of room for improvement clearly
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everybody agrees with that but was
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actually after you know 50 plus years
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reasonable law and so now that you took
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that law away now folks even in the red
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States you're like no it was fine which
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means that this whole thing was a huge
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political Gambit more than it was actual
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societal intention
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okay so we are going to move on now I
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just I'll add my final two cents to that
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uh as I said I do think women and the
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LGBT community have very long memories
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and the people who are in the moderate
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are not going to forget how they were
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treated by the GOP in this specific
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issue so biggest political surprise we
00:16:07
didn't do predictions last year but I'll
00:16:09
just run down what everybody said was
00:16:11
their political surprise
00:16:12
I said the fact that Kamala Harris was
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sidelined was pretty surprising to me
00:16:16
and uh that's continued
00:16:19
you said Joe manchin was your biggest
00:16:21
political surprise Glenn Younkin uh
00:16:24
winning saxat was your biggest surprise
00:16:25
and Friedberg
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the January 6th crowd making it into the
00:16:31
capital during the Insurrection was your
00:16:33
biggest
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political surprise so here we go our
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2022 biggest political surprise sax
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let's start with you you have a lot to
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say about politics go well the biggest
00:16:45
political surprise to me was no Red Wave
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so I admit I got this prediction wrong
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you know I got all my previous ones
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right Jay kalis I'm gonna admit I got
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this one wrong
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uh you know I believe that the
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electorate would focus on the
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fundamentals three quarters of the
00:16:58
country thought were on the wrong track
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three quarters think we're in a
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recession nevertheless the Republicans
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did not do nearly as well as predicted
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they only gained nine seats in the house
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they actually lost a seat in the Senate
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and I think that that had something to
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do with candidate quality and of course
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the whole election denial narrative uh
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basically was a disaster for them
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I hope that the Republicans move on and
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stop talking about the past what voters
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want to hear about is the future
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Freeburg did you have a biggest
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political surprise for 2022 free book
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yeah it's also the failure of the Red
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Wave I mean that was my my pick I think
00:17:33
the consensus going into the election
00:17:36
was with uh you know Rising inflation
00:17:39
and the disdain that everyone had for
00:17:41
the way politicians kind of managed us
00:17:43
through covet and then managed us
00:17:45
through the economic recovery it's uh it
00:17:47
was inevitable to see a flip and it
00:17:48
didn't happen I think obviously we
00:17:50
talked about why that is but that was a
00:17:52
big surprise for everyone chemath
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your biggest political surprise of 2022
00:17:58
the absolute toothlessness of Maga and
00:18:02
Donald Trump I mean he was just a
00:18:06
Scarlet Letter if you were anywhere near
00:18:08
this guy you were going to lose
00:18:11
and that's surprising considering
00:18:15
how
00:18:16
traditional Republicans were pandering
00:18:19
to him
00:18:20
up until frankly just a few months ago
00:18:22
so I think that we exposed the Emperor
00:18:25
of as having no clothes and that he
00:18:29
marginalizes and Sidelines candidates
00:18:32
into a fringe following that cannot go
00:18:35
mainstream that was uh it was really
00:18:37
surprising to see how Stark that was
00:18:40
this year
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fantastic I'm gonna build on your
00:18:43
chamoth uh I had two here number two was
00:18:46
Roe v Wade but we've beaten that uh I
00:18:48
think and we just discussed it as much
00:18:50
as we possibly could my number one
00:18:51
building on your shmath is that despite
00:18:54
what's happened with Trump the documents
00:18:57
the the uh his cases in the United
00:18:59
States and New York uh and about taxes
00:19:02
despite all of this the January 6th
00:19:05
Insurrection despite all this Trump is
00:19:08
still viable I can't believe he's still
00:19:10
viable and that he is going to be out
00:19:12
there in the primaries and he's going to
00:19:14
have to debate to santis and I don't
00:19:17
know that DeSantis can beat him in a
00:19:18
debate I think he might uh win so this
00:19:21
is completely scary for both me and sax
00:19:23
I think it's terrifying Sax's Nightmare
00:19:25
and mine well I think he's mainly viable
00:19:28
in the minds of the Maga dead Enders and
00:19:31
the mainstream media who want to keep
00:19:35
him alive and the blind Administration
00:19:36
wants to keep him alive and they'll do
00:19:37
anything to keep him alive and in the
00:19:39
news and you love keeping him in the
00:19:40
news so it's a yes it's a co-dependent
00:19:43
relationship between the mainstream
00:19:45
media which you sometimes front for and
00:19:48
Trump oh be careful telling me what I
00:19:50
think my attendance CJ Cal
00:19:53
well I wish the Republican Party would
00:19:56
finally take ownership of This Disaster
00:19:58
that is Trump and tell him that he has
00:20:00
no business but you guys keep him in the
00:20:01
game and the fact that he's viable again
00:20:03
your personal Nightmare and mine okay
00:20:06
biggest business winner everybody
00:20:08
excited to get off politics right now
00:20:09
and get to our Kill Zone which is
00:20:12
business so last year we had predictions
00:20:16
in this category I had said Disney
00:20:18
that's an up and down prediction I'll
00:20:20
get into that in a moment Tremont you
00:20:21
said small and medium-sized businesses
00:20:23
the Old smbs Sac said rise of the rest
00:20:26
the flyover states
00:20:27
and Freeburg you said stripe uh Tremont
00:20:30
let's start with you smbs what did you
00:20:32
get right what did you get wrong here uh
00:20:33
I mean I whiffed it just completely
00:20:35
missed the global macro shift that
00:20:39
we embarked on in full force starting in
00:20:43
q1 of this year it was it is the most
00:20:45
important business Story of the Year
00:20:47
it's just like we have an absolute
00:20:49
complete regime change and by the way
00:20:51
that regime change is so complete and so
00:20:55
you know um
00:20:58
thorough that it even touched Japan just
00:21:01
a few weeks ago or sorry just a few days
00:21:02
ago where Japan who fight you know
00:21:04
finally yielded on this idea of you're
00:21:07
gonna we're gonna have negative interest
00:21:08
rates in yield curve control even they
00:21:10
finally broken it and raised rates so it
00:21:13
is an absolute worldwide sea change in
00:21:17
how we need to think about risk and I
00:21:19
think that's worth talking about a
00:21:21
little bit later in the show but that
00:21:23
was the single biggest business Story of
00:21:25
the Year said I missed this too even
00:21:28
though on another prediction when you
00:21:30
ask what the biggest business loser
00:21:31
would be I think I said that it would be
00:21:34
asset classes that have been pumped up
00:21:36
by the fed's money printing because you
00:21:38
start to feel now so I got that part
00:21:40
right but what I didn't connect it to
00:21:42
were all the asset classes actually got
00:21:45
pummeled so I kind of conceptually
00:21:47
understood that rates were Rising but I
00:21:50
totally underestimated the magnitude of
00:21:53
the shift the way that growth stocks
00:21:54
would get hammered the way that crypto
00:21:57
would get destroyed the fact that like
00:21:59
tiger basically got blown out of the
00:22:01
industry I mean I had the right General
00:22:04
intuition but I didn't translate it into
00:22:07
the specific asset types and the
00:22:09
magnitude of the shift and also the like
00:22:11
what jamas said a real regime change now
00:22:13
and how markets are viewing stock
00:22:15
performance
00:22:16
it's really incredible uh Freeburg let's
00:22:19
get in on this this is somewhere where
00:22:20
you can contribute deeply
00:22:23
what do you think about your take last
00:22:25
year and you still believe in stripe
00:22:28
yeah I mean look it's a it's a business
00:22:30
that obviously benefited greatly from
00:22:33
the pandemic and the adoption of
00:22:36
um you know the payment processing
00:22:38
infrastructure that they've built across
00:22:39
their across various kind of e-commerce
00:22:41
platforms it's
00:22:43
I've been I'm not an investor so I don't
00:22:45
have any numbers but there are public
00:22:46
reports that have highlighted that the
00:22:48
revenue increased 66 percent this year
00:22:50
they've indicated that they're probably
00:22:52
going to experience significant Revenue
00:22:53
slow down with the recession ahead
00:22:56
but it still seems like a super high
00:22:58
quality business and you know valuation
00:23:01
wise who knows what things are going to
00:23:03
be worth when they ultimately come to
00:23:04
Market there's certainly no one going to
00:23:07
uh going public right now so at some
00:23:09
point we'll see you know whether
00:23:10
valuations play out but it seems like it
00:23:12
continues to be a very strong one of the
00:23:14
strongest private businesses that's
00:23:16
being built in Silicon Valley we will
00:23:18
get to 2022 biggest business winners in
00:23:21
one second
00:23:22
I will just say for Disney yeah
00:23:24
man what a swing Bob chapek uh in and
00:23:28
then out and now Bob Iger back so I feel
00:23:30
like I got this one wrong and right at
00:23:32
the same time I still believe in the
00:23:33
company deeply I think they're gonna
00:23:34
have a big win let's get to our actual
00:23:37
biggest winner of 2022 sax why don't you
00:23:42
lead us off with your biggest winner of
00:23:44
2022 for business I said Lockheed Martin
00:23:47
along with other defense stocks uh
00:23:50
Lockheed Martin which makes javelins and
00:23:52
high Mars is up 40 in the past year when
00:23:54
most the Market's been weighed down
00:23:55
Northrop grumman's also up almost 40
00:23:58
percent and even some of the Lesser
00:24:00
performers like Raytheon and General
00:24:01
Dynamics are up about almost 20 percent
00:24:04
in a terrible Market environment
00:24:06
the fact the matter is war is terrible
00:24:09
but it appears to be good business we've
00:24:11
sent so many weapons to Ukraine that
00:24:13
there's recent press reports that are
00:24:15
the U.S stockpiles of missiles javelins
00:24:18
and Stingers are now depleted so these
00:24:21
companies are going to keep doing well
00:24:22
for the next year at least now there's a
00:24:25
new appropriation sailing through
00:24:26
something like 44 billion of new funding
00:24:28
for the war it's now over a hundred
00:24:30
billion dollars McConnell says this is a
00:24:34
Republican's number one priority this is
00:24:36
now a bipartisan concern and if you
00:24:38
think the war is expensive just wait for
00:24:39
reconstruction that's estimated to cost
00:24:41
at roughly a trillion dollars to build
00:24:43
uh Ukraine back sax can I ask you a
00:24:46
question about that it are these when we
00:24:48
uh fund these wars I've heard uh
00:24:50
different versions of this can't get a
00:24:52
clear answer
00:24:53
when we provide weapons uh and systems
00:24:55
like this are they not on account and we
00:24:57
ask for money back at some point do you
00:24:59
know the answer to that question you
00:25:01
think we're gonna get money back are you
00:25:03
kidding it seems to be sometimes that we
00:25:04
do so that's why I was asking I think
00:25:06
it's something there hasn't been Clarity
00:25:07
on look I think the the war has been
00:25:10
phenomenal business for the military
00:25:11
industrial complex so that's what we're
00:25:13
seeing here uh not so great for the rest
00:25:16
of the economy free bird what do you got
00:25:17
yeah I mean I think you guys will
00:25:19
remember last November I predicted
00:25:21
energy and defense to be the best
00:25:23
performing
00:25:24
stocks for this year sax is right I
00:25:27
think defense is up 40 so I I kind of
00:25:29
went with the bigger oil and gas
00:25:31
companies
00:25:32
um are up uh you know across the board
00:25:34
about 47 in terms of equity value in the
00:25:37
public markets a year to date uh
00:25:40
compared to the s p being down about 20
00:25:41
percent uh so over the short term I
00:25:44
would argue oil and gas companies but I
00:25:45
think that um over the long term there
00:25:47
were a couple of big breakthrough
00:25:49
moments uh that I would give kind of you
00:25:52
know the winner in business that will
00:25:54
benefit over the long term to open Ai
00:25:56
and to Fusion startups and we'll talk
00:25:59
more about why uh for those two
00:26:01
obviously later when we get to the
00:26:02
biggest winner in Tech and science
00:26:05
um but yeah short-term oil and gas they
00:26:06
benefited from the supply constraints
00:26:08
and the conflict in the Ukraine and the
00:26:10
longer term I think open AI infusion
00:26:11
startups well and by the way I mean just
00:26:13
just to give Freebirds some credit here
00:26:14
you actually predicted the war or you
00:26:16
predicted a war I don't know if you
00:26:18
predicted this war but you predicted
00:26:20
yeah I predicted the war and Putin
00:26:23
kind of rising to the center stage and
00:26:26
the defense that was a huge prediction
00:26:28
because I don't think most people even
00:26:30
most analysts well they were surprised
00:26:31
even when The Invasion happened I think
00:26:33
people were still very surprised both
00:26:34
that Putin would order it but also if
00:26:37
you study the situation I think you got
00:26:38
to be surprised that we didn't negotiate
00:26:40
harder to try and prevent it I traded it
00:26:43
too I bought an energy ETF so it worked
00:26:45
out for me okay chemath your biggest
00:26:47
business winner of 2022. uh Nick can
00:26:50
throw it up but it's basically any
00:26:52
single person that understands the
00:26:54
following formula so if you this is the
00:26:56
that's so good this is the this is the
00:26:59
capital asset pricing model so what is
00:27:01
this this is like before you make any
00:27:03
investment
00:27:04
what it actually tells you is here's the
00:27:06
rate of return that you need to generate
00:27:08
above the risk-free rate in order for
00:27:11
you to justify making that investment
00:27:14
and if you really understood the capital
00:27:17
asset pricing model going into 2022
00:27:20
it would have been difficult for you to
00:27:21
not make money
00:27:23
because all of a sudden as the 10-year
00:27:25
flexed up and as you know the volatility
00:27:28
particularly of things like tech stocks
00:27:30
went crazy
00:27:32
you could have figured out where you to
00:27:34
park your money
00:27:36
and all these people that have built
00:27:38
businesses around this Capital asset
00:27:40
pricing model so you have companies
00:27:42
obviously so you know you have sectors
00:27:44
of the economy like defense or
00:27:48
energy stocks
00:27:50
consumer goods and Staples they all had
00:27:52
moments where they all did well
00:27:54
but if you take it one step above the
00:27:57
organizations that actually ran big
00:27:59
macro books or really understood how to
00:28:01
algorithmically implement
00:28:03
this Capital asset pricing model just
00:28:05
ran roughshod over the markets
00:28:08
and you know said in a different way
00:28:11
it's sort of my background which is you
00:28:13
know if you understood the capital asset
00:28:15
pricing model you would have been a
00:28:16
massive bear and the bear got fed this
00:28:19
year to a degree that none of us could
00:28:20
have anticipated okay so am I correct
00:28:23
saying the capital asset pricing model
00:28:25
is the biggest winner or no people that
00:28:27
understood it people that understood it
00:28:29
got it okay and for my biggest winner I
00:28:31
went with chat GPT open Ai and their
00:28:35
partner Microsoft why did I pick that as
00:28:37
the biggest winner well uh on my other
00:28:40
podcast this week in startups we played
00:28:42
a game chat GPT versus the first result
00:28:45
of Google's and Molly and I could not
00:28:49
tell the difference and in fact we
00:28:50
picked chat gpt's answers
00:28:53
often above Googles Google one of the
00:28:57
greatest businesses and franchises ever
00:28:59
created has no answer at currently for
00:29:03
chat GPT because
00:29:06
Google's business model is to get you to
00:29:08
click on an ad between links if you give
00:29:11
the actual answer then the person
00:29:13
doesn't stops clicking if they stop
00:29:15
clicking Google stops making money there
00:29:19
is no business model in search if the
00:29:22
person gets their answer because they're
00:29:23
done
00:29:24
this is an existential threat like we
00:29:26
have not seen and our friend Sam Altman
00:29:29
has a line chat GPT open AI with
00:29:31
Microsoft Microsoft I think is going to
00:29:35
release a and there's a prediction as
00:29:37
well a search engine
00:29:39
with
00:29:41
openai that has a significant impact on
00:29:45
Google's franchise we didn't think this
00:29:46
would ever happen and it's here okay the
00:29:48
biggest losers in business we made
00:29:51
predictions last year I said in 2020 I
00:29:55
predicted in 2021 The Biggest Loser in
00:29:57
2022 would be crypto by the way
00:29:59
Friedberg you agreed with me and we
00:30:02
nailed it you agreed with me well yes
00:30:05
that's right that's correct we were in
00:30:07
agreement how about that
00:30:09
independent you said uh and chamath Visa
00:30:13
slash MasterCard we'll get into that and
00:30:15
sax you said asset classes benefiting
00:30:17
from government pumps very interesting
00:30:20
the FED stopping QE interesting anybody
00:30:23
have comments on their predictions or
00:30:24
each other's predictions from last year
00:30:26
on a percentage basis
00:30:29
David absolutely nailed it sax
00:30:31
absolutely nailed it on a dollar basis
00:30:34
the biggest business loser of this year
00:30:36
was big Tech
00:30:37
and I think that you saw three things
00:30:40
happen which I think are important for
00:30:42
the future the first was
00:30:45
it was the most crowded trade both by
00:30:49
professional money managers as well as
00:30:51
retail and that fever finally broke in
00:30:54
the last half of uh in the second half
00:30:56
of this year and now going into into
00:30:59
these last few weeks you're seeing a lot
00:31:01
of panicked
00:31:04
selling to cover losses and other things
00:31:07
so I think that
00:31:09
um number one that happened number two
00:31:11
Regulators basically said we're going to
00:31:13
go after these guys every single which
00:31:15
way we can
00:31:16
and then number three I think it started
00:31:20
to change the Innovation cycle where
00:31:21
people now actually believe that they
00:31:23
can't outspend because folks won't
00:31:26
tolerate it and the things that they're
00:31:27
spending their money on seem kind of
00:31:30
foolish and so I think the you know big
00:31:32
Tech is probably not discussed enough
00:31:34
but it was a huge loser for this year in
00:31:37
terms of what happened
00:31:39
2022's actual biggest business loser
00:31:42
chamat says big Tech Freeburg who is
00:31:45
your biggest business loser for 2022. I
00:31:48
mean this one's just a simple FTX I mean
00:31:50
that was such a incredible uh revelation
00:31:54
of the scale of the scam and the fraud
00:31:57
and the craziness that went on and I
00:31:59
think what was interesting about FTX is
00:32:01
it had implications not just for crypto
00:32:04
and not just for kind of offshore or
00:32:06
regulatory not just for fraud but also
00:32:08
for the investors we had a whole debate
00:32:10
about whether the press and journalists
00:32:13
failed to kind of you know appropriately
00:32:16
investigate this guy rather than give
00:32:17
him accolades because he said the right
00:32:19
things which he said he did over I am
00:32:21
and investors failed to do relevant
00:32:23
amounts of due diligence or form aboard
00:32:25
and have proper governance over him
00:32:26
because they wanted to be part of the
00:32:28
hot new thing and everyone had Capital
00:32:29
to deploy and I think what was
00:32:31
interesting about the FTX failure is it
00:32:33
didn't just it wasn't just a failure due
00:32:35
to fraud but it revealed so many parts
00:32:37
of kind of
00:32:39
you know I call it uh
00:32:41
um you know systemic
00:32:43
laziness and and systemic kind of Blind
00:32:45
Eye and systemic bias uh that allowed
00:32:48
and enabled this to happen it was really
00:32:51
a revealing kind of failure and that's
00:32:53
why I kind of gave it the the award Mr
00:32:55
David sacks who is your biggest business
00:32:57
loser of 2022 well you kind of mentioned
00:33:01
this uh I picked Bob J Peck who's the
00:33:04
former Disney CEO he was iger's
00:33:06
hand-picked successor three years ago
00:33:07
then the pandemic hit which shut down
00:33:10
the theme parks but then I think the big
00:33:12
mistake was allowing himself to be Mao
00:33:14
Mao by woke employees into picking a
00:33:15
fight with DeSantis over the so-called
00:33:18
don't say gay Bill uh that caused
00:33:20
DeSantis to retaliate by threatening the
00:33:22
special privileges that Disney enjoys in
00:33:25
the state and then he had Iger
00:33:27
undermining him behind the scenes this
00:33:29
was revealed I think it was a Wall
00:33:30
Street Journal story
00:33:32
that he was grousing to insiders that
00:33:34
jpeg was not soliciting his advice and
00:33:36
he was undermining confidence in with
00:33:38
the board and uh recently chapek was
00:33:41
forced out Naga was put back in Detroit
00:33:42
fantastic choice for The Biggest Loser
00:33:44
how brutal does Iger look in that Wall
00:33:46
Street Journal piece I mean
00:33:48
would anybody work for him
00:33:50
yes he is incredible he looks terrible I
00:33:53
agree I read that piece twice actually
00:33:54
the CFO calling him up she was the one
00:33:58
who stabbed him uh you know in knifed
00:34:01
chapek It's a Great Wall Street I don't
00:34:03
think I don't think that that happens
00:34:04
without the support of the person
00:34:07
waiting in the wings
00:34:08
Hey listen there's a couple of jobs you
00:34:10
never quit you never quit a hit TV show
00:34:12
you never quit a hit band like Roger
00:34:15
Waters with Pink Floyd why didn't they
00:34:16
just extend it don't quit the Disney job
00:34:18
it's the best job in the world but Jason
00:34:20
why go through this never quit why go
00:34:22
through the theatrics of like grooming
00:34:24
somebody putting them in your job and
00:34:26
then undermining them like I I all I'm
00:34:28
saying is if you're I think he made a
00:34:30
mistake I think he made a mistake he
00:34:31
quit and he wanted to come and also if
00:34:33
like if you're a good up and coming exec
00:34:36
I mean what do you do if like all of a
00:34:38
sudden like you know you have the
00:34:39
opportunity to get groomed for that job
00:34:41
it just seems really
00:34:42
risky yeah I mean I I think
00:34:46
Bob Iger realized when he in that piece
00:34:48
they say he went on his yacht his wife
00:34:50
didn't come with him
00:34:51
The Wall Street Journal piece is
00:34:52
incredible and he's got bored and he's
00:34:54
70 something years old he's almost like
00:34:55
an early 70s why would you give up the
00:34:57
greatest job in the world so he went
00:34:59
back and he took it back didn't Disney
00:35:00
have a mandatory retirement age but this
00:35:03
is my point is he was so he was so
00:35:04
prolific he could have extended it why
00:35:06
not just extend it and be done with it
00:35:08
yeah did you guys read the book he wrote
00:35:11
uh that right of our lifetime what is it
00:35:14
yeah and I think that what was
00:35:15
interesting about that book was the
00:35:18
entire thing was built around a series
00:35:20
of deals that he did it was like I did
00:35:21
this acquisition and I did this
00:35:23
acquisition then I did this acquisition
00:35:24
and everything for him was building this
00:35:27
this this Empire by doing deals and
00:35:30
someone whose storyline and narrative
00:35:32
that they tell of themselves that's
00:35:33
built as a series of deals is a deal
00:35:36
junkie and you're not going to be a deal
00:35:38
junkie where that's your excitement
00:35:40
that's the thrill that's the adventure
00:35:42
that you get out of life and then you go
00:35:43
and sit on a yacht you're not doing any
00:35:45
deal sitting on a yacht and you're going
00:35:46
to want to get back to that and I think
00:35:47
it's less about kind of management and
00:35:50
product and it was much more about being
00:35:51
in the midst of doing deals and that's
00:35:53
probably why that's why he came back if
00:35:55
this was part of iger's diabolical
00:35:56
strategy to get back let me just say
00:35:58
like one of the ways he did it I mean
00:36:00
jpeg had the right instincts which is
00:36:01
when this whole Florida debate happened
00:36:03
over don't say gay highly contentious no
00:36:06
comment no comment his Instinct was just
00:36:08
stay out of it but then Iger made some
00:36:11
statements about how companies have to
00:36:13
live with their values and that gun
00:36:14
stuff and then the employee started you
00:36:16
know again you know Mao Maui him to get
00:36:19
involved and he took the bait and he got
00:36:21
involved and what he didn't expect is
00:36:23
that DeSantis wasn't going to just roll
00:36:25
over to Santa's hit him back really hard
00:36:27
and it cost them economically and then
00:36:30
yeah
00:36:31
and in the first interview that Iger
00:36:33
gave when asked about this question he
00:36:35
was like no comment
00:36:37
yeah
00:36:40
we're not going to give all the politics
00:36:42
anymore it was hilarious that was in
00:36:44
hilarious nuts JPEG to basically get
00:36:46
involved in politics and then obviously
00:36:48
became cannon fodder for DeSantis
00:36:51
exactly
00:36:52
we're out of this now I mean how
00:36:55
diabolical is that well it's absolutely
00:36:58
so dirty the other two things were
00:37:01
jpeg
00:37:02
said we're going to take away your P L's
00:37:05
to each of the leaders that is like just
00:37:07
neutering them that he basically said
00:37:09
everybody's under the CFO everybody's
00:37:10
going to be on one p l that infuriated
00:37:13
all the creatives and then he went to
00:37:15
war with Scarlett Johansson over a 10
00:37:18
million dollar settlement for her black
00:37:19
widow he couldn't handle Talent he
00:37:22
couldn't handle the politics and he
00:37:23
wanted to control everybody's piano just
00:37:26
unforced error after unforced era
00:37:28
congratulations to my guy bobager I own
00:37:30
the stock do you think he was diabolical
00:37:31
at all oh in the best possible way in
00:37:34
the best possible way which means that
00:37:35
Disney stock is going to go up yes I'm
00:37:37
buying more Disney stock this year is is
00:37:39
all like the woke Progressive politics
00:37:41
that he projects is that all just a game
00:37:43
to mask what a Viper's Nest their
00:37:45
Executive Suite really is are you
00:37:47
telling me that Disney is a political
00:37:49
Corporation after Eisner and Bob Iger
00:37:52
and all of this Michael Ovitz I mean
00:37:54
it's the history of Disney it's the
00:37:56
greatest job in the world it is Game of
00:37:58
Thrones to get that job and Bob Iger got
00:38:00
it back he's my guy I'm sticking with
00:38:02
him okay they have the best IP in the
00:38:04
business I don't care how he gets that
00:38:05
job back he's awesome I gotta say the IP
00:38:08
at Warner media is a real strong
00:38:10
Contender I mean we were talking about
00:38:12
this yesterday how good White Lotus
00:38:14
season two was all right let's open an
00:38:15
incredible discussion it is incredible
00:38:17
how HBO produces extraordinary hit after
00:38:20
extraordinary hit the quality and the
00:38:23
consistency of that quality coming out
00:38:25
of HBO is like nothing else you'll go I
00:38:27
mean look Avatar 2 I did not like Avatar
00:38:30
one I thought it was junk Avatar 2 is
00:38:32
getting panned for being junk as well
00:38:33
not everything that comes out of Disney
00:38:35
is a hit they certainly have the best
00:38:37
franchises but man Warner media has a
00:38:40
lot to contend with and uh you know they
00:38:42
could end up being a real Challenger to
00:38:44
Disney in the years ahead sax did you
00:38:46
watch the White Lotus season two yes or
00:38:48
no okay no problem it is absolutely
00:38:50
fantastic we have to do a little fan
00:38:52
service here
00:38:53
what did you love chamoth about white
00:38:55
letter season two give the fans a little
00:38:57
service here but wait it's on season two
00:38:58
I didn't even see season one I don't
00:39:00
even know what you guys are talking
00:39:01
about okay how to show in television
00:39:04
well I'll tell you what's incredible is
00:39:06
there's a diversity of characters and
00:39:08
they weave the super like you know
00:39:10
interesting story together but each of
00:39:12
the characters are so distinct and the
00:39:14
characters are played so well I mean we
00:39:17
were talking about
00:39:18
um you know we were kind of at dinner
00:39:20
last night talking about who our
00:39:21
favorite character was on the show and
00:39:23
everyone has a different answer and
00:39:24
everyone has a different reason and then
00:39:26
there are characters that you hate but
00:39:28
the fact that you hate them and the fact
00:39:30
that you despise them draws you in
00:39:32
you're drawn into these characters I
00:39:34
think that the the way that they kind of
00:39:35
portrayed and the way that the
00:39:37
characters were acted by the um by the
00:39:39
actors uh and then the way that they all
00:39:41
kind of weave together to tell this
00:39:42
extraordinary story uh it was really um
00:39:45
it was really compelling and it was like
00:39:47
just super impressive uh directing
00:39:49
acting writing everything a handful of
00:39:51
scenes in season one and season two
00:39:54
which I would say are
00:39:56
unbelievably psychologically
00:40:00
violent hmm and there's just no other
00:40:03
way to describe like
00:40:06
how they just Expo and and by the way
00:40:08
they do it with
00:40:10
simple shots very simple dialogue it's
00:40:13
almost nonchalant in the way that they
00:40:15
present these truth bombs and you have
00:40:19
to sit there and process it and you're
00:40:20
just like oh my God it's just
00:40:22
it's wave after wave it's an incredible
00:40:25
incredibly well written show the
00:40:27
character development is extraordinary
00:40:29
amazing production and set design by the
00:40:31
way also I mean when you when you watch
00:40:33
don't you want it you want it to go to
00:40:36
those locations do you guys remember in
00:40:38
season Once
00:40:39
sax will remember this because sacks
00:40:41
watched it season one the family is
00:40:43
sitting at the table where they're
00:40:44
watching the Hawaiian dance and Paula
00:40:47
the guest of the family gets up and
00:40:48
leaves she can't take it anymore
00:40:50
and then the next day they're in a
00:40:52
discussion about it and the father says
00:40:55
something about I think hierarchy or
00:40:57
imperialism or something and it goes
00:40:59
around the table and she just dead pan
00:41:01
she says well maybe it's just time for
00:41:02
others to eat
00:41:04
talking about you know like fixing these
00:41:06
wrongs and
00:41:08
I had to listen to it two or three times
00:41:10
I'm like oh my God that is that is a
00:41:12
line that just sticks in your brain
00:41:14
there's a few of those in in that show
00:41:17
that I think I would say and I was
00:41:18
saying like they they really draw you in
00:41:20
the set design the production design is
00:41:23
so compelling you want to be there you
00:41:25
want to be in that experience with those
00:41:27
characters
00:41:30
the pineapple sweet I mean and then in
00:41:33
this season that whole hotel I looked up
00:41:35
the hotel by the way online they hadn't
00:41:36
you know their own set design people
00:41:38
come in and redo the hotel but it is an
00:41:39
actual hotel and they just made it so
00:41:42
magical yeah it was such an incredible
00:41:43
oh we should make that the host off the
00:41:46
wall in Summit 2023.
00:41:51
I'm sorry I'm working on my Jennifer
00:41:53
Coolidge tell your director uh David
00:41:55
sacks what would you like completely for
00:41:57
you yeah my Biggest Loser was crypto and
00:42:00
I think there'll be a subsequent Domino
00:42:02
to fall which is now that Gary G
00:42:06
out of the SEC has FTX and the ftt
00:42:09
tokens as the grift he's going to go
00:42:11
down the list of other tokens and he is
00:42:15
going to start doing more prosecutions
00:42:18
of griffs in crypto Biggest Loser for me
00:42:21
all right biggest business surprise
00:42:23
let's see if we can get Zach's back
00:42:25
engaged in the conversation now that
00:42:27
we're not talking about art and life
00:42:29
sex last year your biggest business
00:42:33
surprise it's actually produced a movie
00:42:35
about Dolly I know he is I'm joking with
00:42:38
him he's a control artist and he sold it
00:42:39
to Mark Cuban congratulations on the
00:42:41
sale
00:42:42
uh David I guess me and Cuban are
00:42:44
besties now fantastic in 2021 our
00:42:47
selections for business biggest business
00:42:48
surprises I was very surprised by dows
00:42:51
chamath by moderna
00:42:54
sax by Tech moving to Miami and
00:42:56
Friedberg you were surprised by nfts
00:42:59
what were we surprised by in 2022
00:43:01
Freeburg we'll start with you Elon
00:43:03
musk's acquisition of Twitter I think
00:43:04
took Everyone by surprise it kind of
00:43:06
went I mean this is such an obvious one
00:43:08
but it went from a Whimsical fantasy and
00:43:10
idea
00:43:11
to suddenly you know cold-hearted
00:43:14
reality with uh you know a huge kind of
00:43:16
negotiating Saga that took place and
00:43:19
Court battles and all the drama that
00:43:21
ensued and here's what I think was most
00:43:23
surprising about it it wasn't just the
00:43:25
acquisition and the and the fact that
00:43:27
the acquisition closed but it was the
00:43:29
the incredible
00:43:31
veracity of the head cutting cost
00:43:34
cutting the demands that people return
00:43:36
to work return to the office and then
00:43:38
what was most surprising that followed
00:43:40
that is the impact that that seems to
00:43:42
have had on the rest of Silicon Valley
00:43:44
where now nearly every VC I speak with
00:43:46
every CEO every board is looking to
00:43:49
elon's behavior for right or for wrong
00:43:51
for you know Moral Moral or not and
00:43:54
saying that's a model for how you can
00:43:56
challenge your team to achieve the
00:43:57
impossible in an impossibly difficult
00:43:59
environment which is what we find
00:44:01
ourselves in and so I think it was a
00:44:03
series of surprising events he bought
00:44:04
Twitter he made these incredible changes
00:44:06
and then everyone seems to be looking to
00:44:08
that as a model and it's really
00:44:10
resonated it's quite a Rippling effect
00:44:11
I'm not saying it's good I'm not saying
00:44:12
it's bad I'm not saying it's moral right
00:44:14
or wrong but the whole thing was really
00:44:16
an incredible surprising unexpected Saga
00:44:19
this year so I give the Elon acquisition
00:44:21
on Twitter kind of the award chamatha do
00:44:24
you have a biggest surprise
00:44:26
I would say it's uh Jerome Powell and
00:44:28
the fed and their staunch
00:44:32
hawkishness uh on inflation I think
00:44:35
everybody wants all of this to be over
00:44:37
and I think we're definitely in the last
00:44:39
few Innings of it but I think what was
00:44:41
surprising was how consistent
00:44:44
and how hawkish and how bearish
00:44:47
Jerome Powell was every chance he got
00:44:50
he didn't capitulate or waver from the
00:44:54
key message which he was saying from the
00:44:56
beginning which is we have the tools to
00:44:59
fix a broken economy
00:45:00
but we don't have the tools to fix
00:45:02
runaway inflation and so we will raise
00:45:05
rates higher
00:45:07
than anyone expects and keep them there
00:45:09
longer than anybody wants because on the
00:45:11
back end of it we can fix a few broken
00:45:13
bones but if left unchecked this could
00:45:16
really do a lot of damage and I think
00:45:18
that that was an enormous surprise that
00:45:21
all the political pressure in the world
00:45:22
all of the financial Capital markets
00:45:24
pressure in the world did nothing to
00:45:26
change his position sax what was your
00:45:29
biggest business surprise of 2022 David
00:45:32
sack's biggest well it was it was a
00:45:34
pretty big surprise that adobe bought
00:45:36
figma for 20 billion that price tag in
00:45:39
this environment pretty big surprise but
00:45:40
I gotta say I think Freeburg nailed it
00:45:42
uh gotta say that the business Saga of
00:45:45
the year was Elon buying Twitter first
00:45:49
the liberal media was up in arms that he
00:45:51
might do it then they insisted that he
00:45:52
must complete the deal
00:45:54
in any event he he did ultimately buy
00:45:57
the company and now he's affecting his
00:45:59
changes I agree that's the big business
00:46:00
story this year certainly it was a big
00:46:02
surprise for me that I got deposition
00:46:04
for six hours is it a surprise that
00:46:05
you're sitting in Twitter's headquarters
00:46:07
today right now yeah it is a surprise
00:46:09
but just by the way the rumors and
00:46:11
speculation are getting out of hand I am
00:46:13
not a candidate for CEO of Twitter so I
00:46:16
want to put the composure on that
00:46:17
because it's starting to get out of hand
00:46:19
and the job is yours my friend
00:46:21
congratulations all right again let me
00:46:23
know
00:46:24
you've worked hard
00:46:27
yeah take out the last man standing The
00:46:31
Last Man Standing outwit Outlast now
00:46:33
that sax has said he is not taking the
00:46:35
job a bunch of Libs have just stopped
00:46:38
taking Xanax the libs biggest fear with
00:46:40
sax was gonna get that job
00:46:42
we just canceled a bunch of Xanax uh
00:46:45
prescriptions uh congratulations to the
00:46:46
lib sax is not going to be your overlord
00:46:48
on Twitter for me it's obvious uh the
00:46:51
Twitter acquisition is the biggest
00:46:53
surprise by Far and Away Freeburg I
00:46:56
couldn't have summarized it better I
00:46:57
will say
00:46:59
in six weeks what we have seen there is
00:47:01
nothing short of extraordinary have
00:47:02
there been bumps in the road has it been
00:47:06
a little chaotic at times perhaps but
00:47:09
the features that are coming Fast and
00:47:11
Furious are gonna be the story going
00:47:13
forward you've seen uh Twitter for
00:47:16
business sax had his fingerprints all
00:47:18
that you may fingerprints all over that
00:47:20
you may have seen uh hashtags for stock
00:47:23
tickers I was briefly involved in that
00:47:25
they're going to be so many features
00:47:27
coming and this is what Elon zone of
00:47:30
Excellence is
00:47:32
product
00:47:33
he is an engineer he's a product genius
00:47:35
the proof is in the pudding whether it's
00:47:37
rocket chips or the cars we're going to
00:47:39
see a parade of features I predict in
00:47:41
another six
00:47:42
to 18 weeks we will see people talking
00:47:45
about all the great features in Twitter
00:47:48
not any of the transitional issues and
00:47:50
people will be shocked my runner-up
00:47:53
metastock collapsing
00:47:55
that was my runner-up for the biggest
00:47:57
business uh shock is that they just
00:48:00
absolutely collapsed I was just going to
00:48:01
add to what you're saying about new
00:48:03
features launching while we've been
00:48:05
sitting here on this pod and I've been
00:48:06
checking my Twitter feed there's a new
00:48:08
feature where there's a view count on
00:48:10
all of your tweets and all of everybody
00:48:12
else's tweets as well so you can see how
00:48:14
many views a tweet is generating so this
00:48:16
tweet that I posted yesterday has 1.5
00:48:19
million views it's like incredible so it
00:48:22
really shows the incredible reach of
00:48:25
Twitter and anybody who's thinking about
00:48:27
going to like some knockoff like Madison
00:48:28
or something is gonna have to contend
00:48:30
with the fact that it doesn't have
00:48:32
nearly the distribution so I think this
00:48:36
really shows the power of Twitter and
00:48:39
then Dave Rubin noticed my I tweeted
00:48:42
this just a second ago and Dave Rubin
00:48:44
noted that the New York Times doesn't
00:48:46
have anywhere near the views for its
00:48:49
tweets because they bought all their
00:48:51
followers which is interesting I didn't
00:48:53
know that but I just went over to the
00:48:54
New York Times profile and and my tweets
00:48:56
are routinely getting 10 to 20 times
00:48:59
more reach more views than theirs so
00:49:02
this is a super interesting indicator of
00:49:05
who actually people are paying attention
00:49:07
to on Twitter it's fascinating
00:49:10
this is fascinating I'm looking at my
00:49:12
own I just did how do you give a 30
00:49:13
billion fraud Bell referring to SPF and
00:49:17
that was just less than an hour ago no
00:49:19
it's 30 minutes yeah an hour ago and I
00:49:21
have 50 000 views already which is uh 10
00:49:24
of my follower account so this is an
00:49:26
extraordinary you see right next to
00:49:27
likes retweets quote tweets the feature
00:49:30
train is coming and this will change the
00:49:33
dialogue all these haters who are like
00:49:35
Twitter's gonna go down who are rooting
00:49:37
against Elon let me tell you something
00:49:38
if a guy can land two rockets at a time
00:49:40
and he can literally restart the
00:49:43
electric car movement and he becomes the
00:49:46
number one car in any category he
00:49:48
releases a car and how on Earth would
00:49:50
you bet against him to build software
00:49:53
you have to be idiotic this is way too
00:49:56
much I mean you guys like we should
00:49:57
sorry
00:49:59
it's like an ad yeah you're selling them
00:50:02
whatever for a company that you guys are
00:50:03
working at like I mean come on I'm not
00:50:05
working yeah
00:50:06
well you guys are advisors right Nick
00:50:09
can you let me show another feature
00:50:11
because I think it's cool Nick sure
00:50:12
let's go yeah let's go pull up my
00:50:14
profile real quick welcome to this week
00:50:16
in Twitter
00:50:17
God Twitter now has affiliate badges you
00:50:20
can see I've got a little craft Ventures
00:50:21
badge next to my name so if you you
00:50:24
should be able to click on it actually
00:50:26
to get to the craft Ventures profile
00:50:29
yeah so you're gonna be able to
00:50:32
affiliate users with business accounts
00:50:36
and it creates kind of secondary badges
00:50:39
after the blue check I think even the
00:50:41
corporate journalists are going to love
00:50:42
this because if you're a New York Times
00:50:43
writer you'll have a little nyt badge
00:50:45
next to your name Wall Street Journal
00:50:47
whatever you'll have the little badge so
00:50:49
more and more people are going to get
00:50:50
blue checks and then people are going to
00:50:52
have secondary or even tertiary badges
00:50:54
that are basically specific to their
00:50:57
affiliations okay so I think let's make
00:50:59
sure we get let's get an all-in badge we
00:51:01
are going to have all in badges really
00:51:03
soon awesome okay let's go for free work
00:51:05
free works that was our biggest business
00:51:08
surprises and we just canceled your
00:51:10
account Freebird they're locked out we
00:51:13
just took away no one goes through it
00:51:14
anyway it's all good don't worry about
00:51:15
it okay best science break they're
00:51:17
here's an easy one for us to do 2022
00:51:20
biggest science breakthrough what have
00:51:23
you got Sultan of science we core of
00:51:25
course have to start with you 22 biggest
00:51:27
science breakthrough Freeburg yeah I'm
00:51:28
I'm gonna give it obviously to the um
00:51:30
the demonstration of net energy gain
00:51:32
from the national ignition facility in
00:51:34
plasma Fusion
00:51:36
uh that we talked about last week I I
00:51:38
wouldn't call it a breakthrough by the
00:51:40
way I think we we use that as a misnomer
00:51:42
last week but I'm still going to put it
00:51:43
in this category it's more of a
00:51:45
milestone along a very long path a very
00:51:48
arduous path a very difficult work
00:51:50
that's been taking decades so it's a
00:51:52
great milestone but I think what was so
00:51:54
important and impactful and Powerful
00:51:55
about it is that it's really catalyzed
00:51:57
the change a sea change in the investing
00:51:59
in the Outlook that this is becoming
00:52:00
more reality as I mentioned last week
00:52:02
we've seen an increase of nearly 40
00:52:04
percent in the number of fusion startups
00:52:06
and the amount of capital that's flowing
00:52:08
in is now reaching 10 billion a year so
00:52:10
this is becoming you know a real
00:52:11
investable or an area that's getting
00:52:13
real investment some people might not
00:52:14
think it's very investable but that's
00:52:16
why I think it's it's been an important
00:52:17
year for fusion and I think
00:52:20
um you know it's something I highlighted
00:52:22
last year I was excited about and I too
00:52:23
picked Fusion uh also just point of
00:52:25
clarity last week some people chamoth
00:52:27
before you go to your prediction were
00:52:28
saying hey you're talking your book on
00:52:29
solar when you're in your disagreement
00:52:31
with
00:52:32
Friedberg that's obvious you've been
00:52:34
very upfront that you're investing in
00:52:35
solar you placed your bet
00:52:38
yeah 100 percent
00:52:40
yeah so just depends everybody knows he
00:52:42
made that bet he's talked about it
00:52:43
incessantly plus those idiots that were
00:52:46
saying that are stupid but um yes let me
00:52:49
uh let me further clarify what I said
00:52:51
last week and why it's important if Nick
00:52:53
can you bring up the capital asset
00:52:54
pricing model again the most important
00:52:56
thing for me is to make sure that we
00:52:58
don't misallocate
00:53:01
human capital into Endeavors that I
00:53:04
think are best left for research
00:53:06
institutions funded by the government
00:53:08
and I think when you look at a capital
00:53:09
asset pricing model and try to build one
00:53:12
out
00:53:12
for
00:53:14
Fusion as an example the expected rate
00:53:17
of return that you need to get from this
00:53:19
is just astronomically High
00:53:21
because of the beta of that investment
00:53:23
risk and the market risk premium you
00:53:25
have to generate
00:53:26
and so you know from my perspective I
00:53:29
think that there are probably four or
00:53:30
five labs in the world that are capable
00:53:33
of actually getting us to a positive
00:53:35
energy equation I think Friedberg I
00:53:37
really thank you for actually saying
00:53:39
that it wasn't a breakthrough in more of
00:53:40
a milestone I think the real
00:53:42
breakthrough is when we have positive
00:53:44
not just joules but we actually convert
00:53:46
that into electrical energy right and we
00:53:49
actually talk about power and watts and
00:53:50
I think that most people listening
00:53:52
probably don't even understand the
00:53:54
difference between joules and Watts or
00:53:55
don't even care and they want to jump
00:53:56
around here or there so the point is
00:53:59
that there's an enormous path we need to
00:54:01
take in physics
00:54:02
and I think it's best done in
00:54:04
governments and I don't want to see a
00:54:05
bunch of billions of dollars get wasted
00:54:07
to get to to get marginal cost of energy
00:54:10
to zero right now I think there is a
00:54:12
point in time
00:54:13
where private startups can take the the
00:54:16
last 20 or 30 percent but I think about
00:54:18
this like the internet which is you need
00:54:20
a DARPA to build V1
00:54:22
and then it could be handed over to
00:54:24
Private Industry and I think Fusion when
00:54:26
we look back will look very similar and
00:54:29
all the folks that try to build you know
00:54:31
versions of the internet that were
00:54:33
private I think found themselves lagging
00:54:35
because there's just a level of
00:54:36
investment that's required that's best
00:54:38
served in government so anyways that's
00:54:40
let's clarify that for all the for all
00:54:43
the folks who got their panties but in
00:54:45
any event my science breakthrough of the
00:54:47
year is that there was a 13 year old
00:54:48
girl this was you know because of all of
00:54:50
this Fusion stuff actually we didn't
00:54:52
even get to cover it because it happened
00:54:53
in the same week
00:54:55
and I think this is infinitely more
00:54:57
impressive and is an actual breakthrough
00:55:00
which is a 13 year old girl in the
00:55:02
United Kingdom
00:55:03
who had a heretofore
00:55:06
uncurable form of leukemia T Cell acute
00:55:09
lymphoblastic leukemia so typically you
00:55:12
start in chemotherapy if chemotherapy
00:55:14
doesn't work you move to bone marrow
00:55:16
transplants
00:55:17
and it was uncurable
00:55:20
and a lab in the UK basically using
00:55:25
crispr edited these transplant T cells
00:55:28
to go in and wipe out her cancer and now
00:55:31
her cancer is literally undetectable
00:55:35
now if you bring up that Capital asset
00:55:37
pricing model again Nick what I'll tell
00:55:39
you is the rate of return on a human
00:55:41
life in my opinion is infinite and so
00:55:44
here is an unbelievable breakthrough
00:55:47
that got very little attention because
00:55:49
everybody was wrapped around the axial
00:55:51
effusion it happened in the same week so
00:55:53
maybe it's understandable I didn't
00:55:55
understand it but I think this is the
00:55:57
single most important thing that
00:55:59
happened in science not just this year
00:56:00
but frankly in the last decade because
00:56:03
if you can actually now do base editing
00:56:06
and eradicate at least in this case a
00:56:10
blood-based Cancer and eventually we'll
00:56:12
be able to bring that and use that
00:56:14
towards solid-state tumor cancers
00:56:18
it's a huge breakthrough in in just
00:56:20
human longevity and human quality of
00:56:22
life
00:56:23
and that happened just a few weeks ago
00:56:26
okay and of course for David sacks his
00:56:29
biggest uh science breakthrough is I
00:56:31
don't care so moving on
00:56:33
sex go ahead tell us yeah no this
00:56:36
category reminds me of when Biden had
00:56:39
that moment where he's like America can
00:56:41
be defined in a single word and he's
00:56:43
like that's kind of how I feel about
00:56:46
this category America is a nation that
00:56:48
can be defined in a single word
00:56:53
foreign
00:56:54
amazing how you figured out a way to be
00:56:57
derogatory about Biden in the science
00:56:59
section a new low even for you sex
00:57:03
oh it's a good one sex I like it all
00:57:05
right biggest flash in the pan 2021 this
00:57:08
is what we said where the biggest flash
00:57:10
in the pan I said uh the woke socialist
00:57:13
leadership of cities I.E Chessa boudin
00:57:17
freebrook said the Constitution Dao Sac
00:57:20
said the word transitory very well
00:57:22
played and Tremont said the metaverse
00:57:24
also very well played everybody
00:57:26
yes very good everybody get your flowers
00:57:30
uh enjoy all of those seem like pretty
00:57:32
good uh selections but this year is what
00:57:35
everybody wants to hear about Freeburg
00:57:37
tell us now who is your 2022 biggest
00:57:40
flash in the pan the undisputable who
00:57:43
here we go biggest flash in the pan of
00:57:45
2022 was the all in Summit
00:57:50
it went that'll always be a strong and
00:57:54
significant memory it was such a hot
00:57:56
thing for a minute and then it died
00:57:58
so um to the all-in summit I I uh when I
00:58:02
used my glass I pour one out I toast to
00:58:05
you to Miami
00:58:06
and uh unless David sacks carries it
00:58:08
from here uh it was a flash in the pan
00:58:10
it was a flash in the pan uh sex who's
00:58:12
your flash which Democrat is The Flash
00:58:14
in the plan for you exactly this is
00:58:16
where I had uh Liz truss as you guys
00:58:19
mentioned she only survived 44 days as
00:58:21
PM I mean that's only four scaramuccis
00:58:28
she was basically fired by the bond
00:58:30
markets after she combined a thatcheress
00:58:33
tax cut with massive energy subsidies to
00:58:37
counter the price spikes caused by the
00:58:38
war in Ukraine that's just been actually
00:58:40
committed to this was deemed untenable
00:58:42
by the UK Central Bank it crashed the
00:58:44
pound and I think there is a serious
00:58:46
Point here which is that as much as
00:58:49
Thatcher and Reagan were the two
00:58:51
towering heroic figures of the 1980s I
00:58:53
think zombie thatcherism is not going to
00:58:56
be electorally viable in the UK just
00:58:58
like zombie reaganism is not going to be
00:59:00
viable the United States I think that
00:59:02
the conservative movement has to stop
00:59:04
living in the past we have to develop
00:59:06
fresh ideas to meet the economic and
00:59:08
foreign policy challenges of today
00:59:11
tremath do you have a flash on the pen I
00:59:13
actually think Fusion literally was a
00:59:16
flash in the pen it was it lasted 10 to
00:59:19
the negative 10 seconds so that more
00:59:21
less of a flash you can't have without
00:59:23
being a flash in the pen ah they have it
00:59:25
hey uh I see somebody who's here oh look
00:59:28
who's
00:59:29
oh is it the proprietor the proprietor
00:59:33
the owner to her customer support at
00:59:35
your service
00:59:37
so actually spent the last 15 minutes
00:59:39
selling your new features uh yeah on the
00:59:41
podcast pretty exciting well the the
00:59:43
like the views are like incredible yeah
00:59:45
I mean and I saw Dave Rubin already made
00:59:49
an observation that if you look at New
00:59:51
York Times their views are maybe one
00:59:53
tenth Like My Views just me as a lone
00:59:56
Tweeter and he said that their followers
00:59:58
are inflated by just basically buying a
01:00:00
bunch of follower accounts yeah the
01:00:02
views thing is huge that's why I I
01:00:04
pushed the views which is like actually
01:00:06
a lot harder feature to implement than
01:00:07
you'd think because the sheer number of
01:00:09
uh transactions uh per second like uh
01:00:12
it's I think it sort of requires
01:00:15
system-wide on the order of of three
01:00:18
three million transactions a second to
01:00:21
actually calculate the view to you know
01:00:23
calculate and display the view count FYI
01:00:25
for Twitter Twitter Global so it's like
01:00:27
three million per second
01:00:29
it's a lot for those of you listening uh
01:00:32
Elon Musk has joined the Pod Elon how's
01:00:35
uh how's the first six weeks been
01:00:36
generally speaking of owning Twitter
01:00:38
well it's been quite a roller coaster
01:00:40
which uh obviously you've um but
01:00:43
witnessed and been on the roller coaster
01:00:45
as well yes the Dramamine I've taken the
01:00:47
Dramamine it's it's quite yeah I mean
01:00:49
it's exciting uh but I think it's sort
01:00:52
of
01:00:53
has its highs and lows to say the least
01:00:56
um but overall that seems to be going in
01:00:58
a good direction and um you know we've
01:01:01
got the the expenses reasonably under
01:01:04
control so the company's not like
01:01:06
on the in the fast lane of bankruptcy
01:01:08
anymore
01:01:09
and we're uh releasing features uh
01:01:12
faster than Twitter's history at the
01:01:14
same time as having contained the costs
01:01:17
and and uh reduced the cost structure by
01:01:20
a factor of three maybe maybe four so
01:01:25
you know the the verified uh is
01:01:28
obviously that's that's that's huge it's
01:01:30
the revenue stream as well as
01:01:32
um uh a means of
01:01:35
identifying of like knowing that it's a
01:01:38
real person and not a botter or trial
01:01:39
situation
01:01:42
the having the affiliation organization
01:01:46
affiliation which I suspect you talked
01:01:47
about that was a an idea of David's that
01:01:49
was great
01:01:51
um to uh you know have organizational
01:01:53
affiliation so you can know that
01:01:55
somebody is
01:01:57
um an actual professor at Stanford or uh
01:02:00
does that this particular handle is
01:02:01
actually Disney not someone simply
01:02:03
putting I work at Disney in my in their
01:02:05
bio
01:02:07
so I think that's going to be really
01:02:09
helpful it they're just really just
01:02:12
having um
01:02:13
detailed and uh nuanced
01:02:17
verification so of all the various
01:02:19
things that you say you are are these
01:02:22
things validated by other people and
01:02:23
organizations can you tell us how you do
01:02:26
product iteration Elon because one of
01:02:28
the things that I think some people got
01:02:30
guilted by over the last couple of weeks
01:02:32
is like a bunch of things got taken away
01:02:34
or changed or rules changed or policies
01:02:37
changed and there was very quick action
01:02:38
and then people had all this negative
01:02:40
feedback about the the quick action
01:02:42
without communication but your
01:02:44
extraordinary Talent is to iterate
01:02:46
product to success can you just maybe
01:02:48
share with people how you do product
01:02:50
iteration in this context to help them
01:02:53
understand how some of these decisions
01:02:54
get made and why moving quickly is so
01:02:57
important and just you know how you're
01:02:59
doing this I'm a big believer in like
01:03:01
you want to look at the net output
01:03:03
um so it's sort of like a you know
01:03:06
what's the batting average uh if it's
01:03:09
like baseball
01:03:11
the point is is not that you're like uh
01:03:14
you know
01:03:15
hit the ball but it's like well how many
01:03:17
home runs you get and how like what's
01:03:19
your actual your slugging percentage
01:03:21
Yeah selling percentage Yeah Yeah it's
01:03:23
like you've got to swing for the fences
01:03:24
you're gonna you're gonna you know
01:03:25
strike out a bit more but we're gonna
01:03:26
swing for the fences here at Twitter
01:03:29
um and we're gonna do it quickly
01:03:31
so
01:03:33
and I think uh generally like my error
01:03:36
rate uh and sort of being the chief twit
01:03:38
uh will be less over time
01:03:41
um but you know in the beginning we'll
01:03:44
we'll make obviously sort of a lot more
01:03:46
mistakes uh and you know
01:03:50
because it's I'm new to the I'm like hey
01:03:52
I just got here man
01:03:53
um so
01:03:55
I mean if you look at like the actual
01:03:56
amount of improvement that's happened at
01:03:58
Twitter in terms of
01:04:00
like I said like having costs that are
01:04:03
not insane uh and getting and actually
01:04:05
shipping product that on balance is good
01:04:07
I think that is uh that that's great
01:04:12
like I think we're actually
01:04:14
executing well and getting things done I
01:04:16
think we'll have fewer
01:04:18
um
01:04:19
pure gaffs in the future how did you get
01:04:21
to your intuition on what the efficient
01:04:23
Frontier of employees needed to be to
01:04:26
make the product better well
01:04:30
um
01:04:33
yeah
01:04:35
I I observed part of this where you
01:04:38
basically asked the question who here is
01:04:39
critical and who here is exceptional
01:04:42
yes I mean is so I mean it really the
01:04:47
what are the criteria is trying to apply
01:04:49
and obviously you're not gonna be
01:04:51
perfect
01:04:52
um if you're moving fast and and there's
01:04:54
a lot of
01:04:56
you know people you're talking about
01:04:57
here is that anyone who is exceptional
01:04:59
what they do where the role is critical
01:05:01
and they have a positive effect uh on
01:05:04
others
01:05:05
um and they are trusted meaning they've
01:05:06
put the company's interests before their
01:05:08
own uh should stay pretty
01:05:10
straightforward yeah
01:05:12
and you know also and it also is up for
01:05:14
working you know working hard like uh
01:05:19
that would not that would not this this
01:05:21
that starts was not Twitter's prior
01:05:23
culture yeah were you surprised that
01:05:26
that the intersection of that Circle and
01:05:29
the people that left was basically 25
01:05:31
were you surprised it was that deep or
01:05:33
did you think your intuition was like
01:05:35
it's probably somewhere in here well I
01:05:37
think you could just stand back and say
01:05:40
without knowing how many employees
01:05:41
Twitter has at all
01:05:43
and say
01:05:45
how many people are really needed to run
01:05:47
Twitter
01:05:49
like let's say you don't know what the
01:05:50
employee account number is at all how
01:05:52
many people needed to keep the site
01:05:54
operational like let's say if excluding
01:05:57
product product Evolution you basically
01:06:00
have to keep the servers going
01:06:03
and uh
01:06:05
you have to have customer sort of a
01:06:07
support function to take down a material
01:06:10
that is in violation of the law
01:06:13
how many people
01:06:16
what's the minimum number of people
01:06:18
that's in the hundreds probably it's not
01:06:20
uh exactly it's not it's not like a
01:06:22
giant number yeah Twitter saw is like 2
01:06:24
000 people right yeah we still have two
01:06:26
thousand people it's not nothing and and
01:06:28
actually if you there's there's actually
01:06:30
on the order of uh
01:06:32
like almost 5 000 uh contractors
01:06:36
like almost yeah almost all of the
01:06:39
what's called trust and safety work
01:06:40
which is like
01:06:42
um the the support functions for the
01:06:44
site are done by contractors
01:06:46
you're doing a lot more to take down
01:06:48
hate speech than the company previously
01:06:51
was doing yeah absolutely I hate speech
01:06:53
impressions are down by a third and
01:06:55
we'll get even
01:06:57
um lower maybe you could speak a little
01:06:58
bit to the what we discovered uh I think
01:07:00
in those early weeks which was the
01:07:03
incentive
01:07:04
the incentive previously was to create
01:07:06
as many accounts as possible and there
01:07:09
were a lot of quick fixes to lowering
01:07:12
all these you know what people might
01:07:14
call bot accounts in some cases it was
01:07:15
people opening many millions of accounts
01:07:18
but uh we discovered this very early how
01:07:21
easy was it for you uh with the tech
01:07:23
team to maybe lower the bot count and
01:07:25
all the fake accounts maybe you could
01:07:26
speak a little bit to that because
01:07:27
people have seemed to think that gosh
01:07:30
it's a really hard thing to get rid of
01:07:31
bots and it turns out it isn't um but we
01:07:33
still have a fair number of bots in the
01:07:35
system but
01:07:37
the like I think the the internal
01:07:41
structure the way Twitter set up
01:07:42
previously was this Relentless focus on
01:07:44
what they called mdao which is
01:07:45
monetizable daily active users although
01:07:49
I would say the monetizable part is the
01:07:51
dubious
01:07:53
but at least things that appeared to be
01:07:55
monetized or could be passed off as
01:07:57
monetizable daily active users so this I
01:08:00
created an incentive to turn a blind eye
01:08:02
to a fake account
01:08:05
so if the incentive structure is like
01:08:08
you know maximize the appearance of
01:08:11
monetizable daily active users then
01:08:13
you're just it's a strong incentive to
01:08:16
pretend that a bot is real and that's
01:08:19
what happened
01:08:20
so
01:08:22
um
01:08:24
we're taking a lot of steps to reduce
01:08:26
the Bots and trial situation
01:08:28
um
01:08:30
so many
01:08:32
um
01:08:33
and um
01:08:35
I think you're seeing that in in the
01:08:37
usage like it's not it's not like
01:08:39
relatively rare to have your replies
01:08:41
filled with
01:08:43
crypto scams I'm not seeing any anymore
01:08:45
Freebird you had a question yeah I mean
01:08:47
just on your earlier question you know
01:08:48
Elon when you first started
01:08:51
um making changes at Twitter after you
01:08:52
bought the business
01:08:54
a lot of people kind of took notice at
01:08:57
how extraordinarily Swift and
01:08:58
significant those changes were
01:09:00
yeah and
01:09:02
um there's a lot of technology companies
01:09:04
that have CEOs and investors and boards
01:09:07
and we all talk to a lot of them and
01:09:09
they're all now having a conversation
01:09:10
like look at what Elon did at Twitter
01:09:12
how can we do something as aggressive as
01:09:15
Swift as deep do you think much about
01:09:18
kind of the the model you're playing for
01:09:21
other businesses and other Business
01:09:23
Leaders particularly in Silicon Valley
01:09:25
and how you're operating Twitter do you
01:09:27
ever kind of talk about that because I
01:09:28
know you mostly talk about your business
01:09:30
and you talk about the businesses you're
01:09:31
running but you're having a big
01:09:33
influence I think in how other people
01:09:34
kind of act and behave that are other
01:09:36
Business Leaders and run other
01:09:37
technology companies I mean to Frank I'm
01:09:39
not I'm not really
01:09:41
you know act are thinking about that
01:09:43
much because I'm just thinking about
01:09:44
like how do we
01:09:45
um
01:09:47
I'm just like you know uh just get
01:09:50
Twitter to be in a financially healthy
01:09:52
place
01:09:53
um and and and fix the engine of
01:09:55
engineering so we can have a rapid
01:09:57
evolution of of new products
01:10:00
so
01:10:02
and you know I I mean I guess I'm gonna
01:10:04
sort of in some ways an unfortunate
01:10:06
position where I uh don't have to answer
01:10:09
it it's not public and we don't have a
01:10:12
board really so uh
01:10:15
I mean so I can just go you know and and
01:10:19
I can
01:10:20
take actions that are uh
01:10:24
drastic
01:10:26
and and obviously if if if I make a
01:10:29
bunch of mistakes then the then Twitter
01:10:32
won't succeed and that'll be pretty
01:10:35
embarrassing and uh sad
01:10:37
but as long as like I said as long as
01:10:40
the batting average is is good
01:10:42
um
01:10:44
um wins
01:10:46
uh out you know significantly outweigh
01:10:48
the mistakes then
01:10:51
um you know it'll be a great future and
01:10:53
I think I'm very optimistic about where
01:10:55
things happen I think a lot of people
01:10:56
want to talk about or understand Elon
01:10:59
your position on freedom of speech and
01:11:02
your principles I'm curious you've been
01:11:04
pretty upfront about it how do you think
01:11:06
about it post acquisition
01:11:08
you know what speech should be allowed
01:11:10
on the platform Kanye came back he just
01:11:12
went insane his account got revoked what
01:11:15
have you learned I guess now that you
01:11:16
own it because you must be getting a lot
01:11:19
of inbound from people asking you hey
01:11:21
how are decision is going to be made Etc
01:11:23
you've been clear transparency is super
01:11:25
important in this but what are your
01:11:26
thoughts on free speech and speech on a
01:11:29
platform like this well I mean the the
01:11:30
general principle I think is that we
01:11:32
should Hue close to the low in any given
01:11:34
country so the lowest vary quite a lot
01:11:36
by by country
01:11:38
um and um
01:11:39
so I think we should be
01:11:41
doing free speech that's that's
01:11:44
close close to the low
01:11:47
and uh
01:11:49
that's that's that's the general
01:11:50
principle
01:11:51
um
01:11:52
the I think there are other things where
01:11:55
it's like okay we
01:11:58
um
01:11:58
like for example like if you're an
01:12:00
Advertiser
01:12:01
um
01:12:02
you don't want to Nestle you don't you
01:12:04
don't want your ad like let's say it's a
01:12:06
family movie next to some you know uh
01:12:10
NSFW
01:12:13
content even if that content is text
01:12:16
you know you know it's like
01:12:20
um but they'll be like uh that's
01:12:22
probably that's we don't you know so
01:12:25
so that's okay so that's you know part
01:12:28
of what you know like when like so
01:12:30
there's there's more of an allowance for
01:12:32
what you write what someone call hates
01:12:34
feature on the system but it's just it's
01:12:36
not going to be promoted it's not like
01:12:38
it's we're not going to be recommending
01:12:39
hate speech it's a risk of stating the
01:12:42
obvious
01:12:46
and we're not going to monetize hate
01:12:47
speech so
01:12:50
or negative speech like that's
01:12:54
nor would advertisers want us to you
01:12:56
know any any I think it's going to be a
01:12:58
rare product that wants to be uh next to
01:13:00
uh seriously negative stuff I would say
01:13:02
you refer to it as hey freedom of speech
01:13:04
but not reach because this is a very
01:13:05
nuanced discussion like should this
01:13:07
stuff be able to hit the trends you know
01:13:09
in that kind of stuff yeah like it's
01:13:11
certainly possible it's some things that
01:13:12
will be regardless hate speech will hit
01:13:13
we'll hit it we'll hit Trends but I
01:13:16
think it's going to be relatively
01:13:16
unusual uh especially as we are doing a
01:13:20
better job of controlling the the bot
01:13:22
Central situation and uh and yeah I
01:13:25
don't exercise like this difference
01:13:27
between the Boston trolls like Boston
01:13:28
like fully automated accounts but like a
01:13:29
troll phone would be where you've got
01:13:31
like you know 100 people in a warehouse
01:13:33
somewhere each with 100 phones and so
01:13:35
they're actually humans and they're
01:13:37
gonna pass a capture test or you know
01:13:38
and they can you know reply and reply
01:13:41
and they're because they're actually
01:13:42
humans but it's actually ten thousand
01:13:46
accounts that are just they're they're
01:13:48
obviously not operating as as as real
01:13:52
people
01:13:54
so that that's you know stuff like that
01:13:58
can cause things to to Trend negatively
01:14:00
that's why I'm like a big reporters of
01:14:02
having just a low-cost
01:14:05
um verification capability
01:14:08
and um yeah so
01:14:11
but like this is definitely a work in
01:14:13
progress so there's
01:14:16
um like I said it's gonna be and I did
01:14:18
like one of the first things I said uh
01:14:20
after the acquisition closed was like
01:14:22
we're gonna make a bunch of mistakes but
01:14:24
then we'll try to recover from them
01:14:25
quickly and that's uh that's what we've
01:14:28
done and I think we've generally
01:14:29
succeeded in
01:14:31
uh recovering it from them quickly and
01:14:35
um
01:14:36
it's been going pretty well was the Paul
01:14:38
Graham and journalists suspensions
01:14:40
mistakes from have you talked about this
01:14:42
publicly about how that all kind of got
01:14:44
resolved at the end uh yeah I mean the
01:14:45
program uh suspension was definitely a
01:14:47
mistake and I actually called the
01:14:48
program to apologize personally for that
01:14:50
one yeah great yeah
01:14:53
um so uh you know on the journalist
01:14:55
front the I think the journalist
01:14:57
essential suspensions were were not not
01:14:59
a mistake uh in that
01:15:01
um for some reason uh a bunch of
01:15:04
journalists thought they were
01:15:06
um
01:15:08
better than regular than everyone else
01:15:10
and that if they engage in doxing and
01:15:13
and uh you know other and break the
01:15:15
rules in various ways that that they're
01:15:17
not subject to suspension even though
01:15:19
your average your average citizen is and
01:15:21
I think that's just messed up uh the
01:15:23
same rules should apply to people who
01:15:25
call themselves journalists as to
01:15:28
you know anyone else on the system
01:15:30
they shouldn't be uh sort of above the
01:15:33
rules for some reason they thought they
01:15:35
they should be that's that's that
01:15:37
doesn't make sense I don't think that's
01:15:39
right yeah and the rules being
01:15:40
transparent and upfront I think that's
01:15:42
what everybody's looking forward to
01:15:44
maybe some just complete Clarity and
01:15:46
transparency and you've said from the
01:15:48
beginning
01:15:49
when somebody gets suspended or the
01:15:51
shadow Banning or this sort of tips into
01:15:53
this really weird stuff that we
01:15:55
discovered during or you discovered uh
01:15:57
where the journalists discovered during
01:15:58
the Twitter files it's it's kind of a
01:16:00
bummer that people are being sanctioned
01:16:02
or Shadow banned and they don't know it
01:16:05
if we're going to have a system the
01:16:07
rules should be clear to everybody yeah
01:16:08
absolutely so the the something I've
01:16:11
committed to and we'll uh well I think
01:16:13
probably be able to roll that out in
01:16:15
January
01:16:16
um just by the way there is like a bit
01:16:18
of a you know we are not going to be
01:16:20
rolling out a ton of new features over
01:16:21
you know Christmas and New Year's and
01:16:23
stuff so
01:16:25
there's like a you know
01:16:28
what's been the next sort of
01:16:31
feature set will probably roll out mid
01:16:33
to late January
01:16:35
um and hopefully in that we'll uh we can
01:16:37
include
01:16:38
um information about why an account is
01:16:40
suspended or uh has uh what as uh called
01:16:46
within Tesla to Twitter uh visibility
01:16:48
filtering
01:16:49
uh AKA Shadow Banning
01:16:53
so
01:16:54
um
01:16:55
uh and and some of these things like
01:16:58
are like there's a lot of things that
01:17:00
just happen accidentally where there's
01:17:04
um you know the rules in the system that
01:17:06
are meant to detect whether someone's a
01:17:08
sort of Bot or troll or or like
01:17:11
brigading where they're like you know
01:17:13
and and then and an account is sort of
01:17:15
innocently caught up uh in that
01:17:19
so um like there was some accounts just
01:17:23
suspended uh yesterday because
01:17:27
um but temporarily suspended like they
01:17:29
got like 12 hour suspensions because
01:17:32
someone in customers it's someone in
01:17:35
trust and safety thought that they had
01:17:38
posted a
01:17:41
nude photo of Hunter Biden or something
01:17:47
oh no but they hadn't they hadn't
01:17:50
actually done that um I don't know it
01:17:52
was just basically a mistake there were
01:17:53
some accounts that would go to 12 hour
01:17:55
suspension yesterday for uh an error
01:18:00
why it happened it was just essentially
01:18:02
a mistake uh in the with Twitter
01:18:05
customer support that was corrected Elon
01:18:07
let me uh let me ask you just a slightly
01:18:10
broader question one of the things we
01:18:11
just talked about was
01:18:13
the regime change that's happened where
01:18:15
you know we all have to act differently
01:18:18
now that the risk-free rate is probably
01:18:20
going to get to five percent and I'm
01:18:22
just curious across all your businesses
01:18:24
so Twitter yes but really more
01:18:26
importantly Tesla SpaceX
01:18:27
are there decisions that you will make
01:18:30
differently or not at all or will make
01:18:32
that you wouldn't have made otherwise in
01:18:35
this new regime and how often do you
01:18:37
think about that kind of stuff
01:18:41
well I think like it's more like like it
01:18:43
does seem like we're headed into a
01:18:44
recession here
01:18:46
um in 2023 the magnitude that recession
01:18:49
is debatable but I think it's at least a
01:18:52
a life to moderate recession potentially
01:18:54
it's on the order of uh 2009.
01:18:58
um so that's so I think it's it's wise
01:19:02
to kind of like
01:19:03
prepare for the worst hope for the best
01:19:05
prepare for the worst
01:19:08
don't get too adventurous like watch out
01:19:10
for margin of debt
01:19:12
like I really advise people to not have
01:19:15
uh margin debt uh in a volatile stock
01:19:18
market
01:19:20
and uh
01:19:22
uh you know
01:19:23
from a cash standpoint keep keep powder
01:19:26
dry
01:19:28
you can get some pretty extreme things
01:19:29
happening in a down Market
01:19:32
um like Brett Johnson who was a CFO who
01:19:34
is the CPO CFO of SpaceX was at um
01:19:39
broadcom in 2000
01:19:42
and he he said that uh and that's a good
01:19:44
company making good products
01:19:47
and he said the the from from Peak to
01:19:49
trough I think in less than 12 months uh
01:19:52
broadcom went down 97 percent
01:19:55
so like even if you had a small margin
01:19:57
loan there you got you got crushed
01:20:00
um it subsequently recovered and I think
01:20:02
you know to to much higher levels but
01:20:05
you know if there's like mass panic in
01:20:08
the stock market uh then you've got to
01:20:10
be really be careful about margin debt
01:20:13
so
01:20:16
but I mean this is just as we know this
01:20:19
the economy is cyclic so
01:20:23
you and it's somewhat overdue for a
01:20:26
recession
01:20:29
and my best guess is that you know we
01:20:32
have
01:20:33
sort of Stormy times for a year to a
01:20:36
year and a half and then things start to
01:20:39
Dawn breaks roughly in uh Q2 24 if if I
01:20:45
were to get that's like my best guess
01:20:49
recessions don't like booms don't last
01:20:52
forever forever but neither do
01:20:53
recessions and it's a 14-year boom so a
01:20:56
six quarter recession seems like yeah
01:20:58
that may that might actually bounce out
01:20:59
the last time it was what four or five
01:21:01
quarters so yeah it's it's not easy hey
01:21:05
um the Twitter files
01:21:07
how how how much longer are these gonna
01:21:10
go on uh it seems like every week
01:21:12
another drop uh and these are pretty
01:21:16
controversial
01:21:17
um how much longer are the Twitter files
01:21:18
going to go on uh in your mind yeah and
01:21:23
maybe why is this important to you to
01:21:25
make sure that people understand the
01:21:26
stuff yeah I think it's important to
01:21:28
like you know if we're going to be
01:21:29
trusted in the future to kind of clear
01:21:32
the decks for stuff that's happened in
01:21:34
the past
01:21:35
so
01:21:36
um
01:21:37
I mean to be totally Frank
01:21:39
um
01:21:40
almost every conspiracy theory that
01:21:42
people had about Twitter turned out to
01:21:44
be true
01:21:45
so
01:21:48
is there a conspiracy theory about
01:21:51
Twitter that didn't turn out to be true
01:21:52
so far they've also turned out to be
01:21:54
true and if not more true than people
01:21:58
thought is there a part of the files
01:21:59
that really shocked you more than the
01:22:01
rest of them like of the things that
01:22:02
have been disclosed of all of these
01:22:04
things is there something that really
01:22:05
sticks out with you is like holy [ __ ] I
01:22:07
had no idea this was happening
01:22:10
or is the whole thing just a big
01:22:12
dumpster fire and they were just looking
01:22:14
at one huge thing
01:22:16
um
01:22:17
you know like psyops versus the hunter
01:22:19
Biden Thing versus the yeah the number
01:22:22
of FBI people involved that was yeah it
01:22:25
was pretty intense yeah the FBI psyop
01:22:27
stuff to me was probably the one that
01:22:28
was the most Insidious like the rest of
01:22:31
it I could think of like you know a
01:22:32
bunch of overzealous Libs got used yeah
01:22:35
got it you know what I mean sure sure
01:22:37
but to have like a secure skiff that
01:22:40
essentially sends things that you know
01:22:42
government agents want the populace to
01:22:44
basically think
01:22:46
it seems like out of like a really bad
01:22:48
dystopian novel and then it turns out it
01:22:50
existed
01:22:52
and then also the thing is it couldn't
01:22:54
have just existed at Twitter
01:22:56
so what are we going to do about all the
01:22:57
other places where this shit's happening
01:22:59
YouTube Facebook yeah
01:23:01
none of it seemed that surprising to me
01:23:03
I mean I don't know maybe I just
01:23:04
believed all the conspiracy theories but
01:23:06
I've also been inside some of these
01:23:08
companies and seen how they operate so
01:23:10
honestly none of it was a surprise to me
01:23:12
was it a big shock to you Elon well you
01:23:15
you Freeburg you were I I think you can
01:23:17
claim that you weren't surprised that
01:23:19
these companies were Shadow Banning
01:23:20
although they denied it but did you
01:23:23
really suspect that the FBI was playing
01:23:25
a role in flagging content for these
01:23:28
companies to take down it's like that
01:23:30
blew me away content that's got nothing
01:23:32
to do with like terrorism yeah they're
01:23:34
not investigating crimes like there's no
01:23:36
crime right yeah they literally flagged
01:23:38
satire
01:23:42
maybe they didn't get the joke I don't
01:23:44
know but uh
01:23:46
they don't seem to be a humor driven
01:23:48
group but
01:23:49
um they don't seem to have the best
01:23:50
senses of humor but aren't they supposed
01:23:52
to get warrants isn't that how it's
01:23:55
supposed to work in a democracy they
01:23:56
want information
01:23:59
that's troubling to me put yourself on
01:24:02
either side of the extremes we have
01:24:04
Michael schellenberger here who broke
01:24:05
the FBI story in the Twitter file so
01:24:08
let's listen to him and to see because I
01:24:11
think maybe the audience isn't caught up
01:24:13
on like what was discovered so now I
01:24:16
know I have to follow Elon Musk that
01:24:18
doesn't seem fair yeah hey guys
01:24:22
see you later
01:24:26
hey guys oh hey Michael how are you uh
01:24:29
I'm good uh just a quick question for
01:24:31
you Michael Michael first of all first
01:24:32
of all who makes that sweater
01:24:35
oh I'll send you mine man do you want it
01:24:37
or are you making fun of it
01:24:39
I praise from you brother I praise
01:24:43
uh just briefly Michael
01:24:45
um isn't the FBI supposed to get
01:24:47
warrants uh to yes take actions with
01:24:50
folks and then I guess is that at the
01:24:51
Crux of this are they doing this at
01:24:53
other companies you think are they just
01:24:54
like embedded in YouTube should we
01:24:56
expect they're embedded at meta and that
01:24:58
they don't get warrants and they're kind
01:25:00
of tipping the scales and is that a good
01:25:02
thing for a society or a bad thing for
01:25:03
society it's a bit of a basic question
01:25:04
yeah well I think there's a there's
01:25:06
multiple issues relating to FBI that I
01:25:09
think have to be unpacked a bit but the
01:25:11
first one is that yeah FBI was
01:25:13
constantly pushing the boundaries of
01:25:15
what is legally and ethically acceptable
01:25:18
in terms of requesting information now I
01:25:21
think what you saw over the last uh
01:25:23
three weeks was a shift in I think our
01:25:26
own understanding that we did see more
01:25:28
pushback from Twitter Executives against
01:25:30
FBI and some alarm Bells being uh wrong
01:25:33
in terms of the requests that were being
01:25:35
made from the intelligence Community but
01:25:37
these guys were really persistent they
01:25:39
kept asking for more they kept getting
01:25:41
more and more cooperation it's very
01:25:43
troubling it does look like Congress is
01:25:45
going to look into this uh the two heads
01:25:47
of the Committees that are tasked with
01:25:49
this or have said that they're going to
01:25:50
look into it next year I think the other
01:25:52
thing that we saw that I think is is
01:25:54
more troubling was this persistent uh
01:25:57
effort to basically communicate to
01:26:00
Twitter Executives but also to news
01:26:02
media National Security correspondence
01:26:04
that there was this heavy foreign
01:26:06
infiltration going on this this Russian
01:26:09
disinformation and it appeared to me
01:26:11
looking at all the evidence both that we
01:26:13
saw from within Twitter and from outside
01:26:15
of it that this was pretty organized
01:26:17
effort to convince
01:26:19
uh key Executives at Twitter and
01:26:21
Facebook but also these key reporters
01:26:23
that that they should expect a hack and
01:26:26
leak operation sometime right before the
01:26:29
elections having to do with Hunter Biden
01:26:31
I I find that very suspicious can I make
01:26:35
an observation I think that maybe what
01:26:37
we're finding out is that the mainstream
01:26:40
media tried to go back to its 1980
01:26:44
Cold War Playbook and turn Russian to a
01:26:46
boogeyman but as we're seeing in the
01:26:48
Ukraine war you know they're not nearly
01:26:51
the formidable foe that we thought they
01:26:53
were and so it could probably be the
01:26:55
case that in 2016 they were as inept
01:26:58
technically as as they are militarily
01:27:01
right now and so we may have just built
01:27:03
up this monster
01:27:05
that uh is kind of more like you know a
01:27:08
a much smaller thing to be worried about
01:27:11
and we all ran with it because we had no
01:27:13
evidence but the Ukraine Russia war is
01:27:15
evidence that you know this highly
01:27:17
sophisticated War Machine and propaganda
01:27:19
machine is not that good at their job
01:27:22
right yeah I mean I think that what's
01:27:25
there's a lot of interest that were
01:27:27
being served by hyping the so-called
01:27:29
Russian misinformation threat I mean one
01:27:31
of them was just to Simply explain away
01:27:33
the Trump phenomenon as a consequence of
01:27:36
foreign interference uh certainly the
01:27:39
people that ran Hillary Clinton's
01:27:40
campaign had an interest in doing that
01:27:41
but then you saw it become a sort of way
01:27:44
I think to condition people for the
01:27:47
release of the Biden laptop
01:27:51
and again we can't I can't prove that
01:27:53
but it is striking that the Joel Roth
01:27:56
this means Twitter executive who I think
01:27:58
was the object of this misinformation
01:28:00
campaign
01:28:02
um testified under oath that he was
01:28:03
being bombarded with these messages all
01:28:05
throughout 2020 that they should expect
01:28:07
some sort of a hack and leak operation
01:28:09
so when the New York Post finally did
01:28:11
report on that computer uh in 2014 it
01:28:16
was briefly censored by Twitter but I
01:28:17
think more importantly it was
01:28:18
discredited in the minds of many voters
01:28:21
including myself I really didn't think
01:28:24
that that laptop was what they said it
01:28:26
was and it turned out that it was so I
01:28:28
do think it's there's a real troubling
01:28:30
pattern of behavior by both the FBI
01:28:33
agents but also by the former FBI
01:28:36
Executives including the Deputy Chief of
01:28:37
Staff and the chief counsel from FBI
01:28:39
that that were at Twitter as Executives
01:28:41
at the time and In fairness Michael this
01:28:44
has been brought up many times
01:28:46
but I just would like your take on it
01:28:48
because you're a lifelong Democrat
01:28:49
correct until until last year great so
01:28:51
it would you know uh just unless anybody
01:28:53
think that you are like some Maga
01:28:55
supporter here just with my sweater yeah
01:28:57
exactly this was all in the backdrop of
01:29:00
trump asking for the Russians you know
01:29:02
during that debate to hack Hillary for
01:29:04
him interfering with solanski and trying
01:29:06
to get him to give dirt on Biden and the
01:29:09
fact that Hunter Biden was obviously
01:29:10
dirty uh so to expect a hack
01:29:14
there was massive precedent for it so
01:29:17
that set the stage for this correct for
01:29:19
sure and there is definitely uh that
01:29:22
going on and maybe that's all there was
01:29:24
to it
01:29:25
it is just striking of course because
01:29:27
and I didn't even mention in my this is
01:29:29
by the way this is Twitter thread uh
01:29:31
part seven that I did on this issue
01:29:33
um I didn't even get into the fact that
01:29:35
you know within a few days the many uh
01:29:38
former senior heads of intelligence
01:29:40
organizations and others came out and
01:29:42
said that it was the result of a Russian
01:29:44
disinformation campaign so yeah sure I
01:29:47
mean I I guess we could find some other
01:29:49
explanation uh for it
01:29:51
um whether it was innocent or
01:29:53
coordinated but it is it is striking
01:29:55
also I think the other thing that we
01:29:57
found was the contrast between the the
01:30:00
threat inflation and what what Twitter
01:30:02
was Finding themselves I mean there was
01:30:04
you know you'll repeatedly Joel Roth
01:30:07
would would respond to FBI that yeah we
01:30:09
looked into these accounts that you
01:30:10
mentioned and they were all very low
01:30:12
follower accounts with very little
01:30:14
activity so they just weren't finding
01:30:16
very much foreign influence on the
01:30:19
Twitter platform and so I just think it
01:30:21
was grossly inflated either for kind of
01:30:25
good reasons or bad reasons I would say
01:30:28
yeah yeah and it's uh there there's no
01:30:31
perfect way to police this stuff
01:30:32
obviously and uh okay well listen we
01:30:34
appreciate your reporting thanks for
01:30:36
doing it
01:30:37
um and uh if you haven't uh read
01:30:39
Michael's book uh San Francisco
01:30:43
you did some great reporting there as
01:30:45
well and uh continued success in your
01:30:47
investigative journalism thank you
01:30:49
Michael thanks guys appreciate it all
01:30:52
right Michael sorry oh lost him
01:30:57
hey you did an interview uh on that I
01:31:01
think I saw it on YouTube or something
01:31:02
where you interviewed someone who was
01:31:03
homeless in San Francisco and they were
01:31:05
addicted to drugs and they kind of said
01:31:08
some narrative about how they were
01:31:10
uh in this condition because San
01:31:12
Francisco basically pays them to be
01:31:13
homeless and pays them to do drugs on
01:31:15
the street did that ever get published
01:31:17
and did that come out because it was
01:31:18
such a compelling couple of minutes that
01:31:20
you got on tape there it really for me
01:31:22
sent home a message of how far kind of a
01:31:26
progressive policies can take a society
01:31:29
and it's such a beacon for where things
01:31:31
might go as other people start to think
01:31:33
about adopting similar policies around
01:31:35
the world which is why I thought it was
01:31:36
such important reporting whatever
01:31:38
happened with that and where can folks
01:31:40
see that because it was such a moving
01:31:42
interview for me yeah if you just Google
01:31:44
Michael schellenberger YouTube homeless
01:31:46
you'll be able to find all my videos
01:31:47
there's a lot of them that we did with
01:31:49
people on the street all of them of
01:31:51
course people asking and wanting to do
01:31:53
them but yeah I mean what we I also
01:31:55
wrote about that in my book which is
01:31:57
basically San Francisco pays a cash
01:31:59
welfare payment of somewhere between six
01:32:01
to seven hundred dollars plus you can
01:32:02
get 200 in food stamps and a lot of uh
01:32:06
people sadly use that to maintain their
01:32:08
addiction and this gentleman uh James
01:32:11
with the tattoos on his face was very
01:32:14
honest about how he was playing the
01:32:16
system in fact he was himself we found
01:32:19
this increasingly kind of horrified by
01:32:21
the incentives that San Francisco was
01:32:23
creating for people to live on the
01:32:24
streets and and live on the streets in
01:32:27
their in their addiction so yeah you can
01:32:28
find that on YouTube so many people say
01:32:30
incentives Drive behavior and
01:32:32
unfortunately these policies all came
01:32:34
from a good place from a kind heart and
01:32:37
the idea that we could help people in
01:32:39
need and unfortunately the way that the
01:32:40
incentives get structured they can
01:32:42
actually cause more harm than good it's
01:32:44
such an important lesson I just wanted
01:32:45
to say that because I think you're
01:32:46
reporting on this really hit that home
01:32:48
uh so so thanks for doing that I think
01:32:50
it's really important because we have we
01:32:52
have to do the right thing for people
01:32:53
but we also have to be careful that the
01:32:55
policies are done in the right way so I
01:32:56
think it's so well said Friedberg
01:32:59
because when you're Michael and I I just
01:33:02
think you're very courageous for doing
01:33:03
it because it's very easy for somebody
01:33:05
to say oh well you are being callous the
01:33:07
truth is incentives matter and we saw we
01:33:10
we've seen this over and over again if
01:33:11
you pay for something you get more of it
01:33:12
and really San Francisco is burying the
01:33:15
burden I think this is what your book
01:33:16
and uh um you know in a lot of the
01:33:18
videos you've made at least the message
01:33:19
I got was San Francisco has the lowest
01:33:22
price of drugs the lowest enforcement
01:33:23
and the most incentives therefore they
01:33:25
suffer because every person who is you
01:33:29
know addicted comes here because they
01:33:31
speak to each other and 90 of the people
01:33:33
who are in San Francisco are here
01:33:35
because we have created an incentive
01:33:37
structure is that directionally correct
01:33:38
as we wrap here yeah 100 correct
01:33:40
including just the non-enforcement of
01:33:43
laws against sleeping on the sidewalk
01:33:45
doing drugs in public not requiring
01:33:48
ultimately three times more people die
01:33:50
living outside is an unsheltered
01:33:52
homeless person rather than live than
01:33:54
being in a shelter and for me that's all
01:33:56
you need to know to know that you
01:33:57
usually we cannot allow our brothers and
01:33:59
sisters to sleep on the street no matter
01:34:01
how desperate they sound about wanting
01:34:03
to avoid going inside it's three times
01:34:05
deadlier to be on the street than inside
01:34:06
so the compassionate thing is to force
01:34:09
people into housing
01:34:12
but you know because you're we have this
01:34:15
perception that people have freedom and
01:34:16
they should have the right to do this
01:34:17
but a person who's taking fentanyl in
01:34:19
your research is not thinking correctly
01:34:22
and if it was any family member of ours
01:34:23
we would not want them to make that
01:34:25
decision for themselves we'd want
01:34:26
somebody else to make that decision for
01:34:28
them correct uh ABS I would want that
01:34:30
from if I was on the street so desperate
01:34:32
that I was you know smoking Fentanyl and
01:34:34
breaking multiple laws every day of
01:34:36
course I would want to be hospitalized
01:34:38
you know and usually you know people
01:34:40
overcome their addiction that's the good
01:34:42
news we always leave out of it but it is
01:34:44
possible people do overcome their
01:34:45
addiction all the time but they often
01:34:47
need some some an intervention from
01:34:49
family and friends and if that's too
01:34:51
late for that then you need the
01:34:52
intervention from the from the city all
01:34:54
right Michael thank you Michael
01:34:55
appreciate it thanks guys so as we get
01:34:58
back to the all-in news network we've
01:35:01
now gone 24 hours a day the all-in news
01:35:03
network has launched we'll just have a
01:35:05
road we should sit at various offices
01:35:07
throughout Silicon Valley letting
01:35:09
Executives and CEOs
01:35:13
imagine we did like a 12-hour Marathon
01:35:15
show
01:35:16
for charity where just people showed up
01:35:18
and we did a what do they call those on
01:35:20
TV what is the Charities
01:35:24
yeah no no just a yeah telephone jaycal
01:35:27
has to still fly commercial and we'll do
01:35:29
a telephone hey sax thank you for
01:35:31
setting up those amazing uh drop-ins
01:35:33
well done yeah I think sex I think
01:35:36
that's your jacket that's a great jacket
01:35:37
is that custom that is
01:35:39
this is the Christmas or holiday jacket
01:35:42
who is it by Isaiah it's uh Valentino
01:35:45
all right well that's that's that's nice
01:35:47
also
01:35:48
um okay no it's nice okay but okay let's
01:35:51
keep going here we gotta go to lightning
01:35:52
round all right let's move biggest flash
01:35:54
in the pan we were was our last
01:35:56
I went with crypto pretty easy to say
01:35:59
that I'm not going to give myself a big
01:36:00
high five but what did you guys think of
01:36:02
the Elon conversation real quick well
01:36:04
he's very talkative any anything
01:36:05
interesting or surprising for you I mean
01:36:07
he said the biggest you know thing that
01:36:09
people want to make sure to avoid is
01:36:10
margin debt I thought that was I mean
01:36:12
he's working hard and um he's just such
01:36:15
a product a focused guy he just gets his
01:36:17
he's like so deeply into it he's like
01:36:19
yeah just ultimately product wins right
01:36:21
Friedberg I mean if anything's oh my god
01:36:23
of course everything yeah that's it
01:36:25
that's it yeah so I mean and you know
01:36:27
products are made by teams so what I
01:36:31
think is distinctly different here I'm
01:36:32
just giving my personal opinion I don't
01:36:33
have Microsoft teams no no
01:36:36
teams make products and so what I just
01:36:38
want to say here is you know like the
01:36:39
second teams suck no that I'm not no
01:36:42
don't trigger uh the bundle but I just
01:36:44
want to say you know like this is a
01:36:46
takeover
01:36:47
as opposed to building a company from
01:36:48
scratch he's had to assemble a team and
01:36:51
then work at this incredible product
01:36:52
pace
01:36:54
and I think those two things are
01:36:55
starting to click week yeah for sure
01:36:57
it's gonna look very different than week
01:36:59
the first six weeks so yeah the products
01:37:01
are really looking awesome and it was
01:37:02
nice of them to give me that shout out
01:37:03
on the you know the affiliate badges but
01:37:06
I'll just give a shout out I didn't hear
01:37:08
it what was it oh well he gave me he
01:37:10
gave me some credit for the affiliate
01:37:12
badges but I wanted to give credit to
01:37:14
the PMS who approached me about that
01:37:16
idea troll I win again oh okay
01:37:19
let me get let me give credit to the
01:37:22
actual PM's uh Evan Jones and Patrick
01:37:24
trogger who they approached me about
01:37:27
this idea they had and then I helped you
01:37:29
know give it some momentum here's the
01:37:32
truth when Dave and I spend the first
01:37:33
couple weeks there now that it's a
01:37:35
little more public anyone's been on the
01:37:36
program what we found over and over
01:37:38
again was that there were great features
01:37:40
that were ready to be released that were
01:37:42
being held back by management and there
01:37:44
were brilliant people with all the ideas
01:37:46
that you'd think should have been
01:37:47
released and they just weren't allowed
01:37:49
to release a lot of these products why
01:37:52
who knows but now that is an in charge I
01:37:55
think you'll see the product cycle is
01:37:56
going to go much quicker the most
01:37:57
important thing I saw which is such an
01:37:59
important lesson for anyone running a
01:38:00
business in Silicon Valley is that the
01:38:02
pace of decision making matters far more
01:38:04
than the accuracy of decision making
01:38:06
it's always been like one of my three
01:38:08
big mottos um
01:38:10
yeah for me like my number one like my
01:38:13
three things are always like grit biased
01:38:15
action and then narrative but like buy
01:38:16
of tax and the rate at which you can
01:38:19
make decisions
01:38:20
is a far greater predictor of success
01:38:22
than the accuracy of the decisions you
01:38:24
do make and so you have to be willing to
01:38:26
embrace failure you have to be willing
01:38:28
to make decisions that could result in
01:38:29
something not being done correctly or
01:38:31
making a mistake and even getting
01:38:32
embarrassed on the internet you know by
01:38:34
making mistakes and having to call
01:38:35
people like Paul Graham and apologize
01:38:36
for them and that was a big moment
01:38:40
as a business scales
01:38:43
as professional managers are brought in
01:38:45
their incentive is to not make mistakes
01:38:47
their incentive is to do things that are
01:38:50
predictably going to work and are
01:38:51
predictably not going to fail and
01:38:53
therefore they avoid taking the risks
01:38:54
and they reduce the rate of action the
01:38:56
rate of decision making and that's why
01:38:58
so many businesses ultimately don't
01:39:00
scale past some sort of inflection point
01:39:02
or when founders that are willing to
01:39:03
push that envelope step out everything
01:39:05
starts to fall apart and it's so
01:39:07
critically important I think to look at
01:39:08
that as being I think elon's defining
01:39:10
traits and characteristics that this
01:39:12
regardless of the scale of the
01:39:13
organization and the Enterprise he's
01:39:15
still willing to act with that level of
01:39:17
bias to action that you typically see in
01:39:18
a small startup okay
01:39:21
can put his reputation at risk yeah I
01:39:25
um I sat in a meeting yesterday he said
01:39:28
that
01:39:29
if we're not rolling back ten percent of
01:39:31
the time we haven't pushed hard enough
01:39:33
right wonderful there you go I mean if
01:39:36
you're never rolling anything back
01:39:38
because you never make a mistake maybe
01:39:39
you're just not right moving fast enough
01:39:41
not ambitious enough you're not faster
01:39:43
you have enough of a bias towards action
01:39:45
you're too afraid of making a mistake by
01:39:47
the way here's what's so interesting
01:39:48
about the views feature is that
01:39:50
a bunch of websites I think it started
01:39:52
because Instagram did a bunch of apps
01:39:54
deprecated you know likes because they
01:39:57
felt that it was too
01:40:00
it was part of this negative cycle
01:40:03
and so they took all this stuff away and
01:40:06
basically views is going sort of back in
01:40:10
that direction and giving more
01:40:11
granularity in terms of outside in
01:40:13
social engagement on a post
01:40:15
which is I think interesting to see it's
01:40:17
happening in a moment where all these
01:40:18
other sites and apps are actually going
01:40:21
in the opposite direction
01:40:21
[Music]
01:40:23
well it's it's like a standard feature
01:40:24
on YouTube and it's very powerful for
01:40:26
YouTube's Network effects because it
01:40:28
shows you how many views you get so it
01:40:30
discourages people from using other
01:40:32
sites because you know you get the most
01:40:34
Distribution on YouTube so it's weird
01:40:37
that other social networks don't want to
01:40:39
follow suit I mean in one hour they had
01:40:41
it but they deprecated that's what's so
01:40:43
interesting but I guess you know my
01:40:45
point is we've only had this feature for
01:40:46
an hour and I didn't realize how much
01:40:48
distribution my tweets were getting and
01:40:50
it definitely undermines my incentive to
01:40:52
want to go use some other platform when
01:40:54
I see the distribution I'm getting on
01:40:56
Twitter well if you're getting 10 times
01:40:57
more distribution than the New York
01:40:59
Times you know what's going to happen is
01:41:00
people stop listening and reading them
01:41:01
well I mean it's sort of like this
01:41:03
podcast itself like I mean we people ask
01:41:05
us to go and my point is we have to rely
01:41:08
on social proof and anecdotes about
01:41:12
the actual scale and the breadth and the
01:41:14
reach because it's impossible for us to
01:41:16
get one holistic View
01:41:17
that shows across all of these different
01:41:19
modalities whether it's Spotify or apple
01:41:22
podcast or YouTube how many people
01:41:24
listen or watch and you know we add it
01:41:27
all up and you know we think it's in
01:41:29
this you know sort of three to five
01:41:31
million range of people
01:41:33
but if you just had a numerical
01:41:35
canonical number that was irrefutable
01:41:37
you just run over everybody this turns
01:41:40
it into a meritocracy this could be
01:41:41
terrifying to some blue check marks when
01:41:43
they see that the people who they report
01:41:46
on get 10 times as many views as they do
01:41:48
of course which is why when when people
01:41:50
journalist look at Sean Hannity go to
01:41:53
Sean Hannity's profile and for the
01:41:54
number of followers he has
01:41:55
hypothetically engaged his audiences
01:41:57
it's all Bots it's all trolls it's all
01:41:59
nobodies I looked at Mitt Romney just
01:42:01
put out a video Whatever in the first
01:42:02
like half hour he had a hundred thousand
01:42:04
views like every politician who starts
01:42:06
seeing this is gonna go wait a second I
01:42:07
mean the world I'm getting more views
01:42:09
here than I am on MSNBC or Fox the world
01:42:11
I need to do this more rational place if
01:42:13
Mitt Romney actually has more influence
01:42:15
than Sean Hannity
01:42:17
let's hope okay let's move on we got to
01:42:19
get through this quickly it's our
01:42:20
longest episode ever here we go
01:42:23
we are gonna do next up it's very this
01:42:27
is a very important category best CEO of
01:42:30
2022 in 2021 I went with Frank slootman
01:42:34
and Elon Musk uh chamoth went with Satya
01:42:37
Nadella
01:42:39
sax went with Brian Armstrong and
01:42:40
Freeburg went with Jack Dorsey now we go
01:42:43
on to 2022 sax who
01:42:46
everybody wants to know sax is best CEO
01:42:50
of 2022 go ahead sex
01:42:52
uh every founder took my advice to get
01:42:55
leaner so down their burn
01:42:57
create Runway you know whether the storm
01:42:59
down you know so you're getting a
01:43:01
generic answer not a person yeah exactly
01:43:02
I mean look I think actually a lot of
01:43:05
the names a lot of the names well here's
01:43:07
the problem is that you know yeah can I
01:43:09
finish Jacob
01:43:11
the the names that you mentioned from
01:43:12
last year would be the top candidates
01:43:14
for this year I mean I think Sacha
01:43:15
Nadella had a good year obviously what
01:43:17
elon's doing we just talked about it's
01:43:19
amazing um Brian Armstrong I think stock
01:43:21
hasn't done great but he's been a strong
01:43:23
CEO but I don't want to repeat the same
01:43:24
names I think that you know every CEO
01:43:27
who responded to the regime change by
01:43:29
cutting costs getting leaner extending
01:43:31
Runway
01:43:33
I think deserves to be on this list and
01:43:35
unfortunately a lot of them are just
01:43:37
resisting and they're just not yet
01:43:39
taking the medicine or they've been
01:43:41
taking the medicine in little drips and
01:43:43
drives instead of just like swallowing
01:43:44
it whole and getting a move on yeah just
01:43:46
drink the whole two tablespoons of
01:43:49
medicine don't sip it you gotta just
01:43:51
take it it's not getting better I mean
01:43:52
the stock market today should be a
01:43:54
wake-up call I mean this is one of the
01:43:57
worst days in the market the whole year
01:44:00
so things are getting worse before
01:44:01
they're getting better chamoth who is
01:44:04
your best CEO of the Year well the
01:44:06
numerical answer is Vicki hollab who's
01:44:08
the CEO of Occidental Petroleum stocks
01:44:10
up like 140 this year it's technically
01:44:12
the best performing stock of the year
01:44:15
63 billion dollar company
01:44:18
but that's just a numerical answer who I
01:44:21
uh I actually want to double down on
01:44:23
David's answer Sax's answer because I
01:44:25
agree with that
01:44:27
I have been guiding uh our portfolio
01:44:29
company CEOs to be at cash flow break
01:44:33
even now or extend Runway to q1 2025.
01:44:37
and they're 25 yes because I I mean I
01:44:41
think he's not 24. well Elon and I are
01:44:43
kind of roughly in the same place we
01:44:44
have been for a while which is like you
01:44:46
know mid 24 is when the recession ends
01:44:48
and you need to give yourself two to
01:44:49
three quarters of buffers so that you
01:44:51
can go and raise around which takes a
01:44:52
quarter to two quarters and once you
01:44:55
start to get kind of get escape velocity
01:44:57
out of a recession having money through
01:44:59
end of q1 2025 I think is a is a minimum
01:45:04
requirement and you know of the
01:45:07
companies that I think were the most
01:45:09
precariously
01:45:11
positioned there was five of them that
01:45:14
got their acts together and really did
01:45:16
it
01:45:17
but these are all CEOs of companies that
01:45:19
you know I mean if you said them you
01:45:20
would know some of them but I I do agree
01:45:22
with David I think the CEO that bit the
01:45:24
bullet so maybe publicly what I would
01:45:26
say is
01:45:26
you know the CEO of klarna deserves a
01:45:29
huge
01:45:32
you know metal for Having the courage to
01:45:34
do it before anybody else did the CEO of
01:45:35
checkout.com just took a huge write down
01:45:38
these CEOs are making sure their
01:45:40
companies survive Friedberg best C EO
01:45:44
2022. my vote for best CEO is Warren
01:45:48
Buffett and I think it is just simple
01:45:50
arithmetic
01:45:51
uh he has for years and now for decades
01:45:55
proven himself
01:45:56
uh to be just not just an exceptional
01:45:59
investor or stock picker whatever the
01:46:01
kind of typical
01:46:02
quip is about what he does for a living
01:46:05
but I think what's so extraordinary
01:46:07
about Buffett is that regardless of the
01:46:09
market conditions he can kind of remain
01:46:11
steadfast in his uh intent and in his
01:46:14
mission and he doesn't kind of waver and
01:46:17
you know he doesn't take an active role
01:46:19
in ranting and complaining about markets
01:46:22
and politics and I think that that's
01:46:23
what makes him such an extraordinary
01:46:25
leader he stays within his zone of
01:46:26
competence he doesn't do things that he
01:46:28
doesn't know about he doesn't let the
01:46:30
macro drive him and cause him to be kind
01:46:33
of
01:46:33
um you know affected by it and he says
01:46:36
this is what I know how to do this is
01:46:37
what I can do and that is all that he
01:46:39
does do and he does it so exceptionally
01:46:41
well and to Jamal's point he is the
01:46:43
largest shareholder of Occidental
01:46:44
Petroleum along with many other uh
01:46:46
incredible businesses and I think he's
01:46:48
proven in a market like we just had this
01:46:50
year why he is kind of the most
01:46:52
extraordinary CEO or one of the most
01:46:54
extraordinary CEOs but one of the you
01:46:55
know best kind of capital allocators of
01:46:58
all time I'm going to go in a similar
01:47:01
fashion as Chama off and sacks and go
01:47:04
with the money losing CEOs who have
01:47:07
dedicated themselves to free cash flow
01:47:10
and to getting to profitability from the
01:47:12
last cycle Airbnb and Uber were the
01:47:14
money losers and now Airbnb is my number
01:47:17
one they become a money printer they are
01:47:20
now making bank
01:47:22
and they're still growing very uh
01:47:24
quickly and then Uber I put in my second
01:47:27
they need to do another riff they need
01:47:29
to cut some expenses but they too are
01:47:31
hitting the free cash flow and the
01:47:32
network effects so I'm giving it to uh
01:47:35
chesky and then Dara
01:47:37
one and two okay let's keep moving best
01:47:39
investor uh for me uh I'm going with the
01:47:43
investors like a general category
01:47:45
who are demanding governance and doing
01:47:48
diligence again uh or who never stopped
01:47:51
let me say it that way there's a
01:47:53
generation of investors who've raised
01:47:55
their funds in the last five years and
01:47:57
didn't do diligence didn't demand board
01:47:58
seats didn't demand boards
01:48:01
those uh idiots are now paying the price
01:48:04
and they created a lot of this mess of
01:48:06
entitlement and a lack of governance I
01:48:08
want to give a shout out to the bill
01:48:09
girlies of the world
01:48:11
who fought for governance and fought for
01:48:13
diligence in the face of being told okay
01:48:15
Boomer you don't get it who do you have
01:48:18
uh best investors
01:48:21
I will pick the what are called the pot
01:48:24
shops so these are folks that have
01:48:27
strategies where they have hundreds of
01:48:28
investing pods underneath an umbrella
01:48:31
and they have this very sophisticated
01:48:33
risk infrastructure so this is what Ken
01:48:36
Griffin owns in Citadel this is what
01:48:38
Izzy Englander owns in millennium
01:48:40
Brevin Howard is another one
01:48:43
de Shaw's another one so they have all
01:48:46
kinds of strategies
01:48:48
but that are essentially run by
01:48:49
computers that allocate risk you know
01:48:51
scale you up scale you back turn you on
01:48:54
turn you off fire you overnight
01:48:56
and those strategies as a whole ran over
01:48:59
the market this year
01:49:01
they were the best performers
01:49:03
they are giving back billions of dollars
01:49:05
they've generated double-digit positive
01:49:07
returns
01:49:09
they're raising their fees in some cases
01:49:11
some of these folks are moving their
01:49:13
annual fee up to four percent a year
01:49:15
they're carry up to 40 percent a year
01:49:19
incredibly incredibly well-run
01:49:21
performant businesses they were by and
01:49:24
Away the best investors uh this year
01:49:27
okay we're gonna go lightning around
01:49:28
from here uh Sachs do you have a uh best
01:49:31
investor yeah I said uh Stan uh drucken
01:49:34
Miller he has to recall last year he
01:49:36
predicted that inflation would be
01:49:38
lasting this is the spring of 2021 when
01:49:40
transitory was the word of the day this
01:49:43
year he predicted the bear Market rally
01:49:45
we had in July and August and I remember
01:49:49
back at the coaching Summit in may they
01:49:51
were around that time he was interviewed
01:49:53
and he basically was saying that as soon
01:49:56
as there was a bear Market rally over
01:49:59
the summer that he would then put a
01:50:01
short position on I don't know if he
01:50:02
actually did that but he said he's going
01:50:04
to do that and then it turns out that
01:50:05
the summer rally that we had was a dead
01:50:08
cap bounce so he was right about that
01:50:09
and now he is predicting a hard Landing
01:50:12
in 2023 with a deeper recession than
01:50:15
many expect so sadly I suspect he may be
01:50:18
right yet again
01:50:20
Friedberg best investor for you 2020.
01:50:22
damn yeah I had drunken Miller I I
01:50:24
indicated that he's been doing
01:50:25
interviews pretty much every quarter for
01:50:27
the last two years and he's been
01:50:28
pounding the table telling everyone
01:50:29
what's going to happen and it all
01:50:30
happened and he even told people the
01:50:32
trades in mid-2021 he said he was short
01:50:35
long dated treasuries and he was long
01:50:36
Commodities and if you had put those two
01:50:38
trades on at that time and held them to
01:50:40
today you would have made a fortune and
01:50:42
so I think he's extraordinary in his um
01:50:44
ability to kind of see macro in a way
01:50:46
that others don't but also to take
01:50:48
extremely brave action with his
01:50:50
portfolio he's renowned for how big the
01:50:52
bets are that he makes and how quickly
01:50:55
he can change his mind when he's wrong
01:50:56
and make another big bet and still get
01:50:58
himself out of the hole he's incredible
01:51:00
so definitely give it to Stanley brooken
01:51:02
Miller this year 2021 we did
01:51:04
our best turnarounds I pick Disney Jamal
01:51:08
Ford Freiburg
01:51:11
what about the worst investor of 2022
01:51:14
can we do that coach moth you want a
01:51:16
freestyle tell us your worst investor of
01:51:17
2022. I mean I'll put myself in the
01:51:19
category along with anybody else who was
01:51:21
long tech hey Steve Nick if you can just
01:51:23
bring please back up this Capital as a
01:51:26
pricing model any of us that didn't
01:51:28
understand this got run over
01:51:31
this year and just to put some very
01:51:33
specific numbers here
01:51:36
there was a decent little tweet thread
01:51:38
uh that Elon was a part of where he they
01:51:40
actually calculated what the expected
01:51:43
rate of return of Tesla was and it
01:51:45
turned out to be almost 14 a year
01:51:48
and so you know when you start to
01:51:50
compound 14 over three four five years
01:51:52
these numbers get very big very quickly
01:51:55
and the reason why is that it has a huge
01:51:58
beta and we're in a world now where the
01:52:00
risk-free rate is quite high so all of
01:52:03
us benefited from this equation
01:52:05
essentially being upside down for the
01:52:08
last 15 years
01:52:09
and all of us who were over allocated
01:52:12
into things that benefited from those
01:52:14
Dynamics
01:52:15
frankly got run over this year so we
01:52:17
were as a class the worst investors of
01:52:20
2022. okay here we go let's do our best
01:52:24
turn around I am going to go with uh me
01:52:27
for me it's meta they were losing money
01:52:32
hand over Fest they refused to do a rift
01:52:34
and then finally
01:52:35
bestie Brad gerstner said uh let's get
01:52:38
fit he did a memo and finally finally
01:52:40
Zuckerberg made some Cuts reportedly
01:52:43
rumors he's making a 15 10 or 15 cut I
01:52:47
heard in the back channels right now
01:52:49
based on performance so he's not calling
01:52:51
it a riff or a layoff they're just going
01:52:52
to cut the bottom 10 or 15 again
01:52:54
so I think zuck's gonna turn it around
01:52:58
anybody have a best turnaround so you're
01:53:00
saying zoc mission accomplished
01:53:02
turn around this year
01:53:05
I'm going with meta so your answer is
01:53:07
meta was turned around by Zuck this year
01:53:09
yes they got down to 85 and now they're
01:53:12
up what 110 115 yes he turned it around
01:53:15
at the end of the year it was like a
01:53:16
Hail Mary at the end of the year he's
01:53:17
turned it around I think he's going to
01:53:18
continue to yes that is my position
01:53:25
go with that Jacob okay so if we're
01:53:27
talking about very partial turnarounds
01:53:29
here I would say I would say that you
01:53:33
can measure the turnaround as of October
01:53:35
24th to now yes exactly so uh San
01:53:39
Francisco is still overall a mess but
01:53:41
there were a few positive events that
01:53:43
happened over the past year and since
01:53:45
we're looking back we should call these
01:53:47
out so first of all
01:53:49
back this is towards the beginning of
01:53:50
the year we recalled three members of
01:53:52
the school board uh most particularly
01:53:54
Allison Collins remember her this was
01:53:57
done by something like
01:54:00
a 70 30 margin an 80 20 on on Collins
01:54:03
this was the school board that had
01:54:05
dragged his feet on school reopenings
01:54:06
they destroyed the merit-based Lowell
01:54:09
High School they wasted hours of
01:54:11
meetings on a silly plan to remove the
01:54:13
names of names like Abraham Lincoln from
01:54:16
this from the schools in any event they
01:54:18
were removed then Jake how you referred
01:54:20
to this we got chase a boudin recalled
01:54:23
the bias 60 40 margin as San Francisco
01:54:25
D.A this was the D.A who whose agenda
01:54:28
was decarceration he tried to release as
01:54:31
many repeat offenders as possible the
01:54:34
voters San Francisco had enough and then
01:54:36
most recently the far less supervisor
01:54:38
Gordon Marr just got rejected by his own
01:54:40
Community this November and the new
01:54:43
tough D.A Brook Jenkins
01:54:45
um got reelected in her own right after
01:54:48
being appointed by London breeds so
01:54:50
there's still a long way to go in San
01:54:51
Francisco but there are definitely some
01:54:53
green shoes that the electorate here has
01:54:56
had enough and is looking for the let's
01:54:59
say called the Centrist Democrats as
01:55:01
opposed to the radicals
01:55:03
okay we're in the lightning round here
01:55:05
we're in hour three of the all in
01:55:07
podcast uh Marathon this uh Telethon
01:55:11
got a best turnaround for 2022. Hard One
01:55:15
to give so any green shoots for 2022 as
01:55:17
sax would say no I mean the everything
01:55:21
everything's just got a disaster great
01:55:24
freeberg anything that you have there
01:55:26
may be no turnaround award until 2025
01:55:29
fine okay yeah we have a little split on
01:55:31
this free bird you got anything if
01:55:33
you're you're an incisive [ __ ]
01:55:35
Viewpoint and I'll pick Zuck and meta
01:55:37
that makes sense 94 it's at 117. it's
01:55:40
one of my best J trades I'm gonna take
01:55:42
it didn't you also say Disney was your
01:55:44
pick of the year or something I'm buying
01:55:46
more I'm buying more Disney I'm buying
01:55:47
more this is
01:55:50
I'm telling you Disney Warner which you
01:55:52
talked about before yeah and Facebook
01:55:54
are three of my uh bit and uh you know
01:55:57
three of my big ones let's say worst
01:55:59
human being here well I think look given
01:56:01
that this is supposed to be the year
01:56:02
2022 I mean you got to say that
01:56:05
SPF was the winner of this hands down
01:56:07
okay congratulations to SPF you are
01:56:09
consensus worst human being for this
01:56:12
year I mean not ever but for this year
01:56:14
only for this year right
01:56:16
yeah we we all hate you equally okay
01:56:18
who's who's number two why do you hate
01:56:20
him why do I hate him because all those
01:56:22
people lost their money
01:56:24
and you know there's some pot it's
01:56:25
causing chaos I feel terrible for all
01:56:27
these people who lost money that's why I
01:56:28
hate him
01:56:29
ugh that's disgusting did you see
01:56:32
anybody have a second mode the two guys
01:56:35
copped to please Caroline Ellison and uh
01:56:38
Gary black pancakes but it turns out
01:56:42
that they actually did engineer a back
01:56:44
door into FTX and Alameda has been doing
01:56:46
this
01:56:47
oh my God oh my God that's game over
01:56:51
we're getting 10 years he's getting my
01:56:52
game over okay well should we talk about
01:56:55
that interesting defense strategy that
01:56:57
we were um discussing in in the chat oh
01:57:00
yeah I think this is actually a
01:57:02
fascinating defense strategy I think
01:57:03
this is their only shot one of our
01:57:05
besties had this theory that he was
01:57:07
prescribed two prescription drugs one
01:57:10
was Adderall what was the other one
01:57:11
called this was awesome
01:57:13
the patch it's it's a drug I wasn't
01:57:16
familiar with I guess it's a patch but
01:57:18
when you combine these two things
01:57:19
apparently it basically shuts down or
01:57:22
kills the part of your brain that deals
01:57:25
with inhibition inhibition it's cocaine
01:57:28
yeah what if his defense strategy was
01:57:31
yeah like only an insane person would do
01:57:33
this and I was acting insane because I
01:57:36
was prescribed these drugs that had
01:57:38
these drug conflicts and it like killed
01:57:40
part of my brain I mean and you think
01:57:42
about every Criminal on Wall Street said
01:57:44
cocaine is my defense
01:57:46
but this you could say he was maybe he
01:57:48
was legally prescribed it if you could
01:57:49
show the prescription oh by the way I'm
01:57:51
not saying yes this should get him off
01:57:53
I'm just we're basically workshopping
01:57:56
what is the only shot of his defense
01:57:58
would be right well and think about it
01:58:00
sax he acted manic after
01:58:04
FTX collapsed so that Mania of doing 20
01:58:08
Twitter spaces would be there's
01:58:10
something so insane about what he did
01:58:13
right that you that all it's almost like
01:58:15
a
01:58:16
like a prescribed Insanity defense like
01:58:19
I was preside a drunk combination that
01:58:21
made me insane did anybody have a most
01:58:24
loathsome company as we wrap the only
01:58:26
way that you could come up with that is
01:58:27
like you you'd have to have two parents
01:58:28
that were like law professors or
01:58:30
something
01:58:31
all right most most loathsome company
01:58:33
this is his defense you know yeah my
01:58:36
parents boohoo
01:58:38
no no no he'll claim Insanity Jay Cal
01:58:40
he'll say of course yeah and they'll
01:58:42
have a I mean do we think that his
01:58:45
parents aren't going to help his defense
01:58:47
you know at this point this this kid's
01:58:50
got to go away for life that's it
01:58:52
wow I think it's got to be life I think
01:58:54
it's got to be 30 plus years I mean it's
01:58:56
just gonna be billions of dollars what
01:58:58
kind of justice system do we have when
01:59:00
people go away for 20 30 40 years per
01:59:02
billion would you
01:59:04
sentence
01:59:06
a decade per billion at least
01:59:08
yeah I mean just you got something
01:59:10
unfortunately
01:59:11
Sex You Gotta don't you think the
01:59:13
justice system needs to look at other
01:59:15
people who are in jail for selling
01:59:17
cocaine for selling marijuana for for
01:59:19
robbing a a convenience store they'll
01:59:22
put somebody away for robbing a
01:59:23
convenience store for a decade or two
01:59:25
where are they gonna put him in jail for
01:59:26
just because somebody came in with a gun
01:59:28
and robbed a convenience store they get
01:59:29
20 years this kid's gonna get off screw
01:59:32
that look I think what do you guys think
01:59:33
the over under is here you think it's
01:59:35
like I'll set it at I'll set it at 35
01:59:37
years
01:59:38
I'll take the over I'll take 30.
01:59:42
I said a good line then I think this is
01:59:45
made off of no I agree over on 30. yeah
01:59:48
I think I think I said 35. I think it's
01:59:50
going to be a multiple hundreds of years
01:59:52
I agree and you'll be gone for Life yeah
01:59:54
I think it's gonna be life but I set a
01:59:56
good line uh okay most slows some
01:59:58
company is FTX anybody want to go for a
02:00:00
second keep moving no I'll add one I'm
02:00:03
gonna this year I'm gonna give my last
02:00:04
year I gave it to Tyson Foods one of the
02:00:06
largest slaughterer of animals on Earth
02:00:08
this year I'm going to give it to a
02:00:10
company called innotiv i-n-o-t-i-v This
02:00:13
is the company that had was busted by
02:00:15
the feds for their animal abuse in their
02:00:18
dog breeding facility uh where 4 000
02:00:21
beagles were rescued one of which I
02:00:22
adopted and this is a publicly traded
02:00:24
company stocks down 90 some odd percent
02:00:26
which I'm thrilled to see terrible
02:00:28
business awful awful
02:00:31
kind of you know inhumane behavior and
02:00:34
so I I want to kind of give them a
02:00:35
special shout out this year look at you
02:00:38
and you're getting the virtue signaling
02:00:40
points of rescuing the dog to increase
02:00:42
your Q factor amongst besties well done
02:00:45
Max Q factor
02:00:47
Max Q factor yeah anybody else have a
02:00:50
low sum yes I'd like to pick this
02:00:52
company
02:00:53
which uh destroyed the environment for a
02:00:57
bunch of endangered species that I would
02:00:58
otherwise have used for various fur
02:01:01
pelts for my sweaters and such yes and I
02:01:03
would like to go with blah blah blah
02:01:05
which was torturing puppies uh 18 of
02:01:09
which I rescued and I am now have them
02:01:11
in the J Cal puppy rescue I am the most
02:01:14
sensitive and caring person uh also I
02:01:17
would like to add Sea World I am in the
02:01:20
process of raising money to build bigger
02:01:22
uh pools to eventually release all the
02:01:24
orcas in captivity that is my new Focus
02:01:26
for next year okay moving on oh God do
02:01:30
we want to do best meme
02:01:32
do we want to do best new tech I'll do
02:01:34
best new tech I don't have a best meme
02:01:36
I've been going with Fusion for best new
02:01:37
tech I'm going with uh I'm gonna go with
02:01:39
chat GPT I think what was so impressive
02:01:41
about chat GPT
02:01:44
um and and the experience that
02:01:45
everyone's had using it is that it
02:01:47
really for the first time I think
02:01:48
elucidated
02:01:49
where uh these kind of machine learning
02:01:52
tools can take us and what the kind of
02:01:55
new product experience can be what
02:01:57
generative AI can yield uh things Beyond
02:01:59
I think the scope of what a lot of
02:02:00
people were imagining before so it was
02:02:02
really so revealing and as you guys know
02:02:04
there's an absolute friggin tidal wave
02:02:07
of people trying to start companies that
02:02:09
are leveraging tools and generative AI
02:02:11
uh to kind of reinvent everything from
02:02:13
what workplace tools Enterprise software
02:02:15
all the way through to Media games and
02:02:17
entertainment so that's why I think chat
02:02:19
GPT was the most impressive new
02:02:21
technology
02:02:22
and then sax lightning round please best
02:02:24
new tech Alpha full three which
02:02:26
basically has almost near perfect
02:02:28
accuracy and protein folding sax best
02:02:30
new tech I can't improve on the chat GPT
02:02:33
so yeah let's keep rolling best Trend
02:02:36
best trend in business and in the world
02:02:38
mine is startups getting back and
02:02:41
investors getting back to reality and
02:02:42
the what I call the age of austerity the
02:02:45
age of focus after the Age of Excess
02:02:46
that's the best trend in our world the
02:02:48
age of austerity what's your best trend
02:02:49
for 2022 marginal cost of energy
02:02:52
generation and storage is now in the low
02:02:55
single digit pennies per kilowatt hour
02:02:57
which basically means that uh not only
02:03:00
will energy be free and abundant but it
02:03:02
will I think over the next decade or two
02:03:04
create a massive peace dividend it will
02:03:07
rewrite our foreign policy it will
02:03:09
rewrite National Security that is the
02:03:12
reason why people should care about
02:03:13
energy transition not necessarily
02:03:15
climate change although that's important
02:03:17
it's a distant second
02:03:19
to keeping men and women out of War
02:03:22
and keeping our borders safe well said
02:03:25
anybody else have a best friend
02:03:28
last year I'm I said the Creator economy
02:03:31
uh which I think referred to all these
02:03:33
kind of creators creating new products
02:03:35
and and businesses beyond their content
02:03:37
this year I I think that the trend that
02:03:39
was again enabled and demonstrated
02:03:41
through chat gbt is the narrator economy
02:03:43
I think this is going to be a really
02:03:44
important Trend going forward we'll talk
02:03:46
about it in the prediction episode but I
02:03:47
think the idea that people are and
02:03:49
they're starting to experience this in
02:03:51
using chat gbt and Dolly and other kind
02:03:53
of generative AI tools
02:03:54
is how much you can kind of narrate the
02:03:58
product you want to see created and have
02:03:59
it created for you on the Fly
02:04:01
and I think that that's a really kind of
02:04:03
powerful mind shift for people and
02:04:04
friendship for people
02:04:06
um and I think it really starts to
02:04:07
change a lot of the way that people
02:04:08
behave entertain themselves businesses
02:04:11
operate and so on so I'd call it the
02:04:12
narrator economy and I think it's really
02:04:14
kind of starting to emerge okay do you
02:04:16
have a trend sex yeah I would say best
02:04:19
friend is the growing realization that
02:04:23
the corporate media is failing does not
02:04:25
tell the truth it has an agenda more and
02:04:27
more people are opting out of it and
02:04:28
going with Independent Media I think you
02:04:30
know what Elon mentioned where we're
02:04:32
going to start holding these corporate
02:04:33
journalists the same standard on Twitter
02:04:35
as regular citizens they're outraged by
02:04:37
that but that's a huge step in the right
02:04:39
direction the fact of the matter is is
02:04:42
that the press or the media is the prism
02:04:45
through which reality is refracted and
02:04:47
if it's not giving us an accurate
02:04:48
representation of the world we can't
02:04:50
begin to solve our problems since we
02:04:52
don't have accurate information and I
02:04:54
think more and more people are waking up
02:04:55
from the Matrix and realizing that we're
02:04:57
living in this media controlled
02:04:58
simulation and
02:05:01
um again I don't think we're able to
02:05:02
make progress until the um this power
02:05:06
that the media seems to have overall
02:05:07
reality gets uh gets broken okay let's
02:05:09
go for worst Trend my worst trend is the
02:05:12
Fed trying to play catch-up the FED
02:05:14
trying to play ketchup sorry buddy
02:05:17
the FED trying to play catch-up is the
02:05:19
worst trend for me over steering into
02:05:21
the crash what do you got chamoth for
02:05:23
the worst trend of 20. the first Trend
02:05:26
was the continued profligate spending by
02:05:29
the federal government
02:05:30
we have record deficits record debt and
02:05:34
this year we're ending the Year by
02:05:36
adding another 1.65 trillion dollars of
02:05:39
spending that nobody can seemingly
02:05:40
account for it is truly the Christmas
02:05:42
tree of Christmas trees uh in terms of
02:05:44
bills so we describe not gotten religion
02:05:48
yet around being measured and how we
02:05:50
spend money good one worst Trend sax
02:05:52
last year my worst Trend was
02:05:54
authoritarianism growing all over the
02:05:56
world
02:05:57
and I think that's pretty decent
02:05:58
prediction this year's uh worst trend is
02:06:02
the government colluding with big Tech
02:06:04
to engage in censorship this is how
02:06:05
they're going to do the authoritarianism
02:06:07
we talked about it with schellenberger
02:06:09
and Elon this whole series of
02:06:10
Revelations known as the Twitter files
02:06:13
we can see this collusion this cozy
02:06:15
relationship between the sensors at
02:06:17
Twitter and big Tech and the bureaucrats
02:06:19
at the FBI and DHS and Pentagon this is
02:06:23
a really disturbing dystopian
02:06:25
relationship as we talked about it
02:06:27
earlier and you know I feel like we
02:06:29
spent all this time talking about the
02:06:32
authoritarianism in Russia and China we
02:06:35
seem to be obsessed with combating that
02:06:36
and going to war with that but we don't
02:06:38
spend enough time talking about this
02:06:40
growing authoritarianism at home the
02:06:42
media doesn't seem to want to report all
02:06:43
the Twitter files at all let's focus on
02:06:46
stopping authoritarianism here well said
02:06:49
Friedberg what's your worst trend for
02:06:52
2022 is what I would call interest rate
02:06:54
Mania and I think that this is the Mania
02:06:56
that we've been caught up in on this
02:06:58
show that other people on our thread
02:07:01
people in the business community and the
02:07:02
investing Community where everyone's
02:07:04
obsession with did the FED act soon
02:07:06
enough or late enough and that interest
02:07:07
rates ultimately Drive success or
02:07:09
failure with building businesses and
02:07:11
making good Investments and the truth is
02:07:13
when interest rates go the wrong way
02:07:15
good Investments
02:07:17
uh you know can kind of strengthen their
02:07:19
way can can make their way through those
02:07:21
environments bad Investments cannot good
02:07:24
businesses can make their way through
02:07:25
and bad Investments cannot and so I
02:07:27
think our our Mania around the fact that
02:07:29
interest rates and the FED ultimately
02:07:30
drove bad outcomes in businesses and
02:07:33
Investments is a flawed kind of
02:07:35
assertion and we all want to kind of get
02:07:36
back to the drunken days
02:07:38
where you know a low interest rate
02:07:40
environment enables us all to be
02:07:42
successful and wealthy and I think that
02:07:43
that's kind of changed so I think it's
02:07:45
time for us to get away from the
02:07:46
interest rate media and focus more on
02:07:48
solid investing and solid business
02:07:49
building okay here we go lightning round
02:07:51
we got two to go favorite media of 2022.
02:07:54
for me it was Top Gun House of the
02:07:56
Dragon White Lotus 2 but I'm gonna pick
02:07:58
my favorite here or something you may
02:07:59
not have heard of the film tar I highly
02:08:03
recommend it but I did like those other
02:08:04
three tremendously what do you got sacks
02:08:07
for your favorite media of 2022 how's
02:08:08
the dragon I guess I enjoyed quite a bit
02:08:10
like you did um I'll give a shout out to
02:08:13
my movie Dolly land which will be coming
02:08:14
out next summer if we're going to
02:08:15
include podcast episodes I would give a
02:08:19
shout out to the unheard episode where
02:08:22
Freddy Sayers interviews John mershimer
02:08:24
the professor of international relations
02:08:25
he explains the origins of the Ukraine
02:08:28
war and has some really pessimistic
02:08:31
predictions about what might happen next
02:08:33
I suggest everyone watch it if they want
02:08:35
to understand this conflict and where it
02:08:37
may be going next year
02:08:38
tomorrow if you have any favorite media
02:08:40
for 2022 you want to share I thought
02:08:42
Yellowstone kicked ass absolutely
02:08:44
incredible
02:08:46
there's uh I think it's on Hulu um but
02:08:49
there's a show with Steve Carell a
02:08:51
little short series called the patient
02:08:54
a serial killer that kidnaps his
02:08:56
psychologist and locks him in his
02:08:58
basement to try to help him prevent him
02:09:00
killing more people
02:09:03
and I thought it was really really well
02:09:05
done
02:09:07
never have I ever the latest season
02:09:09
another just brilliant offering from
02:09:12
Mindy Kaling she's unbelievable
02:09:14
those are those are probably the top
02:09:15
ones what do you got Freeburg any media
02:09:18
yeah I read a book this year that I
02:09:20
really liked
02:09:21
um it's called the vital question by a
02:09:23
guy named Nick Lane someone recommended
02:09:24
it to me
02:09:26
it's uh he's a biochemist and he kind of
02:09:28
talks a little bit about the origin of
02:09:29
life on Earth it really ties into this
02:09:31
idea that there are certain call it
02:09:33
principles of physics and statistics
02:09:35
that make life predictive
02:09:37
and predictable but I think the way that
02:09:40
he kind of walks through how a lot of
02:09:42
things emerge
02:09:43
in life
02:09:45
and and how life ultimately kind of
02:09:47
developed on this planet are are really
02:09:49
well shown so yeah I give his book a
02:09:51
shout out it was a it was a really good
02:09:53
so that book the vital question is
02:09:55
incredible the other one that he wrote
02:09:56
which is called life ascending those two
02:09:59
books you must read if you don't want to
02:10:00
be a letter in my opinion all right uh I
02:10:03
will also for those people who don't
02:10:05
understand the difference between power
02:10:07
and energy you will learn what that is
02:10:09
very good I have two book
02:10:10
recommendations putting the rabbit in
02:10:12
the Hat is uh Brian Cox you may know him
02:10:14
from secession he um has a great book
02:10:17
and he reads the audiobook very
02:10:19
enjoyable I'm halfway through Quentin
02:10:20
Tarantino's Cinema speculation and
02:10:23
enjoying it very much Zach you will
02:10:24
enjoy it tremendously okay
02:10:26
and now we do the Rudy Giuliani award
02:10:29
for self-emulation this is for the
02:10:31
person who poured lighter fluid and
02:10:34
gasoline over themselves and lit
02:10:35
themselves on fire for no apparent
02:10:36
reason I go with Kevin O'Leary who
02:10:38
secured a 15 million dollar bag from FTX
02:10:40
and then decided to try to defend it uh
02:10:44
18 Ways to Sunday
02:10:46
burning whatever reputation he had who
02:10:48
do you have
02:10:49
in your Rudy Giuliani award this will be
02:10:51
controversial for you guys I'm gonna go
02:10:53
with Elon Musk I don't think that Elon
02:10:55
put himself in the position that he did
02:10:58
uh with bad intentions or without paying
02:11:01
attention I think he's taken on a role
02:11:03
uh in buying and running Twitter
02:11:06
that is you know principled and uh you
02:11:10
know in his mind and many other people's
02:11:11
minds a really important role that
02:11:13
someone needs to play uh unfortunately I
02:11:15
think his reputation has gotten really
02:11:17
hurt
02:11:18
because of
02:11:20
you know that role he's not making a lot
02:11:22
of friends and uh he's not he's causing
02:11:25
a lot of reputational damage
02:11:27
he obviously had a lot of good and
02:11:28
important things he was working on prior
02:11:30
to taking on the additional burden of
02:11:31
Twitter and while many people appreciate
02:11:33
his doing it I think that it's causing
02:11:35
him a lot of reputational damage
02:11:38
and so yeah I I don't mean to kind of be
02:11:40
offensive in saying that but
02:11:42
I think he's gotten it's certainly been
02:11:45
a hard thing to do it's certainly been a
02:11:46
hard thing to do sex but you're saying
02:11:48
self-immolation Freeburg because he took
02:11:50
it on himself he could have just he took
02:11:51
it on himself yeah I'm not saying stupid
02:11:53
interpretation yeah it's not it's not
02:11:55
like the Rudy Giuliani idiocy I think
02:11:57
he's taking on the burden of doing this
02:11:58
and I think it's causing him a lot of
02:12:00
reputation
02:12:01
okay it's an interpretation of the award
02:12:03
what do you got your mom a sacks in
02:12:04
Jamal well I mean if if I were to
02:12:06
interpret the award I think the way it
02:12:09
was originally intended I think I got to
02:12:10
give it to Herschel Walker this year
02:12:11
unfortunately and I I wish Republicans
02:12:13
would stop winning this award at least
02:12:15
Herschel never gave any speeches next to
02:12:18
a dildo shop but uh nonetheless
02:12:22
I am so sorry that I'm so delighted sax
02:12:26
that you've been so self-aware about the
02:12:28
Follies of the dying Maga
02:12:31
the last throws of the magination I want
02:12:34
to find some Democrats to give this to I
02:12:36
want to give it to that brain dead
02:12:37
Senator uh from Pennsylvania what's his
02:12:40
name uh fetterman thank you I wanted to
02:12:43
give it to fetterman but he won
02:12:46
so I don't know what I'm supposed to do
02:12:48
you know it's like no listen when when a
02:12:51
republican self-immolates like Rudy or
02:12:54
Herschel or something like that they get
02:12:55
laughed out of town and when the
02:12:57
Democrat does it like ephederman they
02:12:59
just get elected so I I don't know what
02:13:01
to say all right you got any final words
02:13:03
here good I mean you gotta end this
02:13:04
episode it's gonna be the longest
02:13:05
episode ever
02:13:07
poof I think it's poor poor producer
02:13:09
Nick whoever signed the papers
02:13:11
for the whole
02:13:13
search and seizure at Mar-A-Lago looks
02:13:15
kind of like an idiot so that that was
02:13:17
not politically astute okay I think you
02:13:19
would say the FBI then okay
02:13:21
poorly handled perhaps that's actually
02:13:22
great that's a great one actually if
02:13:24
we're gonna get serious for a second the
02:13:27
combination of Revelations if we're
02:13:28
going to look over this whole year
02:13:30
remember Jason when I I basically spoke
02:13:33
up at the time they raided a Mar-A-Lago
02:13:35
and said that it was heavy-handed and
02:13:37
unnecessary
02:13:39
for years Donald Trump is an idiot
02:13:42
savant minus the Savant why all of you
02:13:45
guys just project all of this like
02:13:48
insane genius evil level stuff he's not
02:13:53
capable of that this is a simpleton who
02:13:56
likes attention
02:13:57
he stole a bunch of souvenirs that he
02:13:59
didn't read when he was in my opposition
02:14:01
hasn't read now kept in a box downstairs
02:14:03
just to say he had them that's exactly
02:14:05
right I was the one who championed the
02:14:07
souvenir I know he's a souvenir guy you
02:14:10
said he was selling secrets to the South
02:14:11
no I did not say that I said veneers no
02:14:15
suggested it yes
02:14:19
Kushner an elaborate conspiracy theory
02:14:21
I'm saying I know it's not a conspiracy
02:14:24
theory when you do it and and guys and
02:14:26
this is the same person that basically
02:14:28
in the in the beginning of his
02:14:30
presidential campaign in 2016 in front
02:14:33
of Hillary Clinton said absolutely I
02:14:36
bend the laws that you created the tax
02:14:39
laws to my favor because I'm not stupid
02:14:41
when she called him a tax Dodger and it
02:14:44
turns out after all these years
02:14:47
he was telling the truth
02:14:49
he basically once again the show ends
02:14:51
with Trump he's been a great 2022. no no
02:14:54
but honestly like like did we learn
02:14:56
anything except that these tax laws are
02:14:58
egregiously stupid and the only people
02:15:01
that are consistently guaranteed to make
02:15:03
money in these tax laws are Real Estate
02:15:04
Investors if you put these two things
02:15:06
together a real estate investor who
02:15:09
happened to be very poor at his job
02:15:11
which Trump turned out to be packed
02:15:14
billions of dollars of nols that he was
02:15:16
able to use to wash his taxes for years
02:15:18
and years and by the way and he was
02:15:20
clearly proud of it he was just goading
02:15:22
the Democrats and not releasing them
02:15:24
they went through all this rigmarole and
02:15:26
what did we find out he had huge nols he
02:15:28
had huge deductions and he paid no taxes
02:15:30
is that shocking to any of us it's like
02:15:32
it's like Chappelle said he came out of
02:15:34
the house told everyone everything you
02:15:36
think is going on inside that house is
02:15:38
going on and went back and then he
02:15:39
walked back inside the house yeah
02:15:41
it was pretty great she fell got it all
02:15:44
right listen
02:15:45
for David sacks
02:15:47
the Rain Man Four the queen of quinoa
02:15:51
Sultan of science David Friedberg and
02:15:54
the dictator himself it has been an
02:15:57
honor and a privilege to do this podcast
02:16:00
with you gentlemen this is the longest
02:16:03
show in the history of the Pod enjoy
02:16:05
everybody uh R.I.P producer Nicks uh
02:16:08
next 48 hours and we'll see everybody
02:16:10
next year love you bye-bye happy
02:16:12
holidays love you bestest back at you
02:16:15
will let your winners
02:16:18
Rock Rain Man
02:16:19
[Music]
02:16:23
we open source it to the fans and
02:16:25
they've just gone crazy
02:16:26
[Music]
02:16:32
besties
02:16:35
[Music]
02:16:59
we need to get Mercies
02:17:04
[Music]
