00:00:00
where were you on thursday were you
00:00:02
in l.a
00:00:03
i was at home i i got like a family to
00:00:06
do
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well family have you you met them what
00:00:09
were they like
00:00:13
were they everything you
00:00:14
expected me i had to meet the new kid
00:00:16
he's 19.
00:00:19
what's his
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[Laughter]
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major winner
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[Music]
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[Music]
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hey everybody welcome to another episode
00:00:42
of the all-in podcast yes we made it to
00:00:44
episode 47 in three episodes it'll be
00:00:47
episode 50. no plans to do anything
00:00:49
other than just trying to record this
00:00:51
every week for you the loyal audience
00:00:53
with us again
00:00:55
coming off an amazing event a live event
00:00:58
on monday uh tuesday and i don't know if
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it went into wednesday but david
00:01:02
freeburg's the production board event we
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uh recorded our first live
00:01:06
all in it seems like it went uh well on
00:01:09
an av basis and the audience seemed to
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enjoy it what was the feedback
00:01:12
freeberg
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so you know half the room were
00:01:15
scientists and they'd never heard of
00:01:16
this podcast before and they were like
00:01:18
what the hell did we just show up to
00:01:20
it's like these who are these four guys
00:01:23
on stage drinking this wine talking
00:01:24
about politics for an hour and a half
00:01:26
um but and then dropping f-bombs and
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dropping off bombs and uh there was a
00:01:31
little bit of uh kind of seasoning we
00:01:33
had to do afterwards to get everyone
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kind of comfortable but no actually it
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was fantastic people loved it you guys
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were the highlight um and i thought it
00:01:40
was super fun to do that in person i
00:01:42
don't know what you guys thought
00:01:43
it's cool energy it's super cool it was
00:01:45
great and with us again of course uh
00:01:48
david sacks the rain man himself and the
00:01:50
dictator chamoth paulie hapatia what did
00:01:53
you think
00:01:54
uh saks of the live event format
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uh obviously half the audience were fans
00:02:00
of the show half warrant
00:02:01
which is
00:02:02
i better than putting people randomly
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into it but i i'm glad that the people
00:02:06
who are not fans of or have never heard
00:02:08
of the show didn't walk out we didn't
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have walkouts so that was good
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yeah i mean look we were slightly more
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palatable to them than andrew dice clay
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or something like that
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but uh
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[Laughter]
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it was a good change of pace i mean i
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think some people commented that the
00:02:46
lighting the production values weren't
00:02:48
that great they seemed fine to us at the
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time
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but uh so we're gonna have to do better
00:02:52
on that next time and other people
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speculated that we took we're easier on
00:02:56
each other in terms of debating topics
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because we were in person i didn't feel
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that while sitting there but
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you guys tell me if you think that was
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true
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i thought you know we got a better read
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on each other in person and we had more
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dialogue than we normally would over a
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zoom i don't know if you guys felt the
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same very good i i think so and then i i
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kind of like the evening podcast the
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glass of wine there's something about it
00:03:18
like you're just like a little yeah
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you're coming in for a landing yeah
00:03:21
coming in for a nice evening the little
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cards after
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it could be a thing it could definitely
00:03:26
be good i could definitely make harlem
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2012 a uh a regular part of taping this
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pod the problem is we taped too early on
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a friday right if we could change the
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taping to like happy hour or something
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like that it might work better oh my god
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harlan 2012 uh what is it that's a good
00:03:42
bottle of wine oh my god
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j cal knows that look at him pretending
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that one pretending
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that's the it's the one with the round
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label i know it i know i'm looking at it
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right now oh my lord some of those go up
00:03:56
in value those things looks like as high
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you guys think we could
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like record after playing poker for two
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hours so you're two hours into the wine
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and poker and then you record wouldn't
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work no way no way maybe two i think the
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wine yes poker no yeah
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i think uh for a first time the audio
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was great so that's you know job one is
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to get the audience
00:04:17
consumption happens that way
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to do like a line of light in fredberg's
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face
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for all commentators you know it was my
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goal i actually got up and fixed that
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like no one else of the crew you know
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the dozens of people working there did
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anything about it my wife stood up and
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fixed the curtain dude without al you
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would be nowhere
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be nowhere in life she's she's she's a
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great person what what what was the
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empty seat about between me and chamoth
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i mean there was an effort that was if
00:04:41
we wanted to bring up a guest so
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unfortunately all the people's names
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that were written on that piece of paper
00:04:46
our quote-unquote besties did not show
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up on time yeah right exactly nobel girl
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girls
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didn't come and die and they all showed
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up at like nine o'clock yeah there might
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be a reason for that
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yeah it actually was the back channel
00:04:59
sky date and the back channel was sky
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dating and somebody else waited outside
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because they knew they might get pulled
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up
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i got that from uh
00:05:07
you're gonna have to beep his name out
00:05:08
yeah it's your first time saying his
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name on the sky
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he's not going to no he's not going his
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name mentions are you kidding me he's
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been on my pocket he's been on this
00:05:15
weekend he's one of the first 10 guests
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that was the last press appearance he
00:05:18
did was 11 years ago
00:05:20
he literally does not i mean everybody
00:05:22
knows who sky dating is earthling
00:05:25
everybody of our generation but it's
00:05:26
amazing how um
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you know quickly
00:05:30
the tech the tech crowd you know moves
00:05:32
on
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so true there's a there's a famous story
00:05:35
actually when um when mark andreessen
00:05:37
met um mark zuckerberg for the first
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time
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zuckerberg didn't know that you know
00:05:42
andreessen had created netscape i'm not
00:05:44
even sure he knew what netscape was i
00:05:46
think he said something like i created
00:05:47
mosaic and he's like what's that oh
00:05:49
right right
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yeah yeah
00:05:51
so it's like
00:05:52
yeah look in the tech industry we're all
00:05:54
concerned about the future no one pays a
00:05:55
lot of attention to history
00:05:57
do you guys feel like last generations
00:05:59
uh entrepreneurs and investors at this
00:06:01
point
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well some of us are still currently
00:06:06
creating things freeburg
00:06:12
i can't mention the name of the app as
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per
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our anti-promotion rules but i have
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recently
00:06:26
there's not a lot of kind of long
00:06:28
careers in silicon valley right a lot of
00:06:30
people kind of have because you're
00:06:31
creating products
00:06:33
well you consistently kind of if you
00:06:35
have asymmetric success right you have
00:06:36
these kind of like big bursts and then
00:06:38
you know it's a it's a different kind of
00:06:40
life you don't go kind of push again for
00:06:42
the next hard entrepreneurial project
00:06:43
typically not everyone obviously
00:06:46
uh and then you end up seeing like a
00:06:47
generation kind of die out like you know
00:06:49
web 1.0 and web 2.0 and then you know
00:06:51
you don't see them again you also see
00:06:53
some adventure
00:06:56
yeah
00:06:56
i think i think there's a lot of truth
00:06:58
to that that um
00:07:00
and i worry about this with my own kids
00:07:02
that i think deprivation creates
00:07:04
motivation
00:07:05
especially to do something as hard as
00:07:06
create a company
00:07:08
creates motivation
00:07:11
welcome to david sax's infomercial no no
00:07:15
i mean look i think you know people are
00:07:16
coming to my tent that leads to
00:07:17
fornication
00:07:19
[Music]
00:07:21
you know
00:07:25
our friend beep
00:07:26
has a has a saying that that sort of
00:07:29
became famous when elon then repeated it
00:07:31
which is that uh creating a startup is
00:07:32
like staring into the abyss and eating
00:07:34
glass
00:07:35
and it is really hard to create these
00:07:36
companies when they're successful and so
00:07:38
not a lot of people want to do it again
00:07:41
once they've reached that point and um
00:07:43
you know it does take a certain amount
00:07:45
of um like i said deprivation you know
00:07:48
to do this
00:07:49
which is why giving everybody the
00:07:51
participation trophy and trying to make
00:07:53
people's lives as easy as possible i
00:07:54
mean yes you want
00:07:56
you don't want to deprive people on the
00:07:58
one hand but on the other hand it does
00:08:00
often lead to to good things
00:08:03
totally agree
00:08:04
we're seeing a bit of a dry run of this
00:08:06
if people believe that you know they
00:08:08
have ubi or the government's going to
00:08:10
take care of them i would be fine with
00:08:12
ubi
00:08:13
you know everybody getting a little bit
00:08:15
of money
00:08:16
and if it was a safety net the only
00:08:17
thing i worry about is it seems like a
00:08:19
little bit of money if you're clever
00:08:21
means you could never work
00:08:23
and then what happens to those people in
00:08:24
society right like well i just i think
00:08:26
it's anti-compassionate because what you
00:08:28
do is you kick out the bottom rungs of
00:08:30
the ladder of economic success when you
00:08:32
basically pay able-bodied people not to
00:08:35
work i mean they need those entry-level
00:08:37
jobs that may not pay much better than
00:08:39
the ubi are an important stepping stone
00:08:42
to where they get to next in their
00:08:43
career and i think it's it's
00:08:45
demotivating and we've already seen in
00:08:46
california we've been ubi ubi's not
00:08:49
going to pay you to go to college but
00:08:50
amazon will as an example so
00:08:53
you're absolutely right there's a the
00:08:55
the gi bill you know there's all kinds
00:08:56
of examples where in history we've used
00:08:59
you know entry-level jobs as exactly as
00:09:01
they're meant to be an entry-level
00:09:03
opportunity and on-ramp to work your ass
00:09:05
off and to make something of yourself if
00:09:07
you
00:09:08
if you all of a sudden let people opt
00:09:10
out of it then it's going to be a very
00:09:12
um
00:09:13
it's what they're not going to realize
00:09:15
is by the time they get old enough where
00:09:17
they will want to have some kind of
00:09:19
purpose
00:09:20
it'll be too late because then
00:09:22
activating yourself in your 40s and 50s
00:09:24
to
00:09:25
essentially start your life is really
00:09:27
hard i'll give you an example of this
00:09:28
like you know right now i you know i
00:09:31
would say i'm like fairly fluent in
00:09:32
italian um that's pretty impressive but
00:09:35
i uh but i started uh taking italian
00:09:38
lessons and
00:09:40
you know the last four or five percent
00:09:42
of a language is brutalizing right
00:09:44
because it's like it's every little
00:09:45
grammatical thing you want to get it
00:09:46
completely right
00:09:48
and it's very um
00:09:51
demotivating for me sometimes because
00:09:52
i'm like god why the [ __ ] am i doing
00:09:54
this um i don't have to i can get it by
00:09:56
just speak it but i've made a commitment
00:09:58
to myself uh same thing in biotech you
00:10:00
know i got
00:10:02
introduced to it by friedberg and and
00:10:04
obviously nat and
00:10:05
and now i'm trying to learn and it is a
00:10:07
it is a grind and i think it's so easy
00:10:09
to quit
00:10:10
now you take that to the extreme and
00:10:12
some random person that doesn't have
00:10:14
necessarily the ability to fall back on
00:10:16
the success that you know so we've all
00:10:18
collectively had and you have to start
00:10:20
from scratch
00:10:21
my god it's it's really tough it's
00:10:24
really tough
00:10:25
at our age it is just hard kids are
00:10:27
screaming in the background you're
00:10:29
trying to manage all the stuff it's
00:10:30
impossible so you think it's easier when
00:10:32
you're in your early 20s
00:10:34
yeah be careful what you wish for but
00:10:36
why is it easier when you're in your
00:10:37
early 20s isn't it always a grind to
00:10:39
learn something and push yourself to
00:10:41
develop yourself i mean well you have
00:10:43
nothing so the theory is you have some
00:10:45
motivation to get something right
00:10:47
because
00:10:48
you're going to climb up the mountain
00:10:49
because like staying at the shore means
00:10:51
you can go wash it out to sea or
00:10:52
something
00:10:53
hours
00:10:54
hours
00:10:55
hours and hours and hours to my 20s and
00:10:57
30s like it was like
00:10:58
10 to 16 hour days i couldn't have every
00:11:01
day of the office is that different
00:11:03
today
00:11:04
yeah i i don't work in the same way i
00:11:07
did before because i
00:11:08
i'm trying to do a different job um but
00:11:11
i've earned the right and i've now put
00:11:13
myself under pressure to do it
00:11:14
differently because i have a different
00:11:16
job to do right but when i was in my 20s
00:11:18
and i was a pm
00:11:19
you know grinding out a product or you
00:11:21
know writing a feature spec or you know
00:11:23
building a model and trying to put all
00:11:25
these things together
00:11:26
uh
00:11:27
it was so much thankless work i learned
00:11:30
a ton
00:11:31
uh and it was all worth it
00:11:33
right i was about to ask you do you
00:11:34
regret it or not yeah no look this is
00:11:36
the thing about work this is the thing
00:11:37
about work-life balance that the people
00:11:39
are always complaining about people are
00:11:41
working too hard don't realize is that
00:11:43
yeah you want to think about work-life
00:11:44
balance but but across your entire life
00:11:47
i mean one of the things you'll do in
00:11:49
your 20s is work much harder to set
00:11:51
yourself up to where you want to be in
00:11:53
your 50s and so chamath doesn't have to
00:11:55
work as hard in his 50s because
00:11:57
he worked much harder earlier in his
00:11:59
life and now he's got the skill set
00:12:00
where he can delegate more um so yeah i
00:12:03
think we're you know we really
00:12:04
shortchange people when we tell them as
00:12:07
young people that they don't need to
00:12:08
work hard or in the extreme case of ubi
00:12:11
that we're actually paying people not to
00:12:13
work
00:12:14
that's not developing the right habits
00:12:15
they're going to make them successful
00:12:16
later on
00:12:18
and in fairness though if you look at
00:12:19
minimum wage and you look at entry level
00:12:21
jobs many of them paid too little
00:12:23
historically these companies like
00:12:25
mcdonald's i know it's a free market but
00:12:27
we're paying very little we're talking
00:12:28
seven eight dollars an hour and no
00:12:30
benefits and you know this is kind of
00:12:32
unnecessary greed in my mind and i think
00:12:34
that's what my personal job was at i
00:12:36
made
00:12:37
an hour yeah i made four dollars and 25
00:12:40
cents an hour in 1996 as my first job
00:12:42
cleaning cleaning a pool yeah
00:12:44
250 for me when i worked at fordham's uh
00:12:48
fordham's
00:12:49
computer center i think it was four two
00:12:51
no three three dollars it had gone to
00:12:53
but when i started in the workforce in
00:12:54
88 it was 250 was the minimum wage what
00:12:57
was the minimum wage where you were dude
00:12:59
what was it like in that 19th century it
00:13:01
sucks yeah tell us
00:13:03
when i when i when i was working at when
00:13:05
you killed the federals no i remember
00:13:07
when i was in college i worked at a bar
00:13:09
um and uh i mean i was there drinking so
00:13:12
much i finally was like why don't you
00:13:13
just give me a job so i might as well
00:13:15
make some money
00:13:16
while i'm sitting here
00:13:18
and they pay me seven bucks an hour
00:13:20
that's why i did my senior year oh
00:13:21
pretty good yeah pretty good that's a
00:13:23
pretty well-paying job seven bucks a
00:13:24
month one of the other problems but one
00:13:26
of the other problems of ubi that larry
00:13:28
summers has been he's the former u.s
00:13:29
secretary of treasury he's been on the
00:13:31
record about um is the inflationary
00:13:33
effect so you know there are pretty
00:13:35
smart economists like himself who kind
00:13:37
of highlight that as you give people
00:13:39
everyone
00:13:40
you know ten thousand dollars a year
00:13:41
first of all it's gonna cost 10 trillion
00:13:43
dollars whatever the estimate is to kind
00:13:45
of fund that sort of program
00:13:46
um and you know suddenly the cost of a
00:13:49
burger goes from 49 cents to 99 cents or
00:13:51
99 to 1.99
00:13:53
because there's uh you know much greater
00:13:55
demand on that kind of area of the
00:13:57
economy
00:13:58
for consumption
00:14:00
and so you see an inflationary effect
00:14:02
which trickles its way through and so
00:14:04
what ends up happening ultimately is by
00:14:05
pumping more of that money in for free
00:14:07
without productivity coming out of it
00:14:09
you effectively see inflation and so it
00:14:11
wipes itself out um and so this is kind
00:14:14
of one economic theory on ubi is that it
00:14:16
can actually just end up being within 10
00:14:18
years completely useless and pointless
00:14:20
because then the basic costs of living
00:14:22
climb so much that you need to raise the
00:14:24
ubi again to give people basic living
00:14:26
expenses
00:14:28
and so it becomes this kind of nasty
00:14:29
runaway effect so it's not really
00:14:31
sustainable is one argument that's made
00:14:33
against ubi
00:14:35
but
00:14:36
you know obviously different point than
00:14:37
what we were kind of
00:14:39
saying a moment ago
00:14:40
anyway i think people i think people
00:14:42
don't know what they want and if they
00:14:43
get it they're going to
00:14:46
um i think of look a form of a form of
00:14:48
ubi does make sense and i do think we
00:14:50
need to subsidize folks but you know i
00:14:52
think maybe it's probably just a fancier
00:14:53
word for welfare i grew up on welfare
00:14:55
and i can tell you that i don't think
00:14:56
our family benefited from it um
00:14:59
psychologically we benefited from it
00:15:01
socioeconomically because we needed it
00:15:03
to not starve um but the the knock-on
00:15:06
effects of
00:15:08
you know when you're in that loop of
00:15:10
again being in your 30s 40s and 50s not
00:15:12
finding purpose you know which my
00:15:14
parents had to struggle through
00:15:15
uh coping you cope with alcohol you cope
00:15:18
with depression the knock-on affects
00:15:20
your kids i don't think we want to see
00:15:22
that and so
00:15:23
when people think about ubi i think they
00:15:25
need to understand that you know we've
00:15:27
run a long experiment
00:15:29
in this thing called welfare you know
00:15:31
what welfare does
00:15:32
a lot of us have felt it
00:15:34
and uh there needs to be a better way
00:15:36
because if you just let people opt out
00:15:39
i don't think you really understand what
00:15:41
happens over long durations of time when
00:15:43
you're not doing anything oh it's
00:15:45
getting really weird right now right i
00:15:46
mean the fact that
00:15:47
restaurants are closing that have
00:15:49
customers but they can't operate and so
00:15:52
we're starting to actually see the
00:15:53
effect of it you know in some sense
00:15:55
what's the open job stat right now it's
00:15:56
like 9 million open jobs in the us it's
00:15:58
been bouncing from 8 to 10 million yeah
00:16:00
there's more unfilled jobs than there
00:16:02
are unemployed people right
00:16:05
yeah or unemployment's unemployment is
00:16:07
high but
00:16:08
uh unfilled jobs is even higher
00:16:11
yeah we've somehow moved away from a
00:16:13
political consensus we had in the 1990s
00:16:15
that i think made a lot of sense when
00:16:17
bill clinton passed welfare reform with
00:16:20
you know a lot of republican support is
00:16:22
look we need to have a welfare system we
00:16:24
need to take care of people who either
00:16:27
can't work or can't find a job for for a
00:16:29
good reason
00:16:30
there needs to be a social safety net
00:16:32
but if you're an able-bodied person
00:16:34
who can find a job you should be working
00:16:36
and um
00:16:38
and that that that welfare reform they
00:16:40
passed in the 90s did lead to a lot of
00:16:42
people finding meaningful work which i
00:16:44
think resulted in happier lives and
00:16:47
somehow we've moved off that political
00:16:48
consensus um that everyone kind of
00:16:50
agrees yes social safety net but but
00:16:53
able-bodied people should work to now we
00:16:54
have this elite
00:16:56
it's really an elite ideology of ubi
00:16:58
which is look we're going to pay people
00:16:59
not to work um which i just think is
00:17:02
sort of like un-american
00:17:04
isn't it also like a little insulting
00:17:06
being like you know what don't even
00:17:07
bother working you're making too little
00:17:09
money we'll just give you money it's
00:17:10
it's yeah it's like it feels insulting
00:17:12
to people's dignity i'll be honest like
00:17:14
i wouldn't want to take it i would
00:17:16
rather go out and be i was a waiter or a
00:17:17
bus boy i'll go be a waiter or a bus boy
00:17:19
and make enough money to pay my rent and
00:17:21
yeah one of the things you wanted for
00:17:23
free yeah one of the things you hear is
00:17:25
well your job's gonna be replaced by a
00:17:26
machine anyway it's not productive work
00:17:28
so why don't we just pay you
00:17:30
to sit back and you know take yourself
00:17:32
out of the economy well
00:17:33
like you said the unfilled jobs number
00:17:35
shows that even with all the automation
00:17:37
that's happening in the economy and
00:17:39
that's a trend that will continue
00:17:40
there's still a need for
00:17:42
you know human labor and i think there
00:17:44
always will be and um and it's a little
00:17:47
bit too soon to be throwing in the towel
00:17:49
on the idea that entire groups of people
00:17:52
can't productively work
00:17:56
does everybody believe able-bodied
00:17:57
people should work and not get free
00:18:00
money it's not that it should or
00:18:02
shouldn't i think the question is what's
00:18:04
uh what's in folks's best interests well
00:18:07
that's what i mean yeah but yeah
00:18:09
so is it in best people's best interest
00:18:11
our phrase is what you're saying is in
00:18:12
people's best interests i think the i
00:18:14
think the point where we're going to go
00:18:15
wrong is when we couple ubi
00:18:18
with um actually having to work or not
00:18:21
work and i don't think that's the right
00:18:22
idea
00:18:24
i think we have to do a decent job of
00:18:25
letting people find the things that they
00:18:27
want to work on because everybody can
00:18:29
find something that they want to work on
00:18:31
and that shouldn't exclude you or
00:18:33
disqualify you from getting ubi so that
00:18:36
all that does is then just raise the
00:18:38
general standard of living i think that
00:18:40
idea is better the problem is when we
00:18:43
talk about ubi what we are talking about
00:18:45
it
00:18:46
is in the exact way jason that you said
00:18:48
which is letting people opt out
00:18:50
so
00:18:51
i mean think about how privileged that
00:18:53
is to there are places in the world
00:18:55
where there's not enough jobs and people
00:18:56
are like wait a second an american has
00:18:59
to be fulfilled with their job selection
00:19:01
in addition to getting a job it that
00:19:03
just seems like the height of
00:19:05
entitlements like sometimes you just
00:19:06
need a job because you need money to pay
00:19:08
your bills right but you're saying if
00:19:10
you get product
00:19:12
if you get job
00:19:13
job candidate you know citizen fit you
00:19:15
the uptick will be better ubi is a
00:19:17
benefit it's like universal health care
00:19:19
we don't we don't make a decision about
00:19:20
universal health care based on who does
00:19:22
or does not have a job and so uh ubi
00:19:25
should basically be about evening you
00:19:27
know the bottom few rungs of economic
00:19:30
viability so that everybody has a
00:19:32
reasonable
00:19:33
um ability to have a decent life that's
00:19:35
a nice idea i think that makes a ton of
00:19:37
sense but coupling it to having to work
00:19:38
or not work where
00:19:40
some people say oh great i can take this
00:19:42
money and not work is the wrong way to
00:19:44
figure this out we're talking politics
00:19:45
why don't we shift to the the recall
00:19:48
yeah all right uh so uh post morten on
00:19:51
the uh newsome recall he he uh
00:19:55
secretary of state says the recall cost
00:19:57
over 300 million obviously um
00:20:01
gavin knew someone in landslide hold on
00:20:03
the 300 million point let me just take
00:20:05
care of this real quick okay because i
00:20:06
saw this all day on social media
00:20:09
you know what yeah it did cost 300
00:20:10
million dollars but all the people
00:20:13
crying about that clutching their pearls
00:20:15
about the 300 million never said a word
00:20:17
about the 30 billion the 100 times
00:20:19
greater
00:20:20
edd fraud that was perpetrated
00:20:23
by our state and by our one party rule
00:20:26
of the state and the recall process and
00:20:28
the ballot initiative process is the
00:20:29
only check we have on elected leadership
00:20:32
in a one-party state so listen i'll
00:20:34
start clutching my pros about the 300
00:20:36
million when they start uh talking about
00:20:38
the 30 billion but look let's shift to
00:20:41
the result of this what are you wait
00:20:42
what are you referring to i'm not sure i
00:20:44
know enough about this is this is the
00:20:46
this is the edd fraud where 30 billion
00:20:49
basically went to anyone claiming
00:20:52
unemployment
00:20:53
uh insurance and 30 billion and fake
00:20:57
claims were paid out that process was so
00:20:59
poorly administered
00:21:01
so i mean people were just creating fake
00:21:02
addresses they were just sending in
00:21:04
claims from anywhere and um and 30
00:21:07
billion went out so so look i mean
00:21:09
that's the kind of
00:21:11
incompetence and corruption that we have
00:21:13
in california so zach your point is that
00:21:15
because it's a single party state where
00:21:16
the state where the democrats have super
00:21:19
majority in the assembly and obviously
00:21:21
have the the governorship that the only
00:21:23
mechanism for the minority the
00:21:24
republican party is to kind of run
00:21:26
recall not even not the
00:21:28
republicans citizens i mean look
00:21:31
let's remember how the um how the recall
00:21:33
and the ballot initiative uh
00:21:35
came to be that process it actually came
00:21:37
from progressives early in the 20th
00:21:39
century who said we need the people to
00:21:42
have some direct democracy because
00:21:45
special interests might usurp
00:21:48
the uh the the electoral process and
00:21:51
right and and get control over all these
00:21:53
elected representatives and frankly
00:21:54
that's exactly what's happened in the
00:21:56
state of california but the people who
00:21:59
you know have that power are
00:22:00
progressives and so they want to amend
00:22:02
or abolish the the recall process but so
00:22:04
look i think 300 million
00:22:06
once every 20 years to put the fear of
00:22:09
god into politicians is not is money
00:22:12
well spent in my view even if this
00:22:14
particular recall wasn't close there are
00:22:16
much greater examples of waste fraud and
00:22:19
abuse that the people complaining about
00:22:21
this should be wanting to tackle and
00:22:23
i'll believe them about the 300 million
00:22:25
when they complain about the 30 billion
00:22:27
but look this was a total shellacking
00:22:29
for supporters of the recall and i i do
00:22:31
think
00:22:32
that whenever you
00:22:33
suffer a defeat i think it's important
00:22:36
for you to think about what went wrong
00:22:38
you know and and certainly as a
00:22:40
supporter
00:22:41
of the recall i think it's worth doing a
00:22:42
post-mortem um i think you know any
00:22:45
political party when it loses needs to
00:22:46
do some some introspection and so what
00:22:49
went wrong well i think a couple of
00:22:50
things okay so if you if you go back to
00:22:52
the polls a month ago or so it was a
00:22:55
dead heat we even had that shock pole
00:22:57
that newsom was down by 10.
00:22:59
and then what happened well the
00:23:01
republican party basically consolidated
00:23:03
their support around larry elder prior
00:23:05
to that you kind of had this amorphous
00:23:08
blob of five different candidates who
00:23:09
didn't have a lot of name recognition
00:23:11
they were pretty moderate they were a
00:23:13
hard target for for newsome to shoot at
00:23:15
once the republican party consolidated
00:23:17
around elder it provided a very
00:23:19
uh convenient and rich target for for uh
00:23:22
newsome to shoot at
00:23:24
and so you'd have to say
00:23:26
that
00:23:27
tactically the republican party made it
00:23:29
made a mistake there now i understand
00:23:30
why they did it i mean elder is smart
00:23:32
he's charismatic
00:23:34
he appeals to
00:23:36
that base
00:23:37
uh but he's not the moderate candidate
00:23:40
that like a schwarzenegger was or that i
00:23:42
you know chamath i wanted you to run and
00:23:44
so falconer was sort of that candidate
00:23:46
and so you kind of had a choice on the
00:23:48
republican side between a moderate
00:23:49
candidate who wasn't very charismatic
00:23:51
which was falconer and a very
00:23:53
charismatic candidate who wasn't
00:23:54
moderate and it really played into
00:23:56
newsome's hands and he was then able to
00:23:59
nationalize the election in in the wake
00:24:01
of that so he branded i think somewhat
00:24:03
unfairly he branded elder as a as a
00:24:05
trumper and he ran against trumpism and
00:24:08
even biden came to california to
00:24:10
denounce elders as a trump clone which
00:24:12
look there's a lot of things you may not
00:24:14
like about larry elder i don't think
00:24:15
it's fair to call him a trump clone but
00:24:17
that's what they did and so they
00:24:19
demonized him and so if you look at the
00:24:21
issues that
00:24:23
newsom ran on they were all
00:24:25
national issues he was you know talking
00:24:27
about what was happening in texas with
00:24:29
abortion uh and he he talked about covid
00:24:31
we should come back to that one because
00:24:32
i think that is a state issue too we
00:24:34
should talk about it but he started
00:24:36
talking about issues that were really
00:24:38
more national issues he and and so the
00:24:40
the recall moved away from the issues
00:24:43
that had galvanized supporters in the
00:24:45
poll just want polls just one month ago
00:24:47
which were
00:24:48
homelessness crime
00:24:50
schools and school closures and
00:24:52
lockdowns and
00:24:54
news was able to very effectively change
00:24:55
the subject
00:24:57
well you got everybody back to school
00:24:58
right if people didn't go back to school
00:25:00
it could have been a different
00:25:02
result i think the recall was very
00:25:03
helpful in that in in that i mean if you
00:25:04
remember do you think policy has shifted
00:25:07
because of the recall sacks at this
00:25:08
point and doesn't that ultimately kind
00:25:10
of benefit the issues you were most kind
00:25:11
of concerned about look the 300 million
00:25:13
was worth it just to get businesses open
00:25:16
and just to send a message to the the
00:25:18
education unions that they could not
00:25:19
keep schools closed for another year i
00:25:21
you know if you look at when newsome
00:25:23
relaxed the lockdowns it was at every
00:25:26
step of the recall process when when the
00:25:28
recall finally got enough signatures to
00:25:29
get put over the top he all of a sudden
00:25:31
started liberalizing the lockdowns he
00:25:33
knew they were very unpopular and he
00:25:34
gave up on that issue and he got the
00:25:36
education unions to stand down
00:25:39
on the issue of school reopenings i
00:25:40
think because he was facing this recall
00:25:42
so look i think that the recall was
00:25:44
worth it just just for that but um do
00:25:46
you think things could have been
00:25:47
different if there was a fringe
00:25:48
candidate like i don't know a sri lankan
00:25:51
billionaire
00:25:52
uh that was you know
00:25:54
not kind of this this hardened
00:25:56
republican that they could yeah
00:25:58
yeah i i blame i blame chamoth for this
00:26:00
i think i think a candidate like chamoth
00:26:02
could have won okay a democratic
00:26:04
centrist obviously i'm joking
00:26:06
i don't i don't blame you chamath i
00:26:07
understand why you wouldn't want to run
00:26:08
but but i'm saying a candidate like
00:26:10
chamoth which is who i supported or a
00:26:13
candidate like schwarzenegger remember
00:26:15
schwarzenegger when he ran in the early
00:26:17
2000s he was pro-choice and pro game gay
00:26:20
marriage at a time that gay marriage was
00:26:21
not very popular he was socially very
00:26:24
liberal you have to take those issues
00:26:25
off the table because california is not
00:26:28
going to vote he was a pro-life
00:26:29
candidate i think he was pro-gay
00:26:30
marriage before the clintons
00:26:32
yes he was very early on on that he was
00:26:34
he was socially very
00:26:36
liberal and very tolerant and you got to
00:26:38
be in california in general do you think
00:26:39
the unions in california you know which
00:26:42
is an issue that's been talked about a
00:26:43
lot on this pod have been weakened
00:26:45
because of the recall and the voice that
00:26:47
kind of rose up during this period of
00:26:49
time or do you think that nothing's
00:26:51
really changed kind of long term
00:26:53
i i think it's i i think it's a
00:26:55
long-term project for to get the public
00:26:57
to see
00:26:58
that the education unions are like any
00:27:01
special interest which is that they will
00:27:03
pursue their interest at the expense of
00:27:06
the general interest and they have to be
00:27:07
controlled again like any special
00:27:09
interest i think because teachers are
00:27:11
rightfully very popular
00:27:13
people haven't realized
00:27:15
what the union bosses are up to i think
00:27:17
that that has been exposed because of
00:27:20
covet and the school closures to a much
00:27:22
much greater degree and i think that's
00:27:24
that's a good thing well i mean if you
00:27:25
look at the recalls happening locally
00:27:27
too with chesaputin and the san
00:27:29
francisco school board
00:27:31
it seems like now the citizenship is
00:27:33
saying oh we do have a recourse it's
00:27:35
called doing a recall and stating our
00:27:37
opinion very strongly and then
00:27:38
attempting to removing people and yeah i
00:27:41
think that does change people's behavior
00:27:42
you can be sure chesaputin is thinking
00:27:44
about outcomes a little bit more now
00:27:46
than the implications of this recall i
00:27:48
think are really important um
00:27:50
and i think it plays out in who runs
00:27:53
uh in two years when um newsom is up for
00:27:57
re-election and
00:27:58
absolutely it'll change who runs on the
00:28:01
democratic side in four years uh
00:28:03
assuming new some wins
00:28:05
you have to remember
00:28:07
there have been a massive degradation in
00:28:10
the quality of life
00:28:12
uh the most populous state in america
00:28:14
which represents the fifth largest
00:28:16
economy in the world
00:28:18
under one party control
00:28:21
right so there is not a single law
00:28:24
that cannot be passed
00:28:25
there's not a single program that cannot
00:28:28
be implemented there's not a single idea
00:28:30
that can't be pursued
00:28:32
yet we have had an absolute decline in
00:28:36
quality of life under that rubric
00:28:39
and so when people really come to terms
00:28:41
with that that's i think when there's a
00:28:43
sea change and i hope the sea change is
00:28:44
not necessarily a
00:28:46
democrat or republican thing it's back
00:28:48
to centrism and i think it's checking
00:28:51
special interests exactly what sac says
00:28:53
and realizing that just because you use
00:28:55
a different name like union or something
00:28:58
else you're still a special interest and
00:29:00
you need to actually be
00:29:03
focused on the interests of the general
00:29:04
public our kids the environment
00:29:08
water quality and if you can't walk into
00:29:10
a state where everybody up another
00:29:12
ticket is on your same team and get [ __ ]
00:29:14
done it's a really tough
00:29:17
uh report card
00:29:19
yeah i'm just super uninspired by these
00:29:21
guys like where is their audacious plan
00:29:23
for california has anybody stated like
00:29:25
an audacious like here's what this state
00:29:27
is no i mean no and that's what's
00:29:29
possible we could be the best economy
00:29:31
with the greatest education system and
00:29:34
we can build a million units should that
00:29:36
be should that be the role of the state
00:29:37
government i mean like you know should
00:29:39
or should well they're in competition
00:29:41
they are they're in competition with
00:29:42
with florida and texas they have to
00:29:44
compete for business and citizens and if
00:29:47
it's not done at the state level we're
00:29:48
going to have to rely on the federal
00:29:49
level and we know that that doesn't work
00:29:51
because we have 50 states that are
00:29:53
increasingly more diverse every day
00:29:56
so the whole idea with the constitution
00:29:58
and the founding fathers was like we
00:30:00
have this incredible startup but over
00:30:02
time i think we've decided that you know
00:30:04
this startup is an umbrella organization
00:30:07
of 50 other startups it's a holding
00:30:09
company and and there'll be these small
00:30:11
little you know rules and differences
00:30:13
amongst these 50 states and that'll
00:30:15
allow us collectively to thrive so you
00:30:17
put out a tweet oh sorry go ahead no i
00:30:19
just want to i think we want to believe
00:30:21
in that idea like there is no savior you
00:30:23
know what i mean there's no savior for
00:30:25
350 people and there's barely a savior
00:30:28
for the 60 million people in california
00:30:30
but it's not going to happen by just
00:30:31
throwing your hands up in the air and
00:30:32
expecting some president to come around
00:30:34
because that's just too hard each state
00:30:37
has to act like the citizens and be
00:30:39
you know just rugged individualists who
00:30:41
are self-sustaining uh and resourceful
00:30:44
and this state is not self-sustaining
00:30:47
resourceful or ambitious and it's
00:30:49
falling behind texas and florida and
00:30:50
other competitors so zach you were in a
00:30:52
competition you put out a tweet saying
00:30:54
often or miami are you
00:30:57
are you in the active transition phase
00:30:59
or where are you at well i don't know i
00:31:02
mean we'll see i think the trend line in
00:31:03
california is not good i think what
00:31:05
you've already seen in the days since
00:31:06
the recall is that gavin newsom has now
00:31:09
laid out the strategy for all
00:31:11
progressives
00:31:12
uh in like even from san francisco to
00:31:15
anywhere in the country of how they're
00:31:16
gonna run and what they're going to do
00:31:17
is this that no matter how bad things
00:31:20
get in terms of crime in terms of
00:31:22
homelessness in terms of quality of
00:31:24
schools
00:31:25
in cities and states that they have
00:31:27
complete control over they're always
00:31:29
going to campaign against trump and
00:31:30
trump-ism and they're going to demonize
00:31:33
and authorize whoever the candidate is
00:31:35
on the other side as a trumpist whether
00:31:38
they are or not that's going to be the
00:31:39
playbook from now on and this is where i
00:31:41
think the attacks against larry elder
00:31:43
were very unfair is before he even had a
00:31:45
chance to define what he was about you
00:31:47
had publications like the la times
00:31:49
calling him the new face of white
00:31:52
supremacy i mean was it was like
00:31:53
unbelievable but black klansmen yeah
00:31:56
they basically try to make him out for
00:31:57
your black which look he is not okay
00:31:59
larry elder's a libertarian maybe his
00:32:01
politics are not in the mainstream in
00:32:03
california but he's not a black landsman
00:32:05
but look this is what the progressive
00:32:07
playbook is going to be for the next two
00:32:08
decades which is to demonize
00:32:11
anybody who stands up to them as
00:32:14
basically being a a trumpist and um and
00:32:16
and the irony of it will be
00:32:18
that they will have total control over
00:32:22
over the the problems that people really
00:32:24
can care about crime schools
00:32:26
homelessness and um and somehow you know
00:32:30
that they
00:32:31
what news improved is that you can whip
00:32:33
people up
00:32:34
into you can stir their their partisan
00:32:37
political tribalism when you do that
00:32:39
right that's why it's effective is he
00:32:41
gets people just to see blue and um
00:32:45
and he gets a free pass on these issues
00:32:46
that just a month ago people were very
00:32:48
dissatisfied with now i i do think it's
00:32:51
very very important that our republican
00:32:53
party not play into this and there was a
00:32:55
very good editorial
00:32:57
i think there's something to say how
00:32:58
come the republicans are still pursuing
00:33:00
a trumpian
00:33:02
you know their stream they're stupid
00:33:04
they are they look they're so dumb
00:33:08
it's a really stupid strategy and
00:33:09
there's two things they gotta fix right
00:33:10
away okay so
00:33:12
number one rich lowry from nashville
00:33:14
view had a police a piece in politico
00:33:16
where he said that this election
00:33:19
uh the stolen election myth has become
00:33:21
an albatross for republicans they have
00:33:24
to get off that um i think it's it's
00:33:26
ridiculous that's gonna bring him down
00:33:29
between two and the other thing is this
00:33:30
anti-vac stuff i mean you know voters
00:33:33
completely forgot about the way that
00:33:36
newsom locked down this state and then
00:33:38
broke his own lockdowns why because he's
00:33:41
provacs even to the point of vaccine
00:33:43
mandates whereas uh the republicans were
00:33:46
not and frankly i think chemoth your
00:33:48
instincts on this were were right on
00:33:50
which is
00:33:51
people given a choice between vaccine
00:33:53
mandates or an anti-vax position they
00:33:55
will take the the the vax mandates
00:33:58
speaking of instincts uh you want to go
00:34:00
to the uh this week in facebook's
00:34:02
dumpster fire
00:34:04
sure
00:34:05
sure
00:34:06
uh so
00:34:08
i i mean where to begin uh
00:34:11
this all started um on tuesday 2016 at
00:34:14
the last time of course graduate school
00:34:16
of business okay well we'll get to your
00:34:18
victory lap in a moment but just to
00:34:20
queue up this past week on tuesday the
00:34:22
wall street journal reported that
00:34:24
facebook conducted in-depth research on
00:34:26
the impacts of instagram on children's
00:34:28
mental health from 2018 to 2020 but they
00:34:31
never made the research public nor did
00:34:33
they make it available to academics or
00:34:35
lawmakers who requested it
00:34:37
you will remember that
00:34:39
last year or earlier this year facebook
00:34:42
started floating the idea of instagram
00:34:44
for kids so in addition to having this
00:34:46
research which they didn't share and
00:34:48
here is the slide from a presentation it
00:34:50
seems like the wall street journal has
00:34:52
somebody inside of facebook giving them
00:34:54
everything literally
00:34:56
but here is the quote from presentation
00:34:58
slides from 2019 internal facebook
00:35:01
presentation slides
00:35:02
we make body image issues worse for one
00:35:04
in three teen girls teens blame
00:35:07
instagram for increases in the rate of
00:35:09
anxiety
00:35:10
and depression
00:35:12
this reaction was unprompted and
00:35:14
consistent across all groups according
00:35:16
to the wall street journal
00:35:18
uh and uh instagram obviously is a
00:35:21
juggernaut over a billion monthly active
00:35:23
users and over 40 of them are under the
00:35:26
age of 22. this is a really interesting
00:35:28
issue because we are this is probably
00:35:30
the first example of a broad-based
00:35:34
public policy public health issue that
00:35:36
tech has created not necessarily
00:35:39
amplified
00:35:40
right or exacerbated but actually
00:35:44
created it now we're going to have to
00:35:45
deal with this before i i want to issue
00:35:48
you guys how would you define that issue
00:35:50
well i think it is a public health issue
00:35:52
if you have mental illness a large
00:35:53
percentage of a cohort of our population
00:35:56
uh
00:35:57
subject to mental health issues and
00:35:59
eating disorders that's not a good place
00:36:00
to be right i don't think that's what we
00:36:02
want as a healthy society in a healthy
00:36:04
society our daughters and it's probably
00:36:06
by the way it's probably not more than
00:36:07
just our daughters it's probably our
00:36:08
sons and daughters that are going
00:36:10
through these issues the question is
00:36:12
now about you know is it really a public
00:36:14
health issue if you know about it what
00:36:16
responsibility do you have to do
00:36:18
something and before i apply i just want
00:36:20
to give you guys
00:36:21
a little bit of data and just get your
00:36:22
reaction i actually want to go back to
00:36:24
what's called the tobacco
00:36:26
master settlement agreement
00:36:29
and the tobacco master settlement
00:36:30
agreement was entered in november of
00:36:33
1998
00:36:35
originally between the four largest u.s
00:36:37
tobacco companies philip morris rj
00:36:40
reynolds brown and williamson and
00:36:42
lauriard okay
00:36:44
and the attorney generals of 46 states
00:36:47
and essentially it was an agreement that
00:36:49
basically said okay
00:36:50
we're going to net all these medicaid
00:36:52
lawsuits together we're going to hold
00:36:54
these folks responsible for the
00:36:56
downstream implications of the product
00:36:57
that they've been selling our kids
00:36:59
and our you know adults population
00:37:02
without the proper disclosures
00:37:04
et cetera et cetera et cetera the pres
00:37:06
the the what happened before this
00:37:07
tobacco msa in big tobacco though was
00:37:10
there was about eight or 900
00:37:12
private claims that were filed from the
00:37:14
mid 50s all the way to the midnight
00:37:16
david knows all this because he he made
00:37:18
a movie about this
00:37:19
the reason why i think this is
00:37:20
interesting is that whether it happens
00:37:22
in the united states or someplace else
00:37:24
when i read that article
00:37:27
my immediate thought went to the tobacco
00:37:28
msa because i was like well okay there's
00:37:30
a public health issue that may or may
00:37:32
not have been covered a cover-up you
00:37:34
know it's definitely may or may not have
00:37:35
been covered up there could be criminal
00:37:37
liability there's probably civil
00:37:38
liability if you're you know a mother or
00:37:41
father who's lost their kid to an eating
00:37:43
disorder or to depressed suicide anxiety
00:37:46
bullying suicide
00:37:49
and i think like i think the article in
00:37:50
the wall street journal yesterday was
00:37:51
about like human trafficking i mean
00:37:53
these are some gnarly horribly
00:37:56
complicated gnarly issues
00:37:58
to me that's how i can edit the dots so
00:38:00
i just love to hear well i mean who's
00:38:02
the jeffrey weigand in this case i mean
00:38:03
this is literally the movie the insider
00:38:05
like somebody's leaking these documents
00:38:07
out there's a deep threat inside
00:38:09
facebook yeah well yeah and that's what
00:38:11
the brown and williamson was really
00:38:12
about is that somebody had the studies
00:38:15
from the 70s of when correct me if i'm
00:38:18
wrong david when the tobacco industry
00:38:19
knew and did nothing and covered it up
00:38:21
and then they had the whistleblower so
00:38:23
do you feel this is exactly analogous
00:38:26
sax or how close to analogous are we
00:38:28
taking too big of a jump here
00:38:30
well this this idea that social media is
00:38:32
as bad for you as cigarettes has been
00:38:33
around for several years now and i've
00:38:35
always wondered whether
00:38:37
that was
00:38:38
a hyperbolic claim i mean
00:38:41
it can it really be the case that
00:38:44
using facebook is as bad for you as
00:38:45
lighting something on fire and sucking
00:38:47
its carbonized ash into your lungs i
00:38:49
mean
00:38:50
i just you know i yes i think there's
00:38:52
like a kernel of truth here in terms of
00:38:54
yes it does exacerbate body image issues
00:38:57
but i don't believe that facebook
00:38:59
or social media created those issues um
00:39:02
i mean these issues existed before
00:39:05
and
00:39:06
what facebook does is connect people in
00:39:09
a more intense way than they were
00:39:10
connected and so it might intensify
00:39:13
some of the social dynamics that already
00:39:14
existed but i don't know that it created
00:39:16
them and if you're gonna blame facebook
00:39:18
for this
00:39:19
there's a lot of other places you could
00:39:20
blame too i mean why don't we be why
00:39:22
don't we blame the met gala you know
00:39:25
like um
00:39:26
you know look at all those well we have
00:39:28
had actually blame on the fashion
00:39:30
industry for making unrealistic body
00:39:32
types and the magazines and they stuff
00:39:34
my kids can't wear the full body
00:39:36
stalking to school that kim kardashian
00:39:38
wore to the met gala or whatever i mean
00:39:40
and they're upset about that so should
00:39:42
we ban the met gala or i mean let's look
00:39:44
at all advertising i mean all
00:39:46
advertising just about focuses on
00:39:48
unrealistically beautiful people and
00:39:50
what about tv and movies i mean
00:39:52
hollywood tends to cast people are
00:39:54
better looking or even the people
00:39:56
reading the news off teleprompters i
00:39:58
mean so this like body image and
00:39:59
self-esteem issue is everywhere in our
00:40:02
society and i think what social media
00:40:05
does
00:40:06
as it does in so many of these cases is
00:40:08
really just hold up a mirror to our
00:40:10
society and
00:40:11
it's it's not and yes there's a lot of
00:40:13
bad stuff happening on social media but
00:40:16
that's because there's a lot of bad
00:40:17
stuff happening
00:40:18
in our society well let me i you know
00:40:20
here's one thing david the i
00:40:23
there there have been other industries
00:40:24
that have influenced this but i don't
00:40:26
think that they were as pernicious and
00:40:27
as frequent in their use of as social
00:40:30
media you know when
00:40:31
reading a fashion magazine or watching
00:40:33
tv like slightly different than an
00:40:35
interactive version of that that you
00:40:37
might use for five hours a day like tick
00:40:38
tock or instagram and i just dropped in
00:40:41
an image into
00:40:43
uh the the zoom chat there about suicide
00:40:45
rates in the united states and this
00:40:46
chart you'll see goes up to 2018. and
00:40:48
right around 2006 when we were at 11
00:40:51
percent uh eleven suicides i think per
00:40:53
ten thousand per hundred thousand uh
00:40:55
you'll see from 2006
00:40:58
to 2008 we go from you know 10 or 11
00:41:01
basically suicides per 100 000 americans
00:41:04
all the way up to 14. a 40 increase but
00:41:07
what's your that correlates directly
00:41:08
with social media becoming part of what
00:41:10
we're doing here but what's your
00:41:12
connection to what's happening i mean is
00:41:13
that among teens i mean what what is
00:41:15
that this is overall suicide rate so i
00:41:17
just think social media and the anxiety
00:41:19
it produced could be actually having it
00:41:21
i'm open-minded to that can i clear up
00:41:23
one thing saks i think that um your
00:41:26
argument would be reasonable if the
00:41:28
first part of your argument uh made
00:41:31
more sense and to me it doesn't and when
00:41:33
you don't think that smoking and looking
00:41:36
at your screen for an hour a day are the
00:41:38
same
00:41:39
let me just in from my perspective
00:41:40
explain to you why they are the same
00:41:42
whether or not you're ingesting
00:41:44
something into your lungs or whether or
00:41:45
not it's your eyes
00:41:47
at the end of the day you're still
00:41:48
activating physiological pathways okay
00:41:51
there are specific chemicals that are
00:41:53
being created through smoking specific
00:41:55
chemicals that are created through how
00:41:56
your brain and your mind is reacting
00:41:58
and all of these things when you're
00:42:00
bathed in these chemicals for long
00:42:02
periods of time
00:42:04
have known deleterious consequences some
00:42:06
manifest in tumors which then result in
00:42:08
cancer you die lung cancer cigarettes
00:42:11
but what we're learning is some of these
00:42:12
things result in long-term imbalances of
00:42:16
these critical hormones and chemicals
00:42:18
you need in your brain to stay healthy
00:42:20
and that results in anxiety or the
00:42:22
propensity to overeat or the propensity
00:42:24
to then throw stuff up and so i would be
00:42:28
careful about not assuming they're not
00:42:30
physiologically the same i actually
00:42:32
think they're more similar than
00:42:33
different at a core physiological level
00:42:36
it's just that we're not used to the
00:42:38
fact that something that that is
00:42:39
equivalent to looking at a screen could
00:42:41
actually do that to you i guess the
00:42:43
question is what's the what's the what's
00:42:44
the threshold for regulatory
00:42:47
intervention
00:42:48
if um if someone did this at the scale
00:42:51
let's say there was a social network
00:42:52
that was had a hundred thousand users
00:42:54
and people were actively using the
00:42:56
social network every day and having body
00:42:58
issues or whatever the you know the the
00:43:00
concept that's gonna find that claim
00:43:01
might be we're about to find out you
00:43:03
know are we gonna end up creating kind
00:43:04
of a regulatory frame across all of
00:43:06
these things and i think that this goes
00:43:08
also to the point of scale because
00:43:10
um at the end of the day if you end up
00:43:12
starting a business and you're not
00:43:13
successful you don't really kind of find
00:43:15
yourself in the sort of framing of well
00:43:17
what are you doing wrong all of the the
00:43:19
companies that scale the assumption is
00:43:21
they did something wrong in order to get
00:43:23
to that scale you know roloff both of um
00:43:27
sax's former colleague and and obviously
00:43:30
famed investor now at sequoia capital
00:43:33
um said that uh he always he only
00:43:35
invests in businesses that pursue one of
00:43:38
the seven deadly sins because those are
00:43:40
ultimately the things that consumers
00:43:42
kind of increment their consumption of
00:43:44
there has to be a seven deadly sin
00:43:46
driver
00:43:47
uh you know underscoring the success of
00:43:49
any business
00:43:50
that sells two consumers and if that is
00:43:53
actually true people aren't making kind
00:43:54
of altruistic purchasing and consumption
00:43:57
decisions they're making decisions based
00:43:58
on envy and based on greed and based on
00:44:00
gluttony and all of those drivers we
00:44:03
kind of you know are effectively
00:44:05
kind of related back to these
00:44:07
physiological drivers right and so like
00:44:10
yeah no two things can be right what you
00:44:12
said can be right but i think what also
00:44:14
can be right is are we really willing to
00:44:17
bet that now there are not 50
00:44:19
individually ambitious politically
00:44:21
ambitious state ag's
00:44:23
licking their chops reading this stuff
00:44:25
wondering how many kids in their state
00:44:26
may have suffered from an eating
00:44:28
disorder or anxiety and blame it on one
00:44:30
of these apps of course are we convinced
00:44:33
that not a single lawsuit will get filed
00:44:35
are we convinced that there's not going
00:44:36
to be any class action and by the way
00:44:37
that's just the united states what is
00:44:39
somebody that's sitting around a you
00:44:41
know around a table of politicians desks
00:44:44
in you know germany belgium uh
00:44:47
france thailand
00:44:49
they're going to find their issue in
00:44:51
this treasure trove of content that's
00:44:52
being you know continuously drip fed out
00:44:55
to the public i guess my point is that
00:44:57
this is today's issue
00:44:59
and business success ultimately over
00:45:02
time in consumer markets will always
00:45:04
ultimately be driven by products that
00:45:06
have at scale deleterious effects on the
00:45:09
consumer market and those deleterious
00:45:11
effects will be a result of some sort of
00:45:13
kind of addictive or negative kind of
00:45:14
consequence that arises when folks use
00:45:17
these things frequently and the market
00:45:19
figures out how to optimize the
00:45:20
utilization of products to increase
00:45:22
revenue to increase profit and that's
00:45:23
what a free market does and i'm not
00:45:24
saying it's right or wrong i'm just
00:45:26
pointing out that there isn't in my
00:45:28
opinion something unique here i mean you
00:45:30
know coca-cola is the largest beverage
00:45:31
company in the world they sell 40 grams
00:45:33
of sugar in 12 ounces of water and
00:45:35
everyone buys that and they feel great
00:45:37
from that and the sugar creates this
00:45:38
addictive problem now we've got an
00:45:39
obesity epidemic i'm not blaming
00:45:40
coca-cola but that's the general trend
00:45:42
in cpg over the last 50 years increasing
00:45:45
sugar increasing salt and then the
00:45:47
difference
00:45:48
the difference is that this is not sugar
00:45:50
which is a generic compound
00:45:52
this is for example no different than
00:45:54
when purdue pharma started to make
00:45:56
fentanyl it's a really great drug it has
00:45:59
incredibly superior advantages it's used
00:46:02
for a lot of very important things
00:46:04
when that spilled over knowingly to a
00:46:07
level of abuse and i don't think it was
00:46:09
a lot of abuse but there was enough that
00:46:11
essentially was overlooked in in the
00:46:13
building of a business
00:46:15
it started with state ags who stepped in
00:46:17
and then it basically ultimately drove a
00:46:20
federal agreement states agreements a
00:46:22
master settlement agreement around
00:46:24
fentanyl and then purdue essentially
00:46:26
disgorging all the profits that they
00:46:28
made so you're right free markets should
00:46:31
act in however way they're going to act
00:46:35
but when those free market operators
00:46:37
themselves are producing data that shows
00:46:38
that oh [ __ ] hold on something could be
00:46:40
going wrong here um
00:46:43
then i do think that politicians will
00:46:45
step in regulators could step in i mean
00:46:48
what's crazy here is you know the fda
00:46:50
could actually act like if the fda is
00:46:52
willing to act on joule
00:46:54
what is the difference if the fda says
00:46:55
they feel like let's just assume that
00:46:57
somebody in the fda says we feel like we
00:46:59
should have a responsibility to think
00:47:01
about mental health and eating disorders
00:47:03
but that's the slippery slope right
00:47:05
what's the threshold right at what point
00:47:07
do they say no we're not touching this
00:47:08
and at what point do they say yes we are
00:47:09
touching this because at the end of the
00:47:10
day any successful consumer product will
00:47:12
have some degree of deleterious effect
00:47:15
exactly and well and this is why we have
00:47:17
to have some perspective about it so
00:47:19
in preparation for the segment
00:47:21
i asked my 11 year old
00:47:23
uh girl daughter um
00:47:25
i know jake how you don't think i talked
00:47:26
to my kids but actually i made no joke
00:47:30
no joke i was
00:47:32
thinking if you were the father she was
00:47:34
like who are you
00:47:35
why are you in my room
00:47:41
so the first thing she said is who are
00:47:43
you and the second and after i said i'm
00:47:44
your dad and the second thing she said
00:47:47
the second thing she said is i don't use
00:47:49
instagram i'm like okay well what do you
00:47:50
use she said tick tock i'm like the
00:47:52
worst so i'm like what do you what do
00:47:55
you use tick tock for and she said well
00:47:56
i watched uh dance videos and i'm like
00:47:58
well the i've been reading press
00:48:00
articles that say that the only thing on
00:48:01
tick tock is
00:48:03
sex and drugs and that it's you know
00:48:06
it's it's bringing you into a vortex of
00:48:09
that and she said i don't i don't watch
00:48:11
i watch dance videos and then smart as a
00:48:12
whip she said the only people who end up
00:48:15
watching that are the ones who keep
00:48:16
indicating she didn't use word
00:48:17
preference but she basically said that
00:48:19
they keep getting that stuff because
00:48:20
they like it and they keep getting fed
00:48:22
more of what they're watching so look i
00:48:24
think we have to have a sense of
00:48:25
perspective about this at the end of the
00:48:27
day
00:48:28
products like facebook
00:48:31
and instagram are ways for people to
00:48:33
share content and consume content from
00:48:35
people they follow i mean that's
00:48:36
basically it now is there a lot of bad
00:48:38
[ __ ] on there yeah because there's a lot
00:48:39
of bad [ __ ] in the world
00:48:41
and should facebook be trying to control
00:48:43
this stuff absolutely um
00:48:46
but i don't at the end of the day think
00:48:47
it's it's uh
00:48:49
it's cigarettes if they banned kids from
00:48:51
using tick tock and instagram until they
00:48:54
were 16 years old would you be opposed
00:48:56
to that because i don't let my kids use
00:48:58
it and i have an 11 year old
00:48:59
anywhere near we have a complete
00:49:01
moratorium
00:49:02
no social media is our rule i can't
00:49:04
believe you let your kids use social
00:49:05
media i mean i'm not passing judgment
00:49:07
but i mean like all they use it for is
00:49:09
to watch dance videos so
00:49:10
um but i think sax's point is an
00:49:12
interesting one which is you know based
00:49:14
on what your daughter said that that is
00:49:15
effectively what's going on it creates
00:49:17
an acceleration of the natural evolution
00:49:19
of these markets that historically may
00:49:21
have taken call it 50 years for everyone
00:49:23
to want to watch you know
00:49:25
mtv didn't emerge for 60 years until you
00:49:28
know there was kind of radio um and
00:49:30
television broadcast signals and then
00:49:32
everyone said you know what i want to
00:49:33
watch rockers dancing on stage and go
00:49:35
nuts and whatever the kind of consumer
00:49:37
demand was that eventually evolved there
00:49:39
what's happening in social media is
00:49:40
within seconds you make evolutionary
00:49:42
votes on kind of what you want in a
00:49:44
media cycle and then all of a sudden a
00:49:46
few hours later you're getting exactly
00:49:48
what you want over and over again and
00:49:49
you can't say no and that that's
00:49:51
effectively what digital media generally
00:49:54
social media in particular has some
00:49:55
nuances to it but digital media
00:49:56
generally has enabled is an acceleration
00:49:59
of the natural consumption trend that we
00:50:01
see with humans which is they eventually
00:50:03
want to go to one of the seven deadly
00:50:04
sins and that's what they kind of get
00:50:05
stuck with we've definitely talked about
00:50:06
the danger of getting trapped in in an
00:50:09
information bubble and and a feedback
00:50:11
loop and i do think that is
00:50:13
a danger of these products but so is
00:50:15
cable news i mean
00:50:17
you know you look at twitter it's an
00:50:18
outraged machine and people get trapped
00:50:21
in a cycle and they only want to they
00:50:23
either follow people to get outraged by
00:50:25
them or just because they want to kind
00:50:27
of self-indoctrinate themselves but that
00:50:29
is basically why people watch cable news
00:50:30
as well i mean it is an outrage machine
00:50:32
your friend tucker
00:50:34
or rachel maddow on msnbc they're both
00:50:36
feeding
00:50:37
different uh variations of of outrage
00:50:40
and um so so my point is look i don't
00:50:42
think these problems are unique to
00:50:44
social media i think they pervade
00:50:47
hollywood and the entertainment industry
00:50:49
and even the news industry
00:50:51
um maybe look maybe we should put
00:50:52
warning labels on them at the end of the
00:50:54
day we don't prohibit cigarettes we have
00:50:56
an assumption of risk argument we put
00:50:58
warning labels on them maybe we need
00:51:00
warning labels on these instances
00:51:01
influencers right you put it you put it
00:51:04
behind a counter and there's a strict
00:51:05
prohibition on people under the age of
00:51:07
18
00:51:08
being able to use them and when it looks
00:51:10
like you know companies like jewel
00:51:12
were trying to circumvent those things
00:51:14
or make it appear
00:51:16
more valuable basically to hook kids at
00:51:19
a younger and younger age when they
00:51:20
weren't capable of making those
00:51:21
decisions
00:51:22
um they were held liable so okay so
00:51:25
there's a really interesting topic there
00:51:27
which is should people under the age of
00:51:28
say 16 or 18 be prohibited my original
00:51:31
question products
00:51:33
yes
00:51:34
100 percent 100 percent
00:51:37
look if you if you think about 16 or 18
00:51:39
16 or 18. let's uh 16 100 18 16 100 and
00:51:44
then up there needs to be a way of
00:51:45
opting up because i think 16 year olds
00:51:47
are quite sophisticated but here's the
00:51:49
thing we are living longer and longer
00:51:51
than ever it is very likely that we're
00:51:53
all going to generally live to our
00:51:54
hundreds
00:51:56
it's not the end of the world for these
00:51:57
kids to have to wait an extra two or
00:51:59
three years until their literal
00:52:01
physiology is a little bit better form
00:52:04
so that they have better antibodies to
00:52:05
this [ __ ]
00:52:07
and i think that if we as a adult
00:52:09
population aren't necessarily going to
00:52:11
take responsibility for these kids i
00:52:13
think we're doing them a huge disservice
00:52:15
you don't let your kids run around
00:52:16
wherever they want you don't let them
00:52:18
hold guns whenever they want you don't
00:52:19
let them do a whole bunch of things
00:52:22
that they may think is okay but you know
00:52:25
could have really bad consequences and
00:52:28
so if you know that this stuff is
00:52:29
happening
00:52:31
i think it's very different to look at a
00:52:32
22 year old and tell them what to do or
00:52:34
not to do that's not what we're debating
00:52:36
but what that data was about was about
00:52:39
long-term systemic health issues
00:52:42
to
00:52:44
a large percentage of girls that's
00:52:46
really [ __ ] up and a lot of the
00:52:49
research that's come out i dropped a
00:52:50
couple of links in the chat you know i
00:52:52
haven't read the studies but um they're
00:52:54
starting to show a correlation between
00:52:55
suicide rates and depression in young
00:52:57
kids with social media and it does skew
00:53:00
towards females the theory is
00:53:02
uh females are uh more adept or more
00:53:06
frequently in uh
00:53:08
dynamic or complex social
00:53:10
uh situations in other words
00:53:12
cyberbullying type situations where
00:53:14
people use the social media to just kind
00:53:16
of blow each other i mean look i think
00:53:18
you guys have a real point with respect
00:53:19
to ages 13 to 16 because i don't think
00:53:21
you're allowed to use social media or at
00:53:23
least the terms you prohibited under age
00:53:24
13. we all know that's a joke you and i
00:53:26
have
00:53:26
had to build
00:53:28
products that have to you know abide by
00:53:30
copper laws and we always just kind of
00:53:32
laugh at it because they're [ __ ]
00:53:33
right okay fair enough but what i'm
00:53:35
saying is i think you guys have a real
00:53:36
issue that needs to be explored around
00:53:39
what's the
00:53:40
usage uh for ages 13 to 16. but look
00:53:43
what i worry about with these things is
00:53:44
you're always playing whack-a-mole right
00:53:46
i mean you basically ban social media
00:53:48
and all of a sudden these kids because
00:53:49
they're very tech savvy they're going to
00:53:51
find themselves on text groups and text
00:53:52
chats and they'll be in signal and you
00:53:55
won't even be able to see what they're
00:53:56
doing i mean at least on social media
00:53:58
that the whole point of that though that
00:53:59
makes sense to me because i remember
00:54:01
when i was growing up and we all wanted
00:54:02
to smoke it was a pain in the ass to get
00:54:05
cigarettes so most of us just said
00:54:07
it's not worth it but yeah you're right
00:54:09
a handful of people found a way to get
00:54:11
the cigarettes to sneak behind the
00:54:12
school to smoke them that's fine but
00:54:15
that's very different than jewel walking
00:54:17
into the middle of the lunchroom and
00:54:18
passing out berry flavored vape pens
00:54:20
yeah coconut peanut wow
00:54:23
that's baby basically insane well that's
00:54:25
crazy obviously that's going to be
00:54:27
created packaging if you look at the
00:54:28
paper why do you have a creative outrage
00:54:30
around jewel and berry flavored vape
00:54:32
look why do you care about jewel um or
00:54:35
why should we generally care about jewel
00:54:37
and not care about soda companies making
00:54:39
40 grams per 12 ounces of sugar which is
00:54:42
truly dangerous and damaging to the
00:54:44
health because we've been drinking soda
00:54:45
for a long time and we've already
00:54:47
accepted it so it's too late to accept
00:54:48
it we essentially essentially long time
00:54:50
and then we had this kind of you know
00:54:52
tobacco moratorium that's now kind of
00:54:54
well you know
00:54:55
shut out smoking but free break if you
00:54:57
say if you
00:54:58
said right now
00:55:00
covid uh is a disease of the old and the
00:55:04
obese you would be cancelled like
00:55:06
somebody tried to say that that's
00:55:08
recently the guy
00:55:09
no but the point is you're talking about
00:55:11
like people are very sensitive about
00:55:12
this obesity thing and the second you
00:55:14
say like
00:55:16
we need to monitor you
00:55:19
forty percent of americans with type two
00:55:20
diabetes or whatever there's also
00:55:22
personal freedom and do you wanna drink
00:55:24
a coke zero exactly water and so if you
00:55:26
have personal freedom why should some
00:55:28
regulator tell you what social media
00:55:30
tool you should or should not use
00:55:32
right
00:55:36
if we're talking about what are you
00:55:37
going to do with a 13 to 16 year old
00:55:39
what are you going to do with the and 11
00:55:41
year old that's the best part of your
00:55:43
argument that's the best part of your
00:55:44
argument is when we're dealing with
00:55:45
minors i could i could see the argument
00:55:47
for more restrictions and and
00:55:48
potentially support them depending on
00:55:50
what they are i think that's something
00:55:51
what about ideas
00:55:53
what about minors not being able to
00:55:54
drink soda you have to be 16 year old to
00:55:56
drink soda i mean that's actually that's
00:55:58
where most diabetes and obesity is
00:56:00
rooted in this country
00:56:01
i'm open-minded to that position
00:56:03
actually i know it sounds crazy but no i
00:56:05
think that that that makes sense
00:56:06
drinking coconut cola makes no sense if
00:56:08
we have a crazy obesity if we can
00:56:10
actually show that
00:56:12
so let's ask the question though so let
00:56:14
me let me ask you let me ask a
00:56:15
second-order question about this which
00:56:17
is freeberg is right that drinking sodas
00:56:19
for 13 year olds has got to be as
00:56:21
harmful or more than using facebook okay
00:56:24
so why do we never hear about that i
00:56:26
would argue that there's something else
00:56:28
going on here with this massive amount
00:56:30
of attacks on social networking
00:56:33
companies there's a lot of people who
00:56:35
hate
00:56:36
social networking in the traditional
00:56:38
legacy media because they've been
00:56:39
disrupted
00:56:40
by facebook by these social media
00:56:42
companies and so they're working money
00:56:44
they took their money and they're
00:56:45
looking to publicize any article about
00:56:47
the negative effects of these companies
00:56:49
which they're not threatened by
00:56:51
coca-cola they're not going to publish
00:56:52
those kinds of studies so i just think
00:56:55
that there's an argument that perhaps
00:56:58
i'm not saying you're wrong i think
00:56:59
there's absolutely truth in what you're
00:57:01
saying it's all a matter of degree
00:57:02
though and perspective and i do think
00:57:05
that the traditional media has an
00:57:07
incentive to blow this out of proportion
00:57:09
a little bit because they have an agenda
00:57:10
is what you're saying yeah absolutely
00:57:12
and i think i think people in power
00:57:15
look i think there's a positive thing
00:57:16
about social networking i mean because
00:57:17
we haven't said one positive thing about
00:57:19
it okay social networking overall
00:57:21
enables us to stay in touch
00:57:23
with people we care about friends family
00:57:26
and allows us to receive information
00:57:27
from people we want to follow okay we
00:57:29
never talk about those positives i find
00:57:31
it an incredibly convenient way to
00:57:34
consume things okay so we never talk
00:57:37
about that but but here but here's why
00:57:39
is because
00:57:41
social media is fundamentally a
00:57:42
democratizing force right it enables
00:57:44
people to coordinate in a much more
00:57:46
democratized way than they ever had been
00:57:48
able to before i do think that is
00:57:50
threatening to people in power and given
00:57:52
the chance they would like to suppress
00:57:54
it um zuckerberg gave a speech a few
00:57:56
years ago about social networks being
00:57:58
the i think called the fourth estate
00:58:00
with the third estate being the press
00:58:01
and in the same way that that there are
00:58:03
people who want us in power who want to
00:58:05
censor the press i do believe that there
00:58:07
are people in power want to censor
00:58:08
social networks because they don't like
00:58:10
the disruptive democratizing force that
00:58:13
it represents and there is a lot of
00:58:14
positive to that in the world
00:58:17
you're i think you're mixing up a lot of
00:58:18
things there so
00:58:20
yeah you're right and i don't think any
00:58:22
of us are saying cancel these companies
00:58:24
and remove them from the internet i
00:58:26
think what we're saying is there are
00:58:27
very specific ways in which certain
00:58:29
features are
00:58:30
built
00:58:31
that they are expressed in features
00:58:34
that are now apparently according to
00:58:36
their own work and exploration
00:58:38
are linked to mental health issues
00:58:41
so i think the point is people should
00:58:44
now decide whether to your point
00:58:46
we should ignore it because
00:58:48
the good vastly outweighs you know
00:58:51
what's a third of girls who the [ __ ]
00:58:52
airs right i mean they're chicks so
00:58:54
whatever
00:58:55
uh or you say uh actually this is a
00:58:57
really big problem and so let's step up
00:58:59
and fix it because somebody needs to
00:59:01
protect these people and when you're 16
00:59:03
or 17 or 18 do whatever you want like we
00:59:06
let people do today you want to drink a
00:59:08
coca-cola every day get diabetes you can
00:59:10
do that nobody tries to stop you right
00:59:13
you want to smoke a pack of smokes a day
00:59:14
you can do that nobody stops you but we
00:59:17
do a lot of other things to try to help
00:59:19
kids
00:59:21
i think i think if we're only talking
00:59:22
about ages if we're talking about the
00:59:23
minors the the kids i think you and i
00:59:26
can find agreement on this issue i think
00:59:27
but but i do think that the demonization
00:59:29
of social media goes well beyond that
00:59:31
but look i think you've got a great
00:59:33
point with respect to the kids do you
00:59:35
guys believe and this is a theory that's
00:59:36
been growing that tick tock run by the
00:59:39
chinese government is trying to
00:59:41
reprogram ethics morals and doing
00:59:43
psychops basically if there's
00:59:46
on our children no jay there's something
00:59:48
bigger than that i mean i think all of
00:59:49
you guys probably upgraded to 14.8 ios
00:59:52
this week i hope if you haven't and
00:59:54
everybody listening if you haven't
00:59:55
please go upgrade it
00:59:57
but you know the israeli spy firm nso
00:59:59
had apparently created a zero click
01:00:02
exploit for the iphone
01:00:04
where you could turn on the camera and
01:00:06
the microphone and basically spy on
01:00:08
folks
01:00:09
completely unaware
01:00:12
and you know jason and i were talking
01:00:13
about this and and and i think jason you
01:00:15
were the one that said you're like yeah
01:00:16
we've been living with that with tick
01:00:18
tock for years it's not as if you know
01:00:19
nso just licensed it randomly to the
01:00:22
saudi government i mean this tool has
01:00:23
been available for a while so to your
01:00:24
point but do we think that the chinese
01:00:28
government tick tock are trying to
01:00:30
program our children to be more deviant
01:00:32
and to create social unrest and no you
01:00:35
don't think that they're trying to steer
01:00:37
them with the algorithm towards bad
01:00:38
results because they're not letting
01:00:39
their kids play video
01:00:40
games wall street did you see the wall
01:00:43
street journal article that i just sent
01:00:44
to you guys wall street journal article
01:00:46
basically created a bunch of kids
01:00:48
accounts and then did searches or what
01:00:51
started to go down a rabbit hole and
01:00:53
just with one keyword search you know
01:00:55
these kids went into deep you know
01:00:58
kink bdsm
01:00:59
this is a this is a pretty
01:01:00
straightforward weighted tree algorithm
01:01:02
okay so like when you start on a branch
01:01:04
of a tree and you keep clicking on those
01:01:06
things that's what you'll get this is no
01:01:08
different than how facebook's algorithm
01:01:10
works how google search algorithm works
01:01:12
for you once you start behaving with
01:01:14
clicks or swipes or likes they use that
01:01:18
as a feedback loop and they basically
01:01:20
weigh the next set of results so david's
01:01:22
daughter is right if you click on sex
01:01:24
drugs and rock and roll that's it's not
01:01:26
all you're going to get but it's going
01:01:27
to be a large percentage of what you get
01:01:28
because the algorithm in a blunt way
01:01:31
assumes that that's what you like yeah
01:01:33
so i'm not sure that this is repeating
01:01:35
anything that's so im you know it's
01:01:37
pretty
01:01:38
obvious that that's how it should work
01:01:40
if they want to have maximum utilization
01:01:43
well you know the thing that's slightly
01:01:44
different about tick tock is you know in
01:01:45
facebook or instagram you build your
01:01:47
feed and twitter and then it serves it
01:01:50
up algorithmically on tick tock it uses
01:01:52
the entire corpus so if you do one
01:01:55
search for a keyword now it's not just a
01:01:57
subset of what your friends posted in
01:01:59
some ranked order it's the entire corpus
01:02:01
of like long tail and so what they show
01:02:03
in this tick tock is like how quickly a
01:02:06
child who just types in one key word can
01:02:08
be have their feed be 90 drug use
01:02:11
and you know sadomasochistic whatever
01:02:13
you're into uh sex i don't know
01:02:21
if the content is obscene then it should
01:02:23
be taken down to begin with okay and um
01:02:26
look
01:02:27
my takeaway from this conversation is
01:02:29
that uh we need to do something
01:02:31
different for kids i don't know if it's
01:02:33
a it's a flat out prohibition or what
01:02:36
but but but yeah but look so so the tick
01:02:38
tock algorithm thing if you want to keep
01:02:41
seeing more and more content related to
01:02:43
something fine the algorithm is going to
01:02:44
give you more and more of what you want
01:02:45
as a consumer but maybe for kids there
01:02:47
needs to be some guard rails around that
01:02:49
and we don't direct we don't direct kids
01:02:51
towards certain kinds of content around
01:02:54
you know sex or drugs or violence i have
01:02:57
to constantly remind parents like
01:02:58
youtube kids should not use youtube
01:03:00
because it goes really to crazy dark
01:03:02
places
01:03:03
and there's kids youtube and kids
01:03:05
youtube they add each and every video
01:03:07
now you still get some of that
01:03:08
consumption and unboxing of
01:03:10
things and your kids will ask you to buy
01:03:12
a bunch of stuff but you're not going to
01:03:13
get straight up sex violence and
01:03:15
you know everything
01:03:16
i'll tell you what does happen my uh i i
01:03:18
put kids youtube on my kids my
01:03:20
four-year-old's ipad
01:03:22
and then the other day she said she saw
01:03:24
some like scary horror thing on there
01:03:26
and she couldn't sleep and she woke up
01:03:27
in the middle of the night because you
01:03:28
know if we're not doing our job as
01:03:29
parents curating the content and
01:03:30
curating what our kids are doing and
01:03:32
we're leaving it to this app uh we're
01:03:34
totally left
01:03:35
and uh and that that's what i realized i
01:03:37
did my laziness in like just thinking
01:03:40
like oh there was something she wanted
01:03:41
to watch i put the app on there and
01:03:42
didn't pay attention for a few weeks and
01:03:44
all of a sudden she had gone down the
01:03:45
rabbit hole found something scary
01:03:47
i use a i don't know if you guys use
01:03:49
this but i use an app called custodio
01:03:51
it's with a q
01:03:53
q u s t u d i o
01:03:55
and you can kind of like lock down all
01:03:57
these devices and then at the end of
01:03:58
every week it gives you an email of all
01:04:00
the app usage and all the links that
01:04:03
these that my kids clicked on or just my
01:04:05
oldest one
01:04:06
he's the only one that has a phone
01:04:09
but that's nice and you had a discussion
01:04:11
with him about that like hey yeah it's a
01:04:12
privilege to have this and yeah it's
01:04:15
going to tell me what you do i agree
01:04:16
it's still super super hard but this is
01:04:18
why i think you need to have some blunt
01:04:19
force
01:04:20
instruments right now and my blunt force
01:04:22
instruments are you're not allowed to
01:04:23
have
01:04:24
um well the ones that we've
01:04:27
they're not allowed to have tick tock
01:04:28
snapchat facebook instagram twitter yes
01:04:31
hard no
01:04:32
and the only reason we allow youtube is
01:04:34
because a lot of the school
01:04:37
links
01:04:38
are the videos inside of youtube and so
01:04:40
you can't lock it down but that's why i
01:04:41
use this custodio app to see what
01:04:43
they're watching on youtube even then
01:04:45
though it's not perfect by the way this
01:04:46
thing that just came from the pentagon
01:04:48
there's a total friday news drop i mean
01:04:50
talk about a friday news drop i don't
01:04:52
know what we don't know what you're
01:04:53
talking about u.s military acknowledges
01:04:54
kabul drone strike killed 10 civilians
01:04:56
including seven children
01:04:59
we knew this they're just confirming
01:05:00
something that had been
01:05:02
exposed new york times did excellent
01:05:04
reporting on this excellent reporting by
01:05:05
the new york times that was incredible
01:05:07
journalism
01:05:08
i mean did you guys see that they were
01:05:09
like watching frame for frame of like a
01:05:12
video then they were like going to
01:05:13
google maps they were comparing colors
01:05:15
of cars they were looking at sides of
01:05:17
buildings
01:05:18
uh incredible reporting by the new york
01:05:20
times it was really the i mean it's
01:05:22
obviously a tragedy was the final
01:05:24
debacle of our afghanistan involvement
01:05:27
this was a foreign aid worker
01:05:30
who actually he was there as an aid
01:05:32
worker and um
01:05:34
they had him on video loading up his car
01:05:37
with uh plastic jugs of water and
01:05:39
somehow they thought these were
01:05:41
explosives or something like that
01:05:43
and he was doing his errands and then he
01:05:45
comes home
01:05:46
and they hit the the car with you know a
01:05:49
massive uh missile from one of these
01:05:51
reaper drones
01:05:52
and it kills him as well as um you know
01:05:55
it's basically 10 members of his
01:05:56
standard family including seven children
01:05:59
now
01:06:00
the
01:06:01
i i mean i i think i understand why this
01:06:04
well we don't exactly know why this
01:06:06
happened and i think it needs to be
01:06:08
investigated obviously the military in
01:06:11
kabul was on high alert because we had
01:06:13
just had that bombing at the airport and
01:06:14
it was the bloodiest day for america in
01:06:17
afghanistan i think we had three 13
01:06:19
soldiers killed a few days before this
01:06:21
but
01:06:23
but it just shows the kind of mistakes
01:06:25
that we can make even fighting drone
01:06:27
warfare you know the idea was the term
01:06:29
casualties of war exists for a reason
01:06:31
like this is how war works you cannot do
01:06:34
it perfectly it's messy everybody
01:06:36
innocent people dies that's why war is
01:06:38
the worst thing but how did we should be
01:06:40
the last resort right and how do we ever
01:06:41
think we're going to win hearts and
01:06:43
minds in this country by you know like
01:06:45
we we made two we talked about this it's
01:06:47
like they're they're not interested in
01:06:49
democracy like in the way we want them
01:06:51
to be and the west wants them to be we
01:06:53
by the way that's forcing it down their
01:06:55
throats is not gonna work we we could
01:06:57
have maintained a base there there were
01:06:58
better ways to exit but
01:07:00
let's fix the schools in california
01:07:02
first yeah i think that's i think
01:07:04
that'll ultimately i think people are
01:07:06
going to forget those images of people
01:07:08
on planes and just think thank god
01:07:10
that's over i think
01:07:11
now that there hasn't been 20 you know
01:07:13
and hopefully there's not another 911.
01:07:15
all right uh let's wrap with um ellen
01:07:18
powell wrote a piece for the new york
01:07:20
times uh op-ed section section on uh
01:07:23
sexism in tech using the elizabeth
01:07:26
holmes trial as the main example um
01:07:30
she was also on tech checks the nbc show
01:07:32
and discussed her op-ed
01:07:34
uh quote
01:07:36
holmes should be held accountable for
01:07:38
her actions as chief executive of
01:07:40
theranos and it can be sexist to hold
01:07:43
her accountable for alleged
01:07:46
ver serious wrongdoing and not
01:07:49
hold an array of men accountable for
01:07:51
reports of wrongdoing and bad judgment
01:07:54
she uses travis kalanick and adam newman
01:07:56
as examples of men who have engaged in
01:07:58
questionable unethical even dangerous
01:08:00
behavior in tech without much legal
01:08:02
penalty
01:08:03
and that they both went on to start new
01:08:05
companies her main example however if
01:08:07
bias is tech
01:08:09
executive kevin burns who is the former
01:08:11
ceo of jewel j-u-u-l
01:08:14
uh who helped the e-cigarette vaping
01:08:16
company raise uh 12 billion dollars but
01:08:19
he left jewel amidst a lot of legal
01:08:22
blowback and
01:08:23
just this past week with a bunch with a
01:08:25
bunch of cash with about yeah i mean of
01:08:27
course you get the secure the bag on the
01:08:28
way out adam newman too um
01:08:30
and uh
01:08:32
don't drop that
01:08:33
don't drop the bag you have one job to
01:08:35
do don't drop the bag yes run um but
01:08:38
don't do not drop the bag
01:08:41
so i mean she meant she mentioned other
01:08:43
stories like uh juicero if you guys
01:08:45
remember this company
01:08:46
um a couple years ago they raised 100
01:08:48
million dollars pre-launched right it
01:08:50
was a juicer that you know was supposed
01:08:52
to
01:08:53
enjoy my juice from my juicer oh yeah
01:08:56
the claim that they made was that inside
01:08:57
of the packets was like fresh vegetables
01:09:00
and this thing squeezed the fresh
01:09:01
vegetables and fresh juice juice came
01:09:03
out and it turns out that the bag was
01:09:05
just filled with juice
01:09:06
and so no no i think the bag was filled
01:09:08
with shaved vegetables or whatever but
01:09:10
you could squeeze the bag you could
01:09:11
squeeze it would squeeze the bag so that
01:09:13
it was already pre-juiced is what um you
01:09:15
know uh olivia zolowski who's now
01:09:19
it uh uh she basically put they she she
01:09:22
kind of made a whole video and put on
01:09:23
bloomberg they had juice in these
01:09:25
packets and they were telling people
01:09:26
what they thought fresh juice
01:09:29
yeah so they could have opened the
01:09:30
drawer sorry sorry they could have put
01:09:32
it into a machine and paid seven dollars
01:09:34
the juice then took that juice put it in
01:09:36
a bag yeah that was supposed to be fresh
01:09:38
vegetables sold that as fresh vegetables
01:09:40
to then get juiced
01:09:43
i charged eight dollars a bag for this
01:09:45
stuff
01:09:46
um were invested in that who invested in
01:09:48
that who wrote a hundred million dollars
01:09:50
google ventures anyway a lot of people
01:09:52
would like to kind of say it was a huge
01:09:53
it was a huge like you know better for
01:09:55
the planet story but it turns out that
01:09:57
the hardware didn't work and then they
01:09:59
ended up kind of faking it until you
01:10:00
make it it's very similar to their notes
01:10:02
in the sense that there was a piece of
01:10:03
hardware that made a claim that wasn't
01:10:04
necessarily true and granted no lives
01:10:07
were at risk in this particular case but
01:10:09
some might argue lives were at risk in
01:10:11
the case of jewel but i think you know
01:10:13
you see this a lot more in these kind of
01:10:15
hardware and particularly in life
01:10:16
sciences companies
01:10:18
um you know there's a business like like
01:10:20
zymergen's a good example right it's
01:10:21
very hard tech very deep tech
01:10:24
uh josh hoffman did an incredible job
01:10:26
fundraising raise a 400 million dollar
01:10:27
round from softbank took the company
01:10:29
public then they go public and a few
01:10:30
weeks later they're like oh wait sorry
01:10:32
we don't actually have any product or
01:10:34
any revenue and we talked about this a
01:10:36
few months ago a few weeks ago and the
01:10:38
stock completely collapsed there's
01:10:39
another company called berkeley lights
01:10:41
which went public and uh yesterday
01:10:44
scorpion capital one of these short
01:10:45
sellers put out a 160 page report on
01:10:47
these guys
01:10:48
showing that berkeley likes his product
01:10:50
actually it's a hardware life sciences
01:10:52
hardware that cost 2 million
01:10:53
they've sold it into all the pharma
01:10:55
companies and scorpions saying look this
01:10:57
thing doesn't work it's a total fraud
01:10:58
like there's no the machine doesn't do
01:11:01
what they claim it does
01:11:03
okay but so to allen powell's point
01:11:05
is there a double standard or not right
01:11:07
and so these were all run by male ceos
01:11:09
and nothing happened to them and um
01:11:12
are they all white as well
01:11:14
um yeah yeah they're all white all right
01:11:18
first of all let's take it easy on the
01:11:19
white guys two months
01:11:22
it's three on the white guys on the
01:11:23
bottom no i'm asking a qualifying
01:11:25
question
01:11:26
it is um so here's what i'll ask is i
01:11:29
mean is this a surprise that white dudes
01:11:31
will get a hall pass i don't think
01:11:32
that's a shocker yeah it's considered
01:11:33
it's considered entrepreneurial failure
01:11:35
but when it comes to the woman that
01:11:37
everyone i think was excited about
01:11:39
seeing succeed because she was a woman
01:11:41
it becomes fraud and i think well you
01:11:43
know there's two different things yeah
01:11:45
is it free book is there two different
01:11:46
things between
01:11:48
you know where she
01:11:49
obviously misled people in a
01:11:52
premeditated way and lied to them like
01:11:55
taking their blood sample
01:11:56
and then putting it in a fake machine
01:11:58
then doing it in the back on an abbott
01:12:00
machine and then bringing the results
01:12:01
back and making it on her theranos
01:12:03
edison machine i mean this is literal
01:12:06
wire for a securities fraud in these
01:12:08
other cases is it people who are
01:12:10
ambitious if you look at the juicer oh
01:12:12
it's kind of like this is a stupid idea
01:12:14
that got over funded he put he put juice
01:12:15
in a packet and told you no no he put
01:12:18
he put chef shaved vegetables in the
01:12:20
packet and then used hydraulics which is
01:12:22
actually real that's actually not
01:12:24
correct watch the video that olivia put
01:12:26
on bloomberg a few years ago which i
01:12:27
just showed you pictures of it i mean
01:12:29
maybe there's a different one what they
01:12:30
showed is that it was already squeezed
01:12:32
yes there was shavings in there but it
01:12:34
was already squeezed like all right well
01:12:36
that guy should go to chat like take it
01:12:37
all back i mean it was like it was like
01:12:39
a crazy story when this came out and
01:12:40
everyone's like oh my god like it was a
01:12:42
standard like hardware is really
01:12:43
difficult you know novel hardware
01:12:45
technology is really difficult so you
01:12:47
fake it till you make it in some cases
01:12:48
you launch a product it doesn't even
01:12:50
work um you know and and there's just
01:12:52
and this isn't just in hardware it's
01:12:53
also in life sciences you see this a lot
01:12:55
where you ship a product i would
01:12:57
probably say that if if regulators
01:13:00
believe that those ceos
01:13:04
tried to commit fraud
01:13:06
they would have done challenges right
01:13:08
maybe they still will they should follow
01:13:10
up with those folks so why do you think
01:13:11
they went after elizabeth holmes
01:13:13
because it was actually illegal i think
01:13:15
there's i think there's one really
01:13:17
important there are two things at play
01:13:19
in theranos which is different
01:13:21
number one is
01:13:23
the kinds of investors that were
01:13:25
involved here
01:13:27
are extremely powerful folks
01:13:30
not necessarily you know technology
01:13:32
capable but very very well-known
01:13:35
highly
01:13:37
connected
01:13:38
people in the establishment and the
01:13:40
second was that they were operating in a
01:13:42
regulated market
01:13:44
which has very strict laws look i've
01:13:47
tried to build competing products to
01:13:49
theranose for years i've been pretty
01:13:50
public about this i've tried five or six
01:13:53
times they failed every single time i
01:13:55
couldn't even get out of the starting
01:13:56
line you know these tests would never
01:13:58
work without with a single drop of blood
01:14:00
it just didn't make any sense the only
01:14:02
version of this problem that has been
01:14:04
solved well is the ability to detect
01:14:06
cell-free
01:14:07
cancer dna in blood right using a very
01:14:10
small quantum of blood
01:14:12
companies like garden and grail have
01:14:14
actually done and built a great business
01:14:16
out of it but it requires extremely
01:14:18
sophisticated machinery sold to them by
01:14:20
illumina and others so
01:14:22
if you're operating in a regulated
01:14:24
market
01:14:25
the bar is higher
01:14:27
there is a lot more scrutiny
01:14:30
and then on top of that i think she
01:14:32
compounded it by including folks and
01:14:34
raising capital from folks that may not
01:14:36
have actually known and been able to
01:14:37
diligence and so that's the cycle of
01:14:39
fraud that may or may not have occurred
01:14:41
there and she has to or they have
01:14:43
there's a burden to prove that
01:14:46
it's very different i think over here in
01:14:48
an unregulated market where you can just
01:14:50
kind of build whatever you want and if
01:14:52
smart investors look nick just put in
01:14:54
the group chat so um the investors in
01:14:56
juicero were
01:14:58
google ventures kleiner perkins thrive
01:15:00
capital i mean these are all very
01:15:02
sophisticated folks that um you know
01:15:04
made a decision and
01:15:06
um you know it's probably not the case
01:15:08
that they were lied to i understand why
01:15:09
they made the juicer oh mistake because
01:15:11
at the time
01:15:12
fresh pressed juice using hydraulics was
01:15:15
a thing and this guy said that's what
01:15:17
i'm going to do i'm going to use
01:15:17
hydraulics i'm going to squeeze the
01:15:19
vegetables so you get the best stuff i
01:15:21
understand why they fell for it because
01:15:22
my
01:15:25
my wife jay was buying that pressed
01:15:27
juicery juice in l.a you remember this
01:15:29
trend it's pure sugar that stuff is pure
01:15:31
sugar well it's vegetable juice too but
01:15:32
it would cost like 11 because they would
01:15:34
use so much vegetables and i saw these
01:15:36
presses they used it's incredibly
01:15:38
inefficient but the juice tastes really
01:15:40
great but the thing i have a problem
01:15:41
with that with ellen pow's story is she
01:15:43
brings up
01:15:44
you know uh the
01:15:45
uh harassment stuff and
01:15:48
uh you know this is an issue of gender
01:15:50
et cetera but on this week in startups
01:15:52
i've been covering fraud after fraud i
01:15:54
don't know if you saw app annie
01:15:57
got an fcc finder yesterday
01:15:59
what happened jason because i saw that
01:16:00
annie they told people who were using
01:16:02
their analytics products building apps
01:16:04
there's like 8 million people that they
01:16:06
would never sell their data except in
01:16:07
aggregate and then they went to wall
01:16:08
street people and said here's actually
01:16:10
we'll sell you the data um and you can
01:16:12
trade on it and so
01:16:15
yeah yeah so i don't think that's like
01:16:17
insider trading exactly but it might be
01:16:19
but anyway
01:16:21
it's like that's the whole point of that
01:16:22
that's the whole point of reg fd the
01:16:24
whole point is if somebody knows
01:16:25
something if you're a financial actor
01:16:27
jason and you know something so like if
01:16:29
if all of us were sitting around a table
01:16:32
um
01:16:33
you know when somebody said something
01:16:34
about a random public company
01:16:37
if that's not public information if
01:16:39
that's not known two things have to
01:16:40
happen number one is i when i receive it
01:16:44
must not do anything with it and that
01:16:46
second that person who disclosed it
01:16:49
needs to then file an 8k and say oops i
01:16:51
accidentally said this right so there's
01:16:53
nowhere where this is an end around
01:16:55
around things like regular fd i think
01:16:57
that's a really big deal well and then i
01:16:58
guess the question is like what happens
01:17:00
with people who use planet labs or
01:17:01
whatever to
01:17:02
you know to satellite images of the
01:17:03
target parking lot or put people as
01:17:05
spotters outside of starbucks and count
01:17:07
the people coming in and out is that
01:17:08
public information that's public but if
01:17:11
you have terms of service that says one
01:17:12
thing yes and you're violating that but
01:17:14
then you may also be violating reg fd so
01:17:17
they haven't gone after people for on
01:17:19
the other side of the trade for
01:17:20
securities fraud but they charge him
01:17:21
with securities fraud he pays 10 million
01:17:23
bucks i think he's in the penalty box
01:17:24
can't be um you know run up be a public
01:17:27
officer for three years then we had
01:17:29
headspin i don't know if you saw that
01:17:30
sas company
01:17:32
but headspin
01:17:34
was involved in just basically straight
01:17:35
up lying about their sas software then
01:17:37
you have tether the stablecoin they've
01:17:39
been banned from new york by the doj
01:17:41
they've been banned by the canadian
01:17:43
regulators for the first two crypto
01:17:44
exchanges there and supposedly the doj
01:17:46
is investigating them and then there's
01:17:48
about five icos in new york that have
01:17:50
been prosecuted already so
01:17:51
i know ellen's saying like they're not
01:17:53
processed
01:17:54
but i'm seeing them all the time yeah
01:17:56
they're just not right the press is not
01:17:58
obsessed with them because
01:18:00
let's face it elizabeth
01:18:01
elizabeth
01:18:02
she was weird i mean the voice
01:18:05
there's a lot of peculiar things about
01:18:06
her that you don't see in other folks
01:18:09
who are boring right by the way what you
01:18:10
just said is was part of the sexist
01:18:12
claim that ellen made which is that we
01:18:14
talked about her dress and how she
01:18:16
dressed and how she talked we don't talk
01:18:18
about that kind of stuff when it comes
01:18:19
to other entrepreneurs and are they of
01:18:21
course they did adam newman they were
01:18:23
talking about him being a hippie walking
01:18:25
around with bare feet being six seven
01:18:27
every profile she's she's wrong in that
01:18:28
case every profile of andy newman talked
01:18:31
about his personal life and his wife is
01:18:33
married to
01:18:34
what's her names no buenos paltrow's
01:18:36
cousin
01:18:37
yeah so ellen's 100 wrong on that one
01:18:39
yeah and did it didn't elizabeth holmes
01:18:42
make it relevant by dressing
01:18:43
deliberately styling herself in the
01:18:45
fashion of steve jobs with the black
01:18:47
turtleneck and the glasses
01:18:49
i mean you know she she portrayed
01:18:51
herself as the next steve jobs i mean it
01:18:52
was part of the grift so
01:18:55
yeah exactly now did gender play into it
01:18:57
yeah but i think not necessarily in the
01:18:59
way that ellen powell thinks in this
01:19:00
sense that the media wanted to believe
01:19:03
so badly
01:19:05
that the next steve jobs was going to be
01:19:07
a woman that they kind of looked past
01:19:10
what should have been staring them in
01:19:11
the face i mean look if a man had gone
01:19:14
out there wearing the black turtleneck
01:19:15
and the john lennon glasses or whatever
01:19:17
they would have said who is this clown i
01:19:20
mean yeah exactly but they suspended
01:19:23
they suspected you have to dress up as
01:19:25
steve jobs in the next episode of free
01:19:27
birthday you can make it work can we all
01:19:28
do it can we see let's do a halloween
01:19:30
episode where we all show up i'll do
01:19:32
elizabeth holmes for halloween episode
01:19:34
but no but that's like a nested steve
01:19:35
jobs so like you're going to be
01:19:36
elizabeth we should all do our own
01:19:38
versions of it
01:19:39
elizabeth and steve jobs i i think saks
01:19:41
you're entirely right i think i think
01:19:43
you're right i think this is the way
01:19:44
that gender has played into it is that
01:19:46
there's a lot of people who really
01:19:48
wanted the elizabeth holmes story to be
01:19:50
true and frankly she used that
01:19:52
yeah in order to perpetuate her fraud
01:19:54
she may not have used it but she was
01:19:56
definitely influenced or she benefited
01:19:57
no no she used it she definitely used it
01:19:59
i want to ask you guys kind of a
01:20:01
controversial question um you know
01:20:04
because this story made me think a lot
01:20:06
about some of what's gone on in
01:20:08
businesses that i know of
01:20:11
and where i know that there is to some
01:20:12
degree fraud and misrepresentation
01:20:14
happening by the ceo and founder
01:20:16
and this is a little known secret in
01:20:18
silicon valley or a little spoken of
01:20:20
secret um
01:20:22
which is that you know more often than
01:20:24
not if you know about fraud at a company
01:20:26
in silicon valley you're encouraged to
01:20:27
keep your mouth shut because the idea is
01:20:29
at the end of the day if they're gaining
01:20:30
lots of capital and you know more
01:20:33
capital floats all boats and more money
01:20:34
will rush into that market and so if
01:20:36
there's businesses that you're competing
01:20:37
with that are committing fraud rather
01:20:38
than raise your hand which then people
01:20:40
say hey look if you're going to raise
01:20:42
your hand and claim fraud and talk
01:20:43
negatively about another company
01:20:45
people are going to start doing that
01:20:46
about you and they're going to start
01:20:47
doing that about your portfolio um and
01:20:49
so you guys know this right like you're
01:20:51
discouraged from calling out these sorts
01:20:53
of moments when you see them in silicon
01:20:55
valley because there is the perceived
01:20:57
kind of look we're all in a club
01:20:58
together we're all in it together we got
01:21:00
to be careful not to talk smack because
01:21:01
then capital will stop coming in people
01:21:03
will come after you and we're much more
01:21:05
of kind of a supportive open community
01:21:07
but there is have you guys experienced
01:21:08
that
01:21:10
i have with at least two companies in
01:21:11
the last year and you know i've kept my
01:21:13
mouth shut because
01:21:14
and by the way i don't think there's
01:21:15
necessarily harm going on but i know of
01:21:17
misrepresentation but the investors are
01:21:19
like look we'd love to see these guys
01:21:20
succeed because that would be good for
01:21:21
you in this way because then you would
01:21:23
be more money flowing in and yadda yadda
01:21:24
and there's always a narrative around
01:21:26
why you don't want to do this you know
01:21:27
why you don't want to call these things
01:21:29
out i called it out and i've still got a
01:21:30
crazy founder denouncing me years later
01:21:33
i mean
01:21:34
look i i hate who has an sec enforcement
01:21:36
against him yeah exactly
01:21:38
a sanction um so yeah i mean look i
01:21:42
you you're right freeberg that there's
01:21:44
very little upshot to doing it um but
01:21:46
but look i i hate but we have to
01:21:49
distinguish between
01:21:50
fraud and sort of uh puffing okay here's
01:21:53
the thing that i think you know ellen
01:21:55
powell's kind of missing is when she
01:21:57
criticizes all these founders who are
01:21:59
visionary and evangelical and and
01:22:02
promoting something that ends up not
01:22:03
working that is not
01:22:05
fraud i mean every startup we ask the
01:22:08
founder how are you going to change the
01:22:09
world what is your big idea what is the
01:22:11
big dream and then they lay out this
01:22:14
really pretty unrealistic set of things
01:22:16
unrealistic in the sense that it comes
01:22:17
true maybe one out of a thousand times
01:22:19
right every startup their founding
01:22:21
mission is a bit of an over promise and
01:22:24
just because it doesn't come true
01:22:26
doesn't make it fraud i think that a lot
01:22:27
of people out in the non-silicon valley
01:22:30
investing world would interpret that as
01:22:32
fraud because the founder told them
01:22:34
something that ends up not happening not
01:22:36
ends
01:22:37
and this is why you really it's very
01:22:39
dangerous to take money outside of
01:22:41
silicon valley because people don't
01:22:42
really understand this distinction okay
01:22:44
just because it doesn't work out and
01:22:45
what you said ended up not being true
01:22:47
does not make it fraud what is fraud is
01:22:50
when you lie about i've said it before
01:22:52
when you lie about the past and what
01:22:53
elizabeth holmes is accused of doing by
01:22:55
these prosecutors is again lying about
01:22:58
the present-day capabilities of her
01:22:59
product and actually falsifying
01:23:01
documents she actually falsified
01:23:03
documents that is the fraud that is the
01:23:06
line you cannot cross they change blood
01:23:08
test results listen said another way
01:23:09
sacks elizabeth holmes vision of taking
01:23:12
less blood and letting and doing more
01:23:15
tests with it and being more efficient
01:23:16
is a completely valid thing to pursue
01:23:18
chamath just said he pursued it five
01:23:20
times and failed completely
01:23:23
completely failed
01:23:24
tens of millions of dollars burned in a
01:23:25
pile
01:23:26
but what
01:23:27
we all buy into here is what if it does
01:23:29
work more than a thousand times what we
01:23:31
would elizabeth did was she lied about
01:23:33
the results and she said how did she lie
01:23:35
about the results she lied about real
01:23:38
people's blood test results like actual
01:23:40
civilians well i have some empathy for
01:23:42
elizabeth jobs in the following way when
01:23:45
i was told
01:23:46
when i
01:23:50
uh i think i told the story i was asking
01:23:53
an investor hey what's the hottest
01:23:55
company around this is in you know
01:23:57
2013 or 14. he said theranose
01:24:01
and there was no way to get connected to
01:24:03
the company so then i was like
01:24:05
you know i had heard just the bullet
01:24:07
point one drop of blood full
01:24:09
characterization of your you know
01:24:12
be able to do a blood test etc i thought
01:24:14
this is an incredible idea but because i
01:24:17
had no way of getting connected now
01:24:18
thank god that turned out to be a good
01:24:19
thing i was like well [ __ ] it i'll just
01:24:21
start my own version i'll figure out how
01:24:22
to do this and and and jason as you said
01:24:24
it turned out to be much much harder
01:24:26
than i thought and five different
01:24:28
iterations five different teams and you
01:24:30
know phds from mit stanford everything
01:24:32
we couldn't cal tech we couldn't figure
01:24:35
it out
01:24:36
so
01:24:37
it's not wrong to want to believe that
01:24:39
something is possible and it's not
01:24:41
illegal to do that
01:24:42
but as david said the minute that you
01:24:44
try to you tell lies about the past in
01:24:46
order to basically then change the
01:24:48
future in a way that shouldn't happen
01:24:50
that's real that's really unfair yeah
01:24:52
it's uh what do you think of the defense
01:24:55
that
01:24:56
balwani uh this fengali defense i saw
01:24:59
kara swisher and some new york times
01:25:01
reporters and
01:25:03
other reporters were basically
01:25:06
not buying it um
01:25:08
and we talked about this last time
01:25:10
didn't we yeah yeah i'm just curious if
01:25:12
you have been following the trial i i
01:25:14
think it's hard for somebody who in the
01:25:16
moment took credit for every decision
01:25:19
for every piece of press for claim to be
01:25:21
the jobsee and micromanager to all of a
01:25:24
sudden now turn around and say no that
01:25:25
wasn't me making the decisions i was
01:25:27
under the spell of somebody else i think
01:25:29
that's a tough argument to make
01:25:32
yeah also i think
01:25:33
uh you know
01:25:35
this is going to come out but she
01:25:36
actually fired balwani so if she fired
01:25:39
him how was she
01:25:41
you know it's harder to do the
01:25:42
schwangoli defense i think um
01:25:45
well but maybe they were both guilty
01:25:47
maybe
01:25:48
it could be an answer
01:25:52
all right listen we'll close on this
01:25:54
mailchimp has sold to intuit for 12
01:25:56
billion dollars in the largest
01:25:57
bootstrapped acquisition ever
01:26:00
uh we all know mailchimp uh and we all
01:26:02
know quickbooks it's a huge deal
01:26:05
i have one issue with this and i don't
01:26:07
know if it's true or not but apparently
01:26:09
none of the employees have any equity
01:26:11
yes and that was what i was about to get
01:26:13
to employees didn't have equity however
01:26:15
um and i've known mailchimp for a while
01:26:17
uh for over a decade been using the
01:26:19
product i know the founder had them on
01:26:20
the podcast before have they been a
01:26:22
sponsor of your pod they sponsored in
01:26:24
the first year i think or two um and
01:26:27
were you an angel investor i was not i
01:26:29
tried to be and he said we're never
01:26:30
gonna ever raise money and um
01:26:33
he said he was never ever gonna sell
01:26:35
and he was also never going to sell i i
01:26:37
they gave 12 billion reasons to change
01:26:40
his mind exactly they gave him uh
01:26:42
the 20
01:26:44
uh my understanding was employees got a
01:26:46
20 cash bonus and they were amongst the
01:26:49
highest paid uh you know in the industry
01:26:51
so their plan was
01:26:54
instead of giving people some big reward
01:26:55
at the end they were just distributing
01:26:56
cash basically they were just
01:26:58
distributing cash so if you had 100 if
01:26:59
you were 150k developer you got 30k on
01:27:02
top that's not an unreasonable way to
01:27:03
run a business that has no outside
01:27:05
investors that you know and employees
01:27:07
know that going in they didn't go in
01:27:09
with the expectation of equity they went
01:27:10
in with the expectation of a high salary
01:27:12
and a big bonus and they got it
01:27:14
i do that a few companies few companies
01:27:16
that i own i do that but what i also do
01:27:18
is i let them buy into the company every
01:27:20
year
01:27:22
i just think that it's a good principle
01:27:23
to have like an ownership in the
01:27:24
business i think you should be paying a
01:27:26
lot of money and we should pay cash
01:27:27
bonuses for for achieving results we do
01:27:30
that but then what we also say is if you
01:27:32
want to buy equity come and buy it but
01:27:34
you're probably right from a performance
01:27:35
perspective tomorrow i don't think it's
01:27:37
necessarily a moral obligation to do
01:27:38
that right how this guy wants to run his
01:27:40
business up to him you know
01:27:42
people made the choice
01:27:43
yeah i mean people that work at your
01:27:45
house you don't give them equity in your
01:27:46
house right i mean you own the house you
01:27:48
give them cash or people who play for a
01:27:50
basketball team are not allowed to get
01:27:52
equity in the team but in other
01:27:53
countries right i think in soccer you
01:27:55
can yes but i think one of the best
01:27:57
things about silicon valley is the fact
01:27:59
that there's a there's a practice of
01:28:01
giving broad-based options to everybody
01:28:03
in the company and there's all those
01:28:05
great stories about the chef at google
01:28:07
who got rich and the secretaries at
01:28:09
microsoft who got rich and that is a
01:28:11
beautiful thing about the techies
01:28:13
it's wonderful you never and you never
01:28:15
hear about that when all the press is
01:28:16
doing is writing stories about greedy
01:28:18
vcs and all that kind of stuff they
01:28:20
they talk about vc but they don't bring
01:28:22
up the point that in these non-vc
01:28:23
companies the employees never end up
01:28:25
with anything someone who came from
01:28:27
nothing can afford a beautiful home and
01:28:29
have their life taken care of forever
01:28:31
because they work really hard at a great
01:28:33
company that worked at and that's that's
01:28:35
the most common story and it's never
01:28:37
reported but yeah and by the way look
01:28:39
there's there's nothing wrong with
01:28:39
bootstrapping your company so congrats
01:28:41
to this mailchimp founder for doing it i
01:28:43
mean certainly you know like as a
01:28:46
investor i have no desire to describe
01:28:47
what yeah just explain what
01:28:49
bootstrapping is sex really strapping is
01:28:51
just when you don't raise outside money
01:28:52
and he did it himself and he basically
01:28:55
found the prophets yeah he founded the
01:28:56
company with the prophets which is just
01:28:57
amazing but but but here here's the
01:28:59
thing about that is uh he did this he
01:29:01
started the company back in 2001 at the
01:29:04
nadir after the dot-com crash and there
01:29:06
was very little money going into new
01:29:08
starts back then and he managed to
01:29:09
create this so kudos to him but the
01:29:11
environment now is very different if you
01:29:13
look at the amount of funding that goes
01:29:14
into startups i mean it's now in the
01:29:16
hundreds of billions every year and so
01:29:18
if you have this mentality of i'm going
01:29:20
to bootstrap it you're probably going to
01:29:22
lose to a competitor who's simply
01:29:23
willing to raise money and pursue that
01:29:26
same idea with more funding now look i'm
01:29:28
not in the business of pushing money on
01:29:30
people who don't want it i'm just saying
01:29:32
realistically the times are different
01:29:33
now if you can bootstrap a business
01:29:35
great go for it but i do think that if
01:29:37
you're in competition with someone who
01:29:38
can raise vc money you're going to be at
01:29:39
a disadvantage
01:29:41
hard to compete your son yeah what about
01:29:43
aoc what she wore to the met gala
01:29:47
tax the rich she wrote it she attacks
01:29:49
the rich dress to the met gala dave
01:29:52
portnoy dave pornoy had the best tweet
01:29:53
about this which is she's about to go
01:29:55
have the best night of her life partying
01:29:57
her ass off with all these rich people
01:29:58
and she's wearing this
01:30:00
taxi rich it's total hypocrisy uh this
01:30:03
is classic socialism where they
01:30:06
do this uh virtue signaling while being
01:30:09
friends and hanging out with the people
01:30:11
the owners of capital they're purporting
01:30:13
to deride and frankly it's just like the
01:30:14
mass things i mean you've got the
01:30:16
servant class working at the met gala
01:30:18
wearing masks uh while every while all
01:30:21
the uh guests of the the gala are don't
01:30:24
have to wear a mask i mean it's like
01:30:26
them all over again
01:30:27
well she she uh she also dropped some
01:30:29
merch you can buy attacks the rich
01:30:31
there's an official aoc team can't
01:30:33
believe that that's true that's what
01:30:34
makes it the most awesome she goes to
01:30:35
the thing and now she's selling 58
01:30:37
sweaters t-shirts sweatshirts a 58
01:30:40
sweatshirt a 28 dad hat
01:30:43
a 10 sticker pack 27 tote bag
01:30:48
it's like a hat for dad's like for us
01:30:50
you know
01:30:52
oh yeah attacks the rich dad that's the
01:30:53
rich yeah wow i didn't know dad hat was
01:30:55
a category i know dad jokes and dad bods
01:30:57
i've never saw a dad hat dad fantastic
01:31:00
fantastic yeah i thought it was kind of
01:31:02
gross
01:31:03
is it wrong to buy some of this i i
01:31:05
think that it's kind of cool actually
01:31:07
i mean the tax the rich hat is pretty
01:31:09
funny it's pretty cool oh my god if you
01:31:11
were attacking a sweatshirt i think if
01:31:13
the best thing is if i bought this
01:31:14
sweatshirt and wore it around wearing on
01:31:16
cnbc do your next scene if you were
01:31:19
attacking the rich hat on cnbc that
01:31:21
would be peak chamoth i think that would
01:31:23
be peak that'd be great
01:31:26
get it signed by uh all right anybody
01:31:28
got any plugs anybody have plugs the the
01:31:30
craziest thing about that dave portnoy
01:31:32
tweet was that it got fact checked can
01:31:35
you believe that it got fact checked i
01:31:37
mean it was just mind-blowing that this
01:31:39
is what when you say fact check they put
01:31:41
a factory check
01:31:42
they put a warning label on it oh god
01:31:44
so the morning warning uh liberals and
01:31:47
socialists at twitter don't agree with
01:31:49
this tweet
01:31:50
right no exactly
01:31:52
warning somebody in the outcrowd dave
01:31:54
portnoy is criticizing somebody in the
01:31:56
in crowd that by definitely additionally
01:31:58
definitely gets a seat at all in summit
01:32:00
right he definitely
01:32:01
is the is the uh hyper mechan fake story
01:32:04
uh
01:32:05
from rachel maddow is that fact checked
01:32:08
or no
01:32:09
no
01:32:10
she posted some update or other but
01:32:12
begrudgingly presenting other
01:32:13
information but i mean the story should
01:32:15
have been completely retracted and it
01:32:16
wasn't
01:32:17
no i'm just curious whether there's a
01:32:18
fact check double standard no there's oh
01:32:20
absolutely there is no fact check on
01:32:22
that for some reason the rachel maddow
01:32:24
tweets when unfact checked as far as i
01:32:26
know they're still on fact checked
01:32:28
you know what you should wear the get
01:32:30
the rich hat and then get your buy the
01:32:32
hamptons uh shirt
01:32:35
and wear those on your next what a great
01:32:37
combo
01:32:38
tag can i show you guys a great piece of
01:32:41
merch hold on sorry i'll be back in a
01:32:42
second yeah oh he's going but can i just
01:32:44
say i don't know here we go it's merch
01:32:46
for the beep app
01:32:48
i don't i don't look good in hats
01:32:50
no you don't no
01:32:51
no i've wanted to wear a hat for a long
01:32:53
time but i just it just doesn't here we
01:32:55
got good on me let's see this is my
01:32:56
favorite piece of merch
01:32:59
which is somebody made oh buzzies like
01:33:02
friends
01:33:03
that's fabulous absolutely great wait
01:33:05
can we just say by the way there's a
01:33:07
person that did make a besties merch
01:33:08
site none of us knows who he is but
01:33:11
there's an incredible thing that he
01:33:12
tweeted at us right j-cal which is he's
01:33:14
paying his way through college yeah he
01:33:15
puts a note into it he he told me he
01:33:17
made like five grand over the summer
01:33:19
right and so you know he's probably
01:33:21
making like 30 grand a year off of merch
01:33:23
if you're anybody's interested in some
01:33:25
besties merch we don't make a single
01:33:26
dime from it but there's a young
01:33:28
hard-working dude paying him paying his
01:33:30
way through school i don't know it's uh
01:33:31
bestie apparel he's bestie apparel right
01:33:33
that's the apparel bestiapparel.com we
01:33:36
don't really want to encourage too many
01:33:37
people to go crazy doing this but this
01:33:39
is our guy i guess and uh i mean
01:33:42
he's paying his way through school for
01:33:43
him yeah and i think they did um
01:33:46
you know the the the shirts that people
01:33:47
wore on their all in bar crawl came from
01:33:50
that
01:33:50
uh but i really want to do the i want to
01:33:52
do this on the rich i'm buying this tax
01:33:54
the rich sweatshirt boys and the t-shirt
01:33:56
and the sticker pack i'm going for all
01:33:58
of it
01:33:59
you got me aoc you got me on the hook do
01:34:01
they have a men's bikini uh with
01:34:03
taxidera rich on the back side for you
01:34:06
for when we're in italy i would buy that
01:34:07
we could how about we get matching
01:34:09
speedos
01:34:10
should we do our walk i always
01:34:12
threatened to buy a speedo she always
01:34:13
says oh we have to buy speedos next time
01:34:15
we're in italy and we have to do our
01:34:17
bestie walk from peer-to-peer on the
01:34:19
beaches of italy in a speedo can you
01:34:21
imagine if that image got leaked of us
01:34:23
in speedos i did i did the best to walk
01:34:25
with sex all right boys i gotta go i
01:34:27
gotta eat lunch all right love you
01:34:29
besties love you guys take care
01:34:32
we'll let your winners ride
01:34:35
rain man
01:34:40
and it said we open source it to the
01:34:41
fans and they've just gone crazy with it
01:34:47
[Music]
01:34:52
besties
01:34:55
[Music]
01:35:03
we should all just get a room and just
01:35:04
have one big huge orgy because they're
01:35:06
all just useless it's like this like
01:35:07
sexual tension but they just need to
01:35:09
release
01:35:14
[Music]
01:35:16
we need to get
01:35:18
back
01:35:21
[Music]
