Search Captions & Ask AI

Tariffs, Trump's Economic Endgame, Market Chaos, Bitcoin Reserve, CoreWeave IPO

March 08, 2025 / 02:06:34

This episode covers topics including cryptocurrency, tariffs, the U.S. economy, and the political landscape with guests David Sachs and Joe Lonsdale. The discussion highlights the recent announcement of a U.S. strategic Bitcoin reserve, the implications of tariffs on the economy, and the administration's approach to cryptocurrency regulation.

David Sachs discusses the establishment of a strategic Bitcoin reserve, emphasizing the importance of Bitcoin as a decentralized asset. He explains that the reserve aims to preserve Bitcoin and prevent premature selling, as seen in past government actions.

Joe Lonsdale shares insights on the chaotic political environment, particularly regarding tariffs and their impact on the economy. He emphasizes the need for clarity in government policies and the importance of focusing on Main Street rather than Wall Street.

The conversation also touches on the regulatory landscape for cryptocurrencies, with Sachs advocating for transparency and disclosure in digital asset transactions. He highlights the need for a clear framework to protect investors and ensure fair trading practices.

Overall, the episode provides a comprehensive look at the intersection of technology, finance, and politics, with both guests offering their perspectives on the future of cryptocurrency and economic policy.

TL;DR

David Sachs and Joe Lonsdale discuss the U.S. Bitcoin reserve, tariffs, and the regulatory landscape for cryptocurrencies in a chaotic political environment.

Video

00:00:00
Brian Johnson that's so funny I I uh who
00:00:03
knows I am the king of nighttime
00:00:05
erections I go to bed thinking about
00:00:07
myself and I wake up thinking
00:00:10
myself big correction in
00:00:15
between let your winners
00:00:17
[Music]
00:00:23
ride we open sources to the fans and
00:00:25
they've just gone crazy with it queen of
00:00:31
all right everybody welcome back to the
00:00:33
number one podcast in the world man
00:00:35
we're starting off with three of the
00:00:37
four original band members shamal poopaa
00:00:40
he's your chairman dictator the Sultan
00:00:43
of science David freeberg and of course
00:00:45
I'm your host Jason calanis and David
00:00:48
saaks from the original band will be on
00:00:52
the second half of the show we're going
00:00:54
to do some of the classics yes you get
00:00:56
some of the classics including Ukraine
00:00:58
Ukraine Ukraine coming up
00:01:00
on the second half of the show in our
00:01:02
greatest hits Revival tour but with us
00:01:04
again sitting in The Red Throne is the
00:01:07
one the only Joe lale is back he is if
00:01:11
you can imagine further right than Keith
00:01:13
R boy and saaks they tell him to pump
00:01:16
the brakes welcome back to the program
00:01:19
Joe Londale how you doing brother hey
00:01:21
Jason doing great here in Texas today ah
00:01:23
yes I I see you right over the hill on
00:01:25
the ranch our ranches are within 20
00:01:28
minutes of each other Joe Lonzo and I
00:01:30
are shooting guns at our ranches are you
00:01:32
on a ranch Joe uh well I bought a bunch
00:01:34
of the homes and connected them so it's
00:01:35
kind of like a ranch but it's actually a
00:01:37
suburb yeah it's more like a compound he
00:01:39
has a compound subb
00:01:41
suburb that creaking sound you hear are
00:01:43
the libs Rolling In The Guillotines yes
00:01:45
he bought the small town he lives in Joe
00:01:48
lale's here of course he is a venture
00:01:50
capitalist the founder of 8vc they've
00:01:53
got six Billy in AUM co-founded paler
00:01:57
open gov in adapar 3 billion Billion
00:02:00
Dollar Plus companies he co-founded and
00:02:04
an early investor in andrel I'm in the
00:02:06
market for secondary shares you know how
00:02:07
to reach me folks if you're selling your
00:02:09
secondary and Andel and building a
00:02:10
position for obvious reasons and Oculus
00:02:13
wish Oscar Health amongst his other
00:02:14
Investments hey what was the feedback
00:02:16
Joe on your first appearance here on the
00:02:18
all-in pod people loved it you know you
00:02:19
guys gave me no warning so I was like on
00:02:21
a mobile phone sideways but it worked
00:02:23
out it was great everyone saw it I gu
00:02:25
looks like people actually watch your
00:02:26
show Jason it was surprising apparently
00:02:28
people tune in from time to time and
00:02:30
that's why we call it the number one
00:02:31
podcast in the world how are you doing
00:02:33
shth poopaa how you doing brother I'm
00:02:36
doing really
00:02:37
well okay once again giving me a ton to
00:02:40
work with there and Fred would you wait
00:02:42
what would you like to know why don't
00:02:43
you ask me a question oh well I asked
00:02:45
you how you're doing maybe you say oh I
00:02:47
had a great time with my kids I took
00:02:48
them to Disneyland or I don't know Chef
00:02:51
made an amazing aruga you used to give
00:02:53
me some some color to work with here so
00:02:56
Nat was in Rome all last week great what
00:02:58
was she doing in Rome
00:03:00
she had to go see her Factory she also
00:03:03
had to go and renew her visa at the US
00:03:05
Embassy there okay so she's renewing her
00:03:07
visa hopefully she'll be able to get
00:03:09
back in the country I know we've
00:03:11
tightened up the borders well she's on
00:03:12
an eb2 Visa she's already but she should
00:03:14
switch to this eb5 as soon as it's
00:03:16
announced oh yes you can get the golden
00:03:18
visa and I think you already put a down
00:03:20
payment on freberg how was your week
00:03:23
what how's everything going at ohal
00:03:24
you're having a productive week as one
00:03:26
of my management team members told me
00:03:28
today it's a very complex business
00:03:30
that's usually not a good sign when the
00:03:32
conversation starts with that is that a
00:03:34
way of saying everything's no no we we
00:03:37
we were good I was on the road this week
00:03:38
I just got back I mean it's hard running
00:03:41
a business is hard you hire the smartest
00:03:43
people you know and what happens they
00:03:45
bring you all the problems they can't
00:03:47
solve so it's it's never easy we've got
00:03:49
an incredible docket today let's just
00:03:52
start with I'll give you a quick recap
00:03:55
boys of the week since we last taped to
00:03:59
say the uh Zone was flooded in the words
00:04:02
of Steve Bannon would be an
00:04:03
understatement here's your Trump tsunami
00:04:06
for the week Thursday when we tape the
00:04:09
Epstein file dump Fiasco you remember
00:04:11
that Joe right big zero big nothing
00:04:13
burger then
00:04:15
Friday zalinski was dressed down and
00:04:17
kicked out of the White House by the
00:04:20
Vice President presidents markets
00:04:21
collapsed they rebounded on Saturday we
00:04:24
got a beautiful day off video of trump
00:04:27
dancing down a catwalk to YMCA maybe he
00:04:29
played played some golf he was at the
00:04:30
White House South Mar Lago Sunday 9:24
00:04:34
a.m. eastern the president pumps three
00:04:37
specific crypto salana Cardona xrp to be
00:04:40
in the first government strategic crypto
00:04:43
Reserve Joe ondale starts tweeting I
00:04:44
start tweeting everybody's tweeting he
00:04:46
quickly retweeted himself included
00:04:48
ethereum and Bitcoin some decentralized
00:04:50
coins reaction was wow crazy you had a
00:04:54
little bit of a spicy take Joe we'll get
00:04:55
into that later and I'm sure our friend
00:04:58
David saaks will have much to say in
00:04:59
second half of the program but it was
00:05:02
pretty negative Cardona ripped 70% xrp
00:05:05
32% salana 25% and then there was this
00:05:08
crazy trade one whale went 50 times long
00:05:11
on BTC and eth $200 million position on
00:05:14
just a $4 million investment everybody
00:05:16
trying to figure out who that was I'll
00:05:18
leave it to you to speculate then we
00:05:20
start the week Monday Trump says
00:05:22
significant TR tariffs with Canada and
00:05:25
Mexico the market collaps he walks back
00:05:27
tariffs couple of hours later and the
00:05:29
market starts to rebound then at 2:38
00:05:31
p.m. Trump announces a hundred billion
00:05:35
investment from tsmc in American Fabs
00:05:39
huz off for that and our boy David saaks
00:05:41
Gets dragged out to the podium for a
00:05:43
quick 15-second Cameo very nicely done
00:05:46
to our boy David saxs and then Tuesday
00:05:49
we have the most chaotic State of the
00:05:50
Union I've ever seen highlights include
00:05:52
an angry man shaking a cane and getting
00:05:54
kicked out there were some auction
00:05:56
paddles from the libs I don't know what
00:05:58
they were bidding on there were 13 Biden
00:06:00
mentions and one Pocahontas
00:06:03
Wednesday we have news that the Doge
00:06:05
Blitz might slow down Supreme Court
00:06:08
chimed in with a 54 decision backing the
00:06:10
federal judge who ordered the Trump
00:06:12
admin to pay out two billion for USA
00:06:14
contractors then there was a closo
00:06:15
meeting with the Senate with Elon maybe
00:06:17
they discussed an approval process maybe
00:06:19
some voting type things and then here we
00:06:22
are today Thursday when we're taping
00:06:24
Market's down 2% on more tariff news
00:06:27
breaking news drops at 11:30 Trump
00:06:29
announced are off for Mexico markets
00:06:31
aren't rebounding we might be leaving
00:06:34
NATO hold on almost almost there yeah
00:06:36
breaking we might be leaving NATO
00:06:39
breaking we're shutting down the
00:06:40
Department of Education psych we just
00:06:42
found out we're not okay gentlemen
00:06:44
that's the week that was no there's
00:06:46
there's three things that are also kind
00:06:48
of interwoven in all of
00:06:50
this open AI
00:06:52
dropped GPT 45 and I think it was not
00:06:57
really that well received I didn't even
00:06:59
know nobody's talking about that quen
00:07:01
which is the open source Alibaba dropped
00:07:03
to rev which seems actually really best
00:07:07
in class so that was really interesting
00:07:10
okay then there was a story that said
00:07:12
llama is going sideways Facebook's open
00:07:16
source llm yeah and then the markets
00:07:18
have just been going I think the
00:07:21
craziest I've actually seen in 20 years
00:07:24
of following the markets and
00:07:25
specifically you're seeing the mag 7
00:07:29
compressed towards the rest of the S&P
00:07:31
500 and then you're seeing this insane
00:07:34
trade away from Europe so there's a ton
00:07:37
that happened this week I mean I don't
00:07:40
remember a more eventful week Joe is
00:07:43
this a little too much maybe you guys
00:07:45
missed the Shalom Hamas tweet by Trump
00:07:48
too which for a lot of us is a big deal
00:07:49
he said I don't know if this is hello or
00:07:51
goodbye but he's threatening them really
00:07:53
strongly so for people who care about
00:07:55
that part of the world it's interesting
00:07:56
to watch what's going to happen so that
00:07:58
also happened yeah oh my lord well and
00:08:00
Shalom is hello and goodbye right just
00:08:02
to clarify as a word you would say it
00:08:05
both right Shalom yeah and peace
00:08:08
ambiguous word and
00:08:11
peace well maybe he's leaving it into
00:08:13
interpretation maybe they get to pick
00:08:16
maybe it's hello no that's what that's
00:08:18
what he wrote in the Tweet oh he did
00:08:20
yeah it's your choice okay it's should
00:08:22
Choose Your Own Adventure Hamas from the
00:08:24
president United States but I think we
00:08:27
should probably get into tariffs
00:08:30
this is confounding to most people maybe
00:08:34
since I just did the whole rundown I
00:08:36
won't go into all the details about tffs
00:08:38
again but just looking at it from first
00:08:42
principles Joe I asked a couple of group
00:08:44
chats you're in one one of them in
00:08:47
fact and I have about I say about 400
00:08:49
people total in these four group chats
00:08:51
what's the strategy here what do you
00:08:52
think Trump is trying to accomplish and
00:08:54
man I got a range of answers let me ask
00:08:56
you what is Trump in your estimation
00:09:00
trying to accomplish with the tariffs on
00:09:02
the tariffs off the Tariff on the
00:09:04
tariffs offs as Shou said here this is
00:09:06
creating more chaos than any of us have
00:09:08
ever seen in the markets listen Trump's
00:09:10
negotiating right so I I actually ran
00:09:12
into David saaks each Senator gets one
00:09:13
guest we are both guests in the Senate
00:09:15
dining hall hanging out with a bunch of
00:09:16
these guys multiple of the guests some
00:09:19
of them were spouses of the Senators
00:09:20
multiple of the guests were people who'
00:09:22
lost kids def fentanyl right and so this
00:09:24
actually is a very serious issue it's a
00:09:26
big thing on the populist right as it
00:09:28
should be for all Americans we've lost
00:09:29
you know tens of thousands of young
00:09:31
people recently to Fentanyl and and and
00:09:33
Canada has done nothing about their
00:09:35
border and so you know you just reported
00:09:37
breaking news I had even heard yet that
00:09:39
Mexico might be off can is still on he's
00:09:42
using this to negotiate so I talk to the
00:09:43
Senators and I asked him what's going on
00:09:45
because obviously I import things all
00:09:46
over the place I'd like to know what the
00:09:47
hell the rules are but he wants people
00:09:49
to actually crack down on this stuff and
00:09:52
save American lives and I think it's a
00:09:53
reasonable thing to use to negotiate and
00:09:55
force them to do that okay so you
00:09:57
believe it's negotiation because of the
00:10:00
fental issue Cham let me go to you
00:10:02
because many people are saying this has
00:10:04
more to do with some great reset and
00:10:08
maybe the tenure do you think this is
00:10:10
about fentol at the border or something
00:10:14
else I think that this is the first week
00:10:19
where I've seen the first real
00:10:23
Schism in how people are interpreting
00:10:26
what's actually happening I think that
00:10:29
Trump and Elon were very much in a
00:10:31
honeymoon period until this week and I
00:10:34
think there was the benefit of the doubt
00:10:36
but what I saw on X was a real
00:10:39
Divergence where on the one hand there
00:10:42
were people that were basically
00:10:44
saying doge is deranged Elon is crazy
00:10:48
Trump is lighting the world on fire in
00:10:50
one camp and the other Camp saying he's
00:10:52
sticking to the plan and when I thought
00:10:57
about this a little bit if you went back
00:11:00
to November the
00:11:02
5th I do think it's important to
00:11:04
remember that we were at this moment
00:11:06
where you had this fork in the
00:11:08
road and you had all these important
00:11:11
issues where I think the best way to
00:11:13
generalize it was that the Democrats
00:11:16
believed that the lines should continue
00:11:19
to be blurred so whether that was on
00:11:22
gender or race or Merit versus some
00:11:26
other immutable trait or fiscal and M
00:11:29
monetary policy things were just getting
00:11:31
more and more
00:11:33
blurred and then Trump and Elon
00:11:35
basically showed up and said actually we
00:11:38
want to refocus and we want to make the
00:11:40
lines very visible and clear on all
00:11:43
those Dimensions h and a majority of
00:11:46
Americans voted that
00:11:48
in but I think what you're starting to
00:11:50
see now is the difficulty in actually
00:11:54
implementing that
00:11:56
plan and what I mean specifically is
00:12:00
tariffs are very nuanced and complicated
00:12:03
on the one hand there's these short-term
00:12:05
wins there's these impacts you could
00:12:08
deem them positive or negative to the
00:12:10
dollar there's impacts to us bonds
00:12:13
there's impacts to us Bond markets
00:12:15
there's impacts to how countries deal
00:12:18
with foreign reserves and then there's
00:12:20
this impact that happens when the
00:12:21
markets react to a
00:12:23
tariff and then Trump takes that off the
00:12:26
table and then they snap back so you
00:12:29
have this weird set of boundary
00:12:32
conditions right now so I think right
00:12:34
now we're in the very difficult part of
00:12:36
sorting through what the long-term
00:12:39
implications are and I can get to some
00:12:40
of them later but I think that's where
00:12:42
we are I think that's really interesting
00:12:43
the goal of tariffs in your mind for
00:12:45
Trump is
00:12:48
fenol finance related no give me your
00:12:51
definitive what you think this is about
00:12:53
I think what tariffs allow us to do is
00:12:57
rebase
00:13:00
the long-term Reliance on the US dollar
00:13:03
it allows us to
00:13:06
rebase our ability to fund our own
00:13:10
deficits and it allows us to
00:13:13
rebase the long-term ability for
00:13:16
American companies to be economically
00:13:19
vibrant okay so freeberg we got one
00:13:23
person with fent all the Border
00:13:25
negotiating we got one person on trade
00:13:29
some portion of this I hear and I when I
00:13:31
asked in these four group chats I got
00:13:33
he's throwing stuff at the wall the
00:13:35
Border he's trolling the 10year note and
00:13:39
he doesn't care about stocks and then I
00:13:41
got onshoring and Manufacturing as a
00:13:44
possibility we're going to make it more
00:13:46
expensive to bring things in so why
00:13:47
don't you consider making stuff here do
00:13:49
you think that third possibility is
00:13:51
what's going on here just David freeberg
00:13:54
pick one of these three choices or
00:13:55
another what's going on here with tus
00:13:57
specifically I don't sit inside of
00:13:59
Trump's head and I don't have any direct
00:14:01
line of communication to folks that are
00:14:03
constructing the theory and the policy
00:14:06
if I were to say what's the most
00:14:08
masterful plan in an optimistic way of
00:14:11
what could be going on here what's the
00:14:13
master plan I would kind of craft it as
00:14:16
follows tariffs aren't being done in
00:14:19
isolation they're being done along with
00:14:21
a coordinated policy effort to reduce
00:14:24
income taxes and another policy effort
00:14:28
to reduce government spend
00:14:29
so those are three actions three legs on
00:14:32
a stool so tariffs M reduced income
00:14:36
taxes reduced government spending and
00:14:38
they are related to each other they're
00:14:40
related to each other because if we
00:14:42
increase tariffs one element of that is
00:14:45
that to import products is more
00:14:47
expensive for example I buy LED lights
00:14:50
in my
00:14:51
greenhouse and the price of the LED
00:14:53
lights just went up by 25% this week I
00:14:55
actually spoke with the CEO of an LED
00:14:57
company and I was like why don't you
00:14:58
guys make the LED here and there starts
00:15:00
to become a crossover point where it
00:15:03
actually makes economic sense for the
00:15:05
company to make the LEDs here instead of
00:15:07
sourcing them from Asia and there's a
00:15:09
100,000 examples of this when the
00:15:11
industrial supply chain goes to the
00:15:13
lowest part of
00:15:15
production it's going to end up
00:15:16
offshoring when there's no tariffs and
00:15:18
if there are tariffs then you start to
00:15:20
do production here so you're increasing
00:15:22
both kind of security for the US supply
00:15:25
chain but also increasing demand and
00:15:28
creation of a
00:15:30
Workforce Now I think that the income
00:15:33
tax piece is critical here because in
00:15:35
order to make the capital available to
00:15:37
build that industry here we need to have
00:15:39
unleash capital and reducing of income
00:15:42
taxes the economic theory would be that
00:15:44
Capital will now flow into these
00:15:46
entrepreneurial activity these
00:15:47
opportunities that have emerged where
00:15:49
suddenly it makes sense for me to make
00:15:51
textiles to make metals to make
00:15:53
materials to make cars to make all this
00:15:55
stuff here in the United States that I
00:15:56
otherwise wouldn't be making so both the
00:15:58
corporate and the personal income tax by
00:15:59
reducing it unleashes capital that
00:16:01
instead of going into the government it
00:16:03
now goes into the private sector into
00:16:04
building businesses okay I think that
00:16:06
there's another theory about this which
00:16:08
is as you drop the income
00:16:10
tax one of the kind of key theories that
00:16:12
I've heard spoken about a lot lately and
00:16:14
I think we're going to hear about it a
00:16:15
lot more this year is trying to get the
00:16:18
United States to move away from an
00:16:19
income taxation model to a consumption
00:16:21
taxation model so effectively what the
00:16:24
tariffs do is there's a tax for you
00:16:25
buying certain things so now instead of
00:16:28
getting taxed when when you earn money
00:16:30
as an individual you get taxed when you
00:16:32
spend money and some people think that
00:16:34
that's both a more fair system and a
00:16:36
more kind of economically vibrant system
00:16:38
because that will drive investment in
00:16:41
the things that people want to to
00:16:43
produce because the money's going into
00:16:44
production so you that do you think that
00:16:47
free Breg I'm curious I I don't know
00:16:49
it's a really interesting economic
00:16:50
theory I mean I am not opposed to seeing
00:16:53
some sort of an experiment play out
00:16:56
where we look at a shift from income
00:16:57
taxation to consumption Taxation and see
00:17:00
if it actually does have an effect on
00:17:02
economic growth and productivity it has
00:17:04
not been done in 150 years there's a lot
00:17:06
of economic theorists on both sides of
00:17:08
the equation saying this does work or it
00:17:10
doesn't work okay and let me just say
00:17:12
one last thing by reducing government
00:17:14
spending we are moving workers from the
00:17:17
government into the private Workforce so
00:17:19
as those new Industries pop up as those
00:17:21
Investments start to get made in
00:17:23
building new industry onshore where are
00:17:25
the workers going to come from remember
00:17:26
the government's 30% of the US GDP today
00:17:29
so if that's not a great way to invest
00:17:31
money maybe the Private Industry is
00:17:33
better at investing money in employing
00:17:34
people that will unleash the workforce
00:17:36
and it will counterbalance the inflation
00:17:39
that we're experiencing so there's a lot
00:17:40
of inflation because of tariffs and by
00:17:42
reducing government spending that's the
00:17:44
offset to inflation so those three
00:17:46
actions I think are three legs of a
00:17:47
stool and they actually are all
00:17:49
interrelated to one another so that
00:17:50
would be my grandmas theory of what
00:17:52
might be going on this is an interesting
00:17:53
triangulation theory that people have
00:17:55
been speculating about and there are a
00:17:58
couple of caveo here Joe number one we
00:18:00
do have lowering income tax and lowering
00:18:03
Services experiment it's called Florida
00:18:06
Texas and a couple of the states where
00:18:07
they have lower income tax and and more
00:18:09
consumption tax we pay a lot more in
00:18:12
real estate taxes here something we
00:18:13
consume putting that aside the really
00:18:16
interesting issue is we're at the lowest
00:18:18
unemployment of our lifetime 4% where
00:18:22
are all these workers going to come from
00:18:23
what do you think Joe now that you've
00:18:25
heard the two other panelists here
00:18:27
discuss it
00:18:29
what are we trying to get to where is
00:18:32
the destination at the end of this term
00:18:35
Trump's lame duck he can go wild here
00:18:37
he's not running for election and you
00:18:39
know what what do you think he wants to
00:18:41
see do you think he just wants
00:18:43
to sement some sort of legacy and if so
00:18:46
what's that Legacy and how do these
00:18:48
actions equal his goals and Legacy no
00:18:52
listen I agree with what David with what
00:18:54
David was saying Jason and it's it's a
00:18:56
really important point also that we
00:18:57
should mention is that the last four
00:18:59
years the economy's looked okay but part
00:19:00
of that is because government's been
00:19:02
hiring like mad and so the point he made
00:19:04
is that actually you know having twice
00:19:06
as many people you know harassing me I
00:19:08
just got back yesterday no action on an
00:19:10
audit that been harassing me on for
00:19:11
three years they found nothing having
00:19:13
twice as many people doing things like
00:19:15
that and and or like you know running
00:19:16
TSA or pushing papers around in the
00:19:18
Department of Labor doesn't actually add
00:19:20
output to the economy and so you know it
00:19:23
it does seem like it makes a lot of
00:19:24
sense let's take a million workers out
00:19:26
of the Consulting class around e DC out
00:19:29
of the you know paper pusher classro on
00:19:30
DC and let's actually deploy them to the
00:19:33
actual productive economy Elon and Trump
00:19:34
have both been saying that I think David
00:19:36
is 100% right and it is true a lot of my
00:19:37
companies thinks that the Tariff stuff
00:19:39
are looking to build stuff here so I'm
00:19:41
not a huge fan of tariffs personally but
00:19:44
they definitely make sense for things in
00:19:45
defense they definitely make sense for
00:19:46
negotiating with countries and it is
00:19:48
true it is pushing certain people to
00:19:50
including me to build some more things
00:19:51
in America here's where tariffs make a
00:19:53
lot of sense if you have markets where
00:19:56
there are domestic alternatives
00:19:58
Andor where things are fundamentally
00:20:01
commodity there's no reason why tariffs
00:20:03
can't work to create the incentives to
00:20:06
redomicile economic productivity inside
00:20:08
of the United States that's a that's a
00:20:10
slam dunk I think and and shamat there's
00:20:12
another Twist on that too which I think
00:20:13
we should all acknowledge is America
00:20:15
does have some really tough
00:20:16
environmental laws despite what Jason
00:20:18
may think of me I actually don't want my
00:20:20
daughters growing up with you messy air
00:20:21
messy water you know screwed up country
00:20:23
oh I don't think that of you I I know
00:20:25
that you're a nature guy you're like a
00:20:27
classic bush guy but but here's here's
00:20:30
the thing in China and Indonesia and all
00:20:31
these other countries they are just
00:20:33
shoting over the environment as they
00:20:34
make things I think tariffs are very
00:20:36
reasonable on that case like it's not
00:20:37
fair to make it more expensive for us
00:20:39
because we're doing it well and then we
00:20:40
Outsource it for them to destroy things
00:20:42
right so so there are some things there
00:20:43
where it does make sense and what I
00:20:45
would say is the other the other side of
00:20:47
the of the Tariff knife is that if there
00:20:50
are markets though where you're making
00:20:52
something that's fundamentally
00:20:54
Innovative where you are but one maker
00:20:57
the problematic part of where tariffs
00:21:00
really affect the US consumer is then
00:21:03
the price of that product of which there
00:21:05
are no competitive Alternatives can go
00:21:09
very very high and that's inflationary
00:21:11
and I think that that slows down
00:21:13
consumption and then if if that
00:21:14
consumption is not just of something
00:21:16
that's a nice to have but a must have
00:21:19
then it becomes problematic and so you
00:21:20
could see where tariffs could impact
00:21:23
certain
00:21:25
industries for example if there are
00:21:27
Innovative drugs I think that that's
00:21:29
problematic if there are Innovative
00:21:30
Technologies of which there's only one
00:21:32
vendor that's problematic so all of
00:21:34
those need to get sorted out but on
00:21:36
balance in commodity markets like look
00:21:38
at Autos Autos is a perfect example
00:21:41
there are so many purveyors and
00:21:44
providers of Autos there is oems all
00:21:47
around the world and so to have a
00:21:51
compensatory
00:21:52
system doesn't seem like an unreasonable
00:21:55
thing where it's a tit fortat tariff but
00:21:58
in markets where if you need for example
00:22:00
a specific piece of equipment from asml
00:22:04
to build a chip and now all of a sudden
00:22:06
that that machine is 25% more expensive
00:22:09
or 30% more expensive and they pass that
00:22:11
cost
00:22:12
Downstream it becomes very speculative
00:22:16
and it becomes a little bit more fragile
00:22:18
I think this is dangerous though right
00:22:19
jth because I agree with you in theory
00:22:22
but then there's something where you
00:22:23
know if everyone's lobbing for their
00:22:25
thing to be an exception you end up
00:22:26
getting this very crony system that's
00:22:28
that you don't necessarily want right so
00:22:30
you have to be very careful how you
00:22:31
define these things exactly so this is
00:22:33
why the I think like sector by sector
00:22:35
it's probably you can probably go and
00:22:37
pass the smell test and say if there are
00:22:40
multiple providers and or if it's
00:22:41
somehow
00:22:43
commodity I think it's easier to absorb
00:22:45
the Tariff in the short term maybe
00:22:47
that's the right way to say it which is
00:22:48
if you believe if Trump believes
00:22:50
everything should be tariffed then
00:22:52
instead of debating if to your point
00:22:55
maybe the right thing to debate is when
00:22:57
and you have to put things on a much
00:22:59
longer Glide path so that you don't just
00:23:02
create inflation out of nowhere and or
00:23:05
you don't hold back American business or
00:23:07
American consumers well this is a key
00:23:09
point because you do need to have
00:23:10
predictability to make investment and
00:23:13
reciprocity so really two important
00:23:14
points Shaman's making here one on
00:23:16
reciprocity these things haven't been
00:23:18
looked at for a while I'm not sure how
00:23:20
they got so out of whack but just
00:23:22
putting some facts to this uh chat's
00:23:24
exactly correct we get placed uh when we
00:23:27
send cars to the EU they they get a 10%
00:23:29
tariff but when we get their cars it's a
00:23:32
2 and a half% tariff who let it get out
00:23:34
of whack I'm not sure but why not make
00:23:36
the reciprocity perfect and just hey you
00:23:39
say 10 we say 10 you say two and a half
00:23:40
we say two and a half and that would
00:23:42
make I think a lot more sense just to
00:23:44
put some numbers here on government
00:23:46
employees it's not as bad as people make
00:23:50
it out to be a lot of our spending is
00:23:52
nonemployee related but it is if you
00:23:55
look over the last two administrations
00:23:56
we have added million 2 million three
00:23:58
employees across all I disagree and that
00:24:01
hold on let me just finish the sentence
00:24:02
so you have the facts and then you can
00:24:03
disagree with the facts one point3
00:24:06
million additional employees added this
00:24:09
does not include contractors and so we
00:24:11
don't know what USA was doing with Nos
00:24:14
and contractors and I think that's where
00:24:16
we do need to get some clarity and to
00:24:18
chat's point this has all got to become
00:24:20
predictable you cannot put tariffs on
00:24:23
off every week or else how does your
00:24:26
friend Dave who wants to do the LED
00:24:27
lighting or your encouraging to do LED
00:24:29
lighting know if they should build a
00:24:31
factory and invest 10 million in that
00:24:34
you disagree with the number of
00:24:35
employees you want to address that yeah
00:24:37
look the government accounts for 30% of
00:24:39
GDP in the United States that's an
00:24:41
extraordinary sum so just I was talking
00:24:44
just about the employees that's a much
00:24:45
smaller percentage but that doesn't
00:24:47
matter the direct employees of federal
00:24:49
agencies is a fraction of people that
00:24:52
are employed indirectly by government
00:24:54
spending this is super important as we
00:24:56
all know many government agencies write
00:24:59
checks to large contractors
00:25:01
subcontractors and third party service
00:25:03
providers that do the work for them so
00:25:05
the money gets transferred they then
00:25:07
employ the people and they do the work
00:25:08
so it doesn't technically show up on
00:25:10
federal government payroll registers but
00:25:12
these are people that are indirectly
00:25:14
employed by federal spending that's
00:25:16
super important to to acknowledge that a
00:25:18
large percentage of the US Workforce is
00:25:20
indirectly supported by federal dollars
00:25:24
yeah it's gone up it's gone up massively
00:25:25
with the NGS too so you've had about
00:25:27
four million people employed by
00:25:28
contractors in DC 1.6 million more at
00:25:30
the states actually by federal by
00:25:32
federal spending and then you have the
00:25:34
NOS no one knows the noos Biden
00:25:36
Administration took down the data I used
00:25:38
to see things in 2020 so we don't even
00:25:40
know how much money but we know it was
00:25:41
hundreds of billions so it's pretty
00:25:43
crazy the number one thing about how
00:25:44
doge is not being done fully is that
00:25:47
Elon is doing an amazing job you know
00:25:49
whether or not he cuts 500 billion or
00:25:51
trillion or a lot more but the Senators
00:25:53
and the congressmen are not willing to
00:25:55
take it out of their bill the
00:25:56
reconciliation bill right now talking
00:25:58
about cutting one to two trillion so
00:26:00
rather than like this is over 10 years
00:26:01
it's ridiculous it's ridiculous if it
00:26:04
was equal to Elon was doing it'd be at
00:26:05
least five trillion dollar and I've
00:26:07
pushed a bunch of them they say oh the
00:26:08
Congressional budget office and all
00:26:09
these things I'm sure there's some tough
00:26:11
things there but like this is crazy we
00:26:12
need to see what these Cuts need to be
00:26:14
on Doge and we need to cut five trillion
00:26:16
and none of these people have the balls
00:26:17
to do that is there's not the political
00:26:18
will to do it is my interpretation and
00:26:20
just no coones let me just show you one
00:26:23
chart to back that up I have my new disg
00:26:25
graciados
00:26:28
look at this chamama you want to talk
00:26:30
about software and waste
00:26:33
35,8 55 according to Doge breaking news
00:26:38
service now licenses on three products
00:26:41
only being used by 84 people oh my God
00:26:45
you kidding me
00:26:47
11,000 acrobat licenses with
00:26:50
0.0 users
00:26:53
disad absolutely abhorrent and I'm
00:26:57
saying it right now I want an
00:26:59
investigation into procurement who sold
00:27:02
this who bought it this could be a crime
00:27:05
this could be fraud that could be
00:27:06
Kickbacks I'm saying there could be I
00:27:07
don't think it's that but I do think you
00:27:09
have to look at the earnings of these
00:27:11
companies in question where's totally
00:27:13
correct number two totally correct if
00:27:16
service now ever wants to work with the
00:27:18
government again Mr
00:27:20
President Mr President our president I
00:27:24
want them to pay us back for the unused
00:27:27
licensees is and I want a full order for
00:27:29
the last 10 years if they don't pay us
00:27:31
back that money and give us a credit
00:27:33
hold on list banned forever hold on it's
00:27:35
not thank you Mr President this may not
00:27:37
be service now's fault this may be the
00:27:38
inaptitude of the people that bought the
00:27:40
LI course but they should still give us
00:27:41
a credit I want the money back for the
00:27:43
American people I do think Adobe has the
00:27:45
worst have you guys ever done Adobe
00:27:46
subscriptions they're impossible to
00:27:48
cancel I think Adobe 11,000 Z us only
00:27:51
the only thing harder than cancelling an
00:27:53
adobe license is trying to cancel Wall
00:27:55
Street Journal I was about to say Wall
00:27:57
Street Journal
00:27:59
Hall of Fame let me just say something
00:28:01
about the the budget because Joe brings
00:28:04
up something important unbelievable I'll
00:28:07
just say it again at the sake of being
00:28:08
redundant we're getting to the phase
00:28:10
where the details are complicated and
00:28:12
they now matter so we've talked about
00:28:15
repealing the IRA in its totality right
00:28:18
so that was a statement and there's
00:28:20
there's theoretically a lot of money
00:28:22
there but the details now all of a
00:28:24
sudden become
00:28:26
complicated FK published a report just
00:28:29
this past week and what do you think it
00:28:32
said was the percentage of incremental
00:28:36
electricity that was generated from
00:28:38
Renewables versus non-renewables I I'll
00:28:40
tell you the answer it was almost 91% in
00:28:43
December so if you now tie two huge
00:28:47
initiatives together which is how do we
00:28:49
find a budget that saves money and how
00:28:52
do we continue to win an AI maybe you
00:28:54
would have thought those weren't related
00:28:57
well guess what
00:28:58
we know that AI needs a tremendous
00:29:01
amount of power and whatever you thought
00:29:03
you knew actually you had to reer right
00:29:06
because what Elon has shown is actually
00:29:08
you need to now create these Mega
00:29:10
clusters 100,000 gpus going to a million
00:29:13
gpus all of the Power forecasting that
00:29:16
we have is miscast it doesn't even
00:29:18
account for this number one number two
00:29:21
there are 35,000
00:29:23
applications into
00:29:25
FK to get approved to generate
00:29:29
electricity 35,000 that's going to
00:29:31
meander through some administrative
00:29:33
rigu there is a 5year delay to get a gas
00:29:38
turbine into America and
00:29:40
online okay if you ordered one today the
00:29:43
fastest that you can get it turned on is
00:29:45
2030 the fastest that you can get a
00:29:48
nuclear turned on is
00:29:49
2035 so we don't have the ability to
00:29:52
generate incremental electricity very
00:29:54
quickly but for Renewables but then if
00:29:57
you rip out the IRA there's many parts
00:30:00
of the IRA by the way that are just
00:30:02
trash Nick I don't know if you can find
00:30:04
it but Barry Weiss found this insane
00:30:06
thing that made me so angry which I'm
00:30:08
happy to talk about which was like a
00:30:10
30-day Grant process that resulted in A7
00:30:13
billion Grant to some shell oh this was
00:30:15
throwing the gold bars off the castle
00:30:18
but but the other part of the IRA this
00:30:21
narrow part is what it did to reinforce
00:30:24
tax incentives and tax equity which is a
00:30:27
200 billion
00:30:28
Market that incentivizes that 90% of
00:30:31
energy generation so my point is that
00:30:34
when you start to get into the details
00:30:36
when the house Ways and Means Community
00:30:38
has to figure out what part to put back
00:30:41
this is going to be hard because it's
00:30:43
like hold on if you got the whole thing
00:30:46
now all of a sudden you take 90% of the
00:30:47
incremental energy generation incentives
00:30:49
out of the market you don't have enough
00:30:51
electrons there isn't enough electricity
00:30:54
so then you lose the AI Ray so you start
00:30:56
to lose it I think the point is that
00:30:58
we're now in the hard part where the
00:30:59
details really matter listen you got to
00:31:02
start with the chainsaw we saw that at
00:31:04
Twitter and by the way maybe you do like
00:31:07
when we started this he just tweeted
00:31:08
this out he said guys now it's time to
00:31:10
get surgical he and he said this per yes
00:31:12
that was the metaphor I was about to use
00:31:13
is like you know you start with you cut
00:31:15
out the goddamn service now in Adobe
00:31:17
subscriptions and then you work on
00:31:19
something you know more DEA and maybe
00:31:21
that's where we are IR just for the
00:31:23
audience inflation reduction can I just
00:31:25
do a rant on this on this pop-up NGO
00:31:28
thing to me this is like the worst of
00:31:30
America and it makes me so angry and
00:31:32
I'll tell you my lived experience so I'm
00:31:34
on the other side of this I started a
00:31:36
company with these guys from Tesla to
00:31:38
make battery materials in the United
00:31:40
States in
00:31:42
2019 we grind we grind we put in tens I
00:31:45
put in tens of millions of dollars we
00:31:47
get a deal with a big
00:31:49
OEM and then you see these doe grants we
00:31:52
spent millions of dollars we file a very
00:31:55
detailed plan to build battery medals
00:31:57
and battery capacity in
00:31:59
America we got rejected okay it was an
00:32:02
entire yearlong process we got rejected
00:32:05
we put it past us we kept working we
00:32:08
found more deals we found a way to
00:32:10
survive raise a little bit more money
00:32:13
and then we applied again on some
00:32:15
success and we got a $100 million Grant
00:32:19
okay that was that's what just happened
00:32:21
this year but then yesterday I read and
00:32:24
Nick maybe you can throw this tweet up
00:32:25
this Barry Weiss investigation
00:32:29
somebody in 30 days who was connected to
00:32:32
the Democratic infrastructure had some
00:32:34
shell organization that got a grant that
00:32:36
was 70 times bigger than us like we've
00:32:41
made stuff we have deals with
00:32:43
oems we had to validate every step of
00:32:45
the way we were rejected once so our
00:32:47
process to get a $100 million doe
00:32:50
program was two years these people
00:32:53
showed up in 30 days and got seven
00:32:55
billion that's just wrong why didn't you
00:32:59
put why didn't you lead with Dei or
00:33:01
something you would have gotten a
00:33:02
billion you just LED with the wrong
00:33:03
thing you were actually providing a
00:33:04
product or service people need this is
00:33:07
this this is why you don't have any
00:33:08
equity in there for the minerals this is
00:33:11
why it's so frustrating to build for the
00:33:12
government guys this is what paler and
00:33:13
SpaceX had to deal with that's why they
00:33:15
both sued the government is that all the
00:33:16
friends who used to be the CIO used to
00:33:18
be the general made the right donations
00:33:21
had the right kid on the board it's all
00:33:23
corrupt and then the actual substantive
00:33:24
people you have to work like how do they
00:33:26
give $7 billion in 30 days we're gonna
00:33:30
find out you got a bunch of democra
00:33:32
operatives on the board let well let me
00:33:33
challenge you guys on one point there
00:33:35
are now claims being made by reporters
00:33:38
and by Third parties that are saying it
00:33:40
is a new form of
00:33:41
kleptocracy with all the friends of
00:33:43
Silicon Valley installing their friends
00:33:46
and agency heads as under secretaries
00:33:49
and so on that's going to benefit
00:33:51
Silicon Valley investors Silicon Valley
00:33:53
companies Joe jamath Jal I mean how do
00:33:56
you guys react the claims that there's
00:33:59
now you know this new kind of
00:34:00
kleptocratic movement it's the old guard
00:34:02
is gone new guard you have paler you
00:34:05
have andreil so go ahead you you answer
00:34:07
let's let's talk about this I mean when
00:34:09
we go to DC when I go to DC what I am
00:34:11
asking is I want there to be a Fair
00:34:13
competition and if I win I want my
00:34:15
company to actually be able to win the
00:34:16
contract because the way it's worked for
00:34:18
20 years like like epis you just raised
00:34:20
$250 million this week it's a great
00:34:22
company we you know we had a big contest
00:34:24
four years ago L3 rathon northr these
00:34:27
guys you know in and out of government
00:34:28
for decades they've they've gotten tens
00:34:30
of billions of dollars to the same
00:34:31
technology area when we went
00:34:33
head-to-head with them we we didn't just
00:34:35
like beat them by a little bit we shot
00:34:36
down the hardened drones nine and a half
00:34:38
times farther away same size same power
00:34:40
nine and a half times completely wiped
00:34:41
the floor what was the cost difference
00:34:42
between the bids like are you saving us
00:34:44
massive money massive money I invested
00:34:46
only 30 40 in the whole thing at that
00:34:48
point and they spent billions and we
00:34:49
have much cheaper much better not even a
00:34:51
question and and you talk to the and you
00:34:53
talk to like at the time the the chief
00:34:55
of staff of the Air Force the guy run
00:34:56
the four star and and he says well Joe
00:34:58
this was written three years ago it
00:35:00
looks like rathon probably did help
00:35:01
write it and they required all these
00:35:03
things and your way you're doing it I'm
00:35:04
like I I'm like yeah I'm using a chip
00:35:06
instead of a cathod ray tube that's why
00:35:07
it's working so much better like yeah
00:35:08
but it was written for the way they're
00:35:09
doing it and I could overrule it but it
00:35:11
break a lot of glass so you probably
00:35:13
wouldn't get in three years because
00:35:14
everyone knows you're the best but it's
00:35:15
too it's too frust you know it's too
00:35:16
stressful to give it to you right now
00:35:18
like that is that so so so what I'm
00:35:19
doing is I'm not going and saying give
00:35:21
my company's money I'm saying I'm saying
00:35:23
make this actually a functional logical
00:35:25
process and give me a chance to win it
00:35:26
from the best and that that is a hundred
00:35:28
times better for our country to push how
00:35:30
do you but how do you make that
00:35:31
transparent and how do you avoid there
00:35:33
has to be massive transparency how do
00:35:35
you avoid the the perception of conflict
00:35:37
and the perception of kleptocracy well
00:35:39
it's acquisition it's acquisition reform
00:35:41
right so like this this a really
00:35:42
important story you guys probably know
00:35:43
we were in the Philippine jungles in the
00:35:45
early 1910s needed new pistols our
00:35:47
pistols were terrible they had like a
00:35:48
one-page thing what they needed there's
00:35:50
six arm manufacturers competed that's
00:35:52
how we got the Colt 1911 in like three
00:35:53
months it won by the by by a large
00:35:56
amount it's an awesome gun uh 12 years
00:35:59
ago we had a 700 something page document
00:36:01
that the bureaucrats spent years on
00:36:03
outling what they needed for a new
00:36:04
pistol or probably needed to do Dei
00:36:05
stuff I have no idea it's like this long
00:36:07
comical document they still don't have a
00:36:09
new pistol today and so the way the way
00:36:11
we do it is we have a very clear process
00:36:14
where it's very specific on the outcomes
00:36:16
not on the inputs and you have a contest
00:36:18
and and then and then you make sure that
00:36:20
you know it's not it's obvious who wins
00:36:21
guys it's not like we're like slightly
00:36:23
better it's like we're shaming them so
00:36:24
the only way they can stop us is by
00:36:26
playing these games so much
00:36:29
better I think that if you're in the
00:36:31
administration or if you join some part
00:36:35
of the administration whether you're a
00:36:37
full-time employee or a gsse or just a
00:36:40
volunteer there's going to be that
00:36:42
perception of impropriety or influence
00:36:44
pedaling that's comes with the territory
00:36:47
so how do you avoid it and I think that
00:36:50
Joe is exactly right when the
00:36:52
administration was getting formed one of
00:36:54
the things that happened I had an
00:36:55
opportunity to work with some of the
00:36:56
folks to write some proposals for what
00:36:59
theoretically could happen in some of
00:37:00
these bigger government organizations
00:37:02
where there's just huge pockets of spend
00:37:05
and where I spent most of my time is
00:37:06
what Joe talked about how do you create
00:37:09
Open Standards so that it's very clear
00:37:13
what the competition is so that the
00:37:15
rules on the ground can't get
00:37:17
manipulated by people who are rolling
00:37:19
out of government into private industry
00:37:22
or somebody has a very deep relationship
00:37:24
because of lobbying those are the things
00:37:26
that pervert the clarity of what should
00:37:28
happen because then what happens can be
00:37:30
far a field to that so number one is I
00:37:33
think knowing that this time around a
00:37:36
different class of people are going to
00:37:38
be seen on the quote unquote popular
00:37:41
side it's really critical that all of us
00:37:45
that are involved in this promote
00:37:47
extremely transparent Open Standards
00:37:50
publish every RFP publish every spec
00:37:53
publish every evaluation criteria make
00:37:56
these things as mean itic as possible so
00:37:58
for example if you're going to go and
00:38:01
field a drone there's an incredibly
00:38:04
detailed set of data that you should be
00:38:06
publishing in it's not dissimilar to how
00:38:08
an FAA asks for flight test data and you
00:38:11
should be able to review that so that
00:38:14
then it can be escalated so that if
00:38:16
somebody then gets a deal because of
00:38:17
preference and you think you're
00:38:19
structurally better on the data there
00:38:22
needs to be an escalation and a release
00:38:23
valve that says hold on this is just
00:38:25
being manipulated and I think that's you
00:38:27
fight back yeah on not just this version
00:38:30
of a potential Winning Side versus
00:38:32
losing side but forever in the future
00:38:34
the government should be open the
00:38:37
government should be transparent and
00:38:39
every single point at which they're
00:38:41
making a decision and giving money
00:38:43
should be measurable and known you guys
00:38:45
got exactly right there's
00:38:47
transparency there's oversight obviously
00:38:50
but there's whistleblowers as well and
00:38:52
there's the role of the press in all of
00:38:53
this to sort of fact check it and to
00:38:56
check in on it as a safeguard with the
00:38:59
public getting engaged and that's one of
00:39:00
the great things that Doge has done by
00:39:03
having a Twitter handle I can pull up
00:39:05
hey here's what's going on with these
00:39:06
licenses and make an example so that
00:39:09
kind of transparency helps and then
00:39:10
finally we have to look at campaign
00:39:13
finance that is where a lot of the
00:39:15
appearance of proprietary exists go back
00:39:18
to this other thing because that's a
00:39:19
super important Point like it just
00:39:20
occurred to me that if what you said
00:39:22
happens then look the incentive today in
00:39:25
America is to try to position oneself to
00:39:28
have one of these
00:39:29
roles and the reason is because David of
00:39:32
what you said there is the chance to
00:39:34
then preferentially nudge an opportunity
00:39:37
your way right yes why do people sit on
00:39:41
committees why do people
00:39:43
volunteer at least at that level and if
00:39:47
you introduce Open Standards then the
00:39:50
real incentive to want to go do this
00:39:52
should be because you actually are
00:39:53
patriotic and want to just help so chth
00:39:55
I think I think you're right about the
00:39:56
standards but I want push back on the
00:39:58
incentive today like I know a lot of the
00:40:00
people who are getting into this and I
00:40:02
really do think they're there to fight
00:40:03
for the country I don't just say this
00:40:05
like as like you know naively or
00:40:07
something like these people really are
00:40:08
there for the right reasons for the most
00:40:09
part no I know I'm just saying generally
00:40:11
over like the last 50 years if you look
00:40:13
at people there is this implied sense
00:40:15
like for example like Goldman Sachs had
00:40:17
a direct line to become treasury
00:40:19
secretary if you were the CEO of Goldman
00:40:21
You' you were the treasury secretary now
00:40:24
don't you think that that was discussed
00:40:25
amongst Partners at Goldman and and do
00:40:27
we not think on the margins that that
00:40:29
beneficially helped Goldman of course it
00:40:31
did we'd be we'd be naive to think
00:40:32
otherwise my my point is not that my
00:40:35
point is just that going forward the
00:40:36
best thing all of our friends could do
00:40:39
is just make it all open source and Open
00:40:41
Standards that would be an incredible
00:40:43
artifact I think for America Joe I think
00:40:45
you telling us hey I trust these people
00:40:47
they're our friends you know that works
00:40:49
with all of us because yes we know them
00:40:50
we know they're going to do the standup
00:40:52
right thing and if you already have a
00:40:53
ton of money like some incremental
00:40:55
amount of money is not going to move the
00:40:56
needle for you it's it's farsal for us
00:40:58
to think that David Sachs is going to
00:41:00
give up four years of income producing
00:41:02
have to sell all his positions and that
00:41:05
is in some way good for his balance
00:41:06
sheet it is not he's going to miss out
00:41:08
on four years of AI and the massive
00:41:11
runup of our lifetime in order to serve
00:41:13
the country but I can tell you people
00:41:15
don't believe that just like you know
00:41:17
you talked about the kleptocracy and the
00:41:19
revolving door to raon or whoever that
00:41:22
people have talked about forever what
00:41:24
you need is whistleblower protections
00:41:27
journalists going after this like Barry
00:41:29
Weiss is doing old school journalism
00:41:32
investigative The Whistleblower laws are
00:41:35
great in our country we need to keep
00:41:36
reinforcing those but I'm going to go
00:41:38
back to we need to limit campaign
00:41:41
contributions we have to get rid of
00:41:42
super packs because these create the
00:41:44
appearance of impropriety and the
00:41:46
appearance of impropriety with Trump's
00:41:47
mean coin and that announcement on
00:41:49
Sunday for the crypto Reserve was you
00:41:52
know it doesn't help the mission here
00:41:55
that Trump is trying to get done so so
00:41:57
maybe you could speak to that because
00:41:58
that's where the appearance of
00:41:59
impropriety is great you got people like
00:42:01
Sor who's doing his Bitcoin thing he's
00:42:04
going on Friday and you know sax will do
00:42:07
a do a little bit here and announce some
00:42:09
stuff on the program hopefully but maybe
00:42:12
you could talk about what you objected
00:42:14
to with the coins the meme coin Endor
00:42:18
the the announcement of the crypto
00:42:20
Reserve should our government and after
00:42:23
all this donations from massive people
00:42:26
like I saw at the crypto ball all the
00:42:28
people who were tweeted by Trump that
00:42:29
looks terrible you tell me what you
00:42:32
think I agree with you on the Tweet
00:42:33
you're sneaking two things together here
00:42:35
though so I want to be really precise
00:42:36
Jason because let's be precise that's
00:42:37
what we do here there are a lot of
00:42:39
different possible ways that people can
00:42:42
help politicians and so one of them is
00:42:44
if you're a celebrity like even all your
00:42:46
guys show at this point you can you can
00:42:48
affect what people think that's powerful
00:42:50
more there's there's other ways that if
00:42:52
you're part of a big Union if you're
00:42:54
part of a government Union that's very
00:42:55
powerful you know in our society if
00:42:58
you're part of the American Medical
00:42:59
Association Healthcare System that the
00:43:01
doctors and health systems are very
00:43:02
powerful even without super packs in our
00:43:04
society and what a Super PAC is it's a
00:43:06
former free speech and it's true wealthy
00:43:08
people have the ability to influence
00:43:10
things through that speech but it's like
00:43:12
one of many and so if you're cutting
00:43:14
that you're basically saying okay I
00:43:15
don't want Elon and Joe to have as much
00:43:17
say there but I do want to have even
00:43:19
more say for the celebrities and for the
00:43:21
doctors and for the union members and
00:43:22
government so you have to realize you're
00:43:23
dealing with a complicated situation
00:43:25
with lots of forms of power I do agree
00:43:27
with you as I said listen I saw David
00:43:29
and gave each other a hug I think we're
00:43:30
all good but I was very frustrated with
00:43:33
the posts of trump mentioning specific
00:43:35
coins I don't know who was trading them
00:43:36
before it just looks bad like we're
00:43:38
fighting all this grift doing all these
00:43:39
things where we have the moral High
00:43:40
Ground I agree I don't want to give up
00:43:42
the moral High ground with these with
00:43:43
these silly schemes that that that's
00:43:45
100% the case are you saying with like
00:43:47
there's many forms of influence that you
00:43:48
think Super packs and rich people should
00:43:50
be able to I think speech is important
00:43:52
$50 million $2 million donations you
00:43:55
actually think that's fair for democracy
00:43:57
I actually I actually think speech is
00:43:59
very important I think the ability for
00:44:00
me to send out something is say guys I'm
00:44:02
studying this it's corrupt it's been
00:44:04
corrupt for 50 years we have to all get
00:44:06
together and stand against these Health
00:44:07
Systems these crazy defense companies
00:44:09
that have captured and broken everything
00:44:10
like I I think my ability to speak and
00:44:12
do that and to convince people is really
00:44:14
valuable and I and I've you know I
00:44:15
passed dozens of laws each year into
00:44:17
these different states by convincing
00:44:18
people nothing to do with making me
00:44:20
money that these incentives and
00:44:21
accountability are wrong I think that's
00:44:23
a good thing that I'm allowed to do that
00:44:25
should be so when you say speech you
00:44:27
write a check you mean write very large
00:44:29
checks you have to be careful that the
00:44:31
reason the Supreme Court ruled for super
00:44:32
packs is not just about giving you're
00:44:34
not you're not giving them the money
00:44:35
you're actually speaking yourself so
00:44:37
when Elon spends $300 million he's
00:44:39
actually spending it many times putting
00:44:41
out his own speech or he's putting out
00:44:45
what about you Jamal do you think that
00:44:47
Soros Elon let's take the names out of
00:44:49
it do you think there should be a cap on
00:44:51
what you're able to donate to Super Pacs
00:44:53
because this does create the massive
00:44:54
appearance of impropriety whether it's
00:44:56
in Crypt
00:44:57
whether it's on the you know Soros on
00:44:59
the Democrat side this seems to be I
00:45:02
mean I I'm in favor of there being more
00:45:03
hard caps whether it's 510 or 25 million
00:45:06
I think there needs to be caps and I
00:45:07
think we should put a fund together for
00:45:09
the last two or three people and let
00:45:10
them get that money from the government
00:45:13
to run their campaigns like other
00:45:15
countries do I think it's important to
00:45:17
note that this pendulum
00:45:19
has swung pretty wildly out of wax in
00:45:23
citizens united yeah and it's not this
00:45:26
is not a republic thing meaning there's
00:45:28
a whole buch of factions there's the
00:45:30
George Soros faction that's true there's
00:45:32
the liberal Democrat faction L we forget
00:45:35
I think Zuck spent 350 million in 2020
00:45:38
oh yeah then there's the kooch brothers
00:45:42
faction and then there's what showed up
00:45:44
this year with Elon so my point is
00:45:47
there's all kinds of pockets of spending
00:45:49
in all manner of ways I think the
00:45:51
question is should citizens united have
00:45:54
allowed this kind of spending and are we
00:45:57
better off as a democracy for it and I
00:46:00
think what does shamat think the reason
00:46:02
why I would be in favor of going back to
00:46:04
the way it was is that I think the
00:46:07
biggest problem is the redistricting and
00:46:09
the jury mandering that happens and the
00:46:11
amount of influence that happens
00:46:13
Downstream inside of state and local
00:46:16
elections and there are just places that
00:46:19
are just so sclerotic
00:46:23
stuck if you look at the federal despite
00:46:25
all the spending you still see at the
00:46:28
presidential level like pretty
00:46:30
reasonable and healthy competition
00:46:33
between two people it's much more
00:46:36
difficult to see dynamism lower and
00:46:38
lower down ballot and so the reason to
00:46:41
get rid of citizens united from my
00:46:43
perspective is that you'd have much more
00:46:45
vibrant local state mayoral elections
00:46:49
those things have huge impacts I think
00:46:51
to to Quality okay so you and I are in
00:46:53
that camp Joe's in the other freeberg
00:46:55
your thoughts you're the desire vote
00:46:57
here it's two to one in terms of the
00:47:00
panel well you just said to me you you
00:47:02
just said to me you think we should go
00:47:04
back the Supreme Court's on my side so
00:47:06
you guys are in trouble no no yeah I
00:47:08
mean but the point of this program
00:47:10
sometimes is not just to is to take
00:47:12
ownership of your opinion and defend it
00:47:14
so I we have I want to see people own it
00:47:17
here in the discourse or freeberg you
00:47:19
can say pass but you don't get to say
00:47:21
nothing okay what does it mean to spend
00:47:25
money on on a political point of view
00:47:29
exactly what does it mean it it means
00:47:31
you can put a book I mean the other side
00:47:33
wanted to censor books because like like
00:47:35
if I want if I want to pay someone to
00:47:38
make a book for me if I want to pay
00:47:39
someone if I want to pay 50 people to go
00:47:43
and engage the community so I can get
00:47:45
some leverage on my time if I want to
00:47:47
pay someone to make a website to promote
00:47:49
my point of view on something I should
00:47:51
be able to do that and if my point of
00:47:53
view is related to a vote that Congress
00:47:57
might be taking or is related to a
00:48:00
candidate that's running for election or
00:48:03
is related to taxes or is related to
00:48:05
some other social issue I don't know how
00:48:08
you can kind of very clearly delineate
00:48:10
the difference between some kind of
00:48:12
political party or some political
00:48:15
candidate versus my having a point of
00:48:17
view on an issue if I care very deeply
00:48:20
about animal Weare which I do and if I
00:48:22
had enough money that I felt like I
00:48:24
could spend that money to influence
00:48:26
people's point of view you to improve
00:48:28
Animal Welfare through laws and through
00:48:30
candidates I would spend that money and
00:48:33
I should have a right to do so and I
00:48:34
shouldn't feel restricted that I can't
00:48:36
go publicly express my voice make
00:48:38
websites put up Billboards put up
00:48:40
posters buy ads and papers telling
00:48:42
people how wrong it is the way we treat
00:48:45
animals and slaughter them and keep them
00:48:47
living for their very short lives in
00:48:49
Terrorist conditions I want to be able
00:48:51
to express that point of view and so I
00:48:53
kind of Veer to this idea can I ask you
00:48:54
a question would you do you think that
00:48:56
your money spending if the balance of
00:48:58
power to get your view was
00:49:01
to redistrict
00:49:04
certain places so that then you could
00:49:06
get a majority of people that were
00:49:08
ideologically aligned to you elected
00:49:10
would you do that as well forget there's
00:49:12
no ads running this is about a different
00:49:14
form of electoral influence would you do
00:49:16
that so not spending money you're saying
00:49:18
like I'm not spending money to you you'd
00:49:19
spend money but it's not for ads it's
00:49:21
not for how does that work how do you
00:49:22
spend money to redistrict you get
00:49:24
certain people elected by Trucking
00:49:26
people out to vote and then you get that
00:49:29
person to join a coalition that then
00:49:31
redistricts I mean maybe Trucking people
00:49:33
out to vote as an action should be
00:49:34
illegal that seems pretty reasonable to
00:49:36
me well yeah I mean to your point
00:49:37
freeberg you asked like how do you
00:49:39
define it what I'm trying to point out
00:49:40
to you is for every dollar that goes
00:49:42
into politics I think it's I would ask
00:49:45
you guys to just suspend belief that
00:49:48
100% of that goes to ads no no what I'm
00:49:50
trying to say is I would say a very
00:49:52
small not a very small 10 10 10 to 20
00:49:55
cents goes to ads 80% goes to all kinds
00:49:57
of shady stuff and this also canvas by
00:50:00
the way you call it Shady but I would
00:50:01
argue like what if I want to make a
00:50:02
bunch of websites what if I want to make
00:50:05
like you know have people go out and
00:50:06
express the point of view in the Town
00:50:08
Square you know like there are other
00:50:09
aspects of what you might what I'm
00:50:11
saying that's fine that's in the 10 cent
00:50:13
bucket the 80 cents what I'm trying to
00:50:14
tell you explicitly is how it's spent
00:50:16
today is not in the ways that you think
00:50:18
I think that the fact that someone calls
00:50:20
it Shady might be because they disagree
00:50:21
with my point of view and if they agree
00:50:23
with my point of view they might not
00:50:24
call I think I think the tactics today
00:50:27
look I play with the conditions on the
00:50:28
field but if you look at them meaning
00:50:30
like using dollar incentives to
00:50:32
incentivize people that's allowed today
00:50:35
you can pay people to vote today before
00:50:37
we had pay them to join a super pack or
00:50:40
something like that but let hold on let
00:50:41
me let me just get Joe involved here so
00:50:43
Joe you heard freeberg you're kind of in
00:50:45
alignment I think broadly yeah but we
00:50:47
can Define some very specific things
00:50:49
that are obviously political like the
00:50:51
window of when you spend the money like
00:50:55
telling people well because you could
00:50:56
say say in the six
00:50:58
in I'm not tarting a specific vote I get
00:51:01
it I get it if you're not if you're
00:51:02
targeting an issue that's one thing but
00:51:04
when you tell people she's for they them
00:51:06
he's for you that's clearly a political
00:51:09
ad now you could take those ads you
00:51:11
could take canvasing you could Define a
00:51:13
subset of behaviors and you could say
00:51:15
you can raise up to this amount of money
00:51:17
per person in that way that's me those
00:51:20
things are explicitly political when you
00:51:22
tell people this is about candidate a
00:51:24
versus candidate B if you were say this
00:51:27
we're not going to mention any
00:51:28
candidates but we're going to talk about
00:51:29
your puppies and you trying to increase
00:51:31
your Q score here on the goddamn pod by
00:51:33
Saving puppies don't be Animal Welfare
00:51:36
is a [ __ ] up issue and something you
00:51:38
to be agreement with you I just don't
00:51:39
like how many points you're scoring with
00:51:40
the audience over did you guys see this
00:51:42
thing on Instagram my wife show
00:51:43
ridiculous I'm Gonna Save five puppies
00:51:45
for my Ranch somebody save some cows did
00:51:48
you guys see this Instagram reel my wife
00:51:50
showed it to me it's like of a of a calf
00:51:53
chasing a dog and it cuts to this Asian
00:51:57
guy and he's like what's the big deal
00:51:58
here what are we talking about like you
00:52:00
know you want us to not eat everything
00:52:02
blah blah blah and then he realizes that
00:52:03
they're talking about the dog versus the
00:52:05
the cat don't trigger freeberg don't do
00:52:07
that leave freeberg freeberg I got 33
00:52:09
ACR of paradise don't laugh I got 33
00:52:12
Acres patus I'm going to save every
00:52:14
animal in in Central Texas I'm gonna eat
00:52:17
them and I and I would give you money to
00:52:18
do that got a deal actually I I actually
00:52:23
I agree with what jamath was saying
00:52:24
about Jerry mandering I think we could
00:52:25
use AI for that's a separate
00:52:27
conversation it's it's discussing how it
00:52:28
works right now however Jason the
00:52:30
problem at the end of the day with
00:52:31
defining what's political or not is the
00:52:33
boundary cases are really tough and you
00:52:34
do end up needing effectively
00:52:36
effectively a censorship word example is
00:52:38
I write I write a book about the dangers
00:52:41
of Communism and it explains how it's
00:52:44
linked to things going on today and I
00:52:45
like give it out at like all these
00:52:47
people are gonna be voting I mean
00:52:48
there's just so many boundary cases said
00:52:51
you can spend up to 10 million a year
00:52:53
doing political activity 10 million a
00:52:54
year gives you a cap so you can only
00:52:57
B this is not political activity it's my
00:52:59
art this is this is an artistic piece
00:53:01
but when you put the book in and say
00:53:03
vote for Biden then we would say okay
00:53:05
you put a vote for B you see what I'm
00:53:07
saying though it becomes it becomes
00:53:08
really complicated I just ran it through
00:53:11
grock and what the answer was is that
00:53:15
56% of all the spending happens to be on
00:53:19
ads and 44% of all dollars in 24 25 was
00:53:22
spent on other yeah so there you put
00:53:25
canvasing in there I bet you it's 75% so
00:53:28
if we just say for those two activities
00:53:30
put a hard cap on them I would be for
00:53:31
that but let's keep going we got a bunch
00:53:33
of about the market Market's let's talk
00:53:36
about cor weave all right gentlemen we
00:53:38
can't talk about politics all day as
00:53:39
exciting as it is let's talk about this
00:53:42
cor weave IPO if you don't know cor
00:53:44
weave is part of a new type of
00:53:47
infrastructure provider called neocloud
00:53:50
it's a fancy way of saying using gpus to
00:53:52
build data
00:53:54
centers this is a really interesting
00:53:55
company because they got on to gpus
00:53:57
early and they had a lock in on a large
00:54:00
number of nvidia's gpus they've uh got
00:54:04
32 data centers with 250,000 Nvidia gpus
00:54:08
as an example when Elon built the
00:54:11
largest fastest uh data center Colossus
00:54:15
that was 100,000 so this is you know
00:54:17
really really a big company they're
00:54:19
going to do an IPO analysts are
00:54:21
estimating they're going to raise at
00:54:22
least 3.5 billion at over $30 billion
00:54:25
doar their secondary was 23 billion in
00:54:29
November of 2024 so this is cooking with
00:54:32
oil they've got incredible Revenue by
00:54:34
the way 1.9 billion in 2024 but if you
00:54:37
look at two years ago how much revenue
00:54:38
they have the growth is amazing Nick put
00:54:40
a chart in here and post because uh it's
00:54:43
like a 10x I think each year or
00:54:45
something crazy like that when I talked
00:54:46
about it on the other pod but they're
00:54:48
very unprofitable almost a billion
00:54:50
dollars in loss in
00:54:52
2024 and that's interest payments on a
00:54:55
lot of their debt almost 8 billion in
00:54:58
debt huge debt load to buy all these
00:54:59
gpus and that has been the question
00:55:01
we've been talking about here trth is
00:55:04
are these gpus are these neoc clouds
00:55:07
fancy way of saying I'll give you couple
00:55:10
factoids about cor which I find super
00:55:12
impressive so the first question is like
00:55:13
you would say why didn't
00:55:15
AWS gcp and azour eat these guys for
00:55:19
breakfast lunch and dinner and as it
00:55:22
turns out they had one very specific
00:55:25
technical decision that I think was
00:55:27
extremely valuable which is that these
00:55:28
guys did not use hypervisors explain
00:55:31
what that is so a hypervisor is
00:55:32
basically a middle Weare layer of
00:55:34
software that allows you to
00:55:36
abstract units of compute so that then
00:55:39
you can make them available and instead
00:55:41
they basically allowed you to write to
00:55:43
the bare metal and this very native
00:55:45
approach that allowed them to get a lot
00:55:46
of traction so it's a really interesting
00:55:49
thing to note that just that simple
00:55:51
thing like one simple technical design
00:55:54
decision can allow you to build what
00:55:57
looks like at least from the revenue
00:55:59
perspective an incredible business right
00:56:01
so kudos to them super awesome to see
00:56:04
that you can still maneuver around the
00:56:06
big giants I think that that's cool I
00:56:08
think the big question with cor weave is
00:56:11
what is the period of amortization and
00:56:13
the useful life of these gpus from
00:56:16
Nvidia and I think that that question is
00:56:18
up in the air as you said Jason a lot of
00:56:20
their losses are these interest
00:56:23
payments and as long as that they have
00:56:26
that calculated right in their models
00:56:28
that they Ed to borrow all this money to
00:56:30
buy all these gpus from Nvidia this is
00:56:33
going to be a Killer Business to the
00:56:36
extent that they got that calculation
00:56:38
wrong meaning we thought the useful life
00:56:40
was 10 years but it turned out to be
00:56:42
five this business is deeply underwater
00:56:45
so I think that that's the bet the bet
00:56:47
is they've built an amount of Headway
00:56:50
they're going to continue to do this
00:56:53
good technical engineering
00:56:56
but the other side of it is is the
00:56:57
useful life right is the technology
00:57:00
curve right is Moore's law and all these
00:57:01
other things will they work in its favor
00:57:03
or against it and I think that's Jo
00:57:06
people say useful lifespan gpus three to
00:57:09
five years before the next generation is
00:57:12
so much more powerful especially in
00:57:14
relation to power consumption that it's
00:57:17
worth running it now with servers old
00:57:19
CPUs for running Facebook it's a totally
00:57:22
different story you can keep those
00:57:23
running five to seven years before it's
00:57:25
not running them you have to turn them
00:57:27
off what do you think here bus you're
00:57:29
right there's an economic question on
00:57:30
the power and all these things I
00:57:31
actually know Brandon he lives nearby me
00:57:32
in my house in Montana he's a really
00:57:34
smart guy and I think the really
00:57:35
interesting thing you know when they
00:57:36
built this that I think is relevant
00:57:37
going forward is these guys were
00:57:39
Commodities Traders and they were
00:57:40
originally buying stuff to like mine
00:57:42
Bitcoin other stuff like that and they
00:57:44
realized as Commodities Traders there's
00:57:46
like a certain supply and demand in the
00:57:47
market of GPU chips but also of all the
00:57:50
data centers by the way and it's really
00:57:52
it's really interesting what they did is
00:57:53
they locked down the full supply of tons
00:57:56
of data centers tons of the power they
00:57:57
needed tons of the chips and they're
00:57:59
very very thoughtful I mean they're
00:58:00
effectively they're Traders and they're
00:58:02
and they're very economic and they have
00:58:04
I think they have bottled this stuff
00:58:05
well that explains the technical
00:58:06
decision because they have to have very
00:58:08
low latency throughput in order to
00:58:10
transact efficiently as Commodities
00:58:12
Traders I'm guessing there is one heel
00:58:15
here for this company Friedberg they had
00:58:17
massive Revenue growth but they have a
00:58:20
dependency 60% of the revenue now from
00:58:22
Microsoft and Microsoft seems to have
00:58:25
done this either it's unclear but maybe
00:58:28
to service the open AI deal where they
00:58:30
needed to give them a bunch of
00:58:31
infrastructure or it might be for Azure
00:58:33
it's unclear people have been asking
00:58:35
this question for a couple of years now
00:58:37
but what do you think of a business with
00:58:39
one client with 60% dependency and this
00:58:42
is how these things work Jason is they
00:58:43
just one client tends to grow really
00:58:45
really fast and they they're actually
00:58:46
you know so they do this orchestration
00:58:48
framework called sunk I know a little
00:58:50
bit about it this like really easy for
00:58:51
scheduling workflows and batches and all
00:58:53
these things that I think a lot of other
00:58:54
people are using really well they've
00:58:56
just bought weights and biases right
00:58:57
which like everyone uses basically
00:59:00
that's a great buyes they're killer for
00:59:02
training I mean I think these guys
00:59:03
crushing training saell said that
00:59:06
Microsoft was doing this maybe not for a
00:59:08
long-term usage so freeberg your
00:59:11
thoughts on Cor
00:59:12
weave I'm not as deep as you guys are I
00:59:15
remember in
00:59:16
2003 I worked for nine months at a
00:59:19
private Equity Firm and I would cold
00:59:21
call like companies that hadn't raised
00:59:23
Venture Capital that were profitable and
00:59:26
growing and see if they would take our
00:59:27
money that's the business model and I
00:59:29
spent a lot of time in the sector of
00:59:32
businesses that were called speed
00:59:34
doublers I don't know if you guys
00:59:35
remember these companies 2003 was before
00:59:38
we all had broadband internet so we were
00:59:39
a lot of people were using dialup and
00:59:41
you could pay $9.99 a month for a speed
00:59:43
doubler and what it would do is it would
00:59:45
basically on your browser set the server
00:59:48
to be their server and they had a cache
00:59:51
of many of the popular sites on the
00:59:52
internet so when you started browsing
00:59:54
the internet on your computer everything
00:59:56
loaded faster because they had really
00:59:58
fast servers and you got these cashes
01:00:00
and these companies dude they were doing
01:00:02
like tens of millions of Revenue high
01:00:04
margin 50% plus ebit margin and growing
01:00:07
like 100% plus a year and I remember we
01:00:11
we spent a bunch of time looking at
01:00:12
these companies this is right before I
01:00:13
joined Google and I was like this feels
01:00:16
like a transitory business it's like an
01:00:18
Arbitrage between where we were and
01:00:20
where we're going and that's what ended
01:00:23
up happening many of them just cash
01:00:24
flowed out the founders took money they
01:00:26
were able to get a really smart private
01:00:27
Equity recap done get some money out and
01:00:29
run at some low multiple of EA or
01:00:31
something and so I worry a little bit
01:00:34
about a business like this where there's
01:00:36
four or five companies that are each
01:00:38
doing 80 billion dollar of capex this
01:00:41
year to create infrastructure that
01:00:43
effectively starts to replace what these
01:00:45
guys are effectively offering out as a
01:00:47
service that would be my biggest kind if
01:00:49
I was to do diligence on this business
01:00:51
that's where I would spend a lot of my
01:00:52
time is like guys what's the capacity
01:00:54
going to be in a year two sort like when
01:00:56
Broadband hit the internet you didn't
01:00:57
need speed doublers anymore do you
01:00:59
really need to be paying as much as you
01:01:00
are today is there going to be as much
01:01:02
demand how much is this going to get
01:01:03
bundled in with gcp or AWS and so on in
01:01:06
the future so that would be my kind of
01:01:08
macro hesitation and caution on the
01:01:10
diligence as I ran my diligence on this
01:01:12
thing you basically need an economist to
01:01:14
map this all out it's the same question
01:01:15
for data centers in a related way right
01:01:17
which you just need to map everything
01:01:18
and I I don't have those D those numbers
01:01:20
so you're right it's a hard thing to
01:01:22
figure out that's right that's right
01:01:23
well the founders have control of the
01:01:24
company I they
01:01:26
sold few they sold a lot maybe it's 150
01:01:29
each or yeah but but they've kept most
01:01:31
of their position they're smart guys so
01:01:32
let's see yeah they still own the
01:01:34
majority I don't know so I don't want to
01:01:36
speak negatively about the business and
01:01:37
I haven't spent much time on it but I
01:01:38
mean I think that the worst that can
01:01:40
happen if you speak negatively about
01:01:42
somebody's business you know you tell us
01:01:44
you us Prof for years you tell us no
01:01:49
idea what is it like to be on somebody's
01:01:51
list for a decade I don't know I mean
01:01:53
the ratings keep going up for this week
01:01:55
and startups all in so I'll I'll take it
01:01:58
shout out are you purposefully starting
01:02:00
to dress up Jal by the way because I
01:02:01
notice every week now you're wearing a
01:02:03
butt I had a speak I had a speaking gig
01:02:05
but my friends at
01:02:08
Eton reached out to me so I might be
01:02:10
trying to do a little gri right now are
01:02:12
you plugging right now Laura Piana
01:02:14
hasn't reached out but Eton shirts which
01:02:15
I'm wearing right now e n you know the
01:02:17
famous uh shirt people are they've been
01:02:20
reaching out and I also no no no no I
01:02:22
got but I'm also saying Tom for's people
01:02:24
reached out and said you know that
01:02:26
pelvin you can take that off if you want
01:02:27
we'll have somebody come over so I just
01:02:29
want to shout out my friends over there
01:02:30
I have noal deal out the Kon k i t o n
01:02:33
jackets I've been wearing k i
01:02:36
o jackets on Earth I wear them all the
01:02:39
time I love those jackets just saying
01:02:41
let's move on way yes and Joe lale's
01:02:44
outfits are done by the Wagers the weers
01:02:46
in China he gets them specifically made
01:02:48
for $17 each recently I was recently
01:02:51
sponsored by a company this this service
01:02:53
is incredible what they do is when
01:02:55
you're
01:02:57
flying they they meet you at the FBO and
01:03:00
they take your watch and they they set
01:03:02
the new time for you so especially if
01:03:04
it's a mechanical watch is a very
01:03:06
complicated oh this is very important
01:03:07
right I you know what I was fly you got
01:03:09
to be kidding me that this
01:03:11
exists and I had my watch collection and
01:03:14
they did this for me when I was flying
01:03:15
between Montenegro and maltas absolutely
01:03:18
just trolling I'm just trolling this is
01:03:21
like for spy villains telling you how to
01:03:23
look at the world we should get rid of
01:03:24
income tax I'm sure everybody listening
01:03:26
like hm really convenient no income tax
01:03:29
for the billionaires and sent to
01:03:30
millionaires good job guys all right
01:03:32
let's keep going down
01:03:34
the all right jamat you know we've been
01:03:36
going back and forth in the group chat
01:03:38
and you've been talking about it
01:03:39
publicly maybe Main Street versus Wall
01:03:42
Street and what's going on in the
01:03:44
markets here because there's EU uh Bond
01:03:47
issues we obviously uh it seems like in
01:03:50
some ways maybe the Trump campaign is
01:03:53
not thinking about the stock market as
01:03:55
much as are thinking about the bond
01:03:57
market explain to us your take on
01:03:59
markets right
01:04:00
now yeah I think that there's three
01:04:02
markets that are important there's the
01:04:04
US long end of the curve so this is the
01:04:06
10year bond yield I think then there's
01:04:09
the US Equity market and then the most
01:04:13
next important Market are the
01:04:15
European Bond and Equity markets
01:04:18
together and I'll explain why in a
01:04:19
second but just on the first view I I
01:04:21
mentioned this before but I really do
01:04:23
think we're in a secular shift
01:04:26
where I think the Maga
01:04:29
majority and the base of people that can
01:04:32
be a reliable voting Block in the future
01:04:35
as I've said before are working in
01:04:38
Middle Class folks that don't
01:04:39
necessarily own a ton of stocks nor do
01:04:43
they own homes of which there's a lot
01:04:45
second cohort are people that are
01:04:49
pro-innovation and Protek and the third
01:04:51
are patriotic business owners I think
01:04:54
that cohort is very large and I think
01:04:57
that
01:04:59
when the core strategist inside of Maga
01:05:02
figure this out one of the big takeaways
01:05:05
is that they're not going to care about
01:05:07
the stock market in Wall Street and a
01:05:10
lot of the policies will be viewed
01:05:12
through the lens of Main Street and I
01:05:14
think that you started to see this
01:05:17
rhetoric now one from bessent and we'll
01:05:20
play this clip in a second and the
01:05:22
second was just today from Trump himself
01:05:24
but Nick do you want to play the best
01:05:25
clip if you have it I think o over the
01:05:28
the medium term which is what we're
01:05:30
focused on it's a focus on Main Street
01:05:33
wall Street's done Great Wall Street can
01:05:35
continue to do fine uh but we have a
01:05:39
focus on small business and the
01:05:41
consumers so we are going to rebalance
01:05:44
the economy we're going to bring
01:05:45
manufacturing jobs home that was the
01:05:48
first one the second one was just today
01:05:49
Nick I sent it to you do you want to
01:05:51
just show it to these guys which I think
01:05:52
is really interesting so it says here
01:05:54
breaking news from I guess on usual well
01:05:56
else Trump has just said he's not
01:05:58
looking at the stock market okay so not
01:06:00
sure I believe that but okay so why is
01:06:02
this actually valuable well if we are
01:06:06
incentivized if the government of
01:06:08
America is incentivized to implement
01:06:10
policies that crack the equity markets
01:06:14
it's actually really good in some ways
01:06:16
number one is if you deflate asset
01:06:18
prices you also deflate
01:06:21
inflation okay and give an example there
01:06:24
for the audience so we make it clear
01:06:26
Nvidia is ripping at all-time highs you
01:06:29
are like oh wow I'm so cashr you can go
01:06:31
get a margin loan you take that money
01:06:33
you reinvest it in a second home and a
01:06:35
third home you sell some stock you start
01:06:38
to buy cars all this other stuff it
01:06:40
drives consumptive behavior that on the
01:06:42
margin isn't there if the markets were
01:06:45
much much lower than this so if you
01:06:47
rebase the
01:06:49
equity values that people have what you
01:06:52
do is you actually depress the amount of
01:06:55
free cash flow that they have to spend
01:06:57
on other things so it's a deflationary
01:06:59
tactic how the bond market reacts to
01:07:02
that is if the stock market goes down is
01:07:04
you start to become a flight to Quality
01:07:06
right oh my gosh there's volatility in
01:07:08
the stock market oh my gosh I don't want
01:07:10
to deal with the stock market going down
01:07:12
let me just sell take some chips off the
01:07:14
table and buy 10e bonds when you buy the
01:07:17
bonds the interest rate goes down why is
01:07:20
that good for America we have1 trillion
01:07:22
dollar we need to go out and borrow in
01:07:24
the next 9 months
01:07:26
and so if we can pay 3% 3.8%
01:07:29
4% we save us ourselves trillions of
01:07:32
dollars versus if we had to pay four and
01:07:34
a half five five and a half% so that's
01:07:37
the second
01:07:38
thing and then the third thing is that
01:07:41
right now what we had this week because
01:07:43
of the Ukraine and zalinsky thing is
01:07:45
basically Trump say we are totally risk
01:07:47
off this war and I'm not going to debate
01:07:50
whether that's right or wrong but that's
01:07:52
what he said we're going to curil the
01:07:54
aid we're not even going to share
01:07:56
intelligence they're on their own what
01:07:58
did that Force what happened this week
01:08:01
was the Europeans had to basically
01:08:03
circle the wagons and they said okay
01:08:05
we're going to step up and what they
01:08:08
announced was a four-year plan to borrow
01:08:11
money to invest in
01:08:13
defense what they also did which was
01:08:15
really interesting is the UK
01:08:17
specifically said we're going to borrow
01:08:19
it in this clever little way this is
01:08:21
their interpretation so that it doesn't
01:08:23
actually count in the debt to GDP
01:08:25
calculations of my country so they're
01:08:27
start they're
01:08:28
starting but then so then how did the
01:08:30
bond market react to it Nick you can
01:08:32
show it they're like you know what guys
01:08:34
if you want to fight this war obviously
01:08:36
you're allowed to do whatever you want
01:08:38
but the cost that you're going to have
01:08:39
to pay is going to go up this has been
01:08:42
going up every day and you're at a point
01:08:46
now where this is severe fiscal pressure
01:08:51
on these governments I do not know how
01:08:53
they sustain their deficits and raise
01:08:56
more debt so all of this is happening
01:08:59
all at the same time I think Trump is
01:09:01
pro Main Street Equity markets basically
01:09:04
do not get bid the bond markets respond
01:09:06
positively yields go down good for
01:09:09
America they extract themselves from
01:09:11
spending programs like again it's more
01:09:15
than a spending program but I'll just
01:09:16
say it in this context narrowly Russia
01:09:18
Ukraine is a spending program that that
01:09:20
if you take off the table that balance
01:09:23
of responsibility goes to Europe and
01:09:25
then the markets are saying this is not
01:09:27
right we want this war to end and we're
01:09:28
going to make it more expensive for you
01:09:30
to litigate it if you put it all
01:09:32
together it's a really interesting
01:09:33
moment in the markets I haven't seen in
01:09:35
a very long time Joe do you think this
01:09:38
is the refinancing of our debt is the
01:09:42
end game here there's like maybe 10% of
01:09:44
people who seem to have fallen in that
01:09:46
camp when I queried on these four group
01:09:48
chats hey you know if we can depress
01:09:51
everything we lower consumption we break
01:09:53
inflation even more maybe people lose
01:09:55
their jobs you know less
01:09:58
consumption and rates go down we have to
01:10:00
cut rates three or four times put
01:10:02
pressure on the FED then we can maybe
01:10:06
refinance our debt which is coming up
01:10:08
some percentage of it what do you think
01:10:10
of that theory you know Jason jamaat has
01:10:12
a lot of interesting thoughts here and I
01:10:13
think it's I think it's a very smart
01:10:14
analysis I'm not fully aligned it is
01:10:16
true Bond markets hate war war is
01:10:18
expensive or is inflationary it's very
01:10:21
clear Europe is going through okay you
01:10:23
know war is more likely for us to spend
01:10:24
money that and that hurts them you know
01:10:26
in the US I think the number one thing
01:10:28
that Scott Besson and Trump would want
01:10:30
around this is is to fight for Main
01:10:32
Street like they said that that really
01:10:34
is you know the kind of populace energy
01:10:35
we have right now and so I think they
01:10:37
are focused on lower interest rates
01:10:38
lower interest rates you know I have
01:10:40
some someone who works with me uh their
01:10:41
spouse you know as a real estate agent
01:10:43
and that they're having a really tough
01:10:44
couple years because indust R spiked up
01:10:45
if you get IND rates down again there's
01:10:47
so many different places in America
01:10:48
where people start making money again
01:10:49
with with the title companies with the
01:10:51
Brokers with there's so many things that
01:10:53
happen right with that trickle down yeah
01:10:55
it's it's well it's not just trickle
01:10:56
down it's like this is the part of the
01:10:58
economy that that just really does start
01:11:00
to turn on and certain transactions can
01:11:01
happen again and and you're right it it
01:11:03
is cheaper debt that is that is
01:11:04
Advantage as well so I think
01:11:05
disinflation is very important and I
01:11:07
think we have to find some way to get
01:11:08
there chth may be right that it's worth
01:11:10
hitting assets to get to this inflation
01:11:12
that's something that the Scott could be
01:11:13
working on because of all the debt but
01:11:14
it is it is true the easiest it's the
01:11:16
easiest it's the easiest and we do and
01:11:19
we do need it for sure so and I
01:11:21
hopefully I think there's some other
01:11:21
more clever ways to get there but but
01:11:23
but I do like that you said there's some
01:11:25
more clever ways to get there obviously
01:11:27
we don't want to see 8 n 10%
01:11:29
unemployment that's another way to get
01:11:31
there and we don't want that because you
01:11:33
know Main Street equals jobs so what do
01:11:37
what is your other ways to get there
01:11:39
well the other ways to get there is
01:11:40
there's two there's really two right now
01:11:42
in our society that are very positive
01:11:43
one of them is a higher productivity
01:11:46
through AI I'm working on a ton of
01:11:47
things as are sure everyone else doing
01:11:49
that like we're doing construction for
01:11:50
much cheaper right now government can't
01:11:52
do that though right government can't be
01:11:53
involved in that that's up to us not to
01:11:55
SC I mean David's doing good work we can
01:11:56
make sure not to screw it up there's a
01:11:57
lot of people trying to screw it up so I
01:11:59
think David's job is very important
01:12:00
there to get Sam's not here please we
01:12:03
and then the and then the second thing
01:12:05
is actually cutting spend like just
01:12:07
giving out hundreds of billions
01:12:09
willy-nilly to Stacy Abrams at all is
01:12:11
very inflationary and so so so I think I
01:12:13
think cutting spend actually is a very
01:12:15
positive thing we could do a lot more of
01:12:16
that freeberg you heard the two
01:12:18
gentlemen what are your thoughts on the
01:12:21
refinancing of Interest as I've done
01:12:24
before I'm going to give you incredible
01:12:25
leadership credit for 3 years ago on
01:12:27
this pod pushing all of us to really
01:12:30
think about what would happen if the
01:12:31
debt increased another 8 trillion which
01:12:34
it did and I think that influenced a lot
01:12:36
of people in our circles and obviously
01:12:38
that's something that the president took
01:12:41
on when none of us thought he would any
01:12:43
president would ever take on that issue
01:12:46
how much pain do you think Trump is
01:12:49
willing to take with the stock market
01:12:50
going down in order to refin the debt
01:12:52
the debt is he willing to be incredibly
01:12:54
unpopular is he willing to deal with the
01:12:57
criticism from Wall Street and from
01:13:00
Equity holders over some sustained
01:13:02
period and how much would he be if it
01:13:03
goes down the market goes down 10 20% do
01:13:06
you think he's going to cry uncle or you
01:13:08
think he's willing to take that kind of
01:13:09
pain freeberg like I said I I don't know
01:13:11
about Trump there's a you know I would
01:13:13
say 6040 I'd be right 40% I'd be wrong
01:13:16
so I I don't know people are here for
01:13:18
that that's actually a pretty good ratio
01:13:19
in poker if you can win that many hint
01:13:21
yeah I mean I'd say 60% he's probably
01:13:23
different than Trump 1.0 and he's
01:13:26
probably less influenced by the
01:13:28
short-term Rumblings about the market
01:13:31
okay and he's probably listening to
01:13:33
bessent on this one
01:13:37
although you know I I I think it's it's
01:13:39
got to be a complicated relationship
01:13:41
between the two of them at the moment I
01:13:43
I do think that he is aware and I would
01:13:46
imagine the administration generally
01:13:48
with bessent and others in in um kind of
01:13:50
key leadership positions are trying to
01:13:53
make the case that if we can get
01:13:55
rates
01:13:57
down we have an opportunity to kind of
01:14:00
refinance this1 trillion that's coming
01:14:02
due in the next 12 months and get
01:14:05
ourselves into a kind of more
01:14:06
sustainable financing position there's
01:14:09
still the fiscal position which is how
01:14:11
are we spending money and how are we
01:14:12
spending money over time that needs to
01:14:14
be addressed this is this is the central
01:14:16
question you're totally right let's
01:14:18
address that specifically with Ukraine
01:14:21
you're a bit of uh a hawk an American
01:14:24
except jist Joe and
01:14:27
um we are looking at a situation where
01:14:30
we
01:14:31
spent 175 billion there were some other
01:14:34
numbers that Trump was floating around
01:14:35
that were
01:14:36
Incorrect and they got fact checked 175
01:14:39
billion is what we're actually in for
01:14:41
according to all accounts this was done
01:14:43
as I said many times on this very
01:14:45
program and got laughed at and joked
01:14:47
about done on a lease loan Trump because
01:14:51
these things were done on a lease loan
01:14:53
now has the upper hand with zinsky and
01:14:55
he's a great negotiator and he said we
01:14:57
want 500 billion back don't need to make
01:15:00
this about dollars and cents here
01:15:02
because obviously this is life and death
01:15:04
and people's democracy we're talking
01:15:06
about their sovereignty but that 175
01:15:09
billion if he gets that 500 billion back
01:15:12
that's a 42% irr in three years on this
01:15:15
even if we just got our money back that
01:15:17
would be fine for the American people
01:15:18
how do you look at the war in Ukraine
01:15:20
both financially and in terms of
01:15:23
containing Putin and
01:15:25
finally in terms of our participation in
01:15:28
NATO is it time for us to leave NATO Joe
01:15:30
lale wow well you know Jason Putin's a
01:15:32
bad guy that's number one he's shouldn't
01:15:35
have inv thank you for saying that it's
01:15:36
refreshing to hear it on this podcast
01:15:38
you know I I do think the last
01:15:39
Administration mismanaged it I don't
01:15:41
think he would have invaded with Trump
01:15:42
as president he certainly would have
01:15:44
invaded with competent person threaten
01:15:45
him so but you know but now we have to
01:15:47
have peace and I do want peace I don't
01:15:49
want to have the war continuing but to
01:15:50
get peace you got to get both sides to
01:15:52
come to the table I prefer peace through
01:15:54
strength prefer being really strong on
01:15:56
Putin and showing why he has to have
01:15:57
peace but then you need zilinski to be a
01:15:59
partner for it too and I do think listen
01:16:01
I do think zilinski had the wrong idea
01:16:03
on the White House last week he should
01:16:04
have been thanking them he should have
01:16:05
come more humbly he should have actually
01:16:07
been directed towards really wanting
01:16:09
peace and listen I I I agree that
01:16:11
Ukraine's a very corrupt country we may
01:16:12
find out that he and his cronies have
01:16:14
been taking a bunch of money I don't
01:16:15
know if they are or not either way he
01:16:17
has not really been signaling the right
01:16:19
way to be open to peace and a piece that
01:16:21
does I think have to give up a little
01:16:22
bit of Ukraine in order to get there I
01:16:23
think that's the option on the table
01:16:25
right now and that's the direction I
01:16:26
want about the NATO question what's the
01:16:28
you know and thank you for being so
01:16:29
candid here what's the the NATO outcome
01:16:33
here is it time for maybe Europe to just
01:16:37
go it alone because they don't seem to
01:16:39
like what happened last Friday at the
01:16:41
White House they yeah and and maybe do
01:16:43
you think it's time maybe that we we bow
01:16:45
out and let them arm up this is really
01:16:48
tough for me because some of the people
01:16:49
I care about most in the world uh live
01:16:51
in places like Germany and and around
01:16:53
there and I want them to be safe I also
01:16:55
think that the historic relationship
01:16:56
between the UK and the US is this very
01:16:58
very valuable thing that we have they
01:17:00
shouldn't just be tossed aside these are
01:17:01
these are critical very longtime allies
01:17:03
and cousins you know I think Europe's in
01:17:06
a very very bad place it's very
01:17:08
dysfunctional man it's it's it's I do
01:17:09
not see European civilization going the
01:17:11
right way the next 20 or 30 years I
01:17:13
think JD's right to criticize them on on
01:17:15
anti-free speech on like you know
01:17:16
arresting people who criticize the
01:17:18
Islamic threat like more than the people
01:17:20
actually doing the rapes and stuff it's
01:17:22
crazy these places have lost their minds
01:17:23
you know it's bonkers so yeah do do I
01:17:25
want to to totally give it up no but do
01:17:28
I want to demand fiercely that the
01:17:30
certain things get fixed and to use our
01:17:32
foreign policy apparatus to make sure we
01:17:34
fix those things if we're going to stay
01:17:35
in the relationship 100% what do you
01:17:38
think chamat this NATO question seems
01:17:40
like Europe is kind of signaling that
01:17:42
they're willing to go at alone and
01:17:44
should the United States just say okay
01:17:47
go for it we're we're out because that's
01:17:49
literally what sax retweeted recently
01:17:51
just said hey we're out it's your
01:17:52
problem um and I think the
01:17:54
administration has given him free reign
01:17:55
to to discuss the topic he T discussed
01:17:57
it here for many years what are your
01:17:59
thoughts should we be out on NATO well I
01:18:01
think the question is when do these
01:18:04
transnational organizations outlive
01:18:06
their utility that's the question on the
01:18:09
table and it's not just a question for
01:18:11
NATO but it's a question for a bunch of
01:18:13
these other things the
01:18:15
who NATO the United Nations there's many
01:18:18
of these
01:18:19
organizations what you've seen is that
01:18:22
there are
01:18:25
competitive organizations now that are
01:18:27
just as important if not more so if you
01:18:31
didn't like OPEC well then there was
01:18:33
this OPEC Plus+ thing if you didn't like
01:18:36
how the Europeans and the Americans did
01:18:39
intelligence gathering then all of a
01:18:41
sudden five eyes came out of nowhere if
01:18:43
you didn't like the G7 there's the
01:18:46
bricks right so there's this tendency
01:18:49
for the world to create these startups
01:18:53
to try to challenge incumbent
01:18:55
as the conditions on the ground change I
01:18:58
think the most important thing right now
01:19:00
the Europeans need to do is acknowledge
01:19:02
this one critical fact the individual
01:19:05
governments of Europe are vibrant and
01:19:07
Powerful the European Union itself was
01:19:11
created almost without any real teeth
01:19:14
and so what happened is the folks there
01:19:16
started to pass inordinate numbers of
01:19:18
laws yeah and that has made it really
01:19:20
complicated to be a European company a
01:19:22
European Citizen and that has to get
01:19:25
sorted out what is the real decision
01:19:27
there is it about being Italian is it
01:19:29
about being European what is the
01:19:31
separation and I don't think that that's
01:19:33
clear and I think once they figure that
01:19:35
out all this other stuff is much easier
01:19:36
to figure out well you also have yeah
01:19:39
other organizations interpo right we
01:19:41
have that you have the UN I mean it is
01:19:44
maybe time to just
01:19:46
reerrr BG what do you think I think that
01:19:50
there is a viable case for a peaceful
01:19:54
trans I to kind of a
01:19:59
multi-polar power
01:20:01
Dynamic and if you're a techn
01:20:06
pessimist you're going to have a point
01:20:08
of view that there are more limited
01:20:10
resources available to humans on Earth
01:20:12
and therefore we have to have influence
01:20:14
to access those resources if you're a
01:20:17
techno Optimist you will believe that
01:20:20
through Ai and Automation and all these
01:20:23
other Technologies that we could spend
01:20:25
quite a bit of time around that we are
01:20:28
going to have abundant housing abundant
01:20:31
fuel abundant materials and generally an
01:20:34
abundance of everything that one
01:20:36
particular group might demand or need
01:20:40
and you don't need to go be an Empire to
01:20:42
access the
01:20:43
resources that your people are demanding
01:20:46
and what I mean is the mining industry
01:20:49
is a good example there was this
01:20:50
discovery which I think we put on the
01:20:51
docket for the science Corner today of a
01:20:55
giant thorium Reserve in inner Mongolia
01:20:57
which can be used to make a thorium
01:20:58
molten salt reactor and there's enough
01:21:00
Thorium in this Reserve in China to
01:21:03
produce enough energy for 60,000 years
01:21:06
of consumption based on current
01:21:08
consumption
01:21:09
rates I saw a fantastic presentation
01:21:12
this week by a startup that's uh using
01:21:15
Ai and other sensing Technologies to
01:21:19
identify new Rare Earth deposits in the
01:21:22
crust of the earth that we have
01:21:24
absolutely no visibility into today and
01:21:26
many of our assumptions about how much
01:21:29
availability there is of certain rare
01:21:31
earth metals is wrong and that there
01:21:34
actually may be many many many orders of
01:21:35
magnitude more material available to us
01:21:37
to mine and the technology for mining is
01:21:40
getting better the technology for
01:21:41
discovering these deposits is improving
01:21:42
and so on so in that world where
01:21:44
suddenly I can make all the food I want
01:21:46
everyone can be fed there's plenty of
01:21:48
land there's plenty of housing there's
01:21:49
plenty of water there's automation that
01:21:51
and robots that are serving me and all
01:21:53
this sort of amazing
01:21:55
that's coming cury do I really need to
01:21:57
be having aing conflict with Russia and
01:22:00
China over access to some jungle or some
01:22:03
plot of land on the other side of the
01:22:05
planet or can I live sustainably on in
01:22:09
my country and everyone's going to be
01:22:11
generally happy so I think that this
01:22:13
idea that maybe the US exits NATO and
01:22:16
the US dials down its level of conflict
01:22:19
and opposition to Russia and or China is
01:22:23
a pretty reasonable and I would argue
01:22:24
maybe even a techno optimistic point of
01:22:26
view and you know we may find that in
01:22:29
the next couple of years we start to
01:22:31
really believe it and if we start to
01:22:33
believe it all the things that we're
01:22:35
fighting over today you don't really
01:22:37
need to fight over anymore except for
01:22:40
the expansionist intentions of
01:22:42
individuals which is a sociological
01:22:44
phenomenon which may still continue but
01:22:47
I'm not sure that you need to be
01:22:49
investing as much resources as we have
01:22:50
historically so I would argue maybe nato
01:22:53
in a mult poar world of abundance isn't
01:22:56
as necessary as it has been in the past
01:22:58
Century which was a world that was
01:23:00
limited in resources fighting for Access
01:23:02
and a growing global population
01:23:04
particularly in the developed world in
01:23:05
the west that's made it a necessity to
01:23:08
maintain us Primacy and US policing of
01:23:11
the world and I know others might have a
01:23:12
point of view that's a little bit
01:23:13
different on that but I just think we
01:23:15
this is I think actually what you're
01:23:17
talking about is a Star Trek beautiful
01:23:19
version of abundance in the world if
01:23:21
these Rare Earth minerals create
01:23:23
unlimited energy and your energy
01:23:24
independent you look at the world
01:23:25
differently and and Joe we certainly in
01:23:28
America look at the world differently as
01:23:30
we're all gen xers here
01:23:32
basically we look at the world much
01:23:33
differently now since we have energy
01:23:35
Independence than we did under Bush and
01:23:38
and these uh F Wars you know in the
01:23:42
Middle East yeah I mean listen yeah and
01:23:44
I I'm I'm one of the most optimistic
01:23:45
people I call myself the American
01:23:47
Optimist Jason as you know have
01:23:49
greatone of us have been on yet app of
01:23:53
get you on the we live together I mean
01:23:55
had sacks on have you had sacks on at
01:23:57
least American Optimist people people
01:23:58
are too busy to come on I'll try to get
01:24:00
you so for four with best's got it okay
01:24:02
all right I gotta work on it listen I I
01:24:04
would love AI to get to the point I
01:24:06
think it will where it starts to
01:24:07
accelerate growth where this energy
01:24:09
stuff could be mind more easily but
01:24:10
until I'd say until we're at at least
01:24:12
five six% growth because we are going to
01:24:14
the postcar city world we don't know
01:24:15
what it's coming I do still think global
01:24:17
trade really matters I do think Global
01:24:19
Security for ourselves like we don't
01:24:21
want random people with nuclear
01:24:22
proliferation so there there are issues
01:24:24
that are going to affect all of us but I
01:24:26
think Dave makes a really great point
01:24:27
that it is becoming less important over
01:24:29
time it's true let's talk about this
01:24:31
chat GPT I guess they came out with 4.5
01:24:34
it was such a dud I didn't even realize
01:24:36
that they launched it chiman you monitor
01:24:39
this or freeberg did you try it because
01:24:40
I've been using grock as my default now
01:24:44
then Gemini then chat GPT that's my
01:24:46
order right now because I wanted to see
01:24:48
how good grock is and man grock is
01:24:51
really caught up and I don't have an
01:24:52
interest here in uh you know I don't
01:24:55
have equity in any of these comp well I
01:24:56
own Google in the public markets but I
01:24:58
don't own the other two but pretty
01:25:00
amazing yeah what what do you think of
01:25:02
this 4.5 dud and what what it means
01:25:05
chamal well I use them in in the
01:25:08
companyb building context and
01:25:10
specifically at 8090 because of what
01:25:12
we're building and what I would tell you
01:25:14
is that I think
01:25:16
anthropic just continues to do an
01:25:18
incredible job I think Claud
01:25:22
37 is it just kicks
01:25:25
ass oh you're you're on Claud for you're
01:25:28
using on the back end yeah we use it for
01:25:30
a lot of automated code generation got
01:25:32
it and its models on code generation I
01:25:35
think are just exceptional it they're
01:25:37
they are the best in market then what I
01:25:39
would say is as a
01:25:40
consumer I've mostly flipped my usage to
01:25:43
Gro 3 yeah and the reason is that it's
01:25:46
in line with where I consume most of my
01:25:48
information it's elegantly
01:25:51
integrated inside of X it's point this
01:25:54
out to explain it to people when you're
01:25:56
in Twitter now X on the top right hand
01:25:59
of a tweet there's an xai button when
01:26:01
you click it it just gives you the full
01:26:02
context of the Tweet so I was reading
01:26:04
one of dar's from Uber's tweets about
01:26:08
autonomy I guess they added two more
01:26:09
Partners when I clicked it it gave me
01:26:11
more than I ever could want it was
01:26:12
almost like a deep research of the
01:26:14
context of a very short retweet he did
01:26:16
and I didn't have to cut and paste and
01:26:18
form a question so owning a social
01:26:21
network equals instant and here we're
01:26:23
going to show with Joe lonsdale's where
01:26:25
he says Hey listen the you know the the
01:26:27
crypto tax feels like taxation to me and
01:26:29
look it goes and finds four web pages
01:26:31
you can see there it tells you which
01:26:33
ones Wikipedia and um CNBC amongst them
01:26:37
and then it gives Joe's position this is
01:26:39
like very elegant this is super elegant
01:26:43
and I think there's a small tweak to
01:26:45
this okay that Elon and I were talking
01:26:49
about actually onx which is then just
01:26:50
the nature of being able to analyze it
01:26:52
post for its veracity becomes really
01:26:54
valuable that extra little thing when
01:26:56
it's available I think will have a
01:26:58
really big impact on how people use it
01:27:00
in this context so I use gr for the
01:27:02
consumer applications for all of our
01:27:05
code generation we're using Sonet 37
01:27:07
it's
01:27:08
exceptional which is anthropics which is
01:27:11
doing a major round of funding got it
01:27:12
okay yeah and and I think like the the
01:27:14
thing with the GPT 45 is that it's kind
01:27:18
of like good now here's here's a tangent
01:27:20
let me just do a small little rant which
01:27:22
is
01:27:24
we're at the bleeding edge of where
01:27:26
these benchmarks are useful meaning part
01:27:29
of why Jason maybe you weren't
01:27:30
necessarily watching this as closely and
01:27:32
I think where the media and the
01:27:35
sensemaking organizations get confused
01:27:37
is they don't know now what to say
01:27:39
because they'll say hey look at how I
01:27:41
did on sbench look at how I did on IMO
01:27:43
look at how I did on
01:27:45
Amy and the problem the Dirty Little
01:27:47
Secret of these model makers is that
01:27:50
these guys are so trained on the evals
01:27:52
that they're overfitting yeah and all
01:27:55
this overfitting basically makes it
01:27:56
pretty
01:27:57
unreliable what this means to translate
01:27:59
into plain English for humans listening
01:28:01
is they basically are optimizing for the
01:28:04
test that are The Benchmark which is
01:28:06
kind of like a person in high school or
01:28:08
you know optimizing for the SATs it
01:28:10
doesn't mean they're going to be a great
01:28:11
student but it may mean that they just
01:28:12
spent a lot of time taking sat tests
01:28:14
yeah so we have we have one problem
01:28:16
which is that I think it would be very
01:28:18
valuable for the industry that it be
01:28:19
solved which is that we need to have
01:28:22
extremely difficult and always changing
01:28:25
third party independent verifiable
01:28:27
benchmarks oh that's a great idea like
01:28:29
the safety test for cars is that's not
01:28:32
run by the companies got it less about
01:28:34
safety though more about capability sure
01:28:36
and I think if we're reporting on that
01:28:38
then these leaps will mean something
01:28:39
more than what they are today right so
01:28:41
got it when Alibaba pushes Gwen this
01:28:44
week it was an exceptional model it's
01:28:47
probably one of the better open source
01:28:48
if not the best open source model out
01:28:50
there deep seeks I think is also quite
01:28:52
good it doesn't get any pressing anymore
01:28:54
so I think we're starting to get to this
01:28:56
place where there's such abundance that
01:28:59
actually people are just kind of like
01:29:00
overwhelmed with all the choice and they
01:29:02
don't know how to differentiate this is
01:29:04
like a 100 Michelin star restaurants
01:29:06
opening up in your city you just don't
01:29:07
have enough meals to eat it we we're
01:29:09
we're basically drowning in abundance to
01:29:12
free Berg's point we I don't think we
01:29:14
understand exactly how golden how golden
01:29:17
this golden age is in terms distribtion
01:29:19
distribution becomes really important I
01:29:21
think that's why absolutely inside
01:29:24
valuable but also think Google just that
01:29:26
they're going to drop an button into the
01:29:29
front search page I don't know if you
01:29:31
guys saw that but no Google's doing it
01:29:32
when you're logged in you will get the
01:29:34
snippet at the top inside of YouTube
01:29:37
they're doing summaries of the chat and
01:29:39
the comments and then you think about
01:29:41
what meta could do you know they already
01:29:43
put the AI box up there but you know
01:29:45
they'll they'll knock some of that
01:29:46
off Google front door like google.com
01:29:49
does anyone use that
01:29:51
anymore well I mean Google searches are
01:29:53
still going and Facebook is about to
01:29:55
launch a competitor to chat and gr yeah
01:29:58
well they're going to do a straight up a
01:30:00
standalone app and the thing that they
01:30:02
are so good at is whenever they launch
01:30:04
an app it doesn't matter when they
01:30:05
launch it they'll just get it to a
01:30:06
billion people yeah I mean that that is
01:30:09
uh super TR all this I think leads
01:30:12
to so much abundance what I'm I'm seeing
01:30:15
in startups I was the first investor in
01:30:17
a company called superum very elegant
01:30:20
software luxury software for email
01:30:22
productivity give it a shot
01:30:24
what he did
01:30:26
was I didn't mean that's a super plug
01:30:28
here but anyway I I'm so in love with
01:30:30
the company and the founder I I just had
01:30:32
them on this weekend startups he's like
01:30:33
one of the best product Minds I've ever
01:30:35
met extraordinary and superum now
01:30:39
because it's gotten so cheap to do AI
01:30:41
that they are composing in this beta I
01:30:43
in all of the replies to your email in
01:30:46
real time on the back end and you can
01:30:48
see potential drafts they summarize
01:30:50
everything even if you never read the
01:30:51
summary that would be cost prohibitive
01:30:54
six to 12 months ago but now it's a
01:30:57
no-brainer and because they're paid
01:30:58
software it's like so this is going to
01:31:00
get very interesting very quick Joe your
01:31:03
thoughts on this uh abundance yeah I'm
01:31:05
actually building something on email
01:31:06
like you said that let works with your
01:31:07
team to automatically kind of like you
01:31:09
know create reports on everything that
01:31:11
comes in and rout it for you because a
01:31:12
lot of our friends when you're a CEO you
01:31:14
basically become a traffic cop it's
01:31:16
actually the email is gonna do it for
01:31:17
you it's gonna be that'd be really nice
01:31:19
but listen I'm invested in grock 3 and
01:31:20
I'm biased towards Elon but you know a
01:31:23
lot of our companies will build on top
01:31:24
of multiple of them as well and you I
01:31:26
think you're talking about Coen I'm you
01:31:28
know in cognition I a lot of my
01:31:30
companies using Devon it's actually just
01:31:31
like crushing it this stuff's getting
01:31:32
like 10 15% better every month it's uh
01:31:35
it's really amazing and it's good for
01:31:36
companies like that I'm mostly that
01:31:38
level where I'm like using all of them
01:31:39
or using a bunch of them that so I love
01:31:41
the fact there's all this competition
01:31:42
because just makes it cheaper and better
01:31:43
for me for all my companies I'm building
01:31:45
and and it's it's not slowing down is
01:31:47
the other piece of this no it's getting
01:31:49
better it's scary actually I thought it
01:31:50
would I thought it would ASM toote and
01:31:51
it hasn't so amazing no that's that's
01:31:53
the part that's so fascinating to me and
01:31:56
then there's a really interesting Ripple
01:31:58
that I don't know if you guys are aware
01:32:00
of yet but journalists who have been
01:32:02
losing their jobs at a tremendous Pace
01:32:04
are now being hired by data aggregators
01:32:07
to come in look at queries let's say you
01:32:10
had an expertise in agriculture free
01:32:12
birg they'll pay you and I actually saw
01:32:13
one of these job descriptions 40 bucks
01:32:15
an hour to sit there and answer
01:32:17
questions about agriculture look at
01:32:19
answers and refine them and do
01:32:20
reinforcement learning we're going to
01:32:22
have a new job class which is people who
01:32:25
train AIS and people who fact check AIS
01:32:28
and refine AIS and this could be a 50 to
01:32:32
$150,000 a year job because every time
01:32:34
you make the AI a little better
01:32:36
everybody on the planet gets to benefit
01:32:39
from it this is an extraordinary new job
01:32:41
career I don't know what it's going to
01:32:42
be called reinforcement learner I don't
01:32:44
know freeberg you get the last take here
01:32:47
great job on the abundance angle which
01:32:50
just pushed a really great discussion
01:32:51
here wrap us up with your thoughts on
01:32:53
these llms and the pace of AI I just
01:32:56
agree with chamat I think it's like you
01:32:58
got a lot of great stuff here it's
01:32:59
changing every week I'm not paying
01:33:01
attention to the details anymore new
01:33:03
models come out every week this is like
01:33:05
when the internet launched new websites
01:33:07
you know like this is this is carrying
01:33:09
us forward it's impossible to dissect
01:33:11
and predict what's going to win when and
01:33:15
why right now what are you um obsessed
01:33:17
with in the AI front is there are there
01:33:19
things out I use I use chat GPT research
01:33:22
a lot the Deep research Arch right where
01:33:24
fires off a bunch of web pages okay and
01:33:26
you're paying that means the 200 bucks a
01:33:27
month or you I pay 200 a month yeah I
01:33:30
find I find it very good yeah and then
01:33:32
um we build everything at oh Hollow on
01:33:34
gcp and we run a bunch of different
01:33:36
models that's Google's Cloud for people
01:33:38
who don't know thatr name got it and
01:33:39
then we run models they're incredible
01:33:42
yeah yeah lots of different tools but
01:33:44
it's awesome hey as we wrap here we're
01:33:47
following our Muse here at Allin
01:33:49
whatever the besties are most interested
01:33:50
in we are going to bring you the
01:33:52
audience along with us so freeberg and I
01:33:54
have been obsessed with content creation
01:33:57
and media so we're doing a little media
01:33:59
Summit at South by Southwest apologies
01:34:03
that it's sold out and then chth you
01:34:05
know he likes this F1 he's a big F1 fan
01:34:07
I've never been I'm really excited that
01:34:09
we're going to be throwing the best
01:34:11
party at F1 Saturday May 4th I'm
01:34:16
cominging the bag you're not there's
01:34:18
only room for as long as I get the bag
01:34:20
I'll be outside you know what I'll just
01:34:21
go to 11 give me my bag I'll go play a
01:34:24
tournament I'll go to 11 and have a
01:34:26
steak and that's it's a it's a it's a
01:34:28
club I'll get I'll pop some bottles at
01:34:29
11 while you guys are at F1 you can
01:34:31
Photoshop me in but the fans can come
01:34:34
and our community can come allin.com
01:34:37
events for all the details and if you
01:34:40
party on Saturday night big party it's
01:34:41
gonna be fun we're throwing a big party
01:34:43
in Miami around F1 and we're gonna do a
01:34:45
little stage show beforehand because be
01:34:47
awesome and we're gonna we're gonna
01:34:49
celebrate my birthday because I'm not
01:34:51
going to be able to make it in June can
01:34:52
I wear my app Apple watch can somebody
01:34:54
loan me a nice watch for F1 I can't show
01:34:56
up with an Apple Watch anybody got a
01:34:57
you're not allowed to wear an Apple
01:34:58
Watch to F1 okay I'm going to put my
01:35:00
Apple watch in my in my draw never watch
01:35:04
I want a watch that cost 25 to 75k
01:35:07
what's a good starter watch for J Cal
01:35:09
that's like an appetizer that's what my
01:35:10
watch has as a watch your watch is watch
01:35:14
Joe you got you into this watch thing
01:35:15
what should I buy for 100 dimes what do
01:35:18
you got there you can get a decent PCH
01:35:19
for 100 now it's like they've gone down
01:35:21
yeah it's yeah I mean everything's
01:35:23
collapsed like shouldn't I be able to
01:35:24
snipe something here it's it's deflation
01:35:26
thanks to Trump and AI right you can
01:35:29
grab whatever somebody give me a
01:35:31
suggestion
01:35:32
for get a good mechanical watch not an
01:35:35
automatic a mechanical anybody wants to
01:35:36
sponsor me for watches and get a mention
01:35:39
here on the show I will gri the hell out
01:35:41
of that Jason cicis.com for life I just
01:35:44
got a text from Swatch and tutor oh
01:35:47
Swatch was I used to wear actually in
01:35:49
the 80s I don't know if freeberg
01:35:52
definitely had a T of those Casio
01:35:54
watches right did you have the Casio
01:35:56
where you would uh do your your C is a
01:36:00
great watch that's I'm talking about him
01:36:01
with the calculator watch I had that it
01:36:04
was I remember it was $50 it was a
01:36:06
really big deal to it $50 and it was
01:36:08
worth it you play the game you start and
01:36:10
stop it as fast as you could that was
01:36:11
that was exactly remember that I had one
01:36:14
on
01:36:15
each I was doubling
01:36:17
down I recently bought a G-Shock on
01:36:20
Amazon as kind of like a momento to
01:36:24
and my freaking daughter stole the
01:36:27
g a free we can all bet on this what
01:36:30
calculator do you have on your desk
01:36:32
right now how many how many calculators
01:36:34
are on your desk now how many Can You
01:36:35
Reach how many casos are within reach
01:36:37
there's only one calculator that matters
01:36:39
only one for me yeah okay HP 17b there's
01:36:43
only
01:36:43
one what are you talking about I got my
01:36:45
T9 still 89 for me oh now you just told
01:36:48
me how how you're younger than me Joe
01:36:50
now I know you're like four years
01:36:51
younger than me true point of
01:36:54
it was the
01:36:55
8182 transition that was like a big deal
01:36:58
yeah you know what I was doing when you
01:36:59
guys were on your calculator I can't
01:37:00
even imagine I was in McKinley Park in
01:37:02
Bay Ridge getting to second base all
01:37:04
right enough allin.com events did the
01:37:07
guy
01:37:08
consent absolutely absolutely he's a
01:37:11
really hot dude please we we have two
01:37:13
genders folks there's an executive order
01:37:15
I read it all right all right my trump
01:37:18
grade for the week is c for chaos a for
01:37:22
effort with uh a for effort with those
01:37:24
let's try to get back to a b president
01:37:26
Trump we'll see you all next time on the
01:37:28
Allin P love you boys thanks Jo thanks
01:37:31
guys that's fun byebye all right
01:37:33
everybody we're suited up we're suited
01:37:35
up because the Zar The Wolf of the White
01:37:38
House is here my brother David Sachs we
01:37:42
were trying to get you on the program
01:37:43
you were going to make a drop in to talk
01:37:44
about all this great crypto news coming
01:37:46
out of the White House and uh let's face
01:37:49
it this was a um some people saying
01:37:51
chaotic some people say intense this is
01:37:53
a pretty amazing intense week for the
01:37:56
administration so we'll get into a
01:37:57
little bit of that but you're here
01:37:59
specifically to talk about the crypto
01:38:02
Reserve so welcome back to your program
01:38:05
the Allin podcast David sax good to be
01:38:08
back I see that you suited up here yeah
01:38:10
I mean I figured for people who uh
01:38:13
weren't here for the pre-show I get on
01:38:15
saak is wearing a white shirt and a tie
01:38:17
I'm wearing a Blazer and a white shirt
01:38:19
so I'm like ah I got to go put a tie on
01:38:21
he's like ah J C wear a blazer I got to
01:38:22
go get a blazer so then we came back and
01:38:24
here we are and uh right well look I I
01:38:26
just have to correct one thing I think
01:38:27
it's been a very smooth week at the
01:38:29
White House the president has lived up
01:38:32
to one of his campaign promises this is
01:38:33
not something new remember you go all
01:38:36
the way back to his National speech
01:38:37
during the campaign and he re reiterated
01:38:39
this many times that he wanted to create
01:38:41
a strategic Bitcoin Reserve sometimes he
01:38:43
called it a digital asset stockpile what
01:38:45
we've ultimately done here is both he
01:38:48
also in his week one EO on crypto you
01:38:50
guys remember I came on the show to talk
01:38:52
about that he asked our president's
01:38:54
working group on digital asset to
01:38:55
evaluate the idea of a reserve or
01:38:58
stockpile and we made a recommendation
01:39:00
and this Administration is moving at
01:39:02
Tech speed it's really great to work for
01:39:05
an Administration where you can actually
01:39:06
get things done and things move quickly
01:39:08
we made our recommendation and then we
01:39:10
work with the lawyers to implement it
01:39:11
and President signed it last night but
01:39:14
this is fully consistent with everything
01:39:15
he's he's always said agree on that the
01:39:18
uh I guess the one criticism that you're
01:39:20
going to get when you go face the media
01:39:21
so I might want to put it here is the
01:39:23
order in which you're doing things
01:39:24
sometimes Mr Trump is very uh expressive
01:39:27
on the social medias which is better
01:39:29
than let's say the previous
01:39:30
administration which just wasn't
01:39:32
available and and incognitive decline so
01:39:35
I guess the the the question of he
01:39:37
announces something and then you guys
01:39:40
explain it deeper is that the optimal
01:39:41
way to do this should we not worry about
01:39:44
it should you come out with like more
01:39:46
official stuff I guess that's the move
01:39:48
fast break things that we are used to in
01:39:51
Silicon Valley but that people you know
01:39:53
know whether it's in business or maybe a
01:39:55
little concerned about that things are
01:39:57
maybe different now in the White House
01:40:01
and and in how we're running our
01:40:02
government maybe you could expand on
01:40:03
that have you ever considered that maybe
01:40:05
you just had an overreaction to a tweet
01:40:07
well okay so if we're going to place the
01:40:09
blame on
01:40:11
me I wasn't the only one the original
01:40:14
crypto ogs were like wait a second why
01:40:15
is he picking these three and not these
01:40:17
three you know so that made a lot of
01:40:20
people putting myself out of it like
01:40:21
whoa what's going on here is he picking
01:40:23
favorites and that's I guess everybody's
01:40:25
big concern so maybe you could a sage
01:40:27
we're not yeah we're not picking
01:40:28
favorites obviously except I will say
01:40:30
this we do think Bitcoin is special and
01:40:32
I can get it to to the reasons why expl
01:40:34
why that's a great thing yeah well I
01:40:36
mean bitcoin's the original
01:40:37
cryptocurrency it's the first one it's
01:40:40
the only one that doesn't have an issuer
01:40:42
right it's it's very decentralized it's
01:40:44
you know in crypto they call this the
01:40:45
Immaculate Conception we don't really
01:40:46
know how it got here we don't know who
01:40:48
Satoshi is it's almost mystical you
01:40:51
would say yes it's the most valuable it
01:40:53
has a $2 trillion market cap and it's
01:40:55
the most secure it's ever been hacked
01:40:56
right so we're now you know over 15
01:40:58
years into this journey and there's been
01:41:00
a lot of people who've been skeptical
01:41:01
along the way and there's been a lot of
01:41:02
ups and downs but here it is I mean I
01:41:05
remember back in 2011 I think it's the
01:41:07
first time I bought a Bitcoin I think it
01:41:09
was at $120 now it's at
01:41:12
$90,000 again there have been all sorts
01:41:14
of wild swings along the way but this
01:41:18
thing just keeps keeps chugging along
01:41:20
and you can think of that $2 trillion
01:41:23
Market market cap is like a $2 trillion
01:41:25
bug Bounty if there was a way to hack
01:41:27
this there's every incentive in the
01:41:29
world and by hack I mean like to double
01:41:31
spend create basically a counterfeit
01:41:33
Bitcoin I guess would be the way for
01:41:34
people to think about it and so the
01:41:36
miracle it hasn't been compromised I
01:41:38
think we can all say that well I don't
01:41:39
know if it's a miracle I think it's
01:41:41
exceptional design sure you know and so
01:41:43
I think I think what you could say is
01:41:45
that it's been tested in a very robust
01:41:47
way and there's been every incentive to
01:41:48
basically break the encryption and it
01:41:51
continues to chug along and so I think
01:41:53
think the price has gone up as the
01:41:55
protocol has gotten more acceptance and
01:41:57
this is another point is that bitcoin's
01:41:59
most widely accepted as a store of value
01:42:02
throughout the world yeah so we do
01:42:04
believe it should be treated special now
01:42:06
that being said we're also creating the
01:42:08
digital asset stockpile so all the other
01:42:10
explain the difference between these two
01:42:12
so there's a digital asset stockpile
01:42:15
that's the Picker and then on the other
01:42:17
side there's a strategic reserve for
01:42:19
Bitcoin because we do acquire Bitcoin we
01:42:22
the United States of America when we
01:42:24
seize from terrorists you know criminals
01:42:27
Etc we do seize these and then we often
01:42:29
make the mistake of liquidating them
01:42:31
when maybe we should be holding them
01:42:32
yeah so explain that architecture so we
01:42:34
have the reserve and we have the
01:42:34
stockpile so the reserve is just Bitcoin
01:42:37
the goal is long-term preservation think
01:42:39
of it as like a digital Fort Knox for
01:42:40
digital gold we want to put the digital
01:42:43
gold in there we want to keep it secure
01:42:45
we never want to sell it that's the goal
01:42:46
of the reserve and you're right that
01:42:48
we've made the mistake in the past of
01:42:50
selling this stuff at one point in time
01:42:51
we had about 400,000 Bitcoin on the
01:42:53
federal balance sheet we sold roughly
01:42:55
half of that for something like $360
01:42:58
million total if we had held all of that
01:43:01
it would be worth just that the portion
01:43:02
we sold would be worth over 17 billion
01:43:04
so we made this mistake of prematurely
01:43:06
selling Bitcoin when we should have held
01:43:08
it we don't want to make that mistake
01:43:10
with regard to the rest of it we think
01:43:12
there's around 200,000 coins left on the
01:43:16
federal balance sheet but the truth is
01:43:18
that nobody knows because we've never
01:43:19
done a proper audit so part of what this
01:43:21
executive order provides is that we're
01:43:22
going to going to do for the first time
01:43:24
a government wide accounting of the
01:43:27
digital assets that we actually have so
01:43:29
and if digital assets emerge in some
01:43:32
Department I don't know the FBI sees a
01:43:33
some the CIA sees a some I don't know
01:43:35
which organization winds up having them
01:43:38
they're going to be legally required to
01:43:40
report that and then put in the reserve
01:43:43
well they'll they'll be legally required
01:43:45
to report it and then they'll go in the
01:43:46
reserve if there's a final adjudication
01:43:48
so you know obviously if those coins
01:43:50
could go back as restitution to victims
01:43:53
or if the person who they were seized
01:43:56
from wins their court case and gets them
01:43:58
back they're not going to go into the
01:44:00
Federal Reserve but if there's been a
01:44:02
final adjudication and a final
01:44:03
forfeiture yes those will go into the
01:44:05
reserve anyway that's Bitcoin okay so
01:44:07
then you got the stockpile let me just
01:44:09
talk about that so first of all like I
01:44:10
said we don't know exactly what digital
01:44:13
assets the federal government has I've
01:44:15
seen reports that it might have for
01:44:17
example 50,000 eth which is ethereum but
01:44:21
again we need to get to the bottom of
01:44:22
that we figure out exactly what the
01:44:24
assets are we're going to move them into
01:44:26
the digital stockpile the purpose of the
01:44:28
stockpile is responsible stewardship
01:44:30
it's a place for safekeeping it's a
01:44:33
centralized you could say account under
01:44:36
the direction of the Secretary of the
01:44:37
Treasury and the Secretary of the
01:44:39
Treasury will figure out how to maximize
01:44:41
the values of these Holdings now there's
01:44:43
a couple of important differences
01:44:44
between stockpile and Reserve so one is
01:44:47
the reserve the executive order actually
01:44:49
provides that the Secretary of the
01:44:50
Treasury will not sell the Bitcoin okay
01:44:54
we're we're prohibited from selling the
01:44:56
Bitcoin there's no such prohibition with
01:44:59
respect to the stock pilot if the secet
01:45:00
treasury decides that's in the long-term
01:45:03
interest of the US to rebalance the
01:45:04
portfolio or change the portfolio the
01:45:07
secretary has the discretion to do that
01:45:08
okay which makes sense because there's a
01:45:10
longtail of crypto we might see
01:45:12
something that we don't have the ability
01:45:13
to predict the predict the future and we
01:45:15
don't have the staff to sit there and
01:45:17
look at these assets every day like a
01:45:19
fund manager would and say huh what do
01:45:20
we do with these what percentage should
01:45:22
it be of the overall stock pot of the
01:45:23
overall Holdings so maybe the decision
01:45:26
with ethereum is hey this thing's waning
01:45:27
we just put it into Bitcoin because we
01:45:29
know that's the more solid one yeah
01:45:30
that's what I'm reading into it yeah I
01:45:32
mean I think that that's that's largely
01:45:33
fair I mean look I think that the
01:45:35
stockpile should be subject to good
01:45:37
portfolio management right unfortunately
01:45:40
we have a Secretary of the Treasury who
01:45:42
is an extremely successful former hedge
01:45:44
fund manager so he's going to figure out
01:45:46
the best way to manage these assets and
01:45:48
we give him the flexibility to do
01:45:50
portfolio management whereas live and
01:45:52
die with what he does he has to make
01:45:54
those decisions and and that's going to
01:45:55
be you know um part of how he's
01:45:57
evaluated by the president so hopefully
01:45:59
he's going to be sharp about that right
01:46:00
but the reserve is different right the
01:46:02
reserve is just digital for KNX now
01:46:04
there's one other important difference
01:46:05
between stockpile and Reserve so with
01:46:08
respect to to reserve the the EO
01:46:10
provides that the secretaries and I'm
01:46:12
talking about Treasury and commerce
01:46:14
they're allowed to figure out strategies
01:46:16
to accumulate more Bitcoin for the
01:46:18
reserve if those strategies are budget
01:46:20
neutral and don't cost the taxpayer
01:46:22
anything okay so it's possible that we
01:46:24
could I'm not saying that we will but it
01:46:27
gives them it authorizes them to acquire
01:46:29
more Bitcoin if they can figure out a
01:46:31
way to do it that doesn't impact the
01:46:35
federal budget or the deficit or
01:46:37
taxpayers right okay well I had a very
01:46:40
simple suggestion for this which I'll uh
01:46:42
float up the flag poll here and see what
01:46:44
you think you probably we've talked
01:46:45
about it on previous allins before you
01:46:47
on it how about a simple crypto tax you
01:46:50
know crypto wants to be legal you're the
01:46:51
crypto are
01:46:53
crypto wants to be regulated they want
01:46:55
the rules they want the rails simple
01:46:58
suggestion from your bestie why don't we
01:47:00
charge every transaction in the United
01:47:02
States 0.01% just about one bit in that
01:47:05
native currency so you want to trade
01:47:06
some salana for ethereum for xrp
01:47:08
whatever you know put in whatever names
01:47:10
you want there the government says hey
01:47:13
you want to have a a great vibrant
01:47:15
system here we're going to need to take
01:47:17
just the most modest of taxes di Minimus
01:47:20
in fact in the native crypto and put it
01:47:23
in the stockpile this seems to me like a
01:47:25
very that's always how tax's start is
01:47:28
that they're very they're described as
01:47:29
being very modest you know when the
01:47:30
income tax started it only applied to
01:47:32
like a thousand Americans and the
01:47:34
legislators swore up and down that it
01:47:36
would never be applied to middle class
01:47:38
people so I don't particularly like the
01:47:40
idea of new taxes even if it's it's
01:47:42
promised that they just won't affect
01:47:44
people very much that sounds burdensome
01:47:46
to me but look we have very successful
01:47:48
this would and just so you know this is
01:47:50
would be like more like a sales tax that
01:47:51
would be handled by coinbase base would
01:47:53
be handled by Robin Hood by would be
01:47:54
handled by those platforms they would
01:47:56
administer it it would be a
01:47:58
transactional tax not an income tax so
01:48:00
if you have a bunch it's not a wealth
01:48:01
tax it's not a seasoning tax but I'll
01:48:02
let you on it if you can convince if you
01:48:05
can convince the secretary of the
01:48:07
Commerce or the Secretary of Treasury to
01:48:09
run with your idea then it could
01:48:12
potentially happen I mean they have the
01:48:13
flexibility to figure out budget neutral
01:48:15
ways to accumulate Bitcoin I don't know
01:48:17
what those ways are going to be but
01:48:18
they're creative they're very successful
01:48:20
businessmen and if they figure out a way
01:48:22
to do this then it can be considered
01:48:24
that's the point okay well I'll be in
01:48:26
the commissary later having lunch with
01:48:27
you you can introduce me um so let you
01:48:29
let me just give you a fastball here
01:48:31
well we'll see if it if it gets in the
01:48:32
strike zone the appearance of
01:48:35
impropriety is what people are concerned
01:48:37
with the picking of winners and
01:48:39
losers president Trump was the crypto
01:48:42
president he went and he gave that
01:48:44
famous speech I'm G to get rid of Gary
01:48:45
gansler we're going to make it legal and
01:48:47
to his credit he has fulfilled that
01:48:49
promise which means hey the donor class
01:48:52
on that side said we're going to back
01:48:53
the crypto president not the anti-
01:48:55
crypto team which means a lot of people
01:48:58
who are on the Twitter and the
01:49:00
socials have donated a lot they have a
01:49:02
lot of holding so this appearance which
01:49:05
you've now I would give you credit have
01:49:07
cleaned up here hey there's two
01:49:09
different things going on here and we're
01:49:10
not using taxpayer money we get all that
01:49:13
but the appearance here is hey maybe
01:49:15
somebody's going to benefit of course
01:49:16
that they came after you first for that
01:49:18
without the facts you were very clear
01:49:20
you cleared all your positions you sold
01:49:22
everything you divested so let's make
01:49:24
that clear to the dumb Dums who are just
01:49:26
trying to say that you're personally
01:49:28
address that yeah please cuz this is
01:49:30
ridiculous yeah well people came out
01:49:32
right away and were saying that somehow
01:49:33
I was engaged in a scheme to pump my
01:49:36
bags or to basically create exit
01:49:38
liquidity for myself and and billionaire
01:49:40
stuff like that you have to understand
01:49:41
that those accusations I mean they're
01:49:43
accusing me of a crime and serious crime
01:49:46
and they're doing it with no evidence
01:49:48
whatsoever so these things are basically
01:49:50
it's moral slander slander
01:49:53
yeah I would say so in any event what
01:49:55
they didn't know and what I then
01:49:56
proceeded to put out there is that I
01:49:58
sold all my cryptocurrency prior to day
01:50:01
one of the administration because I
01:50:03
didn't want to even have the appearance
01:50:05
of a conflict and by the way I could
01:50:07
have waited I didn't have to do it like
01:50:09
that but I decided to do it and take it
01:50:11
upon myself to do that because you just
01:50:14
know that when it comes to crypto
01:50:15
there's going to be a lot of
01:50:16
fluctuations in the market you never
01:50:17
want someone to be able to point at one
01:50:19
of those fluctuations and say somehow
01:50:21
that the cryptos are benefited from that
01:50:23
and created a conspiracy theory which is
01:50:25
exactly what basically happened so first
01:50:27
of all I got rid of all my
01:50:28
cryptocurrency prior to day one craft
01:50:30
also sold all craft is the Venture firm
01:50:33
that you funded that's done a lot of
01:50:35
great work uh supporting Founders here
01:50:36
in Valley so we we basically sold I
01:50:38
think it was around $200 million of
01:50:40
crypto of which around $85 million was
01:50:43
personally attributable to myself and we
01:50:46
cleared that before day one paid taxes
01:50:48
on it and basically so there wouldn't be
01:50:50
a conflict so then the the smear shifted
01:50:53
in another Direction was okay well maybe
01:50:55
he doesn't own crypto okay but he's in
01:50:57
crypto funds okay and so they pointed to
01:51:00
you know bitwise and multi-coin capital
01:51:03
and I was also in blockchain capital and
01:51:05
so then the fund managers came out and
01:51:08
one by one all said actually David
01:51:10
called us over two months ago and said
01:51:12
he's going to need to divest from our
01:51:13
funds and so we also did that so yeah
01:51:16
you know I think basically they've kind
01:51:17
of given up on this but look it's very
01:51:19
easy for why let the facts get in the
01:51:21
way of a good ER seriously you full
01:51:24
disclosure you know you when you saw me
01:51:27
doing the sea Scouts program said hey
01:51:28
why don't you do a fund I'll be the
01:51:30
anchor I'll be your first LP and I mean
01:51:31
one of the most generous things you've
01:51:33
done in our
01:51:34
relationship and I had to have a call
01:51:36
with you you know weeks ago and say hey
01:51:39
okay you're going to divest okay fine no
01:51:41
problem no it's not not a problem for me
01:51:43
you sell the assets to somebody else so
01:51:44
the way people understand how this
01:51:45
mechanically works when you're in a fund
01:51:48
you have no sax cannot tell me what to
01:51:50
do in the fund he just put money in it
01:51:52
like I put money in other people's funds
01:51:54
they go and invest and 10 years later
01:51:55
you get a return and hopefully that
01:51:57
return in a venture firm or private firm
01:51:58
beats the markets public markets or
01:52:00
whatever but then you can also sell that
01:52:02
interest to somebody else so
01:52:04
mechanically takes time you have to sell
01:52:06
it at 50% 25% off and it's painful you
01:52:10
will lose I estimate you're going to
01:52:13
lose you know I don't want to be
01:52:14
gratuitous here but eight nine figures
01:52:17
by serving the country for a couple
01:52:18
years and not only that the great irony
01:52:21
of this is the one thing holding back
01:52:23
the industry is regulation
01:52:25
overregulation of AI and no clear
01:52:27
regulation in crypto you're going to fix
01:52:30
the two things that were number one and
01:52:32
two on all of our agendas in Silicon
01:52:34
Valley in terms of getting Returns the
01:52:36
next four years so the sacrifice you're
01:52:37
making is extraordinary and you're
01:52:40
making it a better environment a
01:52:42
regulated environment for the rest of us
01:52:43
to do Commerce so I just want to point
01:52:45
out that you're losing like double here
01:52:47
right well let me let me just underscore
01:52:49
something you said for your service and
01:52:50
I don't know how much they're pay how
01:52:51
much they paying for this job what do
01:52:53
you get paid like 50 Grand 100 Grand I'm
01:52:55
an unpaid consultant to the government
01:52:57
really is that actually accurate you get
01:52:58
no money no I don't want I don't want
01:53:00
any costing you money no of course it is
01:53:02
but it's it's it's an honor to serve and
01:53:04
it's a honor to be asked to serve and in
01:53:07
particular it's an honor to serve this
01:53:08
President because he really wants to
01:53:10
make the country great again so that's
01:53:11
why I'm doing it but yeah look I think
01:53:13
it's a it's a lazy and stupid narrative
01:53:16
to say that the reason why someone who's
01:53:18
already successful in business goes into
01:53:21
government is to make more money I was
01:53:23
making money before this involves a
01:53:25
substantial disruption of my business
01:53:28
interest and I have to devest a lot of
01:53:30
those business interest and in divesting
01:53:32
I have to be either a taxpayer or I have
01:53:34
to take a significant discount and it
01:53:36
costs you money so you know it's just a
01:53:38
lazy narrative that people create but
01:53:42
it's there's no truth to it and just to
01:53:43
underscore a point that that you made a
01:53:44
second ago you were one of the funds I
01:53:47
invested from not because you're a
01:53:48
crypto fund but because you might have a
01:53:50
crypto position we went through I think
01:53:52
the launch funds Holdings and I think
01:53:54
there was something crypto related in
01:53:56
there we have one or two that pivoted
01:53:58
into crypto yes right so I just didn't
01:54:00
want to have any problem there so listen
01:54:03
it's this is the nature of the politics
01:54:05
we have people are you know gets very
01:54:08
personal you know that better than
01:54:09
anybody and so you know that's why
01:54:11
you're here and hopefully we can clean
01:54:13
this all up and uh let people know that
01:54:16
hey the intent here is good so just to
01:54:18
go back to one other point you said
01:54:20
about not picking winners and losers I I
01:54:21
think that's a very important comment
01:54:23
that you made that I see as fundamental
01:54:25
to my job I mean look I think we do
01:54:27
think that Bitcoin is special for the
01:54:28
reasons I said beyond that we do not
01:54:31
want to be in the business of picking
01:54:32
and choosing winners in in the space and
01:54:35
again if some other digital asset could
01:54:38
prove that it's as decentralized and as
01:54:42
secure and as widely accepted as a store
01:54:44
of value as Bitcoin then maybe it could
01:54:46
be elevated in the same way that Bitcoin
01:54:48
has I mean I'm laying out the criteria
01:54:50
for you but look beyond that we don't
01:54:52
want to be picking winners and losers in
01:54:54
the space and that's not my job I mean
01:54:56
my job is not to to be a regulator or to
01:54:59
anoint which ones are good or bad it's
01:55:01
to basically be a policy adviser for
01:55:03
Innovation and I'll just tell you the
01:55:05
way that I see the you know all the
01:55:07
digital Assets in the space is that
01:55:09
what's fundamental is disclosure if
01:55:12
you're an issuer of a digital asset you
01:55:13
need to disclose you know all the
01:55:15
material facts about what you're doing
01:55:17
and those facts have to be accurate you
01:55:19
can't lie my view is that if you if you
01:55:22
the issuer lie about something the
01:55:24
government should come down on you like
01:55:25
a ton of bricks because that's fraud
01:55:27
okay but as long as you do this in an
01:55:29
honest way people should be able to
01:55:31
trade these things I understand that you
01:55:33
think a lot of them are garbage you
01:55:35
might be right you could express that
01:55:37
view in a trade but as long as everyone
01:55:39
has been above board in terms of
01:55:41
disclosure people should have the right
01:55:43
to trade these things and some are going
01:55:44
to make money some are going to lose
01:55:45
money it's about the freedom to
01:55:48
basically to trade to hold these assets
01:55:50
the government doesn't want to get in
01:55:51
the way of that it's just wants to make
01:55:52
sure that the information is out there
01:55:55
that it's honest and if people lie in
01:55:57
order to profit I'm all in favor of
01:55:59
going after them well and you know we
01:56:01
already have a regulated market as an
01:56:03
analogy and when you tell a lie and you
01:56:06
sell a share in a company whether it's a
01:56:08
private or a public company the SEC has
01:56:10
a term for that it's called Securities
01:56:11
fraud and we you know have this new type
01:56:14
of device it's very Innovative it could
01:56:17
be an nft it could be a trading card it
01:56:19
could be an actual utility token where
01:56:21
you burn it in use of a service or it
01:56:23
could be anything it could be whatever
01:56:25
the person describes it as but what's
01:56:28
important is there's an entity with a
01:56:30
group of people I think you would agree
01:56:32
who have said we have ownership of this
01:56:34
we're Incorporated here in the United
01:56:36
States not in Panama not in the BVI not
01:56:39
in some you know other place where maybe
01:56:41
they're a little faster or looser with
01:56:43
regulations you got to be here in the US
01:56:45
maybe you have to be insured in some way
01:56:47
maybe there has to be a board like there
01:56:49
does in Delaware or in an LLC there has
01:56:51
to be some person where the buck stops
01:56:54
and if you lie while committing a
01:56:56
transaction or taking money for an asset
01:56:59
it would be Securities fraud and yes
01:57:01
people will come down on you like a ton
01:57:03
of bricks and if you promote things and
01:57:05
you don't disclose it well we have rules
01:57:07
about that as well we saw many
01:57:08
celebrities get pinched last time uh for
01:57:12
tweeting about cryptocurrencies and this
01:57:15
is the stuff that I think has to stop I
01:57:17
think it should feel more like what we
01:57:19
do in Angel Investing the private
01:57:20
companies and in public companies so
01:57:22
that's your job when are we going to see
01:57:25
you know that framework emerge because
01:57:26
here you're only like 40 50 days into
01:57:28
this I think when we see the actual
01:57:31
bones of a framework so if I want to do
01:57:34
jco and I want to make an Angel
01:57:36
Investing coin or I want to do something
01:57:38
fun an nft collection for Allin or
01:57:40
something when will we have the actual
01:57:42
rules of the road and that and that's
01:57:44
going to be multiple agencies right yeah
01:57:46
what you're describing is is known in
01:57:48
Washington or that the the um the area
01:57:51
of policy that you're describing is
01:57:52
known as Market structure and Market
01:57:54
structure is about providing a clear
01:57:56
framework for Market participants it
01:57:58
would Define what is the security what's
01:58:00
a commodity what's simply a collectible
01:58:03
you know it's property but it's not a
01:58:05
security and then what are the rules for
01:58:07
each category that's know as Market
01:58:08
structure there is a bill that passed
01:58:10
the last Congress in the house but Biden
01:58:13
basically he didn't veto it but he
01:58:15
basically he and the Democrats stopped
01:58:17
he stopped in the Senate the Democrats
01:58:19
did it was called
01:58:20
fit21 and it was authored by french hill
01:58:24
who's now the chairman of the house
01:58:26
Financial Services committee so we
01:58:28
expect that he will be introducing a new
01:58:29
version of his bill probably in the next
01:58:32
few weeks I don't think I'm breaking any
01:58:34
news by saying this I think people
01:58:36
expect it and that's going to provide
01:58:37
the framework for Market structure and
01:58:40
it's going to provide a lot of the
01:58:40
definitions that that you're talking
01:58:42
about now I I agree with your sentiment
01:58:45
okay but I will say that I might have a
01:58:48
different view than you of what is the
01:58:49
security what's not I mean to me
01:58:51
collectible are not Securities but if
01:58:54
it's a collectible you got to disclaim
01:58:56
that look this has no intrinsic value
01:58:59
right that's a collectible think about a
01:59:00
baseball card a baseball card is a piece
01:59:02
of cardboard it has no intrinsic value
01:59:04
but the value comes from basically other
01:59:06
collectors being willing to buy it from
01:59:08
you and you could just say that that's
01:59:10
irrational whatever but so look I think
01:59:12
as long as people disclaim that this
01:59:15
coin has no intrinsic value they should
01:59:17
be able to issue meme coins it's a
01:59:19
separate question why people would want
01:59:21
to buy them but look that's very in my
01:59:24
view that's very different than someone
01:59:25
who goes out as an issuer and says I'm
01:59:28
issuing a token or a coin that has lots
01:59:31
of functionality and has lots of value
01:59:33
and you'll hear some of these guys even
01:59:35
say that hey our token is more valuable
01:59:38
than Bitcoin you should value it more
01:59:39
highly well if you're promising that and
01:59:42
you're saying that it's going to have
01:59:43
certain functionality you better be
01:59:44
telling the truth about it then we start
01:59:46
getting into the how we test and people
01:59:48
can go look that up if they if they want
01:59:50
what I will say is there's an
01:59:51
educational process that has to come in
01:59:53
here which we've gone through as the
01:59:55
United States when people would buy
01:59:56
interest in mines people would buy
01:59:58
interest in gold claims oil fields and
02:00:00
that's when a lot of these regulations
02:00:02
came out in the 20s around accreditation
02:00:05
we've spoke about this before it's a pet
02:00:06
peeve of mind but I think there should
02:00:07
be an educational framework here and I
02:00:09
think there should also be some Nuance
02:00:11
that you could work on specifically with
02:00:13
this group of being clear that when you
02:00:16
have a ticker symbol associated with
02:00:19
something or you do charts associated
02:00:21
with something you know it starts to
02:00:23
smell like a duck it looks like a duck
02:00:24
it's quacking like a duck but then in
02:00:26
the terms of services say hey this is a
02:00:28
collectible I think there needs to be
02:00:29
some ground rules which maybe it says
02:00:31
hey these need to be presented in a
02:00:34
certain way at the top level so the
02:00:37
Nuance of disclosure is so important
02:00:39
when I tweet something if it was an
02:00:41
Advertiser or a sponsor of Allin or this
02:00:43
week in startups or any influencer or
02:00:45
you did would to do this and you said I
02:00:48
love you know this brand you and I both
02:00:51
were well you were an investor in ATM if
02:00:53
we were to tweet about that as investors
02:00:56
we don't have to disclose but if we were
02:00:57
paid for that the FTC has rules you have
02:01:00
to put this is a paid partnership you
02:01:02
cannot confuse consumers and I think
02:01:04
that's where you're going to have to do
02:01:05
a little bit of cleanup work and
02:01:07
structure as well is the disclosure and
02:01:09
how this appears and then also maybe the
02:01:13
educational system so you know if you
02:01:15
want to own a firearm if you want to
02:01:17
drive a car if you want to be you know a
02:01:19
beautician and listen we can talk about
02:01:21
overregulation you got to take tests man
02:01:23
it would just be so much better if
02:01:25
consumers could take you know like a 50
02:01:27
question test just to say hey they
02:01:30
understand what we're talking about here
02:01:32
in in terms of diversification so they
02:01:33
don't yo YOLO their entire mortgage and
02:01:36
house into one crypto so what are your
02:01:38
thoughts on those two issues disclosures
02:01:40
how it's presented and then
02:01:42
accreditation and maybe a path to
02:01:43
accreditation sophisticated investor
02:01:45
tells us how I refer to it for all
02:01:47
Americans because 90% of people can't
02:01:49
participate in private companies your
02:01:51
thoughts well disclosure is the key like
02:01:53
I said I mean these projects should have
02:01:55
to disclose certain things I think for
02:01:57
example the token cap table should be
02:01:59
disclosed who are the who are the
02:02:01
Insiders how much do they have when are
02:02:03
they selling you know that's that's
02:02:05
information the market should always
02:02:06
know in my opinion easily done with the
02:02:08
technology lotted by the crypto
02:02:10
Community the blockchain this could just
02:02:12
be on the blockchain this was always the
02:02:14
problem we had as Venture capitalists
02:02:15
with hey this is a token project who
02:02:17
owns the tokens where are they when can
02:02:20
when can I sell when can you sell
02:02:21
insiders yes yeah I don't think you have
02:02:23
to disclose everyone who owns a token
02:02:25
that could be hard to comply with but I
02:02:26
think you should have to dis you should
02:02:28
have to disclose the Insiders and their
02:02:30
their sales plans and their lockups and
02:02:33
and and I would also say how new tokens
02:02:35
get created I mean if this is a fully
02:02:37
centralized token where they can dism
02:02:40
more people need to know that because
02:02:41
there's no scarcity right but if there's
02:02:44
somehow an enforcement mechanism and
02:02:46
there's enforced scarcity then that's a
02:02:48
different story so yeah these things
02:02:50
have to be disclosed and by the way I
02:02:52
think the market structure bills will do
02:02:54
that there's a version of this in fit 21
02:02:56
last Congress I think it'll be the next
02:02:57
one and moreover the SEC is looking
02:03:00
right now at these rules and they're
02:03:01
going to create their own Frameworks
02:03:03
they're doing an exent J SEC Chief I I
02:03:06
was doing some research on him he's a
02:03:08
really Pro actually more Americans being
02:03:11
able to invest in privates private
02:03:12
Equity Etc and he's given speeches on it
02:03:14
in the past so the person who's been
02:03:16
nominated for the new chair of the SEC
02:03:17
his named Paul Atkins and he he has not
02:03:19
been confirmed yet the confirmation
02:03:20
hearing still need to happen
02:03:22
separately Hester Pur who's a
02:03:24
commissioner at the SEC is in charge of
02:03:26
I know Hester I've had her on uh this
02:03:28
week in startups a couple times she's
02:03:29
great she's excellent she's very well
02:03:31
informed and she's T very sharp taking
02:03:33
the lead on all the crypto related stuff
02:03:35
so I trust her and I trust the SEC to
02:03:37
produce those detailed Frameworks that
02:03:40
you're talking about yeah I think that
02:03:43
my role as call it Innovation policy
02:03:44
adviser is just to kind of make sure
02:03:46
that we have the big picture right and
02:03:48
I'm I'm very confident that the SEC the
02:03:50
cftc and the legis they're going to
02:03:52
figure out the balance here sex you got
02:03:53
to go really proud of the work here uh
02:03:56
congratulations on cleaning this all up
02:03:58
and presenting a really thoughtful plan
02:04:01
that we can all ask you hard questions
02:04:03
on appreciate you taking the hard
02:04:04
questions here on uh the all podcast um
02:04:07
and good luck when you do the rest of
02:04:09
the media circus uh I wonder if I'm
02:04:11
going to be the hardest questioner of
02:04:13
you I I hope so and uh for people asking
02:04:15
yes I'm wearing a suit because I am now
02:04:18
joining the administration big
02:04:19
announcement I'm the official podcast
02:04:22
the official moderator of the uh Trump
02:04:24
White House I'm just kidding I'm just K
02:04:25
people actually believe you all right
02:04:27
man listen I got I got jokes good all
02:04:30
right love you brother we'll see you
02:04:32
soon cheers all right bye all right
02:04:33
everybody I'm obviously super conflicted
02:04:36
sax is my friend of 20 years plus we're
02:04:38
Partners here on the allom podcast and
02:04:41
of course I'm rooting for the
02:04:42
administration but you know I got that
02:04:45
journalist blood in me I always want to
02:04:46
call balls and Strikes I'm going to as
02:04:48
you just heard ask hard questions so if
02:04:51
you're wondering where I'm coming from
02:04:53
I'm going to ask hard questions to my
02:04:55
friends because they're doing important
02:04:58
work for the American people and for the
02:05:00
rest of the people on the planet candid
02:05:02
these are important decisions that saak
02:05:04
is going to have to make about crypto AI
02:05:06
that elon's making with Doge I'm G to
02:05:08
ask hard questions that's the way it's
02:05:10
going to be and so I'm really excited
02:05:12
that they're coming on here they're
02:05:14
going to take the hard questions for me
02:05:15
but they're done in a certain Spirit
02:05:17
which is yes they're my friends but they
02:05:20
got important jobs so they do have to
02:05:21
ask answer the hard questions for the
02:05:23
American people and I'm also curious and
02:05:24
we're all curious where they're coming
02:05:26
from so I feel so privileged that
02:05:28
they're they're choosing to come on all
02:05:29
in to face those hard questions we'll
02:05:32
see you all next time on the all in
02:05:35
podcast let your winners
02:05:37
ride Rainman
02:05:42
David and instead we open source it to
02:05:44
the fans and they've just gone crazy
02:05:46
with it love you queen of
02:05:52
[Music]
02:05:55
besties
02:05:57
are my dog taking your
02:06:02
driveway oh man myit will meet me we
02:06:06
should all just get a room and just have
02:06:07
one big huge orgy cuz they're all
02:06:09
useless it's like this like sexual
02:06:11
tension that they just need to release
02:06:13
[Music]
02:06:18
someh we need to get merch our
02:06:24
[Music]
02:06:28
all I'm doing
02:06:30
[Music]

Badges

This episode stands out for the following:

  • 80
    Most chaotic
  • 70
    Most intense
  • 70
    Best overall
  • 60
    Most shocking

Episode Highlights

  • Choose Your Own Adventure
    Trump's ambiguous tweet about Hamas leaves interpretation open-ended.
    “It's your choice. Choose Your Own Adventure, Hamas!”
    @ 08m 22s
    March 08, 2025
  • The Impact of Tariffs
    Tariffs can push companies to build in America, but they also risk inflation.
    “Tariffs could impact certain industries for example if there are innovative drugs.”
    @ 21m 29s
    March 08, 2025
  • Government Spending and Employment
    Government accounts for a significant portion of GDP, but clarity on spending is needed.
    “A large percentage of the US Workforce is indirectly supported by federal dollars.”
    @ 25m 16s
    March 08, 2025
  • The Case for Transparency
    Advocates argue for extreme transparency in government dealings to prevent manipulation. "The government should be open and transparent."
    “The government should be open and transparent.”
    @ 38m 34s
    March 08, 2025
  • Redistricting Issues
    The conversation highlights the detrimental effects of gerrymandering on democracy. "The biggest problem is the redistricting and gerrymandering that happens."
    “The biggest problem is the redistricting and gerrymandering that happens.”
    @ 46m 07s
    March 08, 2025
  • The Risk of Dependency
    Having 60% of revenue from one client poses a significant risk.
    “A business with one client having 60% dependency is risky.”
    @ 58m 20s
    March 08, 2025
  • Economic Impacts of War
    War can drive inflation and affect market stability.
    “War is expensive or inflationary.”
    @ 01h 10m 18s
    March 08, 2025
  • NATO's Future
    Debating whether the U.S. should exit NATO as Europe signals independence.
    “Should the United States just say okay, go for it, we're out?”
    @ 01h 17m 40s
    March 08, 2025
  • Tech Abundance
    Exploring the overwhelming choices in technology and AI advancements.
    “We're drowning in abundance.”
    @ 01h 29m 19s
    March 08, 2025
  • Bitcoin's Unique Status
    Bitcoin is viewed as a special asset due to its decentralized nature and security.
    “Bitcoin is special.”
    @ 01h 40m 30s
    March 08, 2025
  • Serving Without Pay
    A candid moment about the sacrifices made while serving in government without financial gain.
    “It's an honor to serve and be asked to serve.”
    @ 01h 53m 04s
    March 08, 2025
  • Asking Hard Questions
    The host emphasizes the need to ask tough questions to friends in important positions.
    “I'm going to ask hard questions to my friends.”
    @ 02h 04m 53s
    March 08, 2025

Episode Quotes

Key Moments

  • Welcome Back00:31
  • Chaos in Markets09:08
  • Environmental Concerns20:20
  • Government Spending25:16
  • Whistleblower Protections41:24
  • Gerrymandering46:07
  • Revenue Dependency58:20
  • Regulatory Challenges1:52:21

Words per Minute Over Time

Vibes Breakdown

Related Episodes

Podcast thumbnail
Trump's First Week: Inauguration Recap, Executive Actions, TikTok, Stargate + Sacks is Back!
Podcast thumbnail
E74: Market update, inverted yield curve, immigration, new SPAC rules, $FB smears TikTok and more
Podcast thumbnail
E135: Wagner rebels, SCOTUS ends AA, AI M&A, startups gone bad, spacetime warps & more
Podcast thumbnail
E75: Fast shuts down, board culpability, Elon buys 9% of Twitter, deplatforming's evolution & more
Podcast thumbnail
Mag 7 sell-off, Wiz rejects Google, UBI, Kamala in, China's nuclear buildout, Sacks responds to PG
Podcast thumbnail
Red-pilled Billionaires, LA Fire Update, Newsom's Price Caps, TikTok Ban, Jobless MBAs
Podcast thumbnail
E85: SBF's crypto bailout, Zendesk sells for ~$10B, buyout targets, US diplomacy, AlphaFold & more
Podcast thumbnail
Trump Brokers Gaza Peace Deal, National Guard in Chicago, OpenAI/AMD, AI Roundtripping, Gold Rally
Podcast thumbnail
The Stablecoin Future, Milei's Memecoin, DOGE for the DoD, Grok 3, Why Stripe Stays Private
Podcast thumbnail
New SEC Chair, Bitcoin, xAI Supercomputer, UnitedHealth CEO murder, with Gavin Baker & Joe Lonsdale
Podcast thumbnail
E6: Big Tech antitrust aftermath, potential effects of an M&A clampdown on Silicon Valley & more