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[Music]
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and they've just gone crazy with them
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all right everybody welcome to another
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episode of the all in podcast episode
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number 70 we made it to 70 episodes
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which is just shocking to me and we're
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recording a little bit earlier uh
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because one of our besties uh had to
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change their schedule chamath
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and um
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it's
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a crazy day to be doing this last night
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putin decided
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to invade the ukraine
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late wednesday night early into thursday
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morning
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putin
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started a special military operation in
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quotes to demilitarize the ukraine
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and we've been watching this build up
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for weeks
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you're missing it he said to
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demilitarize and deny supply and de
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nazify yes of course um because the
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ukraine was filled with so many nazis uh
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his trolling continues
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i guess just starting it off um
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sax you're a big putin fan uh along with
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trunk and uh you're the right wing so
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tell us how glorious is uh this invasion
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for the republican party well it's it's
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it's interesting what
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it's well that's funny but it's also
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it's also kind of sad because what
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you're doing right there is exactly what
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the whole twittersphere is doing which
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is anybody
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who wants to actually de-escalate and
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defuse this war before it escalates and
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metastasizes in something much worse it
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gets denounced as a putin apologist
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i have no dealings in either
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you know russia or ukraine for that
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matter ukrainian cash is not lining my
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pockets like many of our politicians
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their families in washington i have no
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interest except
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preserving
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the safety of the united states of
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america and the point is that i think
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biden the one clear elusive point that
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he made in his last speech i know he's
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giving one today is that
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the united states of america would not
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intervene militarily in ukraine we
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should all understand that he made it
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very clear the troops that were being
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sent over there were to defend our nato
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allies ukraine is not one we do not have
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a treaty obligation to defend them what
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is happening right now is tragic putin
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is the aggressor it's a humanitarian
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disaster i do
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feel bad for the people of ukraine our
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thoughts and prayers are with them
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however we are not going to intervene
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militarily in that conflict nor should
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we because we cannot risk starting world
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war iii it is not a vital american
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interest who rules the donbass in a way
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that it is a vital american interest to
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avoid a war with russia and the tragedy
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here the second tragedy is that we did
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not do everything we could
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to diplomatically try and solve this
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problem and what do i mean by that on
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this pod three weeks ago i said that
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ukraine was never gonna be part of nato
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why because
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biden has said it we can't defend them
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militarily against russia we were never
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gonna admit them why didn't we give up
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that card that i'm we don't know for
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sure what would have happened but if we
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had been willing to
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basically affirm that we believe in
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ukraine's sovereignty but they are not
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part of nato that might have diffused
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this conflict i think we had consensus
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on that we said like hey what if i think
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actually i suggested what if we set a
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five-year you know moratorium on them
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joining or something absolutely put that
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out there can i just have sex one
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question on this
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okay yeah sex do you not think that the
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us you know regardless of the
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obligations under uh um
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nato
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faces a little bit of an issue on a
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global stage where you know we we told
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this leader back down don't do this and
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then we don't respond militarily
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that that action effectively reduces
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america's influence and credibility when
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it comes to these sorts of defensive
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statements
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in this kind of global theater and our
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primacy is being challenged because we
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laid down the law we said this is not
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allowed you cannot do this there's going
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to be repercussions
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and then it happens and there are
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economic sanctions and you know maybe
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we'll talk in a second about some other
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potential repercussions but by not doing
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something militarily
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we weaken ourselves and we weaken our
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position and it gives permission to
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others to take action that maybe counter
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ultimately to kind of the us interests
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abroad okay so
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in response i have to we'll quote what
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barack obama said um and we've mentioned
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this on a previous party he said the
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fact is that ukraine which is and this
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is back in the the atlantic interview he
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gave the fact is that ukraine which is a
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non-nato country is going to be
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vulnerable to military domination by
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russia no matter what we do this is an
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example where we have to be very clear
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about what our core interests are and
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what we are willing to go to war for the
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fact of the matter is none of us on this
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pod want to send our sons and daughters
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to go fight and risk their lives and die
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to determine who rules the donbass or
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even ukraine we sympathize with them we
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may impose sanctions on their behalf we
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may arm them militarily but we are not
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willing to fight and so therefore
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us trying to lay down this law to putin
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was a bluff and he called our bluff and
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the smart thing we can do right now is
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not to escalate look we've already gone
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to the river he's
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you know we basically tried to barrel
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and bluff him at every street we got to
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the river he has now invaded we're now
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in a showdown what do you want to do now
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you want to escalate this even more the
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only way that we could make this worse
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is to precipitate a world war now if our
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absolute priority our absolute priority
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right now should be to make sure that
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this war doesn't spread
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my prediction is as of right now it
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would be very unpopular to go to war uh
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or for the u.s to enter the war uh in a
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um on the battlefield i i do think
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and i don't know if we're gonna hear
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more about this today but i do think
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that the cyber war is beginning today uh
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the united states has talked at length
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about having
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uh you know a tremendous cyber
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capabilities and my understanding is as
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of this morning a number of state
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websites were down in russia and a
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number of um
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uh you know russian cyber interests were
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under attack and so we may see the u.s
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kind of confront russia
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on another battle stage not on the uh
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you know on the field on the physical
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field
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but
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if over the next couple of weeks this
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continues their days and i was just
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looking at cnn this morning and bbc and
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there were these images that started to
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come out of like you know ukrainian um
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airplanes that that had been downed and
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if you start to see images of children
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um you know helpless children buildings
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being bombed bodies strewn on the street
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does that not change kind of the
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american opinion on whether or not we
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should do something here
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and will that not kind of lead us
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potentially into a war that you know
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today i think we all you know or many
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people would say strategically doesn't
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make sense economically doesn't make
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sense
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you know we're only going to lead to
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kind of escalation but don't you think
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that american opinion typically changes
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when imagery arises when you know the
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sort of brutality of war well i mean
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that's why
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out of some wars and we have in the past
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yeah but even today it's like the first
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day and there's like these really
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gruesome awful photos coming out and i i
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could see people getting sympathetic to
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that and starting to kind of you know
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bang the
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the wardrobe saying this is ridiculous
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we can't let this tyrant do this it's
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awful well it's already it's already
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happening you know but this is why we
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should not conduct foreign policy by
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twitter we should not twitterize the
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situation yeah this is when this is when
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cooler heads need to prevail the fact of
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the matter is when soviet tanks they
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rolled into hungary in 1956 or czech
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slovakia in 1968 to cross the frog
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spring or poland in 1981 across
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solidarity we did nothing because
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avoiding war with the soviet union was
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more important even though we sympathize
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with those people and in
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2008 we've been in this situation before
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2008
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georgia the republic of georgia putin
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invaded
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on behalf of these breakaway russian
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sort of dissident uh provinces south of
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city and abkhazia why did that happen
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well if you remember back in 2008 there
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was a lot of talk about georgia joining
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nato and you had you know the warhawk
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senator john mccain go over there and
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declare we're all georgians now and so
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what happened all of a sudden these
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breakaway provinces the russified
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provinces of south africa and abkhazia
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started rebelling that gave putin the
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excuse to roll in there and the tanks a
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year later he left but there was no more
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talk of georgia joining nato so and
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again we george w bush was present at
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the time
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we did nothing militarily we just sent
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humanitarian assistance that was it so
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we've been in this situation before we
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should not i keep hearing in the media
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on cable news and on twitter this is
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historically unprecedented we must act
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no we've been in this situation before
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in 2008
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and all those previous times we were in
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the situation in 2014 when putin invaded
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let me ask you a question zach um
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we we had this concept of hey maybe if
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we said hey we won't admit them into
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nato
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and uh do you think that if we had
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actually made that concession or said
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we're not going to let them into nato
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for a decade or whatever do you think
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that would have changed putin's behavior
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yes or no well it's honestly it's hard
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to know i mean i can't i can't prove a
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counter factual however i think it was
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tragic not to try okay i do think i
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think i think it should be the goal of
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diplomats sure to try and again as i
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said on a previous pod it was the
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sleeves off our vest ukraine is not
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going to be a member of nato so to give
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that up
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would have was basically giving them
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nothing it was
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almost meaningless to us and instead of
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making that concession what happened
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lincoln came out with this statement
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nato's door is open and will remain open
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it was
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perhaps the most provocative thing he
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could have said in that situation and
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they they would have been voted in that
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would have happened wouldn't have
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happened anyway let me ask you this
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question you've been complaining about
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the media and democrats uh banging the
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drum of war and you're saying they're
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more hawkish
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on the other side of the table you have
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uh trump came out and said that putin's
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move on the ukraine is genius and the
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guy is very savvy and then you have
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pompeo saying i have enormous respect
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for him
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and that he's a very talented statesman
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has lots of gifts
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and he knows how to use power we should
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respect that so your party uh your crew
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is praising putin do you think the
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praising of putin is wise in this kind
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of situation no look here's what's going
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on first of all the the warhawks and the
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people beating the drums of war is
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happening on both sides of the aisle and
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on both both both sets of cable news i
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was watching fox last night and they
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were all but you know cheerleading for
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war basically saying we have to go on
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it i watched it too yeah it's crazy
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we're saying we have to go on offense
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that what is biden doing saying that
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we're not going to intervene militarily
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i'm like watching these people who are
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acting you know it reminded me of um dr
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strangelove where you have slim pickens
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the cowboy riding the atomic bomb on the
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way down they were excited and i'm
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watching the cable news and all these
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people are acting this way and i'm like
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what in the world is going on you know
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it's
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it's all this is a big part of what i
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tried to point out our prediction show
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at the end of last year you know the the
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if a country is happy if the economy is
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growing if there isn't significant risk
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of inflation no one wants to go to war
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when those are not the case there's a
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tendency to say we gotta do something
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and if you don't you're anxious and if
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you don't have anything to do and some
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conflict arises that's a good place to
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kind of apply your energy and your
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pressure let me bring the dictator
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himself into this chamatha you've been
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silent thus far uh any thoughts on what
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we're seeing here i was letting the
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proletariat speak okay
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are you the bourgeoisie or what
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that sweater is very bourgeois i have to
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say i mean
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i mean sweater karen right now he is
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drafting she's multiple emails
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she's melting she's melting i think
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they're going to be a gofundme to revoke
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that sweater from you what is the story
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with that sweater that's what that's
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what trudeau trudeau trudeau will
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reinvoke in a state of emergency to stop
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that
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yes
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they go fund me i mean
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this feels like we're processing this
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chamath
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so quickly
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that the ukraine just asked on twitter
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today
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for everybody to tell at russia how they
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feel about what they're doing and the
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ukraine
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this is happening in real time is
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tweeting memes
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now about putin uh this seems almost
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surreal and is getting very strange in
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terms of
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how we're interpreting it i mean is
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there an off-ramp here are we just gonna
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have to deal with putin doing this every
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number of years and this is just going
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to be
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you know a year or two of
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you know conflict i don't know but
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here's what's important to
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um two points one is the economic
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sanctions have begun and the economic
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damage to russia i've been starting to
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be infected right i think germany
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basically suspended the certification of
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north stream that has a huge economic
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impact to russia right i think the ruble
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against the dollar was off nine or ten
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percent this morning um when i woke up
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here in europe so it slows down even
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more
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so um now the interesting thing about
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that was that i've read an article in
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the wall street journal maybe nick you
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can dig this up but this is a few years
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ago
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uh preceding this russia had built
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massive amounts of us dollar reserves in
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fact they had been depleted over like
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the last little crisis that they went
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through and then they had rebuilt all
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these dollar reserves so in some ways it
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may have been the case that these guys
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had this plan all along and they put
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some you know they built up their bank
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accounts just in case because they knew
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that this would happen the other thing
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is there's a quote from hr mcmaster he
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said that deterrence is a simple
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equation it's it's the product of will
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and capability right will times
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capabilities
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and so you know if you're going to be
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a deterrent on the world stage
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militarily not only do you have to have
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an incredible military capability you
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also have to have the will to go to wars
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but
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and i think in america you know what
00:14:08
feedback said is i think if you pulled a
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lot of people um you know people are
00:14:13
pretty exhausted after all of these
00:14:15
different conflicts and so i'm not sure
00:14:16
that the will is there to go to europe
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and so the best off ramp is to try to
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find some amount of uh economic pressure
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points and then to negotiate some sort
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of you know
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release valve from all of that economic
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pressure in return for
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some normalization babe i think that's
00:14:33
really the best chance you know i have
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to be honest with you when i was
00:14:36
thinking about the odds of this just
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from a financial perspective and you
00:14:39
know whether i should be doing something
00:14:41
different or putting something on i
00:14:43
thought that there was zero chance that
00:14:44
this would happen literally i put it as
00:14:46
close to zero as possible because i
00:14:47
thought in 2022 it just didn't seem like
00:14:50
this could be possible and here we are
00:14:52
and it seems like it is um
00:14:55
i hope everybody in ukraine is safe
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but i think that biden's going to
00:15:00
announce some pretty crippling
00:15:01
sanctuaries and i think the west is
00:15:02
going to be very punitive financially um
00:15:05
and that's probably awkward but it
00:15:07
depends on it depends how long about the
00:15:08
suffer last because again like i said i
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think russia's foreign currency reserves
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are pretty strong
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going into this council let me let me
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then uh pass the ball to you sax
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there's there's going to be a lot of
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people who are going to die both
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russians and ukrainians sadly if this
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thing keeps escalating uh there's a
00:15:26
hundred ninety thousand russian troops
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on the border or making their way into
00:15:30
the ukraine
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is there an off-ramp here
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in your mind in any way do you think the
00:15:36
sanctions will work and and
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god these the the poor citizens of
00:15:40
russia i mean
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are they going to crack at some point
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and is this going to
00:15:45
blow back onto
00:15:47
uh putin because
00:15:48
what did they seem to get out of this i
00:15:51
guess is a question do the russian
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people support this and will they
00:15:54
support it on an extended basis
00:15:56
well okay so there's a few questions
00:15:59
there yeah okay so the the fact of the
00:16:01
matter is so so i think you're right
00:16:03
that putin has bought himself a headache
00:16:05
here right i mean the the the eastern
00:16:08
parts of ukraine that are you know
00:16:11
ethnically russian the areas of the dawn
00:16:13
bass they will those people will support
00:16:15
him but the western part of ukraine that
00:16:18
wants to be free that's not ethnically
00:16:20
russian
00:16:21
that is going to be a headache for him
00:16:22
to manage i don't think he wants this
00:16:25
problem long term
00:16:26
it's probably going to be
00:16:28
more like the situation we had in
00:16:30
georgia in 2008 he goes in for a year
00:16:32
he institutes perhaps some sort of
00:16:35
puppet government or some government
00:16:36
that's more favorable to him
00:16:38
and then he gets out properly this is if
00:16:41
there's no escalation i think it's very
00:16:43
important i keep making this point the
00:16:45
most important thing biden can do
00:16:48
is to make sure that this does not
00:16:49
escalate militarily and that we do not
00:16:51
get militarily involved i think
00:16:53
sanctions will happen i mean that's
00:16:54
pretty clear probably
00:16:56
we have to move forward with that but
00:16:57
but at the same time
00:16:59
it will sanctions work in terms of being
00:17:01
a strong deterrent no i don't think so
00:17:03
there was a very good article by neil
00:17:05
ferguson and ken griffin actually in the
00:17:07
wall street journal talking about what
00:17:09
we should do they made the point that
00:17:11
sanctions don't usually work however
00:17:13
what we should really be striving for is
00:17:16
energy independence so 100 so yes but
00:17:19
the crazy thing is america despite
00:17:21
having these huge uh natural gas
00:17:23
reserves seven percent of our natural
00:17:25
gas is coming from russia right now
00:17:27
so
00:17:28
why because we stopped fracking we
00:17:30
stopped the you know biden cancel the
00:17:31
keystone pipeline and then
00:17:33
in europe the situation is even worse
00:17:35
which is they're completely dependent on
00:17:37
on russian natural gas germans are and
00:17:40
the uk
00:17:41
not france the op-ed made the point that
00:17:43
we could be investing in liquefying
00:17:45
natural gas and exporting it to europe
00:17:47
to create more energy independence and
00:17:49
that would remove their dependency on
00:17:50
putin that energy independence here
00:17:52
problem with energy independence is it
00:17:54
takes too long and we went through a
00:17:56
massive capital under investment cycle
00:17:58
over the last six or seven years and so
00:18:00
you know in order to start this up you
00:18:02
need to have started actually putting
00:18:04
money in the ground six or seven years
00:18:06
and the problem today is if we put money
00:18:07
into the ground now that's not going to
00:18:09
yield any sort of return on investor
00:18:11
capital for another six or seven years
00:18:12
and so when you look at these mad gas
00:18:14
companies every single one to a name has
00:18:17
basically said we are not going to put
00:18:18
every any incremental capital into u.s
00:18:20
domestic net gas or shale or even
00:18:23
offshore the real solution is to
00:18:25
actually go fully alternative and to go
00:18:27
to renewable energy because you can
00:18:29
today
00:18:30
right uh
00:18:31
deploy solar vastly more aggressively in
00:18:34
the united states look at the end of the
00:18:35
day the thing that is completely
00:18:37
abundant and has the best implications
00:18:39
all around is solar and it's gotten
00:18:41
cheaper than coal and and and and
00:18:44
ask yourself like why why are we only
00:18:45
three percent penetrated in the united
00:18:47
states right we can manufacture these
00:18:49
panels we can deploy them broadly right
00:18:52
now you know we're in this situation
00:18:53
where california is actually revisiting
00:18:56
the itc credit or the the net metering
00:18:58
laws sorry rather
00:19:00
which would have huge implications for
00:19:01
the california solar market it could
00:19:03
actually destroy that whole market and
00:19:04
so you know we have to get really
00:19:06
organized david to your point but there
00:19:07
is a path to energy independence i think
00:19:09
it's alternative energy it's wind and
00:19:10
solar
00:19:11
um because we can do it today and you
00:19:13
can do it really quickly and you can
00:19:15
basically leapfrog the entire capital
00:19:16
investment cycle that you need to do for
00:19:18
netcast we've already missed the
00:19:19
training well and also you could have
00:19:21
germany can start turning back on
00:19:22
nuclear power plants if they could get
00:19:24
their citizens to pick nuclear over war
00:19:27
and that seems like a pretty easy choice
00:19:30
it takes too long
00:19:32
they've recently returned there's one
00:19:33
year
00:19:34
no they've been doing it for 20 years
00:19:37
they've been turning them off for 20
00:19:38
years i know they could they that means
00:19:40
they don't have to rebuild them they
00:19:42
could just turn them back on you that
00:19:44
which is it's not switch jason
00:19:46
no but that's not how it works it's not
00:19:47
a light switch
00:19:49
but it's not the same as building a new
00:19:50
one in the us that's the point they
00:19:52
could help them back it's still year
00:19:54
it's still years between these things
00:19:57
but you got to think chamath the threat
00:19:58
of doing it would terrorize
00:20:01
the saudis and the russians if all of a
00:20:04
sudden the eu said we are going to go
00:20:06
massive solar massive nuclear and we're
00:20:09
going to be energy independent just a
00:20:10
threat
00:20:13
dramatic effect
00:20:14
i'm not sure any country is going to is
00:20:16
going to really uh all have a massive
00:20:18
reaction to any other country talking
00:20:20
about a multi-year investment cycle i do
00:20:22
think jason to your point solar is not a
00:20:24
multi-year investment cycle it can
00:20:25
literally happen in months yes and so
00:20:28
that is much more disruptive so for
00:20:30
example you could if you took three
00:20:31
trillion dollars of buildback better and
00:20:33
instead said you know what we're just
00:20:34
going to actually put solar everywhere
00:20:35
everywhere that would be you take three
00:20:37
trillion dollars of solar and you put it
00:20:39
literally everywhere in the united
00:20:40
states i think everybody would support
00:20:42
it you would have domestic job creation
00:20:44
like nobody's business you would take so
00:20:47
much carbon out of the air and you don't
00:20:49
need to go to war enormous energy
00:20:50
dependence well it would give you a
00:20:52
degree of freedom so that the next time
00:20:53
you're pushed to war you can actually
00:20:55
evaluate it under very different um you
00:20:58
know risk calculus than if you actually
00:20:59
need the energy from the country to the
00:21:01
point yeah that's the point and just for
00:21:04
um a fact check here nuclear power in
00:21:06
germany accounted for 13.3 percent of
00:21:07
german electrical supply in 2021 uh
00:21:10
france by the way 70 80
00:21:12
um and that was generated by six power
00:21:14
plant of which three were switched off
00:21:16
at the end of 2021 they literally just
00:21:18
turned these off
00:21:20
and the other three i know but the
00:21:22
decision was not made yesterday jason my
00:21:25
point is this is these are 20-year
00:21:26
decisions no it was fukushima that
00:21:28
pushed them actually in the sentiment of
00:21:31
and they also had 70 percent of their
00:21:34
electricity on a couple of weeks come
00:21:35
from renewables so the germans suddenly
00:21:37
thought that they didn't live in a shady
00:21:39
area and they could get by with just
00:21:41
solar which was a big mistake uh this
00:21:43
turning these off germany if they didn't
00:21:45
turn these off they would have a
00:21:46
different approach here too you could be
00:21:48
sure of that so like i'm a fan of solar
00:21:50
but i'll just make the point that
00:21:51
natural gas burns from a climate
00:21:53
standpoint it burns much cleaner than
00:21:55
oil and oil burns much cleaner than coal
00:21:57
so natural gas is a way better than a
00:22:00
lot of the alternatives and the main
00:22:02
problem with it is that when you frack
00:22:03
you can get
00:22:05
the release of water well that but
00:22:07
that's in the ground but in terms of the
00:22:09
release of methane which is a greenhouse
00:22:11
gas that's actually worse than co2 and
00:22:14
so you can actually get
00:22:16
you know methane release but in the us
00:22:18
we have techniques for recapture of it
00:22:20
whereas i don't think russia cares about
00:22:21
that so
00:22:23
we'd be a lot better off i think solar
00:22:24
is part of the answer but i don't think
00:22:27
we should be turning our backs on the
00:22:29
enormous reserves of natural gas that we
00:22:31
have here in this country
00:22:32
friedberg what are your thoughts you're
00:22:33
hearing three of us talk about
00:22:35
energy um give us your science boy uh
00:22:38
super powers here and what what do you
00:22:40
think is the clearest shot on goal here
00:22:42
for energy independence as an option to
00:22:45
war i'll just point out that the notion
00:22:47
that there are countries that are
00:22:49
jockeying or positioning
00:22:52
to stop the train towards
00:22:54
renewable alternatives for energy
00:22:56
production this century
00:22:58
uh the number of countries in that
00:23:00
bucket are close to zero
00:23:03
you know saudi arabia took
00:23:05
saudi aramco public specifically so that
00:23:08
they under kind of mbs's
00:23:11
strategic direction diversify away from
00:23:14
uh you know the fossil fuel dependency
00:23:16
of their economy and diversifying to
00:23:17
other assets so they are going to sell
00:23:18
down their equity interest in saudi
00:23:20
aramco over time and invest in things
00:23:22
you know they probably made their first
00:23:24
bet and regret it with softbank but
00:23:26
they'll probably make other bets to try
00:23:27
and invest in kind of next-gen
00:23:29
uh industries
00:23:31
and so you know if you look at the money
00:23:34
that's going from even exxon
00:23:37
and you know there's a guy locally here
00:23:38
in san francisco who ran a
00:23:41
very significant uh board proxy fight to
00:23:43
get on the board of exxon and he won
00:23:47
and he's jockeying for continued and
00:23:48
increased investment from an r d
00:23:50
perspective in renewables and
00:23:52
alternatives
00:23:53
and we're seeing this across the board
00:23:55
there's going to be in the next couple
00:23:57
years if not already
00:23:58
many of these fossil fuel dependent
00:24:00
businesses and countries have or are
00:24:04
making a massive shift towards
00:24:05
alternative renewable sources of energy
00:24:07
so i don't think that there's any enemy
00:24:09
here there's no evil like all the folks
00:24:10
that have been dependent on in the past
00:24:12
are aware of the fact that this is not
00:24:13
where the future is we do have to
00:24:15
transition so the reason i bought energy
00:24:17
stocks in december and the reason i made
00:24:19
this point was threefold one is because
00:24:21
we have as a result of this general
00:24:24
consensus view underinvested in energy
00:24:26
infrastructure
00:24:28
and the demands that are going to come
00:24:30
out of the ex covet
00:24:33
economic growth cycle cannot be met with
00:24:35
the current energy infrastructure and
00:24:37
you're going to see energy prices
00:24:38
continue to climb coupled with the fact
00:24:39
that when war or conflict arises
00:24:42
typically you see
00:24:43
stockpiling
00:24:45
and you see trade routes being shut down
00:24:46
and you see energy prices climb
00:24:49
and so i you know i think generally
00:24:51
we're in a little bit of a transitionary
00:24:52
state everyone knows where the puck
00:24:53
needs to be everyone's headed there
00:24:56
but for now i think everyone's trying to
00:24:59
navigate how do we get through the next
00:25:00
couple of years and in this particular
00:25:02
year you know get through the season of
00:25:04
uncertainty
00:25:06
you know how fast is the economy growing
00:25:08
how much have we actually under invested
00:25:09
in infrastructure and how much
00:25:11
renewables do we have coming online now
00:25:12
i think the right answer if i were to be
00:25:14
president of the world
00:25:15
i would immediately
00:25:18
deregulate uh nuclear um
00:25:21
and make nuclear fission reactors
00:25:24
a mainstay of energy production here in
00:25:26
the u.s and i think that there are a
00:25:28
number of techniques we could undertake
00:25:30
for a safer
00:25:35
building without all the regulatory
00:25:37
cycles and process needed to get these
00:25:39
things stood up
00:25:40
you know china as i've mentioned in the
00:25:42
past
00:25:43
is over the next 30 years committed to
00:25:45
building
00:25:46
check this number out i think we talked
00:25:47
about this 140 nuclear power stations
00:25:50
their estimated cost i believe is on the
00:25:52
3 billion per station
00:25:54
range they are
00:25:57
going to increase their total
00:25:59
energy production capacity with these
00:26:02
nuclear power stations um on the order
00:26:04
of 15 to 20 percent so they will take
00:26:07
coal offline as they bring those online
00:26:10
or they will kind of start to have a
00:26:11
cleaner mix of energy rather than
00:26:13
building a next-gen infrastructure
00:26:15
so um you know if we as the united
00:26:18
states
00:26:19
intend to be an economic challenge to
00:26:21
china this century if we intend to
00:26:24
compete effectively with them
00:26:26
we are going to have a really hard time
00:26:27
with energy prices being what they are
00:26:29
here in this country china is already 30
00:26:32
to 40 cheaper than us on an industrial
00:26:34
scale basis with their current energy
00:26:35
infrastructure and when their nuclear
00:26:37
comes online over the next decade their
00:26:39
prices are going to drop even further
00:26:40
nuclear should be in the four to five
00:26:43
cent per kilowatt hour range today
00:26:45
china's in the kind of you know uh seven
00:26:47
to eight cent per kilowatt hour range
00:26:49
the us for industrial i think is in kind
00:26:52
of a 9 10 range 8 to 10 cent depending
00:26:55
on where you look so you know they're
00:26:57
already cheaper they're gonna get even
00:26:59
cheaper and so not just from like what's
00:27:00
the right transition from a security
00:27:02
point of view but energy is going to be
00:27:04
so critical in this next century for us
00:27:07
to maintain our footing as a competitor
00:27:09
to china particularly as think about
00:27:12
this for a second if automation is the
00:27:14
future of manufacturing then electricity
00:27:17
and energy ends up being the biggest
00:27:19
cost driver for those systems and if our
00:27:21
if everything is on parity and
00:27:22
everyone's got the same automation
00:27:24
systems whoever's got the cheaper energy
00:27:25
wins and to dovetail you and champs
00:27:28
both positions a friend of ours said hey
00:27:31
you know nobody wants to live near
00:27:33
nuclear power plants and
00:27:35
they've already got the grid going there
00:27:37
because it has to be there surround the
00:27:39
nuclear power plant with a solar farm
00:27:42
because it's the most efficient way so
00:27:44
actually pairing these two things
00:27:46
perhaps even with some batteries solves
00:27:48
the entire problem
00:27:51
and what do we think sax is the
00:27:54
eventuality here
00:27:56
in terms of
00:27:57
the relationship between russia and
00:27:59
china now that we've wrapped up the
00:28:01
energy and then
00:28:02
you know or all of us i think don't want
00:28:04
to go to war here um so i guess there's
00:28:07
two questions here of escalation and
00:28:09
i'll i'll let you pick which one you
00:28:10
want to go for escalation with taiwan or
00:28:13
does
00:28:14
uh if putin is not held if we don't hold
00:28:16
the line here
00:28:18
you know putin picks another country to
00:28:20
uh or another region to go after in 2023
00:28:23
2024 at what point do you say we got to
00:28:25
hold the line
00:28:26
well i mean i think the line is we have
00:28:29
existing nato treaty obligations to
00:28:31
protect the members of nato under
00:28:33
article five we have to come to their
00:28:34
defense ukraine is not one georgia is
00:28:36
not one so to me that's the line or is
00:28:39
our existing treaty obligations and this
00:28:41
is why we should not
00:28:42
want to add some of these countries to
00:28:44
nato is because it involves us in their
00:28:47
disputes and drags us into war you know
00:28:49
on twitter all i hear is that this is
00:28:51
1938 all over again and we cannot
00:28:54
appease a dictator and that is one
00:28:57
lesson of history it's an important
00:28:58
lesson however there are other lessons
00:29:00
of history and it seems to me that the
00:29:02
situation we're in could be more like
00:29:04
1914 which is world war one what
00:29:06
happened in world war one
00:29:09
basically conflicts between minor powers
00:29:11
dragged major powers into wars and
00:29:14
basically germany gave
00:29:16
uh austria the so-called blank check war
00:29:18
guarantee and then that led to a war
00:29:21
with russia and then that dragged the uh
00:29:24
you know britain and france and
00:29:25
eventually the united states so
00:29:27
you know it was a case where
00:29:29
nobody none of these powers wanted to be
00:29:31
in a war with each other and yet somehow
00:29:34
inertia and threats and escalations and
00:29:37
miscalculations and folly all sort of
00:29:40
tumbled their way into it and that i
00:29:43
think may be the historical precedent
00:29:44
here that we want to avoid i think we
00:29:46
need to be
00:29:47
very careful
00:29:48
not to let
00:29:49
you know every conflict all over the
00:29:51
world drag us into these these types of
00:29:54
wars and disputes sex do you think um
00:29:57
american primacy is coming to an end i
00:29:59
hope not but if if our goal is to
00:30:01
preserve american primacy which i think
00:30:03
it should be
00:30:04
then we need to be smart about how we
00:30:06
use our strength and we don't want to
00:30:08
fritter it away and what have been doing
00:30:10
for the last 20 years frittering away
00:30:12
our strength
00:30:13
in wars we didn't need to be in in the
00:30:15
middle east we spent how many trillions
00:30:17
on nation building there that turned out
00:30:20
to be a total folly and waste of money
00:30:22
uh look at this and we have a 30
00:30:24
trillion dollar national debt if we want
00:30:27
this century to be an american century
00:30:29
like the last one we need to preserve
00:30:31
our strength and use it wisely and not
00:30:34
involve ourselves in every conflict and
00:30:37
um you know so look we need to protect
00:30:39
our nato allies i agree with that but we
00:30:41
don't need to be creating disputes
00:30:44
and involving ourselves in wars that we
00:30:47
have no obligation to get involved in we
00:30:48
need energy independence and then we
00:30:50
need to deliver our balance sheet in
00:30:51
order for american prime minister
00:30:54
and it's possible but it's going to
00:30:55
require a lot of focus and sacrifice i
00:30:57
really think this thing that i just made
00:30:59
up that is actually really quite genius
00:31:00
which is redirect that three trillion
00:31:02
dollar build that better build to just
00:31:04
pure solar everywhere in the united
00:31:06
states it would be
00:31:08
so disruptive i mean it would just be so
00:31:10
disruptive
00:31:12
for everybody
00:31:13
it becomes a dividend it's like it's ubi
00:31:15
in a way
00:31:16
everybody gets no electrical bill i i
00:31:18
don't think it would allow people to
00:31:19
have free electricity forever but i do
00:31:20
think it would subsidize
00:31:22
basically the deployment of energy
00:31:24
infrastructure to every single household
00:31:26
in america in a way that would just
00:31:28
completely shake up
00:31:30
uh frankly the political world order
00:31:33
because you know what you guys said is
00:31:34
so true a lot of this stuff rests on
00:31:37
you know the politics around natural
00:31:39
resources right so you know today it's
00:31:42
oil um tomorrow it's going to be some
00:31:44
rare earth you know in 10 years it could
00:31:46
be copper and lithium and we want to
00:31:49
find ourselves with the ability to be
00:31:50
clear tied
00:31:52
and focused in our response to these
00:31:54
issues but if we
00:31:56
need critical resources that can only
00:31:58
come from one other place or two other
00:32:01
places and we don't have the engineering
00:32:03
ingenuity to have figured out how to you
00:32:05
know de-lever our reliance then we're
00:32:07
going to get dragged into not just this
00:32:08
conflict but a whole bunch of other
00:32:10
conflicts going forward i'd say yes and
00:32:13
we could be energy independent for free
00:32:15
right now if we were just to repeal some
00:32:17
of these executive orders i mean we were
00:32:19
energy independent like a year or two
00:32:21
ago until
00:32:23
we banned fracking why why do the
00:32:25
fracking when solar is available it
00:32:27
seems to me like we want to actually
00:32:30
preserve the environment stop global
00:32:31
warming so if solar is available and
00:32:34
nuclear is available why would you
00:32:35
advocate for fracking and ripping up the
00:32:37
earth and you know polluting it i'm a
00:32:39
fan of solar it's really just about
00:32:41
costs and time to deployment got it okay
00:32:43
so you see it as a bridge hey maybe we
00:32:45
do it for five years ten years long term
00:32:47
i think solar is the answer but i think
00:32:49
that's a long-term strategy the other
00:32:50
thing that is confounding is like
00:32:52
americans and this is another thing i
00:32:54
was just watching the media and i did
00:32:56
exactly what you did david as i put on
00:32:57
fox i was like let me get their
00:32:58
interpretation of this because the trump
00:33:00
folks are praising putin and then these
00:33:03
guys are wanting to go to war so it
00:33:04
feels like there's some
00:33:06
inner conflict or civil war going on in
00:33:08
the republican side of things but even
00:33:09
on the there is
00:33:10
yeah and then on the left you have this
00:33:12
craziness
00:33:13
uh they were i mean wolf blitzer and
00:33:15
everybody was so excited about this war
00:33:17
they were like stay tuned and oh my god
00:33:20
we're gonna be 24 hour coverage they
00:33:21
were
00:33:22
like orgasmic in in their coverage
00:33:24
remember cnn got their got their big um
00:33:27
yeah before with the gulf war that was
00:33:29
it well it was that was your chance to
00:33:30
shine i remember being a kid watching
00:33:31
that that is the language free break
00:33:33
essentially that was the language they
00:33:35
were using so don lemon was saying
00:33:37
and we have the full resources to give
00:33:40
you blow-by-blow coverage of everything
00:33:41
happening stick with cnn this is where
00:33:43
we do our best work and it was literally
00:33:46
like war porn and it was really
00:33:48
uncomfortable to watch combined with sax
00:33:50
and this is what i wanted well maybe
00:33:51
free break i'll throw this one to you
00:33:54
they kept talking about how americans
00:33:56
were going to suffer
00:33:58
at the pump
00:34:00
and i just thought this is so crazy and
00:34:02
disturbing there's 190 000 young russian
00:34:04
men who are going to die countless
00:34:06
ukrainian
00:34:08
seville civilians who are going to die
00:34:09
potentially and this thing could
00:34:11
escalate asak said you know you you
00:34:12
can't play games with war he could the
00:34:14
dominoes can fall in all directions you
00:34:17
have no idea when you light off these
00:34:18
grenades and and we're talking about our
00:34:21
pain at the pump
00:34:23
very weird
00:34:25
very weird times
00:34:26
freeburg any thoughts america's weird
00:34:29
it's weird well i want to if if freebird
00:34:31
doesn't want to respond to that i want
00:34:32
to talk about the media coverage i'll
00:34:34
add to that i mean yeah you flip over to
00:34:36
msnbc john bolton is on msnbc and one of
00:34:39
the weirdest things happening in our
00:34:41
politics now is that all the neocons who
00:34:43
used to be members of the republican
00:34:44
party who worked for george w bush and
00:34:47
got us into the iraq war have now all
00:34:49
become democrats and they're all over
00:34:51
there they're supposedly the the
00:34:52
conscience of the country over on cnn
00:34:55
and msnbc and beating the drums of war
00:34:58
it's absolutely unbelievable and one of
00:35:00
the the um one of the tactics they use
00:35:03
that i think we should talk about
00:35:05
is and this goes all the way back to the
00:35:06
vietnam war is that anybody who merely
00:35:09
tries to let's say understand the other
00:35:12
side or wants to de-escalate or get out
00:35:14
of a conflict they try to portray as
00:35:17
unpatriotic i mean this again this goes
00:35:18
all the way back to the vietnam war
00:35:20
where the vietnam protesters were
00:35:21
portrayed as un-american and unpatriotic
00:35:23
well it turns out they were right that
00:35:25
was a mistake for us to get embroiled in
00:35:27
vietnam and similarly the iraq war it
00:35:30
turns out that was a gigantic mistake
00:35:31
but in 2003 david frum who's like one of
00:35:33
the leaders of this group wrote an
00:35:35
article called unpatriotic conservatives
00:35:38
in which he attacked and sort of mao mao
00:35:41
the there were you know conservatives
00:35:43
like pat buchanan and robert novak who
00:35:44
were against the iraq war and he called
00:35:47
them unpatriotic and imply that they
00:35:48
were unamerican because and somehow in
00:35:51
the pocket of saddam hussein because
00:35:53
they were against us our involvement in
00:35:55
the iraq war will they turn right they
00:35:57
turned out to be right and yet they were
00:35:58
demonized and called unpatriotic and
00:36:00
where are we today those same people i'm
00:36:02
seeing david from on twitter now impune
00:36:06
the patriotism of people who merely want
00:36:09
us not to escalate this not to get
00:36:11
involved and maybe to try and understand
00:36:13
our enemy because i mean this is one of
00:36:16
the problems with twitterizing our
00:36:17
foreign policy is look we can see putin
00:36:20
as an aggressor we can see him as a thug
00:36:22
or an authoritarian or as a dictator but
00:36:24
nonetheless we should still try and
00:36:26
understand our enemy and anybody who
00:36:28
tries to promote a greater degree of
00:36:30
understanding or diplomacy gets attacked
00:36:32
by these people as being putin
00:36:34
apologists
00:36:35
tremothy you said you didn't see this
00:36:37
coming you thought this is a very small
00:36:38
probability i think we all felt it was a
00:36:39
pretty small probability that russia
00:36:42
would actually go through this you
00:36:43
thought it was actually something
00:36:45
actually i do freebird you did think it
00:36:46
was going to happen there's a certainty
00:36:48
yeah wait you there was a certainty that
00:36:50
america would get involved because of
00:36:51
the wag the dog scenario or that putin
00:36:54
would do it because both putin's okay
00:36:57
yeah but this is not like a surprise
00:36:58
that putin did this i mean this has been
00:37:00
a long time coming yeah i mean it just
00:37:02
felt like i i i thought that he would
00:37:04
save a rattle and we come to some
00:37:06
resolution here but what does he want it
00:37:09
seems like nobody and and this is what
00:37:11
everybody keeps saying i think that's
00:37:12
really by the way i think that's a
00:37:13
really complicated question i i feel
00:37:15
like there's decades of and layers of
00:37:18
like um
00:37:19
to the story it's like you know war and
00:37:21
peace and then you read like one half of
00:37:23
the final chapter and you're like oh
00:37:24
yeah okay like
00:37:25
there's a lot to the story that's going
00:37:27
to be really hard for us to unpack
00:37:29
um so you know i'm not sure there's a
00:37:30
very simple like what does putin want as
00:37:32
much as there is a significant narrative
00:37:35
that that backs the history you know
00:37:38
post-soviet
00:37:39
history with ukraine and the
00:37:41
relationships i mean you guys may
00:37:43
remember that there was a president
00:37:45
a presidential candidate or president
00:37:46
that was poisoned by putin at some point
00:37:49
i mean there's been like a long history
00:37:50
to this that i don't think is something
00:37:51
that we can
00:37:52
reunification is
00:37:54
what most people would put that under is
00:37:56
this there's economic there are social
00:37:59
you know there are individuals cultural
00:38:01
um motives i mean there's a lot driving
00:38:04
this there's a lot of influence within
00:38:06
that country that i don't think we
00:38:07
really fully grasp within the country of
00:38:09
russia i mean that we don't fully grasp
00:38:12
related to some of the uh cultural
00:38:14
relationships with some of the
00:38:15
population in
00:38:16
the ukraine and so you know it's a very
00:38:19
difficult question to simply answer
00:38:21
can i take a shot at it yeah sure okay
00:38:23
what does putin want so i want to
00:38:25
there's an article by peter uh bainard
00:38:27
who was an editor of the new republic
00:38:29
he's not you know some far-right
00:38:30
conservative or whatever
00:38:32
he published this uh quotes from a memo
00:38:35
that was written by bill burns back in
00:38:37
2008 so bill burns is the current dci
00:38:40
he's the director of central
00:38:41
intelligence the head of the cia he is
00:38:42
also a russian expert he speaks russian
00:38:45
fluently he is the
00:38:47
he and he spent uh many years over there
00:38:50
in our government and he works for biden
00:38:52
he's biden's head of the cia so he is
00:38:53
the highest ranking russian expert in
00:38:56
our government in 2008 he wrote a memo
00:38:59
to condoleezza rice who was then the
00:39:01
secretary of state and what he said is
00:39:03
this is about ukrainian entry to nato he
00:39:05
said ukrainian entry into nato is the
00:39:07
brightest of all red lines for the
00:39:09
russian elite not just putin he says in
00:39:12
more than two and a half years of
00:39:13
conversations with key russian players
00:39:15
from knuckle draggers and the dark
00:39:17
recesses of the kremlin to putin's
00:39:19
sharpest liberal critics i have yet to
00:39:21
find anyone who views ukraine and nato
00:39:23
as anything other than a direct
00:39:26
challenge to russian interests
00:39:28
so burns
00:39:30
pointed out to the then secretary of
00:39:32
state that this was a huge red line and
00:39:35
since then since 2008 putin has been
00:39:38
very consistent that ukrainian entry
00:39:40
into nato has been a red line and even
00:39:42
in the speech that he gave last week he
00:39:45
talked about
00:39:46
uh he talked about this and he said that
00:39:50
i'm quoting putin from his speech he
00:39:51
says if ukraine was to join nato it
00:39:54
would serve as a direct threat to the
00:39:56
security of russia so you know in
00:39:58
response to putin's speech and on
00:40:00
twitter i keep hearing that putin is
00:40:02
this madman we can't understand what he
00:40:04
wants that the only possible
00:40:07
explanation for his behavior is either
00:40:09
senility he's gone crazy he's gone mad
00:40:12
and you know i'm looking at this and i'm
00:40:14
like okay maybe those things are true
00:40:16
but you can't say that he hasn't been
00:40:18
clear about what his red lines are he's
00:40:21
been saying this for 20 years that
00:40:23
ukraine joining the nato alliance is an
00:40:26
absolute red line and you know i
00:40:27
mentioned before on this pod that
00:40:29
imagine if the cold war was still going
00:40:31
on and the warsaw pact still existed
00:40:34
and you know justin trudeau was going to
00:40:36
lead canada into the warsaw pact we
00:40:39
would absolutely be up in arms about
00:40:40
that we would not let that happen
00:40:42
it is that kind of issue for putin and
00:40:45
we just act like this guy is insane and
00:40:48
has no
00:40:49
point of view i'm not we don't have to
00:40:51
believe he's right but to basically say
00:40:54
that
00:40:54
his
00:40:55
he has no interest
00:40:58
uh in russian security that we need to
00:41:00
give any weight to that we just need to
00:41:02
dismiss all of his concerns out of hand
00:41:05
it just you know this is not the history
00:41:07
of the situation
00:41:08
yeah did you read anybody read madeleine
00:41:10
albright's um new york times piece it
00:41:12
was pretty interesting because she was
00:41:14
uh in the position when they first met
00:41:17
him and he's been talking about the
00:41:19
ukraine and reunification for 20 years
00:41:22
and uh it's probably a good lesson for
00:41:23
the entire
00:41:25
planet uh that dictators are gonna you
00:41:28
know they they have a certain to your
00:41:30
point your mouth of like having will and
00:41:32
capabilities
00:41:33
a lot of people have capabilities a lot
00:41:35
of people don't have will to start wars
00:41:36
anymore on this planet and and he
00:41:38
clearly is in that group i think as hard
00:41:40
as it is but jason we don't know here's
00:41:42
the thing by not taking nato off the
00:41:45
table as an issue we don't know whether
00:41:47
his true aim here is the restoration of
00:41:50
the russian empire or merely
00:41:52
to avoid you know this border country
00:41:55
being part of a military alliance that
00:41:57
he views as a threat so i don't know
00:41:59
what the answer is part or door number
00:42:01
three he wants more attention he wants
00:42:03
to be more globally relevant right but
00:42:05
we made the mistake of not taking this
00:42:07
issue off the table and so
00:42:10
if we had taken the issue off the table
00:42:11
then we could get to the real heart of
00:42:12
the issue maybe it would have defused
00:42:14
the situation or the eu and nato had
00:42:16
done it right it's not just us in this
00:42:18
like the people in europe have a big say
00:42:19
here as we're discussing this on
00:42:21
on a thursday february 24th
00:42:24
uh biden has announced a coalition of
00:42:26
partners eu australia others are doing
00:42:30
uh pretty uh significant sanctions it
00:42:33
seems
00:42:34
limiting uh russia's ability to do
00:42:35
business in dollars euros and yen
00:42:37
imposing major sanctions on the russian
00:42:39
banks trying to the ruble
00:42:40
blocking four
00:42:41
major russian banks freezing all of
00:42:43
their assets in america adding sanctions
00:42:45
to russian elites i guess that's the
00:42:47
oligarch class
00:42:49
and russia's largest state-owned
00:42:51
enterprises will no longer be able to
00:42:52
raise money from
00:42:55
a coalition of governments biden assumes
00:42:57
this will degrade their military
00:42:59
advancement and i have a funny russian
00:43:01
story to tell so um right when i was
00:43:04
when i was still running when i was
00:43:05
managing uh not just my money but other
00:43:08
people's money and i was raising funds
00:43:10
uh eventually you know you uh
00:43:13
you get uh lp commitments
00:43:15
um from all kinds of people interested
00:43:17
in investing with you if you're
00:43:18
generating great returns right meaning
00:43:20
you know rich family offices all around
00:43:22
the world want to give you capital and
00:43:24
there's a very strict process in america
00:43:26
where when you get capital in
00:43:28
um you have to make sure
00:43:30
that those folks basically pass uh uh
00:43:32
you know an anti-money laundering check
00:43:34
and a know your customer kind of check
00:43:36
kyc checks and one of these checks is
00:43:39
actually a a gray list in a black list
00:43:42
that treasury and the doj kind of manage
00:43:45
um
00:43:46
and every now and then they'll put
00:43:47
people on and off the list and there's a
00:43:49
very famous person in russia
00:43:51
who i will not say when i was raising
00:43:53
money for my last fund this was probably
00:43:56
in 2014 or 15. he was on the um he was
00:44:00
not on the list you know very well-known
00:44:02
person and i thought wow this is a great
00:44:04
opportunity to get somebody who seems to
00:44:06
be doing a lot of really interesting
00:44:07
good work and not less than two or three
00:44:10
weeks after we had signed our lp
00:44:11
agreement uh i think it was doj or
00:44:13
treasury put him on this list and we get
00:44:15
a we get a you know an email basically
00:44:17
saying hey tear up the lpa and uh you
00:44:20
can't take the capital and we had to
00:44:22
undo the entire uh limited partner
00:44:24
agreement
00:44:26
um
00:44:27
crazy yeah what percentage of the fund
00:44:29
would that person have been ballpark i i
00:44:31
don't remember but he was he's a
00:44:33
significant person investing in a
00:44:35
significant 5 10 or something so i would
00:44:38
guess yeah hey jason i just want to
00:44:40
going back on a point i made about
00:44:41
energy and energy independence sure um
00:44:43
earlier because i actually pulled up the
00:44:45
numbers so you know the average cost
00:44:48
per kilowatt hour
00:44:50
uh in the uh
00:44:53
in china right now it's about nine cents
00:44:56
uh for um for energy production it is
00:44:59
estimated
00:45:00
uh that um nuclear power production
00:45:03
should drop to about four cents but
00:45:05
could be as low as one cent per kilowatt
00:45:06
hour if operated at scale with perfect
00:45:09
efficiency just to give everyone a sense
00:45:11
of where
00:45:12
um not just security risk and kind of
00:45:14
you know the green opportunity lies but
00:45:17
also where economic advantage lies uh in
00:45:19
investing in nuclear infrastructure and
00:45:21
so as china builds out 140 nuclear
00:45:23
plants here over the next two to three
00:45:24
decades they're going to see their
00:45:26
energy costs decline from about nine
00:45:28
cents for industrial use
00:45:30
potentially you know into the sub five
00:45:32
cent per kilowatt hour range which makes
00:45:35
them tremendously competitive uh on a
00:45:37
manufacturing point of view it's a lot
00:45:38
of bitcoin servers there's a lot of hash
00:45:41
i think it's never going to happen um
00:45:43
i'm not i love that
00:45:46
nuclear i think america america's
00:45:49
america's ability to scale nuclear i
00:45:50
think is a very difficult proposition
00:45:52
and i think our real solution is civil
00:45:54
it's solar it's practical it can be done
00:45:56
today and it can be done right now and
00:45:58
just to look at the eu versus the us in
00:46:01
terms of gas mileage uh which
00:46:04
is just stunning the eu
00:46:07
has mandated
00:46:08
america doesn't have the resolve it's
00:46:10
like it's like
00:46:11
we have to we have to cross so many
00:46:13
bridges and you know we have to really
00:46:15
confront a bunch of issues that we
00:46:17
um that have been riddled with so much
00:46:20
inaccuracy you know for example like the
00:46:22
environmental impact the understanding
00:46:24
of how nuclear energy works you know the
00:46:26
nimby is in jason that you refer to
00:46:28
about not being able to build these
00:46:29
things all around the country and so
00:46:31
reducing the form factor in my opinion
00:46:33
is a technical challenge that i think we
00:46:35
can overcome but it still leaves the
00:46:37
policy and the societal level challenges
00:46:40
that i think are very difficult to
00:46:41
overcome because you're talking about
00:46:43
rewriting history in many ways and and
00:46:45
convincing you know hundreds of millions
00:46:47
of people that things that they had
00:46:48
thought were true were no longer true
00:46:50
and i think that's much much harder than
00:46:52
we give it credit for and cars is a
00:46:54
perfect example americans now were
00:46:55
averaging 24 miles to the gallon the eu
00:46:58
is mandated uh 57 miles per gallon in
00:47:01
2021 they're getting it done in the eu
00:47:03
they're twice as effective i tweeted hey
00:47:05
listen americans we we need to
00:47:08
buy better gas mileage cars and move to
00:47:09
evs and i was faced with
00:47:12
quite a backlash i mean it was insane
00:47:14
that's not entirely true because
00:47:15
california did pass their own
00:47:17
legislation yes and then there was this
00:47:18
issue because the car companies pushed
00:47:20
back and said you know it's too
00:47:21
expensive for us to build two different
00:47:22
excuse one for california and one for
00:47:24
the rest of america
00:47:26
they're already building ones for the eu
00:47:28
just to give you one counterpoint to
00:47:29
your statement about energy independence
00:47:32
arising potentially from solar to
00:47:33
generate a gigawatt of
00:47:35
capacity an industrial scale solar farm
00:47:37
would take about 7 500 acres
00:47:40
you know so that's about 30. i don't
00:47:42
think that's how it's i don't think
00:47:43
that's how it's done i i think a very
00:47:45
simple solar installation in everybody's
00:47:47
home with a simple battery is more than
00:47:49
enough to basically give people the
00:47:51
power they need and then these big cni
00:47:53
installations that's happening on top of
00:47:55
all these big buildings
00:47:56
will cover the rest and i think that
00:47:58
you'll still have some amount of nat gas
00:47:59
peakers usage um and maybe you can have
00:48:02
some amount of solar or hydro or wind
00:48:05
but people are experimenting and
00:48:07
figuring out the battery storage
00:48:08
capability
00:48:09
to supplement this i think what we don't
00:48:11
have is that at three percent residue
00:48:13
solar we don't have a credible
00:48:15
alternative but at you know eighty
00:48:16
percent resi solar
00:48:18
um with battery systems in everybody's
00:48:20
home
00:48:21
which is a tractable solution that cost
00:48:23
thousands of dollars per home which the
00:48:25
government could subsidize would be a
00:48:27
great use of capital i think would be
00:48:29
transformational for energy it would
00:48:30
completely rewrite the energy calculus
00:48:32
so so again to do that today would cost
00:48:36
because when you do something on a
00:48:37
residential roof it costs a lot more
00:48:38
than doing it on an industrial scale so
00:48:40
when you build out a 7 500 acre solar
00:48:42
facility you get economies of scale you
00:48:44
get single tubes everything can run off
00:48:46
one wire when you build it on a roof you
00:48:48
need contractors to come in you got to
00:48:49
wire the home you got to put batteries
00:48:51
in so the actual amortized cost over the
00:48:53
lifetime of that solar installation
00:48:55
works out to something on the order of
00:48:56
15 cents a kilowatt hour whereas if you
00:48:58
do it on an industrial scale it works
00:49:00
out to about 3 cents a kilowatt hour so
00:49:02
you know your point makes sense but it
00:49:04
it it makes things more expensive so
00:49:06
then the question is who's going to fund
00:49:07
the delta and is someone actually going
00:49:09
to pay for that delta
00:49:11
yeah we're gonna we're gonna i'm sure
00:49:12
i'm sure over the next few years we're
00:49:13
gonna spend trillions and trillions of
00:49:15
dollars on nothing
00:49:16
those trillions and trillions of dollars
00:49:18
could probably whatever your gap is i
00:49:20
don't know whether your math is right or
00:49:21
wrong but whatever the gap is that gets
00:49:23
us to china as an example
00:49:25
in terms of the cost per kilowatt hour
00:49:27
the government could substance and there
00:49:29
is a quantifiable number and if we had
00:49:31
if we decided whether it was worth it or
00:49:33
not we could decide but all i'm saying
00:49:35
is it's something that we need to put on
00:49:37
the table because every time a new
00:49:39
president comes
00:49:40
into town and gets elected
00:49:43
they generally get this one big shot on
00:49:45
goal you know the last few presidents
00:49:46
have tried to either you know cut taxes
00:49:49
or basically give these massive
00:49:51
um economic stimulus packages
00:49:53
and the net dollar effect of these
00:49:55
things is now measured in the trillions
00:49:56
of dollars and i suspect that the net
00:49:59
you know cost of subsidizing enough
00:50:00
solar energy that you could have broadly
00:50:02
deployed is also in the trillions of
00:50:03
dollars and we should just decide
00:50:05
whether that is in the better use of our
00:50:06
model all right just to do some quick
00:50:07
math here um to uh booster tremolo's
00:50:11
point he almost nailed it exactly
00:50:13
there are 85 million standalone homes in
00:50:15
the u.s java
00:50:17
i'm just going to assume none of them
00:50:19
for the sake of this argument have solar
00:50:21
on them but three percent do i think um
00:50:24
average cost of putting solar on homes
00:50:26
20 to 35 000. i picked the number 30
00:50:30
000. yes yes hold on a second but but in
00:50:32
australia it costs 5000. okay they have
00:50:34
a cheaper system or something no it's
00:50:36
because of all the nonsense that exists
00:50:38
in the united states yeah so but just to
00:50:40
give the raw cost here if it was thirty
00:50:43
thousand dollars to put on you know
00:50:45
you can do it you can do it for five
00:50:46
thousand dollars for home because
00:50:48
australia which is one-sixth the size of
00:50:50
america is able to do it with no
00:50:52
subsidies direct to the consumer
00:50:54
for five thousand dollars in
00:50:55
installation so that price is possible
00:50:57
i'm going to pick the 30 000 crazy price
00:51:00
in america
00:51:01
2.5 trillion dollars to put solar on
00:51:04
every home the end
00:51:06
like we're you know we're 30 yeah
00:51:08
trillion dollars in debt 10 of our debt
00:51:10
would make us energy independent forever
00:51:12
the the plan gets better when you do
00:51:15
math sorry and think of you think of the
00:51:17
amount of savings you do to the
00:51:19
environment think of the lack i don't
00:51:21
know if you saw this but there was a u.n
00:51:22
report about the criticality and
00:51:24
importance of emerging wildfire threats
00:51:26
to our ecosystem and our ecology i don't
00:51:29
you know for all of us that lived in
00:51:30
california do you guys remember how the
00:51:32
sky was orange and red two years ago
00:51:35
crazy pictures from los angeles so if
00:51:37
you if you have a have less of a
00:51:39
reliance on these aging utilities and
00:51:41
these utilities infrastructure there'll
00:51:43
be less forest fires the air will be
00:51:45
cleaner um people will be more resilient
00:51:48
think of the times that for example in
00:51:49
texas where there was a massive freeze
00:51:52
right where people were shut out of they
00:51:53
couldn't have power because the actual
00:51:55
traditional utilities were shut down
00:51:57
if it's only two and a half trillion
00:51:59
dollars i think we should have done this
00:52:00
yesterday i can't believe the number is
00:52:02
that low actually
00:52:03
considering the things that when we put
00:52:05
two and a half trillion dollar price
00:52:06
tags on things then
00:52:07
the cost of upgrading i'm just pulling
00:52:10
some numbers here off of the internet
00:52:11
but um replacing uh our electrical grid
00:52:15
would be five trillion so if you think
00:52:17
about the replacement cost of the
00:52:18
electric grid which we're going to have
00:52:19
to do at some point and the upgrade cost
00:52:21
of 500 billion a year
00:52:23
or the maintenance of 500 billion a year
00:52:25
this actually starts to seem very
00:52:27
reasonable and achievable if we had the
00:52:29
will which means we need to have some
00:52:31
politicians who actually aren't in the
00:52:33
pocket of bills the number of jobs that
00:52:35
biden would create if he actually ran
00:52:37
with this
00:52:37
then and because you do need a lot of
00:52:40
local installation capability and other
00:52:42
jobs
00:52:43
you would create hundreds of thousands
00:52:45
maybe even millions of jobs in the
00:52:47
united states they would be really well
00:52:48
paying
00:52:49
um
00:52:50
and you would be pushing us towards a
00:52:52
completely energy independent clean
00:52:53
energy you know uh zero carbon futures
00:52:57
that'd be transformation yeah i wonder
00:52:58
how many hours of work it is to install
00:53:01
you could actually do that math as well
00:53:03
and figure out how many jobs you create
00:53:04
and then how much tax those people
00:53:08
pay and then how much they
00:53:09
spend of that money to put back into the
00:53:11
economy you're probably getting a 30 40
00:53:14
rebate on that 2.5 trillion dollar so it
00:53:15
becomes even better because of the high
00:53:17
paying jobs all right the markets are
00:53:21
tanking uh obviously over the last
00:53:23
couple of months
00:53:25
dow is down 11 percent year to date
00:53:28
and of course a lot of the growth socks
00:53:30
we've talked about this over and over
00:53:32
again from zoom to netflix facebook
00:53:34
spotify coinbase twilio all down over
00:53:36
fifty percent uh today the market went
00:53:39
down five six percent on the news and
00:53:41
then rebounded
00:53:43
is this all priced in and
00:53:46
is this the bottom of the market kathy
00:53:48
wood is supposedly um
00:53:51
buying and i don't know if it's net
00:53:52
buying or
00:53:54
she's just reallocating but uh are we
00:53:56
now in the bargain hunting
00:53:59
period of the market and and we've
00:54:01
bottomed out
00:54:02
the smart folks that i talk to who i
00:54:04
really you know uh look up to and
00:54:07
respect
00:54:08
think that the bottom in the smp is
00:54:10
around 3 800
00:54:12
and that
00:54:13
what we still need to do is it's one
00:54:15
last flush
00:54:16
and that last flush will really
00:54:18
touch the big cap
00:54:20
um
00:54:21
companies but that growth is largely
00:54:24
um done sort of getting taken to the
00:54:27
woodshed so
00:54:29
in general i think that so generally
00:54:31
buyers are broke now um sellers of value
00:54:34
and waiting for this one last you know
00:54:36
400 point move down the s p and i think
00:54:38
people think it's roughly the bottom now
00:54:40
if there's a world war obviously who
00:54:42
knows all that's wrong but um yeah so
00:54:45
sax what's more shocking that we're
00:54:46
almost at the bottom or there's people
00:54:48
in the markets that chamoth really
00:54:51
which is well speaking
00:54:53
speaking of people that we respect so i
00:54:55
think uh brad gerson has a really
00:54:56
interesting take on this which is that
00:54:58
sorry i i should also be clear that i'm
00:55:00
recruiting this one person who i really
00:55:01
respect he knows who he is so they're
00:55:03
poachable got it
00:55:05
so uh
00:55:06
brad gerson has published a couple of
00:55:08
charts showing
00:55:09
basically multiples in the internet
00:55:12
index and among sas companies over the
00:55:13
last whatever dozen years or so and what
00:55:16
you can see is that over the last two
00:55:18
years during covid there was a huge
00:55:20
spike in multiples for internet
00:55:22
companies and for sas companies and that
00:55:24
over the last really since november last
00:55:27
three four months has now come down and
00:55:30
as of i would say last week it was right
00:55:33
at about the historical trend and now
00:55:35
it's starting to go under the historical
00:55:37
trends so from a bargain hunting
00:55:39
standpoint you'd have to say that this
00:55:41
is the first time that we've been below
00:55:44
the the average
00:55:46
um for a few years now that's not to say
00:55:48
it can't go down even more because in
00:55:51
the same way that you can be above trend
00:55:52
you can also be below trend and if this
00:55:55
war escalates and metastasizes it will
00:55:57
go down more but
00:55:59
if this conflict can stay localized um
00:56:03
and the economy doesn't go into a
00:56:04
recession because of everything that's
00:56:05
happened then yes this might be bargain
00:56:08
hunting here's the chart for everybody
00:56:10
to take a look at
00:56:11
from january 20 to january 22 the two
00:56:14
years of the pandemic
00:56:16
and i think this is times
00:56:17
forward-looking sales if i'm if i'm
00:56:19
reading it correct i don't have the full
00:56:20
chart here i just have a screenshot of
00:56:22
it a portion of it yeah i think it's
00:56:24
enterprise
00:56:25
yeah it's enterprise value divided by
00:56:28
like forward-looking revenue which is
00:56:30
you've got to say it's like a r yeah
00:56:32
it's sort of like ar it's like recording
00:56:34
revenue um and so yeah we had this 15x
00:56:37
we went up to 40 50x private market
00:56:39
deals going at 100 200x
00:56:43
those days are over big time
00:56:45
uh and uh it's we've talked about that
00:56:47
ad nauseam one of the interesting things
00:56:49
that i'm seeing is i think people are
00:56:50
looking at businesses that have been
00:56:52
corrected
00:56:53
and uh saying hey what is the true value
00:56:56
of this and the i think the best example
00:56:58
is peloton new cfo
00:57:00
the cfo
00:57:01
netflix i gotta go all right i gotta go
00:57:03
jacob
00:57:04
i love you guys love you tomorrow and
00:57:06
stay safe and enjoy your vacation
00:57:08
cheers now so i just without chabot here
00:57:10
just wanna talk a little bit have you
00:57:11
guys watched what happened with peloton
00:57:12
and the cfo coming in and just really
00:57:15
revitalizing that business very quickly
00:57:17
by the way jason i'll say one thing i
00:57:18
think um
00:57:20
two weeks ago
00:57:22
uh if you pulled the market they would
00:57:24
probably have or if you looked at the
00:57:26
the trading prices of bonds you probably
00:57:29
would have assumed a
00:57:31
95 chance of a half point rate hike in
00:57:34
march
00:57:36
and
00:57:37
as of today my guess is that the
00:57:39
probability of that is below 5
00:57:42
and you're probably assuming you know um
00:57:46
a quarter point rate hike or maybe even
00:57:48
a deferral
00:57:50
at this point and i think that's one of
00:57:51
the things that's keeping the market up
00:57:53
instead of tanking so much uh people are
00:57:56
predicting that it's been such bad news
00:57:58
that they'll push it out yeah they're
00:58:00
assuming that under the conditions of
00:58:02
great uncertainty like this the fed
00:58:03
cannot act as aggressively as they were
00:58:05
planning to act interesting and as a
00:58:07
result that that rate hike um would be
00:58:09
pushed out and it would continue to kind
00:58:11
of keep prices uh somewhat inflated and
00:58:14
continue to support the market with
00:58:15
cheaper uh capital and liquidity so you
00:58:18
know a lot of uh capital around the
00:58:20
world is going to get locked up as armed
00:58:22
conflict kind of comes to bear
00:58:24
and when that happens you know markets
00:58:26
will tighten up and prices will be
00:58:27
affected and so the fed in in
00:58:30
traditional in typical times would want
00:58:32
to have an incentive or would have a
00:58:33
motivation to
00:58:35
uh you know inject liquidity into the
00:58:36
markets um
00:58:38
and so this is not a great time to do a
00:58:40
half point rate hike and so it's almost
00:58:42
certain at this point that they're not
00:58:43
going to do a half point rate hike it
00:58:44
feels to me like huge setup right now
00:58:46
people have capitulated the market's
00:58:49
gotten demolished i just think there's
00:58:50
some these companies are still great
00:58:52
like they're still great some great
00:58:54
businesses out there and some great
00:58:55
companies to invest in some great stocks
00:58:57
to buy all the way from technology
00:58:59
through to industrials uh through to um
00:59:02
you know even some of the energy
00:59:03
companies that are going to benefit
00:59:04
greatly from this commodity cycle were
00:59:06
were kind of in the middle of
00:59:08
um and so there's going to be you know
00:59:10
um i think an opportunity to move away
00:59:13
from
00:59:14
uh speculative
00:59:16
um behavior into real kind of cherry
00:59:18
picking productive
00:59:20
cash generating um businesses in the
00:59:22
next um
00:59:24
uh you know or or even growth businesses
00:59:26
that are actual
00:59:27
um you know value craters uh so versus
00:59:30
being like 10-year speculative kind of
00:59:32
bet so this is a great time to kind of
00:59:34
be looking for businesses you really
00:59:35
like to own
00:59:36
uh to identify them to make investments
00:59:38
and to hold those investments for a very
00:59:40
long period of time
00:59:41
uh you know you're not going to find a
00:59:42
lot of market conditions like this i
00:59:44
mean if we all went back to march of
00:59:46
2020 and you remember the s p was like
00:59:49
2300. yeah i was going to buy disney i
00:59:51
never got around to it yeah so like if
00:59:53
at that point you pick businesses that
00:59:55
you knew were going to be durable
00:59:56
businesses and that you loved and you
00:59:57
thought were going to have legs to them
00:59:58
you bought everything from alphabet to
01:00:00
disney
01:00:01
to lockheed martin
01:00:03
you know you could have done um
01:00:04
tremendously well so now's a great time
01:00:06
to kind of be looking for businesses
01:00:08
that you really like and to buy a stake
01:00:10
in them yeah forget forget about trying
01:00:11
to time the bottom that's a fool's
01:00:13
errand right no no if you want to buy
01:00:15
stuff you want to hold for 10 years
01:00:16
things are relatively cheap relative to
01:00:19
a time horizon like saks pointed out and
01:00:21
um and gerda gerstner pointed out so
01:00:23
things are relatively cheap find
01:00:24
businesses you like to own and buy them
01:00:26
cheap
01:00:27
they could get cheaper but they're kind
01:00:29
of at the bottom you know the whole i
01:00:31
think the whole time frame around like
01:00:32
speculative stuff is kind of wiped out
01:00:34
like i think that that that that era is
01:00:36
gone now what are you saying
01:00:37
well it's it's that plus i think one of
01:00:39
the things that happened is that people
01:00:41
are realizing now that the burst of
01:00:44
activity especially like in e-commerce
01:00:46
type companies that happened during the
01:00:48
pandemic that was
01:00:49
not
01:00:50
ongoing sustainable growth it was
01:00:52
one-time growth in fact in many cases it
01:00:55
was sort of worse than one time growth
01:00:57
which is it was pull forward growth
01:00:59
meaning that growth in the future will
01:01:00
be lower because you pulled forward all
01:01:02
of that revenue well i think peloton
01:01:04
might be a good example i mean yes
01:01:05
everyone bought them during the pandemic
01:01:08
but then after the pandemic everyone who
01:01:10
needs one has got one already so it
01:01:11
could also be cars right like people
01:01:13
were desperate to buy cars and now
01:01:14
there's not available
01:01:15
right so what what happened is not only
01:01:17
have multiples gone down but these
01:01:19
companies were being comped based on
01:01:21
growth rates that were unsustainable and
01:01:22
so now they're all revising their
01:01:24
forecasts down so it's the double whammy
01:01:26
and brad's made this point but what's
01:01:29
interesting right now is the markets are
01:01:30
actually rallying and um i think it
01:01:33
might be because
01:01:34
of this latest biden news at this press
01:01:36
conference so the important point here
01:01:39
is that biden did not sanction
01:01:41
putin directly there was talk about
01:01:43
sanctioning him personally
01:01:45
or and he also did not remove russia
01:01:47
from the swift uh system which like sort
01:01:50
of the key banking system and i don't
01:01:52
know if this is because
01:01:53
biden doesn't want to do it or because
01:01:55
europe won't support the move pretty
01:01:56
clear europe doesn't want to do it
01:01:58
so no one is willing to suffer too much
01:02:01
economic loss here to defend ukraine
01:02:04
never mind sending troops so
01:02:06
it seems to me that the signal here is
01:02:09
that um
01:02:11
both militarily and in terms of economic
01:02:13
interest
01:02:14
europe does not want further escalation
01:02:16
and that may be why the market is
01:02:18
rallying also the fed may hold off on
01:02:21
interest rate increases
01:02:23
while this is all going on so
01:02:25
you know sometimes markets can act in
01:02:27
funny ways
01:02:29
well they're forward-looking
01:02:30
people are putting money at stake so
01:02:32
they have skin in the game
01:02:34
so
01:02:35
it's you know the the people can talk
01:02:37
all they want about um
01:02:40
what's going to happen with the markets
01:02:41
but unless they're placing bets
01:02:43
that's kind of cheap talk and here
01:02:44
people are actually placing bets on
01:02:46
socks they think will do well in the
01:02:48
future skin of the game people look
01:02:52
their economic interests are skin of the
01:02:53
game having people's sons and daughters
01:02:56
go off to fight and die in some foreign
01:02:59
war that is real skin in the game what
01:03:01
is not skin to the game is people
01:03:03
tweeting
01:03:04
you know their moral outrage and
01:03:05
condemnation and whipping things up
01:03:07
and you know
01:03:08
we should not be listening to them
01:03:10
calling everyone who disagrees with them
01:03:11
traitors because that's happening too
01:03:14
you know this is a time for cooler heads
01:03:15
to prevail
01:03:16
all right you and i are going to
01:03:18
actually agree on this uh and we're both
01:03:21
going to agree that trump and pompeo
01:03:22
should not be
01:03:23
fawning over putin
01:03:25
uh yeah but you've never commented on
01:03:27
that people want to hear
01:03:30
well i mean you can't support
01:03:32
them fawning over putin like that you do
01:03:34
you i can't imagine you look i i heard i
01:03:36
heard what what trump said when he was
01:03:39
saying
01:03:40
i didn't hear the pompeo quote so i
01:03:41
can't speak to that it's just saying is
01:03:43
a genius look listen you know sometimes
01:03:46
trump is being
01:03:47
sarcastic when he says things like oh
01:03:49
what a beauty you know um he means the
01:03:52
opposite and i think the point trump was
01:03:53
making wasn't really about putin being
01:03:55
so great the point i heard trump making
01:03:57
was that if he were president this
01:03:59
wouldn't be happening now you can
01:04:00
disagree with that it may be true or
01:04:03
untrue but that was the real point he
01:04:04
was making i think
01:04:05
that you're letting you know the
01:04:07
political partisans try to
01:04:10
whip this thing up and it's part again
01:04:12
it's part of this
01:04:13
meme of anybody who doesn't support what
01:04:16
i want must be a traitor it must be in
01:04:18
the pocket of true putin we have to use
01:04:21
this meme warfare to get people free
01:04:23
berg
01:04:25
to shame these politicians
01:04:28
into
01:04:29
backing like the solar plan and doing
01:04:31
something meaningful like this like and
01:04:33
backing nuclear how do we get
01:04:35
the politicians to reflect energy
01:04:38
independence as a priority it feels like
01:04:40
it's not a priority for them well i mean
01:04:42
the one one of the good things about
01:04:44
american democracy
01:04:46
is that politicians are generally pretty
01:04:49
responsive to what their constituents
01:04:51
want and believe
01:04:53
so they use polling data and that
01:04:55
polling data drives you know if they
01:04:57
want to get reelected they better do
01:04:59
what the polls are telling them people
01:05:02
want them to do
01:05:03
and so ultimately if you can kind of
01:05:05
influence people broadly in the united
01:05:07
states uh and that can that can go both
01:05:09
ways by the way
01:05:11
we have special interests too and you
01:05:12
have people with weird ideas right like
01:05:14
yeah but generally like if something is
01:05:15
deeply unpopular a politician risks not
01:05:18
getting reelected they're not gonna kind
01:05:20
of run to do that and if something is
01:05:22
very popular even though it may not be
01:05:24
the right thing by some objective
01:05:25
framework
01:05:26
uh you know they would still run to do
01:05:28
that so you know i do think that there's
01:05:31
you know some degree of uh of work to be
01:05:33
done around you know framing for people
01:05:36
broadly you know via the work maybe that
01:05:39
we do on our podcast but i think more
01:05:41
importantly
01:05:42
on a repeated way and in a way that's
01:05:44
kind of inspiring
01:05:47
and inclusive
01:05:48
will drive people to kind of want to see
01:05:50
these changes happen and ultimately
01:05:51
politicians should respond can i make
01:05:53
one other point to you to your thing
01:05:55
about um you know who who today would be
01:05:57
considered you know in the words of
01:05:59
gempasaki parroting russian talking
01:06:01
points
01:06:02
barack obama if obama today were out
01:06:06
there saying exactly what he told the
01:06:08
the atlantic magazine back in i think it
01:06:10
was 2012 or 14 if he was saying that
01:06:14
today he'd be accused of being in
01:06:17
putin's pocket
01:06:18
and being a putin apologist and a
01:06:20
traitor and all this kind of stuff
01:06:21
because he said
01:06:23
that in that interview he said listen
01:06:25
putin was always very businesslike he
01:06:26
was punctual he showed up he wanted to
01:06:29
negotiate and deal basically he sounded
01:06:31
like a guy who look we may disagree with
01:06:33
him about everything but he wasn't a
01:06:35
madman he was someone you could a
01:06:37
rational actor
01:06:38
he was a coldly ruthless but rational
01:06:42
actor and that's basically what obama
01:06:44
said he's someone you could talk turkey
01:06:46
with and if you say that today that hey
01:06:48
maybe we could negotiate our way out of
01:06:51
this with putin
01:06:53
you're accused of being you know uh a
01:06:55
puppet of his
01:06:56
yeah
01:06:57
the concept of starting a war uh in this
01:07:00
day and age is just it's crazy like it
01:07:03
is crazy that he's starting this war and
01:07:05
putting all these people at risk and we
01:07:07
don't even know what the goal is you
01:07:09
guys he's not even asked for anything
01:07:11
like what is he exactly asking for so he
01:07:14
may not be he may have been rational
01:07:16
then or maybe obama was trying to steer
01:07:18
him towards rationality and praising him
01:07:20
publicly to get that more rational putin
01:07:22
to show up this feels like irrational
01:07:24
that we don't know what his goal is like
01:07:26
the fact that the world can't say
01:07:28
if we gave him x he would do y
01:07:31
is i think his strategy putin's always
01:07:33
like to be this like unpredictable
01:07:35
madman right
01:07:37
no i mean we just said that he's a
01:07:38
coldly ruthless rational actor that's
01:07:40
sort of the opposite of a madman i mean
01:07:42
his red lines have been clear he's been
01:07:44
stating them for for years um that the
01:07:46
problem is that again we're conducting
01:07:48
i'm referring him to murdering opponents
01:07:50
of his and oh there's no question that
01:07:52
he's ruthless he's an authoritarian call
01:07:54
him a dictator if you want i've tweeted
01:07:57
in support of alexey navalny
01:07:59
yeah so i get it but that doesn't mean
01:08:01
he's a madman
01:08:02
he has desires and interests and it's
01:08:06
the job of diplomats to figure out
01:08:08
how to conduct diplomacy and negotiation
01:08:11
with people you disagree with and one of
01:08:13
the problems we have today is again
01:08:15
we've twitterized everything so
01:08:17
you know we basically figure out the
01:08:18
first step is who are the people who
01:08:20
should be canceled you know who's
01:08:21
wearing the white hat who's wearing the
01:08:23
black hat let's all rise up and virtue
01:08:25
signal and moral denunciation and you
01:08:28
know stick our fingers in our ears and
01:08:29
not listen to the other side and um
01:08:33
and listen that that
01:08:34
is a way to find yourself in greater
01:08:37
conflicts not avoid them
01:08:39
yeah all right so just wrapping up here
01:08:41
let's uh let's wrap with sax's favorite
01:08:43
part of the show
01:08:45
sax's favorite moment where he's super
01:08:47
engaged
01:08:48
in learning he's got his thinking cap on
01:08:50
he's taking notes
01:08:52
and that is
01:08:54
the science corner no not
01:08:57
what about vendetta corner i thought
01:08:59
you're gonna say vendetta corner yeah i
01:09:00
don't want to hear that recorder this is
01:09:02
the other quarter is actually my
01:09:04
favorite part of the show it is now
01:09:06
people love indeed a corner in the
01:09:07
twitter community spaces who you horse
01:09:10
twitter loves it because twitter is all
01:09:11
about vendettas but i have no vendettas
01:09:14
this week
01:09:16
what are you doing with your time
01:09:18
yeah i'm trying to advocate that this is
01:09:20
time for cooler heads prevail and so um
01:09:23
oh for sake start a fight with
01:09:24
somebody aren't you fighting with paul
01:09:25
graham
01:09:27
there's nobody here you're you and jake
01:09:30
are you guys taking the week off for ski
01:09:31
week i don't think we're fighting over
01:09:33
anything it's not i can't not that i can
01:09:35
think of all right
01:09:36
for
01:09:37
the dictator trump paulie hapatia sultan
01:09:40
of science david friedberg and
01:09:43
the rain man himself
01:09:45
david sacks i'm jay cal and we'll see
01:09:47
you all at the all in summit in may 15
01:09:51
16 17. you can go to the website
01:09:53
summit.all in podcast.com where you just
01:09:56
type all in summit the all-in summit
01:09:58
into google and find it may 15th to 17th
01:10:00
in miami florida we're doing it at the
01:10:02
new world symphony and we have a page
01:10:04
there where you can vote on speakers
01:10:06
it's gonna be three days of fun
01:10:07
we have a scholarship there if you can't
01:10:09
afford the regular ticket and uh you can
01:10:12
apply for a scholarship if you're a
01:10:14
super fan and we'll look forward to
01:10:16
seeing you there and go vote for some
01:10:17
speakers bye bye love you
01:10:21
[Music]
01:10:29
source it to the besties and they've
01:10:30
just gone crazy
01:10:34
[Music]
01:10:55
it's like this like sexual tension that
01:10:56
they just
01:10:58
[Music]
01:11:04
we need to get
01:11:06
back
01:11:09
[Music]
01:11:14
i'm going on
01:11:16
[Music]
