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E42: China's tech crackdown, CRISPR breakthrough, practical climate change solutions & more

July 30, 2021 / 01:17:29

This episode of the All In Podcast covers COVID-19 updates, vaccine mandates, and the current situation in China regarding tech companies. Guests include David Sacks, J Cal, and Jamal Polyhapati.

The hosts discuss the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, emphasizing their previous predictions about the Delta variant and the importance of vaccination. They highlight the debate surrounding vaccine passports and mandates, referencing actions taken by leaders in Israel, the NFL, and major corporations like Facebook and Google.

They also address the recent crackdown on Chinese tech companies, including Didi and ByteDance, discussing the implications of the Chinese government's increasing control over the economy and its impact on foreign investment. The conversation touches on the potential for nationalization of industries and the changing landscape for entrepreneurs in China.

Additionally, the episode features a breakthrough in CRISPR technology, which could revolutionize gene editing and treatment for various diseases. The hosts express optimism about future innovations and the role of entrepreneurship in solving global challenges.

The episode concludes with a discussion on the importance of maintaining a positive birth rate and fostering innovation to address issues like climate change.

TL;DR

The episode discusses COVID-19 updates, vaccine mandates, and China's tech industry crackdown, highlighting breakthroughs in CRISPR technology and the importance of innovation.

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pick up your phone dip

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hello

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sax

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yeah i'll be ready in like two minutes

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okay

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let's go splash some water on your face

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take a couple of whatever you need some

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and uh let's go we're waiting okay i'll

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be here

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okay hurry up

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is your chance to get max air time

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are we really gonna report that

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you listen freeberg's out that means

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you're gonna get by default 33.3 percent

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of airtime it's gonna be your biggest

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week

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[Music]

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every man

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[Music]

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hey everybody hey everybody welcome to

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another episode of the all in podcast

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with us today the dictator himself jamal

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polyhapati

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the rain man david sacks i'm j cal

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and the queen of quinoa

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quit the show where is it here

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he quit the show i think i think he quit

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so we're looking for a science person if

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you know anybody email all

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science guy at the all-inpodcast.com if

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you want to apply for the science

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position here no uh he couldn't make it

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he was uh he's moving he's moving he's

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moving

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i guess

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we can say that without invading his

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privacy but he's not going to be able to

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do a show anyway because there's so much

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going on

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uh and i think we should start with this

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do we want to start with the covet stuff

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again for the third episode in a row or

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do you want to start with china and then

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back into kobe oh govind i think we

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should just do covet quickly because i

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think you know

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as much as the audience complained about

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it we got a lot of comments saying why

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are you talking about kovitz so much we

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were ahead of the curve i'm predicting

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this whole new delta wave you know we

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told people what was coming i think it

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was

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a useful service so people might not

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want to hear it but it was i think i

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would say we were probably two weeks

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ahead of the it was very impressive i

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think that we've gotten a couple things

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actually right the a couple weeks ahead

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of other people yeah so yeah i mean it

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was pretty obvious that this was going

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to race through the

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places that had low vaccination

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and having the breakthrough cases is

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i don't think anybody anticipated that

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and the thing we didn't yeah over the

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last week on twitter i'm seeing this big

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debate on whether vaccinated people can

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spread

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the delta variant and i'm like guys

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didn't you see the show two weeks ago we

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covered this yeah i got it i was

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vaccinated i got it from someone who is

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vaccinated this is known you know delta

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variant has slipped the vaccine it still

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prevents the most serious cases

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generally speaking we need to see it as

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a spectrum of protection rather than

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completely binary but

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uh yeah absolutely you can get it and

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pass it on if you're vaccinated like we

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know that and we said we told the

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audience that three weeks ago

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the other thing we predicted was

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you know that this is going to be

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incredibly disruptive and it's going to

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create another debate of lock and

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potential lockdowns and mask mandates

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and most of all

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we discussed and you know we had i think

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a pretty vibrant debate between all of

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us about under what circumstances does

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your decision to not get vaccinated

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impact everybody else vis-a-vis the

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petri dish of the next variant that's

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coming

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uh hopefully that'll be less uh deadly

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less contagious

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which is tends to be how these things go

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uh but we also predicted

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some people are just gonna start

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requiring vaccines vaccine cards and we

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we mentioned what's happening in france

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and i don't know

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what examples you've seen this week yeah

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i thought last week when you made

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vaccine passports the main issue i

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thought i i well let's put this way i

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think that was actually turned out to be

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great moderation because what has been

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the big issue all over the world since

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the last episode vaccine passports you

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saw it with naftali bennett in israel

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they are not taking any of this vaccine

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hesitancy there's nine million people in

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that country eight million are

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vaccinated they're telling the last

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million you gotta go get vaccinated he

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has laid down the law saying enough is

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enough a billion people have gotten

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vaccinated uh it works and for the last

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million of you who haven't gotten

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vaccinated if you want to attend

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any function with more than 100 people

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if you want to go to synagogue if you

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want to go to a sports game if you want

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to go to the mall

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you have to be vaccinated or you're

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gonna get tested that day at your own

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expense

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um everywhere you go it's gonna be so

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they're gonna make it a real pain in the

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ass until you get vaccinated you then

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separately had roger goodell basically

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doing the same thing in the nfl saying

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to players you well first of all all the

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coaches have to get vaccinated there was

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an anti-vaxx coach who got fired and

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then they don't have as much power with

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the players because the players have a

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union but goodell said to them listen if

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you don't get vaccinated you're going to

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get tested every day that you go to work

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and if the team

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if there's an outbreak on the team and

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you guys miss a game you're going to

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lose all of your salary we're not going

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to put up with apparently there's a game

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last year during the um

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during uh kovid where it was a ravens um

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uh steelers game and half of the uh one

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of those two things the ravens half of

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the first string was out with covid or

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they were in isolation protocol because

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they're around players you know

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obviously if you're in a locker room one

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player gets everyone's gonna be exposed

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right so it turned out to be like one of

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the the worst games

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uh that the nfl put on last year and get

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all saying we're not gonna put out

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product like that anymore if you are the

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reason why the team misses a game guess

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what you and all of your teammates are

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going to lose your salary and since

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there's only 17 games in an nfl season

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you're just hearing about real real

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money so you had goodell doing that and

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now you have facebook and google

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basically coming out saying in order to

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go back to the office you have to be

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vaccinated now it's a little bit of the

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soft

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it's sort of more of the the iron fist

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beneath the velvet glove because they

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are offering testing so if you don't get

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vaccinated you can get a test every time

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you go to the office but unlike israel

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which is making you pay for it

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you know you know facebook and google

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are so rich they're going to pay for it

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so basically what you're saying seeing

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here is that government is not in the

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u.s it's not representing the mandate uh

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federal workers um

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otherwise you have to get tested weekly

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this is beyond now debatable um

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i think the funny thing is the

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republicans i think somewhere along the

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way realized oh my god we're going to

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lose the midterm elections they have

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found a way

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to find a single modality and behavior

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to steal

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defeat from the jaws of victory you know

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i think that the republicans were

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probably trending to basically win back

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the house

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and now i don't think that's the case um

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and you have a bunch of these um

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red state governors who are literally

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flipping their right now trying to

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figure out how to get their folks

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vaccinated

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many of these people may not even be

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able to vote come midterms because

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they're either going to be dead or still

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sick i mean

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uh it's

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it's uh

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we've learned a lot um and at this point

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you're being left with folks there again

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there are people who do it for religious

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reasons i get it there are people that

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you know are going to sort of like live

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off the grid and live by themselves i

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get them too

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but the folks that want to be a tax on

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the system or use public resources i

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don't understand and uh they're

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basically going to get singled out and

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discriminated against and

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the carrot and the stick method here i

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think is going to work because we saw a

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bunch of people sign up to get

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vaccinated in france once they said

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listen you can't go to a cafe or a bar

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and i think that a lot of the people who

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are not vaccinated are probably enjoying

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going out and having a life danny meyer

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the restaurant tour in new york from

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union square cafe and gramercy tavern

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one of the most famous restaurateurs of

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all time announced on cnbc this morning

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that he'll be requiring vaccines for all

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staff and customers what do we think of

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that restaurant saying you've got to

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show a vax car like the way in if i love

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it listen to me if i'm gonna go in and

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i'm gonna spend two or three thousand

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dollars on wine

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and then a couple of thousand bucks on a

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tip i don't want some who's

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gonna get me sick there it's bad enough

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that i still may get sick

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and and by the way danny meyer's

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restaurants are not like you know

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you know uh red robin

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these are extremely high-end

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the idea that you can get a communicable

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respiratory disease and spend five

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thousand dollars is

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untenable untenable non-starter

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sacs i mean listen you you've you

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it's very interesting last episode

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i felt like you were

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really trying to balance your belief in

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freedom uh and people being able to make

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decisions themselves with

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you know the reality that

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we can't be close forever how has the

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last week changed your thinking and what

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do you think of the danny meyer

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i i like what danny meyer did in this

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sense he wants to create a certain

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experience for his clientele and he

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knows that his clientele are more likely

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to go dine in his restaurants if there's

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a vaccine policy at his restaurants he's

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not saying the policy for the whole

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country he's sending it for

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his establishment he has every right to

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be able to do that

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and he believes that will help his

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bottom line and he's probably right

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about that similarly roger goodell same

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thing i mean he took a tough line

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because he knows that if he wants the

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nfl to put out a great product every

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week they can't be cancelling games

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because of covet outbreaks uh you know

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they can't have the first string players

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out with covet so he made a smart

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business decision i think people should

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have the freedom the right to do that

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now i still have

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let's call it a reservation about

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government requiring it

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not because i don't see the benefit i

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definitely see the health benefit but

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just because i don't like giving

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government the power

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to you know stick a stick a needle in

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your arm

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if you're a government employee

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i do think the government has added

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power we talked about this last week

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they can make it a job requirement

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and you know what's interesting in

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california

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california

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said if you're a state employee you got

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to get vaccinated but the one group they

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singled out were the teachers

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because you know gavin newsom has no

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guts to stand up the teachers union

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whatsoever and i find it so ironic that

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early in the pandemic we had this big

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debate about whether the teachers would

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go back to school in the fall and the

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teachers union said we won't go back

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unless we're first in line for the

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vaccine well guess what they got that

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now they're saying they're not going to

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go back if you make us get vaccinated i

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mean you can't win

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and they're moving the goal post i mean

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people over the goal post they want to

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work from home

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they

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it's kind of ridiculous it's one group

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that needs to do it most and they should

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be the one it's kind of like the army

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and teachers and healthcare workers they

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should be given a mandate if you want

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this job you must be vaccinated you

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cannot be in the army in the military

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and not be vaccinated because we need

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you in close quarters on a helicopter to

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go whack osama bin laden we can't have a

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covet outbreak in the navy seals when we

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gotta go

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i'm okay with that i think i think every

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employer has the right to require it if

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they believe it's going to impact job

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performance now i want to go back to the

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point that your mother made about the

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midterm elections i i because i there's

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a part i agree with and a part i

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disagree with so

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the part i agree with is that the

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republicans were cruising

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to you know a midterm slacking and now

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um

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the uh the whole vaccine hesitancy issue

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i think there was a prospect of that

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causing

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damage to the republicans not because

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most republicans are vaccine hesitant

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but rather because

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republican politicians were not out

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front enough on getting vaccines but

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look there's a difference between

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reality and perception here's the

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reality every single republican governor

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every single one has been vaccinated and

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has supported the vaccine mitch

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mcconnell is vaccinated sports vaccine

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kevin mccarthy put out a statement you

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even have the house minority whip um

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scalise get vaccinated on on live tv why

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had he not been vaccinated because he

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already had covet and he didn't actually

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think he needed it but he got the

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vaccine anyway to basically double down

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you had sarah huckabee sanders come out

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and say that she was getting the trump

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she called the trump vaccine yes please

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if put the trump logo on it right i mean

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she understands right like this is

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probably you know operation uh light

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speed or warp speed or whatever was

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probably the biggest operation operation

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up the midterms that's what the

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republicans should call this yeah well

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so so look i mean the republican

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politicians in the main

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support vaccines the problem is that

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they were being a little bit too quiet

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about it and as a result of that you had

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the fringe people the marjorie killer

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greens

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and so forth they were occupying too

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much air space around this issue um and

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you know frankly you know right now i

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think that i think the democrats are

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going to keep thous

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i wouldn't i wouldn't actually go that

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far but because i think that

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i think the republican problem was not

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that their vaccine hesitant but rather

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that they were just being a little too

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quiet about it um yeah but now i think

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that's changed i mean there is not a

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single major republican politician who

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isn't strongly in favor of a vaccine if

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the republicans can get their actual

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act together and actually get these uh

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you know and jason does joke about it

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but i do think he's bright in a certain

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way basically like this this group of

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republicans largely um who refuse to get

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vaccinated then they may be able to pull

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something out but i think that it's

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going to have to

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require a little bit of backtracking and

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showing up as you said by the mainstream

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republican

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political groups and they just have not

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done a good job there's a really simple

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off-ramp for them new information new

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strain

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new approach listen we didn't anticipate

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delta would happen this is ten times

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more it allows people to save face

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basically they can save face they got a

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perfect offer listen there's new

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information here this thing is even the

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cdc hasn't officially changed their

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policy yet um i mean it's coming right

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we know it's coming they've always been

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behind the curve we've predicted the

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policy change on the show anywhere from

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two weeks to two months before they

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actually do it

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um but look on the vaccine i don't

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discern a difference in position on the

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vaccine itself between republican

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governors and democratic governors they

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both are advocating it they're both

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allowing private organizations to

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require it but none of them

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to my knowledge

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have

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either had the the guts or the temerity

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however you want to see it to actually

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require it oh i love that word temerity

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not really used not used enough and just

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putting a cap in this before we move on

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to what's going on in china um we talked

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about implementing this and how do you

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implement it well we don't need to have

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a national registry people have vaccine

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cards you bring your vaccine card you

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show it and then of course people go to

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well what happens if you

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uh create a fact can anybody create a

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fake vaccine card yes of course you can

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but the fbi has put out

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a statement now because the lollapalooza

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the music festival

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they are saying do not buy a fake

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vaccine card because if you want to have

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no mask at lollapalooza

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you have to

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show your vaccine card and they said the

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fbi is uh tweeting about this

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uh it's illegal it endangers yourself

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and those around you and it's a federal

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crime that could lead to hefty fines or

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prison time oh my god yeah so show us

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your papers

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just get the facts

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just get the vaccine folks

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becoming a darwin award this is quickly

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moving into darwin award territory we

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are i talked to my doctor and i was like

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i want to get the moderna or j and j

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which one should i get and they're like

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you got the fives already i'm like yeah

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i want to take a second like i don't

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think that's going to make a difference

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i was like i think it's totally going to

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make a difference this was like when we

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got off the pod last week

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and they're like yeah i was like well

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just give me the third shot of fisher

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then and they're like well that's not

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necessary either i'm like i don't care

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if it's not necessary i want it give me

00:15:57

the third shot of fives and then i open

00:15:59

up drudge report yesterday and it's like

00:16:01

third shot of vaccine pfizer in israel

00:16:04

or whatever they're just gonna start

00:16:05

giving people a third shot yeah i just

00:16:06

want to get ahead of the customer you're

00:16:08

exactly right but by the way there's one

00:16:10

other piece of news that came out that i

00:16:11

think is very positive on on covid which

00:16:13

is the availability of these oral

00:16:16

anti-virals the pills that you can take

00:16:18

when you get an early case of it right

00:16:21

so it's like what they have for tamiflu

00:16:23

with the flu like no one should ever die

00:16:25

of the flu because tamiflu is like

00:16:26

completely effective at stopping it

00:16:28

provided you take tamiflu early in the

00:16:31

case so i think that you know with the

00:16:33

reduced effectiveness of vaccine what

00:16:35

we're going to have to do is supplement

00:16:37

the vaccines and the boosters with home

00:16:40

testing and then you know these oral

00:16:42

antivirals so that you get you you take

00:16:45

a test you discover you got coveted and

00:16:47

you immediately get prescribed you know

00:16:49

one of these these uh pills and the

00:16:50

pharma companies are coming out there's

00:16:52

like three different pharma companies

00:16:53

coming out with these oral and

00:16:54

antivirals and if freeberg were here he

00:16:56

could tell us all about it

00:16:59

yeah free break explain the science

00:17:00

behind this you know what the science

00:17:02

can go itself hey danny meyer chill

00:17:04

a great bottle of white burgundy because

00:17:06

i'm coming baby

00:17:08

let's go baby

00:17:10

ready to go

00:17:11

oh my lord uh all right

00:17:14

the the china situation has been

00:17:16

perplexing to me

00:17:17

you know my position was always

00:17:19

be careful

00:17:20

working in china or investing in china

00:17:23

we're investing in chinese companies

00:17:24

because they could change the rules at

00:17:26

any time and change the rules they have

00:17:28

in the past a year we talked about

00:17:30

obviously and financial uh and jack ma

00:17:34

going mia bite dance the ceo and founder

00:17:37

uh stepping down as ceo amid chinese

00:17:40

regulations and all the scrutiny

00:17:42

and then

00:17:44

we have dd last week

00:17:47

being pulled from the app store in an

00:17:50

unprecedented penalty where you're not

00:17:52

allowed to download dd and the existing

00:17:55

users can use it and then on top of that

00:17:58

all the educational companies this week

00:18:01

were told that they

00:18:03

uh cannot operate as for-profit

00:18:05

companies and these companies have gone

00:18:07

public in hong kong and in the west

00:18:09

uh and this has caused such an acute

00:18:11

effect softbank

00:18:13

uh is clearing a bunch of its uber

00:18:15

position to cover their losses in dd

00:18:18

uh and then there is the story of larry

00:18:21

chan who is a chinese education

00:18:22

entrepreneur he was worth 15 billion in

00:18:24

january now he's lost 99 of his net

00:18:27

worth according to bloomberg

00:18:29

he uh founded gautu

00:18:31

taichidou or techchito which is a

00:18:34

chinese online tutoring firm as we know

00:18:36

education is huge uh in

00:18:39

china

00:18:40

that company uh gow2

00:18:43

peaked at 140 a share in january and has

00:18:45

fallen to three dollars a share

00:18:48

big sorted story there 10 cent lost 100

00:18:51

billion in market cap in three days

00:18:54

earlier this week as china crack down on

00:18:56

what they call the monopoly in music

00:18:58

right so while we debate what happens

00:18:59

with the monopolies here in the united

00:19:00

states

00:19:01

china just literally told them

00:19:03

and here's the quote from the bbc

00:19:05

article the company and its affiliated

00:19:07

businesses have been told that they can

00:19:08

no longer engage in exclusive deals over

00:19:10

music rights and must dissolve any

00:19:12

existing agreements within 30 days i

00:19:13

mean this would be like

00:19:15

biden just saying

00:19:16

the app store is now open you have to

00:19:18

let other app stores in apple or you

00:19:20

know just coming down and saying to

00:19:22

amazon you can't sell amazon basics

00:19:23

anymore in 30 days no more amazon basics

00:19:25

at the site what are we

00:19:27

what do you think

00:19:28

the end game is here

00:19:30

is this a because china seems like they

00:19:33

are very deliberate and they plan in

00:19:35

centuries what is happening here there's

00:19:36

the short term and the long term

00:19:39

i think what's happening in the short

00:19:40

term is that the same thing that we are

00:19:44

talking about in the united states that

00:19:46

saks is you know

00:19:48

very eloquently basically i think led

00:19:50

most everybody in just really framing

00:19:52

for a lot of people is this idea that um

00:19:55

you know we have privatized free speech

00:19:57

and we have put

00:19:58

the distribution of information into the

00:20:00

hands of three or four

00:20:02

founder ceo oligarchs

00:20:05

that's also true in china and when you

00:20:07

look under the hood of the major

00:20:09

internet companies there's four or five

00:20:10

guys that are in charge

00:20:12

and so

00:20:13

i think that in the united states

00:20:16

politicians feel increasingly uneasy

00:20:19

with those folks having power because

00:20:21

it's applied indiscriminately trump gets

00:20:23

banned trump may not get banned this

00:20:25

person gets distribution this article is

00:20:27

considered misinformation that article

00:20:29

is considered disinformation this

00:20:30

article is suppressed

00:20:32

it's a dangerous place to be

00:20:34

um and in china they were just like

00:20:36

enough's enough so i think the short

00:20:38

term as it relates to the internet

00:20:39

companies was basically a realization

00:20:41

that we are not going to allow any more

00:20:44

devolution of power from the chinese

00:20:46

communist party to and into the hands of

00:20:48

these internet entrepreneurs so that was

00:20:50

that was sort of like the so it's a move

00:20:52

out of fear they're scared they're gonna

00:20:54

lose their power base not scared i think

00:20:56

they're just smart and they were like

00:20:58

we're not gonna allow this to happen so

00:21:00

they don't have to deal with section 230

00:21:02

or any law like that i think it was just

00:21:04

a realization that we want them to

00:21:06

understand who was boss

00:21:08

right and so there was a wave of

00:21:10

resignations there was uh now all of

00:21:13

this market cap upheaval

00:21:15

and this is now where we get to sort of

00:21:16

like the appetizer

00:21:18

and i think in the appetizer what

00:21:20

they're basically saying is

00:21:21

we will control

00:21:23

how

00:21:24

money is made and who makes money and

00:21:27

and i think that that sets up the really

00:21:30

difficult thing that i think happens

00:21:31

which is about the long term so in this

00:21:33

in this thing what's happening right now

00:21:34

is china

00:21:36

very firmly telling everybody we are

00:21:38

firmly in control there is no

00:21:41

private market

00:21:43

and there is no capital market without

00:21:46

our approval and that's a really big

00:21:47

statement

00:21:49

um and in fact it was such a big

00:21:50

statement that um i think the chinese uh

00:21:53

security authorities then had like a

00:21:54

conference call at goldman sachs jp

00:21:56

morgan all these folks were invited and

00:21:58

you know the vice chairman basically his

00:22:00

quote was something to the effect of we

00:22:02

promise that any more changes will at

00:22:04

least let you know

00:22:05

not hey there's nothing nothing to see

00:22:08

here or there's nothing more to come

00:22:10

it's just more that as we decide new

00:22:12

rules we'll make sure that we give you

00:22:13

guys enough warning so it's very much

00:22:15

firmly saying

00:22:16

we know exactly how money is made we

00:22:19

will decide who makes money in what way

00:22:21

and we're going to make sure that you

00:22:23

know all of this wealth creation

00:22:26

happens under terms that we define and i

00:22:28

think that the set up for the long term

00:22:31

the long term in china is complicated it

00:22:32

is an enormous demographic time bomb

00:22:35

we've talked about this before by the

00:22:37

end of 2100

00:22:38

china's population will shrink from 1.1

00:22:41

1.2 billion people down to about 700

00:22:43

million people

00:22:44

right so they had very

00:22:46

progressive quote unquote under their

00:22:49

framework

00:22:50

laws of one child policy to basically

00:22:52

make it economically viable in the 60s

00:22:54

and 70s

00:22:55

there was such a number of people

00:22:57

those people were able to get great jobs

00:22:59

in the you know 80s and 90s and 2000s

00:23:03

and now they've realized oh wow we made

00:23:05

a huge miscalculation because now there

00:23:07

is just not enough people

00:23:09

and so china's going to shrink

00:23:11

and i think that honestly i think xi

00:23:14

jinping probably thinks

00:23:15

the simplest way to solve this is to

00:23:17

basically nationalize a lot of the

00:23:18

economy over time and so i if i was a

00:23:21

betting man which i am general but i'm

00:23:23

not in china because i just don't

00:23:24

understand the market it's superb it's a

00:23:26

rich casino it's a stupid place to bet

00:23:28

i'm not going to say that i just think

00:23:29

that i don't know the market

00:23:32

well i think they changed the rules of

00:23:34

the game hold on let me just finish what

00:23:36

i'm saying i think that what we're start

00:23:38

what we're starting to see is the

00:23:39

beginning of nationalizations

00:23:42

and i think it's going to start in

00:23:43

technology

00:23:45

universe because those are the critical

00:23:47

assets that the chinese need to own for

00:23:49

the future so that's in my opinion

00:23:50

what's happening i think it's really

00:23:52

important

00:23:53

what's going on there um

00:23:55

and uh yeah i don't know saks when you

00:23:57

look at this we've been talking about

00:23:59

you know this these two great

00:24:00

competitors america and china and who's

00:24:03

going to win how does china win

00:24:06

if

00:24:07

this would seem not having a vibrant

00:24:10

entrepreneurial

00:24:12

you know socialist

00:24:13

communist hybrid is this the end of that

00:24:16

experiment and now it's just going to go

00:24:18

all national and then

00:24:19

doesn't that make it easier for the west

00:24:21

to win if china is just going to say

00:24:22

we're going to we're going to operate

00:24:24

everything and they don't have a

00:24:26

competition of ideas

00:24:27

if they go that far i think it's really

00:24:29

interesting actually to compare what's

00:24:31

happening in china with what's happening

00:24:32

on the us in the us because on the

00:24:34

surface both countries are having this

00:24:37

debate about whether big tech needs to

00:24:39

be reined in broken up controlled we're

00:24:41

having that debate in the u.s and

00:24:43

obviously they're having some version of

00:24:44

it in china but it's a little bit like

00:24:47

the the civil rights debate right where

00:24:49

you know we have our civil rights issue

00:24:50

in the u.s and you know they have

00:24:53

shinzen you know they have uh the

00:24:55

uyghurs you know it's like a whole order

00:24:57

of magnitude different in terms of the

00:24:59

way they react and i think

00:25:02

there's i would say there's three main

00:25:04

differences here between the chinese

00:25:06

approach and the us approach number one

00:25:09

data privacy we have a concept of

00:25:12

separation between private companies and

00:25:15

the data they control

00:25:16

and the data that the us government can

00:25:18

get its hands on and the us government

00:25:20

typically has to get a warrant and go

00:25:22

through a corporate scene to get that

00:25:24

data what china is doing they've now

00:25:26

passed a law basically saying all these

00:25:28

companies your data belongs to us if we

00:25:30

want it we get it they're taking

00:25:32

operational control over the data and

00:25:33

you know they're going to use it okay

00:25:36

that's a big difference number two

00:25:38

i think that china seems to be really

00:25:40

worried about these big tech companies

00:25:43

not just in terms of

00:25:45

whether they might engage in

00:25:47

anti-competitive practices or consumer

00:25:50

harm sort of those conventional

00:25:52

anti-trust concepts in the united states

00:25:54

but they're concerned about these big

00:25:55

tech moguls becoming power centers

00:25:58

in china and you saw this with jack ma

00:26:01

right i mean clearly the ccp had a

00:26:04

problem with the way that jack ma had

00:26:06

become a figure that people rallied

00:26:08

around him they looked to him they cared

00:26:09

about what he had to say and all of a

00:26:11

sudden yes the ant ipo was put on hold

00:26:14

but it was more than that right um you

00:26:16

know this was not just like you know

00:26:17

what the sec would have done all of a

00:26:19

sudden jack ma disappears he goes into

00:26:21

some sort of house arrest he comes out

00:26:23

three months later looking kind of

00:26:25

emaciated uh you know they are putting

00:26:27

the the fear of god in you know these

00:26:29

big tech moguls in a way that we would

00:26:31

never do in the u.s i mean look i don't

00:26:33

want tim cook to engage in

00:26:35

anti-competitive practices but i don't

00:26:36

want anything bad happening to tim cook

00:26:38

i don't think the guy should be under

00:26:39

house arrest if he wants to donate his

00:26:41

money to political causes and speak out

00:26:43

as a private citizen he has every right

00:26:45

to do that and i'll defend his right to

00:26:47

do that no matter you know how much i

00:26:48

want you know apple to be reined in that

00:26:50

they don't have that that again that

00:26:52

separate concept in china

00:26:55

and i think the last thing that's going

00:26:56

on here that's different

00:26:58

is you saw china put the kabosh on there

00:27:00

are 34 ipos of major china uh chinese

00:27:04

tech companies that were scheduled to

00:27:06

ipo in u.s markets and they have sort of

00:27:08

shut that pipeline down

00:27:10

and what it appears to be to they appear

00:27:12

to be saying is that you know we've

00:27:14

talked about reshoring strategic

00:27:17

industries back to the u.s like

00:27:18

pharmaceutical manufacturing they seem

00:27:20

to be saying we are going to reshore the

00:27:23

ipo business we do not want you

00:27:26

uh big chinese tech companies ipoing on

00:27:28

american markets on american exchanges

00:27:31

we are bringing that business back to

00:27:32

china and that is why i think you're

00:27:34

seeing you know giant ripple effects now

00:27:37

because i mean such mom's point about

00:27:40

decoupling we now it looks like are

00:27:42

going to be decoupling our financial

00:27:44

markets and um you know that's why

00:27:47

you're seeing you know gigantic hits the

00:27:49

valuation that's a would you would you

00:27:51

agree with me that the decoupling of

00:27:53

these financial markets might be in the

00:27:54

best interest

00:27:56

of humanity and ultimately the

00:27:58

decoupling of these two economies if we

00:28:00

don't see eye to eye about human rights

00:28:02

and how to treat people

00:28:04

maybe it's good that we have a little

00:28:05

more distance between the two markets i

00:28:07

mean

00:28:08

it's hard to know if engagement is the

00:28:10

better process but it doesn't seem like

00:28:12

the chinese communist party wants to

00:28:15

have anything to do with democracy

00:28:17

anything to do with free markets they

00:28:18

want to control all the markets

00:28:20

yeah i mean you could see um but you

00:28:23

know in a way the product that the us

00:28:25

was exporting to china was was our

00:28:28

financial markets and not an in in i

00:28:31

think a good way right so that i think

00:28:33

the bad version of this is when china is

00:28:35

able to buy up

00:28:37

ownership

00:28:38

in critical strategic centers in the u.s

00:28:40

and that affects people's speech rights

00:28:42

over here but this is not china

00:28:44

buying up ownership in the u.s this was

00:28:46

china acting as a consumer of u.s

00:28:49

financial markets and um

00:28:52

and i think i think it's different right

00:28:53

when we're selling products over there

00:28:55

that helps correct our trade balance

00:28:57

right this is why i don't have a problem

00:28:58

with elon selling cars over in china's

00:29:00

he's helping our trade balance okay but

00:29:04

so but they're kind of canceling that

00:29:05

they're kind of saying we're going to

00:29:06

reassure this industry we want to have a

00:29:08

domestic

00:29:10

you know

00:29:12

this is creating a mono economy right

00:29:15

it's like it's going to blur the lines

00:29:17

between public and private ownership

00:29:20

and it's going to basically make it one

00:29:23

huge pot from which the chinese

00:29:26

government

00:29:27

can can take and put it back into as it

00:29:30

deems fit for the broader success of

00:29:33

china as a whole

00:29:34

right so if you're a ceo and they don't

00:29:36

like you you're going to resign right

00:29:39

if you're a company and they're worried

00:29:42

about your propensity to be a little too

00:29:44

frisky on your own they'll rein you in

00:29:46

i'd love to use cyber security law or

00:29:48

something else but the point is that i

00:29:50

think that we shouldn't take this as

00:29:52

free market regulators having their way

00:29:55

this isn't lena khan implementing you

00:29:58

know some laws this is

00:30:00

a top-down decision to nationalize

00:30:04

large parts of the economy starting with

00:30:07

technology and i know that for some

00:30:08

people that may seem

00:30:11

unfathomable but

00:30:13

if i'm a betting man which i am

00:30:15

that's what i would bet on that this is

00:30:17

the beginning of the beginning of

00:30:19

an attempt to pull these companies in i

00:30:22

mean what david said is true

00:30:25

the chinese government owns the data of

00:30:27

chinese companies so at the end of the

00:30:29

day the chinese government also owns the

00:30:31

users and it also owns the revenues it

00:30:32

just hasn't told you yet yeah in a way

00:30:35

it's like the chinese government in our

00:30:37

our government is trying to officiate

00:30:39

the game fairly and create a really

00:30:41

competitive

00:30:42

vibrant

00:30:43

game and i think what the chinese

00:30:46

government just said is the game's over

00:30:47

like there is no game yeah no there's a

00:30:49

game it just has it's what is the game

00:30:52

because

00:30:53

it has an uber ceo it made a bunch of

00:30:55

ceos general managers in a large

00:30:57

corporation that report through a

00:31:00

reporting chain to one person xi jinping

00:31:02

but there's no more game in terms of

00:31:04

building companies and investing in

00:31:05

china like how is the west ever going to

00:31:08

trust how is goldman sachs or sequoia

00:31:10

you know

00:31:11

launching a venture firm there or retail

00:31:13

investors or hedge fund investors how

00:31:15

are they ever going to want to

00:31:16

participate in that market because so

00:31:19

look for example when you invest in

00:31:20

china right or if you set up a fund you

00:31:22

know there are two pools of capital

00:31:23

right there's the local remember

00:31:25

denominated investment vehicles and then

00:31:27

there's the us dollar denominated

00:31:29

investment vehicles and they do that to

00:31:31

segregate where the capital comes from

00:31:33

so it's not too difficult for the

00:31:34

chinese government to basically say you

00:31:36

know what i'm going to actually make

00:31:38

a constraint

00:31:40

on dollar inflows so that you know the

00:31:42

renminbi denominated investment funds

00:31:45

that are from chinese investors into

00:31:46

chinese companies needs to be above a

00:31:48

certain percentage call it two-thirds

00:31:50

right or call it 80 they can make all

00:31:52

these decisions because these are all

00:31:54

just rules that are completely under the

00:31:55

control so i i think that people who

00:31:58

don't think this is going to happen are

00:32:00

probably not looking at the setup the

00:32:01

setup seems to be directing itself

00:32:03

towards that outcome and it by the way

00:32:05

it makes sense for what xi jinping wants

00:32:08

to do from no no that's not my question

00:32:10

my question is why would masay yoshi-san

00:32:12

or another entity

00:32:14

ever invest in china because you looked

00:32:16

through the risks and you got completely

00:32:19

enamored by the population and the tam

00:32:21

but what i'm saying now is why would

00:32:23

they do it again or are they not going

00:32:25

to do it no but there are there are

00:32:26

boundary conditions that would say that

00:32:28

even before this you would have had to

00:32:29

reconsider the population is shrinking

00:32:32

there's a different demand side pull

00:32:33

that's happening right older people need

00:32:35

different kinds of services than younger

00:32:37

people there's not enough younger people

00:32:39

there's too many men there's not enough

00:32:41

women so there's not enough couples

00:32:42

there's not

00:32:43

all of these demographic issues

00:32:45

ultimately will get reflected in the

00:32:47

economic reality which is that smart

00:32:48

investors would put money in china

00:32:51

differently over time anyways

00:32:54

but i think that this is a bigger thing

00:32:55

as david said which is if that's coming

00:32:58

to pass

00:32:59

you want to control the pipes because

00:33:00

you want to control how that information

00:33:02

is presented to people your citizens so

00:33:04

that they don't get pissed off

00:33:06

and then you might as well just own the

00:33:07

economy own the business i see this as

00:33:09

being amazing for american tech

00:33:10

companies because i don't see who would

00:33:12

ever want to be an entrepreneur whoever

00:33:15

has a great idea and wants to pursue it

00:33:16

in china i just wouldn't do it no i

00:33:19

disagree with you and and the reason i

00:33:20

disagree with them we don't have access

00:33:22

to their markets anyway what company has

00:33:23

access to their market the difference is

00:33:25

young smart chinese people for decades

00:33:28

have been staying in china in part

00:33:30

because it was more they could more

00:33:32

relate culturally to jack ma than they

00:33:35

could to jack dorsey

00:33:36

okay that's just i mean that just makes

00:33:38

sense sure okay and i understand that

00:33:40

and then the second is we

00:33:42

uh like a lot of uh like sorry like the

00:33:44

opposite of some other western countries

00:33:46

that canada closed our doors

00:33:49

why would the next jack ma start a

00:33:51

company if they saw jack ma

00:33:53

disappear that's my baby because you

00:33:56

know what if you're coming from china

00:33:57

and you can you can only make a billion

00:33:59

versus 45 billion i think you still take

00:34:01

the shot

00:34:02

okay i think j cal is is right in the

00:34:05

sense i don't think it's gonna be like a

00:34:06

binary decision where all of a sudden

00:34:07

everyone just stops doing business in

00:34:08

china but they're gonna be hedging their

00:34:10

bets i mean if you were a chinese

00:34:11

billionaire looking at this landscape

00:34:14

your your your priority has got to be to

00:34:16

get some wealth outside the country

00:34:18

beyond the control of the ccp you're

00:34:20

going to be buying bitcoin you're going

00:34:21

to be trying to get your money overseas

00:34:23

you have got to be very nervous about

00:34:25

what's happening buying homes in palo

00:34:26

alto

00:34:28

absolutely i mean look i think what

00:34:30

president xi is doing is fundamentally

00:34:31

redefining the bargain

00:34:33

between chinese entrepreneurs and the

00:34:36

government and here here was the

00:34:37

original bargain right the great

00:34:39

chinese leader and economic reformer

00:34:42

deng xiaoping basically set the bargain

00:34:45

you know 40 years ago and what and

00:34:46

basically the bargain was this we're

00:34:48

going to open up the economy and let you

00:34:50

the entrepreneur get rich we're going to

00:34:52

keep all the political power so as long

00:34:54

as you don't mess with us politically

00:34:56

you can get as rich as you want that was

00:34:58

the original bargain now president xi is

00:35:00

saying there's a new bargain there's a

00:35:03

new boss in town and here is the deal

00:35:06

that economic interest in china be

00:35:08

subordinate to national interest those

00:35:10

national interests are defined by the

00:35:11

ccp and i run the ccp for exactly

00:35:18

they just got layered there is a new ceo

00:35:21

that they report to this actually makes

00:35:23

me very hopeful actually i think this is

00:35:26

going to be

00:35:27

like a spiraling down of their economy i

00:35:29

don't think it's going to smile i don't

00:35:30

i don't think so i mean

00:35:32

who's going to change them who's going

00:35:34

to invest in their economy everybody

00:35:36

guess what because if you want a shred

00:35:38

of lithium if you want a battery

00:35:40

if you want nickel if you want anything

00:35:42

to happen

00:35:43

you need to work with china they are

00:35:45

incredibly smart and thoughtful they

00:35:47

have been strategic while we've been

00:35:49

running around you know

00:35:51

complaining crying talking about the

00:35:53

kindergarten soccer game

00:35:56

they were doing the hard work

00:35:58

they were doing it for decades and until

00:36:01

we find solutions that can work around

00:36:04

them

00:36:06

we need to work with them i think they

00:36:07

just throttled innovation and they just

00:36:09

shot themselves in both feet i think

00:36:11

they're going to regret this decision i

00:36:13

would come out in the middle and say

00:36:14

they've just attached a discount rate

00:36:16

that now every investor has to consider

00:36:18

political risk when they invest in china

00:36:21

because the future is very uncertain the

00:36:24

bargain is getting changed and if you're

00:36:25

an investor you now have to take you're

00:36:28

taking some huge positions

00:36:30

i agree with david i think that's a

00:36:31

better way i would refine what i'm

00:36:33

saying by saying it's a distribution of

00:36:35

risk where it's closer to russia now

00:36:36

than it is to the united states yeah and

00:36:38

then i think there's a there's literally

00:36:41

an act called the

00:36:43

mcginsky act maginski act what is the

00:36:46

act that bill broder's lawyer

00:36:48

maginski

00:36:49

oh yes um because

00:36:51

basically in

00:36:53

russia they were just killing people and

00:36:54

taking their businesses i mean this

00:36:56

feels like the equivalent in china

00:37:01

yeah i mean they literally that was bill

00:37:03

broder's uh lawyer

00:37:05

who was tortured to death and i i just

00:37:08

don't see anybody wanting to invest

00:37:10

there anymore and it just does make the

00:37:11

bitcoin

00:37:12

in hindsight it does look like they shut

00:37:15

down bitcoin a couple of months before

00:37:17

making these actions so your point david

00:37:20

they probably anticipated that people

00:37:22

would start shipping their money out

00:37:23

using bitcoin and so they banned bitcoin

00:37:27

and now they're banning ceos from having

00:37:29

too much power that was probably a

00:37:30

sequential event that would be very

00:37:32

smart on their part you know

00:37:35

can't leave very smart

00:37:37

what does this do to like

00:37:39

the sequoia capital china the

00:37:42

masayoshi-san investing heavily there

00:37:44

tencent investing here all the chinese

00:37:46

feel very active in the united states

00:37:48

investing in companies all the chinese

00:37:50

lps are are fine

00:37:52

all the chinese gps are fine all the

00:37:54

chinese companies are fine i think

00:37:55

david's right it's just a discount

00:37:56

factor i do think it affects global

00:37:59

dollar flows and i think it's hard

00:38:01

for

00:38:02

um

00:38:03

a western

00:38:05

capital pool

00:38:06

to allocate money into china without

00:38:08

doing a little bit more work and

00:38:09

applying a higher discount rate yeah i i

00:38:11

have to believe that the conversations

00:38:14

happening in these firms that have made

00:38:17

gobs of money in china over the last

00:38:18

couple of decades it has to be are we

00:38:21

living on borrowed time

00:38:23

how much more time do we have before

00:38:25

china says that chinese profits chinese

00:38:28

return on investment are going to go to

00:38:30

chinese

00:38:31

individuals and companies under our

00:38:33

control because that's that's the

00:38:35

direction it all seems to be headed yeah

00:38:37

and how quickly can i get my get out of

00:38:38

these positions i mean how do you even

00:38:40

get out of these positions if this is

00:38:42

the other thing i don't understand if

00:38:42

they're going to

00:38:44

reverse some ipos how does that

00:38:46

mechanically happen are they going to

00:38:48

just say it's a buyout it's a second

00:38:50

second transaction and they'll just do

00:38:51

like a

00:38:53

a buyout

00:38:54

so if massion hassan owns some amount of

00:38:56

dd they say here's the here's the price

00:38:59

per share that we pay you here's your

00:39:00

cash give us a share ciao

00:39:03

that's incredible a forced sale at

00:39:05

whatever price they determine

00:39:07

ah no i mean like i think these things

00:39:09

will operate more efficiently than that

00:39:10

because you have a distributed

00:39:11

shareholder base so you know china can't

00:39:14

force a shareholder of dd to sell the

00:39:16

shares because it's listed in an

00:39:17

american stock exchange but they but if

00:39:20

dd does go private the way that you know

00:39:21

the news reports are saying

00:39:23

somebody's going to have to backstop

00:39:24

that capital i suspect it will be a

00:39:27

chinese organization so they will take

00:39:29

dd private again

00:39:31

and then buy out all of the shareholders

00:39:33

who bought from by the way if that does

00:39:36

come to pass i think that is the

00:39:39

that is an obvious signal that we're

00:39:40

moving into sort of a more

00:39:42

a nationalization of critical resources

00:39:45

and china has determined that internet

00:39:48

resources are critical and i think that

00:39:49

that's right if i was in their shoes

00:39:51

that's exactly what i would do as well

00:39:52

does this mean that we should be uh

00:39:56

kicking out chinese companies from

00:39:57

operating in the u.s i.e tick-tock et

00:39:59

cetera

00:40:00

no but i do think that tick-tock needs

00:40:02

to get carved out of bike dance and it

00:40:03

needs to have a completely

00:40:05

american cap table but that shouldn't be

00:40:07

a government edict that should be

00:40:09

something that the bike dance

00:40:10

investors and board are scrambling to do

00:40:13

right now because otherwise that equity

00:40:15

value may go to zero bike dance should

00:40:16

be

00:40:17

a half a trillion dollar company it

00:40:19

probably is

00:40:21

a couple hundred billion dollar company

00:40:22

now which means that it probably lost

00:40:24

half of its market value that's crazy

00:40:27

crazy yeah i think i think there's a few

00:40:28

things for us to worry about there um i

00:40:30

mean i i

00:40:32

i i like the idea of out competing china

00:40:35

by having freer and more open capital

00:40:37

markets and allowing anyone in the world

00:40:39

to invest in our companies i think the

00:40:41

issues with tick tock are more around

00:40:43

data

00:40:44

you know we know now that any data that

00:40:47

by dance has belongs to the chinese

00:40:49

government this isn't just a tick tock

00:40:51

issue it's any company

00:40:53

any us company that's doing

00:40:54

business in china look it applies to

00:40:57

zoom okay look zoom we're on zoom right

00:41:00

now zoom hat is not a chinese company

00:41:02

but it has a giant engineering team in

00:41:05

china

00:41:06

what are the data implications for that

00:41:08

yeah they stopped routing their servers

00:41:09

to remember they had some servers

00:41:10

routing through china but i do think

00:41:12

they're going to have to shut down and

00:41:14

sell off whatever their

00:41:15

assets are in china that's going to be

00:41:17

untenable to have a communication

00:41:18

platform you know it's it's kind of like

00:41:21

huawei right we don't allow huawei to

00:41:23

operate and we're going to have to do

00:41:24

that with software right there's been a

00:41:26

big crisper breakthrough

00:41:28

65 year old man named patrick doherty

00:41:31

uh was suffering with a disease in which

00:41:34

his protein was misshaped misshapen uh

00:41:37

building up in his body destroying

00:41:38

important tissues

00:41:40

such as nerves his hands and feet he

00:41:42

watched the same disease kill his dad uh

00:41:44

and

00:41:45

here's the quote had watched others get

00:41:47

crippled and die difficult deaths from

00:41:49

this disease

00:41:51

and it's a terrible prognosis he entered

00:41:53

a trial utilizing crispr the gene

00:41:55

editing tool and researchers reported

00:41:58

the data indicating that the experiment

00:42:00

treatment worked well the study doherty

00:42:02

volunteered for is the first in which

00:42:04

doctors are simply infusing the gene

00:42:06

editor directly into patients and

00:42:08

letting it find its own way to the right

00:42:09

gene in the right cells in this case the

00:42:11

cells in the liver

00:42:13

making the destructive protein the

00:42:14

advance is being held not just as

00:42:18

not just for

00:42:20

amyloidosis patients but also as a proof

00:42:23

of concept that crispr could be used to

00:42:24

treat many other much more common

00:42:26

diseases it's a new way of using the

00:42:28

innovative technology to my thoughts

00:42:30

i think this is a really important

00:42:32

breakthrough and what it allows us to do

00:42:34

now is see a world where look if you if

00:42:36

you think about

00:42:37

the

00:42:38

two different paths

00:42:40

of the following idea

00:42:42

you're going to make a solution to a

00:42:43

problem if if the problem was

00:42:46

an internet company or you wanted to

00:42:48

make a product what you would do is you

00:42:50

would go to amazon web services you'd be

00:42:52

able to consume a whole set of

00:42:53

abstractions and then you would build a

00:42:56

light amount of programming which is

00:42:57

essentially like the application logic

00:42:59

of your app right i think a lot of

00:43:01

people listening understand that idea

00:43:02

because that's what they do

00:43:04

here what we're getting to a place is

00:43:06

now soon we're going to be able to view

00:43:08

biological problems in the same way

00:43:10

so

00:43:11

we're building all these small little

00:43:13

building i don't want to call them small

00:43:14

but building these very important

00:43:16

building blocks that is very much akin

00:43:18

to the building blocks we needed to put

00:43:20

together the first set of computers to

00:43:22

put together ms-dos all of that allowed

00:43:24

us to create windows windows allowed us

00:43:26

to actually access the internet

00:43:29

and there was this in-serie autumn

00:43:30

development of things that happened and

00:43:32

i think that we're on the verge of that

00:43:33

and that's what these kinds of

00:43:34

breakthroughs really show us which is

00:43:36

that you can view so for example you

00:43:38

know in a different company

00:43:40

they they've created these mrna gate

00:43:42

arrays logic gate arrays so if you're

00:43:44

you know a chip designer you would

00:43:45

understand how to basically

00:43:46

create electrical function

00:43:48

in part using you know gate arrays but

00:43:52

if you reduce a biological function to

00:43:53

the same idea now that same person has a

00:43:56

translational ability to solve a

00:43:57

different problem that they didn't have

00:43:59

before

00:44:00

so i think what we're saying is that

00:44:02

we're seeing this platformization this

00:44:05

awsification

00:44:08

a biological tool chain

00:44:10

with things like crispr and all the

00:44:11

other modalities that need to stack on

00:44:13

top of it so that the next person can

00:44:15

view it as a programming problem

00:44:17

and i think that that's the really

00:44:19

exciting path that accelerates a lot of

00:44:21

this development

00:44:22

but this was an enormously important

00:44:24

breakthrough because it validated a lot

00:44:26

of what crispr was beyond a lot of

00:44:28

theoretical innovation that

00:44:31

that up until now was basically what it

00:44:32

was known for and a lot of investment

00:44:34

had gone into companies that were trying

00:44:35

to do things

00:44:37

but this was the first really important

00:44:38

one

00:44:39

[Music]

00:44:40

the funny thing about intelli is that

00:44:41

it's been public for like seven eight

00:44:43

years and it's just been toiling toiling

00:44:45

toiling toiling and then you know the

00:44:47

last little while obviously it's gone

00:44:48

absolutely crazy because of this

00:44:50

breakthrough

00:44:51

yeah and related new cr in related news

00:44:53

crispr creates its first genetically

00:44:54

modified marsupials after years of using

00:44:57

the gene editing technique crispr to

00:44:59

genetically modify everything from

00:45:00

vegetables to labs

00:45:02

rodents researchers have used it to edit

00:45:04

one of the hardest target chats

00:45:05

marsupials the mit technology reports

00:45:08

i guess it turns out they're very hard

00:45:10

to edit and we're now editing more

00:45:12

stubbles and changing things like their

00:45:14

hair color

00:45:15

so brave new world freeberg was here the

00:45:18

freeberg ratio would be off the charts

00:45:20

all right wrapping up we have pretty

00:45:21

incredible just just one thing to add to

00:45:23

that i mean i think what it what it

00:45:25

shows is that these covet vaccines are

00:45:27

just the first product the first

00:45:29

breakthrough product of this mrna

00:45:31

technology there's going to be a lot

00:45:33

more and what i wonder about is you know

00:45:35

this this category of vaccine huston

00:45:37

people they're kind of like you know in

00:45:39

the

00:45:39

in the technology world you have kind of

00:45:41

a spectrum of early adopters late

00:45:44

adopters luddites you know people are

00:45:46

actively against technology

00:45:48

yeah well i mean luddites are even

00:45:50

laggards

00:45:51

yeah yeah ludics are even more violently

00:45:53

opposed i think the original luddites um

00:45:56

i think the original luddites were in

00:45:58

england they lost their jobs at some

00:45:59

factory and so they broke in to the

00:46:01

factory with sledgehammers to destroy

00:46:02

all the machines that replaced their

00:46:04

jobs so yeah there's clearly a spectrum

00:46:06

and what i wonder about is that if

00:46:07

you're on sort of the luddite end of the

00:46:09

spectrum with respect to biotechnology i

00:46:12

mean are you going to have a materially

00:46:13

worse life because you're not getting

00:46:15

the benefits of all these vaccines and

00:46:17

all these treatments

00:46:19

and i mean kova could just be the first

00:46:21

example of this well i mean if you build

00:46:23

on it it's sort of like we're going to

00:46:24

create a two-class society one that is

00:46:26

not only dealing with all the maladies

00:46:29

and cancers and and living longer but we

00:46:32

haven't even started to think about well

00:46:34

taking somebody who's already in great

00:46:36

health and what can you do for them so

00:46:38

oh you know what uh you can be two

00:46:40

inches taller you could add 10 iq points

00:46:43

you could run faster you could have

00:46:45

higher blood oxygen whatever i mean

00:46:47

we could we could genetically modify

00:46:49

people to stay underwater for 10 minutes

00:46:51

and be you know better processors of

00:46:53

oxygen like other mammals are you could

00:46:56

have superhumans i mean that that's

00:46:58

basically where this is going yeah and

00:47:01

that unlocks a whole nother level of

00:47:03

ethical and moral considerations but

00:47:04

you're right there could be a group of

00:47:06

people who are like i don't want to

00:47:07

touch any of this and they die at 60 70

00:47:09

80 years old and then we got another

00:47:11

class of people who embrace this and

00:47:12

they have 20 more iq points

00:47:14

and they live to 120. no i mean it's it

00:47:17

sounds funny but and like science

00:47:19

fiction but that is

00:47:20

in the realm of possibility in our

00:47:22

lifetimes there's a lot of great science

00:47:24

fiction written about this whole sort of

00:47:25

transhumanist idea a book series i

00:47:28

really like is uh nexus by ramez nam

00:47:32

who actually was a developer at

00:47:34

microsoft and you know then became a

00:47:36

writer and he writes with i'd say a high

00:47:38

degree of

00:47:40

sort of accurate accuracy and

00:47:42

specificity about these technologies and

00:47:44

how they might evolve um

00:47:46

people should be sure to check out that

00:47:48

book jason be honest if you could

00:47:50

actually increase anything in your body

00:47:52

through this gene editing what would it

00:47:53

be just

00:47:54

throw anything out there but the first

00:47:56

thing is anything out there anything i

00:47:58

would increase my muscle mass 100

00:48:00

percent increase my muscle mass by the

00:48:02

way there's a percentage of fat would go

00:48:04

down

00:48:05

not in reality in absolute terms but

00:48:07

just in percentages so this crispr thing

00:48:10

was a public company called intellia

00:48:12

therapeutics

00:48:13

but i want to throw a shout out to

00:48:15

another startup that seemingly i think

00:48:17

may have had a breakthrough this week

00:48:19

called form energy

00:48:21

and the reason why these guys are

00:48:22

interesting is that they've built this

00:48:24

incredibly massive long duration

00:48:27

battery out of

00:48:28

iron

00:48:30

now why is that important

00:48:32

we have really simple ways of harvesting

00:48:36

iron from the earth it is literally

00:48:38

everywhere everywhere you look iron

00:48:40

exists it's not so true for nickel it's

00:48:42

not true for cobalt it's not true for

00:48:44

manganese it's not true for lithium it's

00:48:46

not true for all of these other

00:48:48

specialty chemicals that we need

00:48:50

in order to build batteries

00:48:53

but these guys have solved a very

00:48:54

complicated technical challenge

00:48:57

that'll allow you to store energy

00:48:58

cheaply which has huge implications for

00:49:00

electricity and grids

00:49:03

and so big shout out to these guys at

00:49:05

form uh because if if if it looks like

00:49:07

what they

00:49:08

said they did is true

00:49:11

it's a really important breakthrough

00:49:13

that'll have some important uh

00:49:14

ramifications it's a lot it's amazing by

00:49:17

the way to see

00:49:19

progress now you wake up and you read

00:49:21

these things and you're just like god

00:49:22

this is incredible that there are people

00:49:24

working away on that really matters

00:49:27

it's almost as if there's like one group

00:49:30

we talked about cynicism in a previous

00:49:31

episode recently

00:49:33

there's one group of people whether

00:49:35

you're in the founder circles or capital

00:49:37

allocator or a journalist covering the

00:49:39

space uh who understands it there

00:49:42

there's a a technical

00:49:45

you know explosion going on here an

00:49:47

innovation that is going to solve a lot

00:49:50

of problems and they have another group

00:49:51

of people who think that all these

00:49:52

problems are intractable i'm kind of

00:49:54

looking at this you know what happened

00:49:56

with kovid and i was talking to my wife

00:49:58

about global warming and i was like

00:50:00

feels to me like we can solve global

00:50:02

warming like it feels like it's very

00:50:04

much in our control and there's another

00:50:06

group of people who feel like it's over

00:50:07

and don't have kids because the whole

00:50:09

planet is going to go on we're i mean uh

00:50:12

i think elon tweeted this out um and i

00:50:14

think we've talked about this now with

00:50:16

respect to china

00:50:17

but you know we have an enormous problem

00:50:20

in the world in general which is that

00:50:22

unless our birth rate is positive and

00:50:24

accretive

00:50:26

it has huge implications to progress

00:50:28

right if you just like if you eliminate

00:50:31

or you decrease the denominator of the

00:50:33

global population

00:50:35

the odds that there's another elon musk

00:50:37

or jeff bezos that are created are just

00:50:38

lower and so net

00:50:41

of anything else a declining population

00:50:44

rate particularly in western countries

00:50:45

has huge detrimental effects to the

00:50:47

world and so all the folks that think

00:50:49

that they're going to solve the ecology

00:50:51

of the world by not having kids it's a

00:50:52

little misguided the thing to do is to

00:50:54

actually have a positive birth rate find

00:50:57

technological solutions to this problem

00:51:00

and allow what we've been able to do

00:51:01

which is a rising populace to basically

00:51:03

be motivated to work and solve problems

00:51:06

and i think that we have to be very

00:51:07

careful about that because if people

00:51:09

don't get this right they're going to

00:51:10

take the wrong solution it's not going

00:51:12

to be a solution at all and it's going

00:51:14

to make the problems even worse could

00:51:16

you imagine if the population of the

00:51:18

earth shrank in half what it would mean

00:51:20

in terms of productivity services

00:51:23

the health care requirements that are

00:51:25

needed the cost of providing those

00:51:26

things the economic viability of

00:51:28

countries will go away it would be a

00:51:30

disaster yet there is a group of people

00:51:32

who feel we should do exactly that

00:51:34

and

00:51:35

not a small group of people yeah well

00:51:37

they think that i think i think the

00:51:39

mistake is in thinking that human

00:51:42

consumption is the problem

00:51:44

um

00:51:45

and specifically with respect to

00:51:47

to climate change or global warming no

00:51:49

you you can't see it that way because

00:51:52

look humans in order to exist need to

00:51:55

consume and we're going to emit carbon

00:51:57

as part of that process the important

00:51:59

thing to focus on is

00:52:01

energy production are you shifting to

00:52:04

clean production not because you're

00:52:06

never gonna be able to shrink your

00:52:07

consumption enough

00:52:09

to to basically eliminate carbon

00:52:11

emissions um it has to be done on the

00:52:13

production side and one of the

00:52:15

interesting things that's happening now

00:52:17

i think we should talk about is

00:52:19

in europe they're creating this new

00:52:21

carbon trading plan i think china's even

00:52:23

trying to set up one of these markets

00:52:25

and so

00:52:26

they're creating these new um

00:52:28

you know marketplaces to trade carbon

00:52:30

permits and i think the most exciting

00:52:32

part about this is that it gives an

00:52:34

incentive

00:52:36

for um for innovators to create new

00:52:39

technologies that actually take carbon

00:52:41

out of the atmosphere

00:52:43

uh they're called negative emissions

00:52:44

technologies because what happens is if

00:52:47

you have a technology to take carbon out

00:52:49

of the atmosphere you can now sell

00:52:52

a permit on the exchange that gives

00:52:54

somebody else the right to emit

00:52:57

that carbon and now those technologies

00:52:59

those those um those nets the negative

00:53:02

emission technologies it's unclear

00:53:03

whether they really exist yet but no

00:53:05

one's going to create them if there's

00:53:07

not a customer for them and that's

00:53:09

what's really cool about these new

00:53:10

tradable permit schemes is they create a

00:53:13

buyer for for for those nets and i think

00:53:16

that's ultimately how we're going to

00:53:17

solve this problem of climate change

00:53:19

we're not going to do it through

00:53:21

reducing human consumption like we're

00:53:23

going to go back to the stone age if you

00:53:25

don't want to emit carbon it's about

00:53:27

moving to clean production of energy and

00:53:29

creating uh negative emission

00:53:30

technologies

00:53:32

yeah let me just build on that for a

00:53:33

second there's look there's a bunch of

00:53:35

cap and trade systems china basically

00:53:37

has a terror

00:53:39

a carbon tax system in place

00:53:41

the big thing that none of these folks

00:53:43

have gotten to yet but i think if you

00:53:45

look at the laws in europe they're going

00:53:47

there is the idea of a carbon tariff

00:53:49

and i think these carbon taxes if they

00:53:51

actually exist properly will look like a

00:53:54

tariff what does that mean

00:53:56

let's just say you're britain and you

00:53:58

want to import

00:54:00

a volkswagen from germany

00:54:03

if britain has a carbon tariff that says

00:54:05

basically you need to account for all of

00:54:07

the emissions that went into making this

00:54:09

car

00:54:11

and i'm going to assess

00:54:12

an import duty that basically maps to

00:54:15

that

00:54:16

um i think that that's where the world

00:54:18

is going and that's probably david to

00:54:21

your point it's going to be a really big

00:54:22

value unlocked because the amount of

00:54:24

money that will get both made but also

00:54:26

destroyed

00:54:28

in that process will be incredible

00:54:31

and that's where we have a chance to

00:54:32

really reimagine consumption in a

00:54:34

different way like there are just so

00:54:36

many categories i saw this interesting

00:54:37

stat if you look at cpg companies right

00:54:39

companies like procter gamble clorox and

00:54:41

you compare them to the places where

00:54:43

they sell their goods like walmart and

00:54:45

target

00:54:46

every single major big box retailer has

00:54:48

basically declared a net zero emission

00:54:50

strategy in the next five to ten years

00:54:52

not a single company on the cpg side

00:54:55

has actually any plans to do anything

00:54:57

meaningful

00:54:58

anywhere near 2030 2045 2050.

00:55:02

and when you look under the hood those

00:55:04

companies like png and clorox

00:55:06

are enormous emitters enormous so even

00:55:10

though you walk into a target in amazon

00:55:12

and you try to make yourself feel good

00:55:13

thinking thinking to yourself i'm buying

00:55:15

something

00:55:16

that's zero emissions it's not true

00:55:18

it's basically that amazon will will

00:55:20

bear the cost of getting to net zero but

00:55:22

the products that you actually consume

00:55:23

are horrible for the environment and the

00:55:26

amount of you know um fossil fuels that

00:55:28

went into it and the amount of plastic

00:55:30

that will then get put into the ocean

00:55:31

it's

00:55:32

tremendous and so

00:55:34

moving slightly more aggressively beyond

00:55:36

these cap and trade systems into

00:55:38

something that looks more like a tariff

00:55:40

i think could be really important for

00:55:41

the world and we're going to need to do

00:55:43

it

00:55:43

there's and

00:55:45

there are multiple ways to do it i don't

00:55:46

know if you guys saw elon backed this

00:55:48

the

00:55:49

uh x prize carbon sequestrant

00:55:52

sequestrant

00:55:54

project which is a 100 million dollar

00:55:56

prize

00:55:57

and you can do this in multiple ways you

00:55:58

can do it at the factory and there's the

00:56:00

one trees.org i don't know if you saw

00:56:02

that where they're trying to plant a

00:56:03

trillion trees because that's the

00:56:05

original way to uh sequester this carbon

00:56:07

so there's going to be like three or

00:56:09

four different ways to do this and if

00:56:10

there's an incentive to do it yeah that

00:56:13

um is going to help for sure part of why

00:56:16

there's such political disagreement over

00:56:19

this is because you look at approaches

00:56:21

like the green new deal

00:56:23

i mean i think they understand the the

00:56:26

problem but what they're proposing is

00:56:28

always on the consumption side it's

00:56:30

basically politicians picking and

00:56:32

choosing how people are going to consume

00:56:34

carbon whether it's you know cracking

00:56:35

down on private planes to you know

00:56:37

factories i mean again taking us back to

00:56:39

the stone age

00:56:41

nobody wants to no no one sane i think

00:56:44

wants to support that kind of

00:56:47

totalitarian principle that the

00:56:49

politicians get to tell us how to

00:56:51

consume

00:56:52

but this is this is why i think these

00:56:54

these market-based solutions where you

00:56:57

say look carbon emissions are obviously

00:56:59

an externality if you want to emit you

00:57:01

need to basically pay the correct price

00:57:04

for carbon emissions and we use the the

00:57:07

money that you pay

00:57:09

as as some sort of

00:57:12

whether it's a tax or whether it's

00:57:13

buying a permit we use that money then

00:57:15

offset into negative carbon emissions

00:57:17

it's a market-based system where the

00:57:19

government controls the externality but

00:57:21

they don't dictate how people get to

00:57:23

consume carbon and i think that's the

00:57:24

right balance and we don't really have

00:57:27

that type of balanced conversation

00:57:29

in the u.s yet because

00:57:31

you've kind of got one side that says

00:57:33

they want to save the planet but they

00:57:35

want to control everything and then

00:57:36

you've got the other side saying well

00:57:38

look i want to save the economy because

00:57:40

your plan the green new deal is going to

00:57:41

destroy it what we need is is again a

00:57:43

market-based solution to this

00:57:46

and i guess the

00:57:48

criticism of a market-based solution is

00:57:50

you're basically giving people a way to

00:57:52

a the most cynical interpretation would

00:57:55

be you can pay to pollute you can just

00:57:57

you can pollute all you want and just

00:57:58

pay a fine essentially but that's not

00:58:01

the right way to look at it you're

00:58:02

actually offsetting somebody else is

00:58:04

capturing what you put out there and it

00:58:06

depending on the rules of the road if

00:58:07

you had to capture 50 more than you put

00:58:10

in you could

00:58:11

create a formula there right i mean

00:58:13

there could be some formula that

00:58:14

over time there's been a lot of fraud in

00:58:17

this market like um you know people sell

00:58:19

these carbon credits from you know

00:58:22

certain forests and there's this joke

00:58:24

which is like there's been a tree that's

00:58:26

been sold like 80 billion times because

00:58:28

it's like

00:58:29

you can't really verify you can only

00:58:31

really estimate the amount of carbon

00:58:32

sequestration that you know for example

00:58:34

a tree actually does in the first place

00:58:36

and so there's been just a lot of um

00:58:39

unfortunately you know fly by night uh

00:58:42

unreliable non-trustworthy ways that

00:58:44

this market has evolved

00:58:46

people have been waiting for decades for

00:58:48

this carbon trading market to really

00:58:49

step into high gear which is why some

00:58:51

folks think the more aggressive plan

00:58:53

will just be introduce tariffs and let

00:58:54

the market david to your point sorted

00:58:56

out

00:58:57

jeremiah what do you think the prospects

00:58:59

are for these negative emission

00:59:00

technologies i i can't believe that a

00:59:02

solution as low tech as planting trees

00:59:05

is going to solve the problem

00:59:07

yeah yeah so the question is what do you

00:59:09

what do you think assuming we create

00:59:12

the market the demand for negative

00:59:15

emission technologies the permits

00:59:17

to emit

00:59:19

what do you think the prospects are

00:59:20

technologically that innovators are

00:59:22

going to come up with these solutions i

00:59:24

do think that we are a couple of

00:59:26

breakthroughs away from these things

00:59:27

being non-issues so i'll give you a

00:59:29

couple of examples if you look at like

00:59:31

i'll just use batteries as an example

00:59:33

because where i'm spending a lot of time

00:59:34

when you look back and like you ask

00:59:36

yourself like how did we decide

00:59:38

to make the batteries the way we make

00:59:40

them

00:59:41

um you know was it some like you know

00:59:44

broad survey of every single chemical

00:59:46

composition and all these different

00:59:48

structures and we realized that you know

00:59:50

a composition of nickel and manganese

00:59:52

and cobalt was the right thing to do

00:59:55

or lithium and iron and phosphate was

00:59:58

it turned out that it was mostly like a

00:59:59

handful of people decided and we all

01:00:01

just been iterating around the edges

01:00:02

ever since

01:00:04

so one of the solutions to a lot of

01:00:06

these problems is to actually go back to

01:00:07

first principles the problem is that as

01:00:10

these industries get built up and you

01:00:11

know this you have so much um

01:00:16

pp e like so much equipment so much

01:00:18

investment in physical capex that's

01:00:20

happened the idea of switching platforms

01:00:23

is almost impossible because it's not

01:00:24

economically viable

01:00:26

so we are in this situation today where

01:00:29

a bunch of solutions have been proposed

01:00:31

david to solve that problem right the

01:00:33

problem with carbon capture and other

01:00:35

other things and negative emission

01:00:36

technologies is that they're extremely

01:00:38

expensive they're very inefficient they

01:00:40

require an enormous amount of energy

01:00:42

themselves and it's not clear that they

01:00:43

work

01:00:45

so what's happening one is that there's

01:00:48

been some pretty novel innovations in

01:00:50

moving people past some of these basic

01:00:52

problems by looking at the periodic

01:00:53

table to try to find different ways of

01:00:55

solving

01:00:56

things like energy storage which has

01:00:58

huge implications to climate but the

01:01:00

second is that we are pushing the

01:01:02

boundaries of physics in different ways

01:01:04

as well and that's where there's going

01:01:05

to be the potential for an enormous

01:01:07

breakthrough

01:01:08

specifically around superconductors so

01:01:11

what is a superconductor it's something

01:01:13

that allows an enormous amount of energy

01:01:16

to basically trans through it

01:01:18

now we have this issue which is that you

01:01:20

can actually create superconductors in

01:01:22

highly controlled environments that are

01:01:23

extremely extremely cold but they have

01:01:26

incredible performance characteristics

01:01:27

that would revolutionize power and

01:01:29

energy transmission and storage

01:01:32

people have been innovating in bringing

01:01:34

that up to room temperature

01:01:37

in that breakthrough which i think you

01:01:38

will see in the next 20 to 30 years

01:01:42

it's just a complete sea change of how

01:01:43

we think about this whole problem so

01:01:45

i think the short term we're innovating

01:01:47

in the periodic table

01:01:49

in the long term we're figuring out how

01:01:50

to bend the laws of physics

01:01:53

and i think that those are those are

01:01:54

probably the two most practical

01:01:56

solutions to a lot of these things that

01:01:58

remove the constraints that we've

01:02:00

created and again the constraints have

01:02:02

been completely human defined which is

01:02:04

the sad thing they were not necessary

01:02:06

from the start we could have made very

01:02:07

different decisions had we known these

01:02:09

problems were going to be as big as they

01:02:10

were you know the way that we make

01:02:12

plastic didn't have to be this way

01:02:14

right the amount of petroleum that we

01:02:15

use it didn't have to be in this

01:02:17

specific way but this is where we are

01:02:19

and there are direct air capture

01:02:21

technologies dac which is basically an

01:02:24

energy issue you can literally suck the

01:02:26

carbon dioxide out of the air

01:02:29

and again another another issue of

01:02:31

material science because the the

01:02:33

substrates that you use tend to be

01:02:34

relatively inefficient and sort of

01:02:36

really activate them you're pumping a

01:02:37

tremendous amount of energy through

01:02:38

there that's the issue is can you give

01:02:40

the energy and i think when we talked

01:02:42

about the small reactors

01:02:44

uh the small modular nuclear reactors if

01:02:47

energy is free

01:02:49

or it's solar based you could you could

01:02:51

kind of get a virtuous cycle going here

01:02:53

that's essentially what superconductors

01:02:54

allows you to see is a world where you

01:02:55

basically have limitless

01:02:58

free energy it sounds like the thing

01:02:59

that we all agree on is that this

01:03:01

problem is ultimately going to be solved

01:03:02

by innovation and this is the problem i

01:03:04

have with so many of the political

01:03:06

proposals is

01:03:07

you know our ability to innovate is a

01:03:09

function of the size and scope of our

01:03:11

economy and the incentives and rewards

01:03:13

for innovation and the freedom for

01:03:15

entrepreneurs to do their thing and if

01:03:17

you crush that yeah you know with

01:03:19

government mandates you won't get the

01:03:21

innovation we need to get out of this

01:03:22

problem

01:03:23

we can easily innovate our way out of it

01:03:25

and it requires some individual to say i

01:03:28

want to dedicate my life to it

01:03:30

and then what is the motivation to do

01:03:32

that

01:03:33

and who are the capital allocators who

01:03:35

are going to give them the billion

01:03:36

dollars to create this

01:03:39

i spent a bunch of time so i'm the

01:03:40

capital allocator that'll give billions

01:03:42

in fact i did a survey of the

01:03:43

superconductor space as an example

01:03:46

and here's what i found of the of the

01:03:49

four folks that i found

01:03:51

uh who are all each individually doing

01:03:53

things in superconductors that i think

01:03:55

are incredible

01:03:56

they're all immigrants

01:03:58

every single one were not born in the

01:04:00

united states

01:04:02

you could you they are

01:04:04

so happy

01:04:07

to be here

01:04:09

they feel so lucky

01:04:10

and they don't understand why everybody

01:04:13

complains all the time

01:04:15

yeah complaining is i there's a

01:04:19

disease of constantly complaining about

01:04:21

stuff and if you count the number of

01:04:23

times you complain every day and it's

01:04:24

more than two or three times a day uh

01:04:27

you need to get your head examined

01:04:29

you're probably just talking yourself

01:04:30

into anxiety problems stop complaining

01:04:33

start building i mean these problems are

01:04:34

solvable there is an immigrant in

01:04:37

in the united states right now that will

01:04:39

figure out how to conduct electricity

01:04:41

without resistance it will transform the

01:04:43

world and we are so lucky that

01:04:46

that guy came here to to this country

01:04:47

and we have the chance to give the guy a

01:04:49

billion dollars one of my favorite

01:04:50

movies is uh whack the dog with chris

01:04:54

and robert de niro right yeah and dustin

01:04:56

hoffman plays this producer character

01:04:58

yeah and every time there's a setback

01:05:01

he's like ah this is nothing i remember

01:05:03

when we made this movie and three out of

01:05:05

the four lead actors died and we recast

01:05:07

the movie it's like this is nothing yeah

01:05:09

and you know and that's sort of his

01:05:11

catchphrase is he's got this can-do

01:05:13

attitude where no matter what setback

01:05:15

happens he just makes it he's like oh

01:05:16

this is nothing we got it and you know

01:05:18

and that's kind of the attitude you need

01:05:20

if you want to be an entrepreneur

01:05:22

is there's gonna be so many setbacks you

01:05:24

gotta be like ah this is nothing can you

01:05:26

figure out a way around it yeah this one

01:05:27

of the guys that are working on

01:05:28

superconductors showed me his data for

01:05:30

the last 10 years

01:05:32

and what's interesting david to your

01:05:33

point is he had a four-year period where

01:05:35

he took a huge step back where basically

01:05:37

like you know he had this superconductor

01:05:39

he's like it works at you know i'm just

01:05:41

gonna use simpler numbers here but like

01:05:44

you know minus 300 celsius he got it all

01:05:47

the way up to minus you know 100 and

01:05:49

then it went back to minus 200.

01:05:52

for four years

01:05:54

could you imagine the mental devastation

01:05:56

and i said how did you deal with it he

01:05:58

goes ah you know basically he's like ah

01:06:00

it's nothing

01:06:01

yeah and thank god for that guy it's

01:06:04

interesting i just listened to quentin

01:06:05

tarantino's on a podcasting tour because

01:06:08

he's got a new book he he wrote a novel

01:06:10

out of the once

01:06:12

upon a time in hollywood characters and

01:06:14

i just started listening to it it's

01:06:15

fantastic uh listen on audible

01:06:19

and

01:06:20

uh

01:06:20

[Music]

01:06:22

brian koppelman from the moment

01:06:24

interviewed quentin i listened to it

01:06:25

yesterday on my bike ride and he was

01:06:27

just talking about how he just never

01:06:29

gave up and he had written true romance

01:06:31

and then he wrote um what was the other

01:06:34

one he wrote at that time natural born

01:06:36

killers natural killers yeah and he was

01:06:38

just talking about how the first movie

01:06:40

nobody would do then he wrote the two

01:06:42

screenplays and nobody would do and then

01:06:44

he got to our dogs and

01:06:46

you know they tried to scrape together

01:06:48

eight hundred thousand dollars and

01:06:51

he kept asking like why didn't you quit

01:06:52

why didn't you quit he's like well you

01:06:53

know i just i figured it out like i

01:06:55

figured out i had a voice and then

01:06:57

nobody would buy my scripts because i

01:06:59

was trying to do something innovative

01:07:01

and they were reading the scripts and

01:07:03

they didn't understand what i was doing

01:07:04

in terms of innovating on how a movie

01:07:07

would be with you know how he does with

01:07:08

pulp fiction he changes the time and

01:07:09

tells the storytelling in a non-linear

01:07:12

fashion he's like nobody understood it

01:07:14

but every time i read it i realized i

01:07:16

had a voice it was my voice it was

01:07:17

getting better and better and then

01:07:19

people you know i sold those movies and

01:07:21

then he kept building them and it was

01:07:23

very inspiring to think about that take

01:07:25

of like

01:07:26

he just didn't give up and he just

01:07:28

totally looked at his work and he found

01:07:31

his he found his own value in his own

01:07:33

work

01:07:34

improving

01:07:36

even without the external

01:07:38

you know

01:07:38

it's a it's a fantastic story it's like

01:07:40

one of those classic you know hollywood

01:07:42

or entrepreneur stories he's working at

01:07:44

a video store for years

01:07:46

and you know he would start recording he

01:07:48

was uh making his own movie and he would

01:07:51

uh film on the weekends and then you

01:07:53

know he made a few hundred dollars every

01:07:54

week basically and then he would rent

01:07:56

the equipment on a friday because then

01:07:58

they would only charge him for one day

01:07:59

because it was the weekend so he could

01:08:01

basically record the entire weekend and

01:08:03

so he'd go off and record and

01:08:06

and then he'd have to go back to work

01:08:07

and he started making this movie you

01:08:09

know one weekend at a time for like two

01:08:11

or three years and then he finally put

01:08:13

he didn't even have the money to get the

01:08:14

film developed so finally after three

01:08:15

years he gets the film develop and he's

01:08:18

unfortunately it sucked it wasn't what

01:08:19

he was expecting but during that time uh

01:08:22

he wrote true romance which then got

01:08:24

bought he sold that screenplay that gave

01:08:26

him a little bit of money

01:08:28

then he wrote reservoir dogs and then he

01:08:30

met lawrence bender and you know bender

01:08:32

went out read the script it was like

01:08:33

holy that's amazing they raised the

01:08:36

you know million or so bucks to make the

01:08:37

movie and then that kind of launched

01:08:39

everything and uh yeah it's it's one of

01:08:41

these you know amazing rags to riches

01:08:44

stories um

01:08:45

you know they're kind of rare and or

01:08:47

they're more rare in hollywood they

01:08:48

occur all the time in the tech

01:08:51

such industry

01:08:52

interesting point he said

01:08:54

uh they're like you would never let you

01:08:55

make that movie now and you know in

01:08:57

another conversation i think i listened

01:08:59

to three podcasts with them uh joe rogan

01:09:01

brady cineless and then brian koppelmans

01:09:03

and all three of them are tremendous but

01:09:06

uh i think in the bretty cinel and in

01:09:08

the joe rogan one he's like oh they

01:09:09

would never let you make that movie he

01:09:10

was like

01:09:11

you can just make it i just made it i

01:09:13

did you not see the last two films and

01:09:14

how politically incorrect they were and

01:09:16

you know i don't care what bruce lee's

01:09:19

you know fans think of how i portray

01:09:20

bruce lee he was a he was a bad actor he

01:09:23

was a terrible you know human being to

01:09:26

these folks and he his basic thing was

01:09:28

everybody keeps waiting to ask for

01:09:30

permission and he's like i'm just going

01:09:31

to make my movies

01:09:33

and uh let the chips fall where they may

01:09:35

i'm not going to be censored i'm not

01:09:36

going to censor myself and i'll make my

01:09:38

10 movies and that's it game over

01:09:40

i'm going to tell it right a story i

01:09:42

want to tell this uh poker story i get

01:09:44

one last thought on tarantula yeah you

01:09:46

tell your story tarantino's success with

01:09:49

reservoir dogs i think it came out in

01:09:50

1991

01:09:52

that really inspired me to want to make

01:09:54

movies um because i saw that somebody

01:09:56

could make a movie outside the system

01:09:58

for so little money and that's why i

01:10:00

made thank for smoking um and we have

01:10:02

another we have another independent

01:10:04

movie coming out next year about several

01:10:06

dali which you know finally got made

01:10:07

after about 15 years so um

01:10:10

yeah i mean

01:10:12

he's inspired a lot of people and he

01:10:13

shows what can be done uh this is a rags

01:10:15

to riches story that involves j-count so

01:10:17

uh i get invited i get invited to the

01:10:20

harvard business school to give a speech

01:10:22

first and last time i was invited

01:10:23

because i was disinvited jason after

01:10:25

that what happened but well the back two

01:10:27

rows walked out in the first five

01:10:28

minutes wow

01:10:30

incredible it was incredible

01:10:33

like we i get invited to do this thing

01:10:35

obviously it's in boston it's in winter

01:10:36

time right jacob it was it was winter

01:10:38

and it was boston it's like not a great

01:10:40

trip so sax you know i was like okay

01:10:43

jacob what are we gonna do to spice this

01:10:44

trip up and we invite big al

01:10:46

oh okay

01:10:48

and uh

01:10:49

we get on the plane and big al says oh

01:10:51

you want to play a little poker i said

01:10:53

absolutely and i turned to jake allen i

01:10:55

said jason do you want to play he's like

01:10:58

i said you know you guys can play

01:11:00

against each other and i said jason why

01:11:02

don't you deal he's like i'm not

01:11:03

interested in dealing and i said

01:11:05

j kyle i'll give you ten percent of

01:11:07

whatever i win i was like shuffle up

01:11:12

he deals the game

01:11:14

for six hours from

01:11:17

l.a

01:11:18

chinese poker to boston

01:11:22

i smash big al i smash miguel smash uh i

01:11:26

smashed him

01:11:27

and then we go into the thing we have

01:11:29

like a nice dinner blah blah blah we go

01:11:31

out we have the thing at

01:11:33

the at harvard where i said something

01:11:35

like you know i think an mba is

01:11:37

basically worthless it's just not a good

01:11:39

use of your time i think you should be

01:11:41

out building things

01:11:42

the back two rows walked out they were

01:11:44

completely offended and uh i did the

01:11:46

speech it doesn't matter i get back on

01:11:48

the plane

01:11:49

and we're flying back

01:11:51

and uh at some point i realized i said

01:11:54

jason what's the tally

01:11:55

and jason says

01:11:57

i'm up 40 000.

01:11:59

and i said excuse me you're up for

01:12:02

and it turned out that i was

01:12:04

smashing him smashing smashing anyways

01:12:08

the long story short of it was that we

01:12:09

circled for a few times and then we

01:12:11

finally landed and jkl won fifty five

01:12:13

thousand dollars but that's

01:12:15

circling so you could win more okay

01:12:17

here's what you don't know through the

01:12:19

pack of cards at jason and said

01:12:22

i never want to see you ever again i

01:12:24

never want to have you play

01:12:25

poker sure guys i went to the pilots and

01:12:27

i told them i'll give you five grand if

01:12:29

you can make this flight last another

01:12:30

hour and they were like yeah we got a

01:12:32

circle they got

01:12:33

we just kept circling

01:12:37

i was like i gotta get another hour in

01:12:39

he lost five hundred and fifty thousand

01:12:41

dollars on a stupid trip he

01:12:42

never even wanted to come he just came

01:12:44

he didn't wanna go to the best michelin

01:12:46

star restaurant

01:12:48

in boston oh my god in boston it's so

01:12:50

stuffy by the way it's so stuffy

01:12:52

and so stuffy they take themselves so

01:12:54

seriously

01:12:55

and they're trying to you know bring you

01:12:58

know 18 courses to us and

01:13:00

you know big owls are big guys he's

01:13:03

called big al for a reason i mean he's a

01:13:05

linebacker

01:13:06

and they say the big he's like i'll take

01:13:08

this i want a steak what do you think

01:13:10

he's like oh there's a steak included in

01:13:11

the prefix you should do the tasting

01:13:13

manure it's like oh yeah tasting money

01:13:14

it let's go i'll put more truffles

01:13:16

on it like it's not truffle season sorry

01:13:17

he's like okay we'll make it truffle

01:13:18

seasoning anyway

01:13:20

he start bringing the food

01:13:22

and he he wants to eat a steak

01:13:24

and they bring him like you know what i

01:13:27

was funny sees in a movie where like

01:13:28

they pulled the tin and it's like a like

01:13:30

a small piece of meat that's like giant

01:13:34

giant

01:13:35

shaffer comes flying off

01:13:37

a piece of parsley and that's it the

01:13:40

steak was the size of a pack of

01:13:42

wrigley's gum i am not kidding they took

01:13:45

like a beautiful steak and they just

01:13:47

made a little rectangle out of it

01:13:50

he takes his fork

01:13:52

he puts it on and he holds it up to the

01:13:54

woman he goes

01:13:55

where's my steak and he puts the whole

01:13:57

thing

01:14:11

if you ask him about the strip he's like

01:14:12

i lost so much money yeah he's like i

01:14:15

didn't eat it was cold and but it was

01:14:17

cold it was the worst trip ever this is

01:14:19

a horrible trip ever and he

01:14:21

is like the woman's like well how can we

01:14:23

make you happy he's like bring me a

01:14:25

steak

01:14:26

well sir we gave you a steak point the

01:14:28

steak container how many steaks how many

01:14:30

steaks are you going to afford now that

01:14:31

uh robin hood just went public congrats

01:14:34

um

01:14:35

yeah you know it's right now it's my

01:14:36

third biggest win uh ubercom and then

01:14:39

this one

01:14:40

and you know time in market i i think

01:14:43

robin hood going out at 30 billion

01:14:46

there's a chance this could go 10 20 30

01:14:48

x from here i think it could be a

01:14:49

trillion dollar company someday

01:14:51

22 million members even through all the

01:14:53

craziness that we talked about on this

01:14:55

podcast uh you know they're learning

01:14:57

they're fixing things and 22 million

01:15:00

people using the product and they're

01:15:01

gonna launch so many other products as

01:15:03

part of it

01:15:04

and all these young people getting

01:15:05

financially literate i know it's a

01:15:07

double-edged sword but

01:15:08

i kind of feel like this generation

01:15:10

balance it's it's it's better balance is

01:15:12

important i mean can you imagine if we

01:15:14

were in our 20s trading derivatives and

01:15:16

options and just trading stocks all day

01:15:19

i wanted to do that but it was too hard

01:15:20

you had to get a broker it was 35

01:15:23

dollars a trade when i started trading

01:15:24

and you had to call charles schwab and

01:15:26

put it in order

01:15:28

all the things of all the things i could

01:15:30

have done online in my 20s and 30s

01:15:32

uh trading stocks what didn't end up

01:15:34

being high on the list but

01:15:36

you didn't play

01:15:39

right but that's what these kids are

01:15:40

doing like for them this is you know in

01:15:42

the same zone a lot of them as sports

01:15:44

betting

01:15:45

wagering

01:15:46

playing poker for money they're they're

01:15:48

learning i don't know how you feel like

01:15:50

investment strategy

01:15:52

well i mean if you make a lot of

01:15:54

mistakes early in your career when

01:15:55

you're making 100 bets or buying a tenth

01:15:57

of a stock that's true you know it's

01:15:59

small stakes and you're going to learn a

01:16:00

hell of a lot so i think the education

01:16:02

part is you can only learn by doing

01:16:05

right sex i mean you just really can't

01:16:06

learn in a

01:16:08

you know anything okay listen there's

01:16:09

been an amazing episode even without

01:16:10

freeberg uh we miss you freebird come

01:16:12

back next week uh let the conspiracy

01:16:14

theories

01:16:16

abound but freeburg just was busy he

01:16:18

couldn't make it and we all wanted to we

01:16:20

missed each other so we wanted to see

01:16:21

our besties we love you freeburg and we

01:16:23

love you freebird we love you for your

01:16:24

bird

01:16:26

back at your favorite and we'll see you

01:16:28

all next time on the all in podcast

01:16:29

bye-bye

01:16:34

rain man david

01:16:38

and it said we open source it to the

01:16:40

fans and they've just gone crazy

01:16:51

besties

01:16:54

[Music]

01:17:15

we need to get

01:17:17

back

01:17:20

[Music]

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Episode Highlights

Vaccine Discussions
The hosts discuss the implications of vaccine hesitancy and mandates in various sectors.
“We discussed a vibrant debate about under what circumstances does your decision to not get vaccinated impact everybody else.”
@ 03m 16s
July 30, 2021
Danny Meyer's Vaccine Policy
Restaurateur Danny Meyer announces a vaccine requirement for staff and customers.
“If I'm gonna spend two or three thousand dollars on wine, I don't want someone who's gonna get me sick there.”
@ 08m 01s
July 30, 2021
China's Crackdown on Tech Giants
China has ordered companies to dissolve exclusive music rights agreements, signaling a major shift in control.
“China just literally told them enough's enough.”
@ 19m 01s
July 30, 2021
The New Bargain in China
Xi Jinping is redefining the relationship between entrepreneurs and the government, prioritizing national interests.
“There's a new boss in town.”
@ 35m 06s
July 30, 2021
CRISPR Breakthrough
Patrick Doherty participates in a CRISPR trial that shows promising results for a rare disease.
“Had watched others get crippled and die difficult deaths from this disease.”
@ 41m 47s
July 30, 2021
New Battery Technology
Form Energy develops a long-duration battery using iron, potentially revolutionizing energy storage.
“If what they said they did is true, it's a really important breakthrough.”
@ 48m 22s
July 30, 2021
Population and Progress
Discussing the implications of declining birth rates on innovation and societal progress.
“A declining population rate has huge detrimental effects to the world.”
@ 50m 44s
July 30, 2021
The Power of Innovation
Innovation is key to solving environmental issues, not government mandates.
“We can easily innovate our way out of it.”
@ 01h 03m 23s
July 30, 2021
Immigrant Contributions
Immigrants are driving breakthroughs in technology, showcasing their invaluable contributions.
“Every single one were not born in the united states.”
@ 01h 03m 58s
July 30, 2021
Tarantino's Resilience
Quentin Tarantino's journey illustrates the importance of perseverance in the face of rejection.
“I just figured it out; I had a voice.”
@ 01h 06m 55s
July 30, 2021
A Costly Poker Night
A player loses $550,000 on a trip he didn't even want to take.
“He lost five hundred and fifty thousand dollars on a stupid trip.”
@ 01h 12m 41s
July 30, 2021
Learning Through Experience
Discussing how young investors learn by making mistakes in trading.
“You can only learn by doing.”
@ 01h 16m 05s
July 30, 2021

Episode Quotes

Key Moments

Vaccine Debate03:16
Market Collapse18:45
Investment Risks36:35
Population Concerns50:44
Stop Complaining1:04:33
Immigrant Success1:04:46
Tarantino's Journey1:06:55
Poker Drama1:12:22

Words per Minute Over Time

Vibes Breakdown

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January 22, 2022

01:37:14

E64: Antitrust standards & enforcement, tech repricing, lab leak obfuscation, E63 reactions & more

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01:27:34

E36: New FTC Chair, breaking up big tech, government silent spying, Jon Stewart, wildfires & more

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01:35:26

E85: SBF's crypto bailout, Zendesk sells for ~$10B, buyout targets, US diplomacy, AlphaFold & more

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01:41:58

E84: Markets update, crypto collapse, Russia/Ukraine endgame, state of the podcast

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01:23:33

E86: Macro outlook: jobs, housing, inflation + Dutch farmers protests & EU climate missteps

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October 02, 2021

01:29:00

E49: Coinbase CEO reflects on controversial blog, state of the markets, 1000 unicorns & more

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01:27:14

E123: Trump indictment, de-dollarization, should VCs back Chinese AI? RIP Bob Lee

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01:39:26

Mag 7 sell-off, Wiz rejects Google, UBI, Kamala in, China's nuclear buildout, Sacks responds to PG

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01:52:45

IPOs and SPACs are Back, Mag 7 Showdown, Zuck on Tilt, Apple's Fumble, GENIUS Act passes Senate

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December 13, 2024

01:28:19

Trump's Cabinet, Google's Quantum Chip, Apple's Flop, TikTok, State of VC

Podcast thumbnail

01:24:58

E87: Emerging markets, Sri Lanka, 9.1% CPI, market sentiment, NASA's Webb telescope & more

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01:21:36

Presidential Debate Reaction, Biden Hot Swap?, Tech unemployment, OpenAI considers for-profit & more