00:00:00
okay besties are back besties are back going
around the horn rain man david sacks calling
00:00:05
in from an undisclosed location suffering through
two code 13s in one lifetime and david friedberg
00:00:13
is here the queen of quinoa spacking everything
in sight living the life calling in from
00:00:21
a nondescript ritz-carlton room it appears to
be and of course the dictator himself chamoth
00:00:29
poly hopitia tackling like a fool welcome
back everybody this is what you pay for with
00:00:36
your subscription to the all-in podcast
brought to you by slack uh if you didn't
00:00:42
own slack shares raise your hand it's been an
incredible uh week um on a number of levels
00:00:51
we're going to talk this week about uh salesforce
buying slack trump and section 230 uh the coinbase
00:00:59
the ongoing coinbase saga uh freeberg found some
interesting science that could save humanity
00:01:07
and of course the trust fund socialists in the
new york times who hate their parents for giving
00:01:13
the money uh let's start off let's start with
off the most important thing what is that shirt
00:01:19
undershirt combo you're wearing i mean look
it's just it's you have buttons on buttons
00:01:25
break the layering rule you can't you can't
fool us if you're going to layer properly
00:01:30
you can have only one layer of buttons but to
have two layers of buttons that's not how it
00:01:35
works jkl went in and got it oh no layers are
for players not me no he's like an almond milk
00:01:41
cappuccino and he's like i like how that barista
dress is and i'm gonna wear that from now on
00:01:46
wait a second can i ask a technical question can
can i have buttons i can't have buttons on buttons
00:01:51
but can i have buttons and then a zipper up like
with the no you can't do that either um listen
00:01:57
had a weird aversion to buttons ever
since he spent the time in italy
00:02:02
did you was he button-shamed in italy i wasn't
i was a little button-chained but i'm looking
00:02:06
at sax's buttons on his collars which just makes
no sense saks is wearing the same brooks brothers
00:02:12
shirt that he graduated high school in at brooks
he owns 17 of brooks brothers at this point from
00:02:18
the number of blazers he's bought there all
right let's get off to it we've insulted each
00:02:23
other i don't think freeberg's taking the brunt
of anything yet anybody have any uh chop busting
00:02:28
they want to do with free burgers that's just sort
of built in no freeburg took the tablecloth that
00:02:33
i used for a picnic in the summertime and made
it into a shirt you know you have to be frugal
00:02:41
at this time and also free bird cares about the
environment he's not going to just land a picnic
00:02:48
it was a hemp based tablecloth and so i knew
it was going to get taken and stolen i love how
00:02:52
i choose to spend my time with you guys it just
pays off here we go all right can we kick this off
00:02:59
all right let's kick it off with our advertisement
for nobody because tomorrow will not let me make
00:03:05
any money off of this podcast uh and thanks again
for the suggestion that we launched a syndicate
00:03:11
with no carry now a bunch of [ __ ] on twitter are
like hey when is the all-in syndicate starting i'm
00:03:16
like never i need to make a living i need to get
my beak wet and this week i'm sorry but i think
00:03:22
a an all-in syndicate would be super super
disruptive and cool i'm totally fine with
00:03:28
running it as long as we can have the 20 carry
and i'll manage the whole thing we got four
00:03:32
people on the call four or five we each get five
percent carry but we gotta make a living here
00:03:38
not everybody's made a chima not everybody's
got spacks a through z or had all of their slack
00:03:44
shares bought i think we'll kick it off with that
chamath we saw this week in fact just two days ago
00:03:51
salesforce in a record transaction for a sas
company i think it's the highest ever paid for
00:03:56
a sas company 27 billion dollars 27.7 billion
dollars for slack which has only been public
00:04:03
for just over a year i think you were i think did
the series be in slack right after they did their
00:04:08
pivot at social capital i don't know if that was
in one or two but phil hellmuth is serious about
00:04:14
it it was a series b in tiny spec but it was
the series a in slack and um there's a really
00:04:20
important story which is that um myself and raco
um who's my partner at social capital we've worked
00:04:28
together now for my gosh i think it's probably 15
years um wrote a really great memo justifying the
00:04:37
investment in slack and it had to do with one
thing and one thing only we ignored the revenue
00:04:42
and ar i mean it was fine and nice and good but
the single biggest thing that we were attracted
00:04:49
to was something that we looked at and which was
called inter-company edges and even back in 2015
00:04:58
or 16 when we did this original investment there
was this dynamic where people across companies
00:05:04
were communicating via slack channels and i was
completely stunned by this idea because that was
00:05:10
effectively a substitution for email because the
only way you communicate across companies today
00:05:16
is by email you know david is at craftventures.com
and he emails me at socialcapital.com and i email
00:05:22
jason inside.com that's how we communicate
across across businesses except now all of
00:05:27
a sudden you could be messaging and having a much
more real-time interface that to me was incredibly
00:05:33
disruptive and it justified the entirety of
the real forward-looking investment thesis
00:05:38
now fast forward five years later and these guys
have more usage on a daily basis than facebook
00:05:45
which is stunning because you know these guys
have 10 million daus and facebook has 2 billion
00:05:50
so it just goes to show you the
quantity of traffic and and the
00:05:53
the volume of information and theoretically you
know productivity that's happening on slack and so
00:05:58
i'm not sure what salesforce bought i actually
think that you know you can make a case why it's a
00:06:06
shame that it got bought a very strong one in fact
but what they did get whether they know it or not
00:06:13
is an inter-company edge effect which is the
most disruptive thing to email and in the hands
00:06:18
of salesforce and that sales team i think it
has the ability to really be a very disruptive
00:06:24
um force for good in enterprise software all right
so sax this is a natural um passing of the ball to
00:06:32
you and the baton because you did yammer sold it
to microsoft for a billion dollars and obviously
00:06:38
slack was the mobile successor to the desktop
version of yammer and you got a lot of your
00:06:45
fingerprints all over this but the
fact is you did a tweet storm about it
00:06:49
slack is an unbelievable success stewart
is a great uh founder you know he sold his
00:06:54
first company flickr for 30 million this one
for almost 30 billion so that's pretty nice
00:06:58
but there was one failure and you
pointed out in your tweet storm
00:07:03
explain what the one failure if you could pick out
of the hundreds of things thousands of things they
00:07:07
did right there was one thing they did wrong that
uh to jamaat's point would have resulted in them
00:07:13
remaining an independent company that could
have become worth more than 27 billion
00:07:18
yeah it was it was a slowness to embrace the idea
of enterprise sales and and by the way let's put
00:07:26
this in context i mean stuart and the slack team
did a phenomenal job 30 billion dollar exit um
00:07:33
seven years of just about flawless execution so i
don't want to and also you know i was an investor
00:07:39
in the company so thank you to sir for letting
me invest i'm definitely don't want to sound
00:07:43
like an ingrate or a critic i mean they just they
did a phenomenal job but if you were to nitpick
00:07:48
just one one little thing that i think they
could have uh done faster it would have been
00:07:56
embracing enterprise sales the big learning
from yammer uh you know we learned this at
00:08:02
yammer from 2008 to 2012 is that enterprises don't
self-serve right they don't self-close bottom up
00:08:09
sas products are phenomenal for generating
top of funnel basically generating leads but
00:08:14
you have to have sales people close the deals and
enterprises don't just kind of pull out a credit
00:08:20
card and self-serve you they need a sales person
and i think there was um something in the df
00:08:26
dna of snap slack that actually i see really very
commonly uh in the dna of of sort of product e sas
00:08:35
companies product e sas founders which is they
kind of have a reflexive dislike or distaste
00:08:42
for sales and they resist the idea of sales
and they want to believe that they can just
00:08:47
be entirely product driven and and what
i see and across the board as they all
00:08:54
come to the same realization that that we had
a yammer which is we have to have a sales team
00:08:58
and i do remember you know back in 2014 the
whole yammer sales team was basically rolling off
00:09:04
um because of you know microsoft acquired the
company in 2012 and there's an integration period
00:09:09
and by 2013 2014 they were all looking for
jobs and i remember you know my my former
00:09:16
cro i think was interviewing at slack and it would
have been such a perfect thing for them because
00:09:22
he had just learned all the lessons of how you
layer on kind of an enterprise sale on top of a
00:09:27
of a bottom-up product and they just weren't ready
to to make that higher yet and so look if you're
00:09:34
going to nitpick look 30 billion outcome no one's
criticizing but if you're to nitpick you know um
00:09:40
it's it's an a plus regardless but you know this
would be the one thing you could you could say
00:09:46
well congratulations all around to everybody
involved especially phil hellmuth who was an
00:09:51
lp in one of chamot's fun so if you need
insights on slack or any of the inside
00:09:57
information you can just follow phil hellmuth
on twitter at being the greatest or i am the
00:10:02
greatest or i'll always be the greatest one
of those twitter handles is but but jason
00:10:06
you basically came to the same conclusion in
your emergency pod right i mean i did i hadn't
00:10:11
seen your i think you tweeted him after the
emergency pod but uh yeah it just seemed to me
00:10:17
this company unlike zoom uh should have been able
to grow quicker and if you look at their numbers
00:10:24
they had 87 companies that had were spending over
a million dollars you put a rabid sales team on
00:10:30
that product and they go in like benioff does with
his sales team i mean he was just hyper aggressive
00:10:38
at just putting huge numbers out there and saying
you have to pay us this much money so much so that
00:10:43
i don't know if you remember elon getting into a
public spat with him where he's like salesforce is
00:10:47
horrible software get it out of the organization
he basically banned it because they came to him
00:10:51
with the bottom up people using of salesforce
and said hey you owe us this amount of money and
00:10:55
elon was like fu banned forever from inside of our
organization we'll build our own software we don't
00:11:01
need it and they didn't have somebody and stewart
didn't have that dna i think to say aggressively
00:11:07
we need to charge what this product is worth and
you saw that in i think one of their strengths
00:11:12
and weaknesses which was they only build you for
people who were actively using the product now
00:11:17
that's a beautiful awesome feature it makes you
not scared to use it but on the enterprise level
00:11:22
i mean that seemed to be like maybe one of
those non-cutthroat things that maybe were
00:11:27
holding them back david do you have any insights
on this or should we go on to alpha photo it's
00:11:31
um it's a it's really important to remember
the the mechanics and the game theory around
00:11:37
m a especially you know big game hunting when
you're doing 30 billion dollar acquisitions
00:11:43
um it's also kind of true at
billion dollar levels but less so
00:11:47
um but the bigger the acquisition gets you have to
remember that there's an asymmetry of information
00:11:52
between buyers and sellers and the question is who
does the asymmetry favor right because you could
00:11:57
look at this acquisition and say wow salesforce
is crazy for spending 30 billion dollars
00:12:02
and somebody else may say wow slack was really
stupid for selling it for 30 billion dollars right
00:12:08
the reality is that i think that there was
asymmetries on both sides i think that what
00:12:13
slack probably saw and i don't know because i've
been off the board now for more than a year um but
00:12:18
i think what they saw was as david said just um
you know a level of sophistication and scale and
00:12:26
ability to cross-sell an upsell that was needed
for enterprise scale either you overcome it with
00:12:31
precision and speed or you overcome it by going
the same pace as somebody like microsoft but with
00:12:37
an equivalent product portfolio so that's that's
sort of one realization that that that slack had
00:12:45
but in in the case of you know um salesforce what
they probably had was a realization that they
00:12:51
couldn't go wall-to-wall inside of a customer
because they didn't really have a product
00:12:57
that was useful or usable to every
single individual inside of an enterprise
00:13:01
and so both of those two things create asymmetries
there's a level of fear inside of slack and
00:13:06
there's a level of fear inside of salesforce both
of them are about the fear of disruption and then
00:13:11
the question is who gets the better of the other
person in the middle of the acquisition right
00:13:16
so the deal could have probably gotten done at
you know 22 billion it probably could have also
00:13:20
gotten done at 45 billion um and that's again to
a combination of um how well you play poker in
00:13:28
that moment right who blinks first and the quality
of the bankers this is like two people having top
00:13:33
pair on a very textured board it's like pizza and
they're just raising versus each other yeah that's
00:13:38
who i play them because like it's similar also to
like how microsoft bought linkedin right because
00:13:42
if you think about what happened in linkedin if
you remember when that happened it was almost to
00:13:46
a t very much like slack linkedin had a one bad
quarter they got decapitated by i you know and i
00:13:53
owned it at the time in the in our public fund it
got decapitated by like 50 60 70 i mean something
00:13:59
insane for missing numbers by like a few pennies
okay and all of a sudden it took a lot of the wind
00:14:06
out of their sales internally it didn't change the
user momentum at all because you know the users
00:14:10
that were signing up for linkedin didn't care what
the stock price was yesterday today and tomorrow
00:14:15
but it all of a sudden created a fear and i think
microsoft was able to exploit that fear and within
00:14:20
a year this company was bought for 25 billion
dollars not dissimilar you know slack had uh you
00:14:25
know a hiccup and they got re-rated the stock
bounced back um but i think that if salesforce
00:14:33
was smart they probably created you know sort of
like a white knight kind of bid that said listen
00:14:39
you need enterprise scale and the ability to
cross-sell and upsell i can give it to you
00:14:43
and slack probably said listen you need to go
wall to wall so i understand why you need me
00:14:47
and you know the price is what the price is good
free burger if you look at the pricing right
00:14:52
so slack normally the way these big ma you know
public company m a deals get done is the board has
00:14:59
to approve the price and they have to say this was
the right deal for us relative to other options
00:15:04
and one of the ways you assess that is you look at
where the share price has been historically and if
00:15:09
you're getting a premium to where the share price
has been historically let's say 30 40 percent
00:15:13
higher than it's ever been then the board says
great that's a good deal we should take it because
00:15:17
we've got a long way to grow into that value in
this case the deal was done not at a very high
00:15:22
premium to where slack traded just in the summer
uh is that right chamots it looked like it peaked
00:15:28
it's basically if you look at the 10 premium
right 10 premium yeah 10 premium yeah we we
00:15:34
opened the direct listing at 40 or 41 and then
this was at 45. right and so there clearly was a
00:15:42
a sense of weakness from the board which is um
i think why the salesforce stock traded down
00:15:46
afterwards because if they were willing to sell
at that small of a premium the forecast internally
00:15:52
is probably feeling not that strong and then
people translate that into hey salesforce bought
00:15:56
something that's not that strong um you know
there's there's something a little bit amiss
00:16:00
but but obviously to your point they're missing a
lot of the cross-selling and the synergy that that
00:16:04
that i think it's a huge slam dunk acquisition
and i go back to the this uh idea of intercompany
00:16:11
network effects um i think they
exist and i think they're real
00:16:15
and i think that the slot the the slack um
product team's ability to innovate around that
00:16:23
was not as fast as it could have been but it
was still very unique and i think it was um it
00:16:29
was a true moat and you know the the tragedy is
we won't see what the terminal value is if they
00:16:36
were um left alone to execute and in this weird
way like i've always struggled with why microsoft
00:16:43
was so overly obsessed with slack because
if you looked at the team's product it was
00:16:47
much more directly competitive with zoom and
to this day still remains much more directly
00:16:51
competitive with zoom than slack but you know
there we have it and if you look at the revenue
00:16:57
um slack was doing 800 million run rates and
we rounded up to a billion and yet salesforce
00:17:02
at 20 billion uh so five percent revenue to
revenue and then they got 10 of the company so
00:17:12
in that way if you look at on a percentage
basis which is you know how you might look at
00:17:15
the facebook instagram and and whatsapp is what
percentage of the existing entity did they get
00:17:21
right the science growing size scoring about 60 a
year and salesforce is growing about 22 something
00:17:27
like that the other thing is the president of
salesforce's uh brett taylor who uh was our
00:17:32
cto at facebook who i worked with and so i think
brett also understands network effects really well
00:17:38
um and you know by the way in in this
interesting twist of fate benioff was the
00:17:42
under bidder i think for linkedin and so um you
know we've uh we've seen mark around the hoop
00:17:48
on these you know social network network effect
business tool um acquisitions before and finally
00:17:54
also twitter he was running he was hanging around
the basket with twitter and then they also brought
00:17:58
his name up for tick-tock which made no sense
so i think benioff is just looking at this like
00:18:04
if if google and microsoft and apple are too
scared to buy things because of antitrust
00:18:09
well i'm under the radar of the antitrust trillion
dollars so i'm i'm the only one right he's uh he's
00:18:16
under the radar because he doesn't have a play in
this sort of communication or collaboration space
00:18:21
and so therefore there are no anti-trust issues um
if microsoft were to do it it would definitely be
00:18:26
scrutinized because you could argue that they're
adding to their existing dominant market share
00:18:31
and and collaboration um but benioff's dream has
always been at least since he uh you know launched
00:18:38
chatter to compete with with us when we were doing
yammer this is back in 2010 2011. is he his dream
00:18:45
has always been to have a product that could get
him onto every seat in the enterprise you know his
00:18:50
current product set has is departmental i mean
you've got kind of the crm product for sales and
00:18:56
they've got the support cloud for customer support
and they've got the marketing cloud for marketing
00:19:00
and so he's gone department by department but
he's never really had a sort of pan like or cross
00:19:06
company yeah something that the entire company
would use like a specific login system right
00:19:11
and slack is that central login system but when
you when he came up against you it was very you
00:19:17
know benioff you're friendly with benioff benioff
came at you so hard he threw three or four hundred
00:19:26
engineers at chatter he took out full-page wall
street journal ads he tried to poach her people he
00:19:32
tried to make the product free he made it personal
against you after you would not sell to him true
00:19:39
or false david sacks i don't i don't think he made
it personal but uh it was definitely do you feel
00:19:44
personal um did he tell you now no no no no no it
he did that's i understood what he was trying to
00:19:52
do that's your way of saying no i mean if we had
sold to salesforce like we we ended up so what i
00:19:56
would say is yeah we got in like a very it was
a very competitive situation he didn't beat us
00:20:02
um you know i was that he fell does that product
even exist yeah um it's sort of like a feed inside
00:20:09
of the the crm product it didn't really succeed
as a standalone collaboration product and so
00:20:15
we won that battle but it definitely i would
say it scared us enough to sell to microsoft
00:20:21
um because you know the what did we we were
about to we were about to enter a new stage
00:20:25
of competition so here's what happened is he
launched his product to kind of be a clone of
00:20:30
yammer inside of salesforce but he was initially
charging fifteen dollars per seat we were charging
00:20:35
like five and so they massively overpriced it and
and the event and then they they were on this like
00:20:42
slippery slope or they kept lowering the price
to compete better with us and then finally they
00:20:46
realized that they should just give the thing
away for free as a strategic move um and that
00:20:51
was when we decided to sell to microsoft is we
didn't know we knew we had a better product than
00:20:55
chatter but we didn't know how it would go if we
were up against a free chat tell us honestly how
00:21:00
much did he offer what was the meeting like where
he made you the offer we yeah so yeah so here's
00:21:10
i'll tell you the back story i mean this hasn't
been public publicly revealed but um here we go
00:21:20
in service of the all-in podcast go
ahead go ahead david give us some ratings
00:21:28
and services trying to get us from number
three to number one on the charts um
00:21:32
no you know it's funny we launched uh yammer at
the techcrunch 40 conference that jason as you
00:21:37
know you were the co-founder of and benioff was
like a judge he was a panelist and he was raving
00:21:44
about it and you could just you know from from
the moment we launched he was raving about it
00:21:49
you could see the light bulb go off with him and
um he realized that like social was going to be
00:21:55
it was you know at the time obviously social was
big with consumer social networks but he saw the
00:21:59
potential of social or collaboration inside the
enterprise and so yeah i mean like i think a year
00:22:05
later or something they were interested in buying
the company for around 250 million dollars the big
00:22:10
issue for them though was that benioff had a bunch
of like engineers who wanted to build it in-house
00:22:15
and so they they they actually i don't know what
would happen if um if they you know didn't want to
00:22:24
build it themselves but but basically they vetoed
doing a deal and so they ended up building chatter
00:22:30
and they threw the 300 engineers at it and they
basically spun their wheels for a few years
00:22:36
and um anyway it turned out to be much better
for us because we end up selling the company for
00:22:40
five times as much to microsoft um you know if we
had sold to salesforce in like 2010 it would have
00:22:46
been a much smaller deal um but yeah that i mean
he was very interested from the from the get-go
00:22:53
all right folks so you have a breaking
news in the background on what actually
00:22:57
happened congratulations to stewart and the team i
want to ask a question did you guys um keep all of
00:23:04
the shares you you originally invested in um to
the exit here just to set the context for folks
00:23:10
you know you invest in a company it's a
small startup it's actually over 30 billion
00:23:18
for every share that i owned half of it were
half no uh yeah for of of of a hundred shares
00:23:28
that i owned per every 100 that i owned um 10
of them i sold at 38 right at the direct listing
00:23:36
um i want to say 40 of them i sold uh in the
mid-20s and uh the rest of it just got taken
00:23:46
out at this price so your dollar cost average to
the you know whatever high 30s maybe 40 or so yeah
00:23:52
i don't know my exact i mean i i i sold some and
i still own some so um you know i definitely got
00:23:59
my my beak wet from this acquisition but but uh
no but look i i think i probably sold you know
00:24:08
more than half of them you know um and that was a
mistake and you know one of my biggest learnings
00:24:13
as an investors has been to let your winners ride
you know my biggest mistake as an investor has not
00:24:18
been the losers it's all it's been selling the
winners prematurely yeah uber as well david uh
00:24:25
and i sold some uber before but i kept a lot of
my uber maybe most of it or half of it i think
00:24:30
anyway uber facebook i mean facebook you know
when they ipo'd it was worth 50 billion we all
00:24:35
thought that was like unbelievable i mean because
it was over a 50x return but um what's the lesson
00:24:42
just never sell anything if you can help it i uh
i served on my facebook in 2014 and bought amazon
00:24:49
and tesla i think that you have to be able to sell
for two reasons liquidity and moral obligation
00:24:57
yeah i mean that's an exaggeration i mean you
can never it's it's people need to be able to
00:25:02
sell but to the extent you can hold on uh just
don't sell everything you know always you know
00:25:09
keep um yeah keep saying think about the people
who were at apple in the 80s or microsoft in the
00:25:14
80s or amazon in the 90s a lot of those people
got frustrated holding the shares for so long
00:25:19
and i think keeping at least
20 of your shares forever
00:25:23
you know could be amazing there was somebody
told me had never sold a single share of
00:25:27
i don't know if that's a true story or not i
told you that you can't be okay okay anyway
00:25:37
more breaking news
00:25:52
what we should do is we should do a um we
should put beeps in there nick i was told
00:25:59
had never sold a share of and then we just let
everybody react to it this way nobody knows
00:26:06
what we're talking about i i do know that has
not sold a single share and it has only sold
00:26:12
shares of the fund capital calls
which is an incredible statement to
00:26:16
fortitude and vision incredible lord incredible
it's by the way by the way it's not always worked
00:26:21
out because he did the same with those didn't go
as well yeah i mean look you you have to diversify
00:26:28
when when you've got all your eggs in one basket
in one company obviously you have to sell some
00:26:32
shares but um you know one of the things i've just
learned over the last 20 years is probably people
00:26:37
ask me what's your biggest regret or learning
or whatever it's just selling too early is like
00:26:40
one of the biggest mistakes you can make look at
paypal paypal is now a 250 billion dollar company
00:26:46
we sold it in 2002 for 1.5 billion we thought that
was a great deal at the time and we sold it for
00:26:52
less than one percent of what it's worth today
and the product's basically the same you know
00:26:58
is the lesson never sell if it's a winner
ride it you compare okay hold on hold on
00:27:03
i'm gonna put a final nail disc off and then
we're gonna go to alpha fold there's a great
00:27:06
quote by warren buffett which is um if you know
what you're doing the best thing you can do
00:27:12
is be as concentrated as possible nobody
ever got rich in their seventh best idea
00:27:18
and i think that that basically sums it up but you
have to be in a position to have the ability to
00:27:23
have that kind of portfolio allocation and i think
that's hard free birds explain alpha fold please
00:27:30
uh okay let's explain give me two minutes on
i'll explain proteins and then the importance
00:27:35
of proteins and then alpha folds so um the
numbers to remember are 4 3 and 20. there
00:27:42
are four nucleic acids that make up your dna
we all learned this in high school biology
00:27:47
sets of three a c t and g combinations
define an amino acid there are 20 amino acids
00:27:55
um and a protein is a string of amino acids
so in your body and every cell there are these
00:28:01
organelles they make proteins by reading the
dna taking out a copy of it and turning it into
00:28:07
amino acid chains and that's what we kind of call
proteins but what's interesting is when you make
00:28:13
a chain of amino acids so there's 20 of them
that you could put in each point in the chain
00:28:18
it doesn't come out as a long chain what happens
is those amino acids the whole thing collapses
00:28:23
and it turns into a very specific shape and the
shape of that protein is what defines its function
00:28:29
so pretty much every biological function across
all life is uh is undertaken by proteins doing
00:28:38
something some proteins like hemoglobin in our
red blood cells will has a very specific little
00:28:43
pocket where oxygen molecules stick into the
pocket and then it moves the oxygen from your
00:28:47
lungs to your cells it's a pretty amazing protein
to exist uh and it specifically is shaped to do
00:28:53
that exact function there are other proteins
that can for example rip apart other molecules
00:28:58
break a molecular bond there are other
proteins for example that can take nitrogen
00:29:04
out of the atmosphere and put it into plants
cells that the plants can then use to grow
00:29:09
there's an incredible you know a set of potential
on the nanoscale of what you can do with proteins
00:29:15
and we see that in life and we're just shocked
and odd and amazed by it every day but in order to
00:29:20
figure out how to create proteins that do specific
things you have to know how do those amino acids
00:29:25
turn into the shape that the protein ultimately
takes and that's what's called protein folding
00:29:30
um and so the hard thing is um and you know why
is this important it's important because we can
00:29:36
easily read dna and therefore we can figure out
what amino acid sequence is being made to define
00:29:43
that protein but what we don't know really well
is what is the shape of that protein and therefore
00:29:47
how does it undertake the function that we see
it taking in biology and if you think about the
00:29:52
reverse of this the reverse of this if you have a
function you want to undertake in biology you can
00:29:56
design a protein to do that function for you for
example bind to a specific point on a cancer cell
00:30:02
um or you know take carbon out of the atmosphere
or pretty much anything else your your mind can
00:30:07
kind of imagine on the nanoscale proteins can be
designed to do the challenge is how do you write
00:30:14
the code which is the dna to make the protein that
does that thing well we don't know how the code
00:30:20
turns into the shape and that's what folding
the folding problem is so the folding problem
00:30:25
there's a data set and the data set is what's
the three-dimensional shape of a protein
00:30:29
and then what's the dna code that defines the
amino acid sequence that makes that protein
00:30:34
and how do you figure out how to predict the
shape of the protein from the amino acid sequence
00:30:39
it has been an impossibility and um again
if you think about this chain of amino
00:30:44
acids they each have little um you know uh
electrical spaces and and the way that they
00:30:50
bind to each other it's very complicated
you can't just deterministically define it
00:30:55
you know we don't have that level of understanding
on a quantum scale so what alpha fold has done
00:31:01
is they have now been able to predict from a
sequence of amino acids what the protein shape
00:31:06
will ultimately become by learning from a database
of hundreds of thousands of structural protein
00:31:15
shapes that have been defined through really
really really um difficult uh you know scanning
00:31:20
microscopes and other techniques to really
try and scan a protein on a microscopic scale
00:31:25
and then looking at the the dna sequence and
figuring out okay what's the relationship
00:31:30
and the accuracy of their predictive
model now is within the range of error
00:31:36
of the microscopes that are being used to
actually scan and measure those proteins
00:31:41
so that's incredible because now theoretically
you could come up with a design for a protein
00:31:46
and you could actually build that protein by
writing the amino acid sequence and that protein
00:31:50
can do any number of things you want to do and
this has been a difficult problem that's been
00:31:54
intractable by humanity and we've been challenged
by it for decades um for this machine learning
00:32:00
breakthrough to kind of be realized in literally
less than three years i mean the these guys were
00:32:05
at a score of 40 last year and this year they're
at like nearly 90. which is incredible and so now
00:32:12
um you know we can now predict what the shape will
be from the from the dna sequence and and this
00:32:17
is going to unlock this ability everyone's now
going to take their model if they license it or
00:32:21
whatever they do with it or people are going to go
learn using the same techniques that deepmind used
00:32:25
um but it just means that it's possible and
then scientists will go away and they'll say
00:32:30
you know what i want to do this particular thing
on a microscopic scale let me design in in three
00:32:35
dimensional space of protein to do that thing okay
now let me go figure out how to make that protein
00:32:39
by writing the dna code which is really easy if
you can use this algorithm to solve that for you
00:32:44
and it is literally dollars and pennies to
make proteins we can write dna on a computer
00:32:50
we can get printed dna sent to us in 48 hours
in a fedex envelope for a dna printing facility
00:32:54
we can put it in a microbe and we can get that
microbe to make the protein for us in a day
00:32:59
the lab cost any high school biology class can
do this now so by being able to actually figure
00:33:03
out what dna to write based on the objective
function of what we want the protein to do
00:33:08
it's going to unlock this universe of things we
can do in medicine in environmental science we
00:33:14
can do things like break apart p-e-t plastics
we can do things like fixing nitrogen from the
00:33:20
atmosphere and getting rid of fertilizer plants
we can create all sorts of new um you know food
00:33:24
solutions health solutions environmental solutions
any chance you can make a pizza that doesn't have
00:33:30
carbohydrates because that's what i'm thinking
about here is is there a way that you can make
00:33:34
a healthy pasta or pizza or something like that
but in all seriousness what do you think the
00:33:39
early wins will be out of this technology and is
this a theoretical win that will benefit from in
00:33:45
20 years or is this a serious breakthrough that
we're going to benefit from in the near term
00:33:51
like no i think one or five years both are true
this is an incredibly important advancement in
00:33:56
machine learning um but the reality is that you
know google will still have to spend a deep mind
00:34:01
will have to spend a lot of time refining it and
then they have some really big ethical challenges
00:34:05
ahead of it how do you expose this technology to
whom and under what conditions and it's the same
00:34:11
situation that openai has with gpt3 although
a lot of people i think you know the scale of
00:34:16
the computer science challenge maybe was a bigger
win in gpt3 because it was a much more open space
00:34:22
and i think this is a much more specific sort
of almost expert system in a way um but the the
00:34:28
downstream commercial implications of this is just
enormous um and so just think about this like this
00:34:35
is where like you gotta you gotta love companies
like google the fact that they exist because
00:34:39
from you know page rank in 1999 to cpc ads in 2003
and four um we have alpha fold in 2020. and that
00:34:48
to me is just that's just this is an argument
against breaking up tech because only a tech
00:34:53
company with this amount of resource knowledge can
then go spend a billion dollars on deepmind i mean
00:35:00
alphabet's burning four to five billion dollars
a year on their quote-unquote other bets line
00:35:05
and people give them a lot of [ __ ] for it but
i mean you hit any one of these things and it's
00:35:09
a hundred billion dollar payday i mean look at
youtube youtube's easily a hundred billion dollar
00:35:12
payday on a billion dollar bet billion six oh
no that's it that's a 250 to 500 billion dollars
00:35:18
applied semantics a lot of people missed
this but applied semantics was 100 million
00:35:21
dollar bet and that's the entirety of
adsense initially android android um
00:35:27
is this is this the first commercial application
of deep mind because until now you know they've
00:35:33
had alpha zero it's been so there was a
period of time a lot of people i don't know if
00:35:38
uh let me just think about this for a second
because alpha zero alpha was really good i want
00:35:44
to be careful about this but i do think people
could not disclose no but i i do think i do think
00:35:49
it was disclosed that they've used deep mind uh
to improve ads quality and improve um uh youtube
00:35:56
viewing and as a result of that you get the number
of hours per day of the average user on youtube to
00:36:00
double or triple ad revenue goes by three x and i
think in one quarter google was able to generate
00:36:06
something like an incremental 15 billion
annualized revenue from deep mines and you know
00:36:10
what that deep mind actually did on youtube it
sent everybody to the alt-right info wars and ben
00:36:16
shapiro congratulations be careful when you send
people's minds with artificial intelligence maybe
00:36:21
you just argued to break them up yeah but i i
understand stacks that it's being used broadly
00:36:27
across the products at google in in in in now now
in a much more careful way is my understanding
00:36:33
i'm look i'm a i'm i'm a big ally of alphabet
i'm a big fan and i love you know they were
00:36:38
and i used to work there and i'm very close to
people there so i know who used to be on the board
00:36:42
and was the major backer of that company deepmind
founder's fund founder's fund elon musk too and he
00:36:48
begged them to not sell to google because i
mean 400 million 400 million exit was a steel
00:36:54
40 or 50 scientists i think yeah absolute steel
no elon i mean elon has publicly said that he
00:36:59
thinks deep mind is like the greatest threat to
well he thinks ai is a great start to humanity
00:37:04
and of the people working on ai deep mind is
the furthest along and therefore most dangerous
00:37:10
he tried to stop he i mean he told me straight up
like when he's been very public about this since
00:37:14
that he he said i'll give you an unlimited
amount of money to not sell to google he's
00:37:18
friends with larry page too but he said
don't sell i want you to be independent i
00:37:22
want you to keep working on this but he said
that when he saw the ai there become aware
00:37:26
that it was an ai that that was when he was like
wait a second no wait dude deep mind is not the
00:37:33
alpha's alpha fold or alpha zero is not self-aware
that's it i felt it was becoming self-aware that
00:37:39
it knew what it was i don't know if that was just
elon you know just sort of no it's not it's not
00:37:44
self-aware so i mean i've watched anything yeah i
mean the amazing things that deepmind has released
00:37:51
prior to this were games right they had this
um this chess ai called alpha zero which
00:37:59
rapidly became not just the best chess um it only
beat every human in the world it also beat every
00:38:05
chess engine because computers became more you
know better at chess than humans a long time
00:38:09
ago because of their sheer computational power
but uh alpha zero plays like a human but with
00:38:15
kind of that same computational power and so that
created a whole revolution in chess engines and
00:38:21
then they also did that with a game called go
they created alphago and basically every single
00:38:27
game that you can think of uh deepmind's created
you know an alpha whatever alpha version that
00:38:33
um destroys both humans and computers but this is
the first thing they've publicly announced that
00:38:40
that seems like it will be available to others
eventually that could have tremendous social
00:38:47
impact imagine the government trying to understand
this can you imagine them being brought before
00:38:52
like senators well these are these are these
are the new weapons of mass destruction i mean
00:38:56
let's be honest like if if somebody else had had
alpha fold and probably somebody does and just
00:39:03
hasn't said you know i mean google actually values
transparency so that's the only reason why we know
00:39:08
um imagine what they could do as friedrich said
it's like you know the the opposite of this is
00:39:13
basically to design um a specific protein that
basically um you know destroys organs or there
00:39:20
are proteins called prions which are the scariest
thing known in biology in my opinion a prion is a
00:39:26
protein that it actually finds similar proteins
and based on its shape it gets those proteins
00:39:31
to change and it becomes like a virus and
prions actually um are there's an extremely
00:39:37
uh sad series of diseases that are related to
prions where your body expresses a protein in the
00:39:43
wrong way and then that protein itself gets other
proteins to change and creates copies of itself
00:39:48
and it spreads um it is a fascinatingly scary
um biological phenomenon but you know there
00:39:55
are extremely scary things you can do with the
designer protein capabilities basically you could
00:40:00
make a bio weapon that would be similar to what
the aliens and prometheus and aliens were doing
00:40:05
the engines even much worse even much worse this
is why i think they're going to spend years before
00:40:11
so this is why back to that earlier question it'll
be years before this sees the light of day because
00:40:15
um they are they're smart enough to know what
they've uncovered and i think they did they did
00:40:21
the right thing by talking about it because
i think there's a lot of really amazing r d
00:40:26
but the reality is that google for the next
20 or 30 years will have layers and layers of
00:40:30
oversight because you know it's not like you're
going to allow a company to enrich uranium
00:40:36
in mountain view without oversight and this is
the equivalent it's just a we're we're buying
00:40:41
time until governments realize that they have to
do that they have to do it but let's also remember
00:40:46
the protein data set they trained on is publicly
available you know anyone can access this and with
00:40:51
the you know i should catch up in machine learning
you know capability to deep mind uh infrastructure
00:40:56
wise theoretically you know someone could could
i i think it's it's an inevitability that in the
00:41:01
next 24 months someone else will write this
right now i think what deepmind has done
00:41:06
is showed that specific um techniques of
learning can overcome limitations in compute
00:41:13
but to your point david like we're accelerating
silicon at a fast enough speed where you know if
00:41:18
like if you can throw 5 10 50 100 500 pet ops at
a problem uh you're you know you can run you know
00:41:25
some really really old version of tensorflow and
probably get to the same answer yeah i actually
00:41:30
think they published uh i'm gonna find it while
you guys are chatting but they published um what
00:41:34
the compute needs were on running this uh
i'll find it in a second uh i'll tell you
00:41:41
let me make one sort of slightly descending point
on the whole wmd thing i mean look obviously the
00:41:48
you know who has access this technology needs
to be controlled um we do have to make sure it
00:41:53
doesn't get into the hands of bad actors but the
reality is there's plenty of existing wmds out
00:41:58
there that have been around for a long time that
bad actors could get their hands on um they could
00:42:02
already make you know extremely dangerous
viruses in a lab they could you know take
00:42:08
something that's as contagious as smallpox and
make it as deadly as ebola or something like that
00:42:13
and it's these new technologies that provide a
way for us to combat those those wmds because
00:42:20
you know technology has a tendency to become
democratized um you know um was it uh 75 years
00:42:28
ago the us was the only country that had
an atomic weapon now what like close to 10
00:42:33
have you know nuclear atomic weapons and so um you
know these these sort of nefarious technologies
00:42:40
get democratized anyway and we really need some of
these new technologies and new abilities as a way
00:42:46
to combat them it's like last week we were talking
about the ability now to basically print um
00:42:53
you know a vaccine using this mrna technique
within two days you know you can imagine you know
00:42:59
if if someone tried to use a bio weapon create a
new virus we could print a vaccine the next day
00:43:04
um those are the kinds of capabilities we're
going to need to fight the spread of wmd
00:43:08
i think you're right it's just that you then have
a law of large numbers problem meaning you know
00:43:13
the previous problem before is you had 180 190 200
state-sponsored actors so if you had a one percent
00:43:20
you know rate of people who are just bad you're
talking about two states now when you talk about
00:43:26
five billion people getting access to code that's
basically running an aws or gcp instance someplace
00:43:32
and you have a one percent you know bad guy rate
all of a sudden that one percent really matters
00:43:37
and i think that's the problem it's just
the law of large numbers david applied to
00:43:41
very very small rates of immorality but i
mean you can already do very scary things with
00:43:48
you know recombinant dna taking dna from one
organism putting in another and setting that
00:43:51
organism out and you know uh theoretically you
could have designed a virus that would spread
00:43:56
throughout humanity and cause a lot of death
right i mean there's a lot of this uh capability
00:44:01
people would have found that out because like
you can't run these labs and you're not gonna
00:44:04
get you know monkey models or mouse models it's
like there's there's a trail of breadcrumbs there
00:44:08
that is easier to track wouldn't you agree than
just running an instance in a simulation on gcp
00:44:13
sending it someplace to then have a protein
printer that comes in a fedex envelope too
00:44:18
and you have to hire people as we saw in iran
with you know their chief scientist being whacked
00:44:23
by whoever accidentally whacked him with 60 people
like you need to have the brain power to do this
00:44:29
once you have the brain power to do it you can
track that brain power and we had uh for the last
00:44:34
i think it's like since we even tested nuclear
bombs we've had these special planes flying around
00:44:40
the globe looking for the signature of nuclear
uh detonations or any kind of nuclear fallout
00:44:47
and we've been flying those forever uh i think
i think i think i think biodefense is going to
00:44:52
become probably one of the biggest industries on
planet earth starting in the latter half of this
00:44:56
century because you're going to get to a point
where um digital biology is like a tool just like
00:45:01
software was in the 80s where suddenly everyone
could access it everyone could use it everyone
00:45:05
could do stuff with it you have this ubiquity of
scary [ __ ] happening hackers everywhere hold on
00:45:10
freebird didn't we have that as well and those
same claims about nuclear power and we've been
00:45:14
able to for 100 years with nuclear close to 100
years nuclear and particularly with nuclear in
00:45:20
particular there is a material problem you have to
source and refine material to do something scary
00:45:25
with biology you don't you can do this
anywhere you can do it on your desktop at home
00:45:30
and you know it's getting easier cheaper faster
and you can use software and a printer and you
00:45:35
know a cheap sequencer and do stuff do we believe
that china has this freeburg yes china for sure
00:45:41
yeah i mean look this is yeah i think today's
head of deep mind or behind hundred percent 100
00:45:46
so here's the stats that deepmind put out it took
um the equivalent of 100 to 200 gpus run over a
00:45:51
few weeks uh to build this model that is i don't i
don't care how advanced deepmind is at this point
00:45:57
um so you know if that's the model
then someone else can replicate that
00:46:01
uh you know someone else that's what happened
to to alpha zero the d minor chess engine
00:46:06
after they proved it now there's
a whole bunch of uh chess ais yeah
00:46:15
a lot of startups replicating this alpha fold
uh technique and then using that to go do drug
00:46:21
discovery and you'll see 50 startups getting
funded 12 to 18 months from now based on some
00:46:25
novel protein idea um and i think that this we got
to get our beach wet on this and the iss everybody
00:46:31
go to this is getting ridiculous everybody's good
slash all in but but we should create a protein
00:46:38
we should create a we should create a protein
folding syndicate yeah absolutely here it is
00:46:43
everybody go to thesyndicate.com all in if we do
this i'm collecting the emails now uh no but i
00:46:50
i will i will i will make my first series of bets
less on the application and more on the protection
00:46:55
i think biodefense 30 years from now is going
to be so important if you want to invest with
00:47:00
the best ease can there is there going to be a
protein that prevents rudy giuliani from farting
00:47:07
i mean what is going on saks let's throw to you as
our resident right wing uh joking sacks don't take
00:47:14
it so personal we know you didn't vote for trump
we know you did a write-in vote for tucker carlson
00:47:22
let me ask you have you have you or have
you not had dinner with tucker carlson
00:47:28
um i call all in uh i i've actually uh yeah
i um no i don't think i've had to know with
00:47:36
tucker but into a party with tucker
carlson no but let me let me get uh
00:47:44
here's what's happening is well i feel my
dream of gridlock in washington for the next
00:47:49
four years is slipping away um you know the
the you know i described this as sort of like
00:47:55
it was kind of a dream scenario that you would
have um a divided uh congress and the republicans
00:48:02
you know they won 50 they won 50 seats in the
senate in november and then you know because of
00:48:07
this stupid rule in georgia that you have to you
can't just win you have to win by having over 50
00:48:14
um the republicans would have had uh 51 but now
these there's a runoff for these two open seats
00:48:20
and the republicans were ahead in the polls at the
time they were the more i think it was mostly it's
00:48:25
based on the candidates being more popular than
the democratic candidates but now because of all
00:48:29
these antics around the election the democrats
of both democratic candidates have pulled ahead
00:48:36
and so it's yeah they are now both democratic
in the last couple of last week or so
00:48:42
um ossop is ahead of purdue by about two points
which is a stunner because purdue has already
00:48:49
beaten him before he beat him in the november
election he's i think a better chance though right
00:48:54
and the the most margin right but warnock is seven
points ahead of uh loffler so that one is outside
00:49:03
the margin of error he's clearly uh beating her
and um it you know and now it looks like purdue's
00:49:10
in danger too the republicans just need to win
one of those in order for us to have you know
00:49:15
divided government of washington which i think
tends to produce better results than giving one
00:49:20
party all the levers of power um but but this is
this is the crazy thing and so i think even from
00:49:27
trump's point of view you know i think this
is a branding exercise to you know prove that
00:49:33
he didn't lose the problem is yeah how's that
going well it's not working and it looks like
00:49:39
it's gonna cost republicans the senate which is
something that i think he won't come back from
00:49:43
so if i was advising the president i would tell
him to drop this you know these these legal
00:49:48
challenges they fired sydney powell from the legal
team which i think was a good decision because
00:49:52
of her crazy wild allegations but now rudy's
out there doing the same stuff judy giuliani
00:50:01
giuliani the answer that i gave you is they
didn't bother to interview a single witness
00:50:07
he was adjusting he wasn't waking up the genie he
was he was tucking his pants in laying down in the
00:50:12
bedroom having a drink with a russian underage
age i mean rudy is just i mean fresh off his
00:50:17
his guest starring appearance in the borap
movies i mean it's like he's uncredited yeah
00:50:23
it's like he's reenacting my cousin vinnie or
something in these um in these hearings yeah um
00:50:29
how many things it's gonna cost republicans the
senate yeah i think they're it's so amazing like
00:50:35
the democrats basically have now have a stone cold
free roll because there is a very good chance that
00:50:40
these guys are going to um win these two senate
seats which would just be absolutely incredible
00:50:45
absolutely so so republicans are definitely
figuring this out rich lowry had a great call
00:50:52
he's a editor of national review he's on the right
but i think provides very good objective political
00:50:57
analysis he's his last column sounded the alarm
bells about what was happening in georgia and
00:51:02
look if the if the issue in the georgia runoffs
is are these antics if it's rudy and sydney powell
00:51:08
the republican's gonna lose the seat both seats if
the question of the election is whether democrats
00:51:15
should have a free hand to ram through whatever
legislation they want then i think the republicans
00:51:20
win so the question is what is that election going
to be about and the longer that rudy stays on
00:51:24
the stage making these crazy wild allegations
the worse it gets for republicans when is the
00:51:30
georgia runoff election i think it's january 5th
or 10th it's one of those two january 5th i think
00:51:37
my gosh would anybody hear if they had gray hair
and i know we have three gentlemen on the call who
00:51:44
have gray hair uh freedberg somehow you're you're
you're you might be maybe i've answered this
00:51:49
question just not on his head would any of you
dye your hair if you were a 79 87 year old rudy
00:51:59
giuliani no my hair is white and getting whiter
it's like it is what it is it's a passage of time
00:52:04
i would just move on david would you consider
t just taking that gray right out of your hair
00:52:11
because you have the euro the silver fox as
it stands would you ever consider it you just
00:52:17
you can see the decision i've made
but um look that's not i mean it's
00:52:22
yeah i mean that was just like a meltdown
i mean a literal meltdown a little literal
00:52:27
meltdown and uh it was so like representative
of the moment the the congressional republicans
00:52:33
want to use a hook to get rudy off the stage i
mean they cannot wait to get him off the stage and
00:52:38
uh but if they don't stand up and just tell trump
to shut this down i think i think it's coming
00:52:44
it's coming so yeah oh wow so the republicans are
going to stand up to trump with four weeks left in
00:52:50
office wow what a profiling courage freeberg are
you dying your hair do you have gray hair and are
00:52:55
you actually dying or have you not hit the gray
yet just tell us right now it's an emergency pod
00:53:01
no it's the truth david are you dying
you're here yes or no this is it
00:53:09
there's so many ways to have an opinion on whether
trump um is allowed to pre-pardon himself and his
00:53:14
kids oh that's exactly where i was going yeah sex
well yes our right wing he could definitely pardon
00:53:20
his kids i don't know that there's a open legal
question whether he can pardon himself can you
00:53:25
pre-pardon um what does it mean pre-pardon in this
definition you mean i don't in the future i don't
00:53:30
know you can only pardon for a committed crime
right i mean that's traditionally not part of it
00:53:35
right well you can pardon for things that
happened in the past um i don't think you
00:53:39
can pardon for things that happen in the future
and you can find it you can what's a blanket
00:53:43
party no i don't think you have to define it
i think you could just do a blanket pardon
00:53:47
um the i would advise trump not to do it if
i were one of his advisors and the reason is
00:53:53
that he can only pardon for federal and the
big problem the trump family has right now
00:53:59
you know the southern district of new york these
mad dog prosecutors who are democrats this is
00:54:05
you know i don't approve of it this is this is
to me this to me this is the criminalization
00:54:11
of political differences i don't i think it'd be
great if he could pardon because i do think that
00:54:17
those guys are again they're trying to criminalize
political differences but but pardoning doesn't
00:54:22
solve the problem with the southern district
of new york and biden has already said that he
00:54:25
doesn't believe in having any uh having these uh
having like a federal investigation of trump and
00:54:33
so i don't think i don't think trump has anything
to worry about federally i think the problem is
00:54:38
god can i just say this it's just so [ __ ] decent
and classy like isn't it refreshing it's actually
00:54:44
boring but isn't it just wait what are you
talking about biden is just so decent who's biden
00:54:51
like i haven't seen that guy has he worked for
us he's been great no i mean like he's well
00:54:55
he's disappeared no he doesn't disappear he's just
not crazy he's bidet biden biden has done a really
00:55:03
has done a few really smart things i mean in his
acceptance speech he did what churchill advises
00:55:09
you to do in victory which is be magnanimous
he's made the right sort of sounds towards
00:55:14
reconciliation i think saying that he didn't
believe in going after trump criminally
00:55:19
i mean look i i don't think that would have been
a good political move anyway because it would have
00:55:23
created a backlash but it was a smart uh thing
to say and so he and then i think the other smart
00:55:29
thing he's done is uh which is very biden anyway
which is he's got an establishment all the way
00:55:34
for his cabinet he has not put he hasn't named
any totally crazy progressives to his cabinet
00:55:40
yet that the republicans could latch on to for the
georgia runoffs and so biden's doing a very good
00:55:46
job right now of appearing non-threatening and
doing nothing to nothing to blow up his honeymoon
00:55:52
he and his advisors have run a perfect perfect
flawless flaw it's been flawless i mean david
00:55:58
you just nailed it like all of all the things he
could have done to potentially put the senate at
00:56:02
risk or to potentially give republicans
sort of something to hang their hats on
00:56:07
he has given zero space right like he has not
created a single opening so you you would have
00:56:13
thought that coming into this election cycle
the way that trump tried to paint biden was like
00:56:18
this you know uh gaffaholic and instead he has
just been picture pitch perfect roxanna well i
00:56:25
think i think i think he's a he's a gaff machine
when he speaks spontaneously which he has not
00:56:29
done i mean every time i've seen him speak since
the election has been reading off a teleprompter
00:56:34
but i think that his campaign has run a really
good they have run a good strategy um and now look
00:56:42
it helps that the press doesn't really challenge
you uh it's like it's like weekend at bernie's
00:56:46
except it's like presidency at bernie's you know
it's like four years they hit him in a basement he
00:56:50
only reaches out to teleprompter hold him up put
him in the on the stage yeah the press let him get
00:56:55
away with it i mean no other candidate could have
gotten away with a basement strategy but the press
00:56:59
was so determined to go after trump that they
really gave him a free pass on what biden believed
00:57:04
and what he was going to do but look biden has
run by biden has run a very good campaign and
00:57:09
a very good transition and really i think the
biggest mistake he made during the campaign was
00:57:14
not declaring definitively that he would not try
to pack the supreme court that was his big mistake
00:57:20
and what happened the voters split the ticket
to give the senate to the republicans so that
00:57:26
biden wouldn't be able to pack the court and so he
wouldn't be able to do it anyway and i think maybe
00:57:30
his administration has learned from that mistake
which is don't do anything or say anything that's
00:57:35
going to give republicans something to latch on
to to say that biden's really a radical we got to
00:57:40
stop him and anyway so to now george is in play
and biden could win the senate that's a perfect
00:57:46
insight sax because what you haven't seen as well
is you haven't seen kamala harris out there all
00:57:51
that much because that's something republicans
could glom on to and you haven't seen aoc bernie
00:57:56
sanders or elizabeth warren they are persona no
grata they are not involved in this wow they are
00:58:02
m.i.a they are m.i.a and they the democrats won't
bring them up and you have bernie sanders like hey
00:58:09
wasn't he supposed to be oh george of like elon
omar wants to cancel rent and mortgages i mean
00:58:14
they're throwing that classic and they're
throwing everything out there just to see
00:58:18
if anything sticks right now yeah but biden
biden has really given uh bernie sanders and
00:58:23
that wing of the party the hi-hat in the in
these uh cabinet choices in fact he just named
00:58:30
uh a woman to to be the head of the uh of omb the
uh the you know the budget director who has a huge
00:58:36
twitter feud with bernie sanders and the bernie
the bernie folks are up in arms about it i don't
00:58:41
think she's gonna get through um but but yeah i
mean biden has really um stiff-armed a lot of the
00:58:47
progressives associated with the hysterical left i
mean it's a why would you want to associate i just
00:58:52
want i also think it's historical i think it's
an appeal to the rights of the right i mean he
00:58:57
is appealing to the right to some extent right i
mean like by by not putting those people in place
00:59:01
i think he's never understood never writer he's
never going to be able to appeal to the trump base
00:59:05
but what he's going to be able to do is prevent
the republicans from from sort of labeling him as
00:59:11
a radical and therefore and therefore you know
went over those independents that he needs and
00:59:16
by the way back to back to trump for one second i
apologize because i wanted to ask you david i mean
00:59:22
the other thing that could tip georgia is this
whole craziness where trump is like i'm gonna veto
00:59:28
the the defense bill unless we repealed section
230 and if you're you know a military person in
00:59:36
georgia you're like wait a second um you're going
to leave my brothers and sisters in arms basically
00:59:42
lollygagging without any financial support because
you don't like twitter's tweet policy it's gonna
00:59:48
seem kind of crazy yeah it was it was one of these
like classic trump moves where you feel like i
00:59:56
think he does have a good point with respect to
the social media companies i do think they've been
01:00:02
engaging in censorship they've overstepped their
bounds they are they they do deserve some sort of
01:00:08
comeuppance or control i personally don't think
that repealing two to eight uh two third was
01:00:13
it 280 um is the section 230 is the way to go
um it um for a bunch of reasons that we could
01:00:21
get into if you want but um but but yeah it
was one of these like reflexive trump trump
01:00:26
you know tweets and you heard republicans in in
the senate were very very quick to shoot it down
01:00:33
um and you know there was an article in politico
where um republicans were quoted well anonymously
01:00:38
saying they're pretty sick of this [ __ ] that
was the quote and so yeah i mean i think that
01:00:44
republicans on capitol hill are kind of ready
for for for those types of antics to be over
01:00:50
okay should he uh or will he pardon himself
and the kids like i mean i guess that's what
01:00:57
it comes down to and then well i think we should
i think i don't i don't i don't think so and i
01:01:02
don't think it'll matter because i think biden
will leave him alone and it will not help his
01:01:06
biggest risk uh and this is by the way why they
tried to get jay clayton to resign from the sec
01:01:11
and move over to the southern district of new york
because they thought maybe he could run some kind
01:01:15
of interference but i mean i think the state ags
will want a pound of flesh here and if i were if i
01:01:24
yeah just if i were advising trump and and
advising him on how to maximize his legacy
01:01:31
it would be you know pardon pardon people in the
administration been treated unfairly there's no
01:01:36
need to pardon yourself um i don't i don't think
he has federal exposure and i would and i would
01:01:44
tell him that you know if republicans lose these
georgia senate seats that he will be blamed for
01:01:51
among the base for a long time and that i think
will be hard for him to get past uh in four years
01:01:57
and so it's very important i think for him to make
sure that that at least purdue wins his election
01:02:02
yeah what do you guys can do can i ask another
question what do you think is gonna happen
01:02:09
with um so trump is trying to make his case um
but no one's listening twitter keeps putting up
01:02:16
his fraudulent you know uh um this is just
disputed claims thing and he's been pushing
01:02:23
newsmax and oann do you think those become
viable and real kind of media businesses now
01:02:29
and are they actually gonna steal an audience away
from fox news 100 percent it's already happened
01:02:35
it's just the increasing fragmentation of media
right cable networks don't pick them up do they
01:02:41
uh the cable companies i've seen i've seen newsmax
newsmax has a cable channel my theory is this
01:02:46
entire twisted like crazy right alt-right mania
just fades into oblivion and the party reinvents
01:02:55
itself no no because they can't win they can't win
david they can't win with this brand they did they
01:03:00
did win they did and they will not in the future
because they just lost their the republicans won
01:03:05
like 10 or 12 uh seats in the house they've almost
got the majority back in the house they almost
01:03:10
certainly will win back the house and retire nancy
pelosi in two years during the midterm election
01:03:16
i'll put money on that right now they held the
senate local elections they held the senate
01:03:21
presidency again with this strategy you think they
can win with the demographic shift with trump in
01:03:26
2024 really yeah uh because people want to go back
to that level of crazy people people don't want
01:03:35
the they don't want the crazy but this idea that
the issue set that trump ran on and one on is dead
01:03:42
i don't i don't agree with that yeah those issues
are still there you'll have a better branded face
01:03:48
and a standard bearer for those issues and if you
say it in a less crazy way and you're generally
01:03:53
less crazy i think that it will resonate with
a lot more people than have already proven that
01:03:59
it resonates with it already resonates with 70
million could it resonate with 75 and could they
01:04:03
overtake the white house it's not inconceivable
so i think i think we can't all of a sudden say
01:04:08
this is signed sealed and delivered it's a fata
complete and all of a sudden it's just democrats
01:04:12
the rest of the way dave is right the down
ballot results for the democrats were not good
01:04:16
and it's a sign that moderate centrism is the only
winning strategy if you really have a strategy
01:04:23
where it's like i really want to win and not just
me but my party and generations of people after me
01:04:29
you have to run a centrist campaign which is why
they're retiring the aoc elizabeth warren bernie
01:04:33
bro contingent right so well yeah there's
there's a house member that group of crazy
01:04:39
right there was a there was a democratic house
member i think elizabeth spamberger um who almost
01:04:46
lost her uh seat i think in like a virginia like
kind of a swing virginia district there was a big
01:04:51
uh call of the democratic house caucus and she
was just laying into pelosi and the leadership
01:04:58
there because she was basically saying don't
ever mention defund the police again you know
01:05:03
if you want me to win my my swing district next
time do not mention this ever again and she was
01:05:09
just this was all in the washington post you know
they um the the call was leaked by about a dozen
01:05:14
different press out outlets which tells you there
was a lot of unhappiness among the house members
01:05:20
who almost lost their seat because of these like
radical ideas the other the other thing is and you
01:05:24
know unless all of a sudden the the folks that are
in their 20s and 30s are radically different than
01:05:31
many many generations before them the reality is
that they will as they get older and wealthier
01:05:38
generally speaking get more conservative and we
are about to go through over the next 20 years
01:05:44
30 trillion dollars of wealth transfer and so you
know i mean you can wear good segue but buttons on
01:05:51
buttons on flannel but at the end of the day when
you're you know mom and dad pass pass away and
01:05:57
all of a sudden you know you have four five six
seven eight million bucks and you have to think
01:06:01
about your children and your children's children i
tend to think people generally do very predictably
01:06:07
get more conservative and so again
another reason why you can't count on
01:06:12
um a stayed interpretation of progressivism it
there will be progressivism i think it just will
01:06:20
be a different form of policy and it'll just be
more moderate and centrist and it'll be normal
01:06:26
uh which is a perfect segue to the new york
times story that came out on the friday after
01:06:30
thanksgiving november 27th the rich kids
who want to tear down capitalism socialist
01:06:34
minded millennials millennial heirs are trying to
live their values by getting rid of their money
01:06:40
lately sam jacobs and i'll read just a little bit
of it has been having a lot of conversations with
01:06:44
his family's lawyers he's trying to gain access
to his trust of 30 his 30 million trust fund
01:06:50
at 25 he's hit the age where many heirs can
blow their money on her brain businesses or
01:06:55
stable of sports cards he doesn't want to do
that but by wealth management standards his
01:06:59
plans are just as bad he wants to give it all
away i want to build a world where someone like
01:07:04
me a young person who controls tens of millions
of dollars is possible a socialist college mr
01:07:08
jacob sees his family's extreme plutocratic
wealth as both a moral and economic failure
01:07:13
his parents must be very proud first of all sam
jacobs sounds like an idiot and he shouldn't have
01:07:17
any money so hopefully he gets his wish why did
his parents give him 30 million dollars this trust
01:07:21
fund should be like given to somebody who deserves
it like yeah but but what what's saying what sam
01:07:27
jacobs wants doesn't mean that sam jacobs gets to
decide for everybody else and just because that he
01:07:33
wants to live in a communist country he can go and
find one and the reality is like you know we just
01:07:38
talked about alpha fold well guess what you know
there's four of us on this on this podcast today
01:07:44
that over the next 20 or 30 years are more
than likely going to invest hundreds of
01:07:47
millions of dollars in protein design and uh
i don't do that with any um sense of um shame
01:07:57
um and i'm glad that stuart butterfield made
me you know a lot of money because it's going
01:08:02
to go go back into the world in positive ways and
you know maybe if my children are taught properly
01:08:08
they'll be able to take a small piece of that and
they'll decide that you know there's uh something
01:08:12
else that's important to them but the reality is
that everybody should be allowed to make their
01:08:15
own decisions and i don't want somebody like him
especially a 25 year old [ __ ] telling me or my
01:08:21
kids who even though they're you know under the
age of 15 are probably smarter than him what to do
01:08:27
david when you read this article uh if you did
read it uh what were your thoughts um especially
01:08:33
in regards to parenting and thinking about our own
kids because what i started thinking about i was
01:08:37
like oh my god what if one of my daughters wants
to take her trust fund and just throw it into the
01:08:42
wind i really don't want to comment wait hold
on i just want to say one thing the part that's
01:08:46
completely reasonable and that i respect is this
this 25 year old seems to have come to a decision
01:08:53
what i find completely unreasonable and you
know just completely lathered with insecurity
01:08:59
is his need to then project it and say it
has to be true for everybody else as well
01:09:04
and and the the grand arcing
statements of how it should never be
01:09:09
just completely betrays you know what we've
learned in how society functionally works
01:09:14
like if you want democracy the only sort of
economic philosophy that's been partnered with
01:09:19
with democracy to work well as capitalism and
so if you want to change one you're gonna have
01:09:23
to change the other and just the fact that you
know with all of his education the hundreds of
01:09:28
millions of dollars you know didn't get a course
in civics to understand that is kind of sad
01:09:33
i just before you go david i have to read one
comment because it's so deranged that it almost
01:09:39
seems like it was part of a script to like some
billions or secession um heirs whose wealth have
01:09:47
come from specific sources sometimes use that
history to guide their giving there's that's in
01:09:51
new york time saying that pierce still a hunt a
32 year old socialist anarchist marxist communist
01:09:58
or all of the above has a trust fund that was
financed by their former stepfather's outlet mall
01:10:03
empire when i and this is uh mr uh mr i'm sorry
mx i've never seen that before abdullah hunt
01:10:13
how do you pronounce max hunt how do you pronounce
mx mx de la hunt takes non-gendered pronouns
01:10:23
has anybody seen mx i've never seen that that was
the first time yeah that's the first for me so i
01:10:28
guess it's so you can say so you don't have to
say mr or miss or missus it's like latinx where
01:10:34
you just can group a bunch of people into one
thing got it right um this is what uh mx de la
01:10:41
hunt says i'm just trying to figure out how it's
pronounced maxis hunt de la hunt um taking a shot
01:10:50
jason you're you're not showing
respect for his pronouns
01:10:54
i don't want to get canceled it
just is kind of hard to pronounce mx
01:10:59
i don't mean to laugh but i need i need
somebody to tell me how to pronounce mx.com um
01:11:08
but this is the quote that is so insane when
i think about outlet malls and i think this
01:11:14
is what we all think about when we think about
outlook walls when i think about outlaw malls i
01:11:19
think about intersectional oppression what's
the first thing that comes to mind freeburg
01:11:24
when you think of an outlet mall certainly
it's intersectional compression or a subway
01:11:29
i just can i just point out like the um the new
york times has become a little bit sensationalist
01:11:34
like you know if you were to ask statistically
what percentage of people that are inheriting
01:11:40
wealth are going to be stupid like this the answer
would probably be pretty low but they find the
01:11:46
one or two characters like this and they build the
story around them and then people extrapolate that
01:11:50
as if that is the persona of the entire population
of people that are going to inherit some degree of
01:11:54
wealth and that becomes the story and i'm just
so sick of it like i don't read the new york
01:11:59
times anymore and look i love the new york times
i would read it every single day i still have it
01:12:03
on my phone i still pay for my subscription but
i'm so sick of the narrative being written by the
01:12:07
author's objective and then they go and find one
or two facts that meet that narrative and rather
01:12:12
than speaking about it statistically and saying
we surveyed a hundred people that were wealthy
01:12:16
this is how many and if it was sixty percent
of them saying i'm gonna go give away all my
01:12:20
wealth and do crazy [ __ ] great like that's the
story but again but picking picking and picking
01:12:25
an individual and building the narrative around
that individual as if that is the game but david
01:12:29
and that's the point like what they do is they
don't even talk about people who want to give
01:12:33
their money away what they do is they create these
caricatures around this like judgment judgment
01:12:38
it's it's all about this like judgment it's like
it's virtu it's like i am holier than everybody
01:12:44
else because of these decisions that i made and
i just find it so offensive now here's can i just
01:12:49
tell you i had my physical last week and i have a
doctor in l.a who's superb and he's he's in many
01:12:54
ways sort of a philosopher king to me he's been
incredibly important in my life and you know dr
01:13:00
agus i talked to his name his name is christian
renna uh at lifespan medicine but uh anyways
01:13:06
um and here's what you're and i talked to
chris about raising kids and chris has seen
01:13:10
you know thousands of people over the course of
his you know journey as a primary care physician
01:13:14
and he's seen the kids of these folks and etc
you know he he boiled it down to me it's like um
01:13:22
you know your job as a parent is to make sure that
your children have incredible tools married with
01:13:29
incredible habits and so some of these things are
very simple like food and you know how to eat and
01:13:35
self-care and exercise but some of these things
are really important which is a world view empathy
01:13:42
and he uses this word which is called awareness
and awareness is this idea that you understand
01:13:49
the world around you and that's an incredibly
difficult thing for parents to be able to teach
01:13:53
their kids but it seems like if you could give
them that that's independent of anything other
01:13:58
than time and care right it doesn't matter whether
you're rich or you're poor it doesn't really
01:14:02
matter whether you're black or white you can
really teach the concept of awareness and empathy
01:14:07
and then the other thing that he taught me was you
know there's a really big difference between folks
01:14:12
like you me meaning guys like me who grew up poor
and who are focused on the generation of money
01:14:18
right meaning making money and some of you make
it some of you don't but you're living in this
01:14:24
existential threat that you feel is hanging over
you and so you go out and you make it and a lot of
01:14:31
it is driven by this insecurity you've had since
you were young but make no mistake your children's
01:14:37
lives is harder than yours and it's about the
utilization of money and whether they want to give
01:14:42
it away or whether they want to use it you have a
responsibility to teach them whether you're giving
01:14:46
them a dollar a million dollars or a billion
dollars and this is where i think somewhere along
01:14:50
the way these kids as parents you know may or may
not have done the best maybe they did the best
01:14:56
they could but somewhere along the way these gaps
are are obvious at least in the telling of the
01:15:02
article and this is where i go back to if you're
really going to talk to about something like this
01:15:06
which actually is quite important because again
we're going to go through the the most enormous
01:15:10
wealth transfer in the history of the world in
the next 20 years 30 trillion dollars that could
01:15:15
so talk about that if if enough people took
their inheritance and decided to eradicate
01:15:19
student debt it would be three percent of what's
going to be inherited over the next 20 years
01:15:24
think about it so obviously you can do some
incredible things but it's not framed in the
01:15:30
right way it doesn't promote the right kind of
discussion and all it is is salacious reporting
01:15:34
that makes these kids look like caricatures and
by the way remember that money today is invested
01:15:40
somewhere so to pull that three percent out would
have a kind of triple kind of rippling and kind of
01:15:46
um probably deleterious effect on on amazon no
no forget about that factories family but this
01:15:55
is this is my point also is i think that there's a
responsibility to these stewards of capital right
01:16:00
they they may be you can call them wealthy all you
want but they really are the people that pull the
01:16:04
strings and where money's moving um and there's uh
i think you know to your point kind of a degree of
01:16:09
responsibility that inevitably has to kind of sit
with this uh this group um here's the problem with
01:16:17
it is if they just want to give their money away
to a charity that they thought was worthy and that
01:16:23
and they were willing to live like you know monks
or something and not need money that'd be fine
01:16:28
you know we could respect that but the reason
why they're in such a hurry to get rid of this
01:16:32
wealth is because they feel like money itself is
ill-gotten that wealth itself is is by definition
01:16:39
ill-gotten it must have come from at the expense
of somebody else right you only could have gotten
01:16:45
that wealth by ripping people off and that is
the thing that that's the idea that's really
01:16:50
pernicious about this sort of like socialism
movement is they don't really understand that
01:16:55
the way capitalism works you only get rich by
selling something to somebody that they want that
01:17:01
makes their life better right i mean all of us are
engaged in the creation of new technologies and
01:17:07
new products and that makes the world better and
people are willing to pay for that and that's what
01:17:12
creates value and and that's what creates wealth
and it's really just kind of sad that people
01:17:17
you know are in this it goes beyond this
article on these trust fund kids but this whole
01:17:22
uh condemnation of capitalism and this attack
on any you know billionaires or whatever um the
01:17:28
problem with it is it doesn't recognize the way
that value is created for everybody can i um can
01:17:34
i give you a quote um from walter williams who uh
just passed away who's a very famous uh economist
01:17:40
prior to capitalism the way people amassed great
wealth was by looting plundering and enslaving
01:17:47
their fellow man capitalism made it possible
to become wealthy by serving your fellow men
01:17:52
and that's really true and some are along
the way folks folks have lost the script
01:17:56
and have all of a sudden gone back to pre-historic
capitalist times and um i think that we don't
01:18:04
have enough good examples of constructive
capitalism that prove that this is not a bad word
01:18:09
yeah exactly yeah i love the walter williams quote
um just to give another example jeff bezos just
01:18:17
gave 10 billion dollars to uh climate change teddy
what's the kid's name teddy schaefer or something
01:18:23
like that the journalist has been writing him on
twitter i think he works for vox or something like
01:18:29
they have basically been attacking bezos since he
made the announcement that he hasn't done enough
01:18:34
and it's like 10 billion dollars is the largest
contribution ever made to a single cause i mean
01:18:41
obviously right bill gates and how did he do
foundation right and how did he do that because
01:18:46
he created amazon which has created enormous
value for all of us imagine if one of these kids
01:18:50
in the article instead of just giving their money
away by the way it looks like there's a bunch of
01:18:55
organizations that have sprung up to scam these
kids out of their trust fund it's sort of you
01:18:59
know a fool in their money in their money are soon
parted there's a whole bunch of of scam artists
01:19:06
who are trying to scam these kids but uh yeah
i mean they're definitely getting scammed but
01:19:10
imagine if instead of just getting scammed out
of their money they were to use it to create a
01:19:13
business that created a new product or technology
that served people then maybe they could turn
01:19:18
that 30 million into 10 billion like bezos did
and and if they lost it they would have done it
01:19:23
in the pursuit of something really grand and so
nobody would actually instead of virtue signaling
01:19:28
instead of virtue signaling on the new york times
yeah like these guys were so glad to be in the new
01:19:32
york times to dunk on capitalists and dunk and
literally dunk on their own parents think about
01:19:36
that you hate your parents so much you have to go
to the new york times and tell them how much you
01:19:40
hate them i mean i don't know how this changes
well by the way speaking of virtue signaling in
01:19:45
the new york times can we talk about the new york
times writing that hit piece on coinbase all right
01:19:50
i mean if you want to go there i mean this is the
first rail of the podcast but we've been talking
01:19:55
about brian armstrong just to set the table
here brian armstrong wrote a memo he said oh no
01:20:00
politics by the way by the way jkl i just posted
an image for nick to put up here just to to don't
01:20:06
don't tell me it's a code 13 that says this is not
a code 13. it's to reinforce your point about the
01:20:11
you know the virtue of capitalism you know this
kind of dates back to these are three three images
01:20:17
three charts from the year 1500 to today and
energy use has grown 115 times well so this is
01:20:24
basically uh a measure of population consumption
and production right and so the the capitalist
01:20:31
incentive has driven um the ability while
population has grown 14x over the last 500 years
01:20:37
it's driven um a nearly 10x increment in what
is available for humans to consume uh per capita
01:20:46
during that period of time i mean think about
that that was driven entirely by industry and so
01:20:51
industry has enabled and production has increased
by 240x so we have a surplus of goods on planet
01:20:56
earth and a surplus of access to goods because
of the capitalist incentive over the last 500
01:21:02
years and whose right is it to say that that was
wrong and all of the people that are employed by
01:21:06
it and live within that mechanism and who are
no longer living in poverty who are no longer
01:21:10
slaves all of a sudden 50 000 people convert
you signal because they're sitting in their
01:21:14
warm homes in america telling everybody else
to [ __ ] off i mean i find it kind of a joke
01:21:19
i mean i i would like you to go and live you know
where i was supposed to live before i emigrated
01:21:24
right sri lanka no heater no roof no food etc they
should go to north korea you go come to sri lanka
01:21:32
i can show you you go to an outhouse okay you
sit there you squat to go to the bathroom okay
01:21:38
um there's no [ __ ] three-ply you know uh bamboo
you know press-free toilet paper to deal with
01:21:45
um you know you you literally what you know you
clean yourself with your hand you brush your teeth
01:21:50
with coal i remember we used to brush our teeth
with [ __ ] coal okay we have a well for water
01:21:57
and so you you have all these people in these
situations where all we wanted was to just give
01:22:02
a chance to run the race and the people that were
born with a silver spoon in their mouth who had
01:22:07
the chance to run the race turns around and tells
guys like me no you can't and it [ __ ] infuriates
01:22:13
me yeah i want to blow up the racetrack by the
way yeah i want to just get rid of the internet
01:22:16
i mean [ __ ] about you it's a serious [
__ ] you to these to these like they were
01:22:22
profited and they benefited from democracy and
capitalism and now they want to revert back
01:22:27
to a system where everybody who's in that space
they're trying to get into this system they don't
01:22:32
understand what feudalism is because there are so
many layers removed through their [ __ ] filtered
01:22:37
lenses and you know country clubs and [ __
] vacations and all this crap that they have
01:22:42
no idea what it's like and i'm telling you i am
first generation of having escaped that [ __ ] and
01:22:47
i don't want anything to do with it but the point
is capitalism has allowed not just the us but many
01:22:54
other countries to change their course in life um
stephen pickner's for all of the controversy he
01:22:59
creates his books on um you know what humans have
really achieved during this great kind of era of
01:23:06
capitalism and industrialism and how we've changed
our course on planet earth uh improved human
01:23:11
health improved longevity improved calorie access
to calories improved access to shelter to medicine
01:23:17
um it's all because of a an incentive a
market-based incentive system and it is very
01:23:23
very powerful it is the most powerful force we
know as a species and it's allowed this incredible
01:23:28
acceleration exponential acceleration of
possibility for our species also from the article
01:23:34
a great quote elizabeth baldwin a 34 year old
democratic socialist from cambridge massachusetts
01:23:41
she plans to keep enough of her inheritance to
buy an apartment and raise a family enjoying
01:23:46
the sort of pleasant middle-class existence denied
to many people of color in the united states
01:23:55
what is that i mean that's just i don't know i
just i i don't think let's just move on let's
01:23:59
talk about brian it's so dumb they they see
they see the world in a zero some way where
01:24:05
you know anything they have means that somebody
else must it must have been taken away from
01:24:09
somebody else they don't really understand
the way that value is created by an exchange
01:24:15
and by people creating new things um and you
know and and that's what technology is all about
01:24:21
you know it's creating news i mean there was a
time when everybody didn't have access to clean
01:24:25
water now we take that for granted there's a time
when everybody have access to affordable food and
01:24:29
electricity and by the way look at how we started
all of this is driven by capitalism and look at
01:24:34
how we started the conversation today alpha fold
i think is the realization of one of the greatest
01:24:39
capitalist enterprises in history if not the
greatest you know alphabet and they're still
01:24:43
getting started and the output of that is going to
be an incredible new tool for drug discovery that
01:24:48
is going to extend human lifespan in an incredible
way there was a window of time where folks who are
01:24:55
really really good at bitching and complaining had
a window of opportunity to [ __ ] and complain and
01:25:00
what happened was they were not able to seize
power and then just in the last few months
01:25:06
literally i think we are nailing that coffin shut
because as you said david you're gonna have to all
01:25:11
of a sudden like look at companies like google
and look at things like affifold and reject them
01:25:17
and i don't know how people do because everyone
will need something that that company will create
01:25:22
now and that alpha fold will be responsible for
we are all going to need a vaccine these are all
01:25:27
coming from for-profit companies that thrived on
top of r d you know all of it was funded by past
01:25:33
drug profits from other things and so you know
we're going to have to really look at ourselves
01:25:37
in the mirror and say did we not want that did we
want to just die on the street to prove a point
01:25:42
and i don't think anybody actually wants that i
mean what is your what is the ultimate criticism
01:25:47
of amazon they made you know iphone chargers five
dollars well the point is 40 you can't have your
01:25:53
cake and eat it too you can't actually you know
complain about amazon on the one hand complain
01:25:59
about no action on climate change on the other
complain about this complain about that complain
01:26:03
about the other thing then you're just a [ __ ]
whiner and nobody wants a whiner around because
01:26:08
they're not additive they're not useful you don't
learn anything from a whiner all right so looking
01:26:15
at the uh new york times uh versus coinbase the
foul new york times fake news sorry i'm just
01:26:24
we'll talk about talk about whining
this is more virtue signaling
01:26:28
uh whining by the new york times and actually
the look this was clearly a hit piece because
01:26:36
they don't like brian armstrong's decision to
make coin base in a political workplace if any
01:26:41
workplace has chosen to be political it's the
new york times there's a lot of examples of that
01:26:45
the fact that they ran barry weiss out of
there they ran mario weiss out of the newsroom
01:26:53
they ran james bennett out of there for publishing
a an op-ed by tom cotton remember that he got
01:26:59
kicked out he got forced to resign because he
published one op-ed by a republican senator
01:27:05
okay this is the most close-minded group
the most close-minded political workplace
01:27:12
and here they are lecturing a silicon
valley company that in their view isn't
01:27:16
tolerant enough i mean it's ridiculous but the but
the and it was obvious that it was a hit piece the
01:27:21
stories the the examples in the article were years
old um you know the uh they weren't even reported
01:27:28
to hr violation as violations at the time so
there's you know it's it's people cooking up
01:27:34
things that weren't reported as problems at the
time but the but the really interesting thing
01:27:40
about the story i think is that is
the way coinbase reacted to it by
01:27:45
preemptively announcing that it was coming which
really made the new york times reporters really
01:27:51
irate you know they called it extremely enough
reporters were upset and they threatened that
01:27:56
they would no longer the journalist said if
you guys are going to front run our stories
01:28:01
we are not going to call you when we have a story
and i responded to that and i was like are you
01:28:05
serious like you're literally going to lose
what little integrity you have left crazy
01:28:10
about fact checking because there's an amazing
somebody wrote a pre-emptive blog post about it
01:28:15
i'll say this about i'll say this about uh brian
armstrong i have a lot of respect for him for
01:28:19
making a stand i think every ceo has that right
and uh i'm glad that at the end of the day the
01:28:24
employees at coinbase were given a humane way of
making a decision to be on the same page with him
01:28:29
or not i will also say that i thought that essay
was not goal written and that uh given the chance
01:28:35
i could have rewritten that for him in a much
better way i've maintained this the whole time
01:28:39
um but i i think he's in the right here wrap
it up tell us what you think well okay that's
01:28:46
that's that's interesting that your mother's
um it's interesting to hear your support for
01:28:50
brian so we've talked about this has become
a recurring topic on the pod um but anyway
01:28:55
i think you know the important thing is the
way that i think the tech community fought
01:29:00
back against this hit piece and it was the like
you said jason the front running of the story
01:29:06
somebody's uh a a wag on twitter had a had a great
comment saying you know um he basically said you
01:29:14
know i try to walk out you i agree with the new
york times on this i try to walk up to somebody
01:29:19
and kick him in the nuts and they cover their
groin you know how dare they you know uh
01:29:26
how unprofessional of them it was a slow motion
kick to the nuts yeah exactly and so coming sunday
01:29:33
it's right but it was day but on sunday we're
kicking you on the nuts so yeah the new york times
01:29:39
the coin base just covered its groin so the new
york times can cover kick him in the nuts and um
01:29:44
and of course the reporters all went hysterical
about that but it you know but but but it was a
01:29:49
really brilliant pr tactic by coinbase because
what it did is it almost like released a spike
01:29:54
protein you know by by sort of a pre-announcing
new york times story it created this
01:30:00
spike protein that trained the immune system of
silicon valley to be ready for this pathogenic
01:30:05
new york times story and the the story
just really fell flat it didn't go anywhere
01:30:11
yeah it was um and they did the same thing with
the away ceo she was too hard on people in slack
01:30:17
all of these stories to go full circle involve
some leak from a slack room so if you're a ceo or
01:30:24
you're managing anybody don't have any difficult
or legal issues discussed on slack just go for
01:30:29
a walk with somebody talk to them face to face
because you're going to get destroyed all right
01:30:32
listen everybody this has been another amazing
episode we had 10 more stories we wanted to get to
01:30:38
that we weren't able to get to uh but while
we were doing this i asked my crack team
01:30:47
sorry at the syndicate whoa what was that
to set up the syndicate.com slash all in
01:30:55
so i'm not saying we're doing a syndicate
yes we are we're going to figure out how to
01:30:58
do something we're going to do something to
let the people who listen invest alongside
01:31:03
us we're going to figure it out in 2021 at some
point but you have to write a review on itunes
01:31:08
no you just got to sign up just got to sign
up at the syndicate.com all in if we do a
01:31:13
folding protein company or a unicorn in the isa
space maybe everybody who listens to the all-in
01:31:19
podcast gets to wet their beak for the rain when
david speak what you're the beak let your feet
01:31:36
the t-shirt guy that listens to us we love you
uh there's a code there's a word but wet your
01:31:41
beak or what the beak we have to figure out which
one's better i think we have a new i think we have
01:31:44
a new tagline for the pod what you're being wet
you're right and code 13. these are great merch
01:31:50
opportunities for anybody who wants to go do merch
you can go do merch on your own we don't care
01:31:55
we're not in the merch business put it up on your
own website love you guys love you besties uh so
01:32:00
for bestie rainman the dictator paulie hoppetea
and the queen of quinoa himself metro mile founder
01:32:09
spacker piper laying pipe and spacks everywhere
i'm jason calaganis for the besties we'll see
01:32:15
you next time which could be in a week or a month
who knows on the all in podcast love you besties
