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e
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[Music]
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[Music]
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let's go
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[Music]
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Boys Everybody give it up for the
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dictator himself Jamal
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ptia the Rainman yeah definitely David
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Sachs and your sulan of science David
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Friedberg I love how it's freezing and
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there's one heat lamp one heat we're all
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[Laughter]
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just I mean these are literally like $80
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for the night yeah they cost about 50
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bucks a night to rent so I just thought
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250 was enough yeah be fun no no I mean
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this is a super expensive place
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especially since this is what happens
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this is my life oh God I come in and
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they're like uh Jal I'm like yeah it's
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like chat's been here since 430 I'm like
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yeah that's fine that's great it's you
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know he got here early and they're like
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he's been ordering one on your tab I'm
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like oh no so the event just flipped
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from being in the black to being in the
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red a lot of people had questions for us
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so we thought we would do like a little
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Q&A but I thought I would start with
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maybe asking the besties what has it
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been like I think having this podcast
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get so big and the scrutiny it's under
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but the excitement and just how it's
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affected your life and and maybe how you
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operate in the world I think I may have
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told the story on the Pod but um
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I I'll tell it again because I I do like
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the story so I think I was visiting
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chamath in Milan I think it was either
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last summer or two two years years ago
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two years ago and we were literally just
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walking down the street in Milan and
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somebody comes up to chamath and stops
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him and it's like it's a tourist from
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Australia who's a fan of the Pod yeah
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and he wants to take selfies I mean he
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definitely you know jamath was
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definitely his favorite bestie and it
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was like this excited conversation and
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that all happened and then he you know
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moved on and chth turned to me and said
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oh by the way just some context here is
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that these two were were in like a big
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fight and there's some question about
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whether the Pod yeah whether the Pod
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would survive and I think we were just
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talking about that as this guy came up
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to us in any event so he comes up takes
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the selfie and then leaves and jam turns
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to me and said these two idiots better
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figure things out because I like being
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famous I'd love to hear you guys uh talk
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more about the current state of gen and
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particular software companies I know
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chat you got 8090 going love to hear
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about the the lower cost of actually
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engineering software and building
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companies versus actually geni doing
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replacing human judgment replacing
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judgment self-driving the software
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itself and those two Dimensions feel
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like they're not exclusive to each other
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but they are two different axes love to
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hear kind of current thoughts on the
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return Potential from investment
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standpoint I think
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that the entire software stack is going
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to get
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rebuilt and I think it's going to be a
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bunch of 10 and 20 and 30 person
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companies that do it and I think the
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core artifact of a new company today are
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two decisions the first decision is that
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you must demand
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that the people that join you use every
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available tool at their disposal and you
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measure them against a
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counterfactual where that counterfactual
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is what your productivity was at a
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traditional company and you need to be
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100 to 200% more productive so if an
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engineer is writing you know x amount of
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features or x amount of code they need
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to be at a 2 or 3x and if you do that in
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an existing company all I've seen is
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organ rejection so that's the first
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decision is so the people that join you
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you must expect that they do that which
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means that you also have to deprive them
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of any help along the way no
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administrative help no HR help no
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Finance help all of that stuff needs to
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be a workflow or a bot or some form of
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AI logic so that's one critical
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decision and I think the second is that
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the document that matters more than ever
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is that PRD that defines the v0 MVP of
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the product because I don't think you
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should be writing much code I think what
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you really need to be doing is defining
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and excruciating detail what the Feature
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Feature set is what the parameters are
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what the guard rails of how features
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should behave in certain boundary
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conditions fed into an llm that then
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spits out the code that then compiles
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and then you have a working product and
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that is a 10 20 30% effort that can
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probably topple Giants it'll take a
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couple of years for us to get to that
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place but in that world there is no room
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for $500 million into a SAS company it
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doesn't make any sense and the reason is
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the 10 and 20 person company can price
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that thing at just a fraction of what
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the incumbent charges because the
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incumbent has an Opex load that's not
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correlated to Features it's correlated
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to the fact that you have 50,000 people
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across 50 offices in all over the world
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with all this ridiculous
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infrastructure that all of of a sudden
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becomes obsoleted so I think there's two
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models one is more of the the
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lightweight approach so like saaks and
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jcal both seed a lot of stuff get it off
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the ground spin it up and then raise
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money like he just did with glue which
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is like I'm going to build something get
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it to a place where the rest of us can
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kind of pile on but the other version is
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much more distributed and I'll say a a
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dirty word here but I think it matters
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like it's like this web 3 Model does
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actually apply here where there are some
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really interesting Early Adventures in
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crowdsourcing technical completion I
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would encourage you to look at a project
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that I'm starting to focus a little bit
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on called
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benser and I was like what is this thing
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and it's basically a thing where you go
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and solve technical problems and produce
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features that people require that need
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and you get paid in this underlying
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currency that is actually a distributed
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form of venture that actually makes
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sense like a bounty essentially yeah
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we're like you know 15 companies that
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need a replacement to Salesforce just
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say here's the Bounty and here's the
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feature set and it's a A crowdsourced or
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a community sourced PRD and then some
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llm spits out the code like that is this
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crazy new world that we're going to so
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it's all about speed of execution I
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think s you have any thoughts on it and
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what you're seeing you know in the field
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right now yeah I mean I I I think in
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having conversations with Enterprises
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and businesses what they basically want
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is to be able to throw all of their data
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somehow into a llm and be able to ask
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you questions so they've seen chat GPT
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and they basically want to be able to do
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that but with their own Enterprise data
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and it sounds easy but it's actually
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like pretty hard to make that happen one
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problem is that the
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llms don't have that big what's called a
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context window which is kind of like you
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could it's almost like active memory or
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something like that and we're in the
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early days of it's like in the early
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days of computers where the you know you
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had to worry about your Ram was like 8
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megab 16 then 32 then 64 remember that
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get some we had and 3 and2 in disc or
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whatever and eventually just people
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stopped talking about Ram because it
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went away as a constraint yeah but we're
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still in the days of you have to be
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selective about what you feed into the
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model because it just can only absorb so
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much information so if you give it all
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of your Enterprise data how's it even
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know where to look and so you've got to
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figure out how to optimize it so that
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you can give the the model the right
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chunks of data to give you the right
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answers and that's actually it's a
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complicated problem right now and and uh
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we're dealing with it at glue we're in
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we just invested in a company a startup
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called raggi which is basically rag as a
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service do retrieval augment and
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generation as a as a service it's
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basically helps solve this problem so I
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think that that's kind of the stage that
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we're at is everyone kind of knows where
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they want to get to and we're just
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dealing with some of the limitations so
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that the model can work you know
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effectively and you know what you see
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right now are like glimpses of of you
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know genius or greatness like if you
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feed the exact right chunks into the
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model you'll get like answers that can
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blow you away but then sometimes you'll
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just get an answer that just kind of
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isn't that good and again the reason is
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because the model didn't really know
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where to look for the answer so you know
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right now it's like again glimpses of
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something amazing and we just have to
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kind of get to more predictability
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around that and there's a lot effort
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that's going into solving some of these
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sorts of issues it's not just llms it's
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also yeah although it is at the llm
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level it's also the the infrastructure
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around it you know and to put the two
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thoughts together I think the people who
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Embrace this are becoming bionic at work
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I mean we had many challenges in podcast
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production around things like
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transcripts or doing show notes and
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learning um hey about this person who's
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a guest um they were on these three
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podcasts now we have producers at our
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company who will take those three
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podcast interviews download the MP3 put
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them into you know a chat GPT and say
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what are the key points in here what are
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the key timestamps and even what
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questions would you ask or what are
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relevant topics this person's talking
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about and these data sets are disparate
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and they're not connected so you can't
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say well what's David saaks talking
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about if you're going to have them on
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your podcast on Twitter because there's
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no way to get that information um I
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could tell you what the topics are it's
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pretty anyway um and and those
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individuals are becoming so valuable in
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organizations and it's allowing people
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to do so much work so fast and then
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unlocking things that were just not
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possible
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and that to me is very obvious inside
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the startups we invest in because when
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they're resource constrained they look
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for the fastest cheapest way to do
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things and if you watch those startups
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they're the same ones who when other
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people were racking servers they were
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using AWS they were using cloud
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computing and they figured it out first
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and then they built businesses that you
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may have heard of like Dropbox YouTube
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that whole wave was a group of people
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who just fundamentally said that the
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Paradigm of cloud computing is going to
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work even though it's not perfect right
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now even though it's slow or expensive
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or breaks whatever I'm just going to go
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all in on that and Dropbox made this
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critical error I don't know if you
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remember that Sachs where they stood up
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their own data centers instead of you
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know they were just scared to have their
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data at I guess AWS or whatever was and
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so it's going to be unbelievable how
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many businesses become viable with just
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three four five employees and that's the
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that's what I'm seeing on the field
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freeberg any that's on AI right now uh I
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just I think that there's a chance that
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SAS gets kind of obviated I've shared
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this in the past I think that there's a
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chance that SAS looks like this kind of
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temporary phenomenon that occurred
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between the ubiquity of the internet and
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the prevalence of AI for writing
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software if if you've worked with any
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Enterprise non traditional Enterprise
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from a traditional industry meaning they
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didn't grow up in software and they're
00:12:05
not software native they have it
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departments and those it departments are
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really good at procurement of software
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and that's really been their primary
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function but they all try to hire
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software engineers and they generally
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suck and but they understand the needs
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of the business and I think that if they
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can have software written for them at a
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basically a cost of zero to improve
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their workplace productivity which was
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the original thing that was enabled
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software in the first place it starts to
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really change how folks are sourcing and
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using software that it can actually be
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written for them in real time by
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software and so I think that the the
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tooling and the capabilities to enable
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the Enterprise to write their own custom
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workplace productivity tools and their
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own custom workplace software whether
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that's customer facing or internal
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facing really becomes kind of the
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standard maybe going forward and you
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know you see this what I think Doug
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Leone called the greatest business model
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in human history which is SAS getting
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kind of blown up in that new landscape
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so I think there's a chance that that
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happens non-zero chance and I've just
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seen this in in a bunch of settings
00:13:12
where folks are having software written
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for them by the software and they kind
00:13:16
of just really State clearly here's the
00:13:18
layout here's what I wanted to do and
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with a couple of rounds of iteration
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they can get it working pretty well and
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they don't need to go pay some third
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party of per seat license fee per year
00:13:27
to use it I have heard about about uh
00:13:29
your poker love uh through the podcast
00:13:32
I've listening for a few years and it
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was really fun to experience it with you
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last night could you comment a little
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bit on like how you think about your
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utility function personally is it
00:13:42
networking strategy training is it fun
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like could you comment a little bit on
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how you all think why we play poker
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there is networking that has occurred at
00:13:49
it but I think also you know you made a
00:13:52
good comment about it or maybe Bobby
00:13:54
Balwin said it he never saw or was you
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know um a poker
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player like get old and lose their
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mental facilities right like they Bobby
00:14:04
Bobby Ballin ran the city center in Arya
00:14:06
for a long time he plays in our game and
00:14:09
he made this comment he's like have you
00:14:11
ever seen a poker player get Alzheimer's
00:14:13
or dementia right he was saying that
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about Doyle Brunson cuz Doyle when he
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died was super sharp sharp as attack his
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body failed before his mind filled yeah
00:14:21
and it's true it's like it's one of
00:14:22
these unique games where you can really
00:14:24
stay mentally sharp as you get old yeah
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absolutely saaks you still love it
00:14:30
yeah definitely yeah look I I like it
00:14:34
for the same reason that that you guys
00:14:35
like it there was a phase early on where
00:14:38
like I would play in the World Series of
00:14:39
Poker I would like go to that and then I
00:14:41
was just like you know I actually don't
00:14:43
like sitting there for three days
00:14:45
playing with strangers it's actually not
00:14:48
that fun to do that and the thing that's
00:14:51
fun is just playing with your friends so
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now I just play in friend games I first
00:14:56
started playing poker when I did I ever
00:14:57
tell you this I worked at a pool hall in
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Upstate New York I was uh 16 years old I
00:15:02
got paid 425 an hour to work at this
00:15:04
pool hall I like clean toilets and scrub
00:15:07
down the tables and the guy sat at the
00:15:09
pay phone all day was the bookie for
00:15:11
Upstate New York and he would take all
00:15:12
his the bets on the pay phone and write
00:15:15
him down and one day like after he got
00:15:16
to know me for a couple months he's like
00:15:18
come and play poker with us at our home
00:15:19
game and they played limit hold him like
00:15:21
one two 50 Cent $1 one two and these
00:15:24
took all my money and I was 16
00:15:27
going to college like cold I had
00:15:29
to walk through the snow I couldn't
00:15:31
afford boots or a jacket it was like
00:15:33
really
00:15:34
shitty and they took all my money yeah
00:15:36
and I had to call my mom and I lied to
00:15:37
her and I'm like Mom I lost my jacket
00:15:39
can you like loan me 150 bucks Western
00:15:42
Union it so I can buy a jacket
00:15:43
so that summer I bought all the books in
00:15:46
the from the back of the poker magazines
00:15:47
to learn how to play poker strategy and
00:15:49
it was all limit hold him at that time
00:15:51
and then my freshman year of college at
00:15:54
Cal I made 10 grand that summer playing
00:15:57
limit Holden at the Oaks Card Club
00:15:59
playing tournaments in 612 and after
00:16:02
that I was and I learned so much about
00:16:04
investing and life and like perseverance
00:16:06
through ups and downs because you sit
00:16:08
there you grind it out as long as you
00:16:09
have a positive EV decision you know you
00:16:12
made the right decision over time the
00:16:14
money will come to you you don't need to
00:16:15
like win every hand and to learn
00:16:18
that at that age I think was really
00:16:20
influential to me in entrepreneurship
00:16:22
and investing and in decision- making
00:16:24
later on in life it was very important
00:16:26
to me and so when I sold my company in
00:16:28
2013 I was introduced to Cham and
00:16:30
invited to come to the pl in the home
00:16:32
game and for me it was like a very kind
00:16:34
of nostalgic because I hadn't played
00:16:35
really much since 2001 2002 what's the
00:16:39
most impactful advice you've been given
00:16:41
and how's it shaped your careers early
00:16:43
on I got two good pieces of
00:16:46
advice one was from Mike Savino who's
00:16:49
here somewhere speaking tomorrow there
00:16:50
it is um and he said uh the piece of
00:16:53
advice his dad gave him was look to the
00:16:55
left and come in an hour before that guy
00:16:57
and then look to the right and come in
00:16:58
and an hour later than that guy just
00:17:01
basically the hard work stuff and I had
00:17:03
gotten that from my mom as well who
00:17:04
worked three or four jobs to put us
00:17:05
through school and my dad who worked
00:17:08
really hard and so the hard work ethic I
00:17:10
think was the key to a lot of My Success
00:17:13
because I just decided I'm just going to
00:17:15
outwork everybody because I was coming
00:17:17
not from Harvard or Stamford but from
00:17:19
Bay Ridge Brooklyn uh and you know going
00:17:22
to night school at forom so I I had to
00:17:23
use hustle and there was no connections
00:17:25
there was no network I just had to
00:17:27
literally kill what I ate
00:17:29
and then after I sold my first company I
00:17:31
was at Ted at the Billionaire's dinner
00:17:34
with my book agent John Brockman and uh
00:17:37
I had still had a chip on my shoulder
00:17:38
but I had sold my company and he uh said
00:17:41
hey
00:17:42
schmock you you made it stop fighting
00:17:46
with
00:17:46
everybody and I was like okay I'll stop
00:17:50
fighting with
00:17:51
everybody uh I still you took that
00:17:53
advice I took it sometimes I flip a coin
00:17:55
when did you do that um not get that
00:17:58
memo when did you get that advice last
00:17:59
night or yeah I just got it you're just
00:18:01
texting me right now um but it was
00:18:04
actually because I had to fight for
00:18:06
everything I think I just kept fighting
00:18:09
to try to get the next you know level
00:18:12
and you know at a certain point I
00:18:13
decided I'd be like super magnanimous
00:18:16
and just be helpful and Elder Statesman
00:18:18
like um and it's I'm not perfect but you
00:18:21
know what well I mean when you don't see
00:18:23
me working you don't see me working with
00:18:25
startups you're you know like I am
00:18:27
tireless in my ability with patience for
00:18:29
them and supportive and I just and I try
00:18:32
to do that with my friends as well is
00:18:33
just you know what's the point of being
00:18:34
successful if you can't support the
00:18:35
people around you who you love and try
00:18:37
to pay for it so those are just you are
00:18:39
you are like the the most reliable
00:18:41
wingman of all of us oh thank you you
00:18:43
know it value your friends and your
00:18:46
family is like just such critically
00:18:48
important advice because at the end of
00:18:49
the day all you have is your memories
00:18:52
and you make them with your friends and
00:18:53
your family and so I am on a mission to
00:18:56
make great memories uh with my friends
00:18:58
and family as many as possible uh and
00:19:01
and actually this is part of it like you
00:19:02
all being here and just that's why I
00:19:04
always tell you like make a couple of
00:19:05
friends it's like it's hard to make
00:19:06
friends especially as you get older uh
00:19:08
and people kind of tighten up their
00:19:09
circles like make a couple of new
00:19:11
friends you know and go do things
00:19:14
together anyway some philosophy I don't
00:19:16
know advice that you got the the the
00:19:20
best advice career advice I got was from
00:19:22
Peter teal who advised me not to go to
00:19:24
law school and unfortunately I didn't
00:19:27
listen to him I went anyway
00:19:29
and but it ended up not mattering
00:19:30
because I ended up joining PayPal uh
00:19:32
after I graduated from law school so I
00:19:34
wish I had a better story the best
00:19:36
career advice I've actually heard for
00:19:38
Silicon Valley was the advice that Eric
00:19:41
Schmidt gave Cheryl Samberg when she
00:19:43
joined Google which is when you get
00:19:46
invited to take a seat on a rocket ship
00:19:49
don't ask for see yeah just just get on
00:19:51
board I actually think that is
00:19:54
perennially great advice for anyone in
00:19:56
Silicon Valley you know there aren't
00:19:57
that many of these rocket ship so when
00:19:59
you get a chance to be on one you should
00:20:01
just take it and worry about the titles
00:20:03
and all that kind of stuff later yeah
00:20:05
the details later I think like the the
00:20:07
biggest piece of advice that I still
00:20:08
struggle to take every day every time I
00:20:13
have though it's had profound impact on
00:20:14
my life is to
00:20:16
focus um I think the bigger a portfolio
00:20:21
you develop the less Alpha there is you
00:20:23
try and minimize beta but you take all
00:20:24
the alpha away if you do that in 2009 I
00:20:26
focused my company on the agriculture
00:20:28
Market which was crazy we were in like
00:20:30
seven verticals and doing all sorts of
00:20:31
stuff when I focused on EG and I went
00:20:33
deep and I like went on a long hike in
00:20:36
Iceland and I like came up with this
00:20:37
crazy idea for the product for the ACT
00:20:39
market and I came back we launched it
00:20:42
and we did like 30 million in sales that
00:20:43
year and that made a huge impact in my
00:20:46
life and the trajectory of the business
00:20:47
changed and every time I focused and
00:20:49
avoided distractions it's made a huge
00:20:51
impact I think my decision to become a
00:20:53
CEO again back in November was a really
00:20:55
important one for me and I realized I
00:20:57
was on lots of boards and doing lot L of
00:20:58
investing and thinking about LS of
00:21:00
things but now I can really dig deep and
00:21:02
I I think that everyone assumes that
00:21:04
there's this power law in the world that
00:21:07
you are a passive participant in you're
00:21:10
either going to catch one of the power
00:21:12
law winners or you're going to lose it
00:21:13
therefore you've got a portfolio your
00:21:15
way to a power law to catch a power law
00:21:18
I don't give a about that because I
00:21:20
think my job in life is to make the
00:21:21
power law and to make that outcome and I
00:21:24
feel like that has made a huge impact on
00:21:26
how I think about life and it's really
00:21:28
um every time I've tried to act on it
00:21:30
it's it's actually paid back
00:21:32
significantly so focus is the the
00:21:34
biggest piece of advice I've gotten that
00:21:35
I think matters so the the the version
00:21:37
of that that I tell Founders all the
00:21:38
time is always be all in on your best
00:21:41
idea because Founders have a whole bunch
00:21:44
of different ideas sometimes they're
00:21:45
doing multiple startups sometimes
00:21:46
they're thinking about pivoting but
00:21:48
they're still hanging on to the old idea
00:21:51
and I always give them permission to
00:21:53
Pivot I'm like don't worry about what
00:21:55
you said you're going to do whatever two
00:21:57
quarters ago and you rais this money
00:21:59
justes whatever you think the best idea
00:22:01
is right now like let's go all in on
00:22:04
that do not hedge your bets I think
00:22:06
that's just really important for
00:22:07
Founders and it goes back to what you're
00:22:09
saying it's just so hard to execute any
00:22:12
idea that you can't be hedged as a
00:22:16
Founder Seven Samurai yeah Akira
00:22:18
kurasawa did such an amazing job
00:22:21
representing this ethos I think like you
00:22:24
strike and you strike perfectly and you
00:22:26
strike with full force and with all your
00:22:28
energy and everything you have your
00:22:29
whole character everything and you can
00:22:31
accomplish incredible things you have to
00:22:33
put one foot in front of the other every
00:22:36
day and you have to focus on tangible
00:22:41
progress and where that fails is when
00:22:45
most people and I do it a lot and I've
00:22:47
tried to get better as I've gotten older
00:22:49
is when I get comparative and I compare
00:22:51
myself to the other person the other
00:22:53
company the other funding round there's
00:22:56
so many reasons for you to feel like
00:22:58
you're less than something
00:23:00
else and the reality is that has nothing
00:23:03
to do with you you're not in control of
00:23:05
that but it's so hard and then if I
00:23:08
don't take that medicine I become
00:23:11
insecure and then I make mistakes that
00:23:13
are entirely avoidable so it's just
00:23:17
tangible progress the things that I can
00:23:19
control that's probably the most useful
00:23:22
piece of advice that I try to remind
00:23:23
myself of every
00:23:25
day and
00:23:26
then I kind of have these two jobs one
00:23:29
is I'll incubate companies from time to
00:23:31
time if I get intellectually curious
00:23:32
enough but the other part is just as an
00:23:35
investor and the best piece of advice I
00:23:37
got as an investor is you are a big Wave
00:23:43
Rider and the swells that become
00:23:47
ginormous are not visible when you
00:23:49
paddle into them and so you got to
00:23:52
commit and you got to go and you are
00:23:55
going to have less than 100% hit rate
00:23:58
and you will get massively washed out
00:24:01
and you just got to get to the surface
00:24:03
and swim back up and as an investor
00:24:05
that's been helpful because I've had
00:24:06
some huge wins but I've also had some
00:24:08
huge losses and some total
00:24:10
embarrassments and flameouts and it's
00:24:12
the totality of that that allows me to
00:24:15
swim back out so those are two different
00:24:17
things but the entrepreneurial one and
00:24:19
the life one is more valuable because so
00:24:22
easy to
00:24:23
get distracted and feel insecure because
00:24:25
of what somebody else is doing and it
00:24:28
always ends up screwing me up I think
00:24:29
that's a good note to end on uh give it
00:24:31
up for my
00:24:32
besties and uh we're going to take a
00:24:35
little walk over here um for a little
00:24:37
surprise if I could have my four besties
00:24:39
follow me over
00:24:40
[Music]
00:24:43
here I'm going to walk over here because
00:24:46
it's a very special day or a special
00:24:49
time of the year it's the Sultan of
00:24:52
science's birthday again so come on
00:24:54
around and we got him a beautiful cake
00:24:57
and then a tiny little vegan cake and
00:25:00
we're all going to sing the
00:25:02
sultan happy birthday 3 2 one happy
00:25:08
Birthday to
00:25:11
you happy Birthday to happy birthday
00:25:17
dear
00:25:19
D happy birthday to you we love you
00:25:23
freir
00:25:25
[Music]
00:25:39
n
00:25:43
[Music]
