All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg - #AIS: Opening chat with Miami Mayor Francis Suarez

Episode Date: June 3, 2022

This talk was recorded LIVE at the All-In Summit in Miami and included slides. To watch on YouTube, check out our All-In Summit playlist: https://bit.ly/aisytplaylist 0:00 Yung Spielburg intros the Besties + Besties give reactions to the All-In Summit 5:56 Miami Mayor Francis Suarez joins the Besties on stage to chat: Miami's emergence as a tech hub, his governing principles, crypto, what the future holds & more Follow Mayor Suarez: https://twitter.com/FrancisSuarez Follow the besties: https://twitter.com/chamath https://linktr.ee/calacanis https://twitter.com/DavidSacks https://twitter.com/friedberg Follow the pod: https://twitter.com/theallinpod https://linktr.ee/allinpodcast Intro Music Credit: https://rb.gy/tppkzl https://twitter.com/yung_spielburg Intro Video Credit: https://twitter.com/TheZachEffect

Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce your besties, the queen of Kinwa, the Sultan of Science David Freatia, and everyone's favorite bestie, the point guard, J.P. We open sources of dance and age discoveries. Love you, my sweet queen of kingdom. I'm going to leave. I cannot believe what Jay Callas pulled off here. I mean, I am in shock that this is even real. I still don't know where all the money went, but... The amount of money you embezzled. We are witnessing our first Theranos moment,

starring Jason Calcana's. Guys, I got great news for you. I took all the money, I put it in Luna. I haven't checked it in the last week, but we were up three acts. We're gonna kill this. You'll never find the money. I put it through multiple Bitcoin tumblers.

That's great. It's gonna be great. Welcome everybody. By the way, sorry, this is a joke to everybody in the room, but one person sitting over here who is really sweating the accounting of this. Rebirth. He's having a dream.

I had a panic attack last. I was beginning, I said, if J. Cal's gonna do this, we're gonna have a grift session. We're gonna halt it down, we're going to figure out where the grift happened because it's going to happen The guy who's always calling out the grift knows how to grift better than anyone else Half these people have his families here if you guys met them all they're great people Are there any calcantus who are not on the payroll? I'm not a cop. I'm a cop. I'm a cop. Are there any calcansis who are not on the payroll? Can I tell you this?

We're feeding a lot of calcansis here. I've been in this job. I've been your biggest supporter defending you from these two fucking jackals. But it's finally got into my brain as well. So when I got into the hotel room and I opened the bag, I was like, maybe this cup costs $4,000. That's right. Maybe it's very possible. It's a heated cup.

It's a heated cup. Who were we to know? What is the last time you bought a cup? I'm like, it's like the Pentagon or something. You know? I mean, too much like when George Bush went to the supermarket and he didn't know how much a tomato or gallon of milk

has. What does a gallon of milk have? 799? I have no idea. I'm sorry. I'm not going to pretend. I asked Sacks, when's the last time you flew commercial? Which George Bush was in office?

Herbert Walker. Yeah. It was, I think, a bomb was stolen office. Yeah, yeah. He was just one minute Democrat. We're so grateful for you all to come here. How many people flew, just by his show hands and a whoop whoop, how many people flew over 10 hours to get here?

Oh my God. I mean, it's pretty incredible. Fans from around the world. And I just think, you know, it's very special to us that this podcast means so much to you. Last night, we had a little debrief and the thing just said to us, you know, when we met you all, and it's very weird to do a podcast like this and have it become super popular. Two weeks ago it became the 26th most popular episode in the App Store, which to us was crazy. We did this because we were losing our minds in COVID and as friends we couldn't play poker, we couldn't see each other, it was very lonely.

And we did this for ourselves. And the fact that all of you got some value from it was just remarkable to us, like as a concept, but incredibly gracious of you all to come here and then to tell us what it means to you. It just has blown us away, that people are even tuning in to it. How has it changed your life, Friedberg? I mean, you were a nobody. I mean, literally didn't have a Twitter account. We were all dirty people in the tech industry. But nobody knew you. So let's just start there. Literally, we were backstage and they said,

Queen of Kenwa, and this audience went crazy. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you're very socially awkward. I'm honest. Tell us what is it like for you to be famous? You know, I appreciate that. But I'll tell you, the weird thing is we go into our office

for 90 minutes a week and we talk to each other over Zoom and then we go in the room and people want to take pictures. That's what's so strange. We've never done this and we did it once in person together, right? The pod. We've always done it over Zoom and it was always a remote. It's always felt like, hey, I got meetings on either side. Let's go do the pod for 90 minutes and then all of a sudden it's like, hey, you know, people actually fucking listen to us talking over Zoom. Yeah, it's a little wacky, I'll tell you. But it was great to meet everyone last night.

I think it was, it was really cool because I heard a lot of stories last night about some dude sold his company for like fucking $2 billion. Where's that guy? That guy, and he's like, he's still at 11. Well, yeah. Yeah, yeah. He said he sold his company because of the call we made on the top of the market. And he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like,

he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like,

he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, it's just one. That's right. So I take it, I take it 11 just close. I'd have to dress like a human being for about an hour.

I made it. It actually doesn't close. 11. 11 doesn't close. So we'll just go there for hours. Sorry, it's 24 hours. It's 24 hours. Not that I've ever been there, but.

Yes. Hey, thanks for hosting us. What a gift. We were thinking of a place to do it. And you were gracious enough to encourage us to come here. You took everybody's poker money, everyone else in the country, so you decided to come here, right? Yes, we're going to swing the court.

I love that. But what an incredible resurgence and courting of the tech industry you've done here. Tell us a little bit about what's happened in the last two years since you started replying to people on Twitter saying, hey, if you're running a business, we'd like to help you? Yeah, sort of a United States of America type of approach, right?

Fundamentally American, where we want to create high-paying jobs in our city. We want to empower people. We want to give people an opportunity at being prosperous. And for some reason, in this country, in certain cities that's been frowned upon, or it makes you feel guilty about it. And here in Miami, we're fundamentally shaped

by our origin story. And many people in Miami were exiled from their country of birth because in those countries, communist regimes took over. And many people in Miami were exiled from their country of birth because in those countries communist regimes took over. And obviously in those countries, a government official is saying, hey, give me your property, give me your business. And don't worry, I'll make everybody equal. And they do make everybody equal.

They make everybody equally miserable. So, you know, they've accomplished that. And when every government wants to grow, you should run in the opposite direction. And so in Miami, we do it by following some simple rules. We keep taxes as low as humanly possible. And shocker, our budget has doubled in size since we have kept taxes to 1960s lows. We focus on quality of life. So we have the lowest homeless rates since 2013, where the first major city,

I think in America, to actually try to get to zero. We want to have zero homeless. And we actually invest in safety. You know, we actually, while other cities decrease funding for a police, we increase funding for a police. We have the most... Yeah. We have the most police officers we've ever had in our history. And by the way, they have the hardest job in America right now are police officers. And I'm going to give you a shocking

correlation. Our crime went down. Shocking. So you added police. We added police. And the crime went down. Yes. And it's bewildering. Our homicide rate went down by 23% last year. This year, it's down by 40% from the 23% of last year. So almost 63% two years.

Yeah. So that's basically the combination of economic prosperity and then safety and security. People are too busy to think about all of the long-tailed things they could be doing to screw up their own lives or somebody else's life. They're just living a good life. Yeah, we have 1.4% unemployment.

We're number one in the nation and wage growth. We're number one in the nation in tech jobs. We're number one in tech job migration. I think we've moved 2 trillion AUM in the last 18 months and our VC pipeline grew by 200% year over year and to put that number in context, if it was a zero sum game and our game was, for example, San Francisco's loss,

which it may very well be going into the future, in two years we would overtake San Francisco as the VC capital of the world. Yeah. And to be clear, at that rate, you know, this is a very liberal city that is welcoming of all people. It's not like you've become some insane, crazy right wing,

like teal sacks. Insanity. You still are like fine with people living their lives. And you know. Yes, we're very much into freedom. We're kind of sort of libertarian here in Miami. And we want people to live their lives as they see fit. We're not here to tell them what to do.

We're here to create the conditions for their prosperity to the extent that government even gets involved in that. We like to stay out of people's business. We try to be efficient, which I know is almost an oxymoron in government And we try to facilitate people's growth and success. That's it. That's all we do. Tell us about your support of crypto So you know when we were trying to create this buzz and ecosystem We knew we had to disrupt the natural order of things and so our hack right our

David and Goliath sort of slingshot hack was to go all in and crypto. Part of the reason why is, you know, I understood the fundamentals of it. I like the fundamentals of it. You know, I think one of the things that's missing in our society is trust. And when you see policymakers, whether at the Fed or the federal government, when spending significantly more money than what it's taking in, which is creating hyperinflation.

We see interest rates going up, and it's sort of a terrible man or woman inflicted suffering. And you see a system that is designed to sort of create trust by making it humanless, in effect. It was something that was very attractive. Obviously, the blockchain, I was part of the blockchain foundation, part of the blockchain task force for the state of Florida. So I had a sort of education on the technology prior to the moment

where I sort of decided to go all in on it. And I thought that it could be a differentiator being a young mayor who understood the tech, who understood that I wasn't taking as big a risk as people thought I would be taking. And it's been great for our ecosystem. I mean, whatever the price of Bitcoin is at a given moment is pretty much irrelevant. What's important to me is we have the Bitcoin conference, we have you guys. We have the Bitcoin conference, which is tens of millions of dollars in economic development. We brought a tremendous amount of funds and exchange exchanges to headquarter

here in Miami, which has created hundreds of high-paying jobs. And then we got FTX to name our arena, which is a 200 million-dollar gift or contribution to our community. So it's been something that's benefited us to the tunes of hundreds of millions of dollars. So regardless of what you think about crypto as a technology, as an economic development tool, it's been game changing for us. Zach, I'm curious how you think about what you've seen in this city versus where we all live and operate in the Bay Area, and then across the country. How do you grade the job the mayor has done here and what do you think the lessons are

for the rest of the country? I think Mayor Soir has done an amazing here, and it's something that other cities should be looking to emulate, which is simply to be helpful instead of, you know, being an impediment. I did an event for Mayor Soares in San Francisco, you know, my home, and it was the best attended event. I've done a lot of political events. The one we had with you was the best attended event. And I've done a lot of political events. The one we had with you was the best attended event.

I think we ever held. And there was a tremendous amount of curiosity on the part of people in San Francisco in terms of what's been happening here. And the kind of the thing that you heard over and over again by the people who attended that event who had asked questions was, why can't we have a mayor like you in San Francisco? Because I don't live there.

Actually, I'm president of the US Conference of Mayor. So I kind of jokingly say, well, I'm kind of trying to, but every city I go to, they ask me the same question. And I'm like, well, I really like Miami a lot. Yeah. I mean, fundamentally, we have not just a mayor, but because the mayor in San Francisco is actually not bad, London breed's not bad.

The issue is the board of supervisors who really controls the city. I mean, they've been engaged in killing the Golden Goose. I mean, San Francisco and the Bay Area had a lock on the tech ecosystem. And because the political forces there define tech as the enemy. They basically have driven it out.

And as a result, you now have emergent tech hubs, all of the United States, starting with Miami and Austin and other cities like that. And it's kind of crazy. Services go ahead, the monopoly, and it basically chose to give it up. Well, spending, it was a giant griff, right? Aren't they at like 4x budget per capita over New York?

It's like, yeah, it's great. It's great. It's something insane. Yeah, it is crazy. Mayor, let me ask a question around. One of the reasons Silicon Valley exists is because of the relationship with the universities in the Bay Area.

And obviously, that still continues to be a big driver for the tech and more recently biotech economy in the Bay Area. A lot of people get their PhDs, they graduate engineering students, they stay in the Bay Area, UCSF, Stanford, Berkeley, etc. How do you think about the relationship between universities, what's the kind of reflective solution here, and are there relationships you can maybe build or bridge with California schools to kind of get innovation hub set up that partner with graduate. Well, I would love to, you know,

one of the things that's interesting about Silicon Valley is 95% of the people that live in Silicon Valley were not born in Silicon Valley. In Miami, it's closer to 70% of the people that live in the city were not born in the city. I'm actually an anomaly being the first Miami born mayor in the history of the city, 125 years. So that's a pretty cool stat.

But I absolutely think that we can look, we're not perfect. I like to think that I get up every morning as a mayor, you sort of look at the imperfections and you try as a long-term build, right? Beyond these 24 months, you start thinking about what are the structural things that we can do better. And I think you just hit on one of them, right?

I think certainly having a university that's at the caliber of the Stanford's, MIT's, Harvard, even UT and Georgia Tech at a lot of fanfare, Minostin and in the Atlanta area. And so I think we can certainly do better. I'm not one of these people that likes to be complacent or that thinks that, you know, even if we had a university at the caliber of some of these universities, I'd be still trying to find a way to do better. I think the world is highly disruptive. I think

higher ed is highly disruptive. And I think, and it's in our cake sort of institutional, just like government, right? They're always behind. So I think that gives cities like Miami, if we're smart, if we find our crypto for universities, we can sort of leapfrog a lot of them and get to the top very quickly, I think. I want to ask you, as we wrap here, a really hard question. We are struggling. How do we jump off in poker? Yeah, it's hard. It's impossible, I would say.

No, I mean, we have a drug crisis in this country with Fentanyl. It is a super drug, but we have never seen. We have this problem in San Francisco with homelessness and drugs, and you are now running the conference of all the mayors in the country, and you all come together, and it seems like some cities are figuring out how to deal with this and some are flandering. Is the issue that we're looking at a super drug and an addiction problem that has very low chance of resolving itself through even when somebody can get a bed and go to recovery, the recovery rates were fentanyl, are no single digits. And we're looking at this as if the

problem is actually homelessness, that they don't have a home. When in fact, they are addicted to a super drug. Why can't we look at this for what it is and stop conflating a super drug addiction problem with people not having a home in an economic issue? It seems like there's some denial going on. Sure, look, I think fentanyl is the numbers are very scary,

right, in terms of recovery, it's infinitesimal. In terms of people that can get out of that vicious cycle of fentanyl addiction. In Miami, what we did about 10, 15 years ago was we created a network of facilities that do drug treatment, alcohol treatment, mental health, and vocational training, all at the same place. It's called the Homeless Trust. We use, I think it's a scent from, it's a, basically a tourist tax, so people who come in and visit pay a bed tax when they come and visit a hotel.

It generates about $50 million a year, which you can bond out, and we've created a decentralized set of facilities all across the MSA. We reduce homelessness by about 90% with that network. We're now down to the chronic few, the last 10%, it's about 1,000 in the county, in Miami, in the city, which is one of 34 cities in the county. We have 510 homeless right now in the city. And-

That's incredibly, you know, down to the person. Yeah, down to the person. We do a continuous audit and continuous census, and so we know down to the person. And I think the key for us to go to zero, right, aside from trying to fund the network's wish list, which we did, with some art by funding that we got, is to really know them at an intimate level, know their stories, right? You know, when we first met, one of the things you said was, you don't know someone until you know their story, right? How do you drill down and how do you get inside and know what's the reason why they're there,

whether it's an addiction, whether it's some people just have been homeless for 20 years and they're just used to it, right? They want to live on the streets. And those are the hardest ones because you really can't, unfortunately, legally tell them you can't live on the street. Right, so it's about convincing them that there's a better path, there's a better life,

that there are things out there that can create more happiness for them. Yeah, but you have to hold the line as well. You do. On a policing level. Absolutely. If you, as we've seen in San Francisco, if you incentivize it by not doing any basic policing, you get more of it.

Here's the issue. I think what people often forget is obviously people who are homeless are human beings and they need to be treated with dignity. At the same time, there are human beings like we are. If any one of us, he's recording over there, if any one of us just got up and started urinating on the stage right now, they would be arrested.

They would be arrested. So we're held to a certain level of account as human beings where our actions affect others. So it's not just about the human person and how we take care of that human being, but it's also how does that human being Interact with and affect everybody else and I think that's the part that gets lost sometimes in the debate Mayor before sorry, I want to ask one question

You focus on local issues the city that you operate What do you think happens to be United States the federal government over the next 30 years? You have any points of view and where we're headed as a. Wow, that's a loaded question. But I think- Well, we'll be running for mayor. I'm sorry for president. What's your point of view? What's your point of view?

On 30-32, when are you planning to- No, no, no, no, thank you. Thank you. Whenever Tomatha also authorizes it, look. It has been authorized. Just so you know, you are looking at an eight to 12 years from now. He will be the president of the United States.

But anyways, go ahead and ask him. I'm always trying to hack and accelerate the process. Anyhow, so. I asked you to water it. So it sounds good, by the way. I think a few things. I think first of all, those three bullet points, if you will, those three sort of key success,

keeping taxes low, investing in quality of life, which is sort of homelessness and safety, and then creating high paying jobs, or as leaning into an innovation economy, we're transition, that's a recipe for success for the country. Can we change the country, though? Can we change, can we move the trend?

Right, we gotta die in front of the trend. Look, look what we did in Miami in two years, absolutely we can. I think we have to transition, there's two inflection points which are massively disruptive. The first is from an industrial to a digital economy. And the second is from the boomer generation

to our generation. So those two inflection points are happening at the same time. If we, and what I, what that does, I call it a tsunami of opportunity. And if we get ahead of the tsunami and we surf that wave as opposed to letting the wave run us over, I think we can create a generation of prosperity.

But look, you have China and Russia banning Bitcoin. Do we want to agree with China and Russia on anything right now? I don't know. You know, I don't think so. So, you know, I think there are tremendous opportunities for us to lean into this innovation economy and create prosperity. You have the largest microchip factory in the world being built in Columbus, Ohio.

I think that's something that we need to reclaim our ability to produce things in the technological industrial revolution. We're seeing Bitcoin mining facilities that are done at carbon neutral. So I think there's a lot of opportunities in this new economy for us to really jump ahead where skilled labor is going to be a premium over un-skilled labor that's going to be done with computers or, you know, printers or whatever. Mr. Mayor, we appreciate that you are putting your life to service the citizens of this great city. your life to service the citizens of this great city and we really appreciate that because you have other opportunities you could have pursued and you're pursuing really changing what is you know some some major dysfunctions in the political system and we're all rooting for you and the results are undeniable and

we really do appreciate you ladies and gentlemen, I love you very much. Thank you. Thank you. We're like your winners ride. Bring man David Saad. I'm going on a beach. And it says we open source it to the fans and they've just gone crazy with it. I'm going on a beach.

I'm going on a beach. What, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, I'm going on a leave What? What? What? What? Besties are gone, don't drink That's way a dog taking a wish to drive away So sex, we're gonna go in Oh man, my hamlet has your wimpy ass We should all just get a room and just have one big hug or two

Because they're all just like this sexual tension that we just need to release that out What? The beef What? Your beer of beef because they're all just like this like sexual tension that we just need to release that out. I'm going on leave