All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg - E15: “The Besties” All-In’s inaugural award show covering the best, worst & most memorable of 2020

Episode Date: December 18, 2020

Follow the crew: 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://soundcloud.com/olyofficial Show Notes: 0:00 The besties discuss some recent beak wetting, open source merch & more 6:31 Chamath tells the “192.5” weight loss bet story 10:54 Biggest Winner - Politics 13:08 Biggest Loser - Politics 16:24 Biggest Winner - Business 19:47 Biggest Loser - Business 23:22 Biggest Winner - Culture 26:24 Biggest Loser - Culture 32:31 Biggest Turnaround 34:49 Biggest Flash in the Pan 39:32 Biggest Breakthrough 43:51 Smartest Move - Business 49:58 Dumbest Move - Business 56:25 Smartest Move - Politics 1:00:20 Dumbest Move - Politics 1:04:22 Best/Worst Political Theatre 1:12:57 Best Memes

You gotta rise up before you think it, you gotta dive in before you can swim. You gotta give it all to win. We're going on in. Hey everybody, welcome back. Besties are back for the all-in podcast. The Queen of Kenwa, Freebergh is here, the dictator, Chimoth, and of course, Rainman David Sacks. And it's been a big week here in Silicon Valley with Airbnb and wish both going public for over $100 billion combined.

Anybody get their beacwed on that one? Oh, hey guys. Oh, how are you David? Yeah, I might have gotten my beacwad on a couple of those. So a little beacwad, huh? Well, you know what, in celebration of your recent victory with Airbnb and Wish, I will, oh no, I can't zoom in on my merch,

but I've got my unofficial wet your beac mug. So for those of you wondering, I've got my unofficial wet your beak mug. So for those of you wondering, we have to get a little bit of housekeeping out of the way. At first here, the merch has gone crazy. Have you guys been watching merch on Twitter? Of course. Anybody got favorite merch or thoughts? I got some of those, I got some of those mugs.

I think they arrived today. They look great. It's amazing. And, you know, the best decision we made was not to let you sell T-shirts, Jason, because you would have milked this for every nickel you could. And then said, we open-sourced it to the fans, and they've just gone crazy with it. I mean, they're literally... I know that with it. I mean, there's a bit... I know that hurt you. I know that hurt you a little bit.

I mean, the problem I'm having here, no advertising, I'm picking up all the production cost here. I'm sending you guys equipment. You maniacs, lose the equipment every time. You go from one of your estates to another estate. I'm sending equipment to four different places. Anyway, we've got a special, very special episode for you today. your estates to another estate. I'm sending equipment to four different places. Anyway, we've got a special, very special episode for you today.

We are doing drum roll, please. We're gonna add some sound effects this afterwards. We're gonna do the best of the awards today. So we're gonna go through the biggest winners in politics and business and cultures. And of course, the losers, the flashes in the pan, the best business moves, the stupidest business was we got a lot to get through.

But just in terms of housekeeping, again, the all-in syndicate is up and running. I think there's 4,000 people have applied in 10 days. Let's just talk about the market cap of Airbnb. I wish for that matter. What round did you invest in Airbnb? Sir E.C. Was that the founders fund round? Yeah, yeah, that's C. Was that the Founders Fund round?

Yeah, yeah. I think we're gonna ask. Thanks. Oh, that's so yummy. But to be honest, that was already over a billion dollar valuation, correct? Yeah, it was. It was. I mean, still an 80 or 100 X, right?

It's like a 40 X, right? 40 X. It's like a 40 X or something like that. So thank you, Brian Cheskey, thank you Peter Teal. Peter led that round and Brian was looking to include founders in the round in addition to it being led by Founders Fund. And so Peter introduced me and that's how it happened.

Wow, fantastic. I did not get my big wet on that, but I did mention Airbnb on my podcast and that, you know, I've been trying to get Brian on the podcast for, I don't know, a decade. And I think, you know, I know you guys want to have on the pot. I've asked him, like, literally every year for 10 years, but I don't think it likes me. And then he told me, so I listened to the podcast. I like you. I was like, okay, great. Will you come on? He's like, I'll come on. So he's going to come on this year, I think. Which would be great. For this week in starting. Well, I think Brian and the whole team

really did a masterful job of navigating through the whole COVID crisis. I mean, everybody forgets how negative the publicity was. People are talking about Airbnb as COVID roadkill back in April. I tweeted a CNBC headline from back in April, wondering whether Airbnb was even gonna survive. And they navigated the crisis,

they did have to cut headcount, but they made the company much more profitable. But they also did great things for both the renters and the host. At the company's expense, they refunded something like $250 million to the users who had canceled reservations, but they gave the money to the host to keep them afloat.

So they really did a great job navigating the sole crisis. It's a pretty great company. He obviously cares deeply. It was very hard I think for him to cut all that staff at that time. Right. It was kind of a tough decision. But they were very generous in how they did it. Yeah. So congratulations on getting the beak wet sacks and Chamath, I got a bunch of inbound You had filed to sell some shares of Virgin Galactic. I saw you tweeted about it and you wanted to be transparent

People asked for you to address it on upfront on the show. So go ahead. Yeah, I have a lot of projects that I intend to fund in 2021. I'm probably going to put another, I don't know, I think the forecast was almost $2 billion to work and I needed to manage my liquidity And I needed to manage my liquidity for this year and make sure that, you know, I could continue to make all those investments and fund my, fund all of the other things that I need to do. And that's why I did it. And you're still a significant shareholder, I assume, and you believe in the company. Yeah, I mean, I remain completely committed to that business. You know, I, I, it would have been better if I could have sold something else, but it's not quite possible. And when we're entering,

when we, when you leave the tax year, you just have to make these decisions to lock in some gains against other losses and would have loved to have not had to do it, but I needed to manage my liquidity. And so I sold, you know, it's a small portion of what I own. So yeah, that was sort of my point. This is a small portion of what you own. And I mean, this is something that, you know, in poker and in business, you got to manage your chip stack and you got to manage your bankroll. So today we're going to do the besties.

This is our first attempt at talking about, it's our award show for 2020. Let's leave it at that. Let's start out with the biggest winner. Wait, before, hold on, hold on a second. How much weight did you lose? Because it's either that you're still fat and you have a weight. It's either you're still fat and you have an incredible camera.

Or you've actually lost weight. And this reminds me, by the way, I would like to tell a story. No, no, no, no. Four years ago. Oh my God, here we go. Jason and I make a weight bet. Okay, just don't say the dollar amount.

It was like, I think it was like $10,000 a pound. And Jason, he would get 10th, he was about to do, and this is incredible. Jason comes to us five years ago and says, guys, you won't believe it. I'm doing a show on NBC. A reality TV show. That's true. And with... No, I...

With... Please be that out. Okay, be bad out. Be bad. Oh, I don't get it. I got it. Oh my god. That guy, that guy seems like a trainer, right? But okay, that's fine. You're going to do this pilot with. Be.

Don't NBC. And NBC and don't you need to, you know, be in fighting shape. And he said, yes, I need motivation. So I said, here's motivation. So I said here's motivation Let's make a wait, but you need to be under 190 pounds and I'll pay you 10,000 10,000 dollars a pound that you're underneath you pay me 10,000 pounds over yeah It was like six months later and We're hosting a I'm hosting a poker game

And I realize oh my god, this is the last, this is the last day of the bet. The day before. And we started the day before. And then the last day of the bet is midnight. Yeah, I wait till midnight and I jump up and I'm like, wait, bet. So I say Jason, you gotta be under 190,

192.5 or 1993 pounds. Yeah, he literally goes ash and white And he says more white than I am now, okay, because I just ate he said was maintaining my weight He says he says okay, okay, that's fine. He had been eating You said he ate a brick of said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said That was the 13 in this story He tried he tried to take a leak five pounds Which took a leak who could do that? After after eating all that pizza and cheese and nachos and everything Anyways, he loses the weight bet and he says, trust this is completely unfair

I'm not gonna pay you he was like 196 pounds. I'm not paying you this one hold on over and he said this bet is not over until midnight the fall. Yes, obviously, yes, yes, yes, fair enough. So I said, all right fine, Jake, I'll find he goes home. He literally takes every diuretic. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, out steam room. He lot baths. Saxony. He did a colonoscopy. He did a colonoscopy. To his credit, he lost five pounds by midnight and he won the job. But then I said, then I said, you know what? Because there were two different wayions, we were going to go play in a poker tournament. So we went and played in the poker tournament. Sitchama, buy me into the poker tournament. Whatever we win,

we'll chop it up if it happens. So we just made it into a friendly thing. Obviously. But great, now that story is out there. And now I'm gonna, everybody's gonna be on Twitter with the co-ther team. I wanna t-shirt. And I hope somebody in the all-in-arm

he does the t-shirt that just says, 192.5 and we'll all know what it means, which is the weight that the one idea was 193. 193. Which is crazy that I was 192.5 and we'll all know what it means, which is the weight that the one idea was one 93 93 which is crazy that I'm one it was one 93 anyway here we go getting into the categories our first category is the biggest winner in Politics biggest winner in politics. I'm gonna ask you gentlemen to raise your hand if you have a strong feeling on this I'll call on one of you who's got a big winner in politics. Go ahead, Shamaaf.

Joe Biden. Joe Biden. Joe Biden. Okay, going out on him there. Joe Biden. I mean, let's be honest, there's nobody bigger. And actually, if you wanted to abstract it, what I would say is centrism was the big winner. And it kind of feeds the losers, which is sort of the extreme left and the extreme right. But I would say that centristism and Joe Biden were the huge, huge, huge winners. Well, I'll give a, I'll give a, um, an orthodox pick, which is Xi Jinping, the chairman of

the Chinese Communist Party. You would have thought he would have had a bad year starting off with, you know, COVID, starting in his country at the beginning of the year. But he was able, you know, a global plague came from China, but they were able to kind of, they were able to use a very gullible WHO to launder responsibility for the catastrophe. And they took advantage of the crisis to build more client states in Asia and Africa with promises of vaccines and money. And finally, his biggest global nemesis, Trump and then Pompeo lost in the election.

So you have to say he came out on top at the end of this year. Free part? Yeah, I have the exact same answer as SACs. I put the Chinese Communist Party as a whole, actually. And I feel like on the world stage, they're strengthened in the post-COVID world. So I had. Totally great.

Yeah. Because she went from the famous quote in the debates, there was a little girl in California who was bus to school, that little girl was me, where she took on Joe Biden. And then she winds up getting the VP slot. And I think she winds up actually becoming president and would be the first female president of the year of the history of the United States. And that could happen in the first term. Or if Joe Biden doesn't run for a second term and they do a halfway decent job, Kamala Plus, Pete Buttigieg is a pretty great ticket as well, who's the biggest loser? Who's your biggest loser, Shamath?

In politics. Donald G. Trump. And the obvious answer. Stream left the extreme left and the extreme right. Got it. I'll agree with that, but I had also had Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the house. Her impeachment of Trump at the beginning of the year went absolutely nowhere. It wasn't even an issue in the

election. And her majority in the house has almost completely disappeared. She lost a dozen seats. I think the I think she's down to about four or five seats as a razor thin majority in the house. And she's set to lose more in the midterm elections. I predict that she is set to not be speaker anymore in two years and headed for retirement. Okay, Freyberg, you got one? Pickett's loser? I have, I have the institution of American democracy as the biggest loser of 2020. I feel like we're coming out of this year with like no belief that our election was valid for vast majority, for a sizable minority of this country that the whole world is doing.

What should some Democrats believe that the election was fraudulent now too? I mean, if you say something enough times, everyone believes it. So, you know, here we are coming out of this year, we're with a crippling lack of faith in our electoral system. And it's scary that American democracy is being fundamentally questioned by its own constituents. So, I think that's the biggest loser of the...

I had two choices here. One of them was already said, I said the historical left as my runner up, Bernie and Warren just dismissed by Biden and Kamala. They are not even part of the discussion anymore and they didn't even get cabinet positions. So the historical left and the socialist communist party is out of the Democratic party. Thank the Lord. But my biggest loser, I have to say that this is the worst run of any politician I've ever seen in a year, which is Rudy Giuliani under investigation for Les Parnas and Egor

Frumman. Then the bogus lawsuit elections, then farting during a hearing, then doing the barot shirt tuck. I don't know if we have feelings on if that was a tuck or if he was trying to wake up the genie and then he bleeds hair dye. Then he starts bleeding hair dye. Wake up the genie man. He got COVID, no. He got COVID. He got COVID. He got COVID. He's in the hospital. COVID. I mean, just think, if you think you had a shitty year, I think there's going to be the fans of the show are now registering domain names of things we say.

The upside for him is that Donald Trump's campaign is paying him $20,000 a day in legal fees. No, I think it was $200. No, it was $20,000 a day. Oh, it was only 20. That's just going rate for making a full of himself. I've a feeling that rate was adjusted when Rudy couldn't get the case to the stream court. Well, we all know that Trump pays his bills on to. It shouldn't be a problem, right? All right. Now we're going to have some more fun.

Biggest winner in business? Biggest winner in business. Freeberg, you wanna lead us off? You haven't let us off yet. I'll take this one. I think that the biggest winner in business this year is a company that started a few years ago called Moderna. This company had an IPO in December of 18,

at $7.5 billion market cap. It traded between four and five billion throughout 2019. And all of a sudden COVID hits and this becomes a vaccine candidate driver for Moderna and the stock shoots up. It's worth 60 billion today. This company has not had a product that's gone to market prior to COVID, and they struggled getting this business. I wouldn't say struggle, but they never really had an application for their mRNA technology. They looked at it for years iterating and pivoting this business, and COVID, like a lot of other businesses, really gave them an unbelievable kick.

What's the name of the day? What's the name of the day? What's the name of the day? What's the name of the day? What's the name of the day? What's the name of the day? What's the name of the day? What's the name of the day?

What's the name of the day? What's the name of the day? What's the name of the day? What's the name of the day? What's the name of the day? What's the name of the day? What's the name of the day? What's the name of the day? Monday I think. Saxo you got for the biggest winner in business. We're moving on a good pace here. Elon Musk, our friend, rose to become the second richest man in the world ahead of Bill Gates and you know, right on the heels of Jeff Bezos. His company Tesla had something like a eight or 10x gain, so over a $500 billion company. Of course the products are awesome.

It joined the S&P 500 and SpaceX is doing amazing as well. We saw the launch or Starship the other day, and I have just been mesmerized by all these unboxing videos for Starlink, which you can see on YouTube, and it is just magic that you can unbox this little satellite dish, plug it in, and you have broadband internet from space. So I think Elon seems to be on track to be Not only the world's richest man, but the world's first trillionaire

Wow big big Big ups there to E Chimoff what do you got for the biggest winner in business of 2020? Yeah, I have to agree with Saxipu Elon is the Elon basically has had over the last 10 or 15 years. An incredible amount of challenges that he's overcome. He's had an incredible amount of haters. He probably had to deal with stuff that most of us would have broken

under. And he just fought through it. And the guy just basically bended all the haters until he crushed their souls. And I just think that that's incredible. Absolutely. So Elon Musk is the hands down the biggest, biggest, most obvious winner of 2020. That's the obvious winner. I'll give a couple of runner ups here.

I thought also on the runner ups, after Elon, zoom beating Skype, Slack video, Google Hangouts and fixing all their Chinese issues and getting to a hundred billion dollar valuation is notable. Obviously, Amazon did a great job because of the pandemic. And then just as an odd ball out there, I just thought Adam Silver and the NBA bubble was an incredibly bold project that was executed so well and was such a delightful business moment and also a cultural moment that you know, you had the NBA shutting down during the pandemic. Remember that dramatic night on a Thursday night and they canceled the games and then

they do the bubble and it works. And that gave me hope that we could get through the virus. So those were some of my other runners up. All right, the biggest loser in business in 2020. Go ahead, Shamaaf. Facebook and Google, exiting the year with umpteen antitrust lawsuits. I think morale must be pretty brutal over there.

There's no amount of money at some point that people are willing to get paid to walk in the door every day and just have to deal with those kinds of accusations. And so for all the good in the world that they do, which so it just must be really tough that they have to deal with it, but those guys are I think are the biggest losers in business. Who do you got, Sacks? The small business person, whether it's restaurants, retail, hospitality, what have you, small business people really took it on the chin this year.

I agree with Trimoth about companies like Google and Facebook losing esteem and the eyes of the public for good reason, censorship, so on. But tech still are stocks are at all time highs. The politicians got to keep eating at French laundry, but it was a small business people who got absolutely decimated by these lockdowns, which don't even work. And so they are the big loser of 2020. Freeburg, we got.

I'm a little more vanilla than the rest of you guys. I went with AMC entertainment holdings. Talk about a fuck business in COVID. Restaurants, at least you can do take out. You can't take out a movie with AMC entertainment holdings. Talk about a fuck business in COVID. Restaurants, at least you can do takeout. You can't take out a movie from AMC. They're shut down all over the country. Their creditors are telling them to declare bankruptcy. It's a total shit show.

You don't think they go back to movies? You don't think they go back. I don't think they go, I don't know what the hell like AMC's gonna do. What are you doing with all those theaters? They're awesome. I love going in the movies, but I'm not going in the movies for at least another year. So, and it's sad do, what are you doing with all those theaters? They're awesome. I love going in the movies, but I'm not going in the movies for at least another year.

So, and it's sad because honestly, like movies are a big part of my life, always have been, and it's sad to see movie theaters. I think they're gonna come back stronger. I think Amazon will buy one chain. I think Netflix buys the other. And then with your membership, you get to go and see all the range of stuff in maybe,

even see like Queen's Gambit in the theater. It's such a creative experience, right? Yeah, I would have loved to see Queen's Gambit in the theater. Totally. There's so much you could do with theaters. And I think there's an opportunity. But man, did those guys get screwed this year?

Well, I always thought they should do an extended edition. So imagine if when HBO or one of those did Game of Thrones, if they had it out the day before in movie theaters or the week before or two days before and they did in an extra 10 minutes, people would love that. My biggest loser was of course, same as David, real-world businesses, absolutely demolished, and the government after that first stimulus, which was incredible, Trump did an amazing job of just dropping buckets of money, whether it was that P.P. loans and P.P.

loans, whatever the P.P.P. loans, P.P.P. loans, all this stuff was incredible. And then what complete utter bullshit and incompetence from our government that they couldn't get the second one done, it's absolutely fucking infuriating that the Democrats and the Republicans,

the selfish fuckers, couldn't get another billion dollars dropped up. It was that, and here we are in December. That shit needed to drop in August or September. Not December, it's just absolutely disgraceful. It's, they're, I'm just disgusted that they couldn't even get some more money to people who are suffering unemployment and these restaurants,

100,000 restaurant closures by the end of 2020. It's just unconscionable that the stock market is ripping and we can't get just some money in people's pockets. Just drop the money in fury. And I was sitting here at the taping of this that it might actually happen. Okay, biggest winner in culture. Who's got a big winner in culture?

You already got one? I got the Black Lives Matter movement. And I think it was such a meaningful and impactful kind of shift in how people were thinking fundamentally about behavior and society. It's still persisting. You know, there's corporate action, there's state action, there's regulatory action. And I think it's a meaningful movement that's going to persist. I think it came at a time when we all felt like, you know, a lot of people felt locked

up in their homes, people were angry, people were frustrated with the system. And just it just was a very poignant moment, especially occurring during COVID that it really took hold. And I think it's gonna last. And I think that the movement itself is gonna spawn a lot of change. Yeah, I think it's well said. David Rudiott in culture.

Baby Yoda. So you went pop culture on that one. Yeah, star star of the Mandalorian show that his his ascent icon status help Disney get 86 million subscribers. Groguore for for Disney plus, which just blew a expectations and has established Disney plus as the main rival to Netflix. Do you think Netflix you think Disney will pass Netflix correct?

I don't know if they'll pass them, but they're now certainly going to be a major rival to them. I think they pass them. Okay, Chimath, what do you got? I would pick a lot of high school and middle school kids, but I may be a lot of adults, the only form of social interaction that we've had from the entire year. What a great selection. And I think it's important to understand how much loanlier we all would have been and how much more mental illness and depression we all would have dealt with if we couldn't have even just talked to our friends.

And I think that there is something really beautiful that those games did for people. That's a good one. That's a good one. I went with podcasting, I think on a cultural basis, Joe Rogan, and what's happening in podcasting is long-forming discussions. Even this podcast has become just an amazing, amazing movement. And people are having better discussions,

and I consider it the antidote to what's happening on social media. When people hear us discussing stuff on this podcast, they feel like they ate something nutritious. They had a great salad, they had some healthy food, and then when they're on social media and they consume the same tweets that we're doing, they feel like it's junk food, right?

And so I think that podcasting long form, discussions listening to each other, maybe Republicans and Democrats left right everybody listening to each other and podcasting is just such a great medium for discussion. Who is the biggest loser on a cultural basis in 2020, Mr. David Sacks? The media, starting with the New York Times

and other sort of elite media, they ripped the Empire Jersey off their backs to go after Trump. Well, they got him, but at what cost half the country will never trust them again. This makes conspiracy theories more likely. It makes cultural divides deeper and they've been revealed to be corporate journalists, journalists who subscribe to and serve an agenda of their corporate masters. They've lost the

public's trust. Friedberg, what do you got on the biggest cultural loser? Climate change. Took a backseat this year. It had momentum. As a cultural meme, it's lost. It's luster. And it's been shattered a little bit this year with BLM and COVID and lack of faith and institutions and all the other stuff that's been going on. Do you think that people now, when they see the collective response to COVID and the

vaccines and our ability with science and technology to solve the pandemic, we will have a newfound appreciation for coordinated global action on global warming, David. Preburner. I think you're asking me, I think the faith in institutions as eroded tremendously this year, the WHO, telling people not to wear masks and then telling them my masks are good. The FDA, that hits the, I think just, I think the lack of faith in institutions as well as in the media makes it really difficult for things that require a coordinated effort and a coordinated cultural shift to take hold. You know, are really challenged in this new kind of model where you don't know what to believe and you don't believe institutions and you don't believe old school and you don't believe states and you don't believe, you know, anything structural anymore. So it's a scary, it's a scary kind of moment.

I don't know. I think climate change is going to have momentum with the new administration, at least coming into office in the U.S. but generally, like institutional guidance is lost. It's lost. Trimoth, what do you got? Volkness. Volkness. Volkness.

Volkness. I think when you now look at the realization of what we've gone through, people have realized that you can be extremely anti-racist and think Latinx is just a stupid label. You can be an entirely complete 100,000 million percent supporter of LGBTQ, but think that all these complicated pronouns aren't really necessary. And I think that people are coming to a point where you can have nuance. And I think that that's really important. I think that this whole cancel culture and vocalist was incredibly corrosive. And I think that they lost.

I think it's actually a great, I think it's a great point you're making, Chimoff, because on the last episode, I fumbled the word MX, which none of us had ever seen. We all laughed about it. And then I just had this little thing. I was like, okay, I guess this is when I get canceled because I laughed at the fact that, or I mispronounced it, right? And the fact that I thought, even for a second,

that mispronouncing this term, MX, which I then did research on, and I said, does anybody know how to pronounce what MX on Twitter? So I figured I would preempt the dropping of the podcast by bringing it up on my Twitter and people are like are you trolling? I'm like no, I'm asking and I found videos and it turns out there is an actual controversy in the trans community Where mx some people believe means mixed my x ed other people think it's Mx as x the variable as in the variable x. And so they're having their own

debate, they're figuring it out. That's great. Everybody loves them, everybody supports them. But the fact that I mispronounce it, you know, should I be canceled for mispronouncing? To the people that are struggling with that. Yeah. Well, Jason, can I tell you, can I tell those people that are struggling with whether x equals anything or x equals mixed. Hum just to touch upon freeberg's point. The human race has caused 8% of all the species in the world to go extinct. And we have put another 22% of every single other species at the, at the brink of extinction.

At the same time, we have now expanded our footprint to touch 75% of the Earth's land surface. So until somebody fixes those problems, I don't actually want to know what the X stands for. Yeah, I mean, we were this idea that we're going to count. Until we put until we put stimulus checks. Put the fucking stimulus checks into people's hands, get these small businesses back to work, then you can tell me what the X stands for. Yeah. Okay. My biggest loser on culture was the same exact as you, David, we're thinking similar. I have taken the red pill you gave me.

I crushed it up. I've been snoring these, the red pill like crazy people think I'm turning into a Republican. But I thought mainstream media and late stage journalism sacrificed objectivity specifically to get subscriptions and they use the anti-Trump feelings and they worked them and got the ratings from them. And they literally use that in New York Times is the best example. I think the work you guys use for best example is canonical of like using their anti-Trump feelings to

get people to take out their wallets and subscribe. Everybody realizes that they drove out, Barry Weiss. They drove out their editor of the page from making people feel unsafe with their words. And then New York Magazine drove out Andrew Sullivan. And then Glenn Greenwald leaves his publication. I mean, anybody who descends inside of one of these publications, they cancel them inside of a publication for an opinion on an opinion page.

It's crazy. Okay, let's keep everything moving here. Biggest turnaround in, I guess this is biggest turnaround, anything, but I did business. I'll lead off with mine. My best turnaround was Airbnb. They laid off 25% of the company in July, 1900 of 7,500 employees.

They cut their marketing budget by 800 million. And then the IPO five months later, and they had raised a billion dollars at an 18 billion dollar valuation according to pitch book. And now worth 88 billion a week after the IPO. That is a turnaround of all turn around. David, who did you have?

This is where I had Joe Biden. He finished fourth in Iowa, fifth in New Hampshire. No candidate has ever bombed that badly in the first two contests and gone on to win the nomination. Biden, board back in South Carolina and then won big on Super Tuesday and wrapped up the party nomination by March, biggest political comeback ever. Who do you got freeberg? I got Airbnb as well. I mean from, yeah.

And here's one of the craziest stats. They're sitting there in Q1 with a great business. Revenue drops 67% in Q2. Can you just imagine the experience of 67% of your revenue going away in one quarter? Cash burn skyrockets and just having to respond quickly and still maintain Integrity with your customers and your employees as a leadership team. I mean, it was an incredible leadership Demonstration Fire right. I mean, it's literally you got get everybody out of the building. Here we go.

I agree with that. I agree with that. I agree with that. I agree with that. I agree with that. I agree with that. I agree with that. I agree with that.

I agree with that. I agree with that. I agree with that. I agree with that. I agree with that. I agree with that. I agree with that. I agree with that.

I agree with that. I agree with that. I agree with that. I agree with that. I agree with that. I agree with that. I agree with that. I agree with that. The chip existed in draconian and the dark ages of our journey as a country and in the world, and it came roaring back this year. The amount of people that have been muzzle, stifled, the amount of fact and science that literally just gets judged willy nilly by our distribution points like Facebook and Twitter and Medium.

It's really scary. So censorship made a roaring comeback in 2020. I like it. I like it a lot. Okay. Now we go on to the biggest flash in the pan. You can interpret this any way you like. What do you got? Saxipoop. The WHO, the WHO, nobody knew who the world-health organization, nobody knew what the WHO was before this year, then they have become somehow this global authority on COVID, despite getting everything wrong. They initially said that we didn't need to wear a mask, they didn't update that until June 5th. This was about 10 weeks after my blog saying that masks were a good idea. They got the method of transmission wrong. They were

saying that transmission mainly occurred through fomites, which is contagious surfaces instead of respiratory particles. They initially said that lockdowns worked, then they modified their policy on that because of its impact to marginal groups. And so the WHO has just gotten everything wrong this year. And despite that fact, you now have to Chamos Point, Google, YouTube, and even sites like LinkedIn or Nextdoor are now censoring people's statements if they contradict the WHO,

apparently without irony because nobody has contradicted the WHO more than the WHO itself. I look forward to next year when nobody cares about the WHO anymore. Great. Friedberg, what do you got? Flash in the pan. I put hydroxychloroquine. You guys remember? It was gonna save the world for a minute or two and then, you know, here we are. And so I'm just gonna leave it at that. Yeah.

Okay, everybody knows you may have heard of Hi, Joe, Plarkwin. Okay, some people say it's a miracle. I do it. It's great. Shem off. What do you got? It's actually quite related to this. And thought that she was marvelous but I do think she will disappear off the scene which is Sarah Cooper which you know basically in the

last month of the campaign kind of just disappeared and now I don't think anybody knows who Sarah Cooper is and probably in a year from now won't but for the period for those dark months of the pandemic her mockery of Trump was some of the funniest stuff on Twitter that I never saw. Oh, sorry Cooper, it was amazing. Yeah, she got a Netflix and I don't think she'll be a flash in the pan. I think she'll come back. I would have loved to pick who was the press secretary for love to pick who was the press secretary for with the southern accent for Trump sacks. Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Yeah, Huckabee. She, but I think she was gone in 20 by 2020. So I can't pick her, but she was amazing at defending Trump. She's like, you all are dumb and Trump is smart and he has 150 IQ and he owns Mar-a-Lago

and he has a jet and his jet is in New York yet and you are the big news media. And I don't care what you say, American public know what you're saying and Trump is amazing in bed. He was banging porn stars when y'all were jerking, I mean, he's just, she would defend him. I, that's who I want as my PR person. She defended him for all time. My biggest

flash in the plan. I don't need a PR person. I don't need a PR person. I got to, we got to spot cash now. We don't need the president PR. We just go right to the audience. Nicola trading at $30 for billion dollars, they took your precious Spacks, Chimoff, and they perverted it with a dipshit, Milton, who was on my podcast, and couldn't answer basic questions. It's now worth $6 billion. I predict it. It will be worth $0.60. I kid you not. This company will go to zero is my prediction. If you are buying companies, and I made Jason, they were going to scare all founder, all founder CEOs are going to avoid coming on your podcast now. No, no, no, I'm delightful. But for this kid, he's under investigation. Your company is worth nothing. Yeah, yeah. Your weakless, your whore, please.

No, his under investigation, the things that disaster, they're obviously riding on Elon's co-tales. He couldn't make a decision of was a hydrogen power cars or electric trucks or whatever. And the company's in chaos, and I made a rule which is if a company has not released their product and it's worth over a billion dollars, be careful because it could be a fraud or it could be a disaster.

That's my biggest flash in the pen, Nicolas. Biggest breakthrough? Freeberg, you want to start us off on this one? I have an idea, I think I know what you're going to say. I'm going to say Alpha Fold, you know, that we talked about in the last podcast, I think. Alpha Fold feels to me like what ARPANET was, which was the origins of the internet, you know, back when it was first installed and no one really kind of grappled with the ramifications of what would emerge. And I think, you know, once we have the ability to design proteins to do things, a lot's

going to change in the world of medicine and human health and longevity and the kind of environment and it's going to be pretty powerful. So I'm excited about alpha fold creating a foundation for humanity's ability to do those things. Bob, what do you got? 100% alpha fold. But there's not a close second to be honest. Okay, Saks. Well, as a close second, I guess I would mention the mRNA vaccines, which we talked about on the show, the ability to basically print a vaccine in two days, and hopefully they will follow our advice

about challenge vaccines. The next time we have one of these pandemic. Challenge trials. Challenge trials. We can respond much more quickly. And then, just quickly in politics, we can respond much more quickly. And then just quickly in politics, I thought the biggest breakthrough was Pete Buttigieg, he made the unlikely leap from mayor of South Bend, Indiana to being the first credible openly gay candidate for president. He won Iowa sort of along with Bernie Sanders and was a very close second in New Hampshire.

He's gonna be the, he's going to be just a transportation department in the Biden administration. My biggest. I want to just point something out on your, sorry, Jake, but you know, the MRNA vaccine technology has been around for like 15 years and regulatory barriers and regulatory constraints have largely kept this stuff from coming to market. And it's interesting how, you know, in a year where we have this pandemic emergency, we can take this technology that has been around and has been available to us for so long. And suddenly, you know, all the regulatory barriers get dropped and things come to market

to change the world. I think it's a great highlight of like what's possible when some regulatory constraints are diminished a little bit, and technology is really allowed to flourish and see the light of day. And, you know, we all act so surprised that this technology works, but it's been here for a while. It's pretty, pretty astounding that it hasn't worked, or hasn't been allowed to work in the past. In a previous episode, I think it's a really valid one, because it wasn't a breakthrough that occurred this year. The breakthrough was they broke through the regulations. You said you wanted to wait and see some people get the vaccines first.

And then that led to some accounts on the Twitter saying, are you still anti-vaccination? And I had to correct them. You've never said you were anti-vaccination to be clear. Oh, I'm not anti-vaccinated. It's not at all. No, no, you want to, you want to, you want to, you want to, you want to, my point. Yes. No, no, I think my point is, I think a lot of people are going to latch, sorry, let me just

be really clear, I think a lot of people are going to latch on to the small number of cases that are going to be amplified of people having adverse reactions to this, you know, new technology vaccine. In Alaska the other day, like two days ago, there was a nurse who got the vaccine and she had a really bad anaphylactic reaction to it. She had to be given epinephrine twice to survive. And she came out and she was fine.

But it's that storytelling, that's like, you know, they assume it should be some small percentage of people will have some reaction to this thing, but that is the storytelling that will keep people from doing this. And I think that is the biggest kind of concern. And that's why you've got guys like Mike Pence doing the vaccine tomorrow. You know, he's going to do it on live TV and Celebrity is like Ian McClellan doing it. They're trying to kind of create a way.

Are we going to see Mike Pence's make it shoulder and vice up on television? We're going to pull it out. They're going to pick you up. Because mom doesn't want to see that. No, but his mother is gonna be decided. That's his wife. But they'll fix it. He calls his wife, mother. It's actually mother's gonna give it to him

because if a woman doctor gave it to him, it would be kind of like cheating because she stuck something in him, you know, and that's just not right. I can't wait to take it. If anybody doesn't want their vaccine, I will take it because I'm losing my mind and quarantine. I mean, for the love of God, smartest business move, Chimoff. I think 2020 was the year of this back. I think that it is incredibly important in the capital market. So that can you give Chimoff his Bestie Award now, Jake Hell? Yes. Yes.

Accepting his Bestie Award. Give it to him by himself. Self. Would you like an acceptance speech? I would like to say me. The smartest business move. I would like to spend the smartest business move. The smartest business move me. Sacks, what was your smartest business move or the smartest business move in business? Well, I'd like to thank Jamal for the back thing too because I was in open door and I was in porch and both of them were spacking this year. So, I mean,

desktop metal. I'm going to go with, we have to agree. So thank you for the best business. You've, you've, you've went all of our beaks. So. Yeah, I mean, I mean, actually, if you think about it, I, I've done six deals. Are we still talking about me?

Or are we still talking about me? Yes, I do. We have to play the music, you know, the walk-off music on the Oscars. Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da- Oh, beep, beep, beep, beep. I mean, talk about dodging a bullet. We went with this trailer to the top five studios. They all wanted it. In the room, NBC says we'll take it in the room. The head of NBC says we'll take it. We taped the pilot.

And then, beeps, whole career life blows up and thank the Lord that show didn't get on TV because I would have been executive produced by beep and yeah that would have been bad. So no reality TV for me. I had another smart business move. I just wanted to point out which was Salesforce buying Slack. I think it's brilliant for them. I think they're gonna look back on the 10% they paid of their capital for Slack. And I think Slack will be more important than Salesforce, ultimately in business.

It's a huge, most important brand there. What a crown jewel. That what a great, what a great move by Benny Off and Brett Taylor. And I just think what a great asset. Totally. Will it be better for them than YouTube is for Google or Instagram is for?

I think it's on that level. Actually, I think it's of that order of magnitude where the importance of those assets to those companies slack will be to Salesforce. Cost, cost 20 times, 30 times as much though. So let's upside, but. Let's upside, but in terms of like lock in and value and the prevention of churn over time,

I think it's gonna be huge. I mean, it could be at some point, the company is slack, sales force. Slack will be the preeminent brand there. David, did you go for this? For smartest business move? I agree with both of the ones you've already done. Okay.

So I'm gonna rattle one off real quick. I got, I think people missed this, but at the bottom of the market, Silver Lake did this massive debt deal into Airbnb, which if you'll remember, it's reminiscent to me of Warren Buffett, giving $5 billion to Swiss Reign Goldman Sachs and he earned a 12% coupon

and got warrants in both those companies, and it just paid a tremendous return for him. Silver Lake swooped in Airbnb in April, gave him a 12% debt deal for a billion dollars and they got warrants that the warrants today are worth about $1.4 billion. And this debt is probably worth three times what they put in. So in like five months, six months,

these guys have basically turned a billion dollars of debt into four billion dollars of value. It was an incredible deal, incredibly gutsy. If you think about what we were all feeling in early April about the market and where the world was headed, we had no fucking clue. For these guys to swoop in and do that, I thought it was super impressive. The other one, I had a couple on this because I just, I want to rattle these off. I don't want to bill Ackman bought a fucking S&P put. Sorry, bought an S&P put for $27 million that he sold

for $2.6 billion. No, no, no, no, he bought credit default insurance on a whole strip of. Credit default insurance. Yeah, yeah. But he turned a $27 million insurance instrument into $2.6 billion of returns for his fund. And he still didn't sell his portfolio.

In fact, he bought at the bottom. And I mean, the four-site this guy had going into the down market. In fact, he bought at the bottom. And I mean, the fourth site this guy had going into the down market ahead of March, he saw that the market was gonna tank because of COVID. He made a bet on it. It was a tiny bet for him. But man, to turn 27 million to 2.6 billion in like 60 days or 90 days, unbelievable.

And then he bought stock and his companies at the bottom. What a gutsy investor. And then I, my friend... Was there anything, was there anything fougaisy on that with where he had gone on CNBC and talked and he did this whole big, you know, No, no, no, no. He did it longer. Yeah.

He did it afterwards, but I think he's, I think he's great. I think he's great. Yeah, I think it was, it was incredible. And my third one, which we don't talk about a lot is Larry Ellison bought a billion dollars of Tesla stock less than two years ago is Larry Ellison bought a billion dollars of Tesla stock less than two years ago, that is now worth over $10 billion. And he didn't, he joined the board,

and you know, you put your money where your mouth is, and you take ownership, and you know, I don't know much about Larry, but there was a lot of naysayers about Tesla saying they were bubbly and overvalued at that time, and it was a really... Tesla Q, he did it in the middle of the Tesla Q shorting movement and now he can buy not just Lanai, but he could probably get Kauai to go with it. He could buy another island.

Anyway, those were three gutsy bets that I thought were worth highlighting that just really impressed me and you know, it's when the markets are down, when you're facing the abyss, when everyone else is telling you you're wrong and you make a big bet like that, and it pays off, that's the kind of stuff that I think returns are made from and characters built and those are just really impressive moves for me that that's the best. There's a lot of impressive moves this year

that tied when out and came back in real quick. So there were some dumb business moves as well. So actually got a dumb business move that was a highlight for 2020. The city of San Francisco biting the hand that feeds it. For years, these politicians have been sitting on the tech community acting like the tech community was somehow a parasite on San Francisco. Well, you know, now because of COVID- Congratulations. The tech community has the option to leave.

You have a lot of people leaving and there are gigantic budget deficits for the city. The schools have giant budget deficits. It's not clear how they're going to close these things and it's looking that more and more like it wasn't tech that was a parasite. It was the politicians who are the parasites and nobody knows how to fix the city of San Francisco anymore. Yeah. Okay. Dumbest business move, Trimoff. I think it was probably for me the governor of California's handling of COVID. I guess that's more political than business, but... Well, no, I mean, it did impact businesses, so I think you're... I think

that... I'll allow it. I'll allow it. I think that what he showed was how naked partisanship was in decision-making that should have been based on science, in fact. And the quality of the decision-making just eroded every single decision that he made. And then now, as David said, it's kind of like you have this just, you know, you have this moment where it's like, the justy cake moment where he's eating at French laundry and the day after he's basically shutting the whole world out again.

It's very frustrating. Well, I think that that- And then you also is shutting down beaches, right? And then, you know, the stay-at-home waters and not letting people leave their house and go to a beach or eat outdoors, all that does is send them inside. They're going to have a party inside their house. Well, there is a great tweet. There's a great tweet that said, you know, I'm not allowed to go to the store. I'm not allowed to go to the shopping center,

but I'm going to take my child on a walk. And if anybody stops me, I'm just going to tell them, I'm taking her to the nail salon. And the reason is because you couldn't walk to the park, but you could, you could go to the nail salon. And so, you know, this tweet was just reminiscent of just how arbitrary and random this stuff was. And so, you know, this tweet was just reminiscent of just how arbitrary and random this stuff was. And it had just so many downstream inkbacks. So I think that was a huge fail. I have 20.

And nobody loves hypocrisy. I picked my smartest business move with Salesforce Buying Slack. Conversely, I'm picking my dumbest business move with Slack's board selling Slack. This is a stupidest thing I've ever seen. I understand they felt like maybe it was a great deal, but I would have much rather them see, seeing them do what I actually have to do.

To be honest with you, I mean, I left the board and I just don't know why. I wish I could have gotten the call because I would have bought it. Yeah. I agree with you. I think network effects are incredibly unique assets. They're very, very rare. I think we've all been around them. We've worked in them.

David has, David, the other David has I have, Jason, you have. It is the single most incredible momentum driver and sort of tailwind. And when it exists, you just never give it up. And so I agree with you. I would have bought Slack if I could have, if they would have given me a shot. So we ride our winners and you appreciate network effects.

If you look at what Jeff Lawson did at Twilio, he started with much less, I think, uh... He started with nothing. Started with nothing. Jeff Lawson is a big fan. Jeff Lawson is a big fan. Jeff Lawson is a big fan. Jeff Lawson is a big fan. Jeff Lawson is a big fan.

Jeff Lawson is a big fan. Jeff Lawson is a big fan. Jeff Lawson is a big fan. Jeff Lawson is a big fan. Jeff Lawson is a big fan. Jeff Lawson is a big fan. Jeff Lawson is a big fan. Jeff Lawson is a big fan. Jeff Lawson is a big fan. And market cap has gone 12, it's 12x market cap. They went from $29 a share to $365 a year and three years. They're at 60 billion. Slack should have been buying other companies

with their equity and they should have built and rolled up all of the other hub spots or whatever else is out there that they could afford to buy, then desk, whatever. I'm not sure that the M&A strategy was the hard part. I just think that it's when you're in the bowels of these companies as we all know, it's super hard, right? So I mean, I don't think you can fail Stewart and the team, but I think that somewhere along the way, just the realization of how special and unique that network effect was didn't happen because it would have given a different team a level of energy or a comfort to kind of really

go for the brass ring as you said and but you know hopefully they'll be able to execute it at Salesforce. Okay, did I get everybody's dumbest business move? My dumbest business move was myself. dumbest business move? My dumbest business move was myself. So I will take a I will accept to be a war for being a schmuck is free for me. Me and anyone else that fucking hedged or shorted the market or sold during the dip in March. I learned the most valuable lesson I've learned in my investing career to date. You just want to invest in whole chairs and great businesses and not try and time markets because that's always a loser's game and a fool's errand. And I think worrying about the market going down or up, as long as you hold shares in

great businesses, it doesn't matter. Trading is not for me, it was stupid. And I just feel like a lot of people learned that lesson this year. I've heard a lot of people that kind of freaked out and got out of the market and then they regretted it and tried to get back in. It was too late and yada yada. I read a document that someone wrote for me and she wrote this incredible quote that I had never heard from Buffett.

And I'll give it to you, Friedberg, because it's very apropos of this. Buffett had this statement, which is that, which is that it's not about timing the market. It is about time in market. And I just think that's so beautiful, because it's so simple, but it's basically summarizes exactly what you said, which is get in, close your eyes, and if you, again, unless for liquidity, you just don't ever sell. Yeah. It's a fool's errand to try to time the market, sit on your hands, ride your winners. And he always said, listen, if a business is on, if I own this business and I love it, and it's at a discount, I should want to own more of it. I believe that was another buffet.

I don't know the exact quote. Let's go to Smarris political move and we'll go to our token Republican David Sacks for that. Well, it's funny you identify me that way because my Smarris political move goes to Congressman Jim Clybourne, Democrat of South Carolina Carolina for endorsing Joe Biden just before the South Carolina primary. A number of people on the Biden campaign were panicking. They wanted him to do it early because Biden had bombed in Iowa and New Hampshire.

And Clybourne kept his powder dry and endorsed Biden at the absolute perfect time. It caused Biden to win South Carolina and that led him to sweep on super Tuesday. Jim Clybourne was the kingmaker of 2020 without him. Joe Biden would not be president. Wow. Okay. Who you got? Freeberg. smartest political move of 2020 was Joe Biden staying quiet, hanging out in his bunker, and letting Trump do his own damage into story. I feel like, I feel like if, you

know, Biden knew that it wasn't his election to win. It was Trump's election to lose. And I think he let him go out and lose it. And, and that to me was a smart advice and smart action. You know, so he just checked and he just, he just, he just slow played Aces. He hit a sat. He just checked and he watched him fire. Who do you got? Shemoth. Smart, smart, political move, which you will not see until 2022 or 23, but laid the groundwork this year. And I thought it was brilliantly done was Nikki Haley,

who I think will be the Republican nominee for president in 2024. And she did an unbelievable job of tricking Trump to believe that he was her supporter, then getting distribution, and then basically subtly telling everybody that she thought that he was an idiot. And I thought that she was brilliant in- So she didn't look like a rat leaving the ship. She looked like a rebel or something getting off the ship. I think if you want to find somebody to consolidate center-right politics in 2024, my money would be undecaly. All right.

I went with the smartest political move. I also went for the long game, Pete Buttigieg, going on Fox recently. I think you did obviously a masterful job. You had that sex earlier, but he started going on Fox recently, I think you did obviously a masterful job, you had that sex earlier, but he started going on Fox and basically being really spicy with them and supporting the hell out of Biden. And then he gets himself this secretary of transportation. And I think he's set up to either be the VP or the presidential candidate in the future.

And he's, I think he's going to be one of the bright stars. I also would, I think Andrew Yang, it did nothing happen for him this year, really. I don't know, but I, I felt like he also is, my understanding is he's going to run for mayor of New York. That was another amazing political winner in all of this. I don't know if anybody has feelings on either of those. I love, I love Andrew Yang. I think he's fabulous. He's coming on the pod.

I just... Pragmatic, pragmatic, centrist, smart, capable, competent, good listener. He attracts it. He attracts a plurality of people. Yeah, temperate.

And I think he's spoken out against cancel culture. And so whenever I see somebody in the left speaking out against cancel culture and censorship, like the way Jamoth has, that definitely to me elevates them in my book. Are you saying Jamoth is someone from the left? Well, it's amazing how much we agree on, you know? Well, I mean, I think that there's,

you have this left and right definitions, which have become very hard to understand. And I think what we have to get back to is the American principles, idea of freedoms and opportunity, right? And I don't think either of the parties actually were representing that problem. Dom is political move of the year. I think I know where everybody's going to go with this. But I would like to.

Rudy Giuliani like Rudy Giuliani Rudy Giuliani's press conference at the sex shop. I mean Just I mean how amateurish is that group of people before seasons gardening We're gonna be at the fourth was they were they trolling us and trying to get pressed for it. I don't understand So pretty truly ony for the dumbest political move, Saks, what do you got? I have to tell you what Saks got. Well, I got a tie here between,

one was defund the police, you know, as a political slogan. The whole country, you know, the BLM movement had the whole country on its side after the, you know, the George Floyd video came out. Everybody was in favor of sensible reforms to control the use of force by the police. And then they introduced the slogan of defund the police and it scared voters across the country into voting for Republicans in Congress. And it probably cost Joe Biden not the presidency, but Congress.

And my tie, the other half of that was Donald Trump refusing to wear a mask or to endorse masks. He finally did it, but it was two or three months too late. If he had just gotten on board with masks, it would have been a very easy thing to do politically personally. That could have made the margin of difference. He might still be president if he had gotten on board with mass about three months earlier. Free, brogg.

What was your, Thomas? I actually, yeah, I put making masks political more broadly, both the left and the right pointing fingers about masks. I mean, this is like a human life issue. And you know, kind of shaming the Republicans for not wearing masks and making it about where the right guys, you're the wrong guys. Everyone should have avoided pointing fingers and avoided not doing it because the other side was doing it and it should have never, ever been allowed to become political.

It was pure science. It was about saving lives. And I think both sides are to blame. The Democrats tried to make the Republicans look bad because they were advocating for masks and they shouldn't have done that. The Republicans should not have tried to avoid wearing masks because the Democrats were telling them to wear masks and it was just a total cluster. Really sad and could have made a big difference for thousands of lives.

I too put Trump not advocating for masks as my dumbest political move. I believe he nailed the stimulus, that first stimulus where he just dropped the $1,200 checks and the PPP and everything. He obviously nailed the operation light speed and the vaccines, he didn't get credit for it. I don't know if that was political or not,

that they dropped them the weeks, the weeks after the election. I think it was. I'm a little bit cynical about that. But my God, is there nobody that this man would listen to, and they must have all been telling him in Unison, hey, dipshit, put the mask on, will win the election. The in July and August,

the numbers started to go down precipitously. And everybody, Fauci, everybody with half a brain was saying, second wave is coming, wear masks. And he refused to take that stance and not only did that, he doubled down like the more on he is and started doing rallies. This person is such a complete idiot, grifter, and just Imbassal that he couldn't see the clear path to victory and he was tempting fate and of course he winds up getting COVID I mean the idiocracy of the moment is just so profound He absolutely would have sailed into that second term

We were sitting here on this very podcast and we all believed he was gonna Sailor to the second term when the market started ripping back and the COVID numbers went down and Because of the stupidity of not wearing masks. Thank God we got him out But to the families who lost loved ones he's a murderer period Moving on best political theiriner period. We're moving on. Best political deer in her. Besides when I just hate link Trump in hailing COVID into his body and then

taking the polyclonal antibodies to heal himself and show the American population that it's just not that bad. It was the best stunt, the best act, the best theater I've seen and um uh you know I I don't know what what the hell else could have beaten it this year.

I mean, the guy went literally, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, He was healing his body. He was on speed, man. Come on, yeah. I thought the best political theater was when the Democratic leadership did like the Colin Kaepernick, one knee in Kinteklotz, in Rotunda, Congress.

Can somebody Nick use throw the picture of that up there? I mean, I mean, half of them are so old they couldn't get down on one. Yeah, I picked them back up. They all hit their life alert. They got the life alert, I'm full, and I can't get out. Like 20 life alerts, I've never gone off in the same room. But the, but the Kintake gloss was just so over the top. Like you didn't need the Kintake gloss. They really were.

Kintake gloss. Oh my lord. Oh, so, so, so good. All right. My best book of year in a guy's top crying on the left. It's my best medical theater is I don't know who this Congresswoman is, but I am falling in love with her.

Her name is Katie Porter. Oh my God. She takes out a whiteboard. And she's fabulous. She's fabulous. No, she's so great. She owns people with that whiteboard. It's the greatest.

She basically does math. And people are just, I mean, she's done this now two or three times where she just takes people down and she did it to minution. Like she was like, it's today, Tuesday, and he's like, you know, today's Tuesday. She's like, can you tell me if today's to end,

she just destroys people? Like, I just never seen anything like it. And she's awesome. So best political theater for me. I don't know, uh, David, did we get yours? Well, um, yeah, I mean, so I thought the, the, the French laundry photos, you know, the, all these politicians, uh, violating their own lockdown policies, uh, was some, was some pretty good theater. The actor? The actor?

Yeah, you had Gavin Newsom and London Breed Dining at French Laundry. You had Nancy Pelosi go into that hair salon. Any Republicans do something like that? Well, I would tell you if I knew of any Republicans. Trump rallies? But yeah, but the haven't been supporting lockdowns so

You know look if there was a Republican who is the road garden Supreme Court where they had a super spreader event at the White House, but they weren't but but that wasn't political theater because they weren't violating their own policies Oh, I see they were saying that people could take the risk. Got it, okay. I'm picking these politicians because they're, yeah, it's the hypocrisy. The one I love the best out of all the hypocritical politicians was the one who was like, please stay, it was the governor of some place, Colorado or something. And he's like, please stay home with your family.

Do not travel for Thanksgiving. It's gonna be too dangerous. And then they find out he did that tweet home with your family, do not travel for Thanksgiving, it's going to be too dangerous. And then they find out he did that tweet while at a Southwest gate going with his family to Thanksgiving. And they literally have pictures of him on his phone. And the picture was timed at the time stamp of the tweet if I have my understanding. Correct.

I forgot the guy's name, but there were so many of them. Yeah. Well, let me give you another one. There was the LA County Supervisor, Sheila Cool, cast the deciding vote to shut down outdoor dining in Los Angeles, only to be photographed eating it for NIO and Santa Monica two hours later. So it's just completely hypocritical. And you know, this is why there could be a big recall next year in California.

I think we have to put political theater as one category of just loads some political theater because we're going on to worst political theater and the stuff we've seen has been pretty horrific. I'm going to lead us off with my worst political theater, which was the banning of TikTok was absolutely the right thing to do. And then they just handed it off as like a gift to Oracle to make money and maybe be their server form. I don't understand. We were supposed to ban it and get it the fuck out of the app store. And that was just terrible political there.

Anybody else got more political there that we'll put in our loads and political there? Well, Jason, just so you understand that I'm being politically even handed. This is where I had Rudy Giuliani and his tour of self-immolation from the press conference in front of the crematorium to the hair dye meltdown to the Florida video. We need to hold on.

I'm gonna make, I gotta call it an audible. I'm calling it an audible here. We're gonna have a new category. To get a COVID. Worst Rudy Giuliani moment. Can we have a Giuliani award? Can we have the Giuliani award next year? Yeah, Giuliani award for most emulation.

Yeah, yeah. This is all the emulation award. What is the worst thing, the worst Giuliani moment? Oh, I think the saddest moment was the in the bore out thing. That was sad because you just felt like this is an old broken man. It was creepy and it was just sad. He was like desperate and he was creepy and it was just sad. He was like desperate and he was creepy and it was the worst life time award. The worst though was was actually if you listen to the testimony

when he farted, it was really terrible. It was really terrible actually. If you listen to the testimony, you're just like, what is this guy saying? It's out of control. Well, also, I think we have to cut into here. The poor woman sitting next to him, who's clearly in range. She's in the blast zone. He rips it. He rips it. She looks him.

She gives him side eye, but she is so like scared to react to such an obvious carpet bombing that she keeps a straight face, but her eyes go poop. That was unforgivable. Must have been a stinker. I mean, it was loud. It had resonance. It was, yeah, can I, can I give one, can I give one other example?

And I don't know whether this is best or worse theater. But, but the, the, the congressional hearings with the tech CEOs where the senators grilled all the text CEOs. And it was definitely political theater, but on the other hand, they all deserved it. And there's gonna be more of it next year. Okay, let's do like that. I put that one as my worth political theater

because I thought what was so depressing about it was how little the Congress people actually understood of these businesses. And they went off on RANCE and tirades about, you know, your blocking Republican voice on Twitter and you're doing this. And none of it actually focused on, you know, the monopolistic practices that was the intention of the hearing in the first place when they actually got into those points when they tried to talk about how the ad networks work and how targeting works.

They didn't have any clue. I mean, the people inside these companies don't even know how it work and they built it. I mean, these things are... I'll tell you, I just think it's really sad that folks in Congress honestly are so disconnected from understanding technology and understanding modern business practices and they can't actually tackle the real issues. And it makes you a little scared. Well, I neither does the squad.

I mean, AOC didn't understand what a tax break was. I mean, so even the young ones don't understand stuff. I mean, we just, we're getting the worst possible representation. Okay, now we're gonna go to lightning round with our final two categories. Best meme, for me, it was the funeral dancers, followed up by Michael Jordan.

I took that personally, and I of course loved Chimatz mixed up that one of you maniac all in army members made. Who do you got for we got best memes and you got a best meme? Tuban. Oh, tuban. Tuban. You get that's it. Forever a cautionary tale about what not to do on a Zoom call.

Yes. Yes. That would be arguably in political theater. Let's say no. Anybody else got a meme, best or worst? I like the funeral dancers, but we know the ads are pretty great. David, anything for you? I just want to say to everybody that's listening, I really hope that you guys have an incredible holiday and we can put this year behind us. And I hope for all of you guys that have gone through hard times, just know that hopefully

you've got some friends to talk to and family to see and talk to. And we love you. And we really appreciate that you take the time to listen. And guys, I just want to say to you guys, I love you guys with all my heart. Thank you for helping me get through it very difficult year. Back at you. And I was very touched by the birthday present you sent me last week.

I was just, oh, you want to tell them what you got? You want to tell them what you got, big boy? I mean, listen, I don't want to eat, Chimoff, I get a big crate at the house. It was, I was born in 1970 and he got some of the best ones from 1970 and put them in a box and, you know, I literally had to put them on a shelf and say, do not drink these, these things cost as much as the Tesla's in the driveways. I mean, some of these bottles are ridiculous and I hope to crack them all open with you guys

at the house in a point of time. Happy, honestly, happy, happy 50th birthday, big boys. It's a big, big most. Yeah. Well, you know, it was a little bittersweet, obviously. You know, I was gonna have some kind of party or anything like that. And then what made it particularly hard and challenging

was the birthday was on Saturday and my friend Tony Shade died on Friday on that day. And I had been dealing with Tony Shade being in a coma for the five for the no for 10 days before that. And then I found out that that afternoon that they tragically had to pull the plug or I assumed that's what happened. I shouldn't say that out of I don't want to speak out of turn.

But this has been a shitty year and I really hope that anybody out there who is suffering from mental illness or struggling in any way, call a friend and I think the reason this podcast has resonated with so many people and I hear this from people and they listen to the pod is our friendship and they they

They hear us talking they hear us laugh and they hear us joke and the value of friendship and the love and the joy and people just can't believe When Shamaat says and men say to each other they love each other and they can't believe that Saks almost is able to say it and they People think by episode 25 Sacks will be able to say it back to us but we'll try right now we'll see if we can close 2021 we're all gonna say I love you David Sacks and then let's just see if this can work I love you David Sacks I love you David Sacks. Back at you. We'll take it. We'll take it.

I love you guys. Happy holidays. See you guys in the new year. Bye-bye, Besties.