All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg - E59: Twitter's content warning algo, equity audits, politicians trading stocks, Fed's next move, mRNA & more

Starting point is 00:00:00 Let's talk about the sweaters, okay? Let David, let's start with you, because I love it. I love it. David, I love that. I decide to up my sweater game for Jamal. This is Tom Ford. I love it. Tom Ford.

Starting point is 00:00:12 Tom Ford, the buttons are made out of endangered rhino horn. I just lost a third of the audience. So my sweater is a very light Italian cashmere made by a company called Doriani. Doriani cashmere. This is where we work. We're doing plugs for our stuff. We're monetizing the all in pod.

Starting point is 00:00:32 Here we go. Dorian cashmere just got a file. This right here. This right here is a little young calf leather. Very soft, very soft. And the buttons like David are made from shark fin. And for those of you at home who would like to spend $150 and stay warm, may I recommend the Marine layer? You can find an Indian street jacket.

Starting point is 00:00:53 You can also find that jacket on Turk Street. How tough is sweater Karen listening to this sweater Karen if you're listening. I mean you must have never revealed sweater Karen got back to me and she was like oh my god he's so deltid I think I know who she is sweater Karen can kiss my brown ass oh so I Jade comes home less than I kid you not she's like you I don't like you in the t-shirts I got you some sweaters and I was you know we're going to the

Starting point is 00:01:20 mountains for the holiday and I was like did you watch the podcast about the sweater she's like no I don't listen to podcast I was like okay fair enough and I'm like I'm looking watch the podcast about the sweater? She's like, no, I don't listen to your podcast. I was like, okay, fair enough. And I'm like, I'm looking at these things through all these boxes and she's got this bunch of sweaters. I started, I was like, what did you spend on this? She said $3,000.

Starting point is 00:01:33 I was like, I'm not comfortable spending $3,000 on a sweater. That's half a sweater. I don't own eight of them, but she's not always three thousand for Ollie. Yeah, Timoth is like, is that a sleeve? That's it. It's like, three thousand for Ollie. Four buttons and a waistband. That might be a best for Timoth is like, is that a sleeve? That's it. It's like a three-nose from all eights. Four buttons and a waistband.

Starting point is 00:01:47 That might be a best for Timoth. I think that's the box that somebody came in with three-nose. So I got my three-core sip and I'm feeling good. I'm feeling really good. I feel pretty sexy and I'll be honest. You're like your winner's ride. Rainman David's act. Hey everybody, everybody welcome to the Holland podcast. Yes, breaking into the top 50 podcast week after week because of you, the amazing audience telling your friends about the week and week

Starting point is 00:02:45 week after week after week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week and week with me, of course, the dictator himself in a amazing sweater. Light, light cashmere, is he there? The Sultan of science, I found out from his mom, she much prefers the Sultan of science to Queen of Canwas, so that's where we're going with going forward. David Friedberg, who had a great party up in, beep, and I really enjoyed going. And Saks, who didn't go to beeps party or to Friedberg's party. He stayed home and played chess on his iPhone The rainman himself David Sacks. Welcome to the pod everybody. Okay, you want my two New York stars?

Starting point is 00:03:17 My one true Bethy Jason, Caledon. It's true No, that's not true. I I really wanted to come but Matt's breastfeeding, and so I couldn't come. The helipad was shut down. Shemaq couldn't land. You were getting breastfed. Oh, please. There was, I was there in curburet, oh no, it was this great show called After Life from Ricky Jervais.

Starting point is 00:03:43 There's literally a scene in it where a woman, they work for a local newspaper that's going out of business and they're going to do local stories. And the big story in town is a woman is making pudding, incredibly delicious pudding and it's from her breast milk. And they go and cover the story. Anyway, I'll just leave it at that. It's pretty amazing story. Do you want to know my two New York stories or not? Yeah, let's hear it. Well, you said you had a helicopter story

Starting point is 00:04:09 what's that like? Yeah, a helicopter story. Helicopters also New York stories. So I went to deep dail to play golf with a certain Wal-Knowing individual. And we chopper back. A finance individual politics while known political what individual okay so this is not a rock and roller you do not want to

Starting point is 00:04:32 step foot in a helicopter with a rock and roll star so no but so here's my story which is why I totally freaked out about helicopters and I can't this was eight years ago we played deep deal which is just you know outside, outside New York, get in this, the chopper lands in the middle of the thing, I was like, okay, that's fine, you know, and we're going and I'm already feeling kind of skittish, I don't like helicopters. Get to the East Side Heliport,

Starting point is 00:04:55 and the East Side Heliport is basically right by the East River. And so the helicopter descends, and one of the skis doesn't actually land on the fucking oops thing and so he do it does a little tilty poops and then the guy comes back up and then he lands you I'm honestly like I never been more scared in my life. That's it.

Starting point is 00:05:19 And I was like that's it never one any besties. It's a bestie bad for life for making a pack here. Nobody in fucking it's crazy. So band for life from making a pact here. Nobody in fucking. It's crazy. So that's why I'm on New York. Last New York story was I was there two days ago, or for the last couple of days, or in the middle of this Omikar on breakout.

Starting point is 00:05:35 By the way, had a beautiful dinner after the game, Dremon, Kevin, Dread, me, bunch of friends. Did you go to the game? No, we went to the private room at Carbone. It was so brutal, though I have to tell you, I feel so disgusting with myself. I had a work dinner, and I have sushi at the work dinner.

Starting point is 00:05:52 And then, you know, Dre texts after the game, he's like, hey, we're all having dinner at Carbone. I said, okay, I'll head through. I went to the hotel, I called that, and I said, I'm brushing my teeth. And she said, but you're going out. And I said, yes, but if I brush my teeth, I'm not going to eat a second dinner.

Starting point is 00:06:09 And I thought, you know, and then, but I get to keep a steak, but I didn't floss. So I was unflossed, but I brush my teeth. Okay. I show up and fucking, I lose it. And wine and dessert and bread and pasta, pasta, pasta. Alapaca, it wasuh. It was really brutal. And by 3 a.m., I stumble home.

Starting point is 00:06:28 And I felt so bad because I had to wake up at like, you know, 8 o'clock in the morning. No, my first meeting was a 7.45. Well, congratulations, sister. I, incredible, no? He's a shooter of all time. He's a virtuoso. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:06:42 Anyways, that was my New York story. I gained, you know. Here's my, here's my car. I gained one kilo, two point two pounds I gained. In two days, here's my car bone story. Hardest thing to, hardest reservation to get in New York, Sacks is like, Jake Allen need to help me to favor what's the best place in New York to do a closing dinner. I'm like, I got you, I got my guy.

Starting point is 00:07:01 Get my guy on the horn, my guy is like, okay, I got you. Car bone, Friday fucking night, eight o'clock. Hardest taking the New York, you know what sacs does? Goes dark. Friday afternoon, 1 p.m. He's like, yeah, we're not gonna make it. I'm like, my friend is like, J-Calf. You're a guy burned the carbon res?

Starting point is 00:07:24 That was the bird IPO. I was going to take the founder out to dinner that night at Carbone, and then it turned into the big group dinner with 30 people. So it moved over to the bro. By the way, the private room, which is not in the restaurant, but it's a little bit on the side. It only fits 15, 20 people. So it's not like, and that's it.

Starting point is 00:07:43 Then it's really tight. How did it feel? 15, 20 people. So it's not like you can, and that's it. Then it's really tight. How, what was the question? What was Steph's, how did Steph feel? No, Steph wasn't there. Dremon, Kevin, me, Benny Fowler, Morale, but just a bunch of roughs. You say Kevin, Kevin Durant?

Starting point is 00:07:57 Yeah. Kevin Durant still, oh, friendly with, uh. He's honestly, he's such a great guy. I love Kevin Durant. He really, he is really, really, with, uh, he's honestly, he's, he's such a great guy. I love Kevin. He's really, he is really, really, really, really, I wish he had stayed super, super sensitive. He's friends of you. He's always always always.

Starting point is 00:08:14 I mean, I think that when they had their blow up, it was more like their brothers. And then we just a little bit like when you started talking like Joe Pesci. Yeah. Did Kevin Durant ever start talking to Joe Pesci? Did Kevin Durant ever start talking like Joe Pesci? Ah! Ah! Hey, it's time baseball.

Starting point is 00:08:30 All right, it was an eventful week on Twitter. We're only one week into the new Twitter CEO's reign. Jack is gone and already David Sacks has been flaked. It's a guy, it can't be a coincidence that you were talking about them, flagging accounts at the under free speech. At that, pull it up on the screen, everybody. Investors should be spending their time finding good investments, not endlessly debating interest rates, inflation, and tax policy, but that's the uncertainty Washington has created. It's a great tweet. I like that

Starting point is 00:09:05 tweet actually. And then the flag, the conversation from Saxon has been flagged. Some conversations can get heavy. Don't forget the human behind the screen. Do you think that this is, that's machine learned? Or do you think that that's an editor that goes in there and actually just manually flags machine learned? No, I think that's a great question. But what is in there and actually, just manually flags. Machine learned. No, I think that's a great question. But what is in there that actually triggers? The word debating. Washington?

Starting point is 00:09:31 Interesting. Let's be debating policy, Washington. I'm not sure that you could build... Or maybe it's the ratio. I don't know how you would build a function that would wait this in a way where this could get flagged, of all the things you could say with those words. This is so benign. Well, I think it seems to be this thing's kind of this could get flagged of all the things you could say with those words. This is so benign. Well, I think it's the kind of,

Starting point is 00:09:46 it seems to be this thing's kind of ward off bullying attacks on sex, which I don't think sex needs to be too worried about. All right, because they're telling this to people who would reply. You're saying it's there to protect me? It's to protect you. It's one of those things where they're like,

Starting point is 00:09:59 trying to get people to not insult you in the comments. We're talking about that. Maybe you get a lot of insults and comments on your tweets. Oh, undoubtedly. So could just be a blanket here. This tweet's comments section was pretty benign. Oh, right. It may not be about the tweet.

Starting point is 00:10:14 It might be about the replies. No, this wasn't that hot. This wasn't that hot. I think your mouth might be onto something. You know, Michelle Taylor got the same label around the same day for a tweet that seemed totally innocuous, too. So what I wonder about is, is this label to protect us, or is it a way, is it sort of a passive aggressive way for snowflakes at Twitter? It's like label people they don't like and sort of suggest they're vaguely disrupted.

Starting point is 00:10:43 I don't think it's that. I don't think it's that. It's the left wing. It's the lips going after the sex, your power. I haven't seen any liberals getting, I haven't seen any like, or left wing people getting their legal responsibility. It needs to be a blanket attempt to try to kind of mute the tone a little bit

Starting point is 00:10:58 across the debating that happens and the comments that come across in the replies. And I think they're just trying to like get everyone to tone it down a bit. I think it's a really good time before you tweet it. It'd be really interesting to know whether this was algorithmic or a resett tutorial because I think if it's editorial, it does actually, I don't think it's as extreme as what David just said,

Starting point is 00:11:16 but it skews more in the realm of like people with an axe to grind, can flag one thing over another or not, right? But if it's algorithmic, I think that that algorithm probably just needs a lot of tweaking because it's not going to be. Anyway, this doesn't it say that there's a person behind the tweet. It's like trying to get people to not say, what is happening with the warning? The warning is charming. The warning is charming. It's trying to get you to be nice to each other. It's ridiculous. Like your mom and starting herself and being like, now remember,

Starting point is 00:11:44 it's there to suggest that there might be something wrong with the content that's being posted. Well, you know, in other words, in other words, the content is so triggering that, you know, it needs warning labels. Do you guys think that paternalism has a role on social networks to try and nullify the kind of discourse being too acrimonious. I think we need some of the transparency that Jack Dorsey repeatedly promised in all the congressional hearings. Remember when he got a hold up there, he promised that they would give more transparency about the way that their algorithms worked? Where is that?

Starting point is 00:12:16 And it hasn't been delivered up. They promised it. Now Jack Dorsey's skipped out of town and there's a new guy in charge. Well we need to know how these algorithms work because they are pressing their thumb on the scale, you know, of debate in the marketplace of ideas by suggesting that some ideas are sketchier than others. They should just put here, this was algorithmically done based on, they should explain it under, there should be a little question mark, you have other question mark based on the words in the thread. It feels like things are getting heated here.

Starting point is 00:12:45 We did this with an algorithm. Or, users reported this as a heated thread. So we put this here. Or, are you excited? We decided. No, we decided, yeah. But you wanted to be an open marketplace of ideas, but the fact is, it's Twitter's marketplace of ideas.

Starting point is 00:12:59 Yeah. And Facebook's is Facebook's marketplace of ideas. And at the end of the day, I don't think you're gonna get away from any of these Centralized social networks Having anything but some degree of moderation to play a role in A related thing they didn't just target sacks also, Chimatha you didn't see this but they flag one of your tweets Just this afternoon pull it up as you can see here. It's a slightly different one

Starting point is 00:13:20 It says layers are for players this conversation will will drift to $5,000 sweaters. So a big warning for Chabbat could just, and for the people who were playing, be careful. This must be, that must be, then that must have been human, you know, human issue. For sure, and this one came in, or Proff G, another one came in for Proff G. So, and then in this case, I think they're actually trying

Starting point is 00:13:43 to think about the public good. This guy is full of shit. You thought JC Benny would beat Amazon. How many hours of master class Adobe Photoshop did you take to get this little joke? I didn't make these. My meme team did. I'm convinced that there's two ways to raise your next fun

Starting point is 00:14:02 in Silicon Valley. One, have one of the top 50 podcasts in the world, or two, have a strong meme game, and I'm going for both. So now has a warning on his. And this one, they put it on your profile page. Yeah, this was crazy warning. This person is interesting things to say. If you're too interesting, you get labeled now.

Starting point is 00:14:19 It's really crazy. You know, I saw Jay, I saw Jay kind of having too much fun with this. I'm like, I got like, I got it on this side. You're like, I need a meme too. Yeah, exactly. If anybody out there, I don't care if you're, I need a comedian. I'm willing to pay on a pay per meme, a pay per viral, whatever it takes. Okay, in a related story, Democrats want racial equity audits at tech companies. According to the Washington Free Beacon,

Starting point is 00:14:45 which sacks correct me if I'm wrong, that's some sort of wacky right wing publication. Never heard of it. Okay, Washington Free Beacon, if instituted auditors would have veto power over every product or initiative, that's not an exaggeration is what the story says. One proposal from House Democrats would find companies

Starting point is 00:15:03 20,000 a day for not completing by any, independent racial equity audits, a left-wing nonprofit called Color of Change is pushing for these audits. Last week, their president called for independent auditors to vet new products from tech companies before they released in front of Congress. 2018 Color of Change, you suddenly pushed Facebook into completing an audit. They called for more restrictions on Trump's post. The color change itself pushed for Trump to be permanently banned from the platform.

Starting point is 00:15:30 Just so you know, this is exactly the rough version of what happened to Microsoft in their DOJ settlement, their antitrust settlement, was effectively an oversight where lawyers at the DOJ were the product managers and had not effectively veto right, but you had to approve product features before you could push them for 10 years. You know, this is essentially what caused Bombers' reign to be so, you know, in Yominus, is like you couldn't do anything

Starting point is 00:15:54 because like you had a plan to do something and you'd have to go to these random folks who didn't really have the context to make a decision one way or the other on feature. So, I mean, the idea that they would do this is pretty crazy. I need a point of clarification here. I've heard the term racial audit, racial equity audits.

Starting point is 00:16:11 My understanding of those were to understand the composure of the company in terms of the diversity in the company, but this is something different. This is in the product to make sure the product isn't racist, can products be racist? What's an example of a product being racist? I don't understand what they would find. Let me unpack this for you. Okay, what they are basically saying is that these big companies, and for example, they've called on Google to conduct one of these audits, they want all these big companies to

Starting point is 00:16:43 conduct these audits. These so-called auditors are actually political consultants who are members of the Democratic Party, who are friends of the senators who are pushing for this, they're political activists. It's a grift. And it's partly a grift, but it's more than that, because when you conduct an audit, let's just take this word audit for a second, okay? You bring in a big five accounting firm and they will check your numbers according to generally accepted accounting principles gap

Starting point is 00:17:09 and make sure that the numbers are what you've awarded them to be. That is the purpose of an audit. And if the auditor ever says that you've done anything wrong, like you have to fix it, there's no choice, or you can appeal to some other auditor and have them redo the work. Okay.

Starting point is 00:17:22 According to these, generally accepted principles. With an equity audit, what exactly are the principles that are being enforced or checked here? There is no generally accepted list of equity principles that must be enforced these companies. Basically, you have to do whatever this political activist tells you to do. I mean, it's essentially like bringing in a party commissar

Starting point is 00:17:43 to now take over the company or at least be inside the company telling the executives and off sort of the company what to do. It's something that, frankly, the CCP would do. It does feel a little like, yeah, stasi-like. Didn't we have all of the companies on their own, from Twitter to Google to Facebook release their own diversity stats years ago. I think this is not more university. It's about equity. It's about equity.

Starting point is 00:18:12 So it's explained the difference in what that means. This is somehow how the companies run, like the day-to-day life of the employees, they're not just the composer and the breakdown of the employees. Look, equity means anything that progress to say it means. We've seen on this program before how equity has dumped the shark. There's now, there was a provision in the infrastructure bill for tree equity. So I mean, really, any disparity that occurs that progressives don't like can now be called a violation of equity.

Starting point is 00:18:38 This gives them the authorization to come in there and start giving orders. It's very weird that I don't understand how the product then review gets stopped. Well, maybe. It's meant to throttle you from leasing product as a punitive. Let me give you an example. So recently, I wrote a piece called the No Buy List, where basically you had companies like PayPal and so these other financial firms were starting to deny service to customers to users based on their political

Starting point is 00:19:06 affiliations and not just like people who are in You know well-known hate groups that like everybody sort of you know issues and wants to stay away from But these are people with relatively down the middle conservative, you know conservative groups and they were being denied service by you know fintech firms conservative groups and they were being denied service by FinTech firms. So now I'm not saying that this is what this means, but if this equity auditor tells you, well look, I don't think it's equitable to allow these conservative groups to be a user of your product, well what's the company going to do? They're going to have to listen to that.

Starting point is 00:19:39 And that is a plausible scenario given that it's already occurred. We've said this so many times on the pod, but I just want to say it again, because I guess a lot of folks are new in listening. Whenever you hear equity used by a politician, it usually means there's a power grab involved. Yeah. Because if you really want things to be fair, you want things to be equal. Right. Right.

Starting point is 00:20:00 Right. You want equality. Right. But whenever you start throwing over the word equity around and say, we want racial equity, it's a bunch of, you know, a small number of people who, you know, basically have and live by what I, you know, what's often called luxury beliefs who want to judge other people, who want to be morally absolutist, and then who want to basically like, you know, exercise a power grab. And we have to push back on that stuff

Starting point is 00:20:25 because it's just a slippery, slippery slope. Well, this also seems like overbearing red tape for companies. I mean, if the company has no problems, no complaints against it, releases their diversity numbers. Like, what is the point of going in there? No, but let's use an example that builds on what David said. Let's take Square.

Starting point is 00:20:43 OK, one of the most incredible things that Square did was in a hackathon, essentially, build a cash app. Yeah. And one of the most incredible things that happened in the cash app was that it really started to blow up in urban communities. Okay. And it starts to normalize banking, opening up bank accounts, having more savings, understanding, you know, an on-ramp into crypto.

Starting point is 00:21:05 Cash app has probably done more to get black and brown people into crypto and to save money and to understand their cash than almost anybody else, as like for almost explicit strategy. And so if somebody is supposed to go in there and just arbitrarily judge whether there's too many white people that work at Square or not enough black people and so XYZ thing has to change or such and such a feature doesn't actually speak to folks so you can't do it. It's insanity. It's like also to set to your point sacks is what what do the what do these people know? Like what is their qualification and what what's the goal? Right and to build on Chemos Point if these, so I think Cory Booker was the one who

Starting point is 00:21:45 proposed this, if these senators want those specific policies implemented in the Fortune 500, let them pass a bill to do it and let all of our elected representatives vote on that bill. And then we can see if it will really, if it's popular enough to pass, and whether it pass this constitutional muster, they won't do that because these bills, if they were directly concretized before. They're not like, would be very unpopular. Instead, what they do is tell you, well, we're not going to do this directly. We're going to put pressure on these big companies to hire one of our political friends, again, the psychcomist or like person, and empower them to tell these companies what to do. So it's really kind of insidious what they're doing. And they're kind of covering it all up with these nice sounding names. I mean, who could

Starting point is 00:22:28 be against a racial equity audit, right? Because if you're against it, you must be erasist and you must not believe in auditing companies. So this is a word game. You have to, you just, it's a word game. It's, it's using words that are really loaded and mean a lot to a lot of us. If I hear racism and race, by year's percup, it's not triggering, but might years percup. And I have a lot of inbuilt opinions on it that have been governed by 45 years as living as a brown man. And so, okay, it stands to reason that I'm going to pay attention.

Starting point is 00:23:03 But on the surface, if you say racial equity audit, it also doesn't seem actually all that bad. It seems like reasonably benign, and that seems like an okay thing to do. It's just that most of us then stop at that point and move on. Right. But if you actually look at the rules, again, I would just say whenever political frameworks use the word we need to create more equity, the outcomes are horrible. For example, look in healthcare. We have used this idea of healthcare equity, health equity, and we've misused it to such a degree. All we see is that now the system is so perverted, it also doesn't work for the majority of

Starting point is 00:23:38 people that have actually had the healthcare system work for. At the top of the pecking order has always been white men. I've always gotten the best care and we've always measured our health care progress in America based on the longevity of men, white men, you know, 78, 79, 80 years old and then it started to degrade and people were curious what was happening. And underneath it all was just a bunch of power grabs. Under the realm of equity, we passed all these crazy laws. We basically didn't do anything to really create more accountability and a cost-based system.

Starting point is 00:24:08 And here we are. So at some point, when the citizen re-hears that word, you're gonna have to put your thinking cap on and actually take the opposite view, which is, hold on, this is a really nice sounding word. It may not be what I think it is and I gotta pay attention because more than if I didn't hear the word at all. Anything you have on race, Friedberg, representing South Africans.

Starting point is 00:24:33 I don't think this is about race, Jay. I think this is about power. Power. It feels like a power grip. Also, it feels like a little grip. It feels like a little bit of a grift. I know I had heard on the back channel that a lot of the people who are criticizing some big tech companies who were getting, you know, I'm not going to say who or under what monitor sweater sweater Karen. That's what I care. But there was a group of people who are like attacking big sweater Karen. If she isn't opinion on sweater, she must have an opinion on racial equity. Come on. Okay, I don't believewerta Karen as the issue is, they would complain and create these, you know, basically, you know, Twitter mobs,

Starting point is 00:25:07 and then they'd say, oh yeah, and hire us for $20,000, we'll come in and fix the problem for you. So they were creating the Twitter mob to then come in and solve the problem. That's so visible. And I was like, oh wow, that is, yeah. That's so brutal.

Starting point is 00:25:20 That's so dirty. No, I mean, these HR consultants who've written these books, like on the, was it a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a've written these books, like on though, was a danger or whatever, on white fragility and how to be an A.T. racist. I mean, they're all making a fortune in corporate fees, charging $20,000, $30,000 per gig. I mean, it is absolutely a racket. I'm not a fan of equality of outcome.

Starting point is 00:25:42 I'm more a fan of equality of opportunity. and I think many of these sorts of folks, I try and identify methods to drive a quality of outcome and it inhibits the competitive forces that cause the best person, the best idea, the best business, the best market model to win. And I think it's easy to conflate the two when you don't really think through it, but it is certainly appropriate and reasonable to make sure that folks aren't discriminated against when they apply for a job. I don't think it's appropriate to then apply considerations of race and other factors when people are equally in the same job on who gets to have the chance at the bonus. It is the best performer gets to have the chance at the bonus.

Starting point is 00:26:25 It is the best performer that should have the chance at the bonus. And the same should be true in marketplaces and the same should be true at business. And I think that what we're really seeing is this fundamental effort to try and generate equality and outcomes in lots of different manifestations. And we're seeing it more frequently and more severely than we've seen it historically. But it's not, I don't think it's the right model, and it's only gonna lead to demise of marketplace dynamics

Starting point is 00:26:52 and the things that cause forces for success and progress to win. You know, we mentioned this a couple of times, I'll just say it again, but we are about to have probably the most significant movement and questioning of equity versus equality because I think in the next month, maybe in the next two months, we're going to sort of see a pretty strict opinion on affirmative action. And if you talk to legal scholars, the overwhelming consensus is this is gone.

Starting point is 00:27:22 And we're going to have to figure out how to rebuild what was a really important system that tried to give folks at least getting to the starting line in the same way. But it's not going to, it's not really going to exist in the same way she performed. Speaking of Karen's, Elizabeth Warren was bashing Elon over Jackson. And Elon has a Twitter handle with some followers and he responded. Elizabeth Warren says, let's change the rigged tax code so the person of the year will actually pay taxes and stop free loading off everyone else. Unfortunately for Elizabeth Warren, Elon Musk is pretty good at Twitter. He replied, and if you opened your eyes for two seconds,

Starting point is 00:28:05 you would realize I pay more taxes than any American in history this year. He paid, which is I guess true. He paid more in taxes now than any American in history. As a side note, Elizabeth Warren has a $12 million network and I saw that she paid no taxes on her equity holdings because she didn't sell anything, which is how the tax code works

Starting point is 00:28:26 and Elon then responded Don't spend it all at once. Oh wait you already did and Then you're after the warm-up replies you on really You know got in the zone and like Steph Curry just started draining half court shots. He ratioed her everything. He shared her with 50,000 replies. Yeah, you remind me of when I was a kid and my friends angry mom would just randomly yell at everyone for no reason. Please don't call the manager

Starting point is 00:28:57 on me, Senator Karen. You also responded to Bernie Sanders tweet today about climate change. Bernie Sanders said, when future generations ask us, what do we do to stop the climate crisis? How will the answer? And Elon said, and so great tweets, but to the bigger picture, did these people even know what's going on in the world? No, they woke up on the wrong side of the tilt bed. No, they woke up on the wrong side of the tilt bed. Yeah. Because in like a 24 hour period, he was the time person of the year, the F.T. person of the year, and they just went into super mega tilt mode.

Starting point is 00:29:36 And the buildback better act got shelved, and then he and then build that better line in cells. And well, I mean, you know, I think we talked about this last week, but that bill is dead now. I mean, they pushed it to March to basically avoid a downvote. Nothing's going to happen. David, you're right. I think it's still is dead.

Starting point is 00:29:53 We said last week, wouldn't it be hilarious if Elon said, kill it? And then it got killed. Well, I don't think that that's why the bill is dying. I think the real reason is that we now see a Fed posture, which is actually pretty reasonable, which actually says, oh, wait, there's way too much money in the system as it is. Yeah. You know, the Fed two days ago basically said, we're going to see up to three rate hikes next year, probably 50 basis points each. So, you know, it's basically acknowledging that these these last, you know, several years, we have printed way too

Starting point is 00:30:26 much money and they're trying to fix the problem that they created. So that's, I think, the real reason. And then the CBO comes out and basically says the Congressional Budget Office and says, this thing is a white albatross that's going to cost way more than you guys think it will. And so it puts Biden in this very awkward situation, which is, on the one hand, he supports Powell, and he supports institutions or has historically liked the CBO,

Starting point is 00:30:50 but he effectively then has to push back on both of them, all in one fall soup to try to ram this bill down, people's throats and the support is, I think it's crumbling. And so to say face, they basically said, well, we'll put a pin on this and we'll revisit it in March. But you guys know what's gonna to happen in the next three months.

Starting point is 00:31:06 There's going to be some other crisis. Most folks will forget. And it may just allow them to move on without having to actually deal with the potential of this thing getting defeated, which would just be, I think, cataclysmically bad for the Democrats. You were on CMBC today. I thought you said something really important to where you said, listen, maybe if we just calm things down for a year, we can, you know, get through much of the exact what was, but maybe you could unpack that sentiment you had on CMBC today

Starting point is 00:31:37 because I thought that was pretty important. Yeah. Well, I mean, I agree with what Jamal said. This, I mean, this, this BBB bill was particularly in Acronistic once the 6.8% inflation print came out. In other words, we're in a hyperinflationary environment and here comes this bill that the CBO says if over 10 years would cost $5 trillion, that's the last thing we need is more money printing when we've got this inflationary fire out of control. So I think that is why the bill is being shelved, probably not to return. I think that the larger problem that we have in the markets is that there's a tremendous

Starting point is 00:32:14 amount of uncertainty being created right now by Washington. We've had tremendous uncertainty over spending, over taxes, over interest rates, and the conversations that I'm having with friends who are investors in really every asset class, real estate, VC, crypto, the conversations are all the same. What's interest rates going to do? What's the macro picture going to be? I've never seen investors who should be focused on, hey, do I mess this company or buy this building, whatever.

Starting point is 00:32:41 Those are not the conversations. It's all, everyone's a macro economist now. And so we're also distracted by this building, whatever, those are not the conversations. It's all, everyone's a macroeconomist now. And so we're also distracted by this. And so now the Fed, a couple of days ago, finally gave us clarity. I mean, what they basically said is they're going to accelerate the taper. They'll end quantitative easing at the end of Q1. And then we're basically in a get order point. Explain what that means to people.

Starting point is 00:33:00 We don't know what they've been purchasing and why. Yeah. I mean, quantitative easing is kind of a weird term. What it means is that the Fed has been going into the bond market and buying bonds. I think basically mortgage-backed securities and treasuries. And they've been buying, I think, about 90 billion a month. They're going to cut that back to 60 billion a month. And that'll continue.

Starting point is 00:33:22 Just explain it a little bit more. When you do that, what you're doing is You're giving somebody that owns those bonds money Okay, so the Fed Prince money government prints a hundred dollars Takes at hundred dollars steps into the market and takes something from you in this case It's a bond and gives you that hunt freshly printed hundred dollars What are you going to do while you're probably going to go and spend that? You're going to buy other things.

Starting point is 00:33:49 That's the cycle of inflation that quantitative easing basically creates. When you talk about tapering, what that means is slowing down the money printing machine and slowing down you stepping in the market and buying assets with money that you've created out of the near. And it's up to other people to buy those assets. If other people see value in them, you then are forced to find the real market clearing price. Yeah, those bonds are now on the Fed's balance sheet.

Starting point is 00:34:15 And so there's a very interesting chart showing assets that are owned by the Fed. And it went up by something like three trillion during COVID. So that is the sort of monetary stimulus that's been pumped into the market over the last couple of years. Separately, we've had something like six or seven trillion of just spending by the government. So, you know, tremendous amount of...

Starting point is 00:34:35 And so that 3 trillion is not thrown away. So we're clear, we're gonna get interest on that and some number will default, some of them will get paid back. It's a way of stimulating the economy, but we now know after this, uh, stemmy checks and all the stimulus we did during the pandemic, we don't need to put more fire or oxygen or caracene on what we got going in this economy. Corrective?

Starting point is 00:34:56 Yeah, I mean, we, we should show that chart about how much the feds balance sheet has grown over the last couple of years, but, you know,. But the argument, I think, would be the reason why they buy these assets is if they're buying bonds, it basically means that it keeps the yield down, right? Because if they weren't the ones buying, if someone else would have to buy these bonds to keep the government funded, and they might demand a higher interest rate, a higher yield on the bonds. So, having the Fed come in and increase the demand for the government's debt, it means that the government can sell

Starting point is 00:35:30 its debt more cheaply. So when they stop doing that, I think you can expect that, you know, interest rates are going to need to rise in order to make our debt attractive to, you know, to bond buyers. The other thing, the other thing, by the way, that the Fed did when they did that was, it wasn't just government bonds that they were buying. They decided completely arbitrarily, at one point, to start buying certain corporate debt. So they owned like Ford, debt, GM, debt, commercial,

Starting point is 00:36:01 that's called, no, no, no, not commercial paper, sort of more very fast turn short term duration, but like, how do you make a decision to start buying corporate bonds? It's like buying corporate equities, do you buy Google versus Facebook? Do you have a who's the capital allocator making that decision? So more importantly, who's who's setting the price? Who's setting the price? So, you know, these guys have been off the reservation for a long time. I think it's fair to say that they were forced into action without a playbook in the middle of a once in a lifetime, once a century pandemic, fair enough. And I think they actually did a pretty reasonable job, but we just kept the tap on for so

Starting point is 00:36:38 long. And now we're like dealing with this stuff, trying to figure out how do we actually compensate. So the idea that we would add knowing all of this, so it's one thing I think if Biden passed the bill five months ago, six months ago, because we didn't know any of this stuff. But to do it now, knowing that, I think that it's really hard, and I bet you that it's not just mentioned on the Democrats that are having a little bit of heartburn in second thoughts, it's probably more because I suspect that they could have forced his hand really It's not just mention on the Democrats that are having a little bit of heartburn in second thoughts. It's probably more because I suspect that they could have forced his hand really if it

Starting point is 00:37:09 was just up to him, but I suspect there are other Democrats who are now teetering on the fence thinking, I don't want my legacy to be tied to this when we're printing six, seven, eight percent inflation for me to basically keep the money printing machine on because it's insane. This is like the soprano's episode where he gave him like, he fronted the guy like 45 boxes of ziti and like you wake up and this guy can't pay the bill on the poker game like we're can we even afford to pay this back at some point? Yeah, look, I think when when March comes around and this bill supposedly

Starting point is 00:37:37 gonna be brought back off the table, we're gonna be into the election season in 2022 and I don't know that Democrats are gonna want to defend this. I think there is a view on the Democratic side that if they deliver enough goodies to their base, then that will help them win elections. But I think what helps you win elections more than delivering goodies to your special interest is for the economy to be healthy. And if they are sort of pressurizing this inflation situation, that could backfire. I think that's going to be worse for the economy.

Starting point is 00:38:07 Frankly, I think Manchin is doing Biden a favor because if the economy does grow by 4% next year as the Fed is bridging it is, and if inflation comes down because you stop printing money the way they're doing, then I think the Democrats will do better in the election. If the economy is good, I mean, one of the reasons why they did so poorly in the off-year election a month ago is that there's tremendous economic anxiety out there. People are seeing the inflation at the gas tank when they go to buy food.

Starting point is 00:38:36 And if that continues, I think they're gonna do very poorly next year. I wanna just bring up this chart from Fred on total assets, on the Fed balance sheet. I think it is really interesting to look at this thing because the Fed had about a trillion of assets until 2008. Okay, then we had the financial crisis and they doubled it. That's when the quantitative easing began.

Starting point is 00:38:57 I went to two trillion. But then from roughly 2009 to about 2020 before COVID, somehow the balance sheet grew from 2 trillion to 4 trillion. So and it had gone to 4.5 and they were starting to shed assets. So they were starting to get off drugs. But it was still from 2 to 4 trillion between this like 2009 and 2020 period when it's supposedly we weren't in a crisis. So you know, they've continued this quantitative easing. Then COVID hits and the amount grows from four to seven trillion

Starting point is 00:39:30 just in 2020. And since then it's gone from seven to a little under nine trillion just in the last, you know, well, they they they get to three trillion. How do we get these off our books, Everdo? I mean, these are 20 year. Obviously, they have to sell them. Well, either they're gonna have to sell the assets. Or they can do. Well, let's not like that. They basically are the, the Fed is the one who bought the government debt.

Starting point is 00:39:54 So they're buying, it's called a 10-year treasury. So, yeah, I guess they could just wait till the bond gets paid off, but I guess they could do that. But now that Fed has an incentive not to let the assets get toxic, right? So if the assets would get toxic, if interest rates go up too high, that drives bond prices down, and now all the assets of their books are worth a lot less.

Starting point is 00:40:18 Yeah, this is like the point where we have to just call it and say, okay, let's move on meaning in the sense that we have to go to these root causes because the money is more money is not going to fix what we're dealing with. So I just put something in the group chat and I just want to get your guys' reaction to it because when I saw it blew my mind. There was a study, okay, that was just published a few days ago and it said the following thing. Children born during the pandemic have experienced a catastrophic drop in cognitive development of 22 IQ points.

Starting point is 00:40:54 Yeah, 22. And when you look at it, the people that were the most affected were male children and children of lower socioeconomic families. But everybody was affected. Yet you see the amount of money that we're spending already. So adding more money to something is not going to make it better if what we're spending today is basically just getting flushed on the toilet. And these are the kinds of things that really matter. How do you allow an entire generation of kids to see, to suffer?

Starting point is 00:41:27 By the way, what is that show? That means that teachers actually are unbelievably important. So number one, they should get paid a lot more. Okay, let's just put it that way. They should be more of them than small class sizes. Exactly. But if you have these completely screwed up incentives between the organizations, the unions that represent these teachers, and then the parents who have completely different incentives. And they basically fight to never be in classroom and to not really teach. This is the measurable outcome. The IQ of our children, I mean, we have a full ability. Their executive function, their scores are going down.

Starting point is 00:42:00 How do they recover from that? A lot of tutoring, some be a lot of summer school. Yeah. I mean, zoom's not going to do it. I don't think more fortnight in roadblocks fixes this problem. No, definitely not. And I feel terrible because like, you know, as a parent, that's, that was my solution, right? I was struggling with the zooms, like every other parent.

Starting point is 00:42:19 And then in the evenings, I was just so burnt and just feeling so beside myself in the middle of the pandemic. Whereas I had a no iPad rule for rule for my kids that I broke down. Yeah, you know everybody did I mean it's like you're ready to home with your kids all day long It's not how it's supposed to work and but so the point is like this is where the government should step in and actually say Okay, here let me take leadership on this topic Right and talk to the unions fix whatever needs to be fixed, amp up the money into charter schools, do whatever you need to do, but please fix the problem. But randomly spending money to try to buy votes, I think people see through that. It just doesn't work. And related to that,

Starting point is 00:42:56 Omnichran is spreading like crazy. New York City has an Omnichran. Om'm the cron. I'm the cron. There is no end. I'm a cron. I'm a cron. I'm a cron. Yes. I'll learn how to pronounce it when it's gone. I'm a cron. I'm a cron. It's spreading like crazy. In New York City and in the UK amongst other places, the NBA and the NFL are seeing surges. I've had a ton of people I know test positive this week. Have you guys had that? Family friends? Crazy. No, it's in scene number. I don't know so many people.

Starting point is 00:43:29 Do you hear city? He's coped. Related? Yeah. And a lot of people that don't have any symptoms. So here's the chart of cases, cases spiking, but hospitalizations and deaths are flat or going down in places where these outbreaks are occurring.

Starting point is 00:43:44 The UK charts are even darker. There's a lot of anecdotal evidence. Everybody on TikTok and Instagram and Twitter, young people in New York who went to Santa Con are saying they all got it. But if you look at the chart, what is Santa Con? Santa Con is the worst holiday of the year. It's a time when a bunch of young people dress a Santa Claus and get drunk and you have a 10,000 people.

Starting point is 00:44:08 It's a bar crawl. This is like Santa. You see this? You see how you see how Montes wearing his Santa Claus. Oh, Montes Claus. That's what goes on. Everyone wears their little Santa outfit and they go bar crawling. So it's not sexy Santa.

Starting point is 00:44:21 Well, actually, I have a story about that. I was in San Francisco. Oh my god. I know. You were sexy Santa. Well, actually, I have a story about that. I was, the San Francisco, my God, I know. You were sexy Santa? No, I literally took my daughters out for pizza, Tonys in North Beach, and you know, I got my three daughters, and there's all these people walking around, like look, dad, it's Santa Claus.

Starting point is 00:44:40 Like a lot of them. And so there's a thousand Santa Claus descend on North Beach. And I turn around and I kid you not There are two old guys I'm talking 70 years old and they're wearing a baseball a Santa hat Santa boots And nothing in between literally

Starting point is 00:45:00 Buck naked in on the straights are Yeah, bro You're you're so you're so demented, okay? You're like this like I'm keep purf like every time I get those text messages I don't know what to think. Did you guys click on the Twitter link with Jason was like guys search for the full-sum street fair on Twitter? I can't I can't unsee what I saw I was like What is full-sum street twentit trending? I was like, what is fall substrate trending. I was like, I thought there was a terrorist attack. Bro, that was so brutal.

Starting point is 00:45:29 You should be able to send that shit around. Like, it's so brutal. I don't click on fall. I was like, don't click on fall. I was like, oh, this is a Twitter link. What is it about? Web 3.0. Not exactly.

Starting point is 00:45:39 The fall substrate fair, I'm going to go ahead and say, don't search for that. If you have kids around, it's a little bit intense, but anyway the Santa comm was on Saturday December 11th And so here we are five days late, you know four or five days later in the stuff Hitting if that's true. It almost perfectly mirrors the original outbreak after same patty's day in March 2020 And if you look on social media all the city MD lines where people get tested are around the block and 30 NBA players have entered the COVID protocol in the last two weeks, about

Starting point is 00:46:11 7% of the lead. And we had a big question mark of, would this be less, more contagious it obviously is, check less deadly it apparently. Some studies show as much as 40 times more infectious than Delta Highly contagious extreme very much airborne It's going everywhere Like I said last time if it does end up having low severity and low Hospitalization rate and low death rate for vaccinated or vaccinated plus boosted populations This could end up being a massive immunizing event meaning like a lot of people will develop new antibodies and resistance and

Starting point is 00:46:47 You know, that could be a net good thing, but it's certainly the case it this is not a one-strain one shot and done pandemic. This is an endemic kind of circumstance. We're gonna be in this for a while and You know the circumstances are one that may kind of require you know an adaptation in terms of how we live and operate and Especially as it relates to things that are so important like keeping businesses open at schools You know, I think we're gonna use recent memory to guide future decision-making or at least politicians and You know kind of lawmakers will and they'll say hey This is what we did last time this happened and we just saw this in California where they're like, last time, like we told everyone, go into lockdown or wear masks indoors again. And we're seeing that behavior again.

Starting point is 00:47:31 Certainly, it may have an impact in terms of the spread, but this is highly contagious. And it's going to spread everywhere. And I think there's just some adaptation that maybe it's going to be needed here over the long run. There's no end, there's no end long run. There's no end, there's no end inside. There's no end inside, but it is less deadly, and so it could be mass immunizing, and that has led people to think of this herd immunity, potentially if there's not another variant.

Starting point is 00:47:55 SACS, if the NBA and the NFL are learning to live with COVID, and obviously when we were in Miami, there's no COVID, and Austin, there's no COVID. Is everybody now just, because it seems like the politicians now, whether it's in Europe, we're seeing the protests, and I think we'll see them here in the United States if this keeps up, Australia obviously, having protests as well, the public has decided, I think,

Starting point is 00:48:17 we're willing to have a thousand people die a day, or a certain number of people die today, to get back to normal. So what do you think the end game here is going into 22? I'll make a prediction for 2022. Okay, I will predict that even the blue areas of the country are going to have fatigue with all these COVID restrictions. And so even the blue state governors who are addicted to their state of emergencies and their restrictions and lockdowns and closures and mass mandates, even they are going to have to give them up in 2022 because the country is sick and

Starting point is 00:48:50 tired of this. Peter Fam had a really good tweet to see other day. Maybe you guys can dig it up where he had a friend visit him from Texas and they've been living normally there since like July of 2020, roughly, kids in school, occasionally someone gets sick, but they've been living normally, okay, it's a man's real problem. And he couldn't believe Peter's friend could not believe how they're living in LA. We're still everyone's living in fear. We now have a new one month indoor mass mandate,

Starting point is 00:49:18 thanks to Governor Newsom, who still is ruling the state and under state of emergency. What could a to do? So I think, you know, but I think that some of these blue areas, people are so petrified still over the virus. And I think it's just because of, they're the ones who have been ingesting all this fear porn coming from the media. And but I think it's going to break.

Starting point is 00:49:42 I think the finally this hysteria and panic will break, it'll crest over the blue parts of the country in 2022. They're already back to normal in the red parts. And especially Almacron, you can't stop this. Okay, I mean. I think that's the, the salient point here. Nothing's working.

Starting point is 00:49:59 You're all gonna get it at the end. Look, the little, the little stupid Vax card that you have to show everywhere to get, like part of a movie theater, like you know, and services go, doesn't do anything because vaccinated people can spread it too. So that doesn't do anything. And the last main day doesn't do anything.

Starting point is 00:50:15 You know, and so none of this stuff does anything except getting a vaccine reduces the severity of the illness if you get it. And losing weight. And we can't have that conversation. Those conditions, those consequences are mainly on the person who decides to do it. That's what I have to say is we should have to tell everybody, you know, listen, lose weight, get in shape, eat healthy, get vaccinated, get back to life.

Starting point is 00:50:36 That's it. That's the best you can do. I believe everybody is going to get it. We're starting to see like a real divergence in American life where, and I think Omakron, if we have lockdowns under Omakron, and really the biggest issue is school closures. If we go back to school closures and blue states and have more of the learning loss

Starting point is 00:50:54 that Jamath was talking about, and I bet we do, whereas in red states, they're still out there learning normally and they're dealing with it, just like they deal with the outbreak of a flu season or cold season, but they, you know, they're just managing it. We're going to, there's going to be, we're going to be living in two different Americas, but I, but I don't believe this is sustainable.

Starting point is 00:51:13 I think eventually these governors who are holding on to their power and their restrictions are going to lose in 2022. The ones who haven't given it up are going to, are going to basically fall to a red wave in November 22 I think news that might be the only one that's closed. I see everybody's canceling their Christmas parties JP Morgan cancel that We're close. We're close. Every Christmas party's been getting canceled And I wonder if schools I mean teachers unions. I think they got to be having a meeting right now They don't even the teachers an acknowledge that learning loss exists. I mean, this is a lot of time.

Starting point is 00:51:49 I decided to homeschool for the year of the pandemic, and I kept my homeschool teacher for a couple of hours a day, and my kids have done wonderfully, and it's great to have the ability to afford to be able to do that, but not everybody can have an afterschool tutor. It may up level this for a second. Okay, so maybe I'm sp the beans on one of my predictions. I'll make it the predictions episode we do. But first we had COVID, okay. Then we had the overreaction to COVID, both politically and economically.

Starting point is 00:52:15 Economically, we pumped 10 trillion plus of spending and monetary and QE and all this sort of stuff. Politically, we had these restrictions, school closures, lockdowns, mandates. Okay, I think we're about to enter a new phase, which is the correction to the overreaction. And I think we're already in the correction. So the market's been correcting,

Starting point is 00:52:36 grossed, not it's been correcting for the last five or six weeks. I now think that there was a bit of a political correction with young kid winning in Virginia. Remember that state swung 10 points relative to a year ago. And I think you'll see a further correction, both political and economic in 2022. So we may not be completely past COVID, but I think we are going to be past this sort of overreaction to COVID. What do you guys think about succession? Oh no, I haven't seen it.

Starting point is 00:53:05 I haven't seen it. Don't say anything. Jeremy Strong, let's talk about the Jeremy Strong thing. Jeremy Strong, okay, Jeremy Strong is a weirdo according to a New Yorker profile and there's been a huge response to it. This profile is Kendall Roy on succession. Kendall Roy, who is woke and dumb and ineffective as an executive.

Starting point is 00:53:28 And obviously the show is modeled after Rupert Murdoch and Fox and the kids there who are not doopey actually. In the article, it hinted that most of Sessions co-workers dislike him due to his intensity and method acting rituals. He won't rehearse with anybody. He's in character all the time. Like Daniel DeLewis, he won't get makeup whenever anybody else does because he doesn't want to reduce the energy and the buildup. The article notes there is a fine lion that strong walks between being a legendary method actor and just a complete, uh, the awesome networker. Wait, can I tell you

Starting point is 00:54:04 why this story was interesting to me and why I sent those two guys? Yeah. Okay, so here's a guy who, in many ways, is a virtuoso, and the reason, you mean, he's a really good actor because I despise Kendall Roy on that show. Uh, and I was wondering, like, is this guy just a terrible actor? Or is he such a good actor that I hate them?

Starting point is 00:54:24 Yes. I hate him. And that's why I was attracted to this article and in it or after it. So basically what happens is he's a virtuoso, just I not come back to it in a second. These people at the New Yorker, who I guess are just jealous or wanna right click bait,

Starting point is 00:54:39 try to destroy this guy. But what they didn't factor is that when they published this article, all these other actors would come to his defense and do it really publicly. Yes. And halfway, and half the way Jessica Chastain, Aaron Sorkin wrote a letter exactly that Jessica Chastain published to Twitter because Aaron Sorkin doesn't have access to social media by design. And in all of it, they said, this is the most incredible person we've seen.

Starting point is 00:55:06 Aaron Sorkin says, this guy is as good as Dustin Hoffman, which is like, that's as good as it gets. So why was it interesting to me? It's, you have these people who are grinding and trying to perfect their craft, be a virtuoso. You talked about Steph Curry grinding, try to perfect his craft, just a little Steph Curry story as a tangent

Starting point is 00:55:25 He he brought in this team where they basically started to map out all of the Circumferences of the ring of the net and he practiced this summer literally trying to get it perfectly in to create this very specific kind of swish And he just kept shooting and shooting and shooting and shooting not you know all the time all the time, but every day for some number of shots, trying to get the ball perfectly into the basket. That is a level of perfectionism. And that's being a virtue so that none of us can really appreciate. But you see the output and we all love it. He's already the goat, and he's trying to outdo himself. Here's a different guy in a completely different theater, in this case, acting, trying to also be really legendary and putting himself through all kinds of stuff and still not lose himself in it, okay? So much so that all of these other people will

Starting point is 00:56:14 really appreciate how amazing he is. And to me, what I don't like is that then these critics who don't do anything, who've never accomplished anything at all in their lives. Feel so triggered that they have to judge them. It's one thing to not have that skill. I'll never be as good of an actor as Jeremy Strong. I'll never be as good of a basketball player as stuff. But I don't hate these people for that. I'm so happy that people like this exist.

Starting point is 00:56:40 But there is a strain of people that exist. And then who also have a platform. I was about to connect, but dots for you is like, look at how the politicians feel the same way about private market. Me and your politicians, social media. He decided to try to destroy people. So instead what these people do is they take a shortcut. They're the critics.

Starting point is 00:57:01 They're not in the arena. The folks in the arena are booking wins and losses constantly. You have this you have this strain of impotent critic who that doesn't actually know how to do for themselves. And they somehow have a platform. And then what they end up doing is cutting corners. And then some subset of those start to cheat. Q David. Well, yeah, it's a story that Congress back in 2012 passed a bill called the Stock Act to prohibit. Members of Congress from trading on their insider knowledge based on, you know, based on legislative actions they're about to take. And it's been widely flouted by dozens of, you know, representatives and senators, and the problem is there's no punishment.

Starting point is 00:57:48 It's something like a $200 fine or something like that that gets waived in most of these cases. So it's completely hypocritical because these politicians like Senator Karen, they're constantly demonizing and attacking other people to make themselves look better. And then here they are, they've got dirty hands. And they ask Pelosi, they said to Pelosi, well, don't you think that members of Congress should be prohibited from trading stocks, right? Because their actions have such a huge consequence on them. And Pelosi said, no, it's a free market.

Starting point is 00:58:18 It's a free market, which we free to do that. It's like, huh, I don't remember that being a defense every time you've wanted to regulate some, you know, industry that they didn't think about. Also, it doesn't the president have to divest when they take the presidential office? Is that a thing? Divest or they put their assets through blind trust. Yeah, so they're blind. So why would Senators Congress?

Starting point is 00:58:40 Totally. People be any different than presidents. It's absurd that elected officials should be able to engage in insider trading. It makes no sense. The Fed actually had this issue as well to folks on the Federal Reserve Board resigned and then Powell issued a whole bunch of, I think, new laws, or regulations inside the Fed to try to fix it. And the same issue occurs with federal judges. And there are federal judges that are consistently trading in the equities of the companies that are in front of them.

Starting point is 00:59:11 And so how can you, how can you adjudicate a case? There was one judge that had 130 plus conflicts, trading conflicts, 130 plus. And he is the one that's there where AT&T or Facebook or Google has an issue. I mean, how can you actually assume that these folks are being impartial if that's the case? And there are no consequences for this. And yet, you know, if you're, again, going back to where we started, somebody in the arena trying to do something, you just got to think yourself like you have critics that

Starting point is 00:59:42 are bashing you, you have folks that are basically Flouting the law because they can and then you put these two together and it's like this is so it's kind of depressing to be honest with you You start to lose a little bit of faith in the honest. I mean these politicians are grifters. That's it and full stop I mean they're just grifting and I mean except for you apparently except for Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, they should just buy the companies they hate. Why aren't they buying Amazon and Tesla? They would be total proponents of Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk if they did. Yeah, and for it is to warn, I've seen her tweet that she supports the banning of the

Starting point is 01:00:15 insider trading by commercial presenters, but I don't exactly see her fighting for it. You know, as hard as she's announcing people like Elon. So, look, I mean, it's characteristic of elected officials that they, what does it they see the splinter, you know, in somebody else's eye, but not the log in their own or something like that is not the expression. But, you know, who's taking advantage of this issue

Starting point is 01:00:40 is Blake Masters, who's running for the Senate in Arizona, just tweeted about that this would be the first thing he would fix if he gets elected, which is to ban entire trading by elected officials. And I think it's remarkable that politicians as shrewd as Nancy Pelosi are deceiving this issue to Republicans. I mean, I don't know why Republicans wouldn't make this a major plank of their platform for 2022. David, Nancy Pelosi is, I think, the third or fourth richest person in Congress.

Starting point is 01:01:09 Her husband is a very sophisticated, private equity investor. There are these meme stocks that follow Nancy Pelosi's stock trading account or pretend to, that were recently, by the way, banned by Twitter, right? Yeah. Protecting her. Protecting her effectively. banned by Twitter, right? Yeah, protect her. How is weird? Yeah. Protecting her. Protecting her effectively.

Starting point is 01:01:27 So, you know, she has an incentive to not. Her seat of power is not necessarily the salary that she earns by being house leader, but it's by translating that in a bunch of different ways. And one way, apparently, it turns out, is being an active equity investor in the market. It's unbelievable. That's allowed. I don't know how this isn't just like an A-plus fantastic issue for Republicans. They should make it an absolute plan because they're platform.

Starting point is 01:01:50 Well, here we go. Florida Republican Brian Mast was late in disclosing purchase of up to 100,000 in stock at an aerospace company, which had just testified before our community, he said. Kentucky Republican Rand Paul was 16 months late disclosing that he bought his wife, what stock in a farmer company that manufactures an antiviral and COVID-19 treatment. Nevada Democrat, Susie Lee, failed to probably disclose more than 200 trades.

Starting point is 01:02:16 Yeah, just as much as 3 million. I mean, this is not clear. Yeah, just a clear, the violations have been on both sides of the aisle. I'm not at all trying to say that Republicans are better on this than Democrats, however. No, this is good bipartisan cooperation. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Starting point is 01:02:30 I mean, it's ridiculous. This is the political class in Washington, engaging with our behavior. But the difference is this, which is that the only leader of a party I've heard defend this is Pelosi. And I think this is a fantastic issue for outside or candidates really on both sides to run on.

Starting point is 01:02:48 Well, this is also something that Biden can take because Biden has never tried to do this stuff. Oh my God, Biden's got so many shady dealings and concepts. I need to know, I'm a kid selling paintings to China. There's a lot of rich Biden's out there. Apparently he's got a rich brother. He's got a, you know, I've paid a lot of money.

Starting point is 01:03:03 No, maybe that's true. But Joe Biden has been really down the middle. Come on, be fair. Hunter is brilliant. I mean, he's selling paintings. Yeah, but why are they buying 100 Biden paintings for up $500,000? Well, I mean, he's a great artist.

Starting point is 01:03:16 And why are people buying? I don't know if he's got Melania's coming out with NFTs today. So she's, Melania's, everybody's securing the bag now. I mean, and by the way, the presidential grift is always the best. Just as a case in point, Trump's SPAC is worth over two billion

Starting point is 01:03:35 and BuzzFeed, which makes 360 million a year, and I think has a hundred, two million cash. It's one of my 600. He's not an office. He's not an office. That's mistated, Jason. Trump's SPAC, his shares that he's to be receiving are worth close to 20 billion. I think 20 billion.

Starting point is 01:03:49 But he's on an office anymore. So I'm not sure. The share that he's going to receive. Oh, it's the future. Yeah, what you're counting is the market cap of the cash and trust. The value of the shares that are already all working on that. The Trump, the value of the Trump entity is going to be closer to 20 billion. Oh, is that right? Wow, that's even got easier with no revenue. These poor media. or already probably the actual. The Trump, the value of the Trump entity is gonna be closer to 20 billion.

Starting point is 01:04:05 Oh, is that right? Wow, that's even crazier with no revenue. These poor million people. Well, the SEC apparently the DOJ sent a bunch of inquiries on this asking for background on the transaction because there's no business, there's no contract, there's no employees, it's just a whole. But by the way, just to make sure that everybody understands

Starting point is 01:04:23 this is a bipartisan thing as well the the ultimate bag secure the Obama's got I think 50 million plus each for their book deals and They got supposedly high eight figures like 50 60 70 80 million dollars from now Hold on a second hold on a second when you said when you call them bag secure I was really triggered there for a second So am I supposed to take that offensively that you're saying we shall abom and Brock Obam

Starting point is 01:04:47 or secured the bag? Secured the bag is a term for getting the money. The abomments are doing it. Okay, so it's a thing. And it's a thing. It's a thing. Secured the bag. But Jason, we're not against everybody

Starting point is 01:05:01 not being able to make money. The issue is trading on your office in a way that where you are trading on your insider information that your office is giving you. Sure, but I mean here- That's all right, if you're selling influence. If you're selling book, and if you sell a book when you're out of office,

Starting point is 01:05:18 is that really a problem? Is that on the- No, I wanted to point out the Netflix one. What was Netflix's existential crisis for the eight years of mom was in office? And if you remember, nobody remembers, net neutrality. No, we cares.

Starting point is 01:05:32 Could they get, would they have to pay Verizon? What was the Obama's position on net neutrality? They were for net neutrality. Netflix stock went up 40, 50 X under Obama. It could all be a coincidence. I'm just saying, what the fuck? So you're saying it's like, you're saying it's a disguise lobbying payment to Obama?

Starting point is 01:05:50 I think it's like, are you serious? I think it's like, you are not that evil. I mean, listen, the Clintons were doing speaking gets for Goldman Sachs and half a million dollars. I'm just kind of my cue to go to dinner now. Okay, so there's the MRI in there. You know, the main way that Winston Churchill's support in himself was writing books. I think it's okay for politicians to write books.

Starting point is 01:06:09 And because ultimately the public buys them and that's how they make money. What about when the book is 50 million in the normal price for B 10? That's the problem. Well, I mean, I guess you might have a point. If the advance was so in excess of the expected sales that it raises a question of what the remote is for the payment, but I don't, but is that, is that what happened? Is that what happened? Nobody gets paid a $50 million events. Nobody gets an eight

Starting point is 01:06:29 figure down who's never made a documentary before. No, I mean, if this book sold 5 million copies, it's still going to be worth it. Let's move on to mRNA so we keep our freed free, free factor. I'm like, so, I'm so ready to go to dinner. Thompson gave me a wonderful bottle of wine, by the way. I'm going to to go to dinner. Rick Thompson gave me a wonderful bottle of wine, by the way. I'm going to go drink it tonight. I'm so super tilted.

Starting point is 01:06:48 I mean, I criticized the albamos. Yeah, I can't do it. I'm super tilted. I mean, this is worse than sweater care. What about Clintons? Can I go after their 500-day speaking gigs for moments, actually? That's okay. Yeah, okay, fine.

Starting point is 01:07:08 Just don't touch the abomas. But I mean, Jason, are you doing exactly what Senator Caron did to Elon, which is by virtue of the fact that they're making money that you are now imputing evil motives to it? No, it's just a disproportionate to what they should get by. Your assessment, their assessment's the same about Elon. I pay a lot of money for Michelle Obama to do much of any. I think she's just a total bot. He was never made a film for Netflix. You said the same thing about Rivian. I don't know, man, you're projecting a little bit. I totally agree. I'll let you. This is on the second floor. I jump out the window right now. Yeah, you are.

Starting point is 01:07:42 Let winners be winners. I think we should differentiate between insider trading. Sure. Bad and should not be allowed. Influence peddling. Bad should not be allowed. And somebody out of office making money. Money influence? Yeah.

Starting point is 01:07:55 Not monetizing their influence. And if they did that, that's a problem. Getting paid for services is fine. Getting paid to self-tickets or books. That's if that's what it is, that's fine. And it's totally it's disproportionate to the reality. Let's put it in. Okay, fine. I agree with books. That's if that's fine. It's just disproportionate. It's the reality. Let's put it. I agree. No, no, no, no, Jason, say you like the Obama's or I would vote Obama and for a third term. Okay. Didn't you get paid a $50,000

Starting point is 01:08:18 speaking fee recently to speak at a conference? He did overpay overpay overpay over pay your worth eight eight dollars and a fucking subway sandwich. You're worth like $2,500. I just got paid 15 grand to do it. Who are you trying to get? Who are they paying you to influence, Jake? I mean, honestly, Jake. I have no influence.

Starting point is 01:08:36 Jason, Jason, you're worth like a like 30% less than a high in desk court. Okay, no pass. Oh, man. That's $600. I don't know. I don't know. There's a,

Starting point is 01:08:46 I didn't predict. What's 30% more than 50? It's saying it's like 80 grand. And that's got, I don't know, 60s, 70 grand. I didn't realize that. All right, talk to us about the mRNA news for cancer, Freiber. That came out this past week.

Starting point is 01:09:02 So I think the article that you guys sent around was one related to an oncology treatment that uses mRNA tech. But I think what I wanted to kind of, what I thought would be interesting to talk about for a second is just zooming out on mRNA technology as a whole, which has been theorized for the potential of it's been talking about for 50 years.

Starting point is 01:09:23 If we talk about real quick, what RNA is, remember your DNA, your genetic code, defines the printing of proteins in your cells. And so every three letters of DNA is an amino acid, a bunch of amino acids in a row, form a protein, and that protein has some function in your body. The way that the DNA gets translated into protein is through these mRNA snippets. So a little snippet of RNA is a copy of DNA which floats over from the DNA strand

Starting point is 01:09:57 and it floats into what's called the ribosome and the ribosomes, the protein printer in the cell. And there's lots of ribosomes and there's lots of RNA floating around all the time and it's being copied over. So some chemical triggers the expression of that gene, of that sequence of DNA into RNA that then turns into protein. And so chemical induces the protein.

Starting point is 01:10:16 Then the protein does something interesting. And the protein has a function in your body. And some of those proteins in human body can, you know, do bad things and some of them can do good things. And so the idea has always been that we can actually use proteins as a way to modulate our health and modulate disease. For example, creating a protein that can attach to cancer cells and signal immune cells to come and kill those cancer cells as an example.

Starting point is 01:10:40 And some people have genetic problems where their DNA prints the wrong protein. And then that protein is malformed or causes some harm to your health. And so the idea for RNA technology has always been that instead of having DNA be the source of truth for the proteins that get expressed in your body, can we stick RNA directly into cells and use that RNA to trigger the production of proteins that can do specific things in your body. And remember, the biggest segment of the farm market or a huge segment of the farm market is what's called biologic drugs, which are largely antibodies, which are a type of protein

Starting point is 01:11:14 that have some specific function. But very many of these proteins are hard to get into the body and get them into the right place and get them to do the things we want them to do. So it would be a lot easier if we could get RNA into the right cells to get those cells to make the right protein to do that thing that we want them to do. So everything from cancer treatment to genetic diseases, and there's RNA interference and there's RNA, or what are called oligonucleotides, that can be used to block specific bad proteins from being produced in yourselves,

Starting point is 01:11:46 or it's kind of another kind of course of treatment. So making proteins that we think are therapeutic and blocking the production of bad proteins are kind of the mainstay of this idea behind RNA technology. And Moderna was started to pursue this effort out of flagship pioneering, which is an incubation shop in Boston. And they really kind of struggled for years

Starting point is 01:12:04 to find the right footing of what's the right business model and the right product and the FDA kind of struggled with approving this stuff. And then boom, COVID hit. And when COVID hit, it was like holy crap. Let's accelerate this RNA technology, use it for vaccines, which have been in development for years. And the protein that's being produced

Starting point is 01:12:19 is the same protein you find on the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which triggers an immune response and builds up your immunity to that virus. And now the floodgates are open. And this is incredible because the frontier is in RNA over the next decade could change the course of how we treat disease and change the course of outcomes for many diseases, from genetic diseases,

Starting point is 01:12:41 all the way through to cancers. And so we're starting to see those floodgates open. I think there's now a few, a handful of these RNA interference products that have been approved by the FDA. And we're now starting to see many more of these cancer and immunotherapy drugs start to get approved as RNA therapies. But it really, I think, was lit by the breakthrough with COVID and everyone kind of seeing the benefit of this and the lack of side effects.

Starting point is 01:13:08 And we've now got, I think, a validation in the market and acceptance for consumers of this technology could transform the industry in the same way that Genentech transformed the farming industry with biologic drugs in the 80s and 90s. So it's super exciting. And we can do updates regularly on our show. If you guys want to talk about more of the cool stuff that's coming out, but man,

Starting point is 01:13:29 this is going to transform how medicine is delivered and the potential of things that we can kind of train. Let me ask you a question. Would the, if we looked at the total number of deaths from COVID and then the potential debt, you know, debts avoided or early debts or more life gays added however you wanna do it, from mRNA and the impact on cancer over the next 30, 40 years. In other words, the impact it would have on the people living today who live through COVID, do you think NetNet will see that the prevention of cancers

Starting point is 01:13:59 through this new technology, it actually make, basically the silver lining to what happened during COVID. It's a good question. Let me give you the counterpoint in the late 90s, there was a gene editing clinical trial that took place. And they tried to, and a patient, and they delivered the gene editing technology via virus. And so the virus goes in, it spreads around, and it has this molecule that would edit the gene,

Starting point is 01:14:28 and it was for genetic disease. And a patient that they gave it to a young guy got this virus and he actually died from it. And they shut down all clinical trials for years. And it was like, boom, that's the end. So there are a lot of scientists, a lot of doctors have argued for years that that particular case caused so many lives to be lost because we lost years of progress in being able to run clinical trials during that time and

Starting point is 01:14:52 get drugs to market that could treat people and you're right. Maybe the opposite has happened here that while these clinical trials may have taken years and years and years and years to get through an or normal setting, perhaps the pandemic was the accelerant we needed to get more of these to market faster and millions of people whose lives would have been lost or would be lost otherwise to cancer and other genetic diseases and so on over the years to come will be saved because these therapies will get to market faster. And so yeah, it's a great point and maybe I don't know what the calculus is between the lives lost in the pandemic versus the lives gained The of these treatments coming to market faster, but it's it's only a good way to think about it

Starting point is 01:15:29 The way to look at it We could look at the days of life lost right and we actually could actually predict how long someone's gonna live and the you know extension of life I think we could come out of this ahead Finally on our docket lindenbree calls for better policing in San Francisco after this insane Surgeon crime Here's the video. And it's time that the reign of criminals who are destroying our city, it is time for it to come to an end.

Starting point is 01:15:55 And it comes to an end when we take the steps to be more aggressive with law enforcement, more aggressive with the changes in our policies, and less tolerant of all the bullshit that has destroyed our city. We are going to turn this around. This is a city that has a population of less than one million people with an over $12 billion budget. The residents of this city have been extremely generous in providing

Starting point is 01:16:25 us with the resources we need to make a difference. And now the priorities we need to make must be to protect them, must be to turn things around in their neighborhoods. When you are in a room full of people, I would say probably anywhere between 90 and 95% of folks could raise their hand and say that either their car has been broken into or they've been a victim in some capacity or another. That is not okay. That is not acceptable. Zach, I thought crime was down and that everything was great and that we were going to defund

Starting point is 01:17:01 the police. What is happening here? What's the big turnaround? Well, it's exactly what I was saying that, first of all, I loved it. I love what she said. It's exactly what I've been saying for the last year and it's really great to hear her say the same types of things.

Starting point is 01:17:14 I started this campaign back in January after New Year's Eve, you had those two women get killed by a repeat defender who was released by Chase the Boodine. And then as I dug into it, I saw that he was doing the saw the time as part of his agenda of decarceration. So and you know, a year later, like we've talked about throughout this, this whole time, the city is totally generated into some sort of dystopian Gotham like city. This did feel like the beginning of a Batman movie. I mean, it was a strong statement. I

Starting point is 01:17:44 thought it was great. This is just the beginning of a Batman movie. I mean, it was a strong statement. I thought it was great. This is just the beginning of what needs to be done. I predict that London breed is going to eventually but heads with Chase of Oudine. There is no way that he will support this agenda of fixing the city she wants to increase the police presence. So like you said, she is gonna refund the police, not defund the police.

Starting point is 01:18:05 Chase of Odin is, I mean, the only people he's passionate about prosecuting are police officers. Yeah. So we have a huge problem that the police department is actually, we have two few of them. We're understaffed. We take that job. It's not just because of budgets, it's also because they're demoralized and they've got, you know, they've got this prosecutor. By the way, there was a case just recently where a repeat offender bashed a vaca ball over the head of a cop and the chase of this announced

Starting point is 01:18:36 that he's getting sentimental health diversion instead of being prosecuted. I wanna post this, yeah. A cop and not go to jail in the city of San Francisco. Yes, yes. This is why the cops are demoralized. So in order for London Breed to fix the problem, she is going, and I think she's all the life tracker.

Starting point is 01:18:53 He's got to go. So here's my prediction. On February 15th, they are having the recall election for the education board. And I predict that that board, at least two of the three are going to be recalled. The parents of sick and tired of it they are going to be out I think that's going to embolden London breed to then support the recall of chaseaboodin in the June election. And I think it's the pick is replacement for exactly so that's what she's doing. She basically flipped. She was quiet up into this point. Uh, and now the progressive left are slowly eating it themselves. Yeah. I mean, I think this is self preservation, right?

Starting point is 01:19:31 Shamaath, I mean, if she didn't make a change here, she's going to be out of office too. She'll get recalled. It's not self preservation. They're realizing that these policies don't work. Moral absolutism didn't work on the left or the right. These guys have tried in a small scale to do what a certain fraction of the Democratic Party has been trying to do at a national level. It doesn't work. Overspending under policing, under educating, it doesn't do anything.

Starting point is 01:19:59 I think there is going to be a schism. I think it started after the young convictory in Virginia and I think it's going to be a schism. I think it started after the young convictory in Virginia and I think it's going to accelerate for the next year and especially after the red wave in November 2022. There's going to be a schism between liberal pragmatists and these extreme radical progressives.

Starting point is 01:20:16 I think London Breed represents, she's obviously very liberal, but I think she's pragmatic. I think she wants to find solutions that work. Whereas Chesa voodine is a radical ideologue who will never change no matter how much evidence is presented to him, those policies don't work in a bad firing.

Starting point is 01:20:32 I think there's a simple formula. The person who gets you into the mess is likely not the right person to get you out of the mess. And, you know, she talks about San Francisco having a $12 billion dollar your budget. Can you guys imagine if she was the CEO of a tech company that had $12 billion a year in OPEX, and she ran the business into the ground,

Starting point is 01:20:54 would the board say, go ahead, turn it around. Absolutely not. The board would step in, and in this case, the board is the citizens of San Francisco, and they would say, let's find the right person to turn this thing around. And while she stood up and said the right things, and maybe it would echo. And I think, you know, even if it echoes within David Sacks' heart, I'm sure it's echoing in a lot of hearts of more liberal San Franciscans. But I think that the apathy being asleep at the wheel and allowing the disorganization across the

Starting point is 01:21:26 departments within that city is ultimately her responsibility. And I don't think that any amount of you know, verbiage or action she might take at this point justifies the damage she has caused while being the leader of that city. And I think that you'll and by the way, I think you'll see, to SACS this point earlier, I think you'll see the same response across the nation, where folks feel like the leaders that got them into the mess that they're in locally in cities and elsewhere around this country

Starting point is 01:21:58 are gonna vote those folks out of office because they want to change. And it's the same reason we saw folks vote Trump into office and the same reason we saw folks vote Trump out of office. The more you wanna see a change, the more you're gonna make a change with your political electorate. So, right.

Starting point is 01:22:12 Friedberg is so, so right. There is a phenomenal Twitter account. His name is Rob Henderson. And he's like a PhD student right now. I think he's in Europe on scholarship. You know, this guy has an incredible background, which you can talk about later, but Rob Henderson has this thing which I love, which is that, you know, a lot of this stuff

Starting point is 01:22:32 is born out of what he calls luxury beliefs, right? Like, defund the police as a luxury belief. If you're like this rich middle class cloistered person that can sit behind a gate, have armed security, yada yada yada, because you're not living in the ghetto where the byproducts of the byproduct of defunding the beliefs are born out or de-carceration are born out. Or if you send your kid to a private school,

Starting point is 01:22:56 you can completely be for all these crazy radical ideas like defunding advance placement, defunding the gifted program. Because if your kid's smart, you'll just pay for a tutor and you can do whatever you want. Those luxury beliefs exist more in the progressive left in such a small cohort of people than in any other political class that we have in America. And when they get a hold of power, they've now had the right to show whether those luxury beliefs can actually work. The data says it doesn't.

Starting point is 01:23:28 Okay. Let's go with competence. I mean, how about that? Like, just keep people safe and make the edge of Cish, these luxury beliefs belong in sociology, sociology textbooks, and anthropological articles. They're better off than like we're beat Nick, smoke pot, and talk about it over a glass of wine. We clean up something.

Starting point is 01:23:48 So look, I have no special desire to defend London breed. I'm sure there are many. I know. I know. No, I'm sure there are many better people. So you're wearing the London breed, Brad sweater? Is that London breed? It's on Ford.

Starting point is 01:24:03 On Ford. Yeah. On Ford. Tom Ford. Tom Ford. Tom Ford. Look, I'm sure there are better mayors, but I think we have to sort of temper what you said based on the realities of politics in San Francisco, which are this. We actually have a week mayor. The mayor can't do anything without the vote.

Starting point is 01:24:21 Without the vote of the board of supervisors. And the superser control right now by a bunch of crazies who are basically allies, Dean Preston and Matt Haney, Hillary Rodin, who are allies of Chesa Boudin, okay. So London breed, I think, wants to do some good things. I think that she is more pragmatic than these ideologues. I think that she could have been more aggressive

Starting point is 01:24:46 and more outspoken about standing up to them. However, earlier, okay, but I think she is now doing the right thing in terms of the speech she just gave, basically calling for refunding the police and we're sick of the bullshit and we're gonna take action. Those are the right things to be saying right now. She did the right thing in terms of supporting

Starting point is 01:25:02 the recall of this school board. And what I'm saying is, let's give her a chance to see if she does come out. 100% of the recall of Chase of Oudine, because I think that's where it's headed. And if she gets on board with that, as she shows she's pragmatic, she may actually survive. You said we would do a couple of breaks, sir. If she gets out of happening all around the country, right? We saw Bill DeBlasio, who is the first real progressive leftist elected to a major city, he completely ran New York City into the ground. Now, Eric Adams is going to go clean it up, right? We had Glenn Youngkin, who basically ran a centers campaign

Starting point is 01:25:34 take over Virginia. It's over. It's over, Johnny. Let's call it. It's over. Sentrism, pragmatism, enough of these extreme polar opposites, okay? Let Antifa and the proud boys go and make love to each other in some deserted island. It's over, it's done, let's stop talking about it. That was the funny thing I heard. Somebody said to me, like proud boys and what's the other group?

Starting point is 01:25:58 Both keepers or something? This woman who's gay, what we said. She's like, oh, you know, it was Rachel Maddo. She's like, I think these are like gay activist groups, aren't they? Like, proud boys? And sounds like a gay activist group. I think we're seeing the correction of the overreaction, the pandemic cause. What Neil Ferguson calls pandemic politics, that we, that the pandemic bred a strain of radical politics that we saw all over the country. And I think on both sides and I think the country is going to come out of that.

Starting point is 01:26:31 Did you see these idiots go to cheesecake factory and do a sit-in without their masks on? And that's their form of protest is like we're going to go into the cheesecake factory. Do you talking about? There was a cheesecake factory protest, and now it's going national with people who are anti-mask, anti-vaxx. They don't wanna have to show their cards or wear a mask when they walk to their seat. So they're literally doing sit-ins

Starting point is 01:26:54 at cheesecake factory, and I was like, I would protest going to a cheesecake factory. I'm not gonna protest in a cheesecake factory, is. Well, some people aren't on a diet like you, Jake, how they enjoy cheesecake. Well, where you at? What's the number? Zach, just give us the number. What's your weight? Around 170. I'm 174. So I'm right, I'm coming right up behind you. You hear the steps? You hear the saxi? Saxi, I'm gonna tell you, bro, I love your sweater. I'm gonna drive to

Starting point is 01:27:17 the city, come to the mausoleum and make love to you with that sweater. Oh my God. Alright, everybody, we'll see you next week on the Ovid Bus. Oh, and podcasts. Love you besties. Love you, Zach. Love you, Zach. Zach, I got you. What? We'll let your winners ride. Bring man David Sack.

Starting point is 01:27:34 I'm going on the way. And it said we open source it to the fans. And they've just got crazy with it. I'm going on the way. I'm going on a beach. What? What? What?

Starting point is 01:27:48 What? What? Besties are gone. Oh, go through. That's my dog. Take it away. It's your driveway. Sit down.

Starting point is 01:27:56 Sit down. Oh, man. My ham is actually a meaty athlete. You should all just get a room and just have one big hug or two because they're all good. It's like this like sexual tension that we just need to release that out. What your feet, what your feet, what your feet. We need to get my feet. I'm doing all of it.

Starting point is 01:28:17 I'm doing all of it. I'm doing all in

All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg - E59: Twitter's content warning algo, equity audits, politicians trading stocks, Fed's next move, mRNA & more

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