All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg - E9: Trump has COVID, First debate reactions, Coinbase letter response & more

Episode Date: October 3, 2020

Follow the crew: https://twitter.com/chamath https://linktr.ee/calacanis https://twitter.com/DavidSacks https://twitter.com/friedberg Follow the pod: https://twitter.com/theallinpod https://linktr.ee/allinpodcast Referenced in the show: Brian Armstrong's Blog - Coinbase is a mission focused company https://blog.coinbase.com/coinbase-is-a-mission-focused-company-af882df8804 President Trump's medical treatment https://twitter.com/Jason/status/1312126100286271488 Show Notes: 0:00 The besties reflect on Trump testing positive for COVID-19: treatment, impact on society & the election 9:06 What treatment is Trump receiving & is it scalable to everyone? Is this the future of disease mitigation? 16:55 What happens to the election if Trump is incapacitated & cannot run? 20:36 Debate reaction - who won, who misfired? 29:05 Live reaction to Trump being flown to Walter Reed hospital 30:43 Has the economy began to separate from political influence? 36:25 Reflection on the execution & reaction to Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong's letter 41:19 How Chamath would have reframed the letter, how Slack & company forums have platformed non-work discourse inside companies 49:30 Reflection on Jack Dorsey & Dick Costolo's reaction, what this means for Coinbase going forward 59:04 Predictions for 2021

Hey, everybody. Hey, everybody. Welcome to another all in podcast. We just got the show notes and I'm ripping them up because the president has the Rona. We knew this was a possibility. We had an incredible docket brewing, but as fate loves irony, we found out on Wednesday night. I believe just in a brief timeline here Wednesday night, uh, Hope X is a personal assistant, uh, got the Rona and then of course, um, President Trump announced late last night that he in fact had the Rona and that his wife Melania also had the coronavirus. So with us today to discuss all things, tech, politics and coronavirus, David Friedberg, David Sachs and Bestie Sieg, Shamaaf, Polly Haapatia are with us. I guess maybe we'll just drop it right to you, Friedberg. You are our science kid here in the class.

What is when we look at the president's physique, these clinically obese, technically, I'm not saying that to be cruel, but he's a 74 year old, just clinically obese and snores at her all. We don't know that, that's just a claim. But seriously, what is the prognosis here? And then I understand he's now got a experimental treatment was just announced an hour ago

at the taping of this on Friday afternoon. And of course, we wish them all the greatest speedy recovery, etc. But let's get into the facts here. I think the overall mortality rate for someone of his age is in call of the 2 to 4% range, and for someone with, you know, he's not known to have diabetes or high blood pressure, but generally you can kind of say there's some risk factors, maybe associated. So a couple of points. But the reality is the treatment that he got is one that's not available to the public and is effectively like creating these, you know, taking these antibodies to the coronavirus and he got eight grams of this immunoglobulin therapy that is basically

a bunch of antibodies that will eliminate the virus and they're not widely available, they're not publicly available these treatments, but based on the early trials and the general experience with using synthetic and polyclonal antibodies for infectious disease like this. It's pretty effective and he should kind of, recover pretty quickly, I would imagine. So he's getting... Him dying would basically be a two-hour, him getting this special treatment makes it a one-hour, if we were talking about this in poker terms.

Chimoff, when you look at this turn of events and you saw the news, what was your first thought? That it's now basically a hundred percent guarantee that we will have all of the most transparent data about coronavirus soon. So for example, we've been in this position where we've been debating hydroxychloroquine, we've been debating all of these different regimens. The reality is, the president of the United States, if he doesn't get the absolute top notch care, we're all in some ways fucked.

It's probably likely that he's going to get the thing that folks know to work. Then it'll be hard for everybody else to not want to ask for that. And then it's going to be even harder for everybody to then not get some version of it. And so I think probably we're going to de-escalate a little bit of mask stuff, of testing stuff, of what the right course of care is.

And frankly, I'll be honest with you. I hope I wouldn't vote for him, but I hope he's well. I don't want anything to happen to the guy. And I hope that he recovers, and he kicks it in the ass and that whatever he took to get better, everybody else can get it to. All right, Saks, come around the horn here, talking about the political ramifications of this.

You were feeling that Trump was likely to lose, but here we are with the October surprise. And I hate to make this handicapping of the election, but this certainly is going to have some impact. So with your Rainman mind, and when you go through this deck of cards here, what is your brain? How do you assess this as the Rain Man? Is this going to be a net positive for his election results, a negative neutral, hand to cap this for us in your mind? You must be thinking through this.

And again, disclaimers, we all want him to get better. Nobody wishes him out. I'm sure some people do, but nobody wishes him out. Well, I'm seeing a lot of glee, frankly, on Twitter. Yeah. A lot of people saying, I told you so or karma is a bit or something like that. You know, sort of implying that Trump getting this was a moral failing, you know. And certainly a lot of people are kind of reveling in it. I think he was certainly careless. I mean, he didn't wear a mask. He said he didn't like to wear a mask. So, well, I mean, do you do do wear a mask inside your house?

No, but if I was in walking around at a debate or something like that, and if I was on an airplane with 20 people, yeah, I would wear a mask. Actually, I mean, you know, there were certainly a lot of precautions around the present. I mean, more than most people, I mean, any of us could get it from anybody, you know, if, you know, our wife happens to go out to meet a friend for lunch or something like that and then brings it back. So there's almost no amount of carefulness you can do to completely avoid this unless you're willing to kind of lock yourself alone somewhere. So I just, you know, this idea that somehow getting co-covas is a moral failing is what I would take issue with. It's not altogether unlike the crazy things that the religious right was saying

in the 1980s, like, you know, about AIDS, like when AIDS, like when Jerry Falwell said it was God's punishment or something like that, trying to imply that. They called it the gay plague. I mean, let's just call it what it is. They basically said it. Right, the day they implied somehow that this was, some sort of just come up and say, or something like that. Or a contribution from God to be.

Reaching exactly, exactly. And the virus doesn't know who it's infectinging obviously. It doesn't target sinners or whatever. And so I just think that, you know, all this sort of gleeful sort of blaming that's going around is inappropriate. And I think it could really backfire if Trump rapidly gets better. I mean, if Trump is better in say a week, and is hitting the campaign trail again, you know, what what previously will have appeared to be a moral failing could it could now be argued would be a moral strength since he, you know, overcame it so easily. And you know, so I think that if if he rapidly recovers from this and hits the campaign

trail again, it's going to make him look strong. I think that if he has a hard time with the virus, if it's innovating, the way that I think it took out Boris Johnson, I mean, I've heard British commentators say that Boris Johnson's just not even the same, doesn't have the same level of energy even now than he did before the virus. Then I would think it could really hurt Trump in the last couple of years of this campaign. Look, I think we all know people I'm sure you guys do I do who have gone through this and they all say the same thing which is this thing really sucks

Now there are all these people that say oh, it's like dancing on tulips or daffodils. I've never encountered a single person like that. I see that I see that maybe on Twitter or a friend of a friend, but all of my friends who've gotten it, they have really struggled through it. Some of these people are older, some of these people are younger, some of these people are healthy, some of these people are not, and consistently they say the same thing, which is that there's a couple of days where it literally feels like your chest is being pounded inside you. You can't move. You're just in pain. And then afterwards the aftermath is you're at, you know, 50, 60, 70% of your lung capacity, like it does.

A couple of weeks. I mean, Doc Sanse is a friend of ours. And he was very public with his experience. He tried to avoid it as best he could. He got hit with it. He got hit hard. And he said he felt like he was going to die. It was the worst experience. I have friends that still complain two, three, four months after the fact that they're at 50, 60% of cardiovascular capacity. And you know, these, these people that I, that I'm specifically thinking about were really healthy going into coronavirus. And so I, I don't know, I just think it's something none of us want. I don't think you would want to wish this on anybody.

Of course, yeah. You know, especially frankly, the president of the United States as a role. And so I think folks just need to sort of like class up here and hope that we figure out that he a gets the best care and then we all know what it is and then see that we can get access to it too. That's, that's, I honestly, I think that's all we should be wishing. Timoth, do you see, do you see the letter they published on what he's getting? So they did the, go ahead and read it. Go ahead and read it.

The doctor published, it was not too long ago, right, Jason? I saw it on your screen. It just happened like an hour ago. I tweeted it. Yes. So he got, he got eight grams of polychronol antibodies. This is the regenerative formulation. So basically they've isolated the antibodies

that neutralize coronavirus that patients have presented in their body, and then they use recombinant DNA technology to produce those antibodies synthetically. So it's a bunch of antibody proteins, and then they turn it into an injection into a formula that they can put in your body, and you now have effectively neutralizing antibodies. So they gave him 8 grams grams which is a pretty high dose

and it gets you know goes in intravenously you can have sometimes an allergic reaction to that but it seems like he was fine from that because he didn't announce an allergic reaction and then you know the the antibodies are now in his bloodstream and they bind to the virus so any virus it's floating around immediately gets wiped out and gets eliminated from the body so theoretically this is the way we should treat all infectious disease. That's my point. And I do think that, by the way, I do, and I've written about this, I think that is the future of infectious diseases.

We're all going to get a polyclonal cocktail every year instead of getting a flu shot. You get a bunch of antibodies to all the new stuff that's emerging. And it wipes everything out. I think I got this, David, just think about this. There was so much raging debate that got politicized between the left, between the right, between different folks of people who believed in different things around what the right course of care was. There was no single source of truth. I'll just say this again. When you treat the president of the United States and he gets better, that

is canonical, single source of truth. I'm sorry, but there can be no debate after that, that the smartest people with the access to all of the research, I mean, let's be clear, you don't think a call went out last night before they deployed the nuclear warhead stuff to all of the R&D labs and all the big pharma companies and said, what do you got? And the answer came back at the top of the ticket was this Reg regeneron cocktail?

They had, they definitely have made that call before to prep for this, but yeah, totally great. Now, when you say, it highlights what the future of infectious disease treatment is and should be, which is that all of us should be getting a booster shot every year of synthetically produced antibodies that will counteract any

new infectious disease floating around in the world. And we're getting to the point in the next 10, 15 years that that should be reality for everyone. Well, I think, yeah. It highlights that, but it also highlights that in the absence of the most powerful man in the world getting this sickness, that we're all going to basically bitch and point fingers about what the right solution is. And so it can't be the case that the next time there's a crazy illness that's floating

around in society, we need to go and target, you know, five or six of the leaders of the G eight plus the Pope, plus this, plus that beyond say, heaven forbid, you know what I mean? Like, this is crazy. Yeah. This can't be how we find single source of truth. Yeah. Well, I think politically speaking, I think there's a lot of upside here for Trump if he does get better in a week.

I mean, if these polyclonal antibodies work, then, and he emerges from the White House, you know, if it is a fiddle in a week, he's going to say, the cure is here. You know, I was right. I don't even need a vaccine. The cure is here. It's over. And all of the, I told you so's might, might, I don't know if I could be from the truth, David.

Well, the polyclin, polyclin, anybody's work. I mean, it then's just a matter of scaling them. Can it be scale free, Berg? Is this easily scalable? Yes. But by the, I'll just point out the challenge with this is a lot of people, North of 15% will have, because antibodies, remember they're a protein.

And if your cells didn't make that protein, they look like a foreign protein when they show up in your body. And so very often when you get a foreign antibody treatment like this, you will have some sort of allergic reaction, because your body will react and attack that protein. And so it's not as simple as just saying, hey, we should just scale this up and give it to everyone because the clinical trials that are going on with it are to figure out what

percentage of people, what's the right way to treat people, what's the right way to protect them from anaphylactic shock, all that sort of stuff that comes along with this sort of thing. So it's not that simple. It's free bird. We're making that. But you would admit that many of those questions, the answer, the answers to many of those questions must have been well in hand because there's just zero way. You would admit that many of those questions, the answer, the answers to many of those questions

must have been well in hand because there's just zero way. Oh, Regeneron's been running these trials since March. 100%. Yeah, 100%. That's right. What the, I can tell you for sure, when Trump got this treatment, I guarantee they gave him Benadrill and they gave him a steroid shot

and they probably gave him a little bit of cortisone or they had it on the side. Because that's kind of like the standard sort of regimen you would use when you get this sort of synthesized or convalescent plasma type treatment. And he comes out of this thing on the other end and he's fine. But that treatment regimen is required.

So you sit down at an ID booth and you get a fucking ID and you get shots to go along with it. So it's not as simple as just chipping it out to everyone's home and giving them that treatment. You know, and only, am I correct? That only 300 or so people have gotten this to date? Is that correct with the trial? I don't know the answer to that. I know that convalescent plasma, which is called at the foreman's version of this treatment, which is instead of synthesizing the antibodies, you're taking the actual antibodies from other people that have had COVID and recovered,

you're isolating those antibodies and you're injecting them in other people's bodies. So that is what convalescent plasma is. It is effectively a soup of all the antibodies from recovered patients. Polyclonal antibodies is the synthesized version of those isolated antibodies, where we use fermentation systems and bioengineered cells to make isolated antibodies, where we use fermentation systems and bioengineered cells to make those antibodies, then we isolate them and we use them as a problem. Is there any chance that the president would make a bad decision here because he would get to dictate his treatment as a powerful person like Steve Jobs did tragically. I saw a doctor saying this is

one of the problems with powerful people is that they actually can make a bad decision because doctors will let them have too much of a saying. Is that possible in this situation, you think? I think the answer is no, because they didn't put out a letter saying he got bleached and UV lightened. So he didn't go with his own treatment protocol. And also, you know, it eliminated all of the other less nonsensical, but equally sort of question mark treatments. And so, you know, I think they went right to the answer, which would only have been really possible if the best docs basically said, this is what we're doing. And I think David mentioned this earlier, that it had been decided well in advance. That's a good inside.

Yeah, there's a there's a protocol that was written down months ago, vetted and re-vetted probably every week or every month as they get as they got more data. And so the minute it happened, there was nothing to talk about. And I suspect that that is probably what happened because there is no way you'd want to be, you know, it's kind of like being a pilot. Like you follow a systematic set of rules to deal with the overwhelming majority of boundary conditions. And this seemed like a pretty obvious boundary condition. You would have wanted to have a protocol for well in advance. So. Okay. So I want to just do one handycapping here. Saxe. I'll have you take this one off

the bat because this was the chatter on Twitter. Number one, the first two, I think, are just crazy conspiracy. There is he got her on purpose, or he's lying. Put those aside for a second. You can answer them if you want to. But the third one is, hey, what happens if he's incapacitated and cannot run? Or, God forbid, he died. And so if he's on a ventilator, if he cannot leave the hospital, he's an ICU. I'm sorry, I'm not even a question. I'm sorry, I'm a question. The 25th Amendment deals with that.

Yeah. Yeah, so it goes to Pence. And if Pence cannot do it for whatever reason, but he's, I think he's always actually going to refer to the election, though. What happens to the election? If in the next three, four weeks, he's an ICU. What happens then?

Oh, that I don't know. Well, I would assume it's up to the party to make it change to his ballot if they wanted to, but I think if he's in the ICU, he stays on the ballot. So we would literally have an election with him on ventilator or him. I mean, if he was unconscious, could he, could people still go vote for him?

I think this is a possibility. I think he's a very low probability. It comes. I think the most, I think the most likely outcome here is that because he's got the best care, he's, you know, it's probably like at least 50% that this is over for him in about a week. And it redounds to his political advantage. I think there's probably a 40% chance

that he's got more like a three or four-week case, which I think would hurt him because he's from being able to campaign. And then there's maybe like a five or 10% chance of something more serious. I wonder if he's got, even if he recovers in a week, the odds are pretty high that he'll have a long tail of fatigue, right? And so if he changes his strategy and just does things remotely and whatnot, doesn't do rallies anymore, you know, and he doesn't really come out and say he's fatigued, but there's this behavioral change. Does that change things, do you think?

I think he needs to be able to campaign and hold these rallies. I think that's an essential part of his election strategy, but also it's always been his way of, you know, going over the heads of the media that hates him and talking directly to people and rallying his base and field testing his ideas. There was that period when during lockdowns when he just stopped doing rallies for several months and it really felt like he was adrift. So yeah, I think if he can't do rallies, I think, you know, that could easily swing the election a couple of points and then cause them to lose. I think Saxi Poo is 100% right.

I was in Indiana last week and there were a bunch of folks in the neighborhood where I was staying and I was walking my dog and they were walking their dogs. We were all kind of walking side by side and they all were ramping up to go to a Trump rally. They were super excited about this moment to go here, what he has to say. They sounded like they were kind of in this undecided camp, but they wanted to go to the rally. They hear what he had to say and kind of experience that Trump moment. It was a real kind of ground level.

I think proof point for your statement around like, you know, people really need to feel and it's because that's a big part of his his kind of ammo. Is that ground level? It is. And I think it was one of the reasons why his no one saw his election coming in 2016 is if you turned on the TV and just listen to the commentators, I mean, aside from maybe Fox, it seemed like everyone just hated him. But if you attended the rallies, you would see that he was reaching a lot of people,

tens of thousands of people at each event. And he was flying around doing three events a day, tremendously energetic. So yeah, I think it would hurt him a lot. But look, if he's back on the stump a week from now, you're probably going to see all sorts of people on the right saying, you know, I told you so and God healed him and, you know, he must be the chosen one or, you know, who does. We could be, we could be seeing a weekend at Bernie's moment here. I'm sure he's going to, you got it. You got it.

You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. just tired, they'll prop him up on a big stick and hold him up in front of the crowds and then put him back in the airplane and fly him back home.

I think you'll know if he's too tired because, you know, he gets up there and he talks for like an hour and a half. I mean, it's like, he's done two or three. Yeah, it's like, I mean, half and a half is short for him. Yeah. So, is it possible we could be talking about Trump having less energy than Biden in a debate, which I think is a good segue here? Are there going to be two more presidential debates and what was our take on the absolutely embarrassing

shit show that we saw on Tuesday night, which was supposed to be the topic today that we're going to lead off, which was the debate, which seems unimportant now. It feels like a year ago. I know. How do you expect us to comment on something that happened so long ago? It was 72 hours ago. Come on people. Oh my God. It feels like it was years. 20 20 is so exhausting.

I think I've aged 30 years in one year. It's like decades that debate. That debate was just a dumpster fire. You know, the way that I thought about it was wrong. Wrong. Yeah, not true. I mean, I'm actually. No, I agree. It was it was disaster for Trump. It was a disaster for Trump.

Go ahead, Zach. Explain because he's your boy. Are you now not going to vote for him after that? Dismantistic, disaclarefire for the audience. I'm not, I'm not pro Trump. I'm just anti- just voting for him. I mean, anti-historia. I always support the side that seems least hysterical to me at any given time. Did you vote for Trump last election, yes or no? Or would you be comfortable in saying that? I think you'd be surprised if I told you who I voted for. Really?

But, okay, so on to the debate. I think both Biden and Trump both had a trap to avoid. I think Biden's trap was appearing senile. I think Trump's trap was appearing unhinged. I would say that Biden avoided his trap and Trump did not. By constantly attacking Biden, interrupting him, it was counterproductive. I mean, what you want to do with Biden is let the man talk. He's a gaff machine.

Let him talk, let him say things that will get him in trouble. Instead, by constantly interrupting him, Trump kind of let him off the hook. And so it's, now look, I mean, both of their bases, you know, it's like, it's like a sporting event. They're just going to root for the side. They already came to, you know, to support. But I don't think Trump helped himself with the few percent of independence who are still out there, you know, looking to make a decision. I think you're totally right. It was, it was really surprising because if he had just left him to his own devices, you would have let it play out. But I thought Biden to be honest, there were some moments he was fabulous. So I thought he was excellent on race. I thought he was

incredible in the moment that he basically stood up to Trump about his son Hunter and he looks in the camera and he basically says, look, I love my son. My son's had troubles and I support, I mean, amazing. And so like in those moments, it's so hard to not see that guy as presidential. And I don't mean like it's easy for Democrats or people that are voting for him like me. But I think if you were a Republican, you got to look at that guy and say, man, that is a decent dude. Yeah. I thought he had some. He did. He did. I'm like me, but I think if you were a Republican, you gotta look at that guy and say, man, that is a decent dude.

Yeah, I thought he had some. He did, he did, he did. He did in certain key moments, he did fabulously well. And in other moments where there were traps, he actually got billed up because Trump kept interrupting and Joe was smart enough to stop talking so that it amplified the sense that Trump was interrupting him. Trump to me seemed pathetic and scared.

That was my, like, he scared of losing. He felt like a bully who had been like, laughed at by the whole class, like nobody takes him seriously. Like the moderator, what's his name? Chris Wallace. Chris Wallace, the moderator was kind of like, what are you doing, sir, please? I think Chris Wallace, I mean,

I know people are critical of him, but Chris Wallace is like, sir, please, just trying to appeal to like basic decency and Trump just not getting it. Me, Trump looks so bad. It just, I think, confirmed with people say the demographic he has to win is white women in a lot of these swing states. I mean, I don't think women want to vote. I'm not going to speak for a woman here, but my understanding is women don't like guys like that who interrupt constantly and who are belligerent and badgering. And they kind of like a great

dad who defended to your point, Shamaaf, you know, his son and said, Hey, listen, my son's got problems by other son died. I really think I really think and I and we talked about this a little bit before, but the surface area in terms of policy between the Republicans and the Democrats now are virtually nonexistent. So look, if you unpack foreign policy, they both hate Russia, they both hate China, they both need India, and the Middle East is irrelevant because we're moving to a carbon-neutral, alternative energy world. They also don't need Russia as an example.

So all of this stuff that used to matter before in so much of the foreign policy that dictated how Americans would fight wars, spend money, you know, incite democracy, protect certain leaders, it's all out the window and they both think about it the same way because the surface area is so similar. That's not what about what about the economy? So what is so similar. That's number one. What about the economy? It does seem that they're pretty similar too. So number two, economically they're so similar

because they both want to spend trillions of dollars just under a different label. You know, one is sort of under a green new deal and the other is called an infrastructure bill or whatever it is. And then number three, they will both have the same federal reserve that is tied to the hip of Treasury, who is already committed to be trillions of dollars a year in hawk backing up all the debt that basically

exists. So if you put all these things together, it's a popularity contest. This is why I think Joe Biden has an advantage because in a popularity contest where you're just picking the figure that you would either have a beer with or feel the most comfortable with, there's an element of this which is just a decent human being. just picking the figure that you would either have a beer with or feel the most comfortable with. There's an element of this which is like, it's just a decent human being. It's easier for Biden to get that across than it is for Trump. And when Trump behaves that way, it just violates some simple rules of decency.

Like, there were in the debate against Hillary Clinton, he didn't act this way. And he was more It was like watching like a show like you were kind of like tuning in to see What the theatrics would be or in the debates in the primaries in 2016 against the Republicans it was theatrical Here it was just It was it was just kind of not it was it was pretty sacks in that way sacks You think the Democrats put up the right candidate because if you did put up Elizabeth Warren, if you did put up a Bernie Sanders or God forbid both of them at the same time, it would be a very stark contrast.

You would have the socialist ticket that wants to ban the billionaires and stop capitalism and kneecap it and spend a bunch of money on redistribution of wealth. And here Biden doesn't, he's never said redistribution of wealth. He's never said ban the billionaire. He's pro capitalism. Feels like a safer bet to the majority of Americans. Did the Democrats actually do a good job putting Biden up there? I think so.

I think he is the most, now that we know he's not senile. I mean, I think there was some real question about that going into the debate. I think he proved in that debate that he's not senile. I mean, I think there was some real question about that going into the debate. I think he proved in that debate that he's not. And you know, he's always kind of had the decency card that Jamal talks about. Now that we know he's not senile, I think he is the the Democrats most electable candidate because he is more centrist than certainly Elizabeth Warren or some other candidacy mentioned. Elizabeth Warren would have moved the election to be about substance. And in many ways, strategically, no, but think about this.

If you basically converge on roughly the same strategy with different labels, you make the election one of style. And there are a lot of people who really want decency back in the presidency more so than they want anything else because they already come into the election with a level of skepticism that policy A won't change that fast than B to the extended changes doesn't affect them. And so, you know, for years we've been electing people we like. And this is probably the most extreme test of that idea. I think there was, I mean, like if you think about that debate, you could probably simplify it

down into the audience being part of three camps. They either know who they're voting for, cropped, they're know who they're voting for Biden. And then some folks who are kind of maybe built, they're changeable. And for the folks that are changeable, there's a diversity of objectives, right? There's some folks who care about the decency, some folks who care about policy, but at the end of the day, I think you go into this debate with an expectation of Trump and an expectation of Biden. And I would say that Trump was flat to down,

relative to expectation and Biden was flat to up. And so that's where I would kind of give the ticker to. So want to read you this headline. President Trump will be admitted to Walter Reed Medical Center on Friday for a few days. Yeah, I read that. Well, hold on a second. That is groundbreaking. Well, his doctor said it's because they're out of an abundance of caution. They just want to have him in a place where he can be treated if an ad-seem user that may be. You buy that?

A cover sword. I think that, look, if you're all buying that, I think you can trouble. You're Jason. That's, it is very strange. When you get a treatment, when you get a treatment like he got today, you know, eight grams of immunoglobulin therapy like that, it sucks. I've had this treatment. I've had immunoglobulin therapy before and you get knocked out You're on all these steroids. You're on all this anti allergy stuff

You're a mess for a day or two and you know, you want to get like IVs and stuff It gives you all sorts of stuff to go with it I got to imagine that after getting that therapy He's gonna need to be in some degree of care. I would imagine it's probably better to just do that around doctors and with all the equipment and try and kind of bring everything into the White House. So I don't read it as negatively, but.

Well, I mean, do you think it could be like an anaphylactic in a shot? It might be, you might be having some reaction. Yeah, totally. Like I said, a large percentage of people that get these antibody therapies have some sort of allergic response. It's all the way from anaphylactic to, hey, I'm having my throat's closing. Hey, I feel I'm getting flushed. I'm getting a fever. There's all sorts of ways that this can kind of present. The world is changing so fast that we

can't even complete a podcast without it being obsolete. Can I say one other thing? What did you guys think about the fact that this is a little morbid so you can, we can choose not to talk about it, but the stock market basically did nothing today on the news that the most important person in the free world, theoretically. I think you just answered your own question at Chamoth. I can chime in on this one. I don't think that people perceive that Trump is good or bad for the economy, either way,

and that the economy is separated now from politics, because they think Biden or Trump are gonna have the same policies which you said before. They have the same policies, so what is it matter? If Trump were to tragically die, it would not make a difference in the American economy. It's not gonna affect people buying iPhones. It might shake people psychologically,

but I don't think in a massive way because he's almost out of office. So I think it's all baked in. That's why the market did you and then what do you think, Zach? I wanted to disagree slightly with the idea of the selection doesn't matter. I think it will matter a lot if the Democrats win the Senate as well as the presidency, because then they will have one party control and they can pass much legislation as they want. as well as the presidency because then they will have one party control and they can pass much of the legislations they want. And I think a lot of things will get signed and I think the Biden presidency could be very consequential at least for two years while all the legislations passed even if he's not out in front saying very much. I mean the significance

will be in the pen to sign the legislation. If there are Republicans hold on to the Senate, but Biden wins the presidency, I agree with you that it's not going to be a tremendously consequential election because we'll have gridlock and divided government again. And so I think a lot hinges on whether Biden wins with or without the Senate. I don't disagree with you. The only thing that I will say is that I think that with or without the Senate. I don't disagree with you. The only thing that I will say is that I think that Biden will drag the country, especially if it's a, you know, up and down Democratic ticket back to the 80s and 90s, more to the

sort of the George Baker School of diplomacy and governance. And I think that if I don't know him to know this, but I think that if he really were to have a legacy, I'm suspect that part of again, because he's mentioned that, you know, why did he run? He said the pivotal moment was like Charlottesville and Trump's reaction to Charlottesville. I think Biden is really moored by this concept of decency. And I think that if he were there and he thought to himself, I'm going to be here for four years because that's the right responsible thing to do, but no more. I don't think that you're going to see a bunch of crazy legislation pass. I think Biden's going to say, guys, this is what I expect to do. By the way, did you, and I think I would bet on

that because of what he said at the beginning of the debate, he's like, I am the Democratic party. I don't know if you guys remember that. I do remember that. That was incredible. That was so powerful. That was a very dark city-us emperor move when he said, no, no, no, he was, I think he was trying to basically say like firewall the far left or far left the socialist left and say that rhetoric is not what I was elected on. I was elected on my platform. I am the party. This is what I believe and everybody else will have to tow the line. And by the way, in the end, that's not such a bad thing. Yeah. It's a man. I agree. I think that that was

a really important moment for him is for him to say, look, I'm in charge here because the Republicans have been making the argument that he's a Trojan horse for all these like far left elements. AOC. AOC. And so it's very worth it to come forward and say, no, I'm the one leading this ticket. Now that being said, and I think it would be a great thing for the country if Biden brought the Democratic Party back to more of a, you know Obama-type centrism, or Senator Leftism, I guess, you could say, as opposed to this sort of like crazy,

whoop Marxism or malism, whatever you want to call it. But I'm very skeptical that he will, because I think Biden has always positioned himself throughout his career as being at the center of the Democratic Party. And being at the center of the Democratic Party. And I think he moves as the Democratic Party moves. I agree he's not going to be all the way to the left of the Democratic Party, but those

left elements will drag his sort of center further to the left and will end up with sort of a compromise. And I think at the end of the day, if the Democrats win Congress, he'll sign whatever they pass. I'm not so sure. day, if the Democrats win Congress, he'll sign whatever they pass. I'm not so sure. I really, I'm not so sure. The White House is not that far away. It looks like it's a 30 minute drive from Walter Reed, sending a helicopter. Is that normal? Because he drove there last time. Would that be indicative of this as an emergency type situation sending Marine one as opposed to just driving there for 20 minutes?

I think they look like they'd be a lot of liability if he had an actual medical emergency and they were just like, yeah, we're going to send him for a few days out of an abundance of caution. The fact that they said out of an abundance of caution, I think if there is an emergency, you can't get away with saying that. Oh, you can. For sure, they would lie. I don't know. It'll come out later.

But you say the Trump administration was above lying about such a reason. If he's unconscious, they got to swear a pencent. Yeah, there's a lot of reasons why you got to be careful. No, I'm not saying he's unconscious. I'm just saying it's not even unconscious for a friend. It's not even unconscious for a friend. I'm just thinking, I not even unconscious. For me, one like, I'm just thinking, I'll out here, is sending a helicopter for a 20 minute ride in a motorcade,

like seems a little, I mean, I would take a helicopter to the 7-11 if I had a helicopter. I'm sorry, I'm taking a helicopter. You're taking a helicopter down to that, it's something I would say. Okay, let's, this is I think a good jumping off point to an interesting discussion that blew up on Twitter earlier this week, which is we can't keep up with all the politics, the rhetoric, the vitriol and this polarization.

So Coinbase, co-founder and CEO, Brian Armstrong, wrote a letter saying, hey, listen, if you want to talk about politics, that's fine. Not at my company anymore. We're gonna have a no politics rule, no debating the stuff, and we're going to be ultra-ultra focus focus, I'm sorry, at work. And you can check your politics at the door. When you read this, SAC, you've come out in support of Brian Armstrong. politics at the door when you read this sack, you've come out in support of Brian Armstrong. What was your take on his position about leave your politics at the door when you get to work? Right. Well, I think we're Bryant.

So I did compliment it, his manifesto. And I think are you an investor? I am. I'm a small investor in Coinbase. And I'm friendly with Brian and so I certainly like the idea of defending him against unfair attacks, but I also generally like the manifesto. And I think his argument boils down to three components. I think number one, that having these debates on every issue, whatever the issue de jour is, pulls

the company's focus away from its core mission, which he really emphasized. And that mission is challenging enough in its own right. Second, he was saying that, in this something I've said before, as well, which is just that politics is just increasingly divisive in our society. It's just inherently divisive. And therefore, it's corrosive to team cohesion. And the more you have of that in your company, the worse it is for the team. And I think the third thing he mentioned, which I thought was really interesting, is that the free willing debate of our discussion of politics, like that we're having here, but we kind of have our own little safe zone here.

It risks hurt feelings or misunderstandings that can become HR issues because people can then complain about it being- They feel unsafe. They feel unsafe and they report to it. And so that's a further disaster. I don't think that's a problem. I don't think that's a problem.

I don't think that's a problem. I think one of the reasons why this pod sort of works is because we're all friends and we've created a safe space for us to have these conversations. But the workplace is very different. It's not, you know, and what I read Brian trying to do is to reimpose a true safe space by saying leave your politics at the door.

Now I think he's been deliberately misconstrued by critics who want to say that, well, you have to leave your conscience at the door, you know, that's not true. He's not saying that you can't have your own political views or contribute to causes that you like, but you just do got to do it on your own time. Kind of like Mr. Hans said in Fast Times at Rich Mon High, you know, like do that on your own time. And that makes sense to me. I think like, I mean, look, I think about this from the point of view of one of the employees

working at one of these companies that doesn't want to be a party to the debate. If I'm an engineer at Google or Coinbase, I go into work and I am captive, right? I don't have the option of not showing up to work. If I go to a rally, I have the option of saying, I'm going to go to this rally and walk away because I don't like the speaker or I'm going to go to the rally because I want to participate in this dialogue or this debate. I can't do that at work. So it's unfair for work, which is a place that I as an employee have to go to every day

to be a forum for people to express themselves on political points that I may or may not agree with, but more importantly, may or may not want to actually be a party to the discussion around. And I think that's the most important thing to note here is like it's not about enabling the free speech of the employees that wanted debate. It's about the protecting the workspace for the employees that don't. It's about the protecting the workspace for the employees that don't want to debate and don't want to be exposed to that. And that's really important.

As Chimata is a person of color who, you know, have, I'm sure, has some shrunk feelings about what we've seen in terms of police shootings or maybe in your own personal life experience facing racism, again, as a person of color, what are your thoughts on the workplace? Is it possible for you to leave that at the door? That was the criticism I think I saw from the, you know,

people who were supportive of BLM, and they said the background here was, they were trying to get Brian to explicitly say Black Lives Matter and to have the company rally behind that, and that he didn't want to have that be part of the work environment and that he was offering people four to six months severance if they would leave if they don't like the new rules. So what are your thoughts?

I think that this whole thing became a quagmire unnecessarily, I think that he showed a lot of naivety and frankly like, you know, a little bit of stupidity really. It was really poorly written and that's why it's been so misunderstood and misconstrued. In my opinion, I think a lot of what he had to say was valid, but when it was so poorly presented and the essay was like eight minutes and it was rambling and the mission was like 97% down on the, it's just like it was a convoluted fucking mess. So if I had to do it again if I were him or if I was his advisor and he had asked me to proofread the essay, what I would have said is more of the following, which is our mission, which is, you know, I think to create financial liberty or something, something like that, you guys can find out what it is, for the whole world, is unbelievably important. We will talk about

every issue through the lens of achieving our mission and we will be disciplined about saying which things matter and which things don't. So for example, if somebody says, listen, I really believe in spaying and neutering dogs, the right answer shouldn't be, hey, shut the fuck up. It says, okay, um, how does that allow us to maximize our users? How does that allow us to achieve our mission? Why does that allow us to achieve our mission? Why does it allow us to achieve our mission? And if you ask the question, why four or five times in a very first principles way, you'll get to the answer.

So I would have rather said, we are going to train people how to understand what builds up to our mission and what is otherwise something that you should leave at home. And in that context, there are a lot of things actually that are political that need to be brought, especially into a company like Coinbase, which is working in crypto, which is all about eliminating the financial barriers of people that don't have access to it. Like you are trying to dismantle an extremely exclusionary part of the economy. And so there are potentially many movements that matter.

And those movements in countries in which you will want to gain users may look like political movements. Well, and that's Jack Dorsey's point. So I just think it was a, it was kind a two superfit. It was very Silicon Valley-esque reaction. It was emotional. It was a little insecure. And to me, it missed the mark because there was a lot of validity in what he was saying, but presented in a lens of Silicon Valley bullshit. And it was not well thought through. So if he had rewritten it, and he had said 99% of what he said, but through the lens of why we're

going to think about a first principles way of defining how everything ladders into the mission, he will train his employees. Instead, what he created was a schism at a decision point. And I'm not sure that that's how you maximize value in 2020 as a CEO, because at the end of the day, you have to deal with an entire population cohort that are in their 20s, early 30s, teenagers that will eventually want to work for you, and whether we like it or not, they're different.

And one of the things you need to do, if you're going to run an enormous company, is understand the psychology of your employees, understand the psychology of how movements and decisions are organized, and then play to win. And it's no different than anybody else. If you want to be in the job, you know, to be the starting point guard for the warriors, you got to know how to fucking pass the ball. And if you're going to be the power forward, you have to know how to do a certain set of things

that are different than that. And so I would sort of have framed it there because I think there was a lot of goodness in what he said, but presented in a pretty shitty manner. I think it's good he brought up the topic. I do think there's a tactical issue here and he could have laid out the ground rules for I think to your point, Jamoth,

of how we should talk about politics at work and what are the ground rules. I think the number one issue here, which people don't talk about, is that Slack and email and forums inside of companies have created a massive distraction, and when somebody goes into the random channel, which is built into Slack, and I know this is in the weeds, but I have seen this happen at multiple companies now. Slack infects a company, somebody creates a room about a topic, whether it's Trump or police violence

or immigration, whatever it is. And then people want to sound off on that. And now you've got an electronic form where people are talking about highly charged issues that makes people feel unsafe. And so what I told my companies was, the two companies I run, you could talk about politics. If you want to go for a walk with somebody and have coffee or lunch and you want to have a two hour discussion about it, go for it.

Please do not put this in electronic form because it's a massive distraction and there'll be a record that could create downstream human resources issues to your report sex. I have a suggestion. And this is an organizational design experiment. And maybe somebody listening will implement it their company, allow 100% free form debate about anything. One condition. You literally need to have a soapbox and like in the 1880s,

Hyde Park in London, you put the soapbox someplace in a safe space where you can go and you can talk and people who want to listen will listen and people who need to work can work and people who don't want to listen don't have to be forced to listen. That's the time thing. What's the digital version of that?

That you're saying a literal rule in the campus. A literal place in your office, you put the soap, you have a soapbox, you grab it, you put it down the ground, you stand on it, and you say it, and if you're not willing to do that, then, you know, it's okay. Are you saying that there's no digital version of that? Because I'm saying, what I'm saying is that two things.

One is, the digital version is actually training people to ask why. Why does it matter? Now, the reason why it's important to ask that is because somebody may say, I'll use Jason's example that he loves, we need to support the Wiggers in China. The best way to do that is to proliferate our software in the following way because it will free them from ensavement of the Chinese and will give them access to financial independence. Wow. I mean, okay, that seems to be paying off the mission.

So if you would, if so you gotta give freedom for people to come up with these ideas because it may, the first version of this idea may, may not actually be what the final version is and the final version may be the killer feature. So I, in the digital forum, in the slacks, it should be why. Respect. It's a very respectful question. Why? It shouldn't. It should not be in any digital forum because it leads to chaos, because we see that on Twitter. And what's happening is the Twitter derangement that we all suffer

from is now infected inside the immuter, the communication system that runs the operating system of the company. Go ahead, Zach. Yeah, that's exactly right. So, I do agree with Jake on this one. So look, I mean, Timothy is right that I'm sure, I'm sure, Timothy have written a better letter, but I think we understand the gist of what Brian was trying to say. And actually, I thought it took a lot of courage to write it. And what he's basically saying is that politics has become so divisive in our society that, I mean, it'd be nice if we could have these reasonable debates the way that we're having this discussion Inside companies we didn't have to have these artificial restrictions, but we do we have to you know

It's the same reason Well, you know that we have the separation of church and state is because people couldn't stop killing each other over religious wars And so finally we had you know the treaty of Westphalia to stop it. And what Brian's basically proposing is a treaty for the workplace because we cannot get along around politics. But David, he is the CEO of an $8 billion company. Could he not have hired somebody to edit that essay? Okay, well, I mean, look, I just, to me, like that.

No, I'm serious, like, if it's meaning, if it's seriously well thought through and if it was as important as Westphalia, you would probably have a couple of proofreaders. Corporate version. Okay, it's not an extreme. I could have been polished for sure. Here is Jack Dorsey's response.

I don't have you guys respond to it. I think it's in your real house in terms of what you said, Jamoth, Bitcoin, aka crypto is direct activism against an unverifiable and exclusionary financial system, which definitely affects so much of our society. Important to at least acknowledge and connect the related societal issues your customers face daily. This leaves people behind. I think he's right. You have to view this problem not through the lens of your own emotions, not even through the lens of the frustrations of your employees, you have to help shift the discussion to say, why does this achieve our mission? And just constantly in a thoughtful, respectful way,

ask why, and by the fourth or fifth why, it will either be something that doesn't matter and you can dismiss it quickly, or something that actually is rooted in fact, and probably is something you need to pay attention to, and maybe the way that the to pay attention to and maybe the way that the conversation started was probably not with the right language that people given the chance would have framed a difference.

Okay, the worst take according to the internet's Twitter's ability to ratio people, which is when you get more comments than likes, which is not normally how it works. People are actually taking the time to explain to you how bad your take was, as opposed to liking it, is what a ratio is if you don't know. Who goes to Dick Costello? Who's a friend of ours? Me first capitalists who think you can separate society from business are going to be the first people

lined up against the wall and shot in the revolution. I'll be happy. I mean, and that's enough to get you ratio to have the same goes supernova. I mean, Mike Surnovitch is retweeting this and losing like his mind over it, you know, that the former CEO of Twitter is inciting violence. He's a comedian as well to Costello. So I think he's joking here. And but he adds the the ex-way issue point. I'll happily provide video commentary. Zach.

Here's my disagreement with Dick and with Jack. Is ultimately the societal value of a company doesn't come from whatever platitudes or political statements that CO makes, but rather from the quality of its products and the impact of its products. And in that sense, Dick and Jack are living in a glass house. I mean, Twitter is a sewer of political, diatribe, and polemical hate.

You know, it's, I don't know anyone who feels better, you know, after spending time on Twitter. You know, if Facebook is like cigarettes is like cigarettes, I don't know what Twitter is. It's like Fentanyl or something. Yeah. So ultimately, maybe Jack should spend his time figuring out how to make Twitter into a less socially divisive product instead of, because issuing woke platitudes is not going to do it. I agree with that. I agree with that. I don't think platitudes does it. All I'm saying is, you have to view it through the lens of, I want to become the most relevant company possible and achieve the most impact. And I think that there are a lot of times where some of these issues

when presented politically underlying it is actually some feature or some capability or some way of seeing the problem that unlocks more demand. That can help you win and not knowing a priority what the answers to those questions are. It's important to train people on a framework versus say you can't talk because I guarantee you what will happen is. Somebody with some killer feature will be too scared to say something because they're not sure how to say it well. And you and I both know because we've seen many companies that have gone through that cycle, those companies decay and die. Yeah, I think it'd be great if a policy like this wasn't necessary. I mean, I agree it's suboptimal, but I think it's caused by the fact that people just can't

get along around politics anymore. Yeah. Friedberg, what is your take on ultimately how coin base winds up the year or two after this? Do they get more resumes of hyper-talented people who want to embrace a politics social issue free workplace? Or do millennials and, you know, Gen C and this next group of talented folks say, I don't want to work for somebody who doesn't want to talk about these issues at work. And then at the production board where you have a factory where you build companies, do you have some rule around this yourself or thoughts about how you run your companies? I think the more clearly you define culture, the more successful your company will be.

And right or wrong about whether or not you enable the debate in the discussion and how you define the forums for kind of political discussion within your company, the fact that there is a clear definition and delineation around this point. I think removes the uncertainty, and I think he'll do exactly what he's hoping to do, which is to get people to leave and to attract other people that better fit with that cultural model. I wanna put my game face on, I wanna go to work,

and I wanna win the game I'm here to play. I'm not here to fuck around, I'm not here to do other stuff. I want this job because I believe in this mission, and I want this company to succeed in what it's trying to do. And I think other places that allow people to run around and do things that they may or may not appreciate other people doing, or if you have this kind of low definition

kind of culture, where some people are happy, some people are unhappy, it all kind of slows things down and I wouldn't kind of encourage anyone to let that happen. I think it's really important to just define how it is you want to operate, be really clear about the rules and the boundaries. That I agree with as well. I mean, I think it's very much within is right and I think I do applaud his courage in doing it. I just think that it misses the mark because I think it was too emotional. I think he could do a 2.0 version and just keep

building on the manifesto and say he based on the feedback I got. Here's how we're going to do it. No discussion. He on the election. Read hate things put out that fantastic PowerPoint that I think we all know really well cultural playbook from Netflix. And he wouldn't have put that out. Like, almost a decade ago? No, two decades ago, it was 2001. And he's continued to refine it, right? If you look at, there's recent iterations of it and they continue to kind of do a better job

of defining, you know, how do they intend to operate with people? And I think it's only continued to reinforce the innovation that drives that company into the $100 billion plus valuation. It's earned. Yes, and if there's one important thing, which is that there's a meaningful difference in the average age of a Netflix employee and the average age of a Silicon Valley company. Now that may be also part of it as well.

I think the one thing that Brian could clarify is that you don't have to check your conscience at the door. It's not, we're not saying that you can't have political views. You're allowed to say things on Twitter or take political stands or donate to whoever you want. It's just that the company itself is going to be a demilitarized zone. You know, we're not going to bring, we we're not gonna bring these contentious, divisive debates that really aren't related to our core mission

inside the company, so we can all work better, so we can all work better as a team towards the reason that we all joined this company. But that's totally fair, but you know, all I'm saying again, I'll just say it again. That is such an important thing to say, you could have had it proofread a couple of times. You didn't, you could have been, could to come across the way you're saying it.

It didn't have to be written by GPT-3. You know what I mean? Well, also, I think that it was the dunk he did afterwards where he's like, and by the way, if you don't like it, here's four months' severance, get the fuck out. That was a pretty aggressive move as well. I wonder how you guys felt. I think I kind of like the gangster nature of it. I think it's great. I like that.

If I'm on the team and I believe in what he just said, I feel great that he's flushing the shit out. And if I don't agree with it, it's like, fuck yeah, I'll take it. It's really clear. And I think the clear-cut definition of culture is what every company needs to kind of pursue. And it's an ongoing pursuit and you can always do a better job with it And culture is what you choose not to do as much as it is what you do

I am not gonna talk about politics. I think freeberg is totally right It takes a lot of courage to say here's what I believe and if you don't if you don't believe it And then it's okay for you to leave and here's a severance package that takes a lot of courage So I applaud him for that. Yeah, I mean, look, it's a free country, and we all have limited time. We should all go work on the mission that is most important and inspiring to us. And Coinbase has a very specific mission

that Brian's defining. He's trying to find it clearly. And if that mission is important and inspiring to you, then go work there. And if it's not, then go work at the place that where the mission doesn't inspire you. And it may be a startup or maybe a political organization, whatever it is, go do that thing that's most meaningful to you.

That's kind of my interpretation of what he was saying. All right, as we wrap here, I was hard for me to interpret because it was so poorly written. Well, also, I mean, it was also like a huge bomb on Twitter and people's reaction to it was based upon, I think, how was also like a huge bomb on Twitter and people's reaction to it was based upon, I think, how they feel at this moment in time. And a lot of people feel, this is why I'm sorry, but communications is important. How you say things, what you say, style is really important.

So whether it's by time, take the time, get it right. Yeah. All right. So 2021 is going to be a pannas before we know it. And I wanted to wrap here with each of your feelings on the economy, a technology and politics, economy, technology, politics. How do you feel about 2021? Are you optimistic, pessimistic, neutral on those economy politics? You guys have ever been to Magic Mountain

or Disneyland? You ever get one of those log rides and it's like raging rapids or roaring waters or whatever they're called. Sure. And it's just fucking like you hop in and this thing just takes off down the river. I mean, I don't know, nothing summarizes better for me. But in so many ways, is that where I feel we are right now? We've all jumped out a bunch of fucking logs and we're shooting down this rapid river. And I think a big part of what I'm feeling and Chimath is in the middle of this, but there's this extraordinary velocity of capital right now. And when I say that, I just mean capital is moving in large amounts very freely. And that creates, like, once in a generation kind of opportunity, it's in part because the Fed has dropped interest rates to zero. So there's all, there's millions of dollars moving markets. There's

a change in an outlook and the world is being shifted in so many ways. This is this really amazing moment that I think we can all be afraid of because we're on a fucking roaring rapid on a log, trying to stay afloat. But there is so much happening in these markets that we kind of operate in. There's never been a better time to get your business funded or to take your company public

or to get customers to make quick decisions and change their behavior, whether they're a consumer or an enterprise customer, money and decisions are happening at a... Money is moving at a faster pace and we've ever seen a decision are happening at a faster pace and we've ever seen. That's my general sentiment. I don't think it stops going into 2021. There's just another kind of floodgate about to open with this election one way or the

other, but these... We're in the middle of this kind of raging rapids right now, and it's a pretty scary, but also kind of exciting kind of time. So it's so well said, Kenwa, I really agree with you. I think that it's kind of like, if you used to take a second to make a $1 decision and a minute to take a $100 decision, the amount of money being flooded into the economy now allows you to make a $100 decision in a second. So the order of magnitude of the mental barrier that it takes has changed. And I agree with you, I was thinking earlier this week that it's a really incredible time to be alive for one very in one very specific way, which is obviously there's stuff that's happening that's really turbulent.

But there is a chance that a bunch of us can really like change things in a meaningful way. And I find it exciting. So I'm generally like I'm super bullish on the economy, I'm super bullish on tech. And I think I'm actually kind of like reasonably optimistic about politics. I think that we're going to find our civility soon. And I don't know why that's going to happen or how it's going to get triggered. But I think, honestly, like the election of Biden will go such a long way to just, you know, just showing what is rewarded.

And then to figure out how to reward the folks that were supporting Trump in the first place for purposes of economic pushback. Could be a nice de-escalation, in fact, and maybe an olive branch of Biden can bring that Republican party into the conversation. Yeah, and Saks had this really beautiful thing that he posted on Twitter, which was like, you know, a lot of San Francisco's dysfunction is really going to spread wealth throughout the rest of the country because a lot of cities that were shut out of all these tech gains will now see it. And now you can imagine all kinds of people, there's a guy that I, you know, follow on Twitter. He lives in Bowie, Maryland. He's an engineer at VMware, this black guy,

and he was just talking about how he got promoted and he's now a principal engineer. And I just thought, this is really fucking cool. There's gonna be all this redistribution of opportunity all around the country. And that'll happen because of coronavirus, because of people's frustration with California, because of a handful of us, how fed up we've gotten with the culture of Silicon Valley,

including by the way, what Brian Armstrong wrote, which was, again, still very important. And so we'll all be better off for that. So I don't know, I'm pretty optimistic. Sachs Tech Politics, 2021. Well, I'm super bullish about the entrepreneurial energy in the American economy. It's 100 times greater than when we started out our careers in this business 20 years ago, in terms of the number of companies that get funded, the ideas, the tools that are available, the funding.

I mean, when you think about it, this might be the first time in human history where money is chasing the, like throwing money at the ideas. I mean, throughout history, until I'd say last 10, 20 years ago, you know, the people who had no money but had great ideas, how always had to go hat in hand to go find the capital. And now it's come, it's completely the other way around. There's so many VCs and they're all racing around trying to find the people with ideas. And it was worse than that, Sacks. They had to go give their ideas to a big company and take a salary.

Right. So Tesla, Nikola Tesla, the original inventor, didn't profit at all from his ideas. And so that was pretty common. And so just how entrepreneurial the US economy has become, I'm very, the new economy's completely taken over and I'm bullish on that. I think the tweet that Jamal was referencing, I said that Serenzo's loss is gonna be America's gain, the rest of America's gain,

because middle America was really left out of the new economy. It's just not where it was taking place. Globalization really gutted industrial America, cultural America. They didn't get to participate in the enormous wealth creation of last two or three decades. And I think, because of what San Francisco has done in terms of driving out companies, I think the companies are going to be all over the US now. Yeah, totally. It's fucking awesome. Should be super interesting.

And so let's just lay the odds as we wrap here on Biden win. Biden 65, 35 approaching 70 30. Okay. David's, you got a, you got a handicap for me on Biden winning. What do you think, Zach? Well, I mean, the, the betting line is like somewhere in the 60 to 70% range.

And so you'd have to say that the, the betting markets are probably, you know, pretty accurate. I guess, you know, probably there's to 70% range and so you'd have to say that the betting markets are probably pretty accurate. I guess probably there's a 70% chance of him winning if I had to bet on that line. I'd probably take the 30% underdog because I think there's all it. Things are so much turmoil right now that anything can still happen. So you think there's a chance that Trump could win? Yeah, and it's probably bigger than 30%. It's probably bigger.

It's slightly bigger than what the betting markets are giving him credit for. Friedberg, what do you think? Probably right. Yeah, I don't have anything to add to that. All right. Any speculation that we want to end with, Trimoth on the, I just noticed that a meal from Uber is doing a spec. Mark Pinkis is doing a spec.

Everybody's doing spacks now. Any speculation on what we're going to see in that market? Nope. God bless them. And I love you all besties. I got to. All right, besties. Back to the grind.

Back to the grind. And we'll see you next time. You know what to do. Share this podcast with your friends if you'd like to advertise on the All-In podcast you can't. And so if the best you can do is write a review or clip it. And we'll see you all next time on the All-In Podcast. Bye-bye.