All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg - E95: Winter is Coming, Europe's energy crisis, Kim Kardashian's new PE firm & more

Episode Date: September 10, 2022

0:00 Bestie intros: Luxury brand influencers, Birthday Party stories and more! 3:34 Jason reflects on the final Kara Swisher-hosted Code Conference, All-In media and hit piece requests 12:53 Passing of Queen Elizabeth II 15:39 Winter is Coming: Europe's energy crisis, potential fracturing of the Western Alliance, how we got here, endgame, and more 53:03 Kim Kardashian's new PE firm, content as the dominant distribution channel, what will mega-influencers do to legacy brands 1:03:46 Overprescribing of amphetamines to children Follow the besties: https://twitter.com/chamath https://linktr.ee/calacanis https://twitter.com/DavidSacks https://twitter.com/friedberg Follow the pod: https://twitter.com/theallinpod https://linktr.ee/allinpodcast Intro Music Credit: https://rb.gy/tppkzl https://twitter.com/yung_spielburg Intro Video Credit: https://twitter.com/TheZachEffect Referenced in the show: https://twitter.com/theallinpod/status/1568294657632907268 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfJv9QYrlwg https://www.goldmansachs.com/insights/pages/europe-energy-crisis-is-at-a-tipping-point.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/truss-ukraine-ally-tory-leadership-race-b2151390.html https://www.voanews.com/a/scholz-g-7-will-support-ukraine-for-as-long-as-necessary-/6623196.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/macron-vows-to-prevent-russia-from-winning-war-in-ukraine/2022/09/01/ba57cb7a-29f3-11ed-a90a-fce4015dfc8f_story.html https://twitter.com/aaronjmate/status/1566484400224993280  

Point of privilege sex wore this hat last week What's this brand is this a Montclair hat? Yeah, and actually did you see that that tweet people it started trending? It started trending after I wore it so it sold out dude you sold out the Montclair hat So we have no advertising we I feel like if we're not gonna do any advertising on the show We should at least get free clothes we get to pick through them. Where would we like? I know. Where's my cut?

Where's my cut as an influencer? The tweet basically said that I named drop-lore Piana and sent it through the roof and then say, stay drop-lore. Both brands, obviously, are Italian. Both entrepreneurs, we know very well. And so I asked that. I said, not. Can you basically send this tweet over to them so maybe they can give us free clothes?

Yeah, I'll take free stuff. And let's get the Griff go, go and boys now we're talking now we got some bestie griff guard now you speak in my language. Yeah, this is cup of tea. Let's go. Speaking of griff I do like Montclair the way that you're not like slur piano. Just so you guys know at the birthday Jason that you missed. Are we gonna watch a movie? We play poker. We a birthday, we had a surprise birthday party for me. That through it. Sac showed up. Freeberg showed up. Their wife showed up.

It was an incredible J.K. I'll basically stiff arm me. I'm very sorry. It was a, by the way, that came together four days before your birthday. So just show you. Uh-huh. Well, you know what, Kevin Hart showed up. Give us the best one liner.

Which one landed? Oh no, J.K. You have no idea. These guys roasted me. It was fucking incredible, but the best that it was at the end. K hard gets up with no preparation and skewers everybody. Freeberg. I mean, deep. What do you think of like Kevin's roast? It was harder. He was so funny. He's like, my wife walked in here and she looks at me and she's like, these guys, he was so funny. Link that shit out, Nick, but he was so funny.

He dropped a line after. Of course, well, he's a ringer, he's a professional. Well, he's made me the funniest person in the world. And then, Zach's had to come after him. Yeah, exactly. Zander, I don't know why Zander was the MC. But I was just safe. Kevin Hart for last, but instead he calls up K-Hard in the middle.

Sack's was so tilted. Okay, so wait. So I couldn't make it because I had Burning Man. The Zander does the MC-ing. Then Kevin Hart, you were saying, it's just a fill in the audience here so they can understand it. Kevin Hart comes in. He gives this incredible ad live roast and then Sacs has to go after him.

Yeah. It's Andrew did it on purpose. First of all, it's Andrew's as funny as Andrew can out. That's a great sound bag. What a sound bag. It's a root canal. It's Andrew's as funny as a root canal. He should not have been the MC.

So yes, we did miss you, Jake. How you should have been the MC. Second, K Hart should have been left for last, obviously. Of course. But Zander, you know, Zander being a good liberal couldn't censor me. Out right. So you had me go after K-Hart.

That's like the next best thing. Did you steal his documents? Did you steal all his jokes and put them in your... I just threw, I had all these like jokes written and I just threw them out the window because I can't, what am I gonna do? I'm not gonna deliver jokes after Kevin Hart. I just told a story, you know heaven heart like killed I mean the room with I mean that's like set that's like getting punched by Mike Tyson be like oh my god that hurts

It's like yeah, it's Mike Tyson We were at the the code conference we had the poker game was the last one after 20 Big shot up to Cara Swisher Big shot to Cara Swisher. I just want to say to Walt Mossberg and Cara Swisher, because they did the conference many years together, congratulations on a 20 year run. They're not going to do it, Cara is not going to do it next year, but my friend, Jim Bankoff, who runs Vox,

is going to run it next year. So congratulations to him and Cara for a great run and all things D. You know, they had Steve Jobs at the first one, the first speaker, and you can look it up. I got to ask him a question. Jake, I don't know if you remember this sort of you and I were there when gates and jobs did that speech together.

Unbelievable. What an incredible legacy that she documented. The number of the code is incredible. I mean, the number of the amount of memories I have from that place is incredible. That's great. And so we'll see where the poker game goes. Next year, probably the one in summit. What do you think the all in summit I have from that place is incredible. That's great. And so we'll see where the poker game goes next year, probably the only summit. I have to think the all in summit could have been that.

It's heartbreaking, it's heartbreaking. I'm not saying that I'll be hosting the code conference next year, but they're looking for an impulsorial. This is the problem with this pod is we're drawing too many high profile people in now. But interestingly, freeberg and I, we now have the press wants, the press are trying to do a profile of the pod.

We had three or four different press outlets now. I wouldn't say which ones, but I've all asked us to do a sit for a profile we've said, no, but just because we're not a couple. Why don't we do a profile of them? Who's to make them the media? Our competitors want to, that's what's going to be. Our competitors want to do a piece on us. Why would we cooperate with that? You know it's going to be a hit piece. It'd probably be a hit piece.

Of course, because we're stealing, influence, and clicks, and views away from them. And besides, they're ideologically motivated anyway. So they're message police. You don't think you're ideologically motivated anyway. So there are message police. Sex, you don't think you're ideologically motivated? Listen, if you construct the official narrative, then they write a hit piece about you. That's how they try to enforce discipline. Yeah, that's true.

But not all of it. That is true. I like the independent ones. I do have to say like this whole, you know, sub-stack movement in independent artists or independent journalists becoming even more Indian. In fact, Cara Swisher is more Indian. Now, she left the New York Times,

specifically because they were giving her a hard time about certain guests or certain conversations, and now she's doing her pockets independently with Vox publishing it for her. So you see more and more of the voices go independent. New Republic is doing a hippie saw me right now. I have no idea why. It's the same thing.

I know that, you know me, and I see see them I have no idea why. It's the same thing. I know that. And ICC's them. And I was like, here's my official comment. I can't wait to visit SACs when he's in the White House in 20 years. And the guy's like, so you're saying SACs is writing for a president. I'm saying, no, I'm saying that you don't understand a joke. That was a joke.

Yeah. And then after you copied me, then they're like, oh, yeah, we were reaching out to David too to get in, no, then I reached out. Yeah, and then I had to reach out to you yet, right? I had to reach out anyway. Yeah, so they were going a little sneaky sneak. They were trying to get me to talk about it on a new before. I don't have time to talk to them.

No republics are nice. That would be a nice profile, I think. Nobody reads all the facts. It's an opportunity. It's not what you should be. If it were Michael Kinzley running the New York public, I'd be happy to take the the time but it's not that anymore It's just another left wing rag that's into policing speech

You know they asked they sent us a bunch of questions like you know why Well, I don't I don't have them in front of me But they're like they're basically like why did you support three call of chase the booting stuff like that and my You know pure person cop act to me, have you seen the all in pod? Have you read David's like Twitter? Because he explained this like abundantly for the two years, he was advocating for this. Like every week, we talked about it.

We talked about it. There's a lot of people. Like, that's where I'm sitting there in the transcripts. Right, he's like, oh, he talked about in the pod. He, oh, oh. The guy didn't listen to the pod. He is like, he tweeted about this. No, he just thinks I'm like some right-wing donor

who was like trying to get Chase a kicked out, that kind of narrative. So I'm like, this is a total waste of my time. Go read all my tweets, go watch the All In Pot, and then come back with any questions I haven't been answered. That's this lazy reporting on the New Republic's part. Why would you do a profile if you didn't actually? I got better.

So you are having a serious conversation, Wolf Breaver, it's fucking around with his background. Is it up? What is background? What is that? It's a future city in Saudi Arabia. Who else is planning on doing a hit piece about us? Okay, so the information reached out and we said no.

Are you going to be saying this actually on the show right now? I guess. I think the way we should deal with all inbound press inquiries is we'll tell them no and then discuss it on the pod. Yeah, because they want to quote if they want to quote, listen to our pod and then transcribe what we say on this pod or reverse it. My quote for the new republic is that if Michael Kinsley were still the editor, I'd be happy to spend my valuable time talking to you.

But you feel they will they feel feel it will be a fair profile. Of course it's not gonna be fair. There are the speech police now. And the fact you didn't even know, the fact you didn't even know that, I wasn't just a donor on the Chesa Boudin thing. I was the first person that I'm aware of, at least within Silicon Valley,

who called out Chesa Boudin for the horrible job. He was, I mean, that was bipartisan, by the way. It's not like David sacks is one of the three percent of San Franciscans who are Republican. Like he's not able to vote for the 69% of people who voted Chesapeake. So like you can't spin that one. You're categorizing me as like just a partisan. That's not really how I come at these issues. Can we go back to your quotes? So that was your comment from your public.

Jake, how do you have a comment for New York Times? And then, uh, what started with Eric, I got to be a fair, Eric Newcomer, who's awesome, who worked at the information started his own sub stack, um, which is really good, by the way, and he comes on my other pod. Um, he's awesome. And so I'm going to be a guest on his pod because I promised him and he does my pod, but I'm not going to be a guest. My philosophy is, I told him, I said, you can have me as a guest, but it can't be more than

10% all in because I don't want it to become an all in profile. We agree it as a group. We're not doing an all in profile right now. So up to 10% can be about all in, but the other 90%'s got to be my other projects. And he said totally fine. I understand. But he asked first, and actually, I would be inclined to do with him, because he's, if we were gonna do it. But then, what do they need?

I mean, like we create like hours and hours of content every time. And the drama's out here for everybody to, I mean, I don't understand like, what do you need our cooperation for? I think you wanna, no, you wanna maybe frame to get a couple of sleep. No, you just wanna get a couple of quotes

that are unique. So that's worth reading this story. Guys have shoved your heads up, each other's asses. It's like a serpent, a number of different serpents. You're clear. You're clear. Clean bill of health, sacks. So anyway, Eric Newcomer asked and then the information asked.

And then Kevin Bruce. No, the New York Times disaster, right? Kevin Bruce. Okay, what was the nice? Make your comment. My comment in the New York Times disaster, right? Kevin Ruiz. Okay, what was that in your comments? Make your comment. My comment in their times is, yeah, enjoy the pod while it lasts. We're trying to keep it together.

I mean, I'll say the other big issue is I got approached by a couple of, by two different people who want to represent the pod. They say they're seven and a half million dollars in advertising we're leaving on the table, by the way, 150 a week good And literally that was I want that number to grow to 10 million Killing me you realize I would have a plane if you guys just let we sell the fucking heads on this thing

I can get like a million and a half dollars in jets Yeah, you would have a plane if you just did one other thing you're doing a hundred things just do one thing I'll tell you what it is you'd have a plane if you just get one other thing. You're doing a hundred different things. Just do one thing. I'll tell you what it is. You'd have a plane if you're smarter. That's not nice. That's not nice. I would have a plane if I got luckier.

I will say whoever said this is gonna help our core businesses, and that's the reason, I think it might have been you, Timak. I am raising my fourth fund. I am doing it 506C, which is public. I tweeted about it. I had 1200 people sign up for the webinar. And this means I might have to increase the size of my fourth venture fund because so

many people listen to this pod and want to hang out. So thank you to everybody who listens to the pod. I think you, bro. I think we are broke. I'm proud of you. Well, I mean, it's just nice. I struggle to raise the first couple of funds. You guys backed me, but I couldn't break through as a solo GP with the big LPs,

but I'm hoping to get one big LP this time. I'm gonna be over-subscribed with all the high-network individuals and everything, but I'd like to get a more also in cattering or somebody doing cancer research just to feel good about it, you know? I just want to say that I supported J.K.L. as a friend. In fact, I was the first LP check in your fund, but that does not mean that I endorse it anyway.

In any way, that anybody else could come in. I mean, whatever, you're... I don't want to say the performance, but you're doing okay. Let's leave it a thought. And I was like, you say that I'm always not the first, but I was the biggest. You did pretty big, yeah, absolutely.

And I will say that I'm still waiting for that moment to join you guys in Jakarta. Yes, exactly. We will have to work together. And I'll just keep coming to your LP meetings and entertaining your videos. Thanks, pal. Intertaining.

Wait, is Jakarta an investor in production board? No, we have done, we've done a syndicate together. you're at least thanks pal. Wait, is Jay Calon an investor in production board? No, we have done, we've done a syndicate together. You are my smallest investor. You are the bill. I don't know how that happened, but let's get to work, guys. Do you guys want to talk about the queen, the passing of the queen real quick before we start? I would like to go ahead and talk to my wife.

I was born in Sri Lanka. I was raised in Canada, so, and now I live in the United States, obviously. I've been a citizen of all three countries. So two of the three countries, I've been a subject to the Queen. I'm part of the Commonwealth. And I just want to say, it was really sad for me. Like these last couple of days, when I saw that she was sick and then she had passed, I got to be honest with you.

Like it really touched me. She is, I can't describe to you guys for someone who is part of that realm, how important she is as a person. And then, you know, if you've seen, you know, the show on Netflix, it kind of romanticizes a little bit, but you know, she has seen 17 prime ministers, she's seen so many presidents, she has seen the history of the world, the modern world being made in front of her.

So yeah, I'm a little sad, and I think she's an incredible person. And even if you don't agree necessarily with monarchies in general, I think you have to be super positive. For the history of imperialism, there's a lot of people that are kind of using this as a moment to be negative, right? And Jamaica wants to become a public, Australia wants to become a republic. They'll prosecute that in due time, but for right now, I just think that we have to celebrate this incredible woman who lived to an incredible age,

who saw incredible things and who dedicated her entire life to the public service and lived it totally neutrally which in today's world nobody else does. Everybody else takes the point to the point. Everybody else tries to basically like, you know, create a schism. She never did that in 70 years as the queen. Yeah, like very stoic, very stoic and a symbol of service, not a symbol of dictatorship,

right? I mean, there seems to be a very different role that she's taken as a monarch than I think what has maybe historically been the role, which is incredible. Pretty profound, right? It's extraordinary that somebody would put 70 years of service to be that diligent, I think stoic, and and there for her people and to the people who are you know suffering and and grieving you know That word you said really resonated with me like diligent is such a great word because it's like Your discipline you put in hard work your focus on the long-term goal and then you're selfless Yes, not many people not many people jacuz you know this exhibit that at all, but then definitely don't exhibit it over 70 years. It's extraordinary.

And I know a lot of people are grieving right now, so you have our... As a citizen of the monarchy, I am the commonwealth, rather, I am pro-Queen Elizabeth, and deeply saddened me to see that she passed away. All right, listen, we got to talk about Winter's coming. I'm not talking about Game of Thrones. Let's talk about something serious that's going on here. And we don't like to be too repetitive here, but I think we correctly predicted that,

you know, this, if this Ukraine, I think maybe Saks you pointed this out of this Ukraine. Yeah, what do you mean we, Kimo-Sabi? All right, listen, I'm trying to give you fucking credit and you interrupt him. Can you just take the fucking win? You're such a miserable bastard. I try to give you one fucking win. Okay, finish what you're saying. And you cut me off.

All right, listen, we've been talking about this Ukraine thing. Stacks correctly predicted. If this goes to winter, this is going to get acute. And of course, right on cue here we have it. Russia has essentially cut off gas to Europe right now by claiming that the Nord Stream one, the North pipeline that Russia built that goes under the Baltic Sea, they basically say a turbine's broken in it magically at this point in time right before winter, this turbine broke according to Putin, and he needs a turbine. And if they give him a turbine, he said he's going to turn it back on this in the face of Europe saying they were going to cap the price of Russian gas. I don't know how that works exactly.

That you tell people what they can charge for gas, but Russian gas shipments, which Germany is particularly dependent on, have fallen 89% since last year. And the price of liquefied natural gas in Europe is four times level a year ago, and eight times the level of the U.S. obviously we have gotten incredibly lucky to find all this natural gas here, and we are a huge exporter of natural gas and oil in the United States, so we're good. This is the highest power prices have been in three decades, and the perfect storm is not limited to oil and the Russia and the Ukraine war. France is 56 nuclear power plants are running at half strength because of shutdowns over corrosion problems. And as we talked about, maybe two episodes, droughts have undermined

hydroelectric power because of the. That's not the main issue here, the main issue is the blockchain gas. This is, there is a perfect storm here. It's not just that. 40% of Europe's energy consumption comes from Russian natural gas. 40%. And so you could see variance. There's a base load requirement for lighting and electricity, and then there's industrial production, and then there's heating and cooling.

Heating and cooling demand is linearly tied to the number of degrees above or below 65 Fahrenheit on average. And so as the temperature goes up, people turn their conditioners on as the temperature goes below 65, they turn their heaters on. So there's a linear demand for power consumption at those. So number one is you could kind of, you could either cut base load, which is lighting and basic kind of operations. Number two is cut industrial production,

which is already happening. A lot of fertilizer plants were shutting down in the country that are dependent on natural, in the continent that are dependent on natural gas. And number three is this heating and cooling. And that really ends up being kind of a market driven function which is how pricey is this stuff because there's limited supply.

So you could normal, in a normal year, see fluctuations around 5, 10, 15%, maybe with good kind of action and behavior. 40 percent of energy being cut is a massive, massive problem. There will be significant price clients for the kind of variable demand and heating and cooling and so on. But for the price to go up by 6X, 7X, 8X, 10X, 15X over normal prices for someone is unbearable by the average household, unbearable by the average small business, unbearable by the average small building. And so it's causing critical failure across the economy, across the currencies, across debt markets, and there's real concern that ultimately the shutting off of 40% of the energy supply to the continent leading into winter, winter

is coming, where energy demands spikes because of the need for heating is going to cause real kind of problems. So there's the cataclysmic problem of people actually being able to heat their homes. There's the industrial problem of parts of the economy shutting down, and then there's the currency problem of the government's needing to step in, and bail out industry by super expensive gas, give it to their citizens and their businesses at a discounted price, and seeing their national

and sovereign debt skyrocket, which is now expected to happen. And as a result, the British pound is trading at its lowest level since 1985. And as a result, people are rushing to the street from Prague to Cologne, Germany, even in London, proclaiming that the governments aren't doing enough. Number one, to stall the rate of inflation to make energy prices cheaper through action by having the government subsidize. And number three, which I think was inevitable and is now becoming kind of the surprise factor to the Ukraine crisis, citizens are saying,

and this war now, get to the table with Russia, come up with a settlement, and get the heck out of Ukraine. By the way, that's not everyone saying it, just to be clear, but there is this rising, rioting, protesting behavior happening across Europe, particularly in Eastern Europe as a result of the Ukraine war. And so we're seeing, you know, I think a big shift in attitude and a big shift in kind of the societal perception of this war, particularly in Europe, because they're so acutely feeling

the effects. And we are not in the US. They're acutely feeling the effects. And they're saying, we need to stop this war now. We need to get out of the way. We need to let Russia turn the gas pipeline back on. And we need to figure out a resolution. Stop supporting Ukraine.

And that's a voice that's a voice that did not exist very loudly at the beginning. And it's starting to swell. Running out of food or running out of heat to keep your kids warm. I mean, these are pretty acute situations. Shemalt, what's the vibe in the Middle East about this? Are they looking at it and seeing it as about this? Are they looking at it and

seeing it as an opportunity? Are they looking at it and seeing it as, you know, a manageable crises? And what do they consider their participation in this to be? There's a very structured framework for energy production, which is OPEC and OPEC Plus. And, you know, they have done not just the Middle East, but frankly, the Middle East plus United States. The best job possible, the basically get the maximum demand so that there's as much energy as possible. The reasons that our energy crisis really should be discussed, honestly. So number one, an entire continent essentially allowed a 16-year-old girl to dictate their energy policy. And when Greta Thunberg was able to shame an entire continent, it basically, walking away from nuclear and not really evaluating how you can actually have

energy independence. What they did was they put Europe in an incredibly fragile position. And at the beginning of this war, it wasn't clear how much damage the lack of Russian energy would do to the European economy. But now it's absolutely clear. How does he not see that? We said it on the part. We said it on the part in February.

They not, I mean Trump said it years ago. The first thing we said, how is it not obvious? The problem is you had these, look, to be honest, you had these two goofballs. You had a goofball on the left, which was a 16 year old girl who knew nothing. And you had a goofball on the right, which is a president whose language turned people off. Even though the message that he was delivering was 100% right, when Trump went to the United Nations, he was clear, he was precise, and in hindsight, and I'm saying this as a Democrat,

he was right about the German reliance on right oh about the german reliance on russian gas and and the european reliance on gas what do they think would happen the important thing was was the reaction remember the german delegation snickering while he was laughing they were laughing but but but but we're missing the real lesson the real lesson is that in all of our haste to basically overtly judge Trump because of his delivery and his personal style or whatever, we ran towards a 16 year old person who has no rooting in science or technology to dictate the energy policy of an entire continent. I mean, she was nominated for a Nobel Prize. Just to remind you guys, this is how insane all of these people were.

So in an effort to virtue signal to the hilt and beyond what we essentially did, what the entire world did was turn up blind eye to science and turn up blind eye to mathematics and simple understanding of supply and demand. And so now you have a situation where the entire continent of Europe is probably on the precipice of the minimum recession, but frankly there's a lot of scenarios where it could be meaningfully worse. And I think what it does is ultimately it is forced the Russian end game. And that Russian end game is essentially the following, which is that Germany will probably

be the first to capitulate. But it'll be the combination of the United States and Europe, who negotiate some kind of a settlement. They have to fall. And the reason, well without calling it folding, I would just say kind of a settlement. They have to fall. And the reason, without calling it folding, I would just say there's a settlement. And the reason the settlement is necessary is you're gonna start to impact

tens of millions of people's lives in an incredibly arduous way. And those people are asking their leaders to tell them why it's worth it. That's why you're seeing protests all around Europe. People have decided that this war has gotten two or three steps beyond what they thought they were getting into, and that it was shining light on a whole set of decisions that never should have been made. Sacks, I think what people most want to know, and I'll go to Freeberg after Sacks.

Freeberg, I think people are going to want to know, how do they close this gap in terms of the 40% dependency, so you can start thinking about that. But Sacks, how do we resolve this issue with Russia without enabling them, because nobody wants to enable them and reward them for evading countries? But here we are. They didn't settle this thing in whatever nine months we're in now and they don't have any more cards to play. They need heat.

They need people can't freeze to death in Germany. So they're gonna have to fold in some way and it doesn't seem like there's any gap that can be closed here in terms of, there's not a firewood to go around. It's all these stories about stockpiling firewood. That doesn't seem practical. Sure you could reduce consumption by 10, 20, maybe 25%. That does seem reasonable, but there's still a huge gap here. So what's the end game, Sacks? I mean, it...

Well, first, I mean, just to put some numbers on this, there's a good report by Goldman Sachs called Europe's energy crisis is at a tipping point. This came out on September 8th. And it says here that the price of natural gas in Europe, it used to just be 20 euros per megawatt hour. It's now above 200 per megawatt hour. So we're at 10 times the 10-year average in the market. And winter is even here. So Europe is the Titanic, winner is the iceberg, the main difference between

this and the Titanic stories that everyone can see the iceberg, and yet no one is really changing course. So, Liz trusts the new Prime Minister of the UK, so that Ukraine can depend on UK for support in the long term. Olaf Schultz said that Germany will support Ukraine as long as it takes. Macron, from France, said that NATO will stand together and prevent Russia from winning the war.

So, you know, leader after leader is doing the opposite of what you and Chimath have just said, which is try to figure out a compromise. In fact, in the last week or so, new information came out about actions Boris Johnson took back in March or April when there was a discussion about a peace deal, about a month into the war. It turns out that Boris Johnson went to Ukraine and said no deal, do not take the deal, we need to weaken Putin and Russia, not compromise with them. So the fact of the matter is that the European leaders are increasingly out of touch with their own people. The agenda they are serving is not the agenda of or the desire

of their people to basically stay warm in the winter or pay reasonable energy bills. They are serving this larger foreign policy agenda. This is why you're seeing people in the streets in Texelvacchi and these other countries. And this is why you're seeing people in the streets in Texavaki and these other countries. And this is why the crisis will only grow in winter. I think you guys are just assuming there's going to be a compromise. I'm not sure that's true. These leaders are stubborn. So this is why, for example, we've already now seen in the UK, Boris Johnson lost power, although Liz Trust basically has the same policy. Mario Draghi has basically lost an Italy. It will giriure replace their PM. So the leaders, the dominoes are starting

to fall in Europe, and I think there's going to be a lot more of this. And who knows what governments we're going to end up with in Europe in six months? What do you predict will happen? You think they're going to hold their ground and not have a conflict? So, Jamal pointed out the mistakes that these leaders made following Greta Thunberg. I think there's another mistake they've made, which is I think all of these leaders have pulled a Tony Blair. Do you remember Tony Blair? Tony Blair was the Bill Clinton of the UK.

After Margaret Thatcher, he was the first labor PM to get elected. He was incredibly talented as a politician, and he was very popular in the UK until he did one thing. You know what that one thing was? He went along with George W. Bush's Iraq War. The people of the UK did not want to get involved in that war, and Blair acted as W's lapdog and went along with it and bought into all of the lies about that war. And today he has zero credibility in the UK.

It's really actually a sad story. I think that these European leaders are making a similar kind of mistake with respect to Biden's proxy war against Russia. Now let's go back. I want to go back to a point you made Jason D, just a little, let's turn it to Freeberg, which is you talked about the fig leaf that the Russians are blaming this on our turbine. I don't think that's even really true anymore. I mean, the Russians have basically said.

Well, of course, it's lying, of course. Yeah, but I think the Russians have basically said that, um, that, listen, this is about your sanctions. It's not sanctions. It's sanctions and a turbine. It's like pick one. Right, but listen. But the point I'm trying to make it look, obviously this is retaliation by the Russians.

The problem is the stupidity of Western leaders in not thinking there's going to be retaliation. I mean, all you're hearing right now from Western leaders is indignation that Russia would play the only card they have, the card that was obviously going to play. You know, meanwhile, look at what we've done. So you've got administration officials talking about the fact that we have commandos on the ground in Ukraine. You've got administration officials bragging about the fact that we are helping to paint targets on the backs of Russian generals so they can be killed.

You have administration officials boasting about providing the artillery spotting so we could sink the Mosque, the Russian flagship. I'll provide receipts for all these things, okay? You've got Biden saying that Putin cannot remain in power. You've got Lindsey Graham saying he was assassinated. Okay, we know, but what is the, let's go forward, how does it resolve?

You've got Lindsey Graham saying they need to be assassinated like Caesar. You've got the US appropriated 40 billion. Two haw hold on a second in weapons to Ukraine. So my point is this. Okay. The US and the Western Alliance they are doing everything in Ukraine except pulling the triggers. Okay. They are doing the virtually spot. Okay. So the point is we are in a proxy war with Russia. What did you expect was going to happen? These leaders are not even playing checkers.

Going forward, what should happen? Going forward. Hold on a second. You're in the review for us. Forget about playing chess. They're not even playing checkers, meaning they cannot even anticipate what the Russians are going to do next. It was imminently predictable, imminently predictable, that the Russians were going to turn

off European gas and create this crisis. So what should they have done? What they should have done was work out a bit more steel. I know that, but we're kind of repeating the same position you have every week here. I'm trying to get to going forward. So, freeberg, what should we do going forward here? Both on an energy basis and a political basis. That's the thing I get the sort of breakdown of what occurred here in your position, SACS. But what do you think freeberg should happen going forward? How do we resolve this? There's an acute energy shortfall. You can't just make that up. You can't convert oil into natural gas to heat people's homes. It's impossible structurally right now in

the time frame that it's needed. So what should the US? What should the EU be doing now that they're not doing? Yeah, I think that there's going to be this inevitability that we're going to need to broker a deal with Russia. And what I think you'll see over the next couple of months, particularly, because winter is coming, is you need to, there's going to be a lot of saving face. And so I think, I've always said from the beginning, I think that Putin's calculus is to go as far and as deep as he can go, so that he could eventually negotiate himself back out in a way that leaves him with what he originally

wanted in the first place. And I think that there are certain strategic regions and certain strategic assets that it's pretty clear and evident he wanted. And if he's gotten enough in addition to that, he can give up the additional part, and he can get sanctions lifted, and he can turn gas back on and be left with what he actually wanted and ultimately get out of this thing. And then the face saving will be from the west will be, hey, we got him to give up this, we got him to give up this, we got him to agree to non-encouraging. And there'll be some sort of, you know, hey, we got him to give up this, we got him to give up this, we got him to agree to not encourage him, and there'll be some sort of, hey, we got Putin knocked down a bit,

and we got him out of there. We did it. We won high five, meanwhile Putin's smiling because he got exactly what he wanted. I think that's where this is all going to end up over the next several months. I think that's, if it doesn't, there is going to be significant writing and civil unrest in Europe. And there will be a significant, significant economic effect. Because so much of Germany and so much of the broader continent is dependent on a stable, low cost energy supply for the production of things that are produced in Europe. And if those things can't be produced profitably because the end market won't pay for it, the economy will be shattered.

Economies will be shattered, and people will be really unhappy, food will climb, and the currency will be destroyed. And you know what happens when currencies get destroyed? All imports become inflated in price, and then you have inflation. If there isn't a resolution in the next few weeks, there will be civil unrest, there will be a really cataclysmic concerning economic effect. And you think that forces the governments to just fall to Putin and give him some question of the Ukraine. Yeah, and I think the thing that we don't know for sure is what are they going to do from a face-saving move perspective? What are they going to say they got from Ukraine or the West Alliance? The West West Ukraine.

We are going to have to plow so much money into the Ukraine to make them feel okay about what we're going to ask them to do in order to remove or to end the crisis. And so there's going to be this huge check, this huge investment in Ukraine, the Western investment in Ukraine, the support mechanism for the country, for the people left behind, in order to get this thing resolved. And so my guess is huge amount of money from the West and EU going into Ukraine. Ukraine agrees to let Putin keep some regions, some assets. Putin agrees to remove himself from certain regions and give up certain assets. Sanctions are partially lifted, but they're partially lifted enough to get the flow of gas going and to get the economy turning again. Do you want any final thoughts here as we turn around their base here on this?

Uh, uh, of lessons learned. And how do we avoid this? You may, you may want to find the clinic from July where I said the tip of the spear in the fall was going to be the European energy crisis. Oil is at 105 bucks a barrel. Russia is basically trying to break the back of Europe by now messing with their Nat gas supplies. The German energy minister yesterday said that if that happens, it could be a contagion equivalent to Lehman brothers with respect to energy.

You're already starting to see food riots, food insecurity, energy insecurity, rampant inflation, sovereign defaults. And you have to ask yourself, like, how are we going to really turn a kid this whole thing and prevent a much bigger contagion like Freeberg just talked about? If Russia decides to play hardball against Europe or America, we better hope that it's a mild winter because very quickly you can go from plus one million barrels to minus two in a heartbeat. Yeah, my final thoughts on the following, which is that I think that the European system

is going to be put under stress because there are really a bunch of different countries with very different incentives right now, where some countries are in desperate need of energy. Some countries can probably stave it off for a little bit longer. Other countries are so adamantly focused on their position on Russia over and above any source of energy that they may need or don't have. So I just think like this is a really good point to take a step back and realize that in all of these conflicts, sadly, whenever you have like all of these very complicated

countries fighting, very complicated wars, it's really important to understand what these trade-offs are because ultimately what we're learning in Europe is that your respective of what you morally and ethically believe is right in the Ukraine The minute that it affects you and Jason you said this what is it like you're only one meal away from our evolution And I think it would be your only like five days away from having no heat before people write on the street It's probably the equivalent but but that but that's lesson, which is that at the end of the day, it is when you're in a position of comfort, you can focus on forward and outlooking moral attributes and

ethical perspectives that matter. But the minute that you are affected at home where you cannot take care of your children or heat your house, all that's rough. And I think this just goes to show you that if you're going to sort of engage in proactive foreign policy, you need to make sure that domestically you don't have any Achilles heels and Europe had a massive Achilles heel, which is energy. And then, you know, the minute that they were forced. Well, they were just test that it basically, they're going to have to take this much more seriously going into the next year because they've enabled the madman. That is the dominant narrative. There is a simplistic binary that has been set up that this is a war

between autocracy and democracy and that's all there is to it. And my point is that this conflict has always been more complicated than that, okay? And if you really want to understand this conflict, you have to go back and understand the history of it. And, you know, the American media and the British media, they basically act as if this whole thing began on February 24th. For a good example of this, there was an excellent peace by William Perry, who has built Clinton's defense secretary. Okay? He said, how the U.S. lost Russia

and how we can restore relations. And he talks about how we can chart a way forward for peace, which I think is your question. What Perry points out, remember again, he was Clinton's defense secretary in the 1990s. He almost resigned in protest over NATO expansion eastward. This was basically a contradiction of the verbal assurances that James Baker and President George Herbert Walker Bush had given Gorbachev that we would not expand NATO one inch eastward.

In any event, that's when NATO expansion began, was the late 90s. Perry was against it because, like George Kenan, like former ambassador of the Soviet Union, James Matlock, he understood that it would be provocative. It would be seen as a provocative move by Russia, okay? He was against that policy. The other thing he points out is that in the 1990s, the Russian economy collapsed because they moved off of Soviet system, and we did absolutely nothing to help them. As a result of that, we bred the conditions for

a strong man to emerge who would basically prioritize the restoration of Russian pride, dignity, and strength. So he points out the ways that our policies help create Putin. I think what he basically suggests in terms of the way forward is, look, we have to realize that the security architecture of Europe was crafted in the late 90s and early 2000s at a time when Russia was flat on his back. Okay. What are the Russians basically demanding? What were their demands prior to this war?

There were two things they really didn't like. Okay. Number one was they didn't want... They know what they're doing on this. They didn't want Ukraine emitted to NATO. And then number two is they didn't want American missiles right on their border that could hit Moscow in five minutes. Okay, those were their two demands.

The fact of the matter is we never were willing to negotiate at all on those two demands. At all. And instead, we basically just claimed they were a pretext by the Russians for an invasion. Well, look, we never earned the right to call those a pretext. If you want to call them a pretext, you take those issues off the table. Then if the Russians invade, you know their liars. The truth of matter is we were refused to negotiate it.

We never play any way. We never played that move, and so we'll never know. I don't disagree with you about that point. Okay. But you asked me where the European Union needs to wear less energy. And this issue is so much deeper money. I want to keep going with this because I think this issue is so much deeper.

Okay, listen, one of the problems we have in this country is that when a war doesn't work out, we just ghosted it. We never talk about Afghanistan anymore. We never talk about Iraq anymore. We understand they were gigantic mistakes, but who is analyzing why they happened? Who's responsible for the failure? The fact that matters has been no accountability. The same people who drove our disastrous foreign policy in the Middle East are the same people who have driven our Ukraine policy in Eastern Europe. There is no accountability. The indulatory concept? Not just that, it's the foreign policy elite in this country,

okay? So my point is that, yeah, my Not just that. It's the foreign policy elite in this country. Okay. So my point is that there are points. Yeah. Okay. So my point is this. And you're a guy. It sounds to me like you're willing to now say what compromise can we find to get out of this war? Okay. My point is, I'm gonna try and devoid work from the beginning. I do think we did not play the piece of, hey, if NATO is not here, if we don't let them in NATO, and we take that off the table, will you move these troops back from not here, if we don't let them in NATO, and we take that off the table, will you move these troops back from the border? And we don't know if they ever offer that or not, but that's the truth. No, we do not.

Actually, there was new information that came out of the last couple of weeks, okay. Obviously, they should have offered that. I mean, the real issue here is dependency on dictators for energy, because if he did not have the ability to yank that gas chain, if he didn't have that Nord, he would be neutered right now. Okay, but we knew that, we knew that. So if you're a plane, you're not even saying it accurately.

It's not that if he didn't have Nord, it doesn't exist without an entire other counterparty agreeing to. I agree. If Germany had kept their nukes going, and if they had made other plans, perhaps with the moon. But for the United States, I mean, we have to.

And don't forget Biden canceled our energy and dependence the first day he was in office. It doesn't matter that it's a dictator on the other side. There is a dependency on the other side and that is in issue. It doesn't matter that it's the beginning. I've been talking about nuclear system beginning for decades. I've been talking about it. But J.Kell, one of the challenges is, if everyone creates independency on all of their supply,

then there is no export market for countries that benefit from exports because they have a surplus. And so we see this around the world with food, with energy, with manufacturing, with that in a bag. With oil? That'd be a good thing with oil, wouldn't it? China may be with no market for it.

If there was no market for oil, then a lot of countries that do not have energy stocks locally would not be able to acquire energy stocks. And so, a more free, more cool more. It doesn't make sense. If you're saying, if we lower our use of oil, that would make it cheaper, which means that developing countries would pay less. Jacob, just let me finish my point for one second. In every country, you are either an importer or an exporter.

You're an importer of manufacture goods or an exporter of manufacture goods. You're an importer of energy, you're an exporter of energy, an importer of food and exporter of food. It doesn't matter. We often use this as a way to characterize the leadership of these countries as being bad when we end up in conflict with them. It doesn't matter that this person is, that there's an autocracy on the other side, or if there's a democracy on the other side.

At the end of the day, if there's a global trade agreement, if there's a supply agreement, and that supply agreement gets broken, it's both parties' faults for being dependent on the supply agreement and then allowing conflict to us. I don't't think what you're saying is accurate. I'll explain why. Reasonable parties who are democracies, if they get into a trade dispute, generally do not invade each other's country. So that's where your argument breaks down. It would be absolutely fantastic if the less in the European Union learned here was let's not be dependent. What did the United States do to have got us got hold on hold be dependent on. What did the United States do to Afghanistan? Hold on, hold on.

What did the United States do to Iraq? Okay. Did we not invade those countries? I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the dependence. You just said that democracies do not invade. And Libyan, I said we did invade. And we're democracies.

Two democracies that are in a trade war are generally not going to invade each other. We invaded Afghanistan. Actually that. This is 9-11. Okay. And the first Iraq war, we invaded, we protected Kuwait, right? And so, you know, I'm not here to justify every worthy United States has been in. I'm just talking about in this situation, the EU lowering their dependency.

And if you were going to lower your dependency on any country, you'd start with the autocratic ones, you'd start with the dictatorships. It's not logical to you, Friedberg or Friedberg? There was a neo-liberal view, hold on a second, there was a neo-liberal view. I'd say corded neo-liberalism, it's called economic interdependence theory, which is that as nations become more interdependent

with each other, they're less likely to go to war. Yes, China was the perfect example, right? That's true. China was the perfect example. There was also a belief that as China became richer, they become more democratic. That hasn't worked out so well.

I'd say economic interdependence theory hasn't worked out so well either. So this is a core failing. Now you're modifying the theory to say, well, only economic interdependence among democracy is fine. But that was not the view. That was not the view for the last 20 years. It was a core tendency. If we make ourselves dependent on these other countries, then somehow it's going to lead to peace. No, it actually has just led to dependency. It was a foolish policy. We should have been energy independent. Europe should have been energy independent. I do agree that it was foolish. We're in agreement. Yes, you're disagreeing with me.

Right, but I'm not disagreeing with you, but I think, but by the way, I'm not a proponent of people not being energy independent. The reason I think people can be energy independent today is because of technology like nuclear. And I think that all these every country in the world should find a way to get energy independent. I'm also an advocate of global trade. I am an advocate because I think that global trade enables economic progress. It allows the consumer to get the cheapest product possible and for the producer to find a market for the products that they make. And there's an element of this, which is energy,

but energy doesn't need to be a traded market as much anymore because of technology. Manufactured goods, food, we still haven't cracked the nut on where it goes. We are then in agreement, Friberg. Yeah, I mean, why is that the... This is sort of an ancillary point, but I just want to say that, historically, there's been no basis for believing in economic interdependence theory. If you go back to World War I, Germany and the UK were each other's largest trading partners before World War I didn't stop forgetting in a war. World War II, I think Russia's biggest trading partner was Germany up until the moment when Hitler invaded them.

So listen, economic interdependence has never... Mad man there. So listen, economic interdependence has never, has never, madman theory. Yeah, but the point is there's very little historical basis for believing that economic interdependence prevents wars. Which by the way, that really speaks to the foolishness of our China policy. But look, this is sort of a scientific. I asked you a question, Saksok, with the China policy.

Because I think this is a very important discussion we've discovered, which is energy independence is one thing. And then you have trade, which is another independence is one thing, and then you have trade, which is another, and does this actually push off wars. Do we actually know that we might have actually pushed off a war with China because we make iPhones together? Could we have been in a conflict earlier if we weren't so independent and have we actually pushed out a potential conflict with Taiwan, etc.

I think with the benefit of hindsight, what we can see, with the benefit of hindsight, what we can see is that our Chinese policy of interdependency really was called constructive engagement, was a complete and unmitigated disaster. Why? It was because we made China rich. You go back to the beginning of

dunk-shopping, beginning getting his economic reforms the average Chinese Made two dollars a day now their economy is roughly the same size as ours And how are they using their newfound economic wealth to build up their military their navy They're basically militarizing the South China's sea. They're basically being aggressive towards their neighbors We fed that Chinese Tiger until it became a dragon that was capable of challenging us for global preeminence. That was a foolish, foolish strategy. The fact of the matter is that, and listen, this is a mistake that economists make is that they only look at

whether trade creates surplus as opposed to the distribution of those benefits. And the fact of the matter is that China benefited disproportionately far more than we did from the China trade over the last two years. We've made on this podcast is I think Freiburg made it is that we lifted 500 million people. I think I made it as well out of abject poverty in China. But as your point, yeah, it's going towards the end. We have created it. We have created it to return. We've created the return of great power rivalry.

We have created a competitor to the US who has roughly almost our same size economy and that is gonna challenge us for privacy and age. We need diplomacy. We need a very sophisticated diplomacy because this situation with China, it's not a clear path to it. Why is it that you think that we need diplomacy

with China when we didn't need it with Russia? No, I do think we did. I fully conceded that we should have avoided, we should have taken note of the table. I said that from day one. Listen, it's really important to not just say that, oh, we failed to play chess here, that this policy isn't

working. Let's not forget how we got into this conflict. We got into this conflict because the administration said, I think there were four main pillars to our current Ukraine strategy. Number one, that Ukraine could basically defeat Russia if we basically just gave them weapons. That has not happened yet. Number two, the administration said that sanctions would weaken Russia, maybe even destabilize its leadership, and collapse this economy.

That has not happened. The rubles at an all-time high, and because gas prices have gone up so much, their economy has suffered, but on the whole, it's still doing pretty well. The third contention that was made by advocates of this proxy war is that the sanctions would hurt Russia more than Europe. That has not happened. Europe is already hurting more than Russia, and it's about with winter coming, it's going to hurt even more. And then the last thing, the last contention that was made are support for Ukraine would rally the world around us and would strengthen the western alliance and i think what we're starting to see

is that the western alliance is fracturing and you see these gigantic protests and prog in these other countries so listen these were the pillars of our Ukraine policy and they have all turned out to be flawed and wrong and they're becoming more wrong by the day. And yet, there is no reappraisal of our policy that's coming out of Washington or London or Paris. None of these leaders are saying that there's a problem. So I think we're headed for not just an economic crisis, but a political crisis in Europe because the fundamental tension between the needs of these people, which is to

basically preserve their economy and to stay warm in their homes. And the ideology of their leaders were finitely committed to waging a proxy war against Russia, instead of finding a diplomatic outcome that was available last year, it was available in January, it was even available in March or April. That disconnect is the fundamental problem. All right, let's go. Come on, let's talk about Kim K. Come on.

There is no word on how much money she's raised for her private equity from from Russian oligarchs. But Kim will serve as GoFounder and Co-Managing Partner. The firm was co-founded with 16-year Carlisle veteran J. Sammons, who were on day-to-day ops. And people may not know this, but Kim founded skims. That's her undergarment company in 2019. It was last valued at $3.2 billion. She is obviously got the largest following and is the biggest influencer in the world. 3rd or 29 million followers on Instagram alone. Our friend Gavin

Baker responded to Mr. Beast actually. Mr. Beast actually just passed. Okay. So those are two examples of people who can put a consumer package good in the world and make it number one instantly. Gavin Baker, a friend of ours, uh, tweeted that she adds massive value in this exact regard. Uh, what do you think boys? Is she going to have? Here's why I think here's why I think this is so important. Go. I have a really strong belief that in the next 30 years or so, all traditional brands are gonna die. And I think that what we're seeing happening right now with the power of democratized media,

like us creating a podcast, there are hundreds and now thousands of individuals who have stood up and created their own brand and their own presence because of the content that they create on Twitch, on Twitter, on YouTube, etc. on podcasting. And as a result, they become the trusted sources of influence and it's why they're called influencers. And ultimately, these influencers are becoming the brands. They can, like Mr. Beast, launch the chocolate bar, became like the number one chocolate are becoming the brands. They can, like Mr. Beast launched a chocolate bar, became like the number one chocolate bar in the country.

He just opened up a burger restaurant last week. 10,000 people showed up. Number one, no, more than that, like a hundred thousand or something, it was insane. It was like the number one burger restaurant opening, or number one restaurant opening in history. Kylie Jenner launches a makeup brand, takes off, becomes this billion dollar brand.

Kim Kardashian launches a clothing brand, becomes a three billion dollar brand. These are not just brands, they're businesses. And here's what I think is the most prescient, M&A transaction of 2022, and you guys can tell me I'm crazy. I think the most important M&A deal of 2022 was when pen gaming bought bar stool sports. Because it shows that every consumer packaged good or every consumer services business ultimately needs to be a content business.

And if you don't naturally have content creation in your blood, you have to go and buy a content business or you are gonna die. And that's why being all traditional brands that aren't oriented and built around content creation as their primary differentiating foundation will not survive and will not be able to compete effectively. And instead, what we're going to see is influencers and individuals that create content, build

and distribute consumer goods and consumer services in a more efficient way, because guess what? They've got distribution built in. And distribution is the number one problem with all consumer services and all consumer goods. So I think in the future, it's cat advertising, all advertising and marketing gets replaced by content creation. And content creation direct to consumers through the social media platforms becomes the mechanism

by which people are aware of and buy goods and services. So that's why I think this deal is so important. And I think it's another one of what we're seeing in 2022, which is the stacking away towards the end of nameless faceless brands and the evolution of the influencer. I think Kim Kardashian is incredible. She is an incredible business woman.

And the fact that she can stand up will probably be like a multi-billion dollar private equity fund. And frankly, the companies that she invests in has a really compelling chance of being successful because she can basically core so much visibility and notoriety and awareness of a brand into that company, that that cap table, if I was a director, I would say, of course, give her whatever she wants. So, that's the first thing. And the second thing I would say is that I think what Treberg says is completely right. I think we're at a point in time where the biggest thing that if you want to build a consumer

business, my advice to you as an entrepreneur is you need to build direct distribution and scale, because what that translates into, what Kim Kardashian proves, what Mr. Beast is proving is it's all about subsidized cash, or you don't cost your cost of that cost of my question, where you are not paying dollars to Facebook and Google. But instead, because you have direct distribution in a relationship with tens or hundreds of millions of users, you can pour them into different experiences. And when you can do that, it's basically virtually zero cost.

Your entire margin structure of how you build a consumer business has changed overnight. So that's what they've proven. They've proven that you need to first build a brand and then you can put, convert that brand into distribution funnel and then to basically pour all kinds of services into it. And one of the services that has turned out to be now a private equity fund. So I think it's incredible and I hope she's super successful. Saks, do you think this influencer strategy is here for and going to have a major impact on the venture business.

I think it's pretty interesting. I think it's pretty interesting in the consumer space for the reason Fubricks said, which is distribution is so hard. So creating a great product is hard. Distributions even harder. And this is a realization I had many years ago, and which is when I started doing Yammer and then you know, craft started focusing on SaaS, which is at least when you do a B2B product,

you know, a software as a service, you can charge enough money for it that you can get a sales team to pencil. So in other words, you charge an enterprise enough money for the software that you can then pay a salesperson to go out and sell it. So there was always a distribution model built in for B2B. And that's why I've always liked that as there's a playbook there, where if you just build a good enough piece of enterprise software,

good enough product, there's always can be distribution for it. However, that's not true with consumer, because consumer products are usually ad-based. You can't generally charge that much if you can charge it all. They have high-turn rates. And so therefore, B2C only works if you can find a very low-cost, scalable distribution channel.

And I think that's what, to Freiburg's point, I think that's what the Kardashians are offering. It's clearly worked for their own products. I guess we'll see how extensible it is. But this is really the key challenge with all consumer stuff is just how do you find a very cheap way of distributing it? In the past, the consumer products I've been involved in like PayPal or investing in social networks like Facebook, they were viral, and they were exponentially viral. So they were able to basically grow virally for free. So you either have to have extraordinary virability to the product or some other distribution trick

that allows you to scale at low cost because you can't afford a sales team. And what we're seeing is the base of doing that is to create content. Mr. Beast created content for years before he built a big enough audience to do that. Kim Kardashian did content for years before she had a distribution to do that Dave Portnoy and bar stool sports. I mean, the guy Dave Portnoy and Jason Calcanos. Jason Calcanos, yeah, seriously. I mean, Portnoy was out rating pizza. And now he has all these other kind of media and content kind of branches of his platform,

but it's all content creation. And on top of that content, everybody's good at it, freeberg. That's the other problem. I get it, but that's not what I'm saying. And on top of that content, not everybody's good at it, freeberg. That's the other prognosis. I get it, but that's not what I'm saying. And that's my point. So let's say Coca-Cola tried to build a content business today. How good would they be? Not very good.

That's why they're gonna end up dying. Or they're gonna end up needing to buy it. That's a really interesting concept. I mean, do you think Mr. Beast Burger could beat McDonald's? Yes, and that's what I'm saying. That's my point. That's why it opened up. It's kind of insane when you think about it. If Mr. Beast had 5,000 franchisees.

Yeah, but this is exactly my point that I said at the beginning, every traditional brand will get destroyed in 30 years, and they will get destroyed by the influencers that have built an audience through content creation, and now creating businesses on top of that that compete with the traditional incumbents, not technology-advanced businesses. I'm talking about core consumer goods and services. They also have to be pen gaming does betting. There's no real advantage in betting. You build a sportsbook, that's it.

The reason pen gaming bought bar school is they now have an audience that they can drive to their sportsbooks. Yeah, there we go. Right. And so the same will happen with business. They still have to make a great product, though. I mean, that's the other challenge here is, can you also be a product savant? Can you be a virtuoso in building a product

in addition to being an influencer? Yeah, I think that's what Kim gets right. She makes great product and Mr. Beast, his first burger was not good, but now this new burger from what I understand is awesome. So you have to have both things switched on. But think about what's easier and what's harder? What's easier building an audience of who billion or a billion people that listen or watch

you every week or building a great burger? It's a lot harder to build the audience. And so it will happen if it's a car. If it's a car it's really hard. Yeah, it's not, I'm not talking about complicated cars and stuff or electronics. I'm talking about basic consumer goods, cereal, beverages, food, community, music, all the stuff that's commodity, you know, bedding. I mean, this is not like-

Chocolate bar. Bedding is not a differentiated service offering to consumers. So ultimately, how do you differentiate? It's the audience that you've now built, the brand that you've built through the audience because of content creation. And so this is why I just wanna point out

distributed content creation, I think represents one of the most profound investing opportunities over the next decade. Because if you can give individuals the ability to make high quality content, they can scale an audience that now can be monetized in a thousand ways, not just putting frigging ad spots on YouTube, but there's a thousand products you as an influencer

can build on top of your audience or sell to your audience. Boom, it really changes the whole landscape for CPG and services. Not to bring everything back to Mr. Beast, but a large number of his videos he told us he lost money on. So the videos at some point started losing him money and it was an investment in that brand. And, you know, it's clearly gonna pay off now.

I saw Alexis O'Hanian from, you know, Reddit fame and it's capitalist, 766, it's fun. He went to go see the burger place and he's like, what? Like, there were, at that point in time, 10,000 people online, Mr. Bees had to tell people, please do not show up, which of course, then 20,000 people show up.

Anybody have plugs or anything that they wanna get off their chest, a sack, anything else? I do, I do. I do. Okay, we gotta plug. There is a, an epidemic right now of the over-prescription

and fatamines to children who are diagnosed with ADHD. It is an enormously important issue that doesn't just touch kids anymore, but now also such as adults. You've seen a lot of really bad companies that are overprescribing this stuff, get shut down and get sanctioned. So, I just wanted to let anybody who's listening know. And this is me talking to my book, so take that's with the grain of salt. But there's a company that I'm involved in that has a video game that has been approved by the FDA to be a useful treatment for kids who have been diagnosed with ADHD. So if you have an 8 to 11 year old,

you can go and talk to your pediatrician to find out about this solution. It's called Achilles, and it will allow you to prescribe to them a video game that they play 30 minutes a day. You just want to make sure people hear the name. It's Achilles, aka ILI. So if you were going to go search for Ach Killy aka I ally. So if you do a search for a Killy aka I ally interact with you. Go talk to your pediatrician. If you are a parent physician, let's deal with this. Go and read the label, have the doctor decide. Okay. So I'm not telling you to go do this, but I'm asking you to go to it. Just look into it. But the idea is that there are drugs that affect your brain, and now we are increasingly able

to design software that exquisitely targets certain aspects of your brain and are able to train them. And this is really the first example of such a thing that the FDA who has reviewed all kinds of clinical data has decided to approve. And so it's launching in the next few weeks. We've already written prescriptions to kids in every single state of the United States. And so to the extent that you're deciding what to do or you have a child or you have somebody in your family that is of age, age to 11 years old, that's dealing with this.

I would just encourage you to learn about it. That is a plug and all the disclaimers. I know it's a great plug. I think we should at the end just talk about some of these. We're working on, and this is an incredible one. The number of kids on these ADHD drugs, attention drugs, depression drugs, anxiety drugs. It is out of control.

Listen, I don't want to tell parents, I had a parent, but I will say, this is becoming a dependency and the number of drugs, I interview saw that New York Times where they put this one girl on 10 drugs, they're prescribing multiple drugs and we don't know exactly what the long term effects of children using these are. And there are other solutions. I'm not judging any parent. I'm not judging any teachers who's advising this, but this country and a society needs to really look deeply at this issue and say, should children, because we didn't go on these drugs,

when we were kids, they didn't exist, and they haven't existed for all of humanity, and we need to think, what kind of experiment are we running on 10, 20, 30% of kids in some schools? You're stating something so incredibly important. You know, when you have kids that are preteens and teenagers, their physiology is changing dramatically. And all of a sudden, when you introduce a secondary chemical compound into all of that,

you're exactly right. We don't really know what the outcomes are. And right now, I think a lot of people are worried that the over-prescription of drugs in this kind of condition is going to create a next version of an opioid pandemic or epidemic. And I think that's the thing that's the thing that's exactly the analogy. Shemoth, right now, this statistic is crazy. This is in the New York Times. Express scripts, a mail-order pharmacy recently reported that prescriptions of antidepressants for teenagers rose 38 percent from 2015 to 29. We are prescribing these at an alarming rate.

I have many parents at my circle who have kids who had what I would consider modest behavioral issues or modest attention issues. And they talked to me about this. And they felt in multiple cases like they were being bullied or pressured by teachers to put their kids on behavioral drugs because their kids were behaving 10% as badly as I did in middle school or high school. This is being used, I believe, this is my personal belief. I know there are some kids who need these drugs or I assume that there are. But I think this is being used to keep kids in their seats and to make it easier for parents

to have to deal with what are normally the hardships of teenager, you know, teenagers. And just be very careful parents about the extent to which, you know, you might be being pressured. Perhaps parents have told me they felt bullied into giving their kids these drugs. It really isn't furiating to me. I think it's really great that you investment. People should look into it. Exercise talking to your kids these things also work We had a guidance counselor at

Our school Tell me that they thought that one of my children should just get put on these drugs And I was like It was the most random statement. And all I could get from her was that she just didn't want to deal with the fact that every now and then this kid would just be exuberant. Yeah.

I want to kill their spirit. I had the same conversation. I don't want to get into it too much. But I think that these teachers now, and I'm not saying it's all teachers, they are, like, it's just easier to manage kids who are on focused energy drugs. And then there are some parents who want their kids to do really good on standardized testing.

I would have done better on standardized testing if I was on Adderall or whatever these attention drugs are. Everybody would score 10% better. But what does it do to the quality of your life long term? That's the question we need to ask about this stuff. And we don't have answers for it. I don't want to be Tom Cruz on this podcast. But there are other ways to keep, you know, kids healthy and to deal with these issues. And I think this thing is, to say they're overprescribed, it's going to be a huge understatement. We don't look at this like the opioid crisis, I guarantee

it. I think that's exactly, if you start dopsick, right? And people thought they were doing the right thing. Oh, these people have pain, this drug manages pain. And then they found out like, oh yeah, you know what? This drug also could make you an addict and could ruin your life. Great job on that investment. And I hope it works. Thank you.

Thank you. Sacks, anything else? Any companies you're portfolio, you wanna give a shout out to? We might as well get something out of this fucking pot since we're leaving $7 million on the fucking table. And you guys wouldn't even let me run all in summit two so I can get a half millie.

I don't have anything to plug right now, but I'm not sure how you can plug for. How about you, SuperGut, can we get some SuperGut.com in here? These bars taste great, Friedberg, I love the SuperGut. I literally just ordered another pack of them. I'm glad, thank you. They're delicious. Supergot, do you have supergot.com?

By the way, this is where I'm having, yeah, supergot.com, but this is actually one of my D2C companies where I'm having a lot of these conversations about how do you actually avoid just buying ads on Facebook and Google and how do you actually build an audience, how do you ultimately convert your customers by creating content? And so, it's a really unique, right?

And then you change the right key. Yeah, yeah, yeah, based on the science around resistance and starts and how it changes the gut biome. And so, but this is general, I'm on the board of a couple of D to C companies, and it is universally the conversation right now, because in the last year, the cost of D to C direct to consumer marketing on Facebook and Google has doubled, tripled, and a lot of the unit economics are falling apart on D to

C businesses because of it. It costs a lot more to acquire the customer than you make from them. Everyone scrambling to figure out how do I acquire customers, and that's where this content creation strategy is becoming a critical linchpin for most consumer businesses now. It's a really important part of it. I think a couple of us are investors in H sleep and they were like, please let us advertise it all in. I'm like, sorry, no, it's, but I'll shut you out here.

H sleep. It's great product. I have a plug, but I want to save it. So like fucking drop a plug for. No, no, the product hasn't launched yet. Give me like a month. All right. You. And if anybody wants to be a venture investor, Jason at calicannas.com to come to one of the product hasn't launched yet. Give me like a month. All right, yo.

And if anybody wants to be a venture investor, Jason at Calacanis.com to come to one of my webinars and see my last fun. Are we only going to start allowing all of these plugs? I thought we were doing a lot of these. I mean, it was a setup. It was a setup. I just wanted to do a roundup of plugs

so I could get mine in. So I was being generous. Work, plan worked. I got you on the hook for yours. What was your plug? What were you doing, your venture fund? I'm doing one for. Well, for plugging stuff What was your plug? What were you doing, your venture fund? I'm doing what you're going for. Well, for plugging stuff, I'll plug the call-in app.

I'll plug the call-in app. Jason at Calcannis.com if you wanna call-in app. We're all in Vodka. Everybody is calling up. Yeah, we should do a call-in. We should all do like an after hours where we take questions from the audience. That would be great.

I would do that. I would do that. Can I get a point? All right, let's go. Everybody, this has been all in episode 95. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. We do that. We'll do that. Hold on a second.

Shake out. That was another deal you turned down, just like the Ukraine deal. This is a theme here is that you turned down deals you later regret. And then my mom's later, you admit I was right. I'm a clay, you admit I was right. You should have taken the deal. I should have taken the ball and deal. Look how hard Chimalt is crashing right now.

Look at him. Look at him. Look at him. What time is it there? It's like a little 30, right? May night 11 30. It's 11 30. Okay. I lost my voice. I lost my voice. Send us an invite for AMA for the four of us on calling. Call it. I'll do that. I'll do that. I'll do that. Call it. Yeah. Just remember. Call it. Yeah. So, so jobs maybe. Yeah. Live AMA. Live AMA with the bus. I'll do that. Okay. Yeah, just remember Paul, you have to do that. So, drops maybe. Yeah, live AMA.

Live AMA with the bus. I'm going to show a car. I'll show up. I'll show up. Maybe I'll show up for snacks one to show up. Yeah, I'll show up. I'll be happy to do it. I'm back in the United States tomorrow.

All right. Well, then we'll play poker in 14 hours. In two hours, if you get here, you're going to have to have to have some fun, we'll pick you up from the airport. We'll pick up the airport. We'll play Chinese poker in the back of the car.

All right, everybody, it's been episode nine. It's a lot of things in your law. It's a lot of things. Soca Laws and Chamoth, you need something. Little honey tea. I need a Laws and I have some tea over there. Got to get a Laws and you guys. Love you besties.

See you soon. We'll let your winners ride. See you soon Besties are gone, go thrifty. That's my dog taking a wish to drive away to the next. Get it off. Oh man, my ham is the actual meat and the apple. We 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 some of them. What, your beef?

What, your beer of? Where are you from? Beats what? We need to get merch. I'm doing all this! I'm doing all this! you