Big Technology Podcast - The U.S. And Tech After The Midterms — With Marshall Kosloff and Saagar Enjeti

Episode Date: November 6, 2022

Saagar Enjeti and Marshall Kosloff host The Realignment, a terrific podcast about politics and policy. They join Big Technology Podcast for a bonus episode ahead of the U.S. midterms, breaking down how they expect the voting to play out, what the consequences will be, and how tech will feel the impact. Join us for a dynamic conversation about inflation, the economy, the residual culture war, the war in Ukraine, and who's running in 2024. Stay tuned for the final segment where we discuss the future of TikTok, Web3, and the Metaverse.

LinkedIn Presents Welcome to the big technology podcast, a show for cool-headed nuance conversation of the tech world and beyond. And today we focus on the beyond and then we move back to the tech world because Marshall and Saga are here. We've had them a couple times. Marshall Kosloff and Sagar and Jetty from The Great Realignment podcast, one of my favorite shows, also from Breaking Points, also from the Lincoln Network, not the Lincoln Project, not going to get that wrong. And look, we're going to, the world right now is in a state of transition.

Politics and the economy are linked maybe more than never before or actually more than we've had in recent years. And so let's talk a little bit about what's going on in the U.S. the globe ahead of the 20, 22 midterms, and then break down things like Elon and Twitter and the Metaverse Web 3. It'll be fun, I promise. Okay, so let's start with this question. First of all, welcome to the show, guys. Good to see you, man. Thanks, having us back. I almost forgot to welcome you. Welcome. I just got excited about going right into the questions. And I just want to start here. I'm a little bit confused, and maybe you guys can help bring me, you know, up to speed about like the mood in the U.S. and what's going on in U.S. politics because, you know,

there's so many issues that I've been batting about, you know, inflation, culture war, real war in Ukraine, abortion, stop the steel in Trump, economy, et cetera, et cetera. And, you know, it's really been tough, I think, to take the political temperature of the United States right now. What is the feel in the country? Obviously, it seems like the Republicans are heading to, you know, some wins in these midterms. But, you know, what, yeah, what is the feel in the country? country? What are the animating issues right now? Well, that's a great question. It's actually not that difficult, which is that number one is economy and is inflation. Inflation is raging. It's the number one issue. Fundamentals, that's what people care about the most. Actually, after that is where there is

a partisan split. So if you'll look at the number two issue, basically by voter, for GOP voters, number two issue is mostly crime and immigration. Those are intermixed depending on which part of the country that you live. If you look at Democratic voters, it's actually abortion. And then after that, kind of January 6-related democracy, quote-unquote. So anyway, the point being that it's effectively economy and then culture, but the culture of who mix of the mix of those depends on the type of voter. If you were to look at an independent voter in this election, they're more likely to trend in their priorities to where the traditional GOP voter would be.

But in general, the point that I would underscore is that no matter where you are on the spectrum, this is an election of chaos. because the number of people who are saying the country is on the wrong track is not as high as it was during 2020, but it's still pretty damn close. I think the number is like 87% or something like that. There's a deep level of dissatisfaction in general institutionally, and that's being capitalized on by both parties. Yeah, and what I add to that, because I want to get to the mood part of your question. I'd say the mood of the country, mood is just kind of down. There's this perception of things not working well, of the administration not really having a handle on

the issues that are top of mind. Where I think gets to the broader political problem is that it's not as if any one specific party hasn't answered to this question. So I don't think we have to pretend that Kevin McCarthy's Republican Party is going to solve inflation or solve the energy issue when it comes into office. And this is also why when Trump was up in the midterms of 2018, he also had a terrible midterms. So we're basically in this difficult political vibe. right now where whoever is basically in the driver's seat is going to have to reckon with the fact that they are going to be able to make these longer, let's say, more structural decisions. So I think the Biden administration has made a bunch of great calls lately. I think the semiconductor crackdown

on China was a great call. I think the Chipsack, same topic, same category was a great call. There have been investments in energy, climate infrastructure, but none of those long-term decisions are going to result in short-term political rewards. So that's just the real difficult situation that Biden administration finds itself in. And I have just no perception of them having a way around that. Right. And last time we spoke, Sager, you mentioned that, you know, things that mattered to you were vaccine in your arm, stimmy in your pocket, right? That was what was going to make you happy. Vaccine stuff worked out pretty well. Stimmy, you know, all the stimulus contributed to inflation along with the Fed, along with the supply chain issues that we've been seeing. So when we think

about, because if this is an election that's going to be run based off of inflation and the economy, how do we read it politically? Because it's not like, you know, one party came in and said everything's going to cost more and the supply chain's going to blow up. It's actually something that's taken, you know, we're in a 12-year bull market. So this spans multiple presidencies. And, you know, it's kind of a difficult issue to read politically. The Fed is involved. So how does, how do voters look at this issue when it comes to relief and how are they going to actually act based off of their conclusions? I don't think voters really, look, I think voters know as little as all of us do, including the policymakers. So I don't think anybody's really looking for a quote unquote solution.

I would dispute based on what I've seen that stimulus was the major cause of inflation, but I think that's probably another conversation. I will accept the, it's a multifaceted question and the result of which I know politically is good for the GOP. Can we just put it there? Like in terms of the actual explanation, look, I mean, personally, I think what they're probably going to do is, and this actually gets to the cynical nature of politics, which is that they could crash the economy by, you know, doing the debt ceiling, not funding the government, doing everything they possibly could, and that aggregate chaos would still

result to their benefit because Joe Biden and the president almost always. gets the blame. There were a lot of, you know, it's interesting to do a replay of 2012 and some of the Tea Party shutdowns during the Obama administration. There was confidence by Obama and others that the voters would blame the shutdown on the Republicans. And in the near term, they weren't necessarily wrong, but the amount of chaos that that resulted in still led to a lack of institutional trust and just a general vibe of things not being correct, that it probably we did help in some way contribute to depressing of approval of President Obama. So I'm just generally of the opinion that the more chaos there is, as long as you are at

the top, which is Joe Biden and the party in power, it's just going to be bad for you, regardless of whether you're, quote, in the right or not, because that's just not how politics works. Okay, that's going to play in well to some questions I have towards the end of this segment about 2024. But let's keep focused on the midterms for now. Yeah, go ahead, Marshall. Yeah, well, and just to not get too far to 2024, I do think what's interesting is

Now we've seen a very straightforward playbook with the last three Democratic presidencies. Bill Clinton comes in in 1992, huge historic midterm losses. Obviously, Obama 2010, you're going to have huge historic, well, you had huge historic midterm losses, and look, like the Democrats are going to most likely have another set of huge historic midterm losses. But in both of the previous two cases, Republicans were not able to translate that. the quote unquote chaos that helped them on the congressional ballot into an actual presidential way. So what we should really be looking at here is the the real gap between who folks

are going to support for Congress and who actually is going to be top of the ticket. So that's a story that someone should focus on there. I want to go back to one quick thing you said, Alex, which is a real kind of course correction moment that folks, if you listen back to our last conversation, weren't really prepared for on any level, which is that how the inflation issue just completely wrecked the quote-unquote, like, narrative or the overall strategy of the frame of the administration wanted to have. So, Stimis and vaccines. The Biden administration obviously is going to, you know, have to play this carefully. They couldn't just say, oh, like, no worries. COVID's over. Everyone be chill because if they did that and there was a variant

that was particularly bad, that would hurt them very badly with their base. So the plan was let's promote vaccines. Let's basically try to subtly move on from the crisis. And then we could then focus on our big economic wins. We could focus on build back better, all those different policies. That plan was working until once again inflation hits and just leaves them without a big broad narrative. Saga, you know, I've done a lot of episodes on how a huge part of the Democratic narrative going into the 2021 year was Biden is the next Joe Biden, we're rebuilding the American economy or making these fundamental changes and all of those big changes and narratives ran into inflation without the ability to counteract it or tell like a useful story. So that's something

that really I think when people write back the history of these two years is going to be a huge part of it. Yeah, it's pretty interesting because last time we were talking, you know, we were coming off what was, you know, Trump was judged by a lot of things, but it was largely politics seemed motivated by culture war. We were, you know, coming off this long bull market. So it became And Sagar, I think you mentioned, you called it a, you called it a cultural and affectational backlash. And I said, okay, maybe Joe Biden is, you know, doesn't provoke those, you know, same type of emotions like Obama or Trump did that might have turned out to be wrong. And we might end up speaking about economics in terms of like what leads politics and not culture war. Well, we are speaking about economics just sort of played out the way that, in a different way.

So what do you guys think about that? And how important is culture war still in our politics? I would dispute that we are talking about economics. I think it's still very much couched in the culture. I mean, I actually think Biden's great failure is the fact that he is unable to translate any real message into inflation, which is actually, if you look at the GOP messaging on inflation, it is core to the message since like the 1980s and essentially is a script. I mean, I think Biden's great failure was just not getting his hands around inflation in the supply chain crisis from day one, a feeling of deep apathy set in across the country, which effectively in a vacuum, whoever is going to give you a message, and if you're the only one, that one is going to win. I think he had a great chance at combating this. He would have had to ditch many of the quote, build back better and actually, you know, focus on the issues at hand, which were gas, which were supply, which were, uh, many of the contributing causes to inflation, but he didn't really do any of that. And I remain mystified as to why it took, okay, let's take the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. For example, there was a case to be doing many of the SPR interventions to be doing today

over a year and a half ago. None of that was done. I mean, I remember that he visited the port of L.A. only one time, and that was months into the backlog in 2021. one. There was no attempt to use the powers of government to actually get those things working. I mean, I remember whenever that guy Ryan Peterson, the Flexport CEO, he arguably had more of an impact by doing a Twitter thread and renting a boat and running around and just having the, what was it, Long Beach mayor, change the regulations. So anyway, I just think that

the nearly year-long obsession with, quote, build back better, which is just social spending and had nothing to do with any of the major problems that the country was facing is really was his downfall. I don't think it was possible to crawl out of that hole. And I think that's his fault. But it is interesting that a motivating factor in this election doesn't, I mean, it's still there, but further down is Trump stop the steal, that type of stuff? It's actually lower down.

That's for Democratic voters, though. That's not really for the general population from what I can tell. Look, again, by the way, here's another caution. nobody knows anything. Okay. Yeah. I don't feel so bad anymore. Yeah.

Well, the thing that's interesting when Sagar, you're articulating that story here is it's not quite clear. So, for example, like, gas prices, like, did go down. It's not June 22 anymore, really the, like, the insane peak of it. Yet that depression in prices didn't actually translate into further economic confidence. That's actually not true. Democratic polls went up significantly in June. I mean, look, you'll never be able to disaggregate this from Roe v. Wade, so I mean, it did help. Well, no, so the point isn't that, my point is just that I wouldn't say, I'd say the real problem that the Biden folks faced is that this isn't quite a policy issue specifically.

So I would wager, even if they did the, you know, strategic patrol and the reserve openings that you're talking about back in June, coinciding with the price decrease. I think there's just a broader narrative issue that any presidency is basically going to fall into, which is that we do not broadly know how to deal or have a framework under the issue of inflation. I think the Trump presidency wouldn't have been ready for inflation hitting the way it fit. I don't think the Trump administration would have had like a very specific articulable frame. And Democrats would have done well in this circumstance too. So no presidency right now has figured out how, to be in the driver's seat and not be punished for being in charge when these, when these issues

happen. I just, it's just as there's so many issues from the, from the, from the, from the, from the abortion issue to the post-January 6th reckoning to the war in Ukraine for anyone to say, like, oh, yeah, if they'd done this policy thing or if Biden had showed up, there would have been something useful there. Let me just, yeah, let me, let me, let me, let me, when I say SPR, I'm talking about an administration that is forward enough thinking to do that without people even being critical. And I think that actually we're kind of synced up on this,

which is that you have to have a reframe of the entire U.S. government of what it's capable and wants to do as to whether inflation was even a real priority. By the way, it wasn't a priority in terms of what they were doing. That is actually where I would,

I think you and I are synced up on this, which is that the real crime that they had is that they did not make people feel like they cared. There is a lot to be said about you can give every speech that you want, and even policy itself, as you alluded to. IRA, nobody cares about the

Inflation Reduction Act in this election. Sorry. Doesn't matter. There was a... Go ahead. Go ahead. Okay. I mean, I think there was this feeling, you know, asked about why this was looked over. I think there was this feeling among Democrats. We even talked about it here that, you know, the entire 2020 election would drive, you know, basically a split between the Republican Party. Moderates might, you know, now start support Democrats to, you know, stop this deal of folks would take over the party, you know, it's kind of questionable what's happened there. And then there was, you know, you mentioned you can't separate it from Roe v. Wade, but the abortion issue in the U.S., it did, you know, cause Democrat approval ratings to skyrocket. But it doesn't

seem like, you know, for anyone counting on those two issues to win an election, it's just not happening. Well, two things happen there. So one, Republicans course corrected ultra quickly on the abortion issue. And once again, this is not like a, I'm talking like abortion is a difficult subject. I'm talking purely political. Blake Masters in June deletes pretty extreme abortion language for his website just instantly. And other than a few random Twitter users, there's zero backlash on the right. Like the right, the pro-life side of things, very quickly was like, look, do whatever you need to do to basically survive. I think if Blake Masters had maintained basically implying that abortion should be just permanently banned, even in a

purple state like, even in a purple state like Arizona, that would have been more of an issue, but the GOP course corrects very quickly. You also don't really have that many Todd Aiken like instances where, you know, you say, oh, you know, legitimate rape and oh, it's that like, they, there have been enough lessons of how not to do so they close correctly. And then secondly, when it came to the January 6th election denial issue, there are a couple candidates that I feel are really, really affected by this. So like Massriano in Pennsylvania, I would really say that the gap between, so he's running for governor against Josh Shapiro. I would say the gap between Maastriano and Shapiro being as big as it is versus the fact that Federman and Osran are pretty much tied really would come down to a candidate not being able to move beyond just the election denial thing.

But in the vast majority of cases, like Arizona, Carrie Lake, hardcore election denier, and many of these races, unlike in Pennsylvania, voters just are not voting on that decision. decision. Voters are voting on, we don't like the status quo, and Carrie Lake has made clear she's the enemy of the status quo. And I don't really care what she was up to back in January 2020. So I'm kind of interested in why Mastriano wasn't able to pull. And I think he's probably political talent. Carrie Lake is just charismatic. Oh, yeah. It's actually simple. Yeah, what do you think it's just pure political talent? He's a moron. Like, he's not a very good speaker. She's a star. She's a television personality. And she genuinely believes nothing, which probably makes it easier. I think that Mastriano is an actual Stop the Steel true believer, which is frankly to his detriment

in terms of prosecuting that case. On the election integrity question, you know, looking at the, there was also this belief that folks who doubted the integrity of elections would be sidelined. Obviously, that hasn't happened. Do we have, in the U.S., do we have a real problem with election integrity? Like, can you, you know, seeing where we're going, can you see a, you know, a democratic process be overridden in this country? I would say the thing I'm most scared about is a genuine constitutional crisis with a Mastriano or Kerry Lake type figure where they just, look, the Supreme Court will give a

tremendous amount of deference to states in terms of how they administer their elections. So if they pre-set it up, which effectively saying that the state election doesn't bind them on electors that they send to the electoral college and to the Congress to certify, There's basically no way to get around that because there's just never been an inkling before that a Secretary of State or a governor who, in Pennsylvania's case, is responsible for appointing Secretary of State would ever do such a thing. But it's very possible. So yeah, I mean, that probably worries me more than anything. But as many of the center leftists who are very worried about Republican victory and many of these other schemes have been saying, they will not

have to pull any of that if they just lose, if the Democrats legitimately just lose the election. So that's a, you know, I mean, they're not going to lose every election. And that is a concern. Well, in the swingstays, though, right? So like in Pennsylvania and in Arizona, if the GOP wins, which they have in the past and did under Trump, I mean, Trump being very close to winning, then a lot of this just rendered moot. But that doesn't mean the nightmare scenario isn't still a nightmare scenario. And this is the framing issue that Sagar really just hinted at in terms of how I think center left people are starting to reevaluate the election integrity thing. So obviously there's a huge elected official level election integrity problem. You know, you could just go through the list

and see not only just like bad statements, but like very articulated. Here is my plan that would obviously result in an election stealing with it. There are all sorts of vulnerabilities within the system that I think at a technocratic level need to be attacked and focused on. The mistake, though, but it seems to me the Biden Democrats made, is they confused the, let's say, like, the serious, like, policy and literal real world implications of election integrity issues with the actual political cases they needed to be making. Because it seemed to me that you should have spent your time making clear that, hey, like to your point, solder, economy, the inflation, Joe Biden,

inherited Trump's COVID economy, and he's a firefighter, and all he's doing for these next two years is fixing that. So therefore, if anything, like, if your house is burning and a firefighter comes, you're not mad at the firefighter for there being some fire there. Instead, it was, we're just moving on and we're dealing with this, you know, broad set of issues, including January 6th, but it really just should have been focusing the economy at the center of it, knowing that the thing that would cause, let's say a 2024 election nightmare, would be a bad economy. plus Doug Mastriano as the governor of Pennsylvania. And if you don't solve the two of these together, quote, unquote, that's actually what causes

the nightmare scenario. So on the bad economy, both parties obviously have their economic plans. Is there any hope that there's some good policy in there that could help fix this situation, or do we just have to let it run its course? I haven't seen a Democratic proposal to, quote, fight inflation. I mean, in reality, they just seem to be, this is the problem. problem, right? Which is the Inflation Reduction Act. The Inflation Reduction Act has nothing to do with inflation. This is a, well, okay, I mean, it does have to do with inflation in the way that, I guess

pays, pays down the deficit. I mean, there's a technical case. I did like that bill. There was, there was a lot of common sense stuff in there. I agree with you. Alex, I support many provisions inside the Inflation Reduction Act. They should have called it the Electric Vehicles Act. By the way, electric vehicles are very popular. So I don't really know why they didn't go with that. So if I'm trying to hoodwink people and say that it was the IRA Act and inflation reduction and all that. And then when people are, you know, people aren't stupid. They can see exactly what's in it. They're like, this is bullshit. And so, look, from what I have seen, there has been no concrete proposal yet for the Democrats to quote unquote deal with

inflation outside of very technocratic fixes. This also presumes that, quote, inflation can be solved at this level. How about Republicans? The Republican plan is actually quite simple, which is to cut spending and to encourage the Federal Reserve to keep what is doing to induce a recession and have enough demand destruction occur on top of high high unemployment that we solve inflation by destroying demand. So which also happens to benefit the political. No, I know. There's a, there's a awkward.

Well, it happens to align with their orthodoxy and happens to a lot of their political. I mean, I would say the real crime on the Biden administration's, I'll never get over it. is like that entire year of 2021 and just letting so many of these problems go unfixed. I mean, air travel, gas, and you know, that's the other thing on inflation. You can break it down. It's not that difficult to figure it out. The vast majority of inflation that people experience in their lives is food, gas, and housing. So those are the three that I would spend every single day attacking.

Vast majority of the early inflation in 2021 was all gas. So if you woke up every single day, you're just been obsessed with the price of gas. same with the heating oil and this is all even pre-Ukraine you know i mean that's why i've been studying this now for quite a long time i actually don't think it was that difficult to get a hold on but when you let something run his course for over 18 months it's very hard to put back in the bottle at this point i think demand destruction which is the federal reserves policy is the only thing that is going to quote unquote work because i don't think any i don't think either party really has a political incentive to do exactly what i'm talking about given the way things are

right now. And I think that's a sad story for the American, for the American economy, to be honest. Right. And judging by big tax earnings last week, you know, that's, that Fed plan seems to be working well. Sorry, go ahead, Marshall. My gosh. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, no, it's just, I think, I think, sorry, you're getting to the, and look, this is what we're kind of focused on in breaking points in the realignment, kind of like this story of the party's just switching off. Party comes in and wins the presidency. They get destroyed in the midterms. The underlying political problem right now is I don't think either party has an accurate diagnosis of the set of like the set of like deeper structural problems facing the country right now

and therefore isn't able quote unquote to like focus in on addressing the problems of let's say like 2025 now. This is why you know you don't know you don't want to sound partisan because look like it's not as if like the Trump administration was crushing prepping America's supply chains in 2017, 2019. So I kind of think of this honestly depressing political decade as this example of tossing power back and forth, short-term attempts to fix long-term problems that basically aren't going to work,

and that's going to have to basically continue on until something structurally changes. But I think this gets to the point for optimism where I think the place where the Biden administration has just been at its best, has been semiconductor policy, especially relating to China. That's an example of a long-term structural issue. You can't just snap your fingers and reduce dependency on Taiwan. You can't just snap your fingers and have a bunch of new fabs built in Arizona. This requires thinking along a 10-year

time frame. And they've been able to do that. They may be able to do it very effective. This is completely bipartisan. Lots of support for this policy. And I think a real question to ask is how or why weren't they able to translate that type of approach to other sets of structural issues in the same fashion? Because there's just so much of a focusing that happens via, let's say, like, China and competition there, that you actually can get around that unhelpful dynamics. So that's something I'm really interested in learning more about. Do you have any thoughts on the answer to your question?

I don't think it's that difficult. There's a bipartisan consensus. That's it. It's one of the few areas of there's genuine bipartisan consensus. which you have to give the Trump administration credit. They set the rhetorical grounds for that and effectively won the intellectual battle. And there were a lot of people in Washington who worked very, very hard in order to bring that type of legislation and initiative to the four on a bipartisan basis. There are people who all work behind the scenes, Republican and Democratic administrations.

To me, it actually just proves the fact that if you can win the, quote, argument with the establishment, then you're fine, be said policy. But if you're on the other side, then I think it's a crapshoot. And I think the other answer, too, is just, it's very clear that Biden folks at the National Security Council and, like, members of Congress are like, oh, it's a very good, it's simple. It's, oh, the U.S. is hyperdependent on Taiwanese microchips. There is more likely than not going to be some type of conflict, either between the United States and China over Taiwan or between Taiwan and China, which would devastate microchips. chips. We devastate production, shortages, like really disrupt our way of life. So they are so focused in on how simple this is that the solution was, once again, there's debate about how effective chip tax is, but it's like, okay, hey, let's make sure we increase the availability of domestic

chips. And then B, let China benefit from our, like, know-how, technology, talent, et cetera. I think what you needed to have happened. I think this is where, like, I'm a pretty consistent critic of Pete Buttigieg. I think Pete Buttigieg should have said to himself, My only job right now as Secretary of Transportation, a position that people basically usually don't care about is I am the guy who needs to make sure that America's supply chains are treated the same way as a semiconductor issue. And I think the ability to translate that straightforward focus into something real could have been really exciting instead of just playing defense. Obviously, Secretary Buttigieg is very engaged on the airlines issue, but that's after the fact.

It's defensive. It's, oh, now I'm going to. calling up airlines, now I'm flying coach. It's just really, it's just kind of shocking to me because it seems to me that it's just such an obvious apparent narrative issue, but the inability to translate that into something in any other issue by some conductors is, it's kind of shocking. Yeah, I want to talk about one more international issue before we move on to some predictions and then take a break and talk tech. So underlying a lot of this, even though inflation started before the Ukraine situation, the war in Ukraine, that didn't help, right? Energy costs are way up. I spent a lot of time in Europe over the past year, and it's a real crisis in places like Germany.

So there's been this interesting back and forth in the U.S. Congress where, like, there's been some rumblings of trying to get the Ukrainians to say, okay, we've held our ground. Let's just find some compromise and be done with this war. But that's become somewhat politically complicated. There was that letter from the progressives that ended up, they ended up retracting and blaming. their staff on, which was an interesting move. Where does the U.S. support for the war in Ukraine stand? Sorry, support with Ukrainians in the war in Ukraine stand. Does that change with the election?

And how, you know, could a peaceful resolution change our situation here in the U.S.? It's... Go ahead, Marshall. Yeah, it's interesting because so much of this, I tend to think about the war. in Ukraine in like three-month increments. So, for example, like, let's go back to June, July, August. Ukrainians are talking about how there's going to be this counteroffensive, something's happening, something's going to happen.

There's lots of excitement and nothing happens. The whole time, obviously, you're having, like, a brutal, brutal, brutal war in the Dombas, like lots of, like, incredible, like, we high Ukrainian casualties. Like, the Washington Post had some very, very depressing reading on. this. From my perspective, if the Ukrainians had not been able to convert that summer real, like, I'm trying to find the right word for this, but if they had not been able to convert just like the death and destruction of the summer into that September offensive, the Ukraine aid debate would be entirely different. Because now, the problem is, if you're

looking back to like May and June, I know you have a lot of listening, it's probably listening to like David Sachs, kind of the problem with the David Sachs position is David Sachs' position is David Sacks was basically saying, hey, like, we need to force the Ukrainians to the table back in May and June because this is just a stalemate, people who are dying, they're dying for nothing. If the Ukrainians had come to the table in June, they wouldn't have taken back what they took back over the past two or three months. There wouldn't be talk of taking back person. So my genuine take on this issue is you are not going to see actual Ukrainian willingness to concede until they've actually reached the limits.

of what they could actually move. And the key thing is, like, right now, ISW, Institute for Study of War, they've done some good analysis reporting. They've basically concluded that the Russians are not going to be able to launch major offensives going into 2023. So if you're a Ukrainian in that context,

why would you possibly make concessions, quote-unquote, when you're on the offensive? My real beef with folks who are on the get the Ukrainians to the table position is that they pretty, and Sager is not one of these people, I'm not like, you know, trying to, like, pre-dunk or anything. But there's just been this pretty consistent unwillingness to think at a strategic level. Why would that make any sense?

You don't go to the table when you could get an additional mile of territory. So that's the thing's the overall friends I'm thinking about. And as long as the Ukrainians are able to do that, I think the aid packages are going to be pretty straightforward and continue. We're still broad support for the policy. Vladimir Putin doesn't mean he issued another statement. When he was like, what are you talking about? Like, we were never going to launch nukes. Like, that's crazy.

So I just, I think there's a, there's just like a weird, a weird dynamic here, but it's only going to change if the Ukrainian startles. Yeah, there's that feeling if I'm strong. How, no, if I'm weak, how can I compromise? And if I'm strong, why should I? So, well, this is the issue, which is that USAID belies all Ukrainian strength. Ukraine does not exist without the United States. In fact, current Ukrainian maximalist aims are not the aims of the United States, nor should they be. Zelensky said yesterday that Ukraine wants to, quote, liberate Crimea.

That's not a U.S. aim because that's a red line for Russia. So that would actually lead to a very high likelihood of a U.S. entrance to that war or the very likely some sort of escalation. And this is where I just completely disagree, which is that all Ukrainian victory is a policy choice by the United States. And to what and where that line should be and how they negotiate actually is entirely up to us, given the fact that we backstop their entire U.S. military, their ISR, everything. So the entire Ukraine first, like Ukraine. limits? What if it turns out that their limit is the red line across the Russians, and then we enter into a war? That's not in the interest of the U.S. And this is why I just reject entirely Ukraine

first or pro. By the way, I know I'm going to get a lot of haters for this. I honestly don't care. And look, I mean, I know it's unpopular to say, well, it's unpopular in elite circles to say. Broadly, the U.S. public generally says that we've given quite enough aid to Ukraine. We don't need any more aid to Ukraine. You know, if you look at much of the aid that is still being considered for Ukraine, They're considering an additional 50 billion U.S. dollars in the next Democratic administration. And again, like, there's no limiting principle as to what this aid is going to be put towards except for the president of the United States. And look, Joe Biden is old. He could drop dead tomorrow. And we could have an entirely new policy under the vice president. So I'll stick off for David Sachs, which is that I'm not entirely sure that the limits of Ukrainian military potential line up with the interests of the United States at all.

And considering the fact that we've literally backstop their entire military and their government. does not exist. Like, this is the thing I want people to actually grapple with. Ukraine is a polity does not exist without the United States. If tomorrow we cut off our aid from them, they would literally collapse in terms of their economy, their bonds, their budgets. Everything is American. So I just think we have a hell of a lot more of a say in this than people like to think. And I think that people should be honest that their most maximalist aims in Ukraine are actually the opposite of major U.S. interests. And that's something that I just get so frustrated. with the debate.

Yeah, the U.S. Yeah, go ahead. The quick thing in response to that, though, is the debate, wait, in terms of, so look, Zelensky says a lot of things. Yeah, but so does Putin. Why should we believe Putin whenever he said he's not going to use nukes? He might. No, but the key thing is, though, tactically and strategically on the ground, the debate

right now is not, do the Ukrainians overrun Crimea? Right now the debate is. But they could bomb Crimea. Okay, but once again, though, the question isn't, do they overrun? But we're just talking about tactic because you're saying they could like invade Crimea and that's like the red line. The actual debate that's happening right now is are the Ukrainians going to be able to take that curse it? Like that's the actual fight that's happening on the ground now. So obviously if the Biden administration were in a position where we're saying to ourselves, holy crap, they've routed the Russians everywhere except Crimea. They've completely taken them back to the February, actually even before February 2020 status quo, do. we need to force them to the table. That is a different conversation than right now. And all I was trying to say with my beef, what they need to concede in May and June and July was if they made concessions then, they would have not have taken back hundreds of miles of territory that they took

back. And the only reason why, and one other thing in response, I know, Alex, like you need to get to hear this is your show. I shouldn't hijack it. But I think my other look at it when you guys hijack this thing. So go forward. My other line of pushback here is like no one the vast majority of people are not going to say to themselves, we're just cutting off Ukraine. That is just so outside the bounds that, A, the vast majority of policymakers hold. And frankly, the vast majority of the American people support, like, the current policy. That's not true. That's actually not true.

No, no, no. The vast majority of the American people, quote, support Ukraine. They have no idea what the current policy is. And that's actually what I, my entire people can't prove that. You're just, but this is why the debate gets unfair because now I want to ask. Yeah. Now I want to ask, does this change if, you know, if and when the Republicans take the House? It's possible, but not really. So Kevin McCarthy has said that, Kevin McCarthy has said that he won't pass any more aid to Ukraine. In my opinion, he will absolutely fold to the blob and will 100% do that. Mitch McConnell said that that's not true. I want to be clear that everything I'm saying is an absolute minority position in Washington. And then my view has absolutely zero power in the U.S. political system. So let me just absolutely put that on the table, including in the establishment. So that's 100% clear. Now, on Ukraine and Ukraine itself, like I said, the numbers say that people are like, we've done

enough in terms of the money. Bipartisan split. Republicans are much more likely to say that we've haven't actually too much to Ukraine. Democrats, it's actually polarizing right along cultural lines. But by and large, I'm not even saying cut off Ukraine. What I'm saying is acknowledge that we are 100% in the driver's seat. John Kirby, the U.S. National Security Advisor spokesperson the Biden administration, continues to say Ukraine first. Only Zelensky gets to decide. when we negotiate. And my pushback against what you're saying, Marshall, is, how do you know that you're going to have the ability to tell Ukraine to stop? At that point, things on the battlefield move very quickly. They're offensive. The majority of the land that they took back happened in

48 hours. That's not far enough in order to prevent a major global conflagration. So this gets to my overall meta political, meta geopolitical critique, which is that people are very willing to gamble with the future of the United States and a potential war with Russia over several hundred square miles in Ukraine. And I am just very comfortable saying that I am not willing to take that gamble. I would absolutely bet, and I have dreams of political polling to show this, the vast majority of Americans do not want to be put in that situation. They do not want to have any sort of major confrontation with Russia. All the no-fly zone polling put that. And that's why I would say, Marshall, that why I feel comfortable saying people, quote, support Ukraine, but don't,

wouldn't support the current policy, is if the Biden administration and the president, who has said that we have, quote, nuclear Armageddon as a possibility were to genuinely understand that, people would say, well, what the fuck are you going to do? Can I curse? Sorry. Yeah, yeah. People are going to say, what are you going to do to prevent that from happening? And I think there's a reason that the president and the administration don't want us to have that conversation. The more that people know, there would be a hell of a lot more questioning about this. Well, let's move on to some predictions. And by the way, I think that Ukraine could end up being left in a pretty good position. It's won back a lot of territories, so it is in that position.

Well, what does that mean? What does that mean a good position? I mean, look, I think that there was, oh, God, well, here I'm opening Pandora's box again, but it's won back a lot of terrorists. A good position for who, right? For Ukraine. I mean, right now, if it says, okay, it's time to compromise. And the U.S., because Russia obviously is framing itself as our enemy.

It's a good position for Ukraine. It's a good position for the U.S. It's a good position for NATO. Like Vladimir Putin is explicitly arguing this is a war against us, a war. a war against the West. So why should we fulfill that? We don't want to have a war with Russia. We're not. That's why we don't have a no fly zone. That's why there are no boots on the ground. Yeah. But the Biden policy is working. Like that's what's crazy to me. This is where I just discuss. Well, no, like Adam Kinsinger, Adam Kinsinger, look, if Adam Kinsinger is president of the United States and he's making the call to send F-16s to create civilian corridors, they could start like a fucking, sorry, a war between the U.S. and Russia.

You guys are a lot to curse here. The, the, you're very, you run a very professional podcast, Alex. so we're reticent. But the underlying thing here is the Biden policy has worked. Putin consistently has figured out that the vulnerability in the American political discourse is him making fake claims about nuclear weapons. And then the second that anyone calls him on, he says, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, what are you talking about? The Russian ambassador to the United Kingdom is like, whoa, whoa, whoa, what are you talking about?

It's fake. It's not real. Obviously, I think you should just factor that in. So we should gamble with millions of lines. But we're not gambling. But no, it is. It is. No, got soccer. Okay. But let's, last statement. Yeah, last time and then we're moving on. The definition of gambling was the no-fly zone. That was a literal gamble. The gamble would be, if we save us no fly zone, the U.S. would be in a position where it would have to shoot down a Russian aircraft. We think that they wouldn't actually use a nuke. They did it. So we're going to do it anyways. There has been no equivalent of that gamble. And that's the key thing. I will say for my final word, which is that saying that the quote,

unquote policy has worked in a conflict, which is going to drag on for years, is like saying ex-policy has worked in 1939, nine months after Hitler invaded, X policy worked after the beginning of world. You could make a very credible case for the First World War in the first nine months. You could make a very credible case on the other side. We'll find out. I see many pitfalls, and I don't see anybody raising any of the questions that I think should have been raised in many of those conflicts. I hope you guys are right. The consequences are very wrong if you are. And I care more about the consequences than I do about any of the quote-unquote potential success on the battlefield. And I'd be willing to bet.

I would be willing to bet in the long run. Most people will agree with me. I just want to state that for the record that my position is that they are either at the point or close to the point where it's time to come to the table and find a way to end this thing. Oh, I disagree with that completely, Alex, but you can do we will move on. We will move on to the tech part of this. Do you think there's going to be a negotiation tomorrow? Okay, anyway, let's move on. Yeah.

Okay. Predictions. So let's just go through some quick predictions. First of all, where do you guys think the midterms are going to net out? What do you think the results are going to be? This is going to be a point of agreement. We've just did a disagreements. Soger, too.

Own this. Red wave. You're the political analyst. Red wave. Red wave. It's easy. 53 seats in the Senate for Republicans. I think they sweep and win every single contestable one, including the Nevada.

He speaks to me on this topic. By the way, I don't, I'm not saying this is a good thing. I'm just telling you, based on, look, I believe in fundamentals. Economy is terrible. Inflation is high. Crime is high. Party and power always loses.

Combine all those three, it's not difficult. All polls are moving that direction. Reams of political sand data tell us that people don't care about elections until three weeks out. That's right now, which is why the polls now actually matter a lot more than the polls. Two months ago, voter activity and all of that. Even in the individual level for many of these races, everything seems to be converging in that direction. Again, look, it's possible. I mean, I should tell people, like, it's actually very possible that we could have a redux of the 2020 election whenever you have the runoff in Georgia be the deciding factor.

In Georgia, you have to go over 50 in order to win the election outright. Not possible currently that Herzl Walker may do that. And actually, a runoff, you know, the political climate could change in January. We don't know necessarily. But for that to matter, it would mean that Mark Kelly hangs on to a seat in Arizona that Dr. Oz doesn't win. in Pennsylvania that Nevada doesn't go to, I think his name is Adam Lacksalt. Anyway, so it's complicated. It's possible a polling miss goes in the other direction. But if you look at the miss from 2020 and 2016, of which I am, you know, I am liable to do, given the way that polls have been wrong whenever

Republicans have been on the ballot and underestimated, I don't think it's a, that's difficult in the story. And here's the follow-up. What does the U.S. look like for the next two years after this red wave? Oh, Tea Party, 2010 to 2012 is a pretty good, pretty good analogy. Quick disagreement, though, the key thing, though. And this is what's so fascinating. Tea Party 2010 to 2012 is establishment GOP versus insurgent GOP. That isn't true now because, and a DeSantis which Trump race would kind of maybe push on this pressure point.

But what the GOP establishment has really managed to do over like the 2010s period, and this is, you know, there have been moral concessions that made this possible, the GOP establishment has fully been able to subsume many, if not most, of those, like, internal debates. So, like, in 2010 and 2012, it's, like, all these primaries and all these establishment figures are getting knocked out. Like, Eric Cantor was going to be Speaker of the House, and in 2014, he's, like, knocked out. That's over. Because the only question that really matters for the GOP for the next two years is, do support Trump, yay or nay, vast majority of Republican electives, like, obviously do support Trump despite the talk of DeSantis. And B, even if there was, like, a point of, like, battle, quote,

unquote, you have one presidential debate where Trump smacks DeSantis, which I think he would. That's over very, very, very quickly. So there's no, like, big existential debate about, like, the direction of the party. Are we defunding Obamacare, yeah or nay? That's the real difference between those two periods. I don't disagree. What I'm more meant is, just, which is that general functions of general functions of government are not going to work like the government will not get funded on time there will be debt ceiling crises there will be like holdups of if a supreme court position you know somebody dies it's definitely not going to get filled so just get ready for that i meant like obstruction on a very basic legislative level that's what the next two years are going to and at a moment where our economy is already teetering that that sounds bad um okay next question for you guys is uh are they going to impeach biden there's going to be there's going to be like there's going to be some like talk of it but look the problem it's it's uncle joe it's joe it's like remember alex at the start of the episode you're talking like joe biden it's a little harder to do the boogie man stuff joe biden culture

war specifically yeah i really just think also hasn't been like a scam there's not been a joe biden scandal and also no one cares about hunter by like i'll say like people hunter biden is a terrible look people like kind of like don't like Hunter Biden, that said, it's like, wow, the president has this super screwed up kid who needs to work with things? There's just like no, there's no equivalent of, I think, those Obama era or Trump era scandals. I'm trying to think it's possible that they would impeach him just because remember everybody that the technical definition of impeachment is just that it has to pass the House of Representatives. I actually could see that happening. Would there be a trial in the U.S. Senate and eventual conviction? No, I don't think so. So is that, you know,

does that square it? Yeah. Okay. And last one is, uh, before we go to break, is, is Trump running again in 24 and is he going to win? Uh, yes to run, win. If he doesn't get indicted, I think he'll probably win. Marshall. The thing that's weird for me, Trump is going to run. Trump easily wins the primary. I'm in this weird position where I think this is why it's weird if you're like a pro-Trump person. Trump is the Republican who could lose to Biden. Yeah, he's the only one. That's that's the very country. So like he easily beats DeSantis. But like that said, I think Trump just provokes such a visceral. The hatred that Trump provokes in, in centrist to independent, to many left voters, is just enough that I see

in being able to pull it out for Biden. That's the weird. But that's like the best, that's the weird contradiction here. I would not want to be, oh, and this is also why DeSantis can't win the primary. Desantis can't actually make that argument. Like, Desantis, like,

the most obvious argument for DeSantis to make is, guys, are we really during the most layup election opportunity of all time? Joe Biden is going to be like 81 years old. We're really going to renominate Don. old Trump, who everyone hates. He can't actually, A, he's not brave enough to say it. He's not bold enough to say it.

But that would also activate the hatred that people in the GOP's base show for people who don't side of the Trump. So, like, DeSantis, I do not see a political way that DeSantis gets out of that dynamic. Okay, let's take a break. We come back right back after this, talk a little bit about tech. We have Marshall Kossloff and Sager and Jetty here from the realignment. Hey, everyone. Let me tell you about the Hustle Daily Show, a podcast filled with business,

tech news, and original stories to keep you in the loop on what's trending. More than 2 million professionals read The Hustle's daily email for its irreverent and informative takes on business and tech news. Now, they have a daily podcast called The Hustle Daily Show, where their team of writers break down the biggest business headlines in 15 minutes or less and explain why you should care about them. So, search for The Hustle Daily Show and your favorite podcast app, like the one you're using right now.

And we're back here on Big Technology Podcast with Saga and Jetty from and Marshall Kosla from The Realignment. You might also see them on YouTube, but breaking points. My favorite, some of my favorite stuff, I recommend you go check it out, both in your podcast app of choice and on YouTube. We got 15 minutes left. Why don't we hit some topics? First of all, Twitter. So Elon did it. It's been a couple days.

Not by choice, it looks like. Do we no longer hear? the complaint about how social media censors conservatives now that Elon is running Twitter. I have no idea. I saw you tweet that. That was a good take. I think you tweeted this. This is a good take from you. Because also, you may have,

Saga, I'm sure you've noticed this in the discourse. Like social media censorship is a very like 2019 era issue. It's just not even like separate from just like Twitter, separate from Joe, there's a reason I trove social has just not blown up. I think we are just in this weird moment where the broad electorate is moving past that set of issues in both directions.

So, like, talking about, I think one of Obama's worst political calls was, like, literally right before the inflation issue blowing up, doing that big conference on disinformation and misinformation, not in the sense that they aren't real issues, but in the sense that you could just clearly look at the space right now. These are not going to be the animating issues for the electorate. I think that's actually true in both cases. And what about Elon's ties with China? We're already seeing, you know, members of the, you know, I'd call it the Chinese propaganda machine, you know, telling Elon to please take their labels off.

Is that, you know, him running Twitter? Is that some sort of liability there? It's a huge concern. I've talked, I did a whole monologue on it about Tesla and about the amount of, the, here's the issue. The vast majority of his wealth is where, Tesla stock? Well, Tesla, they made a huge bet on the. CCP on their supply chains. So look, I have no idea, which is, this is always the issue with Elon. When is he serious? When is he not? When is he actually committed to free speech? When isn't he,

is he going to buy Twitter? Is he not? Is Twitter really going to change that much? My honest answer is no. I really don't think so. On the Chinese thing, I just think it would be so insane for him to remove those labels that he, I don't think that he would do that. Am I concerned on other areas if They're like, hey, please ban the Xinjiang activists in Singapore or something like that. That is where I think we should really watch and see. But again, you know, the backlash to him doing so in the U.S. would be so immense that he's kind of squeezed on all sides. I just want to reiterate, this is why Bob Eiger did not buy Twitter.

And I think he made one of the great calls of all time. And he was like, you know what? I don't want to deal with this shit. And he was right. Yeah. And the key thing to add to what Sarder really said to is regardless of whether Ian Bremer was right or Elon was right, I hope the lesson that Elon has learned the past month is that this geopolitical stuff, quote, to be super non-technical, is so perilous. Do not touch it. Like, this is like,

genuinely, Elon, like, do not offer peace plans for Taiwan. Um, don't do it. Good luck with that advice. Just, yeah, like, but this is, but here's the thing, though, this is getting so perilous. I think he's actually going to have to take the advice. Like that, I think that's the key thing. Look, our show, the realignment like breaking points, our whole show is about how our shows are about the fact that the world is changing in the world of 20203, 2024, where there is open talk of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, the freelancing, it's 2010s, we're having a good time vibe, doesn't genuinely, like, is not sustainable anymore.

So it's not going to really matter if those mistakes keep getting made. Let's talk, speaking of China, let's talk about TikTok. It's interesting in the Trump administration. There was talk that TikTok would be banned, didn't happen. We actually talked about it on our last show. If anything, it seems like there's more interest in banning TikTok, but where does that go? I don't know. I don't think the Biden administration is the balls to ban it.

I really just don't. I mean, everything that I've seen, you know, they did the Huawei thing. That's cute. Everybody knows Huawei is a Chinese spy operation. I just don't think that they're willing to sacrifice the eventual. backlash amongst the young voters. They had a bunch of TikTok stars at the White House just yesterday. On an administrative case, everybody knows it should be banned. We've got reams of evidence at this point. It's a huge knock against Trump that he was such a moron that he wasn't even able

to do it in the first place. But I do not see a world right now where the Biden administration is able to do it, given the backlash that they would receive amongst younger voters, of whom they are already, whom they're already suffering. It's possible. I just don't see it. I think the interesting fact, though, add to your point saga is that if you're talking about 2022 to 2024 as being a period of chaos, I do see there as being a war. We're just looking for a like consensus broad bipartisan win. At my perspective, if TikTok gets banned, it's like in mid-20203. Voters are disengaged. Like the election isn't happening. You just, you, you, and also, we were saying the word ban, but there's a variety of other

things, too. There's the standoff. There's the force sale. There's the for sale. and it's generally genuinely like a flabbergasting issue to me because also if there is any cover of which I want it's going to happen anyway for me the question isn't like is there going to be some form of TikTok spin out disinvesture then it's going to happen at some point the unwillingness to pull the pin despite the awkwardness is is deeply frustrating because I want to use TikTok I don't use I don't use TikTok I don't use TikTok I don't use TikTok Um, someone had to find me, Alex, I'm curious what you think about. Someone had a funny take on Twitter where they're like, hey, like, there's a world where like, you know, spinning it out. It's like a value creation opportunity. Um, there are like huge limits on like people who could use TikTok. How it could be used TikTok. How you could use it. Like the uncertainty about like the actual like policy space that can make it like a more, a safer TikTok quote unquote, um, would actually create a lot more value. So that's, that's frustrating for me. Yeah. I mean, the question is if you do spin it out, do you then divorce it? from the innovation taking place of BITANs, which has led to it, right?

This is, Facebook is trying hard to catch up with TikTok. It can't. So I think that it's difficult to just say, let's take it as it is today and spin it out and it will remain competitive. What do you guys think about? I love talking to you guys about Web3. I feel like every time we check in with each other, there's, you know, a different perspective. What is Web 3? Is this actually hype now?

You know, I've been getting all these pitches in my inbox from Web3 companies. and I feel like they're like using the last bits of their funding to try to, you know, build that last, you know, can we get that last bit of hype before we die? What do you guys think? Ask Marshall. Marshall. Go ahead, Marshall. I'm trying to want to be too mean. Because like, this is, okay, quick, quick, quick side.

I said this to Polylogy, Swedenableness. Bology was, you know, bringing up, like, remember in 2000 when that business week analyst said that Amazon was just killed? That shows how bad the tech press could be when it comes to, like, getting these things wrong. But I think everyone who talks about tech now has the image of that cover in our head. So none of us want to actually go into, oh, yeah, like, they're done, owned. Like, no one's actually, so ever, I just, it's just very funny, like, this idea that mental frameworks actually shift how people do it. Like, so to not be the Amazon business analyst, I think Web3, look, I never bought any white crypto seriously. I was interested in Web3.

I think there was a narrative idea that really mattered to people. This idea that the Internet status quo was not working. No one is happy with where Web2 ended up, quote, unquote. All the social media platforms are really having trouble right now. There's some, you know, Twitter power users aren't tweeting as much anymore. Right. It's clear that something is ending and something new is beginning. If Web3 founders and builders focus in on what's building,

the next thing rather than the skewed financial incentives of basically 2020 to 2022 that's what I'm basically excited about because there's just like a real openness to something real but there needs to be more focused on the something real because I did a lot of web three tech interviews and I genuinely would not know what people are talking about like I do I host this podcast about the deep end I'm an on deck Alex has been on I'd interview these web three founders and I genuinely would be like am I missing something yeah I'm just sort of like, I don't know, like people say things like, oh, you know, we were promised this internet, but they lied to us. I'm like, I don't know. Like, does an average consumer, like, feel that way? So people, it's on, it's on the onus for people to prove their real right now. Yeah, I feel the same. I mean, I think a lot of the hype was cringe. I think a lot of the people who were pushing it really beclowned themselves. That being said, like, I'm not going to, I don't want to dismiss the technology for that reason. I'm not a technologist. I don't know. There were a lot of promises, but there were also a lot of around the way the web would evolve from 1999, everybody was wrong, but they were also right

that the web did change everything. So I, you know, look, I'm just waiting. I'm waiting to see proof in the pudding. I would be, I would like to see a change to the modern internet, but I would really counter to a lot of the Web 3 folks, which is that it turns out that one of the most significant developments in Web 2 was just Elon buying Twitter. What if Elon is able to restore the Wild West feeling of the web on Twitter, which is an ad-supported platform, which is essentially controlled. That kind of, you know, it's kind of a case against some of the use case. Right. I'm going to be interested to see if that happens and if that's possible. You know, I've heard a lot of hype around the blockchain and all that other stuff. But again,

you know, look, it's possible. The whole web1.com thing laid all the fiber optics and made Web2 possible, you know. So it's, who knows? Who knows what's going to happen? Let's hit Metaverse before we leave. Zuckerberg seems intent to build this Metaverse, even if it turns Facebook into a company whose valuation is less than its job. annual revenue. I mean, I'm being a little facetious here, but Facebook's been absolutely hammered due to its commitment to this metaverse idea.

You guys can answer quickly. Do you think that this metaverse thing is going to happen? I struggle with this one. You know why? All recent history tells us he should never bet against suck. Like, he was right about Instagram. He was right about mobile. He was right about the news feed.

Don't sell the ad, almost, you know, big calls. Like, he was right against every single big call in the history of Facebook. That said, I don't get this one. Like the world is just not signing up to attend virtual conferences. They're just not. I haven't used an Oculus yet. See, this is where I'm just torn. I'm like, man, I don't know.

I shouldn't bet against the guy. I'm like, should I buy one? But I'm like, I don't need one. I actually, there's literally nothing that I could do with it that I want or need to do. And then like, there's something about that key has not yet been switched with the technology. I don't know. I'm curious, what do you think, Alex? I mean, you might know more than I do.

Oh, it's really tough. I mean, I think we're definitely going to see some enterprise uses for it. We might see, you know, some training, education. You can see it in museums. All that stuff makes sense. Right. But when it comes to, like, us all hanging out in some metaverse, I just don't see the case for it. The quick closing call I'd give here that speaks to my optimism, my East Coast side makes me

skeptical of everything. My West Coast side makes me want to say, like, let's not count people out. I'll add Matthew Ball on the podcast. He's a great, like, Metaverse analyst. And he just gave me, he gave me the articulation that makes me, like, long-term positive on the Metaverse, which is it's adding a 3D layer to the Internet. And I'm like, you know, just to be putting it that simply, I'm like, okay, that makes sense to me.

Now, that's a different question of, like, would I make a generational bet on my company with that intuition? But I think it's important to kind of separate, when we put it this way, like, I don't think meta is going to be the Kleenex of, like, the Metaverse. sense that like we say a Kleenex but like it's paper tissue it just owns the space so much we use the term i don't think meta and facebook despite that effort are going to be the equivalent thereof but i'm really i'm bullish on in the long term someone adding a 3d layer to i just hear that i'm like that makes total sense i completely agree so uh Alex sell or buy

meta down 20 right now jeez i'm thinking about buying it this podcast is not financial uh I would buy it. I would buy it. I would buy it. It's. Yeah, I don't. I trust the guy. I mean, look, I'm putting aside my content, you know, anything. I'm just like, look, from a business perspective, one of the best bets in the world you could do is give Mark Zuckerberg your money in the year 2007. Also, you're, right? So if you buy meta today, you make two bets, right? You can sort of get two bets for your $1. Right. One is Metaverse works out. You're in great shape. Two is Mark Zuckerberg says Metaverse isn't going to work. And then the stock shoots up. It's going to double in valuation. So it's good. The only way you actually lose that money is if Zuckerberg says we're going to put more money into the Metaverse, which he did say on the most recent earnings call. So sorry to all the investors that hold it. Marshall, Sager, thank you so much for joining. Really great to catch up with you guys. Hey, good to see you, man.

This is fun. Thanks. It's super fun. You can check out Marshall and Sager on the realignment, available in your podcast app of choice, one of my go-to podcast. Also check out breaking points on YouTube. Relinements also on YouTube, all the places. Go check it out. Thanks, everybody for listening.

Thank you, Nick Guatney, for doing the audio. Thank you, LinkedIn, for having me as part of your podcast network. We'll be back on Wednesday with another show. Thank you for being here for the past couple ones. We've done tech strategy. We've done tech finance and now the bigger world, the broader world. So we're covering all bases. All right.

We'll see you next time on Big Technology Podcast.