E134: Ukraine counteroffensive, China tensions, COVID Patient Zero, RFK Jr reaction & more

00:00:00.000 | So wait a second, you guys I saw

00:00:02.160 | that you were at a CO2 conference or a TPG

00:00:06.360 | conference or at some banking conference, SACs.

00:00:09.320 | Brian, I were both at the CO2 summit

00:00:11.000 | CO2 CO2 is a large investor is in a hedge fund private equity.

00:00:16.240 | There are late stage fund. It's a big late stage fund

00:00:18.440 | summit's a really big word. Was that a summit? Or is it more

00:00:21.320 | like a meeting?

00:00:21.880 | Well, it's like a two day conference in Santa Barbara.

00:00:25.640 | Oh, nice.

00:00:27.400 | They've done a number of years in a row now. Last year, Brian

00:00:30.680 | and I went and we met with SPF.

00:00:33.480 | They were telling that SPF story.

00:00:37.000 | No, let's go. Who's got crazier hair right now? You or SPF? Give

00:00:41.320 | us a quick take that hat off for a second. Take that Moncler off

00:00:44.640 | for a second. Let's get a side by side. Oh, my god. SACs is

00:00:49.640 | using no product.

00:00:51.680 | It's not that bad. You're starting to look like the

00:00:54.560 | Emperor, like Senator Palpatine from Star Wars. I mean, people

00:00:58.160 | are having a field day with this crazy hair. But what was the

00:01:01.120 | vibe? If you said there was a vibe two years ago, the vibe was

00:01:04.440 | crypto mania. SPF was the bell of the ball. I suppose will be

00:01:08.720 | the bell of the ball when he goes in the who scout as well.

00:01:11.320 | No, it looks like he's getting off. He's getting up. I thought

00:01:14.720 | he was getting off. I guess the fix in is the fixes in God. I

00:01:20.360 | agree. Can you imagine if he gets off? He's almost as

00:01:23.200 | protected as Hunter Biden.

00:01:24.280 | Here we go. Okay, everybody. freeberg's not here this week.

00:01:29.120 | Insert jokes and conspiracy theories for the mids. There's

00:01:33.160 | going to be about 8000 messages on a subreddit about freeberg

00:01:36.520 | missing this week and sacks missing last week. I'll let you

00:01:38.680 | guys all read into it. But what would you say Brad? Brad

00:01:42.000 | Gerstner back? Of course, if bestie, Brad, what would you

00:01:44.560 | say the vibe was at this one? If it was SPF lunacy two years ago,

00:01:49.080 | what was the vibe this year?

00:01:50.920 | Well, you know, first, they put on an incredible events called

00:01:53.680 | East meets West. And it was really about bringing, you know,

00:01:57.240 | CEOs and founders from China to the states and connecting them

00:02:01.560 | with founders and CEOs in the United States. Listen, I think

00:02:05.880 | it's somber, right? There's a recognition that we've seen a

00:02:09.080 | bounce in the public markets, you know, off of this

00:02:12.800 | devastation in 2022. But I think listen, they gave a great tough

00:02:18.520 | love speech discussion with the 1400 unicorns that are out there

00:02:23.800 | and they said, Do not expect your own profitable tech company

00:02:27.720 | to bounce like one of the magnificent seven, right? Those

00:02:31.360 | are highly profitable companies traded 1920 times earnings. And

00:02:35.680 | if you are burning cash today, there, you can't come back to

00:02:39.440 | the well. So you need to either figure out how to get profitable

00:02:43.200 | figure out how to get fit. Or you need to sell your business.

00:02:48.360 | Because you know that there's not an endless stream of money.

00:02:51.160 | So I thought it was a sober view. You know, Larry Summers was

00:02:54.880 | there. And I think a lot of the people called 22 right, we're

00:02:59.480 | looking for a hard landing in q1 of this year, probably

00:03:02.600 | including, you know, Larry was probably more in that camp. And

00:03:07.400 | I think everybody still views this distribution of

00:03:10.640 | probabilities over the course of the next four quarters. And,

00:03:12.880 | you know, whether it's Druckenmiller Sternlicht this

00:03:15.280 | morning on CNBC, or whether it's Larry Summers, they're all

00:03:18.240 | saying, well, we could 30% chance of a hard landing q4 q1.

00:03:21.600 | So I would say it was so yeah, I could tell it was sober, Saxe.

00:03:25.160 | But you want to say something?

00:03:26.120 | Well, I would say last year, it was somber in a different way.

00:03:29.800 | Because you got to remember, in the first half of 2022, you had

00:03:32.280 | this huge decline in the markets around growth stocks, because

00:03:35.200 | interest rates had started going up, we had the whole regime

00:03:37.640 | change. But I don't think founders had internalized the

00:03:40.600 | way that it applied to them. And then the thing that has happened

00:03:44.400 | over the past year is that sales have been hit, you know, every

00:03:49.720 | software company I know is re forecasting down. It's so much

00:03:53.880 | hard to grow customers are consolidating vendors,

00:03:56.960 | sharpening their pencils, seed expansion has been replaced with

00:04:00.400 | seed contraction. So

00:04:02.120 | negotiations are hard, right? Yeah. So

00:04:03.560 | it's, it's much harder now to sell software than it was, let's

00:04:07.440 | say a year ago, you know, two x is now the new three x, if you

00:04:11.680 | can go to x in this environment, it's basically it's going through

00:04:14.600 | x before it's funny to me that how much the feds actions impact

00:04:20.200 | buying behavior, that's the thing that I

00:04:23.360 | understand. Cology is distinctly different. Yeah,

00:04:25.760 | yeah, the psychology really is different. Yeah, I mean, we knew

00:04:28.720 | that the feds behavior influence valuations and sort of capital

00:04:32.640 | markets, but the way that it influences the business outlook

00:04:35.920 | and how willing companies are to spend money

00:04:38.520 | and CO2 is no different. I see they hired Billy McFarland from

00:04:41.480 | fire festival to do the food. What is this? I mean, coach who

00:04:46.680 | should be ashamed of themselves. Look at this focaccia. Some

00:04:51.320 | vegetable soup with the broth trained out super

00:04:54.280 | stimulating. So wrong. That is so wrong. Look at this. I mean,

00:04:57.920 | it looks like a dog went to the bathroom.

00:04:59.880 | Brian and I opened our lunchbox and we're like, let's let's go

00:05:03.240 | somewhere else. We got to go to on a budget. Wow. It look a

00:05:07.400 | surprise that someone to put a surprise in our

00:05:10.120 | box. Friedberg's dog. Surprise in the coach to lunchbox. Wow.

00:05:15.920 | Well, listen, it's good coach. He's very happy looking at that

00:05:19.400 | $7 lunch that they put out there. I mean,

00:05:22.640 | right. Should we tell the SPF story from last year summit? I

00:05:25.440 | mean, last year, we talked about the maybe founders hadn't

00:05:28.600 | internalized yet, but the markets had corrected but the

00:05:30.680 | one founder who was super bullish and optimistic and

00:05:34.080 | talking about how he was spraying money all over the

00:05:37.200 | place and he was acquiring companies and who was followed

00:05:40.440 | around by minions and had everyone like a beehive

00:05:44.560 | surrounding him and trying to talk to him was SPF. And so I

00:05:50.280 | remember Yeah, so I remember thinking like, who's gonna be

00:05:52.640 | this year's SPF? You know, somebody here was somebody with

00:05:57.160 | an AI was Sam Altman there.

00:05:59.000 | So basically, the CO2 conference went from bullshit to dog shit.

00:06:06.800 | I'm like, look at Brad is so uncomfortable. Brad's like, I

00:06:10.960 | like this invite. I got a good invite. Chamath and I are

00:06:15.240 | invited to nothing. We give no shits about CO2 or their budget.

00:06:20.120 | They do put on a really good event. Incredible firm. And I

00:06:22.600 | think that the message they gave to founders for the event this

00:06:26.400 | year and last year was great. It was actually really appropriate.

00:06:29.160 | Whether founders choose to listen is a different story. But

00:06:32.320 | the message they've been conveying is similar to the

00:06:33.920 | message we've been conveying for the last year and a half

00:06:36.760 | HM off any more jokes we can make about CO2 since you and I

00:06:39.760 | get invited to nothing.

00:06:40.840 | No, I mean, I'm not making fun of CO2. I was just making fun of

00:06:44.560 | the fact that we went from literally bullshit with SPF to

00:06:47.960 | what looks like dog shit.

00:06:49.080 | By the way, I bet they would invite you if you wanted to go.

00:06:54.000 | I'm pretty sure they would send 10 invitations if I if I even

00:06:57.440 | fainted desire to go. But I'm in Milan right now. The pods very

00:07:02.840 | popular there. By the way, I know you did a focus group. Tell

00:07:05.880 | everybody I can we play the focus group or was that I think

00:07:09.200 | we can play

00:07:09.640 | it just a fan a fan came up to me. I mean, when I say fan, this

00:07:12.960 | is like a very high profile person. This woman works at

00:07:15.880 | Netflix. She works at Netflix and her husband is the founder of a

00:07:20.280 | startup. She said she's a fan of the pod. So I started asking her

00:07:22.840 | questions about it. The focus group because you know, we've

00:07:26.160 | been having this debate over the last couple of weeks about what

00:07:28.720 | issues we should be talking about. And certain people on the

00:07:32.400 | pod never want to discuss politics. It's not like I only

00:07:35.960 | want to discuss politics. I just don't want to exclude it. I

00:07:39.440 | think we should just be talking about whatever the biggest

00:07:41.320 | issues are in the world in any given week current events. Yeah,

00:07:45.040 | I mean, whether it's business markets or politics, and she

00:07:48.320 | confirmed that was basically right, don't change it. So I

00:07:51.280 | don't know why we would want to change the formula for the pot

00:07:53.640 | at this point.

00:07:54.240 | Every week, sex. There's a group of people who are like, stop

00:07:57.640 | talking about politics. And then there's another group of people

00:08:00.240 | and their feedback is why didn't you talk about a hundred Biden

00:08:02.920 | Ukraine, Ukraine, Putin, China, whatever. And so the docket is

00:08:07.920 | the docket just to let the audience know, not that it's

00:08:12.520 | like all that big of a deal, it should be fairly obvious.

00:08:15.160 | Everybody has equal input on the docket. So it's not like anybody

00:08:18.240 | owns the docket. If you want to talk about something, you talk

00:08:20.800 | about something, but some people want to not talk about politics.

00:08:22.920 | Some people want to talk about a lot of politics, the

00:08:25.280 | magnificent seven for those people who didn't catch the

00:08:27.100 | reference is I think something Kramer has been talking about on

00:08:31.400 | CNBC. Seven stocks make up the most of the gains this year

00:08:35.560 | meta Tesla, Nvidia, Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft and Apple.

00:08:39.580 | Can I tell you guys my welcome back to Milan story? Oh, yeah,

00:08:43.400 | absolutely. So I'm back in Milan for the summer on his throne.

00:08:46.960 | So chef Stefano and if you could say hi to Stephanie, all my

00:08:51.800 | friends, butlers, everybody tell you're back in Italy because the

00:08:54.920 | buttons are gone. I'm working from my office here. But this

00:08:58.760 | morning, I went to Coppola, which is my stylist, my

00:09:02.400 | hairdresser. Oh, and the thing is, there's like a hierarchy,

00:09:06.600 | the hairdressers. And so Roberto, this guy, Roberto, he's

00:09:09.000 | like the sort of top of the ticket. And Nat has first dibs

00:09:12.520 | with Roberto. And I have this other guy who's excellent. His

00:09:14.640 | name is Joaquin. Oh, yes. You guys will see Joaquin in a few

00:09:17.440 | weeks. Anyways, the best thing about the haircuts at this

00:09:20.780 | place, Coppola is you get a hair fluffer, which means that as

00:09:24.680 | your keynote Roberto cuts your hair, a guy comes in, he just

00:09:28.880 | like he like does this and then he like, you're padding your

00:09:33.240 | hair in a very he he fluffs your hair. Very uncomfortable. It's a

00:09:39.080 | laughing that doesn't exist anywhere that will never get

00:09:42.480 | disrupted by AI. And it's incredible. A hairstyling for

00:09:48.080 | the hair fluffer, the air buffer gets like a 50 euro tip doesn't

00:09:51.200 | matter what he does. Wow, when sacks rolls in, you're gonna

00:09:55.680 | need to fluffers with that. One on each side. I mean, the tufts

00:09:59.560 | are getting crazy. Saks tell me if you want your keynote to cut

00:10:02.160 | your hair because when you come because he will do it, he'll do

00:10:04.880 | an incredible job and I'll ask him to bring the air fluffer.

00:10:07.280 | All right, listen, I think we just going back to the CO2

00:10:10.760 | thing. I know we're in a high interest rate. lunch environment.

00:10:14.440 | The herb environment is hard right now for everybody, but we

00:10:16.900 | did get the feedback. Let's play the feedback.

00:10:19.600 | Hey guys, I'm at the CO2 summit and just met a fan who wants to

00:10:24.760 | explain the magic of the pod because you guys keep wanting to

00:10:28.400 | change things and mess things up. So

00:10:30.440 | my husband and I were listening to your podcast pretty much

00:10:35.320 | religiously. And there is this incredible magic that the four

00:10:38.920 | of you have the repartee back and forth. It's super

00:10:41.920 | informative, but you're all sort of rooting for characters

00:10:44.080 | almost. So it's almost like a scripted show in some way. So I

00:10:46.880 | have my favorite character. My husband has his favorite

00:10:48.720 | character. I won't say who's who. I want you all to stay

00:10:51.760 | together and keep doing the show. But it's fantastic. And we

00:10:54.920 | love it.

00:10:55.320 | And you work at Netflix, right?

00:10:57.840 | I work at Netflix back in the day I produce shows. So pick up

00:11:00.640 | the show. I was just telling David trying to get that magic.

00:11:02.880 | You can put any number of scripts together. But once you

00:11:04.920 | get the cast on the floor, and actually start getting you know,

00:11:07.920 | that chemistry going, that's when the magic happens. And you

00:11:10.360 | guys kind of just nailed it.

00:11:11.920 | Alright, so that's a professional right there. So

00:11:15.200 | stop screwing with the formula. Stop protesting.

00:11:18.880 | Oh,

00:11:19.400 | I mean, the camera really does that 10 pounds, doesn't it?

00:11:25.760 | I take two things away from this. Number one, she's much

00:11:29.400 | more charismatic on camera than sacks. She stole the show. She's

00:11:33.040 | delightful. And then to that sweater. Oh, my Lord.

00:11:36.240 | What's fantastic. No, the sweater is fantastic. The shirts

00:11:39.560 | fantastic. I just think they may not have been. I don't think the

00:11:43.040 | intention was to mesh the two together. But there are too many

00:11:46.480 | buttons for you to mouth. No, bro. When you have a cream

00:11:49.680 | colored sweater, you can't wear a red checkered shirt. It's just

00:11:52.320 | not. Yeah, yeah, I agree. Red Striped. Anyways, it's a Yeah. I

00:11:58.160 | mean, it looks like you're wearing an Italian tablecloth

00:12:00.560 | under there from a pizzeria. Combined with like an $8,000

00:12:03.640 | sweater. It's great. But the hair, I mean, the hair is out of

00:12:06.600 | control. I think there's fantastic. I do. Do not cut the

00:12:11.840 | hair. Don't let your kino touch your hair, bro.

00:12:14.120 | I'll just get a fluff. I'll tell him just flop it. Don't just

00:12:16.880 | let your winners ride.

00:12:22.360 | Rain Man David Sack.

00:12:25.200 | And instead, we open sources to the fans and they've just gone

00:12:31.240 | crazy.

00:12:31.640 | Let's talk about the Zuck Elon cage match.

00:12:38.520 | Oh, yeah. Oh, my God. This is a little worried for my friend

00:12:42.520 | here. Yeah. So I don't know if he's on is completely up to

00:12:46.440 | date on what kind of shape Zuck is in. Zuck is in tremendous

00:12:50.400 | shape. He's got like a dojo at his house. He's been getting

00:12:53.320 | training in you know, mixed martial arts from jujitsu

00:12:57.480 | increases or whoever, you know, Brazilian jujitsu. Yeah,

00:13:00.680 | competing in events. Zuck is in tremendous shape. And no joke

00:13:05.720 | here. Now. Elon's a big guy. Elon's a monster. But I mean,

00:13:09.280 | Elon's not he was not in this kind of shape. You don't have

00:13:12.320 | time to work out like this. I hope you get some sort of Gracie

00:13:16.400 | on your team to train you up for this thing. Also, Elon has a neck

00:13:20.880 | injury that he got. Yeah, from that sumo thing years ago. Yes.

00:13:26.000 | And he's had to have surgeries on it. So it really suck if that

00:13:29.280 | would get re triggered.

00:13:30.440 | Here's the thing, though, he did take on a sumo wrestler. We were

00:13:33.840 | there for that at his birthday party. And he held his own

00:13:38.080 | against the giant sumo wrestler. If you want does get on top of

00:13:42.120 | and do the waris on top of zuck zuck has no chance. You're

00:13:48.080 | telling me what he should do is

00:13:50.280 | abandon the mission to Mars. Yes. Stop electrifying the

00:13:57.280 | world. And stop free internet around the world. Yeah. So he

00:14:02.560 | can beat up Zuck.

00:14:03.880 | I mean, to a vote.

00:14:08.280 | He got suckers number one.

00:14:10.000 | This is the dumbest fucking idea I've ever heard in my life. Oh my

00:14:14.480 | god. I love the banter between the two of them. And let's just

00:14:17.800 | say we can all agree out of all the companies, right? There's

00:14:21.440 | only one contender to zuck getting fit. Right getting that

00:14:25.600 | company fit getting himself fit. Zilon Yeah, 75 80% of the people

00:14:31.320 | gone and product velocity is on fire at Twitter. So this is

00:14:35.360 | this would be a cage match between the two who have

00:14:38.440 | defined this era of getting fit.

00:14:40.480 | All right, let's get to the docket here. What the fuck are

00:14:44.800 | you talking about? He's using the fitness guy burned a quarter

00:14:48.840 | trillion dollars and then found a way to stop it.

00:14:51.240 | That's very different than firing on all cylinders and

00:14:57.200 | three companies.

00:14:57.800 | By the way, I am the only one of anybody I think that knows. Well,

00:15:03.560 | maybe sacks. Well, it's kind of like, you know, if you've got

00:15:06.280 | like a faucet running, and it's spilling over the sink, and then

00:15:09.400 | you turn it off. That doesn't make you a firefighter.

00:15:12.280 | plumber.

00:15:15.560 | Stop spending money on there's this feature of a bathtub where

00:15:22.240 | when you get into it, and the water gushes so violently over

00:15:26.320 | the over the outside of it, and then there's a drain at the top

00:15:29.400 | as well as the bottom. And so then eventually it just stops.

00:15:32.040 | Yes, you could.

00:15:33.000 | Yeah, but Chamath raised a good point, which is look, Elon's a

00:15:37.120 | big guy. If he got training in MMA, I'm sure he'd do fine. But

00:15:41.360 | we don't want Elon spending two hours a day for the next six

00:15:44.600 | months or whatever. Because that's been doing MMA, I guess

00:15:47.400 | for a while, a couple years, maybe years into it. Yeah. All

00:15:49.920 | right. Well, listen, there's been some updates.

00:15:51.800 | This war

00:15:54.200 | between Russia and the Ukraine or the invasion of Ukraine by

00:15:59.200 | Russia. You wrote a piece about it in what was it the Federalist

00:16:03.240 | I think this week titled the truth about Ukraine's falling

00:16:07.320 | failing counter offensive and the peace that could have been

00:16:11.840 | why don't you give us an overview of what you wrote and

00:16:14.320 | what your take is on the state of affairs right now?

00:16:16.080 | Well, the thing that's been going on since around June 4,

00:16:19.280 | or June 5, is this long awaited Ukrainian counter offensive.

00:16:23.520 | This has been touted for a long time as is going to reverse

00:16:27.440 | Russian territorial gains. Ukraine's gonna use all this

00:16:31.080 | modern Western equipment, these leopard tanks that have come

00:16:34.720 | from Germany and Bradley's from the United States, and a lot of

00:16:38.920 | other NATO or American equipment, and they're going to

00:16:42.480 | push Russia out of their country. This has been told to

00:16:46.040 | us since the fall of last year, since that sort of car key

00:16:50.040 | counter offensive, produce some Ukrainian territorial gains,

00:16:54.840 | you've had former generals like Ben Hodges and Petraeus say

00:16:59.400 | that this counter offensive is going to be highly successful.

00:17:01.760 | Where it stands right now is that around 18 or 19 days into

00:17:05.920 | it, it has produced minimal gains. In fact, it's been

00:17:10.720 | somewhat of a disaster. It's hard to get conclusive estimates

00:17:15.720 | of personnel and material losses. But I think as many as a

00:17:20.240 | quarter of the tanks and armored vehicles have already been

00:17:24.920 | destroyed. And the casualties may be as high as around 10,000

00:17:29.720 | out of an army that was trained up for this purpose of around

00:17:32.160 | 50,000. So so far, it has not gone well, the the Ukrainian

00:17:36.560 | army hasn't even made it to the first line of defense. So what

00:17:42.320 | the Russians did is they created three fortified lines or belts

00:17:47.160 | of defense. And then in front of that is what they call a gray

00:17:51.040 | zone or security zone or crumple zone, which is an area they can

00:17:54.600 | test, but it's not technically a fortified line. The Ukrainians

00:17:58.080 | are still in that sort of gray zone, they are not punching

00:18:01.640 | through they are not even at the first Russian fortified line to

00:18:05.000 | give you some idea of what's involved here. The Russians have

00:18:09.280 | these obstacles, there's basically trenches have been

00:18:12.520 | dug, there's ditches that would stop tanks or sort of force them

00:18:17.280 | to go in a certain direction, steer the traffic, there's

00:18:20.440 | extensive minefields, they've got these things called dragon

00:18:23.680 | teeth, which are concrete bollards that stop tanks or move

00:18:27.920 | them in a certain direction. Then the Russians have massive

00:18:31.200 | amounts of artillery, they've got infantry on the ground that

00:18:33.440 | helps spot the artillery. And if all of that doesn't take out

00:18:37.280 | these Ukrainian tanks, they've got these attack helicopters that

00:18:41.960 | come in almost uncontested. Because at this point, it

00:18:45.280 | doesn't look like the Ukrainians have any air defense. And

00:18:48.000 | they've also got fixed wing aircraft that are capable of

00:18:50.800 | dropping precision munitions. So it really seems like the Russians

00:18:55.840 | have fixed a lot of the problems that they had last fall in their

00:18:59.880 | army. And so far, it seems like this counter offensive is not

00:19:02.840 | going anywhere.

00:19:03.520 | We're 16 months into this trim off and clearly fatigue is

00:19:08.800 | setting in. It's not commanding the new cycle here in America.

00:19:12.520 | And on a percentage basis, even the neocons and Republicans are

00:19:19.480 | dropping their support for this at a pretty precipitous rate,

00:19:22.160 | which is predictable. Americans don't want to be in forever

00:19:27.200 | wars. We all know that. So what's your take on how this

00:19:30.120 | winds up, especially in relation to a, our budget and be this

00:19:36.000 | upcoming election, which this seems to be will be a major

00:19:39.800 | issue if this isn't resolved. By the time we get into the 24

00:19:42.840 | election cycle.

00:19:43.560 | As part of answering this, I have a question for sacks. But

00:19:46.520 | is it true that there was a ceasefire like Putin had a press

00:19:49.720 | conference where he showed a document that he said was a

00:19:53.640 | ceasefire that then the United States apparently sent Boris

00:19:57.280 | Johnson over to Russia, Ukraine to basically blow up blow up

00:20:01.040 | the agreement.

00:20:01.720 | This is a this is finally correct.

00:20:04.240 | This wasn't a ceasefire. This was a peace deal before the war

00:20:07.800 | started, correct? No, it was a claim.

00:20:10.200 | There were rounds of negotiation before the war. Notably, there

00:20:14.760 | was a round of diplomacy between Blinken and Lavrov in January,

00:20:18.520 | the month before the war, where Blinken said that we cannot

00:20:21.680 | compromise on NATO's open door policy, that that sort of

00:20:24.840 | diplomacy fell apart. But then after the war, there was a

00:20:28.360 | meeting of the Russian delegation and Ukrainian

00:20:30.880 | delegation in Istanbul, under the supervision of Erdogan in

00:20:35.640 | Turkey, Naftali Bennett also had a similar process. In both

00:20:39.800 | cases, the West rejected a peace deal.

00:20:43.000 | Allegedly, we don't this is Putin we're talking about.

00:20:45.680 | Hold on a second. Let me come back to the evidence for in a

00:20:48.920 | second. But yeah, what the deal would have provided is that the

00:20:52.120 | Russians would move back to pre war lines. If the Ukrainians

00:20:56.520 | would agree not to become a member of NATO. However, the

00:21:00.760 | Ukrainians could still receive specified security guarantees

00:21:04.000 | from the West. That was the deal. Now, well, we have now

00:21:08.880 | multiple data points. You've got Naftali Bennett saying that he

00:21:11.880 | thought a deal was on these lines, but it was rejected by

00:21:14.640 | the West. You also have now Putin showing the very document,

00:21:18.480 | which was signed by the Ukrainian delegation. So this

00:21:21.800 | was the document document, right? Nobody has this document.

00:21:24.760 | It hasn't been released yet. I hope the Russian government

00:21:27.280 | releases it for the purposes of history. So we can inspect it.

00:21:30.600 | But nobody can test this document is real. Remember, if

00:21:33.680 | he's just making this up, you would think that Erdogan would

00:21:36.720 | basically come forward and say, No, this is fake. There's too

00:21:38.960 | many people who are in that room who'd be able to say this

00:21:41.240 | document is fake. No one has done that. So I think there's

00:21:44.040 | every reason to believe this document is real. Now, it is not

00:21:46.800 | a final agreement, it appears to be a preliminary agreement or an

00:21:49.800 | outline. But the outline is that Russia is saying we will move

00:21:53.560 | back to pre war lines, if you agree not to become part of NATO

00:21:57.200 | and that deal was rejected when Boris Johnson flew into Kiev,

00:22:01.400 | and basically told the Ukrainians, we do not want to

00:22:04.000 | make a deal with Putin, we want to pressure Putin. And the

00:22:07.040 | source for that is not the Russians. The source for that is

00:22:11.040 | a Ukrainian publication called Ukrainian Pravda, up. And they

00:22:17.520 | ran an article in May of 2022 that I can put on the screen.

00:22:21.400 | And it is the source for saying that Boris Johnson came in and

00:22:24.960 | told Zelensky, we do not want to make a peace deal. We the West

00:22:29.080 | are not ready to make a deal with Putin. We want you to fight

00:22:32.000 | Putin or pressure Putin. And if you do, we will give you advanced

00:22:35.320 | weapons systems. And that is when the deal fell apart. If you

00:22:38.400 | look at the timing of it, this is this has been so this has

00:22:42.360 | been lightly sourced here. So let's go there. But you have to

00:22:44.960 | consider the source here. This is a pro Ukrainian publication,

00:22:48.600 | writing in May of 2022. Now, the tone of the article and what they

00:22:53.280 | basically say in this article is that Zelensky accepted Boris

00:22:57.440 | Johnson's offer. In other words, he took the gamble. And at this

00:23:00.800 | point in time, you've got to remember, this is two months

00:23:02.640 | after the war started, it looked like the Ukrainians were doing

00:23:04.640 | well. So up was essentially praising Zelensky in this

00:23:08.600 | article, for taking the West up on this deal to pressure Putin

00:23:12.800 | rather than make peace. Now, a year later, it looks like this

00:23:16.720 | gamble was a disaster. Yeah. And so that is the real conclusion

00:23:20.760 | here. A deal was available, but the West chose not to take it. By

00:23:24.880 | the way, Fiona Hill, who is a Russia hawk. And you could

00:23:30.720 | almost put her I'd say, neocon adjacent has basically said that

00:23:35.000 | this type of deal was available. The West did not want this deal.

00:23:38.480 | I think Jason, maybe to give you an answer. My thought is that

00:23:41.480 | this week was a very bad week for establishment politics and

00:23:45.880 | institutions. Because on the one hand, if you take the Russia

00:23:49.760 | incident in the Ukraine war, what you saw was that there were

00:23:53.280 | ample numbers of off ramps that we chose, frankly, to not take

00:23:58.480 | so that we could engage our enemy in some long drawn out

00:24:02.840 | war on the hopes that it just depletes their resources. That's

00:24:08.320 | kind of rolling the dice, I think, in a very dangerous way.

00:24:12.360 | I think this week, we also saw some published stuff on COVID

00:24:16.720 | and the COVID vaccine, which also debunked a lot of widely

00:24:20.880 | held truths. And it turned out that folks that may have been

00:24:23.760 | conspiracy theorists, quote, unquote, were right there as

00:24:26.040 | well. So I think it's just an uncomfortable set of facts that

00:24:31.400 | again, just reinforce that if you're not really thinking for

00:24:33.760 | yourself, you're not going to see the totality of what's

00:24:35.720 | actually going on. I think with respect to Russia, Ukraine,

00:24:39.400 | everybody has moved on. And so sadly, the only people that are

00:24:44.800 | left over are the people that have to fight the war, we're

00:24:49.720 | still separated from their families, there's the people

00:24:51.800 | that are dying. There was an article I think today, they

00:24:55.240 | recruit prisoners, right. So obviously, some of the prisoners

00:24:57.680 | that Russia users are still pretty crazy. That person went

00:25:00.560 | on some rampage inside of a train, killed a couple people

00:25:04.920 | stabbed some other people, there was just pictures of blood

00:25:07.160 | everywhere. I mean, this is just a horrible situation. And it's

00:25:11.520 | still not clear to me why we didn't take the offer. If in

00:25:16.400 | fact, it's real. So I just want to keep putting that disclaimer

00:25:19.320 | out there. Because Putin flashing a document doesn't make

00:25:21.920 | all this true. It doesn't mean it's not true.

00:25:24.160 | What about Ukrainian Pravda?

00:25:25.640 | Well, Jason, I would say what about I am just being clear

00:25:29.720 | here that none of the data points you need, I would say

00:25:33.240 | what are you talking about? Naftali Bennett confirmed it.

00:25:35.560 | What incentives the Israeli former Israeli leader have to

00:25:38.640 | lie about this?

00:25:39.560 | Here's what I would say, Jason, I think that something like that

00:25:43.280 | is so profoundly important, that if it were not true, I think it

00:25:49.800 | would have been very important for the powers that be to

00:25:52.800 | discredit it almost immediately, so that they didn't have to look

00:25:58.360 | like they were warmongering unnecessarily.

00:26:01.200 | Can I also up level and connect to this point about the

00:26:04.720 | establishment? Because I think there's been a lot of pushback

00:26:08.720 | to even challenging the status quo, even having a conversation

00:26:14.240 | about Ukraine or having a conversation about COVID. And I

00:26:17.880 | think if there's one thing this pod represents the fight going

00:26:21.640 | on at Twitter represents is the need to have this conversation.

00:26:26.760 | If we look at the wars the US has engaged in since September

00:26:30.600 | 11, it's estimated three to 4 million people have died in

00:26:36.760 | Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, we spent $8 trillion. Inflation

00:26:44.360 | adjusted, we spent 4 trillion in World War Two. 8 trillion

00:26:50.200 | represents 25% of our entire national debt. And I've yet to

00:26:56.120 | meet a single parent who said to me, I care so much about this

00:27:00.360 | Ukraine situation, I would be willing to put my children in

00:27:04.680 | harm's way to fight for the defense of Europe. Okay, so

00:27:08.680 | those data points tell me at a very minimum, we need more of

00:27:13.080 | this discussion, more of this debate, not less.

00:27:16.120 | The idea that that we could be tiptoeing closer and closer to

00:27:19.640 | some land war in Europe unnecessarily. And I think the

00:27:24.200 | bigger issue is and you can't trust what you're being told.

00:27:27.760 | And I think that that's what's very

00:27:29.200 | problematic is a bigger picture. And just so we're clear here,

00:27:31.520 | I'm not saying I'm on either side of this. I'm just pointing

00:27:34.920 | out that this is all still very thinly sourced.

00:27:37.320 | No, it's not.

00:27:38.640 | Until the West confirms any of this, I think expect the West to

00:27:41.960 | do you expect the State Department to issue a press

00:27:44.040 | release saying, yep, we fucked up. It's on me.

00:27:46.480 | My theory. My, my theory has been I and I've been very clear

00:27:51.920 | on this podcast. My theory has been since the beginning, they

00:27:54.560 | want to deplete Russia and they want to deplete their army and

00:27:59.160 | not capabilities and have regime change and Putin. I'm not saying

00:28:02.680 | I'm for that just for the people.

00:28:04.040 | I'm not no no no no no.

00:28:06.120 | Encole Putin. That was a crude language.

00:28:08.400 | That is what they that is what they plan on doing. Yes, I think

00:28:11.920 | that's what they're doing. And I

00:28:12.720 | believe Austin, our Secretary of Defense said that our purpose

00:28:15.440 | was to weaken Russia. Yeah. So to knock it out.

00:28:17.920 | I agree. That's what our purposes. Yes. I think they

00:28:20.080 | want regime change. Yes.

00:28:21.080 | That's what Boris Johnson went to Kiev and said, we want to

00:28:22.920 | pressure Putin not make a deal with him. So they ordered this

00:28:25.600 | war they they prefer

00:28:26.920 | that's been my theory since the

00:28:28.480 | beginning preferred to fight a proxy war of choice. That was

00:28:31.840 | not

00:28:32.040 | I'm not endorsing that. I'm not endorsing that.

00:28:34.440 | Take NATO expansion off the table.

00:28:36.080 | This is not about you, Jason. I'm asking a simple question.

00:28:38.520 | But Saks just said it was too much. So I'm just clearing. He

00:28:42.440 | just said that was your position. And I'm correct.

00:28:44.640 | Okay, fair enough, Jason.

00:28:45.760 | Have the right to correct you. That was not my position. I

00:28:48.120 | said,

00:28:48.320 | I actually agree with you. If you're saying that that was our

00:28:52.000 | government's objective, which was to weaken Putin. I agree

00:28:55.680 | with you. They've chose to fight an optional proxy war of choice

00:28:59.640 | that was easily avoidable if they just take a NATO expansion

00:29:02.400 | off the table, because they thought it would weaken Putin.

00:29:04.640 | But here's the rub on this. It has not weakened Putin. It has

00:29:08.840 | weakened the United States and our allies. Anyway, you want to

00:29:12.200 | look at this thing, look at just the weapons and munitions. So we

00:29:15.880 | are out of 155 millimeter artillery shells, we cannot

00:29:20.400 | produce enough. This is the crazy thing. We spent 800

00:29:23.160 | billion a year plus on the Pentagon and our national

00:29:26.720 | defense. We're out of ammo. I mean, we must be getting so

00:29:29.920 | royally ripped off by the military industrial complex.

00:29:33.000 | Okay, we cannot produce ammo fast enough. That's why

00:29:35.680 | Ukraine's losing this war. The balance of artillery favors

00:29:38.640 | Russia. Russia is basically using about 20,000 shells a day.

00:29:43.040 | The Ukrainians are using somewhere between three and 6,000.

00:29:46.280 | We are out of ammo, we cannot produce enough.

00:29:48.960 | And this actually dovetails nicely with another story this

00:29:52.520 | week. There is a journalist named Matt. Euglesius is that

00:29:57.880 | his pronounce his name? Yeah. Euglesius. And he said, I mean,

00:30:03.360 | he literally said the quiet part out loud. And I'll just quote,

00:30:07.600 | because he was criticizing you and Chamath for hosting RFK,

00:30:12.720 | we'll get to that in a second. But he basically said, this is

00:30:16.240 | actually a really good idea for us. Basically, NATO equipment

00:30:18.720 | plus Ukrainian lives are being traded for Russian equipment and

00:30:21.840 | Russian lives, which leaves NATO coming out ahead. That's doubly

00:30:25.440 | true, because NATO is much richer than Russia. So we win a

00:30:28.600 | long term game of everyone explode their weapons as fast as

00:30:31.600 | they can make them again, though, what makes that really

00:30:35.600 | true is NATO material is killing Russian soldiers, while Russian

00:30:38.960 | material is killing Ukrainian soldiers. That's a deal in our

00:30:41.160 | favor. I mean, that is a cynical

00:30:43.840 | to be clear of that. Yeah, he wrote that last year in defense

00:30:47.800 | of the war, basically, like all the neocons, he's sort of an

00:30:51.120 | establishment approved intellectual, they think he's

00:30:53.320 | smart, I think he's really foolish. He basically wants to

00:30:55.480 | fight the last Ukrainian here, for the sole purpose of blowing

00:30:58.600 | up Russia's stockpiles. The reason this is so dumb is Russia

00:31:01.440 | can always make more, those lives aren't coming back. But

00:31:04.200 | they can always produce more artillery, more weapons. And in

00:31:07.080 | fact, the Russian war machine is now ramping up to full

00:31:10.560 | production. Okay, they are ramping up the number of people

00:31:14.360 | in their army, I think it's estimated that by the end of the

00:31:16.320 | year, they're gonna have 750,000 men under arms, they've ramped

00:31:20.160 | up artillery shells production, they're at something like one

00:31:22.960 | and a half million. At the beginning of the war, we were

00:31:25.480 | only producing 14,000 artillery shells a month, mostly for

00:31:29.120 | training purposes in the United States. We've since ramped that

00:31:31.560 | up to 20,000. But that's still massively trails what the

00:31:34.840 | Russians can do. And they're trying to hold on, they're

00:31:36.760 | trying to ramp it up to 90,000 a month. But that's going to take

00:31:39.560 | till 2028. Because, you know, it takes time to build it, you got

00:31:43.040 | to build up new factories, new production lines, you got to

00:31:45.240 | issue contracts to suppliers or vendors, it takes time to do

00:31:49.600 | this. But the Russians have ramped up their war machine. And

00:31:53.000 | then the other thing that's happened is that Russia and

00:31:56.720 | China have entered a de facto alliance, and including Iran. So

00:32:01.360 | you now have the cementing of this giant alliance in Asia,

00:32:06.280 | between China, Russia and Iran. They're sharing equipment now

00:32:11.160 | together, Iran is producing drones for Russia, Russia is now

00:32:15.240 | going to be giving advanced fighter jets to Iran. So this

00:32:18.480 | idea that this war has made the West stronger is depleting the

00:32:21.880 | West over an objective, we didn't need to fight this war

00:32:25.160 | was easily avoidable. And we have now created, I think, the

00:32:27.920 | most fearsome opponent that America has ever faced, we have

00:32:32.520 | never faced a adversary with a combined manufacturing capacity

00:32:38.400 | and raw materials of China, Russia and Iran. If we were to

00:32:42.640 | get in a war, a new world war against this sort of new axis,

00:32:46.480 | we could lose, they actually have more manufacturing capacity

00:32:50.200 | to produce weapons of war, and munitions and ammo than the

00:32:54.280 | United States does.

00:32:55.080 | China has been clear that they're not going to provide

00:32:56.760 | weapons to Russia. And so I'm not sure that that alliance is

00:33:02.360 | exactly accurate.

00:33:03.400 | They've given us no such assurance. All they've said is

00:33:06.360 | they haven't done it yet.

00:33:07.320 | It's a theoretical thing that you're talking about here that

00:33:09.360 | could be very serious. I think your point and this is to Brad's

00:33:12.000 | point, we should be having a very thoughtful discussion here.

00:33:14.360 | Because if China did pick Russia, which they haven't, and

00:33:17.800 | they went to war, it would be worldwide.

00:33:19.200 | Well, we should talk about the China relationship, actually.

00:33:24.600 | Yeah. Okay. Lincoln just went to China. And this was the first

00:33:28.600 | trip for an American Secretary of State. Since 2018. Obviously,

00:33:33.800 | things have been strained with the spy balloon and the visits

00:33:38.800 | to Taiwan. Blinken gave some basic goals for this engagement

00:33:44.160 | with China, the fentanyl problem, some detained Americans

00:33:49.080 | and protecting US citizens working in China. Those were

00:33:51.560 | kind of the easy checkboxes. But they wanted to create also an

00:33:58.760 | open line of communication between our militaries, which

00:34:01.880 | China wasn't super stoked on wouldn't agree to.

00:34:06.560 | Tony did a great job. Yeah. Okay. I think what's really

00:34:10.440 | disappointing is that while Tony's over there doing this

00:34:13.080 | hard work, which is must be tough to do, because it must

00:34:15.240 | have been a little bit like dancing on eggshells a little

00:34:18.800 | bit, right? He had to be intense. Yeah, he had to be very

00:34:21.720 | thoughtful, very measured. But as far as I could tell, he did a

00:34:25.640 | fabulous job. Now, full disclosure, he's a friend of

00:34:29.120 | mine. So maybe I'm biased. But then over here, Biden at some

00:34:33.200 | mid level fundraiser in California is calling she a

00:34:36.200 | dictator. How hard must it be for you to try to do your job

00:34:39.760 | when your boss is just like, completely undisciplined, like

00:34:43.320 | here. And here's the problem with that is that if the United

00:34:46.840 | States actually thought that she was a dictator, do you think

00:34:50.240 | that a mid level fundraiser that we were all invited to in

00:34:53.240 | Northern California that none of us said yes to is the place to

00:34:56.480 | announce a foreign policy shift like that? Absolutely not. So it

00:34:59.680 | just means that again, there's just more evidence about Biden

00:35:03.360 | being very undisciplined. Now, again, that could be an age

00:35:07.000 | issue, it could be a mental acuity issue. We don't know

00:35:10.440 | because we're not given a chance to really prosecute that

00:35:13.080 | problem. Meanwhile, Tony's there trying to do the best job he can

00:35:17.240 | and the sand shift underneath him. Thank God he was able to

00:35:20.280 | get the trip done before this thing happened is what I think

00:35:22.680 | but that gap was a very big gap and a very big problem. I think

00:35:26.960 | because whatever goodwill he built up was practically flushed

00:35:30.600 | down the toilet if you saw the reaction from the Chinese, which

00:35:33.800 | was to be deeply offended. And it makes no sense to poke. Yeah.

00:35:39.160 | When he went to see NPS and they had to negotiate a fist bump

00:35:42.520 | versus a handshake. Like what is all of this either unplanned or

00:35:46.240 | undisciplined theater? Why are we engaging in any of this stuff?

00:35:50.840 | It doesn't make any sense to

00:35:52.400 | moth Joe, Joe Biden's always been known for being a liability

00:35:55.880 | in terms of these statements. When he worked for Obama, he was

00:35:59.480 | the VP. He also said things you know, he shot from the hip a lot

00:36:02.560 | you should not be calling him a dictator when you're trying to

00:36:04.720 | do this critical work. It's a stupid move. I think everybody

00:36:07.520 | can agree. You were gonna say something, Brad?

00:36:09.960 | Yeah, I was just gonna say, you know, kind of market reaction

00:36:13.960 | going in. So the K web, the Chinese index was up about 20%

00:36:18.040 | heading into the series of meetings. Now, notably, Blinken

00:36:21.520 | was not scheduled to have a meeting with she. And so what

00:36:27.840 | happened is on day one, there's a meeting with the foreign

00:36:30.360 | minister, right? And it seems that there was some positive

00:36:33.840 | trend lines coming out of these first two meetings with the top

00:36:37.000 | diplomat with foreign minister, which led to the meeting. And

00:36:40.160 | notably in the meeting, he did say, the United States has not

00:36:43.400 | changed his policy on Taiwan, we don't support Taiwanese

00:36:46.240 | independence. Now, the market reaction post visit was down 10%.

00:36:51.560 | And I think this is owing to what Chamas said that people

00:36:55.640 | felt like maybe we took a step forward here that we at least

00:36:58.800 | had a meeting, but then it was a another step back. And so I

00:37:03.840 | think where we sit at the moment is there probably going to be

00:37:06.880 | some follow on meetings coming out of this. This was not, you

00:37:10.400 | know, a path back to where we were, but I think it was a

00:37:14.120 | stabilizing moment. And, you know, again, we were just at the

00:37:18.680 | East meets West conference, where there are a lot of Chinese

00:37:21.520 | CEOs and founders who were there. And I think the idea there

00:37:25.160 | was like, things are stable, like not getting worse. And by

00:37:27.880 | the way, six months ago, there was a real concern that things

00:37:31.240 | were deteriorating quickly. So I think it's, you know, you can

00:37:35.000 | see something constructive coming out of this,

00:37:36.800 | not getting worse was how I felt coming out of it. And then

00:37:40.520 | Biden then makes it worse is really it is a I agree, it's

00:37:43.840 | just a stupid gap.

00:37:44.800 | Let me tell you about some of the reporting from the Chinese

00:37:47.520 | side. So after these diplomatic events, and you're right,

00:37:50.720 | Blinken met with Wang Yi for seven hours, then he got an

00:37:53.920 | audience with Xi Jinping. They do these readouts where each

00:37:57.920 | side basically produces a public summary of the meeting. In the

00:38:01.560 | Chinese readout, they said that US Chinese relationships are at

00:38:05.760 | the lowest point they've ever been. I mean, since I guess,

00:38:10.440 | diplomatic relations were kind of reestablished under Nixon, so

00:38:14.440 | that from the Chinese standpoint, they believe that

00:38:16.920 | relationships are at the worst they've ever been. Moreover, the

00:38:22.400 | US sought to put Ukraine on the agenda. The Chinese response to

00:38:26.840 | that was we are not interested in discussing our relationship

00:38:30.440 | with Russia, that is none of your business. So this idea,

00:38:34.160 | there's been this neocon fantasy, that somehow China

00:38:37.520 | would help us in this war between Russia and Ukraine. And

00:38:41.200 | I've said all along that the last thing China wants is for

00:38:44.800 | neocons to achieve their objectives with respect to

00:38:47.880 | Russia, because then China alone will be in the gun sights of US

00:38:52.040 | talks. So China will do what it has to do to support and even

00:38:56.440 | prop up Russia, if they have to. Remember, China, and, and Russia,

00:39:02.640 | and specifically Xi and Putin. They're the two leaders who've

00:39:06.360 | met with each other more often than any other leader, and

00:39:08.560 | they've called each other their best friends or most I think the

00:39:11.920 | language they use was most besties. Well, most bosom

00:39:15.560 | friends was what they called it. Okay, that's a little weird.

00:39:18.120 | Those are buddies. Yeah, but

00:39:19.440 | there's somebody great TV show. Good. Yeah, exactly.

00:39:21.760 | To give people exactly what happened. Biden, when he was at

00:39:25.440 | this campaign fundraiser in NorCal that, again, yeah, we

00:39:29.280 | were probably invited to people on the show. He was talking

00:39:32.400 | about the military, Chinese spy balloon, and he said she got

00:39:36.560 | very upset, quote, that this was a great embarrassment for

00:39:40.240 | dictators when they don't know what happened. And he continued

00:39:43.960 | to say that she didn't know the balloon had been over the

00:39:46.200 | continental US and was off course near Alaska. And this is

00:39:49.080 | the kind of thing where he's basically saying she is stupid,

00:39:51.640 | or, you know, whatever. Or there's some level of

00:39:54.920 | incompetence over there. It's exactly the wrong message you

00:39:57.240 | want to send, calling him a dictator and calling him stupid

00:40:00.120 | and saying he was embarrassed. Like, why would you provoke

00:40:02.080 | that? To raise money or to be a tough guy? It makes no sense. I

00:40:05.760 | mean, it sounds like Trump's version of foreign

00:40:08.160 | from the Chinese standpoint, they thought the whole balloon

00:40:10.200 | thing was a travesty. I mean, I don't know what the truth of it

00:40:13.360 | is. But they feel like it was just this continuous drumming up

00:40:18.160 | of outrage on the American side against China. And they wanted

00:40:22.800 | to put that behind us in terms of the relationship. I heard

00:40:26.360 | Blinken interviewed about this term. I agree with you. I have

00:40:28.800 | no complaint with Blinken in terms of how he handled this

00:40:32.760 | meeting. I have a complaint about how I have a complaint

00:40:35.560 | about how he's handled Moscow, but but not Beijing. But they

00:40:40.520 | wanted to put this balloon business behind them. My guess

00:40:43.560 | I've always said that it never made sense to me that the

00:40:46.960 | Chinese would use such a ham fisted way of conducting

00:40:49.680 | espionage to fly, deliberately fly a balloon over the US. It

00:40:53.800 | never deliberate. It never made sense to me. Yeah. And it became

00:40:58.200 | this cause celebre in the US. And I think the Chinese at a

00:41:02.080 | minimum wanted to put it behind us. And then Biden reopened the

00:41:05.240 | issue. Like this submarine tragedy, the balloon is like

00:41:08.360 | made for network television, because it's a live event where

00:41:11.920 | you can put live cameras up. And you can cover 24 seven. It's

00:41:15.120 | just like, we better be really careful. It's just media. It's

00:41:18.880 | for the media. It's catnip for them.

00:41:20.520 | We have to be very careful. Now, I think in our relationship

00:41:22.760 | with China, because again, you now have this Asiatic alliance

00:41:26.680 | between China, Russia and, and Iran. It is the most capable,

00:41:30.960 | let's say, average 30, the United States ever faced

00:41:32.960 | remember, that when we face the Soviet Union, their economy was

00:41:36.280 | never bigger than one third of the US economy, the Soviet

00:41:38.720 | bloc versus the Western bloc, the Chinese economy, on a

00:41:42.080 | purchasing power parity basis is roughly the same size as the US.

00:41:45.880 | And they've got more manufacturing capacities. If you

00:41:48.240 | think about the type of manufacturing capacity United

00:41:50.920 | States had during World War Two, that now belongs to China, not

00:41:55.160 | the US we have hollowed out

00:41:56.680 | I just don't understand why, why our foreign policy, Brad, I'll

00:42:00.640 | bring you into this discussion, why our foreign policy isn't

00:42:03.400 | being driven by some of the things that we could do

00:42:06.080 | together to collaborate on, like we have global warming, we have,

00:42:09.840 | you know, issues on this planet that we could collaborate on.

00:42:12.800 | And it seems like we're spending no time on those issues and

00:42:15.720 | saber rattling Cuba, another example, why can't we set a goal

00:42:21.040 | for the United States to normalize relations with Cuba

00:42:23.840 | and get them on our side, since they are the equivalent of,

00:42:26.400 | let's say, Ukraine, David, to America, you've, you've brought

00:42:29.720 | it back comparison, why don't we make peace with Cuba? Why can't

00:42:33.400 | we have a peace based foreign policy where we're trying to

00:42:36.480 | build bridges, God, Cuba and United States could do amazing

00:42:40.160 | things together. And we should be trying to win that

00:42:43.160 | relationship instead of living 50 years in the past over it.

00:42:47.080 | I'm not sure

00:42:48.200 | there was legitimate outrage over the past week, because we

00:42:50.400 | discovered that China was planning on they already have an

00:42:53.880 | intelligence outpost in Cuba, listening outpost, but also

00:42:57.360 | they're thinking about doing training of troops in Cuba. And

00:43:02.560 | that would be a violation of Monroe doctrine. And we should

00:43:05.000 | basically get our backs up over that the Monroe doctrine states

00:43:09.440 | that no disengraved power can bring troops, weapons or bases

00:43:13.640 | into the Western Hemisphere. United States spent over 100

00:43:17.920 | years basically enforcing Monroe doctrine, it would greatly

00:43:21.120 | diminish us security, if we allowed any foreign great power

00:43:25.400 | to have troops in the Western Hemisphere. So we deserve to

00:43:28.200 | have our horns out over that the problem is that we have our

00:43:31.920 | horns out over everything. And so we're not really taken

00:43:34.320 | seriously. We've cried wolf so many times. I don't think we're

00:43:36.760 | really taken seriously by the Chinese on this. And this should

00:43:39.600 | be a teaching moment to the foreign policy establishment,

00:43:42.080 | because this is Russia's objection. Russia's objection

00:43:46.440 | is to having American troops, weapons and bases directly on

00:43:49.720 | their border. This is our objection to what China is

00:43:52.960 | seeking to do in Cuba.

00:43:53.960 | Okay, Brad, you want to add something to that? Or can we

00:43:56.160 | move to

00:43:56.360 | code? Just real quickly, I would say, yeah, there's a real

00:43:59.000 | appetite in the business community to be engaged this

00:44:02.320 | idea that we're going to decouple the world never have to

00:44:04.920 | deal with these folks, right is just a farce. ByteDance bought a

00:44:09.360 | billion dollars worth of Nvidia chips announced this week,

00:44:12.640 | right? Like, like the world is entangled. And I think we would

00:44:16.640 | be better off having our political and business leaders

00:44:20.160 | in more sync over how to achieve this long term safety and

00:44:25.600 | prosperity, as opposed to what feels like a disjointed foreign

00:44:30.440 | policy relative to the global reality around AI and, and

00:44:35.560 | what's happening on the business front.

00:44:36.880 | I agree. Well said, yeah. And I mean, it's just so obvious, why

00:44:41.200 | can't we be collaborating on stuff? And we see when you and I

00:44:44.160 | made our trip to the UAE. And then we see the Saudis, you

00:44:47.400 | know, bringing movies back, we have certain regions, we're

00:44:49.640 | doing a pretty good job of engaging with engagement. You

00:44:52.840 | know, reasonable engagement is a good idea.

00:44:55.440 | It's because and I think RFK has said this, we have created a

00:45:00.840 | very dangerous revolving door between our most critical

00:45:04.560 | institutions and the largest industrial companies in the

00:45:08.080 | United States. And that revolving door creates all kinds

00:45:12.440 | of conflicts of interest. And those things get sorted out via

00:45:16.960 | revenue and dollars and profits, incentives. And so those

00:45:21.440 | incentives will drive us if it's the military industrial complex

00:45:24.640 | to go to war. And you're seeing that it'll complicate our foreign

00:45:28.400 | policy. So this is why I've always said, the most important

00:45:31.360 | thing that we're doing is something that the military

00:45:35.000 | industrial complex cannot stop, which is our energy

00:45:38.080 | independence. And when you have energy independence and abundant

00:45:41.440 | costless energy, I do think that the biggest thing you get is

00:45:44.600 | this peace dividend, you stop fighting these wars, you become

00:45:47.080 | much more rational abroad. And you're like, Okay, I don't need

00:45:49.680 | to fight with all of these people. Because, you know,

00:45:51.600 | things are so great within our borders.

00:45:53.760 | You're so right, because we actually have stopped those

00:45:56.040 | wars. And now we've created two other ones, Russia, Ukraine, we

00:45:59.480 | can't help on China. What's that?

00:46:01.680 | We can't help ourselves. And we'll use the scarcity of

00:46:05.720 | commodities as a boogeyman to basically incentivize us to go

00:46:10.360 | in these foreign misadventures. And it really has to stop, by

00:46:13.680 | the way, just two quick points on that on Taiwan, there's an

00:46:16.160 | election next year. And it looks like right now that the pro

00:46:19.840 | China party might actually take power right now the party that's

00:46:23.800 | in power is more of a pro Western Party. And the reason I

00:46:27.640 | think is that the Taiwanese are looking at what's going on in

00:46:30.960 | Ukraine. And they're looking at the corpses of the Ukrainian

00:46:34.520 | youth pile up. And they're thinking maybe it's not such a

00:46:37.240 | great idea to be an American proxy state. Or in the words of

00:46:41.240 | Henry Kissinger, he wants quip that it's dangerous to be an

00:46:45.240 | American enemy, but it's absolutely fatal to be an

00:46:47.040 | American friend. I think that this war may be backfiring in

00:46:51.520 | terms of the incentives is creating around Taiwan.

00:46:54.760 | Remember, Biden said that this war would basically help protect

00:46:57.640 | Taiwan by deterring China, it might actually deter Taiwan from

00:47:01.960 | opposing China. So we'll have to see how that plays out.

00:47:04.480 | All an able bodied person in Taiwan, a voting age needs to

00:47:07.400 | do is read the newspaper and understand it in the last two

00:47:11.080 | and a half years, we've essentially started a

00:47:13.200 | multitrillion dollar program to deliver ourselves from all the

00:47:16.040 | critical resources that China and Taiwan gives us. And so if

00:47:19.200 | you're a Taiwanese citizen, the writing is unfortunately on the

00:47:22.560 | wall, which is that we are giving ourselves the

00:47:24.440 | optionality to not have to do anything. So to your point,

00:47:27.760 | David, if you're a rational, thinking Taiwanese person,

00:47:30.920 | unfortunately, you're forced to be in a position where you may

00:47:33.440 | have to head your bets. And if the United States can basically

00:47:37.080 | have chip supply that comes from Europe and Mexico, now all of a

00:47:41.640 | sudden, the criticality of TSMC goes away. To wit, I publish this

00:47:45.960 | tweet yesterday about Buffett and his trades in Japan, right,

00:47:51.840 | he bought these five trading companies. And so just a really

00:47:55.000 | novel carry trade that I've really fallen in love with just

00:47:57.320 | understanding it. But the kodak to that is that when he did

00:48:01.240 | this, and going long Japan, what he actually also did was he

00:48:04.840 | delivered himself from China, he had a long position in TSMC. And

00:48:08.280 | he said, I'm out. And when they asked him why he sold TSMC, he

00:48:12.520 | said, this is a very complicated thing. And he basically said

00:48:16.760 | that it's not a bet that's worth making. And I think underneath

00:48:20.600 | that, if I had to guess what he's trying to say about Taiwan

00:48:23.440 | indirectly, through his sale of TSMC is the odds are that we are

00:48:28.680 | not going to get into a land war over there, which means that

00:48:32.280 | that asset and its equity value is in danger, and I don't want

00:48:36.920 | to own it. And I think that that's a very clinical summation

00:48:41.960 | of his rational action. So to your point,

00:48:44.240 | well, here's what Blinken said speak with their dog. I think

00:48:46.360 | this is very important. You know, the one China policy says

00:48:48.600 | Taiwan is part of China. It's not an independent country. But

00:48:51.280 | we've had a very ambiguous and tolerance for this ambiguity of

00:48:55.440 | Taiwan acting as its own nation, while saying we support the one

00:48:58.920 | China policy. And that ambiguity has served us very well in the

00:49:03.640 | China relationship. Here's a blanket set at the press

00:49:05.960 | conference, quote, we do not support Taiwan independence, we

00:49:09.560 | remain opposed to any unilateral changes to the status quo by

00:49:12.960 | either side. The status quo he's referring to here, Brad is that

00:49:16.560 | they get to be independent in Taiwan. But we don't say they're

00:49:20.320 | independent. They are obviously acting in an independent manner.

00:49:23.360 | But it is not our business to tell the Taiwanese people that

00:49:27.600 | they're independent or not. It's their decision to determine if

00:49:30.960 | they're independent or not. Any thoughts on the trade by Buffett

00:49:36.680 | and Blinken? I think that last comment at the press conference

00:49:40.040 | and this ambiguity,

00:49:40.840 | I think we want to maintain the ambiguity, I think we're

00:49:44.200 | basically saying to China, don't change the status quo, at least

00:49:49.920 | for now. Right? While we rebuild these chip fabs in Arizona and

00:49:55.680 | other parts of the world, I think most of the wealthy

00:49:58.600 | families I've talked to, from Taiwan believe that five or six

00:50:02.560 | years from now, the US will no longer be in the position where

00:50:06.160 | they will need Taiwan and Taipei as much as they do today. And

00:50:10.520 | they're worried

00:50:11.200 | you think it will take to be independent, say it one more

00:50:12.960 | time and explain it.

00:50:13.640 | Well, it's not about being independent. It's how much

00:50:17.840 | longer will Taiwan have what they believe to be de facto

00:50:21.960 | protection from the United States. And I was told by one

00:50:26.320 | very influential Taiwanese family that they believe when

00:50:30.120 | the fifth chip fab comes online in Arizona, which I think is

00:50:34.600 | scheduled for 25 or 26, they intended to have most of their

00:50:38.880 | family members out of Taiwan at that period in time. Now, I

00:50:43.040 | think most Taiwanese don't envision this being, you know, a

00:50:46.760 | violent invasion of Taiwan, it's more of a take under in the same

00:50:51.160 | way that Hong Kong was. And so I don't see an American president

00:50:56.840 | frankly going to war, nor would I want them to go to war over

00:51:00.520 | Taiwan. But I think it's in all of our interest to maintain that

00:51:04.080 | status quo, which is why taunting the Chinese over the

00:51:07.400 | course of the past few years over Taiwan has seemed like a

00:51:12.800 | policy that's not fit with our goals.

00:51:15.040 | Right? Well, if you look at skin in the game, the fact that the

00:51:18.440 | chips act went through so quickly, the fact that Warren

00:51:21.240 | Buffett, as you pointed out, Schmott made his bet. And this

00:51:23.760 | family that has obviously, you know, skin in the game, quite

00:51:27.360 | literally, are making these decisions. I think we know where

00:51:30.000 | this is headed, you can just follow the bets. And if you look

00:51:32.680 | at the bets in five years, dollars, follow the dollars, I

00:51:35.640 | mean, and also where people put themselves, geographically,

00:51:39.200 | everybody left Hong Kong, when the turnover happened or before

00:51:42.520 | it, they went to Singapore, they went to UAE, they voted with

00:51:45.880 | their feet and their dollars. And that's obviously what's

00:51:48.200 | going to happen here. This is a good pivot. Because this

00:51:52.160 | criticism of the Ukraine policy by Matt, that sacks pointed out

00:51:57.880 | came because there is a belief on his part and others, that the

00:52:03.800 | pod here, all in, is putting its unilateral support behind RFK.

00:52:09.320 | And that is not true. There are two people on the pod, who

00:52:12.360 | hosted a fundraiser last week. And here is what Matt

00:52:18.080 | incorrectly said, because I have not put my support behind RFK. I

00:52:22.400 | think he's very interesting, and I'm glad he's in the race. And

00:52:25.880 | neither has Friedberg, but Schmock and sacks did host one

00:52:29.880 | and I'll hand it over to them. But here's what Matt said in his

00:52:32.200 | sub stack. And even though it's not the subject of this post, I

00:52:36.760 | do want to say that I think it's really sleazy and gross for the

00:52:41.160 | hosts of the all in podcast to be engaging in this Kennedy

00:52:43.920 | booster ism as a bang shot way of harming Joe Biden's

00:52:48.120 | reelection prospects, notwithstanding the recent

00:52:50.440 | convergence around Russia policy, Kennedy represents

00:52:53.520 | precisely the strand of progressive thought that right

00:52:56.560 | of center business people have highly have rightly spent the

00:52:59.480 | better part of the century bemoaning his is an anti

00:53:02.400 | progress anti technology, ultimately anti human worldview

00:53:06.040 | that stands against biomedical progress, against progress and

00:53:09.560 | against

00:53:09.840 | the guy who wants to blow up as many Ukrainians as possible as

00:53:13.200 | an old lead. Yeah, exactly. This is anti human. Listen, I don't

00:53:17.440 | even think we should be giving him this much time.

00:53:19.080 | Well, no, but I think it is important that because people

00:53:21.200 | now have connected this pod with the rise of RFK. This was the

00:53:24.720 | first

00:53:25.000 | major either. What a glacey Iglesias is accusing us somehow

00:53:28.920 | of do of supporting RFK not because of issues, but somehow

00:53:33.480 | because it's a bang shot for Donald Trump, which is

00:53:35.920 | ridiculous. None of us support Donald Trump. He's not even my

00:53:39.040 | preferred candidate in the Republican lane.

00:53:41.320 | Well, what he said was a bang shot against Biden, just to be

00:53:44.080 | clear.

00:53:44.360 | I would prefer I prefer your against. I prefer RFK to Biden.

00:53:50.080 | It's that simple. What's what's wrong with that? He's not even

00:53:52.760 | making any arguments here. Look, we've explained in a lot of

00:53:55.360 | detail. And I explained in my response, all the issues where I

00:53:59.040 | support RFK supports free speech over censorship, he supports

00:54:03.160 | civil liberties over the surveillance state. He supports

00:54:05.440 | peace instead of war. He supports sealing the southern

00:54:07.920 | border virtually alone among Democrats and talking sense on

00:54:11.800 | that issue. And I believe that he's completely correctly

00:54:15.320 | diagnosed what we're doing in Ukraine. So on the

00:54:18.440 | issue, disagree with him on some issues, right? You disagree with

00:54:21.440 | him on nuclear, and you may disagree with him and his

00:54:24.280 | anti-vax stance, if he is in fact anti-vax.

00:54:26.800 | I just hold on, let's finish those.

00:54:28.320 | I think he was right about COVID lockdowns. And I think he was

00:54:30.600 | right about right COVID, the so called COVID shot that wasn't

00:54:34.160 | even a vaccine that that should not have been required.

00:54:36.840 | But what about those two issues? You obviously disagree with him

00:54:39.320 | on some things. Do you disagree with him on his anti-vax stuff

00:54:42.360 | and his nuclear stuff?

00:54:43.480 | I don't know enough about those issues to have like a firm

00:54:47.640 | stance. What I would say is that every candidate represents a

00:54:50.720 | bundle of issues. And you support the ones who are aligned

00:54:57.120 | with you on the issues that are most important to you, on the

00:55:00.520 | issues that are most important to me, which are these

00:55:03.160 | questions, the great questions of war and peace, and the

00:55:06.440 | questions of free speech and censorship. And even I would say

00:55:09.800 | the question of the economy and who do we prioritize, because he

00:55:13.880 | wants to prioritize the middle class. On those big questions, I

00:55:17.840 | feel like I'm aligned with RFK. Perfect. So that's why I support

00:55:21.560 | him. Let me go to China. By the way, do you think Jack Dorsey is

00:55:24.760 | is supporting RFK as a bank shot something or other? No, he's

00:55:28.960 | supporting it because he agrees to RFK on these questions of war

00:55:31.960 | and peace. Okay. And free speech.

00:55:34.240 | Great. I'm just letting everybody be very clear about

00:55:37.680 | their position since this is becoming the support of RFK by

00:55:41.320 | this podcast, or two of the four people in the podcast is now

00:55:43.800 | becoming kind of national news.

00:55:45.200 | Iglesias is even making any arguments here. He's just

00:55:47.680 | applying derogatory labels to us. Yeah, what this is, this is

00:55:51.640 | a disciplinary tactic or a shaming tactic. Yes, by the

00:55:55.920 | sort of enforcers for the establishment, right? Want to

00:56:00.200 | prevent independent thinkers from stepping out a line. I

00:56:03.480 | agree. That's what this is about.

00:56:04.640 | It looks like this outsider went to the Dalton School, University.

00:56:08.560 | So there you have it.

00:56:09.480 | Yeah, you got a $2 million education doesn't know what a

00:56:11.600 | basis point is.

00:56:13.560 | He's the guy with the basis points, right?

00:56:15.480 | Good luck with your substat.

00:56:20.720 | My god,

00:56:22.320 | Chamath, you are pro nuclear. You've been very clear about

00:56:25.120 | that. Although you're pro renewables. Mostly, you've been

00:56:27.920 | clear about that on this podcast, and many conversations

00:56:30.400 | I've had with you. You are also pro vaccine, but you're anti

00:56:33.400 | what happened with the lockdown. So maybe you could expand upon

00:56:36.920 | your support of RFK, why you held a fundraiser for him and

00:56:40.880 | what things you agree with him on and maybe what things you

00:56:43.480 | don't necessarily agree with him on?

00:56:44.960 | Well, first, I actually did what I think a lot of people haven't

00:56:51.240 | done, which is just listen to him just stop talking. zip the

00:56:56.760 | old yapper. And there is an enormous amount of long form

00:57:01.600 | content where you can really understand where he stands on

00:57:06.880 | some of these topics. He's right about the war on Ukraine, we

00:57:11.800 | shouldn't be in. He's right about free speech, which is we

00:57:17.040 | should have it. He's right that the COVID vaccine was not a

00:57:25.200 | vaccine. And really what it's done is actually discredit the

00:57:30.320 | word vaccine, unfortunately, in a lot of people's minds. He

00:57:35.280 | actually is a person that is pro vaccine for all these other

00:57:38.920 | vaccines. He himself is vaccinated, his children are

00:57:41.720 | vaccinated. You would all know this stuff. If you just took two

00:57:45.060 | minutes to just listen to it. He is against the COVID vaccine.

00:57:48.760 | And what I would say is, I'm very sympathetic to that. I'm

00:57:53.340 | very sympathetic to the job the FDA had to do. And I think they

00:57:56.240 | generally did do a great job. But we ran something through and

00:58:01.920 | we allowed it to be labeled a word that misappropriates what

00:58:06.760 | it is. It's not a vaccine. And the problem with that is that it

00:58:11.280 | now makes people mistrust the measles, mumps and rubella

00:58:15.000 | vaccine. That's crazy. You shouldn't mistrust the MMR

00:58:18.720 | vaccine or DTAP. But because those things are lumped in with

00:58:22.680 | the same thing as a COVID vaccine that is at best 30 or 40%

00:58:26.240 | efficacious. We have these problems. He calls that out

00:58:29.420 | pretty honestly. So I like the fact that he actually speaks in

00:58:34.460 | nuance. I like the fact that when I listened to him, I find

00:58:39.740 | that the talking head think police are generally lying. It

00:58:45.380 | confirms what I believe about them. Because he just says

00:58:49.220 | things in a very plain spoken, intelligent way. And I think

00:58:54.440 | that there are a lot of folks who don't want to think who want

00:58:57.380 | to be given the simple answer, who want to just reject what he

00:59:02.660 | stands for and just take the establishment view in the hopes

00:59:05.480 | that they'll get, I don't know, maybe accepted by the

00:59:08.780 | establishment, the establishment just wants to curate power. And

00:59:13.300 | I just think that people should be thinking for themselves. If

00:59:15.800 | you listen to the Rogan podcast, if you listen to the Jordan

00:59:18.320 | Peterson podcast, there are millions and millions and

00:59:22.940 | millions of links and page views and discussions and thoughts.

00:59:26.580 | And there's probably 1000s of minutes of RFK explaining what

00:59:30.180 | he thinks on basically any topic you can imagine, you can get to

00:59:33.180 | your own conclusion. And I think what I think you'll find and

00:59:37.740 | this is true for me is there's 10% of stuff you are just the

00:59:42.580 | he immensely supportive of 70% of stuff that's like quite

00:59:47.260 | reasonable and fair. And then there's the rest, which is a

00:59:51.980 | spectrum of things I disagree with. But then you're left with

00:59:55.100 | a blended expected value where you're like, man, this guy is

00:59:57.980 | really better than all the other alternatives. Brad, I'll let you

01:00:01.980 | go. And then I'll give my position.

01:00:03.460 | What I find most insidious about the opposition to this

01:00:08.380 | discussion is people are upset that you're not swearing an

01:00:13.140 | allegiance to a dogmatism. Right? The truth of the matter

01:00:17.700 | is this group has hosted dinners for Ro Khanna. For Senator

01:00:22.620 | Manchin. We've hosted dinners for DeSantis. Right? Had I been

01:00:27.580 | here, I would have put my name on the dinner for Kennedy

01:00:31.660 | because I want to gather information. I'm an analyst, I

01:00:35.260 | want to think for myself, how can we spend trillions and put

01:00:40.340 | ourselves into potentially harm's way without having a

01:00:44.980 | real conversation in Congress and on these pods about the risk

01:00:49.580 | of war? Why can't we have an authentic postmortem about the

01:00:55.060 | efficacy of the COVID vaccine without being shame? The

01:00:58.820 | revolution going on in this country, which is fantastic, from

01:01:01.940 | my perspective, is that there is no longer a monopolistic control

01:01:06.660 | over the discussion. And that's why this podcast and this

01:01:10.980 | friendship, and the conversation we all had here is resonating

01:01:15.460 | with people because they also want to hear all the different

01:01:19.020 | sides because most people are capable are way smarter than the

01:01:22.940 | elites on the coast thing. You know, I'm from Indiana, lots of

01:01:27.140 | smart folks who think for themselves in Indiana, but

01:01:30.100 | they're told told by coastal elites what to think. And they

01:01:33.620 | reject this. And that's what you're seeing in this discussion

01:01:36.580 | and so many of these others. It's not about that. It's not

01:01:39.020 | about vaccines. It's not about a war. It's about their control

01:01:43.020 | over how you think and them wanting to force you to swear to

01:01:47.340 | an orthodoxy.

01:01:48.780 | I think that's really well said.

01:01:50.300 | Yeah, yeah, that is well said. But the way they try to control

01:01:53.140 | what you think is by labeling candidates so as to exclude

01:01:58.500 | them or make them sound crazy. So J Cal, I mean, you kind of

01:02:01.820 | introduced RFK as an anti Vaxxer. I don't think that is

01:02:06.380 | the correct way to describe his position, or the singular way

01:02:10.860 | that he should be labeled.

01:02:11.900 | No, I don't. I don't believe that I said, Here are the things

01:02:14.100 | he believes that we agree with. And then I gave the things that

01:02:16.620 | the media is saying, you know, so I was trying to present the

01:02:19.740 | totality of it. And I said, he is obviously in favor of the

01:02:23.420 | middle class and all this stuff. So I want to be clear on my

01:02:27.260 | position here. So I am in support of vibrant, long form

01:02:31.500 | debate like we have here. And I'm in support of anybody who

01:02:34.980 | takes on the establishment, because there are crazy

01:02:37.780 | incentives as we talk about here, incentives matter. And we

01:02:41.140 | are long overdue for discussion on vaccines. But it's very

01:02:44.820 | important that everybody understand here that everybody

01:02:46.860 | on this podcast took the COVID vaccine. And everybody here, our

01:02:51.020 | kids have been vaccinated. It's not a vaccine. Exactly. So they

01:02:54.140 | took the

01:02:54.740 | experimental mRNA treatment because we got hoodwinked by the

01:02:59.980 | media into thinking it would prevent us from ever getting

01:03:02.780 | COVID which it did not do. I think I got

01:03:05.780 | vaccines are good. And the COVID thing was not very good.

01:03:12.740 | And it reduced death in older people and probably was the only

01:03:15.740 | group of people and we'll we'll know when we do a postmortem.

01:03:18.500 | But do not

01:03:20.860 | have this mRNA like flowing through our bodies, who knows,

01:03:24.540 | it might be a time bomb.

01:03:25.580 | Well, and then for people who are wondering, like if we

01:03:29.420 | should even be having these discussions, the hypocrisy of

01:03:32.580 | the media, I think is very important to look at here

01:03:36.300 | because the media is gonna be attacking this podcast over and

01:03:38.460 | over again, not that it matters. But when we moved into the top

01:03:42.020 | 100 top 50 top 10. That's when the knives came out. And I would

01:03:46.340 | like to remind the media of the long history of investigative

01:03:51.140 | journalism and debates what was once a conspiracy theory often

01:03:55.860 | goes on to win a Pulitzer Prize. And, you know, the hypocrisy

01:04:00.260 | here is crazy. Because if you look at some of the greatest

01:04:03.420 | stories and investigative journalists pieces, they started

01:04:06.460 | with these debates, rumors, etc. Abu grab. That was the New

01:04:10.060 | Yorker. Ralph Nader reporting that was supporting and he can't

01:04:15.340 | now they're right, they can't get the time of day for his

01:04:18.620 | report on who really destroyed Nordstrom, the Catholic Church

01:04:22.300 | sex scandal, the Boston Globe, the mainstream media does not

01:04:25.300 | perform the function that you're describing anymore. They act as

01:04:28.460 | the bodyguard for the elite for the establishment. They

01:04:31.860 | actually have even a layer of stenographers for the people in

01:04:35.220 | power. Not exactly true. They have actually done incredible

01:04:38.700 | reporting, but there is a group of them which is towing the

01:04:41.980 | party line because you have the New York Times in their expose

01:04:44.540 | on the taxi commission that won a Pulitzer in 2020. And then you

01:04:49.500 | look at apps. I know you don't follow Pulitzers or

01:04:51.940 | investigative journalism in 2020. Brian Rosenthal at the New

01:04:55.220 | York Times did a massive expose on the predatory New York City

01:04:58.820 | taxi industry. And that

01:05:00.660 | there's a few other issues that might be more important to the

01:05:05.580 | nation. It was an example of protectionism and rent seeking

01:05:10.060 | the Enron scandal, big tobacco 60 minutes. What about the

01:05:13.860 | pretzel monopoly in the south part of the Bronx? What about

01:05:17.540 | that hot dog vendor on? You guys are uninformed. didn't have all

01:05:21.860 | those licenses up to date. I thought there was a whole lot

01:05:24.500 | about the big expose on that. You guys are the fact is at the

01:05:28.980 | same time that the New York Times CNN were attacking what

01:05:33.300 | Uber was doing. The New York Times won a fucking Pulitzer for

01:05:38.580 | their coverage of predatory loans by rich, powerful people

01:05:41.940 | right in New York City.

01:05:43.060 | I bet they also did a great story on the guy selling

01:05:45.500 | trinkets outside Penn Station without a license. He was a man

01:05:49.220 | of the people like yourselves actually should actually be more

01:05:51.300 | informed. Okay, well, what they should be reporting on, for

01:05:54.060 | example, but if they really, if the Pulitzers work the way they

01:05:58.340 | should, is where patient zero came from on COVID.

01:06:02.460 | Because Michael Schoenberg just reported this over the last

01:06:05.740 | weekend, it got picked up by the Wall Street Journal, that

01:06:08.020 | patient zero, it turns out, was a researcher at the lab, who was

01:06:13.900 | performing gain of function research. Yeah, shocker. Another

01:06:17.780 | conspiracy theory proven true,

01:06:19.860 | and will wind up being a Pulitzer.

01:06:21.780 | He deserves a Pulitzer.

01:06:23.780 | He does. And the crazy thing about this quote unquote

01:06:26.460 | conspiracy theory turned out to be true is like it brought

01:06:28.820 | together the most odd bedfellows Rand Paul and john Stewart, when

01:06:35.220 | rank Paul and john Stewart can be in a room and agree on

01:06:38.300 | basically the totality of a topic, we should all just pay

01:06:41.660 | attention because it's not it's not a normal world in which

01:06:44.580 | these guys would otherwise get along. Right. And both of them

01:06:49.300 | nailed it from day one,

01:06:50.820 | right to have the same name. But now connect the dots further.

01:06:53.980 | Okay, why was the truth suppressed? Why did it not come

01:06:57.820 | out? Because Fauci had funded gain of function research at the

01:07:02.100 | Wuhan lab via EcoHealth Alliance. So he knew that if at

01:07:07.820 | the beginning of this pandemic, it turned out that he had been

01:07:11.620 | partially responsible for the creation of this virus that had

01:07:15.460 | now turned into a pandemic around the world, his career

01:07:18.340 | would have been over

01:07:19.220 | and it's worse. It's even worse than that. 46% of the

01:07:24.060 | advertising on TV news comes from farm and we did not always

01:07:28.860 | allow pharma spending. And this is may not be one to one, it may

01:07:33.020 | not be that a specific person doing a report at CNN or Fox or

01:07:37.940 | any of the networks is saying, Oh, I'm going to lose my job if

01:07:41.060 | I write something critical of pharma, but they're not doing

01:07:44.300 | the investigative pieces on I can tell you this on the people

01:07:47.460 | who have 46% of their advertising revenue, unless it

01:07:51.020 | really, you know, gets to the final inning on something and

01:07:55.100 | right and that is something that we need to question, right? The

01:07:59.260 | media is funded 46% by pharma companies, and pharma companies

01:08:05.980 | were given a pass. And if you criticize any of the pharma

01:08:09.580 | companies, the media is going to come for you. And so listen, I'm

01:08:13.020 | not a tinfoil, but you do have a

01:08:15.420 | lot of oil. Listen, the media is funded by big pharma and its

01:08:19.620 | primary sources are these high level government employees who

01:08:23.260 | have been there forever, who leak them information. That is

01:08:26.460 | why the New York Times was carrying water for Fauci and big

01:08:29.580 | pharma. This is the marriage of state power and corporate greed

01:08:33.740 | that RFK Jr denounces. Yeah.

01:08:36.820 | Well, there you have it, folks. So and he believes he could be

01:08:40.900 | assassinated by the CIA.

01:08:42.420 | No, he didn't say it like that.

01:08:43.860 | He didn't say it like that. He was asked what what is his

01:08:47.340 | strategy on campaigning and all of that stuff? And he said,

01:08:51.740 | Look, I'm going to do as much as possible. But one thing that

01:08:55.100 | I'm going to avoid are like these open air parades just

01:08:59.180 | because there's just a lot of folks that we can't control

01:09:02.180 | crowd control. Yeah. Okay. Reasonable.

01:09:05.660 | Yeah, I mean, the conversation on Rogan went something like

01:09:08.180 | this. Rogan was asking questions about the Kennedy assassinations

01:09:11.820 | and RFK believes like something like 60% of the American public

01:09:16.700 | believes that Lee Harvey Oswald did not act alone. Then Rogan

01:09:20.700 | asked him, well, do you ever feel afraid? Running for office?

01:09:24.580 | And his answer was basically no, not really. It's not something

01:09:28.100 | that I'm preoccupied with. But yeah, I'll take precautions.

01:09:31.540 | Does that mean he thinks the CIA is going to assassinate him? No,

01:09:34.220 | that's not what he said. But that is how the media reported

01:09:36.820 | it, including Fox News that became the soundbite.

01:09:39.980 | Well, the soundbite from this podcast was that he believes his

01:09:42.820 | uncle was and his father were that the CIA was involved.

01:09:46.580 | I don't believe that Jason, a lot of people.

01:09:48.940 | I am not giving my opinion. I'm giving his opinion on it. He said

01:09:52.300 | it on this podcast, and the CIA won't release all the

01:09:54.700 | information to this day, even though they've been commanded to

01:09:57.340 | do so. So make your own decision, folks. According to

01:10:00.500 | Bloomberg, there is a ton of action for startup shares in

01:10:03.060 | secondary markets. If you don't know what a secondary market is.

01:10:05.340 | That's when one investor buys shares in a company that's not

01:10:09.060 | yet public directly from another investors on the cap table. So

01:10:12.380 | if stripe which is not yet public or Reddit, there are

01:10:15.740 | shares floating around in those companies, either previous

01:10:18.140 | employees or previous investors, one firm might see an

01:10:21.060 | opportunity there and buy them. As this process of bottoming out

01:10:24.420 | has occurred, pitch book reported, Tiger Global told

01:10:28.140 | secondary investors and that's a class of people who like to buy

01:10:30.540 | these, that they could bid on any individual private company

01:10:34.020 | in its portfolio. They tried to sell a bundle of these shares,

01:10:37.860 | about 30 startups at a time. But they couldn't find buyers

01:10:41.300 | according to the reports. So now they're allowing people to bid

01:10:44.180 | on per company on a per company basis. Some of these are being

01:10:47.660 | marked down a third 50%, etc. Here's the quote from

01:10:52.740 | Bloomberg, as of May 31 shares of startups were trading at a

01:10:57.060 | median discount of 61% compared to valuations at their latest

01:11:00.300 | funding rounds, according to report by forge global holdings.

01:11:03.580 | A 16, according to the report is actively buying shares in

01:11:06.860 | secondary Excel Bain Bessemer Kleiner are also using secondary

01:11:10.500 | to grow stakes in their existing investments doubling down. As it

01:11:14.300 | were crossover firms like cotu Tiger grow global. And even

01:11:18.660 | Brad's altimeter are actively searching for deals. So Brad,

01:11:22.100 | your thoughts on this is this sign of a bottom? And why are

01:11:25.500 | you doing this? It's

01:11:26.380 | Yeah, it is. It is true. I mean, our job is to look at all these

01:11:30.980 | companies understand their value. Okay, you know, I'm

01:11:32.940 | sitting here looking at a list that I was given this morning

01:11:35.340 | 125 companies secondary, you know, the Goldman Sachs

01:11:39.620 | unprofitable tech index in the public markets is down 64% as of

01:11:45.100 | this one,

01:11:45.580 | unprofitable public,

01:11:47.540 | they put together a basket, they track unprofitable public

01:11:50.900 | companies down 64% off of its peak as as of this morning. So

01:11:55.860 | you just quoted the Bloomberg article saying, yeah, these

01:11:58.060 | unprofitable tech companies in the private markets are down

01:12:00.940 | about 60 61%. That smells right to me. The repricing have to

01:12:06.580 | occur. These have to occur. Right? There are 1400 unicorns

01:12:12.060 | at the end of 2022. And 100% of them will likely do a down run.

01:12:16.820 | And if you said what is the average that they're going to be

01:12:19.980 | down? It's over 50%. You saw the repricing out of some of the

01:12:24.580 | best ones, like a canva or a stripe where it was down, let's

01:12:28.340 | call it 30 4050%. But you know, they're going to be companies

01:12:32.220 | like in the public markets that are down 80 or 90% and

01:12:35.300 | disappear altogether. So we didn't see the repricings. Okay.

01:12:40.020 | And by the way, when we say, you know, that article quotes,

01:12:44.700 | forge, that is what the sellers are offering to sell shares for.

01:12:50.140 | That is not where transactions are clearing. Right? So why has

01:12:55.780 | an altimeter purchased any of this because the prices aren't

01:12:58.740 | low enough to induce me to get off the sidelines to purchase

01:13:02.820 | the shares, but we're within kind of, you know, we're

01:13:05.620 | starting to get in the zone where we can underwrite to a

01:13:09.900 | margin of safety competitive or better than the public markets

01:13:13.500 | for companies that we think are great companies. Now out of

01:13:16.020 | those 414 100 unicorns at the end of 22, there are probably

01:13:20.820 | less than 5% of those companies I would even want to own at the

01:13:25.060 | right price. Right? So it's a small subset of companies, the

01:13:29.380 | price has to get to this clearing point. But you know, I

01:13:32.900 | think over the course of the next 18 months, we're going to

01:13:36.060 | see an acceleration of market clearing events as these

01:13:39.940 | companies need to raise capital as their employees want to get

01:13:43.140 | liquid on shares. And it's probably see some great

01:13:47.460 | opportunities. But most of these things that get put on sale

01:13:51.140 | should not be purchased, right? Most of them, even you know, the

01:13:55.460 | first sale price is never the last sale price, the markdown

01:13:58.740 | on the black t shirts will continue.

01:14:00.500 | Tomatha sacks, any thoughts? Are you buying in secondary? Are

01:14:04.300 | you looking at this? Yeah,

01:14:05.220 | we'll look at secondary deals. It's not primarily what we do,

01:14:07.900 | but we're open to it. But Brad, if you were to categorize the

01:14:10.820 | 1400 unicorns into one of three categories, what do you think

01:14:14.420 | the percentages would be those three categories being zombie

01:14:18.060 | corns, like unicorn companies that just don't deserve to

01:14:22.580 | exist in our product market fit, they're going to go away.

01:14:24.620 | Category two would be viable companies that are just over

01:14:28.620 | pricing are headed for a down round. And the number three

01:14:31.220 | would be the ones that are actually headed for an up round.

01:14:34.500 | Yeah, I'd say 30 to 40% are these companies that were valued

01:14:40.300 | over a billion dollars that don't have product market fit,

01:14:42.620 | they'll disappear.

01:14:43.540 | zombie companies that will disappear.

01:14:46.100 | Right. And listen, just just to be fair, let's explain. Most of

01:14:50.860 | these companies, right have less than 200 million of preference,

01:14:55.980 | preferred shares that venture capitalists invest into the

01:14:59.820 | company. And many of those companies in that 30 40%. There's

01:15:03.980 | a team, there's some asset of value, they may be able to, you

01:15:07.900 | know, sell the talent of the team and recoup, David, let's

01:15:11.020 | call it 30 40% of the prep stack, right in that

01:15:15.420 | transaction, we're starting to see some of those occur. Then I

01:15:18.900 | think the lion's share of the companies that are left, let's

01:15:22.700 | call it, you know, another 40%. These are companies that should

01:15:27.660 | never have been marked at these prices, right, but they do have

01:15:30.860 | a business, and they're going to be marked down, you know, 50 to

01:15:34.260 | 80%. But all of the like, none of those have been able to grow

01:15:39.300 | through it, then there's less than 10% of the companies,

01:15:42.220 | right, whose growth has been so robust through this period, that

01:15:46.820 | they've actually grown into or within 10 15% of those prior

01:15:51.300 | prices. And if you do all of that work, it puts us back on

01:15:55.900 | trendline. Right. The only thing unusual here is how far off

01:15:59.820 | trendline we had 1400 unicorns, right in 2020. We had I think

01:16:05.980 | 145 IPOs. In the last two years, we've had four. Okay, so there

01:16:12.820 | is a huge backlog. These companies aren't getting public

01:16:15.780 | why because public market buyers, like ourselves, we're

01:16:18.420 | not willing to pay the prices that were in the private

01:16:20.940 | market. So the first step is to just have these clearing events.

01:16:24.540 | And it's David, you and I heard sober talk over the course of

01:16:28.260 | the last couple of days, I think they, you know, said to the

01:16:31.060 | founders very clearly, you need to sell your businesses or you

01:16:34.020 | need to get profitable. There is no middle ground.

01:16:36.500 | In other news, Ford has been issued a conditional $9.2

01:16:39.860 | billion loan from the US Department of Energy to build

01:16:42.860 | out 3123 EV battery factories specific alone is coming through

01:16:47.780 | the Department of Energy's LPO. That's the loan programs office

01:16:51.900 | got about 400 billion to lend out. You might remember this

01:16:55.780 | from 2010 when they gave cylindra a 123 batteries, which

01:17:01.820 | eventually went bankrupt and got bought by a Chinese company, I

01:17:04.340 | believe, and Tesla, a $465 million loan, Tesla paid it

01:17:08.260 | back. The other two didn't test payback with interest. Jigar

01:17:11.620 | Shah, the director of the loan program office described the

01:17:14.900 | lending moves as a way to onshore and reshore

01:17:17.700 | manufacturing. The goal of the program is not innovation, but

01:17:22.340 | to get more of the supply chain to be manufactured in the US

01:17:26.900 | guests. Some people are criticizing this just out of the

01:17:31.740 | gate with why should we be giving these loans to companies

01:17:36.100 | shouldn't this be the private sector doing it? What are your

01:17:38.380 | thoughts here? Is this a good idea? A great idea? Neutral

01:17:42.380 | idea? It's a great idea.

01:17:45.420 | Spline, it's us using our balance sheet to make sure that

01:17:48.820 | we get to energy independence. So this is actually a perfect

01:17:52.180 | role for government. It's shaping incentives so that

01:17:57.020 | capitalism can do its job. What this does for Ford is Ford has a

01:18:01.420 | partnership with SK. And so SK has a lot of capability in Korea,

01:18:07.220 | but they can bring that know how now, domestically on short of

01:18:10.500 | the United States, you'll be hiring 1000s of people, you'll

01:18:13.140 | be building battery factories, or it needs batteries, their

01:18:15.940 | forecast is they'll be selling two and a half million electric

01:18:18.660 | vehicles by 2026 2027. So whatever Ford does, you can

01:18:23.340 | expect GM will also do you can expect all of the other big

01:18:27.460 | companies to do so this is all just great. And at the end of

01:18:29.860 | the day, for people to not over this is 9.8 billion, I guess it

01:18:35.340 | sounds like a lot, but we're probably spending $9.8 billion

01:18:38.380 | a day fighting wars. So this is a day of just taking a pause

01:18:43.100 | on all these dumb wars, and actually becoming energy

01:18:46.380 | reliant, carbon neutral, fixing the climate. It's great jobs,

01:18:53.460 | energy independence and less dependency on autocratic

01:18:57.020 | nations. It seems like good idea.

01:18:58.900 | Everything should be how about instead of thinking about it in

01:19:01.980 | terms of wars, let's think about it in terms of so if the the DOD

01:19:06.260 | budget is $800 billion, okay, per year, what is that 2.6

01:19:13.220 | billion a day 2.7 billion a day. Okay, so we're talking about

01:19:18.660 | three days, four days, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday,

01:19:22.500 | you want to say

01:19:23.180 | private should be doing I agree with your mouth about the wars.

01:19:30.180 | But this is all money we don't have. I mean, we shouldn't be

01:19:32.980 | spending the money on wars. And we shouldn't be spending it, I

01:19:35.420 | think, on industrial policy. So first of all, one of our friends

01:19:39.220 | who's an energy investor, we should keep his name, but was

01:19:42.500 | telling me that the energy subsidies that were in the, you

01:19:46.740 | know, misnamed inflation reduction act, it is like the

01:19:49.980 | biggest bonanza of all time. He said that the energy sector is

01:19:54.980 | going crazy now trying to figure out how to exploit these

01:19:59.420 | incentives. And his view is that although I think it was supposed

01:20:02.900 | to cost about $350 billion, he thought that it would ultimately

01:20:06.500 | cost the government somewhere around a trillion, because the

01:20:09.620 | way these subsidies work is that you just qualify for them. And

01:20:12.900 | then you get the subsidy. It's not like the credits run out. So

01:20:16.060 | if you qualify, you get it. So this could end up costing the

01:20:18.460 | government way more than what was originally projected. And so

01:20:22.140 | the question is, what are you going to get for all this money?

01:20:24.580 | And in this article on Ford, they were talking about these

01:20:28.300 | 7000 jobs are being created at a cost of $440,000 per job. So

01:20:34.780 | it's great that the jobs are being created. But if you look

01:20:38.020 | at the efficiency of that, that spend per job doesn't really

01:20:42.060 | make sense.

01:20:42.820 | I don't understand how you get that number. You take the

01:20:45.860 | article said it, the article said for 440,000. Do you take

01:20:50.060 | 9.8 billion and divided by 7,000? What do you do?

01:20:53.540 | I'm just quoting that paragraph of the article. So yeah, so the

01:20:56.860 | job creation is good. But you got to look at the efficiency of

01:20:59.060 | the job creation. The other thing is, the question I would

01:21:02.540 | ask you guys actually is, who wants one of these Ford EVs? Do

01:21:06.900 | you want an EV by Ford?

01:21:08.340 | I think there are a lot of people that drive a Ford pickup

01:21:11.740 | truck. We talked about this before. So that's one 50s coming.

01:21:15.700 | Yeah. Very popular. There was a an article in the Wall Street

01:21:19.340 | Journal a few months ago, which talked about the brand

01:21:21.940 | consideration cycle that has been going on. And there was a

01:21:25.140 | large look, we're friends with Elon, but we should acknowledge

01:21:27.980 | there's a large number of people that are frankly a little bit

01:21:31.180 | turned off by him. And they've been very clear that they want

01:21:34.100 | an alternative to Tesla because they don't want to buy Tesla

01:21:36.220 | because they don't necessarily prefer him as a brand ambassador

01:21:38.820 | for their car. And the reality of life is that even if you're

01:21:45.180 | like maximally incredible, unless you find some clever way

01:21:48.380 | of creating a monopoly, in which case you can be a douche or

01:21:51.980 | evil, you're only ever going to capture 30 plus 40% maybe have a

01:21:56.860 | market Coke, Pepsi is a good example. And so there's always

01:22:00.020 | going to be long tail alternatives. And, you know, I

01:22:03.260 | had a chance, for example, in Vegas to drive a Rivian, I was

01:22:06.140 | surprised at the quality or drive in a Rivian, I was

01:22:08.860 | surprised at the quality of Rivian only because I've been so

01:22:11.420 | focused on Tesla my whole life. So yeah, I think there are a lot

01:22:15.340 | of people that will buy Ford's doesn't well take anything away

01:22:17.860 | from what he wants doing. But I do think there are a lot of

01:22:19.580 | people that will buy it.

01:22:20.420 | My problem with industrial policy is this, you think about

01:22:23.020 | that EV summit that the White House did, they didn't even

01:22:25.260 | invite Elon. And that that was for political reasons, union

01:22:28.660 | reasons. Yeah, partly because of his views on speech, but I think

01:22:32.140 | mostly because he's not a union shop. And so that's the real

01:22:36.380 | reason why Ford is being doled out this sort of nine point

01:22:40.940 | something billion dollar loan is because they're politically

01:22:44.900 | connected with the right people in this current administration.

01:22:47.620 | And that's the problem with industrial policy is that the

01:22:50.140 | money gets handed out by government to the politically

01:22:53.020 | connected in this case, as opposed to the companies that

01:22:55.740 | may be producing the best products.

01:22:57.740 | The fact is Tesla did get one of these loans in 2010 when it was

01:23:00.300 | a very nascent company. So you got to give them some credit.

01:23:03.340 | They took a big risk there.

01:23:04.500 | But let's think about that for a second. Okay, because I know

01:23:06.420 | that example comes up a lot.

01:23:07.740 | And a 123 and cylinder.

01:23:09.780 | Yeah. So Elon was basically a fluke. I mean, you get like a

01:23:13.700 | once in a generation entrepreneur who happened to be

01:23:15.900 | working on this EV problem, and he got that loan. If you're to

01:23:19.700 | take Elon out of that government portfolio, it all looks like

01:23:23.460 | Solyndra. Yep. So the question is, like, what is this

01:23:27.460 | portfolio going to look like? Is there really gonna be another

01:23:29.540 | Elon in there? Because if not, there's gonna be a lot of

01:23:32.660 | cylinders.

01:23:33.380 | But even if they break even,

01:23:34.700 | there's gonna be a lot of subsidies to companies like

01:23:36.380 | Ford, which are politically connected. And I think a point

01:23:39.620 | freeberg would make if he were here, is that at some point,

01:23:43.580 | you're gonna have to turn off the subsidies because we can't

01:23:45.300 | afford it. And then at that point, is that factory gonna be

01:23:48.660 | self sufficient? Brad, you want to you've heard the two sides of

01:23:53.060 | the story here?

01:23:53.500 | And listen, while generally against industrial policy, I

01:23:58.260 | come down on Chema side, I think this is a once in a generation

01:24:01.380 | opportunity to reduce our national security, risk profile

01:24:07.260 | and to achieve what is really a national security imperative,

01:24:11.300 | which is energy independence. It's not going to happen just

01:24:14.580 | according to the invisible hand of the market. We see our

01:24:18.740 | you know, great power competitors who are using this

01:24:21.980 | against us, frankly, and have robust industrial policies. So

01:24:26.140 | I'm willing to stipulate that there will be those

01:24:28.620 | inefficiencies in this system. But I was lucky, lucky enough

01:24:32.060 | last night, I was having dinner with the Deputy Secretary of the

01:24:34.900 | Treasury while the Adi Amo who was out here meeting with

01:24:38.140 | founders, including battery founders in Silicon Valley, on

01:24:42.220 | this very subject. And I know some of the companies who are

01:24:45.260 | getting checks from the US government to scale up, right,

01:24:48.540 | innovative battery technologies in innovative chip

01:24:53.180 | manufacturing. And I have to say this is the best of America, I

01:24:57.540 | see some really great public private partnerships that are

01:25:01.820 | on shoring vital national interest in chips and batteries.

01:25:06.100 | And so I'm happy to see it happening. But I also know there

01:25:09.140 | will be grift and there will be waste along the way. But compare

01:25:12.580 | that David to the 8 trillion we've spent over the last 20

01:25:15.780 | years on war policy, and what we've gotten from that. So you

01:25:19.620 | know, you'd rather see us take chances here on innovative

01:25:24.660 | battery technologies, there's still potential waste, but not

01:25:27.260 | as wasteful as a war.

01:25:28.180 | Well, of course, I mean, the first thing we got to do is

01:25:30.300 | turn off all these crazy wars, but that can't be the bar

01:25:32.860 | because that's a very low bar. Anything's more productive than

01:25:36.140 | war wasting the money blowing up other countries that we don't

01:25:39.500 | need to be involved in. I mean, remember, we do have a $32

01:25:43.100 | trillion debt, I think a great thing to do here is what they

01:25:46.220 | should have done with Tesla, which is when they give that

01:25:48.740 | $500 million loan to Tesla, they should have gotten 10% of that

01:25:52.420 | in warrants to buy Tesla shares at the IPO 50 million at that

01:25:55.460 | IPO would have gone what 200 x. And that would have been an

01:25:59.300 | incredible payday. So if they give this 9.2 billion to Ford,

01:26:02.860 | why not get 900 million in one share?

01:26:05.420 | Government become a VC?

01:26:07.620 | No, I want them to get a little participation in the upside of

01:26:12.100 | the company. I don't want them to own it. I want to be

01:26:14.060 | potential participation. Well, I'm giving a modest number here.

01:26:17.660 | So right now,

01:26:18.740 | they're a VC without participation. But

01:26:21.260 | right now they're alone, that gets paid back with interest.

01:26:24.220 | And I'm saying give them some upside in the equity, even if

01:26:26.740 | it's a small piece. Would you object to that sex?

01:26:28.540 | You basically want to make them a venture debt provider? Like

01:26:31.460 | SVB? Basically, yeah, like venture debt. Give them a pot

01:26:33.820 | sweetener. Yes. Yes. Give them a pot sweetener. Why not

01:26:36.900 | work out so good for SVB? You may not remember that, but

01:26:39.620 | it would have worked out incredibly well with their

01:26:41.740 | pressing.

01:26:42.260 | My problem, you might drive a better deal for the US

01:26:45.620 | government in that case, which is fine with me. But it doesn't

01:26:49.100 | solve my objection, which at the end of the day, these decisions

01:26:51.900 | are gonna be made based on political criteria. Got it.

01:26:54.820 | Okay, and we're gonna end up with crony capitalism and state

01:26:57.300 | capitalism, as opposed to entrepreneurial capitalism.

01:26:59.740 | But this is in support of that, because this is a deal where

01:27:02.820 | that 9.8 billion does come over. But these are basically like

01:27:05.900 | loans and loan guarantees, and you still have to put up the

01:27:08.020 | equity yourself. That doesn't solve anybody's problem, meaning

01:27:10.820 | you need to still be entrepreneurial. And there needs

01:27:13.300 | to be risk capital. In this case, the risk capital is coming

01:27:15.380 | from Ford and SK. And I think that that's my understanding of

01:27:19.100 | this.

01:27:19.380 | percent of the cost or 95% of the cost. So there's not much risk

01:27:24.540 | capital here from Ford, or SK. I mean, it might be opportunity

01:27:27.860 | costs, but it's not the full cost of these three factories,

01:27:31.100 | almost $13 billion. So there's still a non trivial amount of

01:27:35.620 | risk, risk capital that has to get put to work here, man, I

01:27:38.100 | would love to only have to put up 20% on the dollar. 30 cents on

01:27:42.460 | the dollar my investments.

01:27:43.500 | I think Brad does make a good point about the security of our

01:27:46.340 | supply chain. I'm more willing to use this sort of industrial

01:27:50.140 | policy. We're talking about something that is vital to the

01:27:52.500 | security of the United States. I think you can make your you

01:27:54.740 | can make that argument with chips. I don't think electric

01:27:56.860 | vehicles rise to that quite that level.

01:27:58.980 | Batteries might? I don't know.

01:28:01.620 | I wouldn't say batteries do. But I think obtaining a secure

01:28:04.260 | supply of the rare earths that are needed to make batteries,

01:28:07.980 | that there's maybe a role for government.

01:28:10.060 | The reason batteries must is because the only way to wean

01:28:15.380 | ourself off of the dependence we have on fossil fuels around the

01:28:19.900 | world, and even though we produce, and we're now a net

01:28:23.340 | exporter of oil, the reality is we're still in entanglements

01:28:27.820 | around the world, because the world is dependent upon those

01:28:31.460 | fossil fuels. And so I do think that that is a national security

01:28:36.260 | interest having, you know, energy independence, not only

01:28:39.020 | for ourselves,

01:28:39.620 | if Germany was energy independent and kept their

01:28:41.700 | nuclear running and didn't have Nord Stream, we'd have a

01:28:43.420 | different situation here. And we'd have a much different

01:28:45.740 | situation.

01:28:46.260 | We got plenty of oil and gas over here.

01:28:48.420 | All right, everybody. There you have it from the architect

01:28:51.020 | drill. Trigger warning. I like to read a Thunberg tweet.

01:28:56.100 | Some off. That was a really good tweet. Shout out. Oh my god,

01:28:59.460 | the number of number of people I mean, did the mids like it or

01:29:03.260 | the mids hated it? What happened? Can I just address

01:29:05.380 | what this means? So when I think of somebody as a mid, it's

01:29:08.580 | somebody that is just a hapless, impotent cuck that can't think

01:29:14.500 | for themselves.

01:29:15.420 | Matt Iglesias.

01:29:16.940 | And so what I what I mean is that, you know, you become a

01:29:22.380 | billionaire every week. You know what this is? It's the all in

01:29:25.300 | podcast for clicks. If you 10 people have started, can I

01:29:29.020 | finish? Yes, good. It has nothing to do with your

01:29:31.740 | financial status. It's just everything to do with your open

01:29:36.060 | mindedness. And there are these people that are just so reactive

01:29:39.780 | on Twitter. I feel a little bit sad because I can a few years

01:29:42.900 | they'll still be very unaccomplished and yet still be

01:29:45.780 | wondering who they can blame now. And it'll just be them

01:29:50.340 | blame themselves. So I would just encourage these people to

01:29:53.180 | just fucking do some work. Put your head down, do the work. My

01:29:57.420 | God, build something, make something. So anyways, most most

01:30:00.660 | of the comments were really great and interesting. And then

01:30:03.020 | there's a couple of people who are like, Oh my god, how dare

01:30:05.100 | you? You know? And it's like, how dare I what? How dare I what

01:30:09.700 | exactly

01:30:10.220 | you can tell that this podcast has truly become successful when

01:30:14.220 | the mainstream media fights up and punches up to try to get us

01:30:17.780 | to respond to them to get more people to subscribe to their

01:30:19.980 | sub stack while playing Matt.

01:30:21.140 | I'll play the funniest thing. The funniest thing was I did

01:30:24.180 | this tweet about Buffett. And then people are like, Oh, but I

01:30:28.060 | thought you compared yourself to Buffett. And I was like, No, no

01:30:31.420 | comparison, just benchmarks. And the thing I tweaked about the

01:30:34.220 | word comparison versus benchmark. And then Carson

01:30:38.660 | block jumps in and I texted Carson on the side. I was like,

01:30:41.620 | bro, I'm just trolling the mids. Just don't worry. This is all

01:30:45.620 | bullshit. It's all just for shits and giggles. I do it. I do

01:30:49.100 | it when I'm either pooing or I haven't jet lagged.

01:30:52.380 | One of the it's on ambient or while taking a dump or both. No

01:30:56.860 | ambient, no, or the dictator, the architect, and bestie Brad,

01:31:03.100 | the fifth bestie, and our mass our new mascot, Matt, the

01:31:06.680 | mascot, who will be writing three more sub stacks about us.

01:31:09.980 | I am the world's greatest moderator. Can we make that

01:31:13.460 | shit bread logo our logo? Yes. To co choose. austerity measure

01:31:21.140 | lunch. We salute you. The all in lunch will not be a standard

01:31:25.700 | way. Did you guys touch it? Do you know what it was? Was it

01:31:27.740 | bread? Did you touch it? I didn't touch it. No. What was

01:31:31.460 | it? I abandoned it immediately. Is a vegan pretzel. I don't know.

01:31:35.580 | Is that what they call dog poop now a vegan pretzel?

01:31:39.820 | Friedberg was gonna be there. A vegan.

01:31:43.340 | Well, I mean,

01:31:45.140 | the WTF wants us eating insects. So this is I think that's

01:31:50.300 | probably what it looks like a vegan donut slash a doo doo.

01:31:54.500 | It's like a face when he opened that box. He just dropped it

01:32:01.140 | around. Like literally let

01:32:03.540 | I thought my seven year old had played a trick on me because

01:32:08.780 | types of like

01:32:10.420 | do do is the rubber ones.

01:32:13.060 | On Amazon once I've done that.

01:32:18.300 | The fake doodoo is great. I'm gonna buy some fake doodoo.

01:32:21.380 | Actually, you know what they should do? They should put that

01:32:23.460 | co2 should make fake doodoo and put it in the gift bag for all

01:32:25.860 | in summit. That would be a great little merch item. Alright,

01:32:28.580 | we'll see you all next time. Bye bye.

01:32:30.220 | Love you boys.

01:32:30.900 | Let your winners ride.

01:32:34.580 | Rain Man David

01:32:37.100 | we open source it to the fans and they've just gone crazy with

01:32:44.020 | it. Love you.

01:32:44.820 | West Side Queen of Kinwam

01:32:46.700 | going on

01:32:47.820 | besties are gone

01:32:54.500 | that is my dog taking a notice your driveway

01:32:58.020 | we should all just get a room and just have one big huge orgy

01:33:06.420 | because they're all just useless. It's like this like

01:33:08.300 | sexual tension that they just need to release somehow

01:33:11.700 | what you're about to be

01:33:15.380 | waiting to get murky

01:33:18.260 | ♪ I'm doing all in ♪

01:33:23.260 | ♪ I'm doing all in ♪

01:33:29.420 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

E134: Ukraine counteroffensive, China tensions, COVID Patient Zero, RFK Jr reaction & more

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