Epstein Files Flop, State of the Market, Autonomous Robots, Trump's Gold Card, Friedberg on Jeopardy

Summary

Podcast Summary: All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg

Episode Title: Epstein Files Flop, State of the Market, Autonomous Robots, Trump's Gold Card, Friedberg on Jeopardy
Release Date: March 1, 2025
Hosts: Chamath Palihapitiya, Jason Calacanis, David Sacks, David Friedberg
Guest: David Friedberg (featured hosting moment)

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Introduction

In this dynamic episode of the All-In Podcast, industry veterans and best friends Chamath Palihapitiya, Jason Calacanis, David Sacks, and David Friedberg delve into a myriad of pressing topics spanning economic policies, technological advancements, political maneuvers, social issues, and even a personal spotlight on David Friedberg’s recent appearance on Jeopardy. The conversation is rich with insightful analysis, candid banter, and thought-provoking predictions, making it an invaluable listen for anyone keen on understanding the current landscape of economics, technology, and politics.

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1. Epstein Files Flop: Unveiling the Hidden Information [02:46 - 04:36]

Chamath Palihapitiya kicks off a significant segment by discussing a leaked letter from Pam to Cash concerning Jeffrey Epstein. The letter reveals that the FBI had been withholding thousands of pages of investigative documents related to Epstein’s case. Chamath raises critical questions about government transparency and the potential misuse of power:

Chamath Palihapitiya [02:46]: "My question to you guys is, do you think that this is much ado about nothing, then that the FBI needs to have the discretion to be able to say no? Or do you think this is one of these things where you're not allowed to do what they're doing?"

Jason Calacanis and David Friedberg engage in a nuanced discussion about the implications of withheld information, considering factors like national security, informant protection, and the broader specter of deep-state conspiracies.

Jason Calacanis [03:01]: "What if they investigated a bunch of people, they were not guilty and then they were in the files. Maybe they need to look at them before they do a document up."

The hosts collectively ponder the balance between necessary governmental discretion and the public’s right to transparency, with Chamath expressing enthusiasm for the unfolding developments:

Chamath Palihapitiya [04:33]: "So I'm very excited to see these next two days unfold."

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2. David Friedberg on Jeopardy: Triumph and Tribulations [04:50 - 12:20]

Shifting the focus to a lighter yet engaging topic, the conversation turns to David Friedberg’s recent participation in Celebrity Jeopardy. Jason Calacanis enthusiastically shares Friedberg’s commendable performance:

Jason Calacanis [04:50]: "It was like watching the World Series of Poker or a Knicks warriors game for me."

David recounts his preparation and the unexpected challenges he faced on the show, particularly the difficulty in buzzing in timely:

David Friedberg [06:03]: "I kept missing. So I still did. Okay, Obviously."

The hosts laugh over Friedberg’s amusing slip-ups, such as misnaming Beethoven and struggling with categories like African geography. Chamath highlights a pivotal moment when Friedberg hit the Daily Double successfully:

Chamath Palihapitiya [06:39]: "Crushing their souls."

The camaraderie continues as they reflect on the experience’s impact on Friedberg, ultimately celebrating his victory and charitable contributions.

David Friedberg [12:20]: "The Humane Society of the United States, all the money went to charity."

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3. Autonomous Robots: The Future of Home Automation [14:12 - 17:43]

The episode takes a technological turn as the hosts discuss advancements in autonomous robots. Chamath shares insights from a tweet by Brett Adcock, CEO of Figure, announcing accelerated timelines for home-use robots:

Chamath Palihapitiya [14:22]: "Friend of the pod, Brett Adcock, who's the CEO and founder of Figure, he just announced today that he's moved his timelines up by two years. He's going to use beta testing robots in the home by the middle to end of this year."

They examine the current state of robotics, noting the impressive yet limited physical dexterity of the latest models. Chamath elaborates on the challenges faced:

Chamath Palihapitiya [16:25]: "The physical dexterity is still relatively limited. And I think that that doesn't allow these robots to be super functional in the next couple of years."

David Friedberg adds his perspective on the broader implications of robot integration into everyday life, emphasizing their potential utility on a ranch:

David Friedberg [17:43]: "I would love to have an all-purpose robot going out there and using the weed whacker and trimming the bushes and the hedges and getting me wood and collecting chicken eggs."

The discussion underscores the exciting yet nascent stage of autonomous robotics, highlighting both the technological breakthroughs and the obstacles that lie ahead.

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4. Stripe vs. Adyen: A Tale of Two Payment Giants [21:10 - 24:36]

Chamath and Jason delve into a comparative analysis of Stripe and Adyen, two titans in the payment processing industry. They reference a recent report highlighting key metrics:

Jason Calacanis [21:10]: "In terms of processing volume, Adyen 1.34 trillion. Stripe at 1.4 trillion. I mean, that's incredible that they're both in almost the same exact space."

Chamath breaks down the report’s major takeaways, emphasizing Stripe’s robust ecosystem:

Chamath Palihapitiya [21:55]: "The value of Stripe's ecosystem is probably underappreciated."

He discusses how Stripe’s diverse product offerings, such as its billing product generating half a billion dollars in Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR), create strong network effects, setting it apart from Adyen.

Chamath Palihapitiya [23:14]: "These are all ultimately ledger entries. And I think that the more that you can commoditize these things to be a simple ledger entry inside of two systems of record at two companies, that's a much better product feature."

The conversation highlights the rapid growth and higher margins of Stripe compared to Adyen, attributing the valuation differences to these strategic advantages.

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5. Market Update: Navigating Economic Indicators [25:00 - 41:47]

Jason Calacanis provides a comprehensive market update, touching on stock indices, major tech firms, Bitcoin trends, unemployment rates, and inflation:

Jason Calacanis [25:00]: "S and P up almost 2% so far this year. Nasdaq 100 flat. Dow up 3%. So pretty good start to the year in those index numbers."

Chamath and David analyze these indicators, expressing concerns over economic policies and their potential impacts. Chamath aligns with Stevie Cohen’s cautious outlook, citing tariffs and slowing immigration as red flags:

Chamath Palihapitiya [31:06]: "I tend to be sort of in the Stevie Cohen camp. It's not like the bottom is going to fall out, but there's a lot of room for concern, I guess is the best way to put it."

David adds his skepticism regarding the effectiveness of proposed economic cuts and tariffs, pondering over their long-term consequences:

David Friedberg [35:48]: "Is Trump actually going to pull forward the cuts that he has talked about or that Elon's talked about? How real is that?"

They discuss the complexities of balancing tariffs, tax cuts, and spending reductions, debating their collective impact on inflation, economic growth, and government deficits. The uncertainty surrounding these levers fuels their apprehension about future economic stability.

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6. Trump’s Golden Visa Proposal: Opportunities and Challenges [49:09 - 54:46]

A heated discussion unfolds around President Trump's proposal to sell citizenships, dubbed the "Golden Visa" program. Chamath introduces the concept, highlighting its potential appeal to wealthy individuals worldwide:

Chamath Palihapitiya [49:09]: "I'll give you a prediction. I'll give you a prediction. I will predict that within the next few months after this gets announced, you are going to hear about founders taking $5 million of secondary in a round to make sure that if they are non-Americans to get their visas, 100%."

Jason explores the market's reaction to this unprecedented proposal, considering the motivations of ultra-wealthy individuals:

Jason Calacanis [50:37]: "If you have $20 million, you would give 25% of your current net worth to get into the U.S. Of course, you're going to buy a house here worth 10 million."

David Friedberg remains skeptical about the program’s uptake, questioning its practicality given stringent vetting processes:

David Friedberg [54:46]: "He said there's a million people, Nick. The most probable is 1 to 2,500. I think that's probably right."

The hosts debate the feasibility and ethical implications of such a program, considering potential abuses and the actual demand among the global elite. Chamath and Jason propose optimistic scenarios where technological advancements and entrepreneurial opportunities could synergize with the Golden Visa initiative to stimulate upward mobility.

Jason Calacanis [53:42]: "Upward mobility could be so much better if a person... could put that $500 into this new product or service they're using."

However, David warns of adverse selections and the likelihood of predatory practices infiltrating the market, stressing the need for robust regulatory frameworks to protect less sophisticated investors.

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7. US Postal Service Reinvention: Efficiency and Profitability [66:14 - 74:19]

The conversation shifts to the United States Postal Service (USPS), addressing President Trump’s proposal to dissolve its leadership and integrate it into the Commerce Department. Jason outlines the financial struggles USPS faces:

Jason Calacanis [66:14]: "US Postal Services lost $10 billion last year on $80 billion in revenue."

Chamath offers constructive solutions, suggesting leveraging USPS’s extensive network for data collection to improve economic indicators and operational efficiencies:

Chamath Palihapitiya [67:46]: "One of the ideas that he went back to the president with was for the Postal Service to do the census which would save 4 billion a year."

They discuss the potential for selling underutilized real estate assets and restructuring the workforce to create a more sustainable and profitable USPS, emphasizing the need for innovation and strategic realignment.

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8. Jeff Bezos and The Washington Post: Editorial Shifts [74:39 - 75:00]

Jason brings up Jeff Bezos’s recent changes to the Washington Post’s editorial stance, sparking a debate on media bias and free speech. He references Bezos’s commitment to personal liberties and free markets but questions the implications of curating content to reflect specific viewpoints:

Jason Calacanis [74:39]: "He posted to his X account and he emailed everybody that the editorial page is going to be run differently."

Chamath critiques the potential for increased polarization as the Washington Post aligns more closely with Bezos’s ideologies, questioning the true essence of free speech within the publication:

Chamath Palihapitiya [75:17]: "I didn't think that if I was the owner of Washington Post, I would have been even more extreme on the free speech part. I would not have sanctioned speech."

The hosts debate the balance between editorial independence and ownership influence, with Chamath emphasizing the risks of a polarized readership and the loss of journalistic objectivity.

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9. Concluding Discussions and Final Thoughts [75:00 - 75:09]

As the episode winds down, the hosts share light-hearted banter and express support for their absent comedian guest. They reflect on the breadth of topics covered, from high-stakes economic policies to personal triumphs on Jeopardy, illustrating the diverse interests and expertise each host brings to the table.

Chamath Palihapitiya [75:00]: "Love you, boys. Bye bye."

The episode concludes with humorous exchanges and a sense of camaraderie, leaving listeners anticipating the next insightful discussion on the All-In Podcast.

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Key Insights and Takeaways:

• Government Transparency vs. National Security: The revelation of withheld Epstein files raises concerns about governmental accountability and the potential overreach of authority.

• Challenges of High-Stakes Competitions: David Friedberg’s experience on Jeopardy highlights the psychological and technical challenges faced by participants in high-pressure environments.

• Autonomous Robotics Potential: While advancements in robotics are promising, practical limitations in dexterity and AI generalization need addressing before widespread home adoption.

• Stripe’s Ecosystem Advantage: Stripe’s diversified product offerings and strong ecosystem contribute to its higher valuation and growth rate compared to Adyen.

• Economic Policy Uncertainty: Current economic indicators and policy debates surrounding tariffs, tax cuts, and spending reductions create a complex and uncertain economic outlook.

• Golden Visa Proposition Risks and Rewards: President Trump’s proposal to sell citizenships poses both opportunities for upward mobility among the global elite and risks of exacerbating economic disparities and regulatory abuses.

• US Postal Service Reforms: Strategic realignments and innovative use of USPS’s infrastructure could enhance its profitability and operational efficiency.

• Media Bias and Editorial Control: Jeff Bezos’s editorial shifts at the Washington Post may lead to increased polarization and challenge the traditional notion of journalistic objectivity.

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Notable Quotes:

• Chamath Palihapitiya [02:46]:
  "Dear Director Patone... there will be no withholding or limitations to my or your access."

• Jason Calacanis [03:01]:
  "What if they investigated a bunch of people, they were not guilty and then they were in the files."

• Chamath Palihapitiya [06:39]:
  "Crushing their souls."

• Jason Calacanis [21:10]:
  "In terms of processing volume, Adyen 1.34 trillion. Stripe at 1.4 trillion."

• Chamath Palihapitiya [23:14]:
  "These are all ultimately ledger entries."

• David Friedberg [35:48]:
  "Is Trump actually going to pull forward the cuts that he has talked about or that Elon's talked about?"

• Jason Calacanis [49:09]:
  "I'll give you a prediction... founders taking $5 million... to make sure that if they are non-Americans to get their visas."

• Chamath Palihapitiya [67:46]:
  "One of the ideas that he went back to the president with was for the Postal Service to do the census which would save 4 billion a year."

• Jason Calacanis [74:39]:
  "He said... the editorial page is going to be run differently."

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Conclusion

This episode of the All-In Podcast masterfully navigates through a complex tapestry of topics, blending hard-hitting economic and political analysis with personal anecdotes and forward-looking technological discussions. Chamath, Jason, David, and David provide listeners with a comprehensive understanding of the current state of affairs, enriched by their expert insights and relatable exchanges. Whether dissecting government transparency, celebrating personal victories, or forecasting futuristic technologies, this episode stands out as a testament to the hosts’ ability to engage and inform on multiple fronts.

Transcript

[Jason Calacanis]

All right, everybody, welcome back to the all in podcast. Our incredible comedian celebrity guest got sick at the last minute today and didn't make it. We won't say who it is, but my lord, when he comes on this show, you are going to laugh your ass off because he's awesome.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

I like the comedians. I think that their takes on society and culture are pretty interesting, I think.

[Jason Calacanis]

Do you think it will work in our format? What's your prediction here? We've never done it.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

I think the quality of the show is best when it's less just people doing takes and it's more the back and forth banter.

[Jason Calacanis]

So, yeah, that's what I'm always trying to do is get the ball to go around the horn and get some real dialogue going here. But, you know, sometimes people feel passionate with me. Again this week on the all in podcast, David Freeberg and Chamath Palihapitiya. My name is Jason Calacanis. You can follow me on x.com Jason he's Chamath and he is.

[David Friedberg]

Why can't I make fun of you in the replies on Twitter anymore? Oh, because I didn't reply to you?

[Jason Calacanis]

No, what I did was my replies were so many MAGA lunatics and crypto scams that I had no choice but to like, I had to do something because I would have like 500 replies to every single one and I put it on subscription and I said, if you want to reply, it's $3 a month now. 1500 lunatics signed up.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

I did. So I could troll it.

[Jason Calacanis]

Just so you control me. And I thank you for the $3 every month. It's all going to let your winners ride Rain Man. David.

[David Friedberg]

And I said we open sources to the fans and they've just gone crazy with it.

[Jason Calacanis]

Love you, Queen of Quinoa. You want me to intro the show or get some warm up banter about Jeopardy or do you want to go right into Epstein?

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

The letter from Pam to Cash is. Is crazy. Dear Director Patone, before you came into office, I requested the full and complete files related to Jeffrey Epstein. In response to this request, I received approximately 200 pages of documents. Late yesterday, I learned from a source that the FBI field office in New York was in possession of thousands of pages of documents related to the investigation and indictment of Epstein. Despite my repeated requests, the FBI never disclosed the existence of these files. When you and I spoke yesterday, you were just as surprised as I was to learn this new information. By 8am tomorrow, February 28, the FBI will deliver the full and complete Epstein files to my office. Regardless of how such information was obtained, there will be no withholding or limitations to my or your access. My question to you guys is, do you think that this is much ado about nothing, then that the FBI needs to have the discretion to be able to say no? Or do you think this is one of these things where you're not allowed to do what they're doing?

[Jason Calacanis]

I think it's above my pay grade. I don't know the law of, like, FBI investigations. And then what if they investigated a bunch of people, they were not guilty and then they were in the files. Maybe they need to look at them before they do a document up. Maybe there's informants in there. I'm trying to think of what happened with, like, the whistleblower papers from.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

This says something different. This doesn't say, let's negotiate what we should release together so that we protect people. This says, we're just gonna lie to you about these. We're gonna lie to you and tell you that, you know, here's. Here's the story.

[Jason Calacanis]

That's her side to the story. Maybe they have another side. Maybe the FBI has a different side. We'd have to hear from them. Right.

[David Friedberg]

Is this just like, people are intrigued by the gossip angle of it, or is it because they want to prosecute people for hurting people, or is it because they want to cancel people and this is a nice opportunity to cancel? Like, what's, What's. What's the.

[Jason Calacanis]

I think that's an interesting question because this thing's been going on for 20 years. I think this actually has more to do with conspiracy theories. And now the deep state. Like, is there a deep state cover up is the question.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

I think the question is if the chain of command requests something, are you allowed to withhold it because you decide in your own judgment that the person above you doesn't deserve to know it? I think that's an important question.

[Jason Calacanis]

Yeah. The thing about the FBI is the FBI can withhold information from the president, from other folks if there's an ongoing investigation. Sources are, like, secret, and they would be in jeopardy. And national security concerns, I'm reading here.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

So I'm very excited to see these next two days unfold.

[Jason Calacanis]

Listen, it's a breaking news story. We'll have more to say about it next week when we get the facts. All right. It has been an amazing 24 hours for my guy. David Friedberg. I am so proud of you. If people don't know David Freeberg was on, I'm sorry Celebrity Jeopardy. This week. And he had.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

What did you do? A great performance.

[Jason Calacanis]

Jeopardy.

[David Friedberg]

You can't say that. I can't say it.

[Jason Calacanis]

You're right.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Bleep it out. Bleep it out.

[Jason Calacanis]

So you were on Celebrity quote unquote. Jeopardy.

[David Friedberg]

Shows you how much of a bar there is.

[Jason Calacanis]

The bar was pretty low. They're pretty low now inviting podcasters, apparently. But Jeopardy's watched by like 10 million people every episode, right?

[David Friedberg]

Yeah, they have like a huge audience on regular Jeopardy. I think it's like 9 million a night or something. Or 7. 7 to 9 million a night. Yeah. But I think Celebrity Jeopardy. Cause it's like, later, it's got a smaller audience, but it's still like a couple million people watch this thing, which is crazy.

[Jason Calacanis]

So you were on and for the last four or five months, we've all had to, like, bite our tongues. And you've been in a full scale. I don't want to say panic, but you've been hand wringing about your performance. And spoiler alert, Freeberg won. Not only did he win, he crushed it. I was like watching this. This was like, better than watching the World Series of Poker or a Knicks warriors game for me. Here is my favorite moment. The all in call as a tribute. He gets the daily double.

[David Friedberg]

And I'm gonna go all in, Ken. Oh, okay.

[Jason Calacanis]

How dare you. 12,800 for Dave. But you have to be correct. In African geography, known for its snows, this Tanzanian peak is both Africa's highest and the world's tallest freestanding mountain.

[David Friedberg]

What is Mount Kilimanjaro?

[Jason Calacanis]

That is correct.

[David Friedberg]

12,000.

[Jason Calacanis]

What did you think of that moment? Shimant? He goes all in. And these people, they that they're going to get Friedberg by giving him a question about Africa, not knowing that he's African American.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Honestly, like a six year old.

[David Friedberg]

You guys want to hear something crazy?

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

So a 6 year old should know that category. No.

[David Friedberg]

Okay, so that category, African geography. I was at dinner the night before with our friend Xander and his wife, and we started talking about their son was taking a quiz on African geography. And they started giving me all the questions. And we were actually quizzing at dinner the night before on African geography. It was like a Slumdog Millionaire moment. And I was like, in my head, I'm like, there's no way that's real that that actually happened. We literally were just talking about African geography at dinner the night before. And I'm like, the judges had to have been listening or something. But.

[Jason Calacanis]

But you were nervous you talked about being nervous and your techniques. Our friend Jason Kuhn. We actually are lucky enough to play with one serious professional poker player in our game. Jason Kuhn comes to the game and he coached you a bit. What did he. What did he. What was his advice to you?

[David Friedberg]

Well, I was a little wound up because I've watched Jeopardy. My whole, like, since I was a kid. Right. I mean, I don't watch it regularly, but like a couple months ago, I was kind of watching the show. I kind of reached out and was like, hey, you know, do you guys know anyone on the show? And that's how I got, like, hooked up. So. And I'm like, wait, I'm really going on. That's awesome. Okay. And they're like, you're going on Celebrity Jeopardy. So I watched the Celebrity Jeopardy. Episodes from last season, and I figured I could get like 60% of the answers. But you get there and you don't realize how hard it is to buzz in in time. Because if you buzz before the light turns on.

[Jason Calacanis]

I've heard this over and over. How does it work? Because you bought, I understand, an actual buzzer to practice with. Am I correct? You did this?

[David Friedberg]

Well, yeah, I bought this cheap buzzer on Amazon, the impressive, but it didn't do anything. So I'm watching the TV at home watching old celebrity Jeopardy episodes from last year, and I'm like, oh, buzz in, buzz in. But the problem is, when you're there, you're not allowed to buzz till the light comes on. And if you buzz too early, you get locked out for a quarter second. And that quarter second makes a huge difference. So I was actually behind the people I was against most of the show. I felt when I was buzzing in, I'm like, I know the answer. And I. I kept missing. So I still did. Okay, Obviously.

[Jason Calacanis]

But wait a second. Let me ask you a question about that buzzing thing. A light goes on. When does the light go on? When the question is finished after half the time.

[David Friedberg]

So they show the question on a huge screen. So the whole screen gives you the question right away when you.

[Jason Calacanis]

So you can read ahead.

[David Friedberg]

You can read ahead. Just read the whole thing. Boom.

[Jason Calacanis]

Yeah.

[David Friedberg]

Then you have to wait for Ken Jennings to finish. As soon as he finishes enunciating the last syllable of the last word, the light turns on. But here's what I found out. There is a delay of about 150 to 200 milliseconds difference between your eyes and your ears. You actually hear stuff before you see stuff, which is really interesting. For your brain to register it. And people have different delays. But for me, I'm waiting for the light, and then I buzz in and it's too late because the people next to me have buzzed in.

[Jason Calacanis]

So speed of sound versus.

[David Friedberg]

But anyway, I was a little wound up going into this. I called Jason Kuhn. Cause I realized there's no upside. By the time I show up, I'm like, I'm going to look like an absolute idiot for saying some stupid stuff, getting answers wrong. Which, of course, everyone texts me last night, being like, how'd you miss Hoosiers? How'd you miss this? All right, here we go.

[Jason Calacanis]

Since you're bringing up the big miss. This is brutal.

[David Friedberg]

Daily double.

[Jason Calacanis]

Oh, man. You get The Daily Double. 16,000. Crushing. Crushing their souls.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Crushing their souls.

[David Friedberg]

Not my best category. I'll do 4,000.

[Jason Calacanis]

Look great, even 20,000. Fertilizer. Climactic moments in sports movies. Jimmy Chitwood buries a jumper from the top of the key to win the Hickory Huskers, the Indiana State Championship.

[David Friedberg]

What is hoops?

[Jason Calacanis]

Sorry.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

No.

[David Friedberg]

What am I doing?

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

You were right.

[David Friedberg]

I'm so embarrassed of watching it. I can't watch it.

[Jason Calacanis]

Who dream?

[David Friedberg]

Come on, dude.

[Jason Calacanis]

Hoosiers.

[David Friedberg]

I know, I know.

[Jason Calacanis]

Hoosiers. I mean, come on. Gene Hackman, he died today.

[David Friedberg]

And no one sends me a text being like, oh, I can't believe you got that answer. Great job. Everyone just sends the text. How did you not get Hoosiers? How did you not get cream? It's always like, oh, I knew the answer you need.

[Jason Calacanis]

And I realize different ones.

[David Friedberg]

Yeah. And I realize as I'm walking in jeopardy, I'm like, you know what? There's no upside. Because what'll happen is everyone will just call you an idiot for the things you missed, which is, well, I mean.

[Jason Calacanis]

And let's face it, you're the Sultan of science. You went to an ic.

[David Friedberg]

There's an expectation.

[Jason Calacanis]

You worked at Google, So there's an expectation you should run these people over. You did run them over for.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

You know who you're facing in the semifinal.

[David Friedberg]

We don't know until all the quarterfinals are over. And that'll be in the next couple.

[Jason Calacanis]

Of weeks here, when you see a category come up, like the Hoosiers one, Right. I think that one was about sports movies, right?

[David Friedberg]

Yeah, that was sports movies. Like, big.

[Jason Calacanis]

So don't you. When you see sports movies in your head, catalog probable answers like Rudy and, you know, Field of Dreams and just. Yeah, so you had all those ready to go, but, dude, you don't Understand.

[David Friedberg]

Like, look, I'm not a guy who gets very nervous. I don't get, like, stage fright or, like, wound up. But for Jeopardy. It's so weird. You're. You're up there, and you can't focus or concentrate like you normally can. My brain had these, like, weird brain farts where I'm like, I know the answer. Why isn't it coming out? Or I buzz in. And I said, like, Beethoven instead of Debussy. And I'm like, why did that come out?

[Jason Calacanis]

God, for Claire de Lune. You don't have to.

[David Friedberg]

I mean, dude, don't get me started. So there's weird Lune. There's weird stuff that happens up there that's really hard to explain. And then you're angry about the buzzing. You can't buzz in in time, and you're on the set of Jeopardy. And it's like, oh, my God. I'm actually on the set of Jeopardy. It's also real, and you're, like, watching scores. It's very overwhelming.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

An audience. Yes, there is an audience.

[David Friedberg]

Yeah, there's a.

[Jason Calacanis]

Like, a hundred people there.

[David Friedberg]

About 100 people. Yeah.

[Jason Calacanis]

Yeah. Wow, that's nice.

[David Friedberg]

Yeah. Before you go on the show, they have you do a practice round in front of the audience just so you get. Everyone gets used to it. And I deliberately answered wrong, and I was, like, acting like an idiot and acting like I couldn't buzz and acting like I didn't know the answer. You leveled him. I tried to be like, oh, he leveled. I tried to be a little.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

So diabolical.

[Jason Calacanis]

Yeah.

[David Friedberg]

I don't really know what I'm doing here.

[Jason Calacanis]

Ooh, sharp elbows.

[David Friedberg]

Yeah. And then I came out swinging, and I felt like I had to kind of get aggressive out the gate, man.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

You.

[Jason Calacanis]

Yeah, I've done that before in a bar fight once. I was like, guys, guys, we don't need to get in a fight. And then I bang. I just clocked the gun. Anyway, we're so proud of you. You won. You trounced them. I have to say, the money for.

[David Friedberg]

The Humane Society of the United States, all the money went to charity. Humane Society of the US how much.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Did you make for them?

[Jason Calacanis]

In the end, if you win the.

[David Friedberg]

Whole tournament, it's a million dollars. And then I think a lot of dog food. As the winner, your charity gets more, and the losers, their charity gets less. But it's a fixed amount. It's like 30,000 or 50,000 or something like that.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Nice.

[Jason Calacanis]

I think they should put the three of us on together. Normal Episode. That would be crazy.

[David Friedberg]

Oh my God.

[Jason Calacanis]

Three of us were on it.

[David Friedberg]

I would wreck your ass.

[Jason Calacanis]

No you would not. I will play you heads up. Jeopardy. Anytime for Monday.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Let's play poker. Yeah, I say we play poker. We'll play for all of the all in profits. I'll give you two retards 2x the chip stack and let's see what happens.

[Jason Calacanis]

Oh my God, Ed, that sounds so compelling.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Would you do it?

[David Friedberg]

Actually Jake, Al, would you do that?

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Would you do it?

[David Friedberg]

All the profits.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

All the profits.

[Jason Calacanis]

I do it for all the profits. But I would carve out 25% of the profits for a four way tournament that was televised live. If we could get 2 million in sponsors then we'd be up no matter what. Grift, endless drifting. I'm thinking like a business.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

The whole point is business man. No, I want to do this so that I inflict pain on one of you or both.

[David Friedberg]

What gives chamath happiness is hurting others. That's exactly that. That's his love language people he loves.

[Jason Calacanis]

Love language is hurting the people who love him.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

I like putting you two to the test and I like to see you two break.

[David Friedberg]

Okay this so it makes him feel good.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Anyways, did you guys see Brett Adcock's tweet?

[Jason Calacanis]

No, what did he say?

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Friend of the pod. Brett Adcock, who's the CEO and founder of figure he just announced today that he's moved his timelines up by two years. He's going to use beta testing robots in the home by by the middle to end of this year.

[Jason Calacanis]

That's crazy.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Crazy crazy.

[David Friedberg]

I mean are you an investor in his company?

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

I don't talk about my investments but in this case disclosures here. But in this case though I'm not.

[Jason Calacanis]

An investor so we're not talking a book here. I do think Optimus and this figure and the other this is about a dozen of these doing incredibly if they can make these for watch a moth 20 grand. When do you think it becomes something a middle class household, dual income household would buy one of these five years from now, ten years from now? How probably could they be?

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Well, I think the issue is bounded by two things. One is that I'm not sure that the generalized AI is good enough yet. And what he did was he had a deal with OpenAI which he pretty publicly canceled a few weeks ago and he announced his own model and I don't know the details of it to know whether he rolled it himself or this is just like taking some open source based model and iterating from it. But I think the model is not perfect yet to be general purpose. That's one. And then the second is a practical issue with the robots, which is that the actuators themselves are good, but they're not great. And you can see it in, in the demo, where it's an incredible demo because it shows the value and the power of the model, where there's sort of this master slave orientation that has to happen, where one model is actually doing most of the computation and the second model and the second robot is then feeding off of it. And the demo that they do, Nick, you can probably find the video is of them sorting a bag of groceries for the first time, totally unsupervised. Which it's an incredibly cool demo.

[Jason Calacanis]

It's a cool demo.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

The thing that you notice though is that the actuators are good, they're not great. And so the physical dexterity is still relatively limited. And I think that that doesn't allow these robots to be super functional in the next couple of years. But when they get that figured out, then I think it could be really useful. Because if you have a robot like this that could sort the groceries, make food, do the laundry, mow the lawn, so to speak, it just requires a level of dexterity that's not yet totally possible. But see, in this example, what you're seeing are the two robots basically figuring out how to communicate semantically between the robots. And that's incredibly powerful. And it's yet another sort of breakthrough that we need. So I don't know, we're probably like a couple years away. But see, look at the dexterity there. He's taking the Pepperidge Farms and feels like he's crushing the Pepperidge Farms or she or whatever you call this robot.

[Jason Calacanis]

Please don't misgender the robot.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

But it's really incredible. They're figuring the coolest part of this demo, by the way, which I loved, was they take an apple and then the second robot figures out that it should go in the fruit bowl, pushes the fruit bowl to the first robot, and then the first.

[Jason Calacanis]

That's cool. There it is.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

But that level of semantic awareness and understanding between two models working dependently is very cool. Look at that. That's very cool.

[Jason Calacanis]

They're collaborating with each other. Makes total sense. I can tell you here on the ranch, I would love to have an all purpose robot going out there and using the weed whacker and trimming the bushes and the hedges and getting me wood and collecting chicken eggs. Like there's a Million things they could do on a ranch, it'd be immediately applicable for ranch work. And if they're 24 hours a day, it doesn't matter if they go slow. But I think this is the category people are sleeping on. And I don't know who on the on our prediction show said this will be the year of robots, but it's been this is the year of robots for 30 years in the industry and it does feel like this is it. Friedberg, you're sticking with your prediction, I assume?

[David Friedberg]

Yeah, I am, Yeah. I think it's also, it's not just this kind of dexterous automation, but I do think drones, autonomous vehicles, I put them all on the same category where it's some combination of mechanical response to a machine vision system that I think has become like accelerated this year.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

You need a lot of rare earths to make robots.

[Jason Calacanis]

Yeah. Where can we ever get those from? Hmm. Does anybody owe us a little money? Is anybody behind on their payments? Maybe the vig could be a little, you know, taste. I don't know if you guys have seen this, but there was a company in the 90s that was all the rage called Segway. They were going to absolutely change cities and everything, and they never did. But it was basically like a scooter you could walk on and had a balancing kind of system to it. But they made robots and here they're making these lawnmowers now. And these lawnmowers are really like cheap. They're 1000 bucks and they work here in Austin. I have seen two or three of these on people's lawns. This could be like, you know, what was the one that you did in your house? Roomba. So your point, Freeberg? There will be purpose driven ones to deliver you a burrito, do your lawn, et cetera. And a roomba is like three or four hundred bucks, I think. And this thing's 1,000 bucks. Man.

[David Friedberg]

This is going to get rid of it. Yeah. I do think it's a lot harder to create one of these general purpose systems and automation than create vertically or kind of utility specific automation system. So a device that just does one thing, delivers something to you in the air, or drives your food to you, or loads and unloads your dishes. I'm not sure if that's the whole idea of the humanoid is it's ambitious. Yeah, it is a general purpose device and it makes a technically very hard roadmap. I gotta imagine some of the bulldozers.

[Jason Calacanis]

Out there are also now becoming remote controlled so you can get like a bulldozer that you have to put in a dangerous situation and they're remote control and they're gonna have AI. So I got pitched on a startup one time that was going to go up into Tahoe hills and allow humans with remote controls to drive chamath little bulldozers and make fire paths. So imagine some fire breaks out, you send in or helicopter in the bulldozer. No human in it, just got a 5G connection or a Starlink connection and zip, zip, zip. You're doing fire roads in the middle of the smoke dense area. It's going to be really interesting when these things get dialed in and they're getting dialed in every day.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

I'm going to ask Brett to be a beta alpha tester of one of these robots in my house and then we'll go and do it. We'll do a segment.

[Jason Calacanis]

That'd be great. Excuse me, robot, can I get some more Morales too? Tweet morels.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Let's talk about Stripe. I thought the report was really good.

[Jason Calacanis]

We had the Collison brothers on last week. They crushed it. Great job to them. And then here's a quick summary. So in terms of processing volume, Adyen 1.34 trillion. Stripe at 1.4 trillion. I mean, that's incredible that they're both in almost the same exact space. One's growing 33%, Stripe's growing 38% valuation. Adyen 56, they're public. Stripe Private, $91.5 billion. I guess that's the private market. Premium employee account. Very interesting here. Since we've been talking about Jamie Dimon's rant last week. Adyen 4.3 thousand. Stripe over 8,000 and both are profitable. Adyen's got a billy in Ebitda, which is extraordinary. But Stripe has a higher margin. What's your take on A Tale of Two Cities here?

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

I thought there was three takeaways. The first takeaway for me was the value of Stripe's ecosystem is, is probably underappreciated. I think Patrick mentioned it, but he just kind of said it as a passing fact and none of us picked up on it. But in the report they talk about all the additional products that they're able to build around core payments. And one of them is the billing product. It's half a billion dollars a year of ARR. That's just incredible. And I think if they figure out network effects inside of the Stripe ecosystem, that's interesting. So that's first, which is the hub and spoke of payments being at the center, but all of these other incremental services. I think that that's really interesting and underappreciated for Stripe. That probably speaks to why there's such a difference in valuation. Because Adyen has less of that ecosystem, or at least it's not nearly as well described, maybe as Stripes is. That's number one. Second is, I go back to what I've been saying for a while now, but the rise of these stablecoins is really interesting. The stablecoin infrastructure globally, the push for a bunch of these national governments to embrace them inside of India, inside of Brazil, slowly it's happening inside of the United States. So I think that that was really interesting. And then the third takeaway, Nick, I sent you this tweet was just the. The nature of the AI ecosystem relative to the rest of SaaS. And what this is was from Stripe's report, which showed the time to get to 5 million of annualized revenue, and the average SaaS company took 37 months. And by 2024, the top 100 AI companies got there in 24 months.

[Jason Calacanis]

I mean, that's efficiency in the market. Right? I mean, that's why we're all looking at AI saying we could see a lot of our economic issues come from growth. And the growth is very clear. You can do more with less and you can generate more revenue with AI. So it's pretty clear, the trend.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Yeah, Chama, I think it's really clear. I mean, I can give you a little factoid. From 80, 90, we got to 5 million of revenue in three months.

[Jason Calacanis]

Really crazy couple of wells in there. Yeah, a couple of big ones.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Yeah. And so it's just a very different selling motion than I've historically seen, where the ROI is just so obvious in terms of the efficiency that it creates and the cost savings you can generate relative to traditional enterprise software. It's a more straightforward sale. The ROI is clearer, the revenue is bigger, it happens faster.

[Jason Calacanis]

Yeah. So there's also, I don't know if you're seeing it, but there's a sense of urgency in the market right now. People feel like they have to adopt this new technology fast because there's competition, because the gains are so clear. Because in a slowing economy, this is maybe a way to accelerate revenue.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

I'll be honest with you. At least with our 80, 90 customers, I haven't seen that yet. We're in, I don't know, eight or nine segments of the economy. Big segments of the economy. It's more still about the frustration that they have with what I would call the software industrial complex. There's a big. And you can see it with what's happening to Salesforce and other big companies is that these renewal cycles are getting harder and harder to justify. And so people are willing to take some bets and see if there are different ways in dealing with this problem. And I think that's the real opportunity is if you can find a repeatable pattern to help these companies replace that big software spend that they have. Yeah, that scales really quickly. And the only way to do that really is using AI in two ways. AI inside the machinery of what you're using yourself to make the things. Right. So those are things like cursor and whatnot to just fully accelerate and then AI within some very specific products that the customers actually need that also create efficiency. So there's two different places, but the problem with using it in both of these two different places is in the first one, you can manage the errors. It's very straightforward. At the end of the day, code either compiles or it doesn't. So even if you're using something like Cursor, which is an incredible product, there are no errors at the end of it because the thing actually works or it doesn't. The problem is actually when you use these models in actual work, and if you're in a regulated environment particularly, it gets very complicated because if you generate a hallucination in a healthcare business and it causes a patient record to be incorrect, there are huge consequences there and that we haven't solved yet. That exists in regulated finance. It exists when you're dealing with real estate and construction. It exists when you're dealing with power. It exists in aerospace. Right. Imagine if an LLM helps you design a plane better, but if there's a tolerance error, and that's not well understood, that could have, you know, horrific consequences downstream. So we, we're, we're working with all these people to try to figure it out. It's a very difficult technical challenge. But I just thought the stripe data was really interesting because it validates what we're seeing, which is the, the growth in this industry is it's not like anything I've ever seen before.

[Jason Calacanis]

Back to the stablecoins, here's a look at tether. They're at $143 billion in tethers out there. Who knows what's reality there? They've got a little bit of a shaky history. And then USDC Jeremy Allaire's is at 56 billion already. And that's only been in existence since really in earnest, like 2021. I do think Stripe's main business could be. If we're sitting here in five years, Chamath could be sitting on $300 billion and getting whatever it is, 3, 4 or 5% on some coupon. Right. They could be making 10, $20 billion in pure profit if they have a stablecoin out there that gets widely adopted.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Yeah. And I, and I think the best way for Stripe to actually do this is just to, to build it and to actually facilitate payments between existing Stripe customers. Because again, it's sort of what I said last week. These are all ultimately ledger entries. And I think that the more that you can commoditize these things to be a simple ledger entry inside of two systems of record at two companies, that's a much better product feature. I think Stripe has the scale to do that now. And to your point, they could have an enormous stablecoin business. At the same time, they're probably better off just embracing what's already been built. It may be disruptive to try to launch yet another one. I don't know.

[Jason Calacanis]

They bought that other company, so I gotta think they'll launch their own.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

But Bridge is the facilitation.

[Jason Calacanis]

It's the Rails. Yeah, but I mean, I think, you know, this is where brand comes in. If you have a trusted brand amongst developers and there's three choices, are they going to take tether, which people go? Maybe it's a little sorted. It's offshore. I got some challenges there. Am I going to use usdc? Okay, I haven't heard of it, but okay. Yeah, they sound interesting. Oh, you Stripe. I'm going to go right to Stripe. It's kind of like the IBM, you know, or Microsoft of payments. Nobody gets fired for picking Stripe. I would say so.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Not anymore.

[Jason Calacanis]

Not anymore. All right, let's go through the market update here. A lot of people are trying to figure out are we going to have a market collapse, a boom? Let's just look at some of the numbers and have a first principle discussion here. S and p up almost 2% so far this year. Nasdaq 100 flat. Dow up 3%. So pretty good start to the year in those index numbers. But if you look at the Max 7, some of them have had some serious compression. Tesla down 27%. I do think that they had a big Trump Elon Spike. Google down 10%. Amazon 9. Microsoft about 8%. Meta. Apple, Nvidia or up to varying degrees. And then coming into our taping this week, Bitcoin down 15% over the last month, that too got the Trump bump. And then adding to all this confusion, unemployment is still at historic lows. We're at close to 4%. And if you look at the deportations that were promised, they've been modest to start. Obviously, they're just getting started. They need some money to deport folks, but they've only been deporting 500 people to a thousand a day. And we haven't heard many numbers about the last couple of weeks as Doge has been sort of the center of attention. So, you know, they'd have to get to two or three thousand people a day to have low millions, let's say Chamath, 2 or 3 million people deported for it to have any impact on unemployment. Finally, act three. And then we'll get everybody's feedback on this. CPI up 3% year over year. We had dipped down to that nice 2% handle and now it's back a little bit. If you remember, in September, it bottomed out around 2.4% just in time for the election. It's interesting how that happened. That same month The Fed cut 50 bips, then it cut another 25 in December. And since inflation's been growing modestly but steadily, not insignificantly. So put it all together, Chamath, and what do you think? And then Freiberg World to you.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

I tend to be sort of in the Stevie Cohen camp. It's not like the bottom is going to fall out, but there's a lot of room for concern, I guess is the best way to put it. Nick, I don't know if you can find that clip at fii, but he had a very precise summary of how he saw the world. And I frankly just agreed with everything that he was saying. So he probably can say it better than I when you take a brew of tariffs. On top of that, we have slowing immigration.

[David Friedberg]

And in addition, now you have Doge. I mean, that's austerity.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

We think growth is going to slow to one and a half percent from two and a half percent in the second half.

[David Friedberg]

And so I'm actually pretty negative for.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

The first time in a while, and it may only last a year or so, but it's definitely, I think the best gains have been had and wouldn't.

[David Friedberg]

Surprise me, see a significant correction.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

I think a couple of very specific thoughts. The first is that you're starting to see this compression of the Mag 7 towards everybody else. So this is the forward PE of these guys. And so what you're starting to see is everybody else starting to capture Back, some of the ground people are processing what the real upside of, of the mag 7 is. Now, if you go to the other chart, what this starts to show you though is that Mag 7 is really priced to perfection. And so you have to believe that the world kind of stays the way that it is, otherwise you're going to have some amount of, of mean reversion. So I think the stock market on the margin is a little expensive and not particularly that attractive. Second, the bond market has basically said, okay, we are going to give you credit that Doge is going to work and that tariffs are going to work. So we've had some pretty meaningful compression in the 10 year, which I think is really interesting. I think it's very good for Besant and for Trump. And I think I've mentioned this before, but we got to go in and refinance $10 trillion in the next six months. So you could see this thing maybe even get under 4% if we get a good string of data. The real problem I think though is that if you look back and say, what does this look like? The example that I would give you guys is in 2010 in the United Kingdom, the deficit as a percentage of GDP was 10%. And the UK government embarked on a multi year austerity plan and they said, we're going to get the deficit as a percentage of GDP back in line. And ultimately by 2016 it got to 3%, which is where we are trying to get to. And right now we're a little bit under 7%. We're trying to get it to 3%. So it's interesting to ask what happened. And there the bond market gave the UK government a ton of credit, so they kept rates relatively low and they brought them back from where they were. That seems like what's happening here. Yeah, the stock market, the stock market kind of went sideways to a little bit down. Let's see what happens here. But the real big thing is in the uk, all of this created tremendous dissatisfaction and you had Brexit. So I think the question that I have is if we go through a prolonged austerity program and the frustration amongst the American populace builds. What's the release valve there? The release valve was voting to leave the EU Here. It's not quite, it's not obvious to.

[Jason Calacanis]

Me what a release valve electing Trump was step one. And I don't know if there's something even more populist than Trump.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

No, I think he is the mechanism of implementing the austerity. I think people want this austerity Just the question is what happens when the actual byproducts of that austerity are felt by people for six or seven years? I don't know what the answer is.

[Jason Calacanis]

Certainly people are in favor of Doge and downsizing the government more than I think anybody anticipated. People are. The statistics are showing and the polls are showing Freeberg that it's incredibly popular. When you look at this, I don't want to say conflicting, but it's a lot of different conflicting data here as to what's going on. What do you see in the numbers here and what does your instinct tell you? Because part of this, I think, is getting used to Trump again, right? He says a lot of stuff. Some of them are scary, some of them are just trolling and everything in between. So what are your thoughts here? Are markets just adjusting to the new team back in town?

[David Friedberg]

The big question in the Trump actions is around tariffs versus the tax cuts that are being proposed versus the spending cuts. Those are kind of the three levers. And there's a very serious sensitivity to the economic outlook for growth and inflation as a function of how far each of those three levers are pulled and how they relate to each other. Is Trump actually going to pull forward the cuts that he has talked about or that Elon's talked about? How real is that? There's a whole spectrum of opinions on that right now. On one end, you're looking at the House and the Senate reconciliation process for the budget proposals that they've put forth, and you're going to scratch your head and be like, are we really cutting enough relative to what the economists and others are telling us we need to do? Meanwhile, you've got Elon and Trump saying, hey, we're cutting, we're cutting, we're saving. We're going to get to a trillion dollars a year. But that's not showing up necessarily in the budget, is it showing up in the actions out of Doge tbd? So there's a whole spectrum of opinions on the cuts. On the tariff side, there's a spectrum of, like, how far are these tariffs going to go? You know, the United states up until 18 something, was entirely tariff driven in our federal government's revenue. And it was a way of being kind of protectionary to the industry here. And then over time, the tariffs rates came down and down and down as we introduced an income tax, which started, I think, at 3% right after the Civil War and went to 5% for high income earners. And then obviously in the 20th century, that's totally flipped. Now we have like no tariffs and a 50% income tax for the highest bracket. So can we actually revert back to a tariff driven income model for the federal government? And what is the economic effect on growth for corporate America in that world where taxes get cut for the companies and for individuals, but we make all of our money from global trade? Does the increased cost of global trade hurt companies more than the benefit of paying fewer taxes? Lower taxes? That's the big economic argument that's underway right now. And it's funny, it kind of seems to fall along political lines, believe it or not, much like everything else. You know, like economists that, that are Democratic aligned are Democratic Party doing.

[Jason Calacanis]

I agree with that.

[David Friedberg]

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And so the Democrat aligned economists will say the tariffs don't make sense, they reduce economic growth, they have a negative effect. We shouldn't be doing that. And then the Republican aligned economists are saying the tax cuts will more than make up for the reduced, the reduction from the tariffs. And that's the big unknown right now. So I would say that the spending cuts, wide spectrum, the income tax cuts, big spectrum on what's actually going to get done here. And then the tariffs, big spectrum on how far this is going to go.

[Jason Calacanis]

Yeah.

[David Friedberg]

And so those three things, you've got like three very wide ranges of things that all interplay, that ultimately determine inflation, economic growth, government deficits over the next decade. And we don't really have a clear picture yet of how those three things interplay. And they're all being hotly debated. And by the way, there's high variability. They're changing day to day every day. Trump's like, this tariff, that tariff. Yesterday there was a whole bunch of confusion on tariffs. Today there's a whole bunch of like discussion on how far the tax cut extension is going to go in the reconciliation process and on and on and on.

[Jason Calacanis]

So TBD, I encourage people to use my 72 hour rule and look at what happens 72 hours after Trump says something spicy. Because a lot of times he's just, he says a lot of things. And you got to Trump.

[David Friedberg]

Yeah, but the House and the Senate, they both put forward their budgets, right. And now they go through this reconciliation process. And there's a lot in there that leaves a lot to be desired. If you're, if you're an absolute like, you know, fiscal conservative and you're trying to get us to 3% deficit as a percentage GDP, you're like, wait a second, does this do enough?

[Jason Calacanis]

And the tax cuts are 4.5 trillion over 10 years. So, you know, it's approximately 450 billion a year. If you're trying to catch up, how are we doing tax cuts?

[David Friedberg]

But Jake, Al, remember, you can't make those statements as fact because a lot of those over 10 year projections are projections based on someone's estimate of the economic effect of the tax cuts. So there's also a lot of debate on that, which is, hey, some people are saying if we make these tax cuts, the economy will grow faster than this much particular the CBO economists will estimate. And the CBO economists are trying to be conservative. So there's a whole lot of debate going on right now on like how much is this really going to cost? And people are like, oh my God, Trump is talking about raising our deficit so much over the next decade. But then there's a different point of view, which is, wait a second, if you assume that the economy will grow because of these cuts, then that's actually not true. And then there's all these wild cards around the golden Visa card.

[Jason Calacanis]

Yeah, we're about to get to that. Yeah.

[David Friedberg]

Are the tariffs going to be a trillion a year? Are they going to be $2 trillion of revenue or no one really knows.

[Jason Calacanis]

It's just a negotiating position or just a negotiation.

[David Friedberg]

So no one knows.

[Jason Calacanis]

Yeah, no one knows. So that's my, I think main point is this. This administration is all over the place. You know, the cuts are great, but.

[David Friedberg]

You'Re right, the bond market tells you a lot. The fact that the tenure has, the tenure was peaked at 5% 2, two weeks before the election and then it peaked again the second week of January at 4.78%. Now it's down to 4.26% today. So it's come down by a full half a point in the last month, which tells you a lot about the expectations on inflation and growth over the next decade. And it's actually a reasonable sign that we don't think there's going to be rampant inflation over the next decade based on some of the policy decisions and actions that are being taken by this administration. So I would say there's some indication that if you were to kind of try and decode the enigma of the three things that we talked about are going on. It's generally kind of deflationary to some extent or it's not inflationary.

[Jason Calacanis]

Are you optimistic? Just net. Net. Dave, you're optimistic about this next four year period or no?

[David Friedberg]

I'm honestly pretty uncertain and I'm pretty unhappy with both the Senate and the House budgets Personally, I don't think they're too fat.

[Jason Calacanis]

Too many cuts.

[David Friedberg]

Yeah, I don't think there's enough action in there. I don't think that. And it's weird because you hear Elon talking to all the members of the cabinet and he's pretty clear cut. Hey, we've got to save this government is in a debt spiral. We have to fix this problem, yada yada. And then it's sort of like business as usual. Which like I said when we were in dc, that was exactly my observation. For every senator, representative member of Congress that we met with or that I talked to at a cocktail party party, it was the same bull. It was like, I gotta get this for my people. That's the goal. And we've turned this federated republic into a whole bunch of elected representatives showing up in D.C. scrambling and grabbing money for their constituents. That's what they were hired and elected to do. And it's a really unfortunate circumstance that no one looks out for the better interest of the US dollar over time and says, you know what, we've actually got a limitation on us and that limitation should be less than 3% deficit to GDP. That's our budget, that's our max budget. And start from there and then do a build up. Yeah, yeah.

[Jason Calacanis]

I mean, chamath. I think collective action aside, you've been talking a little bit about this. I don't know if it was a couple of weeks ago you were tweeting about the Great Reset Theory and there's whatever that is, the third or fourth turning people have been talking about. You want to maybe encapsulate your thoughts.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

I think you have to figure out what the goal is. So one goal is, you could say that the Republicans want to have consistent political power. Right. That's a reasonable goal. The Democrats want that too. Right. A different goal would be to do what Friedberg said. We're going to go and take the lumps because we are going to defend the dollar and the credibility of the United States. We're just going to make sure that structurally it's sound and take the pain that's necessary to reset. That could be a goal. I think the reality is something in the middle where you can't be in one camp and you can't be in the other because I don't think you can get anything done. And somewhere in the middle, I think the thing that I have been thinking a lot about is when will somebody sniff out what the great coalition is that preserves political power, Whether that's the Democrats or the Republicans. The reality is that you will have a consistent majority if you get three cohorts of people together. Cohort number one are the people that frankly don't have many assets and are the working and middle class, meaning they don't necessarily own homes, they don't necessarily have investments in the stock market. So they don't particularly care about what's happening there. Okay, that cohort dominates. There was a clip of a discussion at Harvard just this past week about the different political coalitions that voted for Trump versus Kamala Harris. The most important takeaway that I took from it is that if you make $100,000 or more a year, you're a reliable Democratic voter. If you went to college, you're a reliable Democratic voter. Everything else is a reliable Republican voter. But the thing to remember is that bucket of everything else is growing faster than that first bucket. So you have this coalition of the asset light, working and middle class and then you have other people, patriotic business people and patriotic business owners and technology people that care about innovation that MAGA has been able to corral into a coalition. My point is if that is the consistent, reliable thing that cements political power, multiple elections from now, and we've seen this before in the past where Republicans can go on a three term run or a four term run, Democrats have as well in the past. It is bad news for the stock market and it is bad news for asset owners because it doesn't reward the constituents. Back to free Brooks Point. So if you are going to feed your constituents and your constituents don't own stocks and your constituents don't own homes or they are so wealthy that they can be inoculated from a massive drawdown in those asset categories. What do you think the winning strategy is? That is my rough working version of what our version of Brexit is. Right. So if you have many, many years of austerity, what does it really result in? I think if you want to cement political power, I think it requires a walking down of these asset markets in a meaningful way. That's stocks and that's real estate and I just don't see any other way around it.

[Jason Calacanis]

Fascinating. The good news is, I think from my perspective is.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

But by the way, sorry, last thing I would say that's a total theory and I could change my mind as I get more data, but I'm just saying I'm just trying to work through the possibilities and in the distribution of outcomes. That's sort of where my head's at right now.

[Jason Calacanis]

I think it's like a good mental model because politicians want to stay in power. How do they stay in power? The populace has to want to continue to back and they have to understand.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

What backing strategies that that reward asset owners when asset owners are a shrinking minority is not a good idea.

[Jason Calacanis]

Well, there's 60% of the country own assets, but 80% of those assets are in the top, like 10%. So it is definitely weighted heavily. People do have some, I guess through the 401ks in some cases. And yeah, 60% of people own a home. 61%. But yeah, I think it's a good framework. The good news is if you look at every time we have a great technological revolution, whether it was the iPhone or the Internet, now AI that tends to make the most impact on the economy. And so based on what I'm seeing in the streets, entrepreneurship is on foot fire right now.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

No, but that's not true. I think you're confusing that with how certain people like everybody has an iPhone. That's true. But you're the one that's talked a lot about this. A lot. It hasn't lifted average hourly earnings that much. In fact, we've had massive wage suppression. It has rewarded the employees and the stockholders of Apple or Google or Meta. But that's not everybody.

[Jason Calacanis]

Well, I'm talking more about. Yes, you're correct, it does polarize the win in Apple shareholders in the case of the iPhone or Google in the case of the Internet. But it does make the entire populace more efficient and the United States more efficient since we led both of those revolutions.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

I don't think it does. I think it benefits supremely a small cohort of people. That's why the denominator goes up. But does it affect individual people in measurable ways on a broad based basis? I think that's been statistically proven as not to be true. Have the populism we have today, it's.

[Jason Calacanis]

Disproportionately rewarded equity holders. That's obvious. And wage earners have not had the same escalation. But I'm talking about the United States and our place in the world and our economy when compared to other countries. So I still think if we lead AI we will still have the best standard of living, the best overall economy in the world.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

I love his. What do you guys think about the golden Visa? I love that.

[Jason Calacanis]

Well, this is incredible because I literally tweeted like six months ago, you know, we should just sell citizenship for $500,000 a pop. And he added a zero.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

I'll give you a Prediction. I'll give you a prediction. I will predict that within the next few months after this gets announced, you are going to hear about founders taking $5 million of secondary in a round to make sure that if they are non Americans to get their visas, 100%.

[David Friedberg]

Hey, check out this prediction, Nick. We now have a poly market to trade. How many gold cards will Trump sell in 2025? Polymarket.

[Jason Calacanis]

Oh, well done. I think. What is the bet?

[David Friedberg]

Well, so you either can have zero.

[Jason Calacanis]

Okay.

[David Friedberg]

You can have 1 to 100, 100 to 1000. Here's the different levels. 1000 to 2000-500250-05000. So you can basically buy the level that you think. There's an 8% probability right now, polymarket that by the end of 2025 there will be zero of these golden visas sold. 25% chance of 1 to 117% chance of 100 to 1,000 and so on. The most probable level is actually 2,500 to 5,000 which is sitting at 29% of the probability right now.

[Jason Calacanis]

Yeah, I'm taking the way over.

[David Friedberg]

So what are you thinking? This is by the end of 25 jcal. So you got to get. They basically have to get the program.

[Jason Calacanis]

They still have to get this done.

[David Friedberg]

They got to get the program up and running. And then people by the. So it's by the end of 25 is the.

[Jason Calacanis]

Okay, so people are really just betting when can he get the first one done? And then. Yeah, how many does he get done? Yeah, I know I'm gonna take the top two. I think I might take 5,000 and above here.

[David Friedberg]

Will you put real money on that? You should do that. Oh, you can't trade polymer.

[Jason Calacanis]

It's not available to Americans. But if there was a way to do it, I might do it. This is not unprecedented by the way. There is something called the EB5 which I talked about before on this show where non citizens can invest a bunch of money. But it's a bit of a scam I got pitched on it. People said oh we can get you LPs for your fund. Here's how it works. They invest in some, you know, fugazi. Fugazi real estate thing.

[David Friedberg]

You have to create 10 full time jobs. Is that.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Yeah.

[Jason Calacanis]

So there's a bunch of scams going on about this ED5. But I said as your president, I'm gonna sell these citizenships and get 100,000 people to do 500k each. Right. And I said they would sell like Taylor Swift tickets. I gotta tell you I think out of the gate, Apple Meta, Microsoft buy, you know, 1 to 10,000 of these. So let's say you were able to buy these and you could swap them out. Like if somebody left and went back to their country, you could still use it. You still have the visa. These would become incredible for recruiting talent. If you got to get the CEO of a company over here and you can offer them that, you could buy their company.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Is that how it's going to work or is that, is it going to be tied to a person, do you think?

[Jason Calacanis]

We got two different issues here. One is, could you swap these between another person?

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

We don't know.

[Jason Calacanis]

The president could make it like that if they wanted to, for corporations to give them essentially what is a season pass that you could swap between users. Those things exist in the world as a concept, so he could decide to do that. The second piece is how valuable they are. Are they worth 5 million or are they worth a million? Which, which would sell the most?

[David Friedberg]

The way this is proposed by Trump and Lutnick is it's $5 million for basically a green card. You get permanent residence in the United States. You get to live here permanently. Yeah, they're getting rid of the EB5 program after this. That's their proposal. And so here's the map. Let me ask you guys a question. Jamal jcal, how many people in the world have a net worth above 100 million?

[Jason Calacanis]

Oh, above 100. Well, we know that there are like four or five thousand billionaires is the estimate, I think globally. So a centimillionaire.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Well, I think that there's a lot, there's a lot of hidden billionaires. So I would.

[Jason Calacanis]

That's what Russia and China, even in.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

America, I would guess that there's at least 10 or 15,000 billionaires in the world.

[David Friedberg]

100 millionaire.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

And so then as a sense, we're working probably 50,000.

[David Friedberg]

That's what I said, 28,000. 40% of whom are in the U.S. which means there's 17,000. Who knows?

[Jason Calacanis]

That number is real. Come on.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Yeah, these numbers are all made up.

[Jason Calacanis]

So you know how many Russian oligarchs have $100 million?

[David Friedberg]

Oligarch, okay, so whatever fudge factor you want. 17,000 is the reported number of 100 millionaires outside the U.S. do you think that that's the cutoff for people that would spend 5 million and then what percent of them would buy a U.S. green card for $5 million?

[Jason Calacanis]

Oh, I think people with 20 million who are overseas in Venezuela or the Middle east would spend 5 million on it. If it was a path to them becoming a US Citizen, you amortize that over a lifetime, you could make twice as much money living here. So I think the numbers, like, if you had $20 million, you would give 25% of your current net worth to get into the U.S. of course you're going to buy a house here worth 10 million.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

And Donald Trump said that you would not have to pay any tax on foreign assets.

[Jason Calacanis]

Right, right. Easy peasy.

[David Friedberg]

It's a true green card.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Yeah. That is. No, no, no. A real green card is what I had, which is your global income is taxed.

[David Friedberg]

That's true.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

So it's worse. Meaning the green card is worse than this. This is way better. So if I had to do it again and this was available to me.

[David Friedberg]

I'm just pointing out, I'm not sure.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

I would have spent 5 million bucks.

[David Friedberg]

I'm not sure there's a million buyers. I think there's plenty, probably 10,000 max buyers of this thing is my.

[Jason Calacanis]

I'll take the over of 10. I wouldn't take the over of a million. I think you're right on the million number. Is that. What did Trump say?

[David Friedberg]

He said there's a million people, Nick. The Most probable is 1 to 2,500. I think that's probably right.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

But you didn't ask total ask in year one. And I mean, it takes six months to get anything. This poll is dumb. The real question is how hard will they be vetted? Because I think the point is there's a lot of gray money around the world. So the question is, can you bring it into the light? Right, so how many, like, look, I. I know of many people in India, many who are extremely wealthy in ways that we don't understand, and their wealth is literally, like, in cash. It's in gold. How are they supposed to kind of like, if they wanted to, like, raise their family in America, because now it's possible. How do they do that? How do they. How do they take their assets? Do you go to JP Morgan and all of a sudden, like, you show them this golden Visa and they say, great, we're going to. If there's a workaround to, like, the KYC, AML laws, honestly, Friedberg, you could sell 2 million of these things.

[David Friedberg]

Don't think so.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

If you literally have to go through the existing set of frameworks on, like, ofac, aml, kyc, all that stuff, it's probably in the tens of thousands.

[Jason Calacanis]

All I have to say is this is one of the greatest proposals Ever.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Oh, it's great.

[Jason Calacanis]

It's fan frickin tastic combined with Doge. Okay, if he gets this done, if he gets Jason.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

But I agree with you, by the way.

[Jason Calacanis]

If he gets accredited investing done, if he gets those three things done, I'm voting for his third term. We're going to redo the.

[David Friedberg]

Jason, just explain to us your personal interest interested in accredited investing. What's the grift connection? I'm not sure I'm fully tracking.

[Jason Calacanis]

It's not a grift connection. I feel like there's a bunch of people stealing money doing crypto scams and that all of that would be solved if people could just take a test to become an accredited investor, which is currently 6 or 7% of the country, and then they would understand diversification and how different devices were convertible, debt, whatever. And if they did understand that you could take people who are gambling in the stock market and allow them to invest in private market companies. And I believe that would create more. This issue we brought up in the last segment about poor people not being able to become rich people and upward mobility. Upward mobility could be very easily. Hold on, let me finish my thought. Upward mobility could be so much better. If a person who is an Uber driver or an HR person working, you know, at a company could put $500, $1,000 instead of betting on the Knicks or the Jets, God forbid, they could put that $500 into this new product or service they're using, LinkedIn, or this new product or service they're using. And then that would allow more startups to get created. There are so many people who contact me after reading my book and say I want to invest in startups they can't. I will tell you that I think they would be so much better off putting $100 or $500 into a startup than just wasting it at roulette tables.

[David Friedberg]

Great. I'll take the opposite. Okay, go ahead and I'll tell you why. I think you're right. It would be great. But they should buy the S and P. They should buy the S and P index. Proven, scaled, audited, profitable, well vetted, solid fiduciary responsibility with public board companies. Yep. If you do what you're learned from that. The problem is most of these people, most people, even smart VCs, even intelligent people, make extraordinary mistakes in the startups that they back. I don't think that we have a shortage of startups. I think we have a shortage of good startups. And I think they. But if you flood the market with capital, you're gonna see the same problem we've had with every venture capital cycle or every private cycle, which is you get a whole bunch of bull that gets funded, that shouldn't get funded, that ends up eating a lot of people's money. And unfortunately, when people are less sophisticated and they enter the private investment markets, they're not gonna necessarily be left well off. They're gonna end up getting scammed in a different way. Someone's gonna give you the crazy fancy PowerPoint to them, take their money, and they're gonna get eaten up, which won't happen if they buy the S and P. Go ahead.

[Jason Calacanis]

Okay, yeah. So let me counter all that. They should buy the S and P. Sure. And they can do that today. Right. They can get a Robinhood account, they.

[David Friedberg]

Can buy 11% a year.

[Jason Calacanis]

Perfect. And that's the protectionist, paternalistic approach that we've had. What that doesn't do is it makes them nice and safe, and then their $1,000 becomes 1,070 next year and 1150 the next year. Great. They learned one lesson, the rule of 72. And compounding interest, that's the only lesson they learn. But when you start betting on startups, you learn how entrepreneurship works, how product market fit works. And so, sure, put 80% into it index fund and put 20% into investing in private companies, they would learn more. And when Uber wanted to give Uber drivers access to buying shares, they're not allowed to. And so the rich can buy whatever they want. They can make whatever bets they want. They can be in private equity, they can be in all these things that have the chance to 100x to 10x, but poor people can't. All I'm saying is if they're educated and they take a course, let them do, take a little bit of risk in an intelligent fashion and let them learn about entrepreneurship. I grew up blue collar and I didn't have exposure to how private company formation worked. I didn't understand any of this. I had to battle my way to learn all of it. If you had a course, and people could go just as easily as they go to prize picks, which I bet on every Knicks game, and they could go just as easily to prize picks as they could go to Coinbase, as they could go to a private market company and invest, that would be better for upward mobility. So you're right. People are going to lose money, but they're going to learn. What do you think, Chamath? Subtle difference between the two of us?

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

I think that both are true. I think that we're all much better off just owning indices, or at least that was true. I think the problem with these indices right now is those are not really well balanced indices because the rules have changed. And the rules have changed because these companies have been smart enough to lobby folks like S and P and S and P has allowed these thresholds to creep up. And so now when you're buying the S&P 500, you're not doing that anymore. You're buying the S&P7 and then the rest in the 493 is, you know, 60%. So if that's what you want, that's fine. So we'd have to fix the ETF market to make sure that there was a little bit more transparency and there was more balance. But these weighted indices are basically just the Mag 7. That that's neither good nor bad. I'm just saying that's what it is.

[David Friedberg]

And so, yeah, and I'm just saying.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

It just creates the same problem. People think they're buying diversification. You're like, hey, go here. And it's diversified.

[David Friedberg]

And it turns out it's not even, not even diversification. Just like vetted, like mature real companies versus what I think will happen, which we've seen time and again with people that are not sophisticated or experienced when they first enter a new market, any market, is this process of adverse selection, which is you have predatory practices, predatory pitches that show up and say, invest in this. It's a great deal. This is the new thing. Most people aren't able to vet that thing and they end up getting taken advantage of. And that's the problem.

[Jason Calacanis]

They're getting taken advantage of in every crypto thing right now. So all I'm arguing for is more education and a path for those people who want to do it to show five hours of education, 50 questions, that they have an above average, you know, knowledge of how private companies work just so they have the choice to do that.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

I think the balance that we will have to strike is there are a lot of people that are on the outside looking in with no assets. And then second, there are a lot of young people who want the high alpha opportunities.

[Jason Calacanis]

Yes.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Like crypto represents. And so, Friedrich, it's easy for you to pull the ladder up from under you because you're already rich. But for people that are not rich, and if you went back to when you were poor, the question is, how would you have reacted if somebody above you basically said, I'm going to tell you what you can invest in and would you have said, okay, that seems reasonable. I know you're looking out for me, and I think that's the question.

[David Friedberg]

I don't disagree with that. I think there's a reason we have securities regulations and securities laws that public companies have to follow, but private companies are more lax on. That's. That's where there's this distinction. So I don't disagree. That's not.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying when, now that you're rich, you want rules for everybody else.

[David Friedberg]

What I'm saying is, don't mischaracterize me. Chamath. That's not true at all. I'm obviously a free market guy. I don't give a. I'm so poor.

[Jason Calacanis]

People invest in Uber. Not.

[David Friedberg]

I'm pointing out the consequence of what would happen. I'm not saying I disagree with some notion of what happened to you, with.

[Jason Calacanis]

Your value of private.

[David Friedberg]

I'm telling you what I think is going to happen.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Okay, What I'm asking you is go back to when you were poor. How would you react?

[David Friedberg]

I would want to invest in everything. I'm not disagreeing with the notion. I'm pointing out what will happen, which is predatory ass will show up and they'll rip people off. That's what happens in every one of these.

[Jason Calacanis]

And if you're educated, that's why the education component hits here, you'll learn something. Just like people are learning right now to not bet on the jets ever.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

What do you think the solution is?

[David Friedberg]

People can lose their ass. They just need to know they're going to lose their ass. I'm just telling you that's what's going to happen. And then you know what's going to happen next? Elizabeth Warren is going to get on TV and be like, hey, we got to fix this. Put a bunch of regulations.

[Jason Calacanis]

Nobody cares what Pocahontas has to say.

[David Friedberg]

That's how this goes. I'm pointing out, this is what happens. Market.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Yeah, I agree with you. That is the cycle. But what I'm saying is, how do we fix it then? How do you allow people that don't have assets to have assets that work for them? How do we do that?

[David Friedberg]

As you guys know, we looked at the data. Even the best venture capital firms in Silicon Valley with the smartest, most sophisticated people investing in private assets, were not able to beat the NASDAQ over the last 10 years.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Get it? That's true. What I'm saying is, what you were saying before, this is. I'm confused. What you were saying before is people should only be allowed to invest in the s and P500.

[David Friedberg]

I didn't say that.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

That is what you said.

[David Friedberg]

That's not what I said.

[Jason Calacanis]

That's exactly what you said.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

That is what you said. It is exactly what you said.

[David Friedberg]

I said, here's what's going to happen. I said, here's the consequences.

[Jason Calacanis]

You're predicting doom. Got it. Here's the other possibility of what happens. Ebay, Etsy, Airbnb, Doordash, say to the people who are part of their networks, for every hundred rides you do, we're going to give you $100 in shares. For every hundred nights you book, we're going to give you $1,000 in shares of Airbnb. And by the way, you can buy extra shares if you want to. And the government says you can spend up to 20% of your yearly income average for the past two years on investing in startups. And then some number of people who built those networks, whether it was Google's network or ebay's network or Uber's or Doordash's or were part of Tesla, some number of those people are going to hit massive home runs and they're going to move from the bottom third to the middle third. And then some number of those people are going to say, you know what, I got really educated. I looked and I understood Tesla and I understood Uber. So now I'm going to bet on this AI self driving company and I'm going to bet on this other company that makes robots and delivers, you know, vetoes. And the entire group of people in our United States is going to get more savvy about entrepreneurship and capital allocation. That's a good thing.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

I think what's going to happen is not much of anything. I think the rules are going to stay exactly where they are in favor.

[Jason Calacanis]

Of the top 10%.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Because I think this argument between the two of you is exactly the reason why it can never change. And I think that, that now again. So then what is the alternative? Maybe it comes back to what I said before, which is then the only alternative left is just to debase assets. And then if you debase assets and make them much cheaper, then there's less money theoretically to lose per quantum of investment. So maybe that's, that's the right way to think about it.

[Jason Calacanis]

We got to get more people owning equities in this country. That's just high order bet. Because if you feel like you have more agency in your life and you're just smarter and savvier that's the American dream. And we've lost the American dream. To your point, in the early signature month, half the country doesn't feel like they can ever get into the top half. They don't feel like they'll ever be able to buy a second home or even a first. So you have this helplessness of one group of people who are like, I need a handout. And the other group of people are like, got any stock tips? Where are you making money? What can I place a bet on? We're sitting here at a rigged game. We all get to play in one casino and then everybody else gets to work in the casino. I just want the people who work in the casino to be able to place some bets and maybe become owners in businesses. Hey, you know, I think talking about the US Postal Service is interesting. It turns out Trump is gonna issue an executive order to dissolve the leadership of usps. And the Postal Service is going postal about this in some ways, not literally, but they're angry about it and they want to absorb the agency into the executive branch. Just so you know, Post office has been operating for 250 years. Trump plans to fire the governing board and place the agency under the control of Commerce Litnik Commerce. And for context, U.S. postal Services lost $10 billion last year on $80 billion in revenue. They can't figure out how to just make a simple profit margin or even break even. And it employs 635,000 workers.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

By the way, Howard did an interview with Fox News yesterday where he said one of the ideas that he went back to the president with was for the Postal Service to do the census which would save 4 billion a year. Give him another idea which is I think that non farm payrolls and gdp, that data should be collected by USPS as well because they touch every business you can actually get instead of sampling with all this error and all of this craziness that we have, there has to be a way for then all of these feet on the street to get us much more accurate information so that the markets can actually function properly. I am surprised that we don't see even more dramatic revisions. And that probably again is like errors on top of errors. I really don't trust. Like, you know, you showed the GDP data or you showed the unemployment rate. Jason.

[Jason Calacanis]

No, we all know this stuff is crazy.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

It's wrong. I just don't know how wrong it is.

[Jason Calacanis]

Yeah, and this is where Stripe's data might come in handy. I did a tweet about this and it's One of the most popular tweets or controversial. I got three and a half million views here without an Elon retweet or anything. I had a very simple concept here. Postal service goes down to one time a week, easy peasy, once a week. There's nothing coming in the US Postal Service that's that important. Two, all citizens starting next year have to opt into getting postal mail by paying $1 a year. So you gotta sign up for it, you gotta give em a credit card or something. I'm thinking 80% of people don't even bother because it's all flyers and garbage anyway. And what people don't know because I was in the magazine business and I knew all about this, we had a magazine rate, a media rate and all these marketers have, they're subsidized. So this is the ultimate marketing and publishing grift. Magazines, newspapers, anybody, Publications, advertisers, catalogs, they pay nothing. And I think they should just double or triple the rate or remove any discounts and then take all those buildings, chamath, put them into the new sovereign wealth fund, redeploy the buildings, get some money out of that. Give every postal worker two year severance or you know, whatever. Graduate it down full full year severance, half year severance, quarter year severance while you retrain them and just let the private markets handle this. What do you think Shamatha? My suggestions?

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

There was a tweet from this woman who got leaked some data from one of her friends or colleagues in the government where they broke down I think seven or eight leases and real estate things that were happening inside of, I think it was Veterans affairs maybe. The numbers are just astounding.

[Jason Calacanis]

Yeah, half the office space is not being used, the other half is being underutilized. It's bonkers.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Bonkers.

[Jason Calacanis]

They're going to be able to sell 75% of this stuff. So anyway, you know, don't blame me here but I think it's like a really good opportunity. Our guy Jeff Bezos. Come on the pod Jeff, sit in the Saks chair one time. That'd be fun to have him on. He's making some big changes at the Washington Post. He's lost a fortune running this thing and it seems like he's getting engaged and in founder mode, dare I say. He posted to his X account and he emailed everybody that the editorial page is going to be run differently. He said that while newspapers once had a mandate to publish opinions from the broadest possible spectrum, the Internet now most covers that. He said I'm confident that free markets and personal liberties are right for America. I also believe these viewpoints are underserved in the current market of ideas and news opinions. So he's going to focus on those two pillars, personal liberties and free markets. This seems awesome and I could get into why it's brilliant on a publication basis. But I'm just wondering what your thoughts are with him getting more engaged with the publication that he was incredibly hands off with.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

I was a little surprised that he wrote this. I think that if you want to write about personal liberty, one of the tenets of personal liberty is free speech. But he's effectively said that certain opinions aren't allowed anymore. I don't think that that's the solution to the Washington Post. So all I think it does is it polarizes the readership even more. I looked inside of Google Trends. The overwhelming majority of WaPo readers are in obviously Washington D.C. and then Maryland and Virginia, which are the two surrounding. So I think it's very much a Beltway paper. I think he's trying to have a direct influence on the ideas that folks inside the Beltway read. And so in as much as he's the owner, he's allowed to do it. But I wasn't a fan of that idea because I think, I think the Elon plan is much better. Here's a fire hose. Go at it. You have to find the people. Despite all the conspiracy theories, I don't think he suppresses free speech in the least. In fact, I think it's a literal free for all inside of X.

[Jason Calacanis]

It is a free for all. I mean, we've got Nazi diamonds, independence coming from Kanye.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

The difficulty in X, which I think will be the next set of features that he'll have to figure out is how the curation happens.

[Jason Calacanis]

Yeah.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Where you're curating. I'm curating. Other people are curating. How can then. For example, like when I go to an account that I like, there's no easy way where I can mass follow a bunch of their. The people that they follow as an example. Right. I can't just copy it. I can't sort of start with a profile. Those are all these things that allow you to just take on all kinds of opinions right away and filter from there. I think that that is a really useful feature. So I don't know. I. I didn't think that if I was the owner of Washington Post, I would have been even more extreme on the free speech part. I would not have sanctioned speech.

[Jason Calacanis]

So it's interesting point you know, newspapers historically always had a point of view. They picked aside Fox, obviously, MSNBC now and cable news picked a side. This will make the publication, I think, by picking aside and saying, hey, here's what we stand for. This is our belief system. I think it will just make it viable in one way. And you're right, he wants to have a certain influence. That's why people buy these things. That's why they've historically owned them. And they have a point of view. And the idea that it didn't have a point of view previously was probably a mirage that some people felt there was some objectivity. But I like it. I like him being more engaged in it and tightening it up. All right. For the sultan of science, Chamath Paihapitiya, our sick friend, the comedian. Get well soon. We can't wait to have you on. It's going to be a hilarious time. And for David Sacks, who's very busy, the Rainman in Washington D.C. saving the world. I am the world's greatest moderator and we will see you next time. Bye bye.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Love you, boys. Bye bye.

[David Friedberg]

Let your winners ride.

[Jason Calacanis]

Rain Man, David Sack. And it said we open sourced it.

[David Friedberg]

To the fans and they've just gone crazy with it.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Love you, West.

[Jason Calacanis]

Queen of Kenois. Besties are gone.

[David Friedberg]

That is my dog taking it on this year driveway.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

Oh, man, my habit will meet me at. We should all just get a room and just have one big huge orgy because they're all just useless. It's like this, like sexual tension that they just need to release somehow.

[Jason Calacanis]

We need to get merch.

[Chamath Palihapitiya]

I'm going all in.