All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg

Industry veterans, degenerate gamblers & besties Chamath Palihapitiya, Jason Calacanis, David Sacks & David Friedberg cover all things economic, tech, political, social & poker.

E59: Twitter's content warning algo, equity audits, politicians trading stocks, Fed's next move, mRNA & more

E59: Twitter's content warning algo, equity audits, politicians trading stocks, Fed's next move, mRNA & more

Fri, 17 Dec 2021 10:44

(0:00) Bestie Intro: Sweater update, NYC stories

(8:30) Sacks got flagged on Twitter, theorizing on Twitter's content warning algorithm

(14:37) "Racial equity audits" with product-level consequences might be coming to Big Tech

(27:37) Elizabeth Warren vs. Elon on Twitter, birth of "Senator Karen," understanding where the Fed can go from here

(42:56) Omicron spreading rapidly in NYC, but deaths are still relatively flat, anticipating the quality of life split for blue/red states going forward

(53:02) Jeremy Strong's New Yorker profile and backlash, politicians trading stocks

(1:08:57) Future of mRNA technology

(1:15:39) SF Mayor London Breed's speech on increasing law enforcement: is she the right person to turn the ship around?

Follow the besties:

https://twitter.com/chamath

https://linktr.ee/calacanis

https://twitter.com/DavidSacks

https://twitter.com/friedberg

Follow the pod:

https://twitter.com/theallinpod

https://linktr.ee/allinpodcast

Intro Music Credit:

https://rb.gy/tppkzl

https://twitter.com/yung_spielburg

Intro Video Credit:

https://twitter.com/TheZachEffect

Referenced in the show:

https://twitter.com/DavidSacks/status/1470799225566859268

https://freebeacon.com/democrats/democrats-push-racial-equity-audits-to-cement-control-of-tech-companies

https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/get-ready-for-the-no-buy-list

https://mobile.twitter.com/SenWarren/status/1470415896053227522

https://mobile.twitter.com/SenSanders/status/1471512117257846784

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WALCL

https://twitter.com/mangan150/status/1470827691527999494

https://twitter.com/peterpham/status/1471514774546509829

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/12/13/on-succession-jeremy-strong-doesnt-get-the-joke

https://www.etalk.ca/celebrity/jessica-chastain-and-more-celebs-unnecessarily-run-to-jeremy-strong-defence-after-new-yorker-profile.html

https://www.wsj.com/articles/stephen-curry-warriors-shooting-11637027582

https://www.businessinsider.com/congress-stock-act-violations-senate-house-trading-2021-9#sen-dianne-feinstein-a-democrat-from-california-1

https://www.investopedia.com/regional-fed-presidents-step-aside-amid-trading-backlash-5203208

https://www.wsj.com/articles/131-federal-judges-broke-the-law-by-hearing-cases-where-they-had-a-financial-interest-11632834421

https://twitter.com/bgmasters/status/1471183791121055747

https://www.npr.org/2021/09/21/1039313011/tiktokers-are-trading-stocks-by-watching-what-members-of-congress-do

https://newsnetwork.mayoclinic.org/discussion/mayo-clinic-research-finds-immune-system-responds-to-mrna-treatment-for-cancer

https://twitter.com/robkhenderson

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Let's talk about the sweaters, OK? Let David, let's start with you because I love it. I love it, David. I love it. Up my sweater game for chamath. This is Tom Ford. Tom Ford. Tom Ford. The buttons are made out of endangered rhino horn. We just lost 1/3 of the audience. So my sweater is it. Is it very light Italian cashmere made by a company called Dorianne Doriano Kashmir. This right here is doing plugs for our stars that we're monetizing the all in pod. There we go. Doran, Kashmir just got this right here. This right here is the young calf leather, very soft, very soft. And the buttons like David's are made from Sharpton. And for those of you at home who would like to spend $150.00 and stay warm, may I recommend the marine layer? You can find it on Union Street jacket. That jacket on Turk St. Tilted his sweater. Karen, listening to this sweater. Karen, if you're listening, I mean, you must never reveal thread of carrot got back to me and she was like, Oh my God, he's so delted. I think I know who she is so I don't Karen can kiss my brown ***. So I jade comes home last night. I kid you not. She's like, I I don't like you. And the T-shirts, I got you some sweaters and I was, you know, we're going to the mountains for the for the holiday. And I was like, did you watch the podcast about the sweater? She's like, no, I don't listen to your podcast. I was like, OK, fair enough. And I'm like, I'm looking at these things on these boxes and she's got this bunch of sweaters. What did you spend on this? She said $3000. I was like, I'm not comfortable spending $3000 on a sweater. That's half as well on eight of them. But you know, yeah, Timothy is like, is that a sleep? That's. Four buttons on the waistband that might be a vest for chamath. I I think that's the boxes sweater came in with 3000. So I got my three quarter zip and I'm feeling good. I'm feeling really good, feel pretty sexy and I'll be honest. Let your winners ride Rain Man David Sack. We open sources to the fans and they've just gone crazy. Queen. Hey everybody, hey everybody, welcome to Holland podcast. Yes, breaking into the top 50 podcast week after week because of you, the amazing audience, telling your friends about two weeks. So it's week and week. All right, we that's what I said. Week after week, weekend a week a week, weekend, week, two weeks, hitting the Top 40 podcasts, episodes in the world. Thanks to the fans with me, of course. The dictator himself in a amazing sweater. Light, light cashmere. Gilley, the Sultan of Science, I found out from his mom ** *** much prefers the Sultan of science to queen of quinoa. So that's where we going with going forward. David Frieberg, who had a great party up in deep and I really enjoyed going, and sacks who didn't go to beeps party or to friedberg's party. He stayed home and played chess on his iPhone. The Rain Man himself, David Sacks. Welcome to the pod, everybody OK? You want my 2 New York story one true FD, Jason Calacanis true? No, that's not true. I I really wanted to come, but not breastfeeding, and so I couldn't come. The helipad was shut down. We're getting breast fed. There was like, was there a Curb Your Enthusiasm? Oh no, it was. This great show called Afterlife from Ricky Gervais. There's literally a scene in it where a woman. They work for a local newspaper that's going out of business and they're going to do local stories and the big story in town is a woman is making. Pudding. Incredibly delicious pudding, and it's from her breast milk. And they go and. Cover the story. Anyway, I'll just leave it at that. It's pretty amazing story. Do you wanna know my 2 New York stories or not? Yeah, let's hear it. Well, you said you had a helicopter story. What's that helicopter story? Helicopters. Also New York story. So? I went to Deepdale to play golf. With a certain well known individual and, uh, wheat chopper. Chopper back, a finance individual. Apoll media well known. Political, individual. Political. OK, so this is not a rock and roller. You do not want to step foot in a helicopter with a rock'n'roll star. No, no. But so here. So here's my story. Which is why I I I totally freaked out about helicopters and I can't. This was eight years ago. We played Deepdale, which is just, you know, outside New York, get in the chopper, lands in the middle of the thing. I was like, OK, that's fine, you know? And we're going, and I'm already feeling kind of skittish. I don't like helicopters. Get to the East Side Heliport and the East Side Heliport is basically right by the East River and so the helicopter descends. And one of the skis doesn't actually land on the ******* oops thing, and so he know it does. A little tilty poops, and then the guy comes back up and then he lands. You I'm honestly, like, I have never been more scared in my life. That's it. And I was like, that's it. Never again any besties. It's a bestie. Band for life for making a pact here. Nobody in *******. It's crazy. So that's why I'm in New York City net. Last New York story was I was there two days ago or for the last couple of days for Sam, in the middle of the in the middle of this omikron breakout. By the way, had a beautiful dinner after the game. Draymond, Kevin Durant, me. Bunch of friends. Did you go to the game? No, we went to the private room at Carbone. It was so brutal that I have to tell you, I feel so disgusting with myself. I had to work dinner. And I have sushi at the work dinner and then, you know, Drake text after the game. He's like, hey, look, we're all having dinner at Carbone. I said, OK, I'll, I'll head through. I went to the hotel, I called Nat and I said, I'm brushing my teeth. And she said, but you're going out. And I said yes, but if I brush my teeth, I'm not going to eat a second dinner. Dinner. And I thought, you know, and then, but I made a mistake, but I didn't floss, so I was unclosed, but I brushed my teeth. I show up and ******* I lose it. And wine and dessert and bread, pasta, pasta, baka. It was really brutal. And by 3:00 AM I stumble home. And I felt so bad because I have to wake up at like, you know, 8:00 o'clock in the morning. No, my first meeting is at 7:45. And congratulations to Steph Curry, by the way. Incredible. No great shooter of all time. He's a virtuoso. Yeah. Anyways, that was my that was my New York story. I I gained. Here's my here's my I gained 1K2 point £2.00 I gained in two days. Here's my Carbone story. Hardest thing to hardest reservation to get. New York Saks is like, Jake. I'll need to help me a favor. What's the best place in New York to do a closing dinner? I'm like, I got you, I got my guy, get my guy on the horn. My guys like, OK, I got you Carbone. Friday ******* night, 8:00 o'clock hard is taking in New York. You know what Sax does? Goes dark. Friday afternoon, 1:00 PM he's like, yeah, we're not going to make it. I'm like my friend is like jakal. Your guy burned. The Carbone res. That was the bird IPO. I was gonna take the founder out to dinner that night at Carbone, and then it turned into like the big group dinner with like 30 people. So it moved over to, by the way, the, the, the, the private room, which is like, you know, not in the restaurant, but it's like a little bit on the side. It only fits like 1520 people so it's not like you you and and that's that's then it's really tight how well you asked a question what was staff's how did Steph feel? No stuff wasn't there. Draymond, Kevin, me, Benny Fowler, morale. But just a bunch of you. Kevin. Kevin Durant. Kevin Durant. Still friendly with that. He's honestly he's he's such a great guy. I love Kevin. He really he is really really really wish he had stayed super super sensitive cool. These friends again with all good. He's always he was always I think that when they had their blow up it was more like their brothers. And it was just a little bit like when you started talking like Joe Pesci. Did did Kevin Durant ever start talking with Joe Pesci? Hey inside baseball, alright? It was an eventful week on Twitter where only one week into the new Twitter CEO's reign, Jack is gone and already. David Sacks has been flagged. It's a guy. It can't be a coincidence that you were talking about them flagging accounts at the end of free speech and then pull it up on the screen, everybody. Investors should be spending their time. Finding good investments. Not endlessly debating interest rates, inflation and tax policy. But that's the uncertainty Washington has created. That's a great tweet. I like that tweet, actually, and then the flag. The conversation from sacks has been flagged. Some conversations can get heavy. Don't forget the human behind the screen. Do you think that this is that's machine learned or do you think that that's an editor that goes in there and actually machine manually flags machine learning? That's a great question, but what did? But what is in there that actually triggers debating? Washington interest rates, tax policy. Washington. I'm not sure. I'm not sure that you could build, or maybe it's the ratio. I don't. I don't know how you would build a function that would wait this in a way where this could get flagged. Of all the things you could say with those words, this is so benign. Well, I think it's the kind of it seems to be this thing's trying to ward off bullying attacks on sex, which I don't think sex needs to be too worried about. All right? Because they're telling this to people who would reply. You're saying it's there to protect me. It's to protect you. It's one of those things where they're trying to get people to not insult you. From the comments talking about maybe you get a lot. Do you get, do you get a lot of insults in comments on your tweets? Oh, undoubtedly. But so it could just be a blank tweet. This, this, this tweets comments section or was pretty benign. Oh, right. It may not be about the tweet, it might be about the replies. So it might be that this wasn't that hot, this wasn't that hot. I think your mouth might be on to something. You know, Michelle Chandler got the same label around the same day for a tweet that seemed totally innocuous too. So what I wonder about is, you know, is this label to protect us? Or is it a way? Is it sort of a passive aggressive way for snowflakes at Twitter to like, label people they don't like, and sort of suggests they're vaguely disreputable? I don't think it's that. I don't think it's all that's right. It's a left wing, it's a, it's the, it's the libs going after the the sacks. You're paranoid. See any liberals getting? I haven't seen you like left wing people getting a blanket attempt at trying to kind of mute the tone a little bit across the the debating that happens and the comments that come across in the replies and I think they're just trying to like get everyone to tone it down a bit. Before you tweet it, it'd be really interesting to know whether this was algorithmic or was editorial, because I think if it's editorial. It does, actually. I don't think it's as extreme as what David just said, but it skews more in the realm of like, people with an axe to grind can flag one thing over another or not, right? But if it's algorithmic, I think that that algorithm probably just needs a lot of tweaking, because it's not. Anyway, this doesn't it say that there's a person behind the tweet. It's like trying to get people to not say kind of repugnant with the warning is charming. Good morning. Charming. Should be nice to each other. It's ridiculous. Like your mom inserting herself and being like, now, remember it's it's there to suggest that there might be something wrong with the content that's being posted. Well, you know, in other words, in other words, the content is so triggering that, you know, it needs warning labels. Do you guys think that paternalism has a role on social networks to try and nullify the the kind of discourse being too acrimonious? Like, I think we need some, some of the transparency that Jack Dorsey repeatedly promised that all the congressional hearings. And when he got hauled up there, he promised that they would give more transparency about the way that their algorithms worked. Where is that? And it hasn't been delivered up. They promised it. Now Jack Dorsey's skipped out of town and there's a new guy in charge. Well, we need to know how these algorithms work because they are pressing their thumb on the scale. You know of debate in the marketplace of ideas by suggesting that some ideas are sketchier than others they should just put here. This was algorithmically done based on. They should explain it under. There should be a little? You have the question mark based on the words in the thread, it feels like things are getting heated here. We did this with an algorithm or. Users reported this as a heated thread. So we put this here. Or a human decided, no. We decided, yeah, but you want it to be an open marketplace of ideas. But the fact is it's Twitter's marketplace of ideas, and Facebook is Facebook's marketplace of ideas. And at the end of the day, I don't think you're gonna get away from any of these centralized social networks having anything but some degree of moderation to play a role in a related thing. They didn't just target sacks, also shamatha. You didn't see this, but they flagged one of your tweets just this afternoon. But as you can see here, it's slightly different. One, it says layers are for players, this conversation will drift to $5000 sweaters. So a big warning for Chaban to just and for the people replying. Be careful. This, that must be, that must be. Then that must have been human, you know, human initially for sure. And this one came in or prodigy, another one came in for Prof G so, and in this case I think they're actually trying to think about the public good. This guy is full of ****. He thought JC Penny would beat Amazon. How many how many hours of master class Adobe Photoshop did you take to to get this little Joe from my. I didn't make these. My meme team did. I'm convinced that there's two ways to raise your next fund in Silicon Valley. One, have one of the top 50 podcasts in the world, or two, have a strong meme game and I'm going for both. Sax now has a warning on his and this one they put it on your profile page. This is crazy warning. This person is interesting things to say if you if you're too. Interesting. You get labeled now. It's really crazy. No, I saw Jacob. I saw Jacob having too much fun with this, and I'm like, I got it on this side. You're like, I need a meme team. Yeah, totally. If anybody out there, I don't care if you're I need a comedian. I'm willing to pay on a pay per meme, a pay per viral, whatever it takes. OK, in a related story, Democrats want racial equity audits at tech companies, according to the Washington Free Beacon, which, sacks, correct me if I'm wrong. That's some sort of wacky. Right wing publication never heard of it? OK, Washington Free beacon, if instituted orders, would have veto power over every product or initiative. That's not an exaggeration, is what the story says. One proposal from House Democrats would find companies 20,000 a day for not completing by annual independent racial equity audits. A left wing nonprofit called Color of Change is pushing for these audits. Last week, their president called for independent auditors to vet new products from tech companies. Or they're released in front of Congress 2018. Color of change successfully pushed Facebook into completing an audit. They called for more restrictions on Trump's post close range itself pushed for Trump to be permanently banned from the platform. Just so you know, this is exactly the the the rough version of what happened to Microsoft in their DOJ settlement. Their antitrust settlement was effectively an oversight where lawyers at the DOJ were the product managers and had not effectively veto right, but you had to approve product features before you could push them for 10 years. You know, this is essentially what caused bombers rain just be so you know enormous is that he couldn't do anything because you had you had a plan to do something and you'd have to go to these random folks who didn't really have the context to make a a decision one way or the other on features. So I mean the idea that they would do this is a pretty, it's pretty crazy. I need a point of clarification here. I've heard the term racial audits or racial equity audits. My understanding of those were to understand the composure of the company in terms of, you know the diversity in the company. This is something different. This is. In the product to make sure the product isn't racist. Can products be racist? What's an example of a product being racist? I don't understand what they would find. Let me unpack this for you, OK? What they are basically saying is that these big companies and the, for example, they've called on Google to conduct one of these audits, they want all these big companies to conduct these audits. These so-called auditors are actually political consultants who are members of the Democratic Party, who are friends of the Senators who are pushing for this. They're political activists. It's a gift and it's partly a grift, but it's more than that because, you know, when you conduct an audit, let's just take this word audit for a second, OK? You bring in a big 5 accounting firm and they will check your numbers according to generally Accepted Accounting Principles, GAAP, and make sure that the numbers are what you reported them to be. That is the purpose of an audit. And if the auditor ever says that you've done anything wrong, like you have to fix it. There's no choice. Or you can appeal to some other auditor and have them redo the work OK according to these generally accepted principles with an equity audit. What exactly are the principles that are being enforced or checked here? There is no generally accepted list of equity principles that must be enforced. These companies, basically you have to do whatever this political activist tells you to do. I mean, it's essentially like bringing in a party commissar to now take over the company or at least be inside the company. Telling the executives and officer of the company what to do, it's something that frankly, the CCP would do. It does feel a little like, yeah, Stasi like. Didn't we have all of the companies? On their own, from Twitter to Google to Facebook, release their own diversity stats. Years ago, I think this is more diversity. It's about equity, it's about equity. So, so it's explain the difference in what that means. This is somehow how the companies run like the day-to-day life of the employees there, not just the composure and the breakdown of the employees. Look equity, equity means anything that progressed to say, it means we've seen on this program before how equity has jumped the shark. There's now there is a provision in the infrastructure bill for tree equity. So I mean really any disparity that occurs that progressives don't like can now be called a violation of equity and this gives them the authorization. Come in there and start giving orders. It's very weird that that I don't understand how the product then review gets stopped. Is that meant to throttle you from leasing product as a punitive? Let me give you an example. So recently, you know, I wrote a, a piece called the The No Buy list where I basically you had companies like PayPal. And so these other financial firms were starting to deny service to customers, to users based on their political affiliations and not just like people who are in, you know, well known hate groups that like everybody sort of, you know, issues and wants to stay away from. But these are people with relatively down the middle conservative, you know, conservative groups and they were being denied. Service by, you know, fintech firms. So now I'm not saying that this is what this means, but if this equity auditors tells you, well, look, I don't think it's equitable to allow these conservative groups to, you know, be a user of your product. Well, what's the company going to do? They're have to listen to that. And and that that is a plausible scenario given that it's already occurred. We thought we've we've said this so many times on the pod but I just wanna say it again for because I guess a lot of folks are new and listening. Whenever you hear equity used by a politician, it usually means there's a power grab involved. Yeah, because if you really want things to be fair, you want things to be equal. Meritocracy. You want equality. But whenever you start throwing the word equity around and say we want racial equity, it's a bunch of, you know, a small number of people. Who, you know, basically have and live by what I, you know, what's often called luxury beliefs, who want to judge other people, who want to be morally absolutist and then who want to basically like, you know, exercise a power grab. And we have to push back on that stuff because it it's just a slippery, slippery slope. Well, this also seems like overbearing. Red tape for companies, I mean, if the company has no problems, no complaints against it, you know, releases their diversity numbers, like what is the point of going in there and auditing? Let's use, let's use an example that builds on what David said. Let's take square, OK. One of the one of the most incredible things that square did was in a hackathon, essentially build a cash app. And one of the most incredible things that happened in the cash app was that it really started to blow up in urban communities. OK. And it starts to normalize banking, opening up bank accounts. Having more savings understanding, you know, an on ramp into crypto, you know cash app has probably done more to get black and brown people into crypto and to save money and to understand their cash than almost anybody else as as a almost explicit strategy. And so is somebody supposed to go in there and just, you know, arbitrarily judge whether there's too many white people that work at square or not enough black people? And so XYZ thing has to change or such. And such a feature doesn't actually speak to folks. So you can't do it. It's insanity. It's like also to to your point, sacks is what? What are the, what do these people know? Like, what is their qualification and what's the goal, right. And and to build on schmauss point if these senators. So I think Cory Booker was the one who proposed this. If these senators want those specific policies implemented in the Fortune 500, let them pass a bill to do it, and let all of our elected representatives vote on that bill. And then we can see if it'll really, if it's popular enough to pass and whether it passes constitutional muster. They won't do that because these bills, if they were directly concretizing for themselves, would be very unpopular. So instead, what they do is tell you, well, we're not going to do this directly. We're going to put pressure on these big companies to hire one of our political friends. Again, this like comisar like person and empower them to tell these companies what to do. So it's it's really kind of insidious what they're doing and they're kind of covering it all up with these nice sounding names. I mean, who could be against a racial equity audit, right? Because yes, if you're if you're against it, you must be a racist and you must not believe in auditing companies, right? So there's this word game you have to you just it's a word game. It's it's using words that are really loaded and mean a lot to a lot of us, right. If I hear racism. Erase the bike you're wearing. It's not triggering, but my ears perk up and I have. I have a lot of inbuilt opinions on it that have been governed by 45 years as living as a as a brown man and so, OK, it stands to reason that I'm going to pay attention. But on the surface, if you say racial equity audit, it also doesn't seem actually all that bad. It seems like reasonably benign, and that seems like an OK thing to do. It's just that most of us then stop at that point and move on, right? But if you actually look at the rules again, I would just say whenever. Political frameworks use the word we need to create more equity, the outcomes are horrible. For example, look in healthcare, you know, if we have used this idea of healthcare equity, HealthEquity and we've misused it to such a degree and all we see is that now the system is so perverted, it also doesn't work for the majority of people that have actually had the healthcare system work for right, like at the top of the pecking order has always been white men have always gotten the best care and we've always measured our healthcare progress in America based on the longevity. Of men, white men, you know, 787980 years old. And then it started to degrade and people were curious what was happening and underneath it all was just a bunch of power grabs under the realm of equity. We passed all these crazy laws. We basically didn't do anything to really create more accountability and a cost based system and here we are. So at some point when the citizenry hears that word. You're gonna have to put your thinking cap on and actually take the opposite view, which is hold on, this is a really nice sounding word. It may not be what I think it is and I gotta pay attention because more than if I didn't hear the word at all. Anything you have on race freedberg representing. South Africans, fundamentally. I don't think this is about race, Jacob. I think this is about power, power, power. It feels like a power grip. Also, it feels like a little, it feels like a little bit of a grift. I know I had heard on the back channel that a lot of the people who are criticizing some big tech companies. Who were getting, you know, I'm not gonna say who or under what month sweater. Sweater Karen. Karen. But there was a group of people who are like attacking big sweater Karen. If she has an opinion on sweater, she must have an opinion on racial equity. Come on. OK. The issue is they would complain and create these, you know, basically, you know, Twitter mobs. And then they say, Oh yeah, and hire us for $20,000, we'll come in and fix the problem for you. So they were creating the Twitter mob to come in and solve the problem. And I was like, oh, wow, that is so brutal. That's so dirty. Collins who've written these books like although was a danger or whatever on white fragility and the you know how how to be an anti racist. I mean they're all making a fortune in corporate fees, you know, charging twenty $30,000 per per gig. I mean it is absolutely a racket. I'm not a fan of equality of outcome. I'm more a fan of equality of opportunity. And I think many, many of these sorts of folks, I try and identify methods to drive equality of outcome. And it inhibits the competitive forces that cause the best person the best idea, the best business, the best market model to win. And you know, I think it it's easy to conflate the two when you don't really think through it, but it is certainly appropriate and reasonable to make sure that folks aren't discriminated against when they apply for a job. I don't think it's appropriate to then apply considerations of race and other factors when people are equally in the same job on who gets to have the chance at the bonus. It is the best performer that should have the chance at the bonus. And the same should be true in marketplaces, and the same should be true with business. And I think that what we're really seeing is this fundamental effort to try and generate equality and outcomes in lots of different manifestations. And we're seeing it more frequently and and more severely than we've seen that historically. But it's not, I don't think it's the right model and it's only going to lead to the demise of marketplace dynamics and the things that cause forces for success and progress to win. You know, we we mentioned this a couple of times, I'll just say it again, but we are about to have. Probably the most significant movement and questioning of equity versus equality, because I think in the next month, maybe in the next two months, we're going to sort of see a pretty strict opinion on affirmative action. And if you talk to legal scholars, the overwhelming consensus is this is gone. And, you know, we're gonna have to figure out how to rebuild. You know, what was a really important system that tried to give folks at least, you know, getting to the starting line in the same way? But it's not gonna it's not really going to exist in this in the same way, shape or form. Speaking of Karen's Elizabeth Warren was bashing Elon over taxes. Elon has a Twitter handle with some followers and he responded. Elizabeth Warren says let's change the rigged tax code so the person of the year will actually pay taxes and stop freeloading off everyone else. Unfortunately for Elizabeth Warren, Elon Musk is pretty good at Twitter, he replied. And if you opened your eyes for two seconds, you would realize I pay more taxes than any American in history. This year you pay. Which is, I guess, true. He paid more in taxes now than any American in history. As a side note, Elizabeth Warren has a $12 million net worth, and I saw. But she paid no taxes on her equity holdings because she didn't sell anything, which is how the tax code works. And Elon then responded. Don't spend it all at once. Oh wait, you already did. And then you know after the warm up, replies Evan. Really? You know, got in the zone and like Steph Curry just started draining half court shots. He erased her every single yard her with 50,000 replies. Yeah, you remind me of when I was a kid and my friends angry mom would just randomly yell at everyone for no reason. Please don't call. The manager on me, Senator Karen Yuan, also responded to Bernie Sanders tweet today about climate change. Bernie Sanders said. When future generations ask us what did we do to stop the climate crisis, how will they answer? And Elon said. And so great tweets, uh, but to the bigger picture, did these people even know what's going on in the world? No. They woke up. They woke up on the wrong side of the tilt bed because in in like a 24 hour period he was the time person of the year, the FT person of the year. And they just went into super Mega Tilt mode and the build back better Act got shelved and he and then and then builds up 20 billion installs and. Well, I mean, you know, I think we, we talked about this last week, but that Bill is dead now. I mean, they pushed it to March to basically avoid a downvote. Nothing's going to happen, David. You're right though, is that we said last week, wouldn't it be hilarious if Elon said to kill it and then it got killed? Well, I don't. I don't think that that's why the bill is dying. I think the real reason is that we now see a Fed posture, which is actually pretty reasonable, which actually says, oh wait, there's way too much money in the system as it is, you know, the Fed two days ago. Basically said, we're going to see up to three rate hikes next year, probably 50 basis points each. So, you know, it's basically acknowledging that these, these last several years we have printed way too much money and they're trying to fix the problem that they created. So that's I think the real reason. And then the CBO comes out and basically says the Congressional Budget Office and says this thing is a white albatross that's going to cost way more than you guys think it will. And so it puts Biden in this very awkward situation, which is. You know, on the one hand, he supports Powell and, you know, he supports institutions or has historically like the CEO, but he effectively then has to push back on both of them all in one fell swoop to try to ram this bill down people's throats. And the support is, I think it's crumbling. And so, you know, to save face, they basically said, well, we'll put a pin on this and we'll revisit it in March, but you guys know what's going to happen in the next three months. There's going to be some other crisis most folks will forget and it may just allow them to move on without having to actually deal with. The potential of this thing getting defeated, which would just be, I think, cataclysmically bad for sacks, for Democrats. You were on CNBC today. I thought you said something really important to where you said it. Listen, maybe if we just calm things down for a year, we can, you know, get through. I'm not sure what the exact quote was, but maybe you could unpack that sentiment you had on CNBC today, because I thought that was pretty important. Yeah, well, I mean, I agree with what Chammas said this, I mean, this this BBB bill. Was particularly anachronistic once the 6.8%, you know, inflation print came out. In other words, we're in a hyperinflationary environment and here comes this bill that the CEO says if you know over 10 years would cost $5 trillion. That's the last thing we need is more money printing when you know we've got this inflationary fire out of control. So I think that is why the the bill is being shelved, probably not to return. I think that the larger problem that we have in the markets is that just there's a tremendous amount of uncertainty. Being created right now by Washington, we've had tremendous uncertainty over spending, over taxes, over interest rates. And the conversations that I'm having with friends who are investors and really every asset class, real estate, VC, crypto, the conversations are all the same. What's interest rates going to do? What's the macro picture going to be? I've never seen investors who should be focused on, hey, do I messed this company or buy this building, whatever. Those aren't the conversations. It's all everyone's a macroeconomist now, and so we're also distracted by this. And so now the Fed a couple of days ago finally gave us clarity. I mean what they basically said is they're going to accelerate the tape or they'll, they'll end quantitative easing at the end of Q1 and then we're basically gonna get 1/4 point. That means to people who don't know what they've been purchasing and why, yeah, I mean quantitative easing is kind of a weird term. What it means is that the Fed has been going into the bond market and buying bonds, I think basically mortgage-backed securities and treasuries and they've been buying I think about 90 billion. A month, they're gonna cut that back to 60 billion a month and that will continue. Just to explain it a little bit more, when you do that, what you're doing is you're giving somebody that owns those bonds money. OK. So the Fed prints money, basically. The government prints $100, takes that $100 steps into the market and takes something from you. In this case, it's a bond and gives you that freshly printed $100. What are you going to do while you're probably going to go and spend that, you're going to buy other things? And that's the cycle of inflation that quantitative easing basically creates. And so when you call, when you talk about tapering, what that means is slowing down the money printing machine and slowing down. You stepping in the market and buying assets with money that you've created out of thin air and it's up to other people to buy those assets. If other people see value in them, you you then you then are forced to find the real market clearing price. Yeah, those those bonds are now on the Fed's balance sheet. And so there's a very interesting chart showing assets that are owned by the Fed and it went up by something like 3 trillion during COVID. So that is the sort of monetary stimulus that's been pumped into the market over the last couple of years. Separately, we've had something like. 6 or 7 trillion of just spending by the government. So, you know, tremendous amount, about 3 trillion is not thrown away. So we're clear. We're going to get interest on that. And people, some number will default, some of them will get paid back. It's a way of stimulating the economy. But we now know after this stemmy checks and all the stimulus we did during the pandemic, we don't need to put more fire or oxygen or kerosene on what we got going in this economy, correct, David? Yeah. I mean, we we should show that chart about how much the the Fed's balance sheet has grown over the last couple of years. But, you know, the the argument I think would be the reason why they do they buy these assets is if they're buying bonds, it basically means that it keeps the yield down, right. Because if they weren't the ones buying them, someone else would have to buy these bonds to keep the government funded and they might demand a higher interest rate, a higher yield on the bonds. So this by having the Fed come in and increase the demand for the government's debt. It means that the government consults debt more cheaply, so when they stop doing that, I think you can expect that. You know, interest rates are going to need to rise in order to make our debt attractive to, you know, to bond buyers. The other thing, the other thing, by the way, that the Fed did when they did that was it wasn't just government bonds that they were buying. They decided completely arbitrarily at one point to start buying certain corporate debt. So they own like 4 debt, GM debt, commercial airlines called, yeah, no, no, that will not come in commercial paper sort of more very short fast turn, short term duration. But like how do you make a decision to start buying corporate bonds? It's like buying corporate equities. Do you buy Google versus Facebook? Do you have a, who's the capital allocator making that decision? So more importantly, who, who's who's setting the price, who's setting the price? So you know, these guys have been off the reservation for a long time. I think it's fair to say that they were forced into action without a playbook. In the middle of a once in a, you know, lifetime once a century pandemic. Fair enough. And I think they actually did a pretty reasonable job. But we just kept the tap on for so long. Yeah. And now we're like dealing with this stuff, trying to figure out how do we actually compensate. So the idea that we would add knowing all of this. So it's one thing, I think if Biden passed the bill. Five months ago, six months ago, because we didn't know any of this stuff, but to do it now, knowing that, I think that it's really hard. And I bet you that it's not just mansion on the Democrats that are having a little bit of heartburn and second thoughts. It's probably more because I suspect that they could have forced his hand really, if it was just up to him. But I suspect there are other Democrats who are now teetering on the fence thinking, I don't want my legacy to be tied to this when they're printing 678 percent inflation for me to basically keep the money. Printing machine on because it's it's insane. This is like The Sopranos episode where he gave him, like he fronted the guy like 45 boxes of ziti and like, you wake up and this guy can't pay the bill and the poker game, like, where can we even afford to pay this back at some point? Yeah, look, I think when when March comes around and this bill supposedly gonna be brought back off the table, we're gonna be into the election season in 2022. And I don't know that Democrats gonna defend this. I think there is a view on the democratic side that if they deliver enough goodies to their base, then that will help them win. Elections. But I think what helps you win elections more than delivering goodies to your special interests is for the economy to be healthy. Yeah, and if they are sort of pressurizing this inflation situation. That is, I think ultimately that could backfire. I think that's gonna be worse for the economy. Frankly. I think Manchin is doing Biden a favor. Because if the economy does grow by 4% next year, as the Fed is projecting it is, and if inflation comes down because you stopped printing money the way they're doing, then, you know, I think the Democrats will do better than the election if the economy is good. I mean, one of the reasons why they did so poorly, you know, in the off year election a month ago, is that this tremendous economic anxiety out there, people are seeing the inflation. At the gas tank when they go to buy food and you know if that continues, I think they're going to do very poorly next year. I want to just like bring up this chart from Fred on total assets on the Fed balance sheet. I think it is really interesting to look at this thing because so the the Fed had about a trillion of assets until 2008. OK, then we had the financial crisis and they doubled it. That's when the quantitative easing began. I went to two trillion but then from roughly 2009 to about. 2020, before COVID, somehow the balance sheet grew from 2 trillion to 4 trillion. So and it had gone to four and a half and they were starting to shed assets, so they were starting to get off drugs, but it was still from 2 to 4 trillion between this like 2009 and 2020. When supposedly we weren't in a crisis. So you know, they've continued this quantitative easing. Then COVID hits and the amount grows from 4 to 7 trillion just in 2020 and since then it's gone from 7. To a little under 9 trillion just in the last, you know, well, they they they did 3 trillion off our books ever. I mean, these are 20 years. They're gonna have to sell the assets or they could do. Well let's not like that. They they basically are the are the the Fed is the one who bought the government debt. So they're buying call it a 10 year Treasury. So yeah I guess they could just wait till the the bond gets paid off. But but I guess they could do that but but now the Fed has an incentive not to let the assets get toxic, right. So if you know the assets would get toxic, if you know if interest rates go up too high that drives bond prices down and now all the assets on their books are worth a lot less. Yeah, this is, this is like the point where we have to just call it and say, OK, you know what? Let's move on. Meaning in the sense that, like, we have to go to these root causes because the money is more money, is not going to fix what we're dealing with. So I just put something in the group chat and I just want to get your guys's reaction to it because when I saw it, it blew my mind. There was a study. OK, that was just published a few days ago and it said the following thing. Children born during the pandemic have experienced a catastrophic drop in cognitive development of 22 IQ points, 22 and when you look at it. The people that were the most affected were male children and children of lower socioeconomic families. But everybody was affected. Yet you see the amount of money that we're spending already, so adding more money. To something is not going to make it better if what we're spending today is basically just getting flushed down the toilet. And these are the kinds of things that really matter. How do you allow an entire generation of kids to surprising to see to suffer? By the way, what does that show? That means that teachers actually are unbelievably important. So number one, they should get paid a lot more. OK, let's just put it out. There should be more of them and small class sizes. Exactly. But if you, if you have, you know, these completely screwed up incentives between, you know, the organizations, the unions that represent these teachers and then the parents who have completely different incentives. And they basically fight to never be in classroom and do not really teach. This is the measurable outcome. Yeah. The IQ of our children. I mean we are pushing ability, their executive function, their scores are going down. How do they recover from that? I mean a lot of tutoring, summer school. I mean zoom is not going to do it. I don't think more fortnight and roadblocks fixes this problem. No, definitely not. And and I feel terrible because like, you know, as a parent that's that was my solution, right. I was struggling with the zooms. Like every other parent. And then in the evenings I was just so burnt and just feeling so beside myself in the middle of the pandemic. Whereas I had a no iPad rule for my kids that I broke down. Yeah, you know, everybody did. I mean, it's like everybody, you're home with your kids all day long. It's not how it's supposed to work. And but. So the point is, like, this is where the government should step in and actually say, OK, here, let me take leadership on this topic, right, and talk to the unions. Fix whatever needs to be fixed, amp up the the money into charter schools, do whatever you need to do, but please fix the problem. But randomly spending money to try to buy votes. I think people see through that. It just doesn't work. And related to that, Omnicron is spreading like crazy. New York City had an outbreak. Cross Omicron Omicron there is no N Omicron Omicron omicron. Yes. I'll. I'll learn how to pronounce it when it's gone. Omicron is spreading like crazy. In New York City and in the UK, amongst other places, the NBA and the NFL are seeing surges. I've had a ton of people I know test positive this week. You guys had that family, friends crazy. It's insane how many people are. I know so many people that are. Related yeah. And a lot of people that don't have any symptoms. So here's the chart of cases, cases spiking. But hospitalizations and deaths are flat or going down. In places where these outbreaks are occurring. In the UK, charts are even starker. There's a lot of anecdotal evidence. Everybody on Tik T.O.K and Instagram and Twitter, young people in New York who went to Santacon are saying they all got it. But if you look at what is Santa Con, Santacon is the worst holiday of the year. It's a time when a bunch of young people. Dressed as Santa Claus. And get drunk and you have. Sorry, but like thousands of people, it's a bar crawl. This is sexy Santa. You see how you see how monties were in his NFL? Ohh Monty claws. That's what goes on. Everyone wears their little Santa outfit and they go bar crawling. So it's not sexy Santa. Well actually I have a story about that. I was San Francisco. You were sexy Santa. No, I literally took my daughters out for pizza at Tony's in North Beach. And, you know, I got my three daughters and there's all these people walking and like, look, dad, it's Santa Claus. Like a lot of them. And so there's 1000 Santa Claus descend on North Beach and I turn around and I kid you not. There are two old guys. I'm talking 70 years old. And they're wearing a baseball Santa hat. Santa boots. And nothing in between. Literally buck naked in on the streets of. Yeah, bro, you're you're so you're so demented. OK? You're like this, like, like unki perf. Like, every time I get those text messages, I don't know what to think. Did you guys click on the Twitter link where Jason was? Like, guys search for the Folsom Street fair on Twitter? I can't. I can't Unsee what I saw. I was like, 320 trending. I was like, I thought there was a terrorist attack. Bro, that was so brutal. You you should you can't send that **** around like, it's so brutal. Guys don't click off. I was like, don't click on false. I was like, oh. This is a Twitter link. What is it about? Web 3 point out. Not exactly the Folsom Street fair. I'm going to go ahead and say don't search for that if you have kids around. It's a little bit intense. But anyway, the Santa con was on Saturday, December 11th, and so here we are five days late, you know, four or five days later. And this stuff hitting, if that's true, it almost perfectly mirrors the original outbreak after Saint Patty's Day in March 2020. And if you look on social media, all the city, MD lines, uh, where people get tested are around the block. And 30 NBA players have entered the COVID protocol in the last two weeks, about 7% of the league. And we had a big question mark of would this be less, more contagious? It obviously is. Check. Less deadly. It apparently some studies show as much as 40 times more infectious than Delta. Highly contagious, extreme, very much airborne. It's going everywhere. Like I said last time, if it does end up having low severity and low hospitalization rate and low death rate for vaccinated or vaccinated plus boosted populations, this could end up being a massive immunizing event, meaning like a lot of people will develop new antibodies and resistance and you know, that could be a net good thing, but it's certainly the case that this is not a one strain, one shot and done pandemic, this is an endemic kind of circumstance. We're going to be in this for a while and you know the circumstances. Or one that may kind of require, you know, an adaptation in terms of how we live and operate and especially as it relates to things that are so important, like keeping businesses open in schools. You know, I think we're gonna use recent memory to guide future decision making. Or at least politicians and. You know, kind of lawmakers will, and they'll say, hey, this is what we did last time this happened, and we just saw this in California, where the last time, like we told, everyone's going to lockdown or wear masks indoors again, and we're seeing that behavior again. Certainly it may have an impact in terms of the spread, but this is highly contagious and it's going to spread everywhere. And I think there's just some adaptation that maybe. It's going to be needed here over the long run. There's no end, there's no end insight. There's no end insight. But it is less deadly and so it could be mass immunizing and that has LED people to think of this herd immunity potentially if there's not another variant sacks, if the NBA and the NFL are learning to live with COVID. And obviously when we were in Miami, there's no COVID and Austin, there's no COVID is everybody now just go. Because it seems like the politicians now, whether it's in Europe, we're seeing the protests and I think we'll see them here in the United States if this keeps up. Australia obviously having protests as well. The public has decided, I think we're willing to have 1000 people die a day or a certain number of people die today to get back to normal. So what do you think the end game here is going into 22? I'll make a prediction for 2022, OK. I will predict that even the blue areas of the country are gonna have fatigue with all these COVID restrictions and so even the blue state governors who are addicted to their state of emergencies and their restrictions and lockdowns and. Closures and mass mandates, even they are going to have to give them up in 2022 because the country is sick and tired of this. Peter Pham had a really good tweet just the other day. Maybe you guys can dig it up where he had a friend visit him from Texas, and they've been living normally there since like July of 2020, roughly kids in school. Occasionally someone gets sick, but they've been living normally. OK. It's a manageable problem, and he couldn't believe that Peter's friend could not believe how they're living in LA. We're still everyone's living in fear. They've we now have a new one month indoor mass mandate thanks to you know Governor Newsom who still is ruling the state under state of emergency what what good is that going to do so I think you know but but but I think that some of these blue areas people are so petrified still of the virus and I think it's just because of they're the ones who have been ingesting all this fear **** coming from the media and but I but I think it's going to break I think the the Finally this hysteria and panic. Will break. It'll crust over the blue parts of the country. In 2022, they're already back to normal in the red parts, and especially amakan. You can't stop this. OK? I think that's the the the salient point here. Nothing working. You're all going to get it. Little stupid wax card that you have to show everywhere to get like popcorn at a movie theater. Like, you know, Sansco doesn't do anything because vaccinated people can spread it too, so that doesn't do anything and the maskman date doesn't do anything. You know, and so none of this stuff does anything except getting a vaccine reduces the severity of the illness if you get it and losing weight and we can't have that conversation, those consequences are mainly on the person who decides to do it. I have to say is we have to tell everybody, you know, listen, lose weight, get in shape, eat healthy, get vaccinated, get back to life. That's it. That's the best you can do. I'm, I believe everybody is going to get it. We're starting to see like a real divergences in American life, where and I think Americans. If we have lockdowns under Omicron and really the the big issue is school closures. If we go back to school closures and blue States and have more of the learning loss that Jamath was talking about and I bet we do. Whereas in red states they're still out there learning normally and they're dealing with it just like they deal with the outbreak of a flu season or cold season. But they, you know, they're just managing it. We're going to, there's going to be, we're going to be living in two different Americas. But I but I don't believe this is sustainable. I think eventually these governors who are holding on to their power and their restrictions are going to lose in 2022. The ones who haven't given it up are gonna are gonna basically fall to a red wave in November 22. I think Newsom might be the only one left standing was closed. I see everybody's canceling their Christmas parties. JP Morgan canceled that. San Francisco, we're close every Christmas party's been getting cancelled and I wonder if schools, I mean teachers unions are they they got to be having a meeting right now. They don't even the tissues even acknowledge that learning loss exists. I mean, this is your last point. We decided to home school for the year of the pandemic, and I kept my home school teacher for, you know, a couple of hours a day. And my kids have done wonderfully. And it's great to have the ability to afford to be able to do that. But not everybody can have an after school tutor. It may upload all this for a second. OK, so maybe I'm spilling the beans on one of my predictions. I'll make it the predictions episode we do. But first we had COVID. OK, then we had the overreaction to COVID both politically and economically. Economically, we pumped 10 trillion plus. Of spending and monetary and QE and all this sort of stuff politically, we had these restrictions, school closures, lockdowns, mandates, OK. I think we're about to enter a new phase, which is the correction to the overreaction and I think we're already in the correction. So the market has been correcting, gross stocks been correcting for the last five or six weeks. I now think that we're there was a bit of a political correction with young kid winning in Virginia. Remember that state swung 10 points relative to a year ago. And I think you'll see a further correction, both political and economic, in 2022. So we may not be completely past COVID, but I think we are going to be past this sort of overreaction to COVID. What do you guys think about succession? Oh no, I haven't seen it. Don't say anything. Jeremy Strong, Jeremy strong, let's talk about the Jeremy strong thing. Jeremy Strong, OK, Jeremy Strong is a weirdo, according to a New Yorker profile, and there's been a huge response to it. This profile is Kendall Kendall Ryan, success Kendall Roy, who is woke and dumb and ineffective as an executive. And obviously the show is modeled after Rupert Murdoch and Fox and the kids there who are not dopey. Actually, in the article it hinted that most of secessions coworkers dislike him due to his intensity and methane acted method acting rituals. He won't rehearse with anybody. He's in character all the time, like Daniel Day Lewis. He won't get makeup whenever everybody else does because he doesn't want to reduce the energy and the build up. The article notes there is a fine line that strong walks between being a legendary method actor and just a complete lie. Awesome networker. Wait, can I tell you why this story was interesting to me and why I sent this to you guys? Yeah. OK, so here's a guy who. In many ways, is a virtuoso and. The reason you mean he's a, he's a really good actor because I despise Kendall Roy on that show. And I was wondering, like, is this guy just a terrible actor or is he such a good actor that I hate them? Yes, I hate them. And that's why I was attracted to this article and in it or after it. So basically what happens is. He's a virtuoso, just and I'll come back to him in a second. These people at The New Yorker who I guess are just jealous or wanna write clickbait. Try to destroy this guy. But what they didn't factor is that when they published this article, all these other actors would come to his defense and do it really publicly. Yes, Anne Hathaway, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Aaron Sorkin wrote a letter exactly that Jessica Chastain published to Twitter because Aaron Aaron Sorkin doesn't have access to social media by design. And in all of it, they said this is the most incredible person we've seen, Aaron Sorkin says this guy is as good as Dustin Hoffman, which is like, that's his. As good as it gets. So why was it interesting to me? It's you have these people. Who are grinding and trying to perfect their craft. Be a virtuoso. You talked about Steph Curry grinding. Try to perfect his craft. Just a little Steph Curry story as a tangent. He he brought in this team where they basically started to map out all of the circumferences of the ring, of the of the net, and he practiced this summer, literally trying to get it perfectly in to create this very specific kind of squish. And he just kept shooting and shooting and shooting and shooting not, you know, all the time, but every day for some number of shots, trying to get the ball perfectly into the basket. That is a level of perfectionism, and it that's being a virtuoso that none of us can really appreciate. But you see the output and we all love it is already the goat, and he's trying to outdo himself. Here's a different guy in a completely different theater, but in this case, acting, trying to also be really legendary and putting himself through all kinds of stuff. And still not lose himself in it. OK? So much so that all of these other people will really appreciate how amazing he is. And to me, what I don't like is that then these critics who don't do anything, who've never accomplished anything at all in their lives. Seal judgments feel so triggered that they have to judge him. It's one thing to not have that skill. I'll never be as good of an actor as Jeremy Strong. I'll never be as good of about basketball player stuff, but I don't hate these people for that. I'm so happy that people like this exist, but there is a strain of people that exist. And then we also have A and then who also have a platform. Yeah. I was about to connect the dots for you is like, look at. Yeah, look at how the politicians feel the same way about private market politicians, social media to try to destroy people. Yeah. So instead, what these people do is they take a shortcut. They're the critics. They're not in the arena, OK? The folks in the arena are booking wins and losses constantly. But you have this. You have this strain of impotent critic. That doesn't naturally know how to do for themselves. And they somehow have a platform, and then what they end up doing is cutting corners. And then some subset of those start to cheat. Q David? Well, yeah. It's a story that the Congress back in 2012 passed a bill called the Stock Act to prohibit. Members of Congress, from trading on their insider knowledge based on, you know, based on legislative actions, are about to take, and it's been widely flouted by dozens of. You know, representatives and senators, and the problem is there's no punishment. It's something like a $200.00 fine or something like that that gets waived in most of these cases. So it's completely hypocritical because these are the these politicians like Senator Karen, they're constantly demonizing and attacking other people to make themselves look better. And then here they are. They've got dirty hands, and they asked Pelosi, they set to Pelosi. Well, don't you think that members of Congress should be prohibited from trading stocks? Right, because their actions have such a huge consequence on them? And Pelosi said, no, it's a it's a free market. It's a free market. We should be free to to do that. It's like, huh. You know, I don't remember that being a defense every time you've wanted to regulate some, you know, industry that that that you think that doesn't the President have to divest when they take the Presidential office isn't that a thing? Divest or they put they put their assets in a blind trust. Yeah. So they're blind. So why, why why would senators, Congress, totally people be any different than it's absurd that elected officials should be able to. Region insider trading. It makes no sense. the Fed actually had this issue as well to two folks on the Federal Reserve Board resigned, and then Powell issued a whole bunch of, I think, new laws or regulations inside the Fed to try to fix it, and the same issue occurs with federal judges. And there are federal judges that are consistently trading. In the equities of the companies that are in front of them and so how can you, how can you adjudicate a case? There was one judge that had 130 plus conflicts, trading conflicts. 130 Plus and he is the one that's there where AT&T or Facebook or Google has an issue. I mean, how can you actually assume that these folks are being impartial if that's the case and there are no consequences for this and yet, you know, if you're again going back to where we started? Somebody in the arena trying to do something, you just gotta think yourself like you have critics that are bashing you. You have folks that are basically flouting the law because they can. And then you put these two together and it's like, this is so it's kind of depressing to be honest with you. You you start to lose a little bit of faith in the honest. I mean this these politicians are grifters, that's it. And. I mean, they're just grifting and. I mean, except for apparently, except for Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, they should just buy the companies. Say, hey, why aren't they buying Amazon and Tesla? They would be total proponents of Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk if they did. Yeah, in fairness to Warren, I've seen her tweet that she supports the banning of the insider trading by congressional representatives, but I don't exactly see her fighting for it, you know, as hard as she's denouncing people like Elon. So, look, I mean, it's it's characteristic of of elected officials that they what is it they see that the splinter, you know? In somebody you know in somebody else's eye, but not the the log in their own or something like that. Isn't that the expression? But, you know, who's taking advantage of this issue is Blake Masters, who's running for the Senate in Arizona, just tweeted about that this would be the first thing he would fix if he gets elected, which is to ban insider trading by elected officials. And I I think it's remarkable that, you know, politicians as shrewd as Nancy Pelosi are just seeding this issue to Republicans. I mean, I don't know why Republicans wouldn't make this a major plank of their platform for 2022. Nancy Pelosi is, I think, the 3rd or 4th richest person in Congress. Her husband is a very sophisticated private equity investor. There are these meme stocks that follow Nancy Pelosi's stock trading account or pretend to that were, you know, recently, by the way, banned by Twitter, right? Yeah, that was weird. Yeah. Protecting her, protecting her effectively. So, you know, she has an incentive to not her seat of power. Is not necessarily the salary that she earns by being house leader, but it's by translating that in a bunch of different ways. And one way, apparently it turns out, is being an active equity investor in the market. It's unbelievable that's allowed. I don't know how this isn't just like an A+ fantastic issue for Republicans. They should make it an absolute plank of their platform. Here we go. Florida Republican Brian Mast was late in disclosure, disclosing purchase of up to 100,000 in stock at an aerospace company which had just testified before our committee sets. Kentucky Republican Rand Paul was 16 months late disclosing that he bought his wife, bought stock in a pharma company that manufacturers an antiviral COVID-19 treatment. Right. Nevada Democrat Susie Lee failed to properly disclose more than 200 trades. Yeah, just as much as three million. I mean, this is just to be clear. The violations have been on both sides of the aisle. I'm not at all trying to say that Republicans are better on this than Democrats. This is good. This is good bipartisan cooperation. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's ridiculous. This is the political class. Washington publishing behavior, but, but but the difference is this, which is that Pelosi, the only leader of a party I've heard defend this is Pelosi. And I think this is a fantastic issue for outsider candidates really on both sides to run on. This is this is also something that Biden can take because Biden has never tried to do this stuff, you know. Oh my God, Biden's got so many shady dealings and contacts, you know her kid, no selling paintings to China. There's a lot of rich bidens out there. Apparently. He's got a rich brother. He's got a, you know. Paid a lot of money? No. Maybe. Maybe that's true. But Joe Biden has been really down the middle. Come on, be fair. Hunter is brilliant. I mean, he's selling paintings. Yeah, but why are they buying Hunter Biden paints for $500,000? Well, I mean. He's a great artist and why people buy. I don't know if you saw Melania is coming out with NFT today, so she's OK. Melody, is everybody securing the bag now? I mean, if and by the way, the presidential grift is always the best, just as a case in point. Trump's spac. Is worth over 2 billion and BuzzFeed, which makes 360 million a year and I think as a hundred 200,000,000 cash is worth 600. This he's not an office that's misstated. Jason Trump's back. His shares that he's going to be receiving are worth close to 20 billion. Watch 20 billion. But he's on an office anymore, so I'm not sure the shared that he's gonna receive. Yeah. What you're counting is the market cap of the cash and trust the value of the shares that are already public in the Trump. The value of the Trump entity is going to be closer to 20 billion. Oh, is that right? Wow, that's even crazier with no revenue. These poor media. Yeah, well, the SEC, apparently, the DOJ sent a bunch of inquiries on this asking for background on the transaction because there's no business, there's no contract, there's no employees. It's just the whole but by the way I just just to make sure that everybody understands this is this is a bipartisan thing as well the the ultimate. Bag secures the Obamas got I think 50 million plus each for their book deals. And they got supposedly high 8 figures like 5060, seventy $80 million from now. Sorry, hold on a second. Hold on a second. When you said when you call them bag secures, I was really triggered there for a second. So am I supposed to take that offensively that you're saying Michelle Obama and Barack Obama secured the bag, secured the bag is a term for getting the money? No, the Obamas are doing it. OK. So just did it and it's a thing. Trump is good thing, it's a secure the bed. But Jason, where we're not against everybody's not being able to make money. The issue is trading on your office in a way that where you are trading on your insider information that your office is giving. But I mean or if you're selling influence, if you're selling book cost and if you sell a book when you're out of office, is that really a problem? Is that on that wanted to point out that Netflix one? What was Netflix's existential crisis for the eight years Obama was in office? And you may remember. Nobody remembers net neutrality cares. Could they get would they have to pay Verizon? What was the Obama's position on net neutrality? They were for net neutrality. Netflix stock went up 4050X under Obama. It could all be a coincidence. I'm just saying, what the ****? So you're saying it's like you're saying said this guy is lobbying payment to Obama. I think it's like, are you serious? I think it's like you. I think you're so, I mean, listen, the Clintons were doing speaking gigs for Goldman Sachs and half, $1,000,000 is kind of my cute. I go to dinner now. OK. So here's the MRI and you know the main way that Winston Churchill supported himself was writing books. I think it's OK for politicians to write books and if because ultimately the public buys them and that's how they make money. That when the book is 50 million in the normal price would be 10. That's the problem. I mean if I I guess you might have a point if the advance was so in excess of the expected sales that it raises a question of what the real motive is for the payment, but I don't. But is that, is that what happened is nobody gets paid a $50 million events, nobody gets an 8 figure dollar who's never made a documentary before? No, I mean, if this book sold 5,000,000 copies, it still wouldn't be worth it. Let's move on to M RNA so we keep our freed free bird factor high. Like, so, like, so I'm so ready to go to dinner. Rick Thompson gave me a wonderful bottle of wine. By the way, I'm going to go drink it tonight. I'm so super tilted that you're you. You. Yeah, it's like, I mean, I criticized the Obamas. Yeah, I can't do it. No fly zone from super tilted. I mean, this is worse than sweater Karen. What what about the Clintons? Can I can I go after their 500K speaking gigs from Goldman Sachs? Yeah, that's OK. Yeah, OK, fine. Just don't touch the Obamas. But I mean, Jason, are you are you doing exactly what Senator Karen did to Elon, which is by virtue of the fact that they're making money that you are now imputing evil motives to it? No, it's just a disproportionate to what they should get by your assessment there. Assessments the same about Elon. I pay a lot of money for Michelle Obama to do much of any. I think she's just a good deal for somebody who's never made a film for Netflix. I don't think it makes sense. You you said the same thing about Ruby, and I don't know, man, you're projecting a little bit. I I totally agree. This is on the 2nd floor. I jump out the window right now. Yeah, you are. Let winners be winners. Jakkals. I think we should differentiate between insider trading. Sure bad and should not be allowed. Influence peddling bad should not be allowed. And somebody out of office making money influence talk. No, no, no, not monetizing their influence. And if they did, there, that's getting paid for services is not getting paid to sell tickets or books. That's if that's what it is. That's fine. It's disproportionate to the reality. I agree. It's more a nobody. No, no, no, Jason, say you like the Obamas are all. Would vote Obama in for a third term. OK, didn't you get paid a $50,000 speaking fee recently to speak at a conference? He did overpay. Overpay, overpaid, overpaid. You're worth $88.50 in a ******* subway sandwich. You're worth like $2500. Influence? Who are they paying you to influence? Jackal? I mean, honestly, I have Jason influence. Jason. Jason, you're worth like, like 30% less than a high end escort. OK, no offense. Oh man, that's acceptable. Yeah, there's a. What's 30%? More than 50? It's saying it's like 80 grand and that's, I don't know, 6070 grand. I didn't realize that. Alright, talk to us about the M RNA news for cancer freber that came out this past week. So I think the article that you guys sent around was one related to an oncology treatment that uses M RNA tech. But I I think it's what I wanted to kind of what I thought would be interesting to talk about for a second is just zooming out on M RNA technology as a whole which you know has been theorized for you know the, the the potential of it's been talked about for 50 years. If we talk about real quick what what RNA is remember your DNA, your genetic code you know defines. The the printing of proteins in your cells. And so every 3 letters of DNA is an amino acid, a bunch of amino acids in a. In a row form a protein, and that protein has some function in your body. The way that the DNA gets translated into protein is through these mRNA snippets. So a little snippet of RNA is a copy of DNA, which floats over from the DNA strand, and it floats into what's called the ribosome and the ribosomes, the protein printer in the cell. And there's lots of ribosomes and there's lots of RNA floating around all the time, and it's being copied over. So some chemical triggers the expression of that gene, of that sequence of DNA into RNA. That then turns into protein and so a chemical induces the protein, then the protein does something interesting and the protein has a function in your body. And some of those proteins in human body can, you know, do bad things and some of them can do good things. And so the idea has always been that we can actually use proteins as a way to modulate our health and modulate disease. For example, creating a protein that can attach to cancer cells and signal immune cells to come and kill those cancer cells as an example. And some people have genetic problems where their DNA. Since the wrong protein, and then that protein is malformed or causes some harm to your health. And so the idea for RNA technology has always been that instead of having DNA be the source of truth for the proteins that get expressed in your body, can we stick RNA directly into cells and use that RNA to trigger the production of proteins that can do specific things in your body? And remember, the biggest segment of the pharma market or a huge segment of the farmer market is what's called biologic drugs, which are largely antibodies, which are a type of protein. That have some specific function, but very many of these proteins are hard to get into the body and get them into the right place and get them to do the things we want them to do. So it would be a lot easier if we could get RNA into the right cells to get those cells to make the right protein to do that thing that we want them to do. So everything from cancer treatment to genetic diseases, and there's RNA interference and there's RNA. Or what are called oligonucleotides that can be used to block specific bad proteins from being produced in your cells or it's kind of another kind of course of treatment. So making proteins that we think are therapeutic and blocking the production of bad proteins are kind of the the mainstay of this idea behind RNA technology. And Moderna was started to pursue this effort at a flagship pioneering which is an incubation shop in in in Boston and they really kind of struggled for years to find the right footing of what's the right business model and the right product and the and the FDA. Kind of struggled with approving this stuff and then boom, COVID hit and when COVID hit it was like, holy crap, let's accelerate this RNA technology. Use it for vaccines which have been in development for years and the protein that's being produced is the same protein you find on the the SARS COV. Two virus which triggers an immune response and builds up your immunity to that virus. And now the floodgates are open. And this is incredible because the frontiers in RNA over the next decade could change the course of how we treat disease and change the course of of outcomes. For many diseases, from genetic diseases all the way through to cancers. And so we're starting to see those floodgates open. I think there's now a few, a handful of these. Uh, you know, RNA interference products that have been approved by the FDA and we're now starting to see many more of these cancer and immunotherapy drugs start to get approved as RNA therapies. But it really I think was lit by by the breakthrough with COVID and everyone kind of seeing the benefit of this and the lack of side effects. And we've now got I think a validation in the market and acceptance from consumers of this technology could transform the industry in the same way that Genentech transformed the pharma industry with biologic. Drugs in the 80s and 90s. So it's super exciting and you know, we we can do updates regularly on our show if you guys want to talk about more of the cool stuff that's coming out. But man, this is going to transform how medicine is delivered and and the potential of things that we can kind of trade. Let me ask you a question. Would the if we looked at the total number of deaths from COVID and then the potential debt, you know, debts avoided or early debts or more life days added, however you want to do it from M RNA and the impact on cancer. Over the next, say, 30 or 40 years, in other words, the impact it would have on the people living today who lived through COVID. Do you think net net will see that? The prevention of cancers through this new technology could actually make. You know basically the silver lining to what happened during COVID. It's a good question. Let me give you the counterpoint. In the late 90s there was a a gene editing clinical trial that took place and they tried to and and a patient and they and they delivered the gene editing technology via virus. And so the virus goes in it spreads around it and it has this, this, this molecule that would edit the gene and and and it was for genetic disease and a patient that they gave it to a young guy got this. This virus, and he actually died from it and they shut down all clinical trials for years and it was like, boom, that's the end. So there there are a lot of scientists, a lot of doctors have argued for years that that particular case caused so many lives to be lost because we lost years of progress and being able to run clinical trials during that time and get drugs to market that could treat people. And you're right, maybe the opposite has happened here, that while these clinical trials may have taken years and years and years to get through in a normal setting perhaps. The pandemic was the accelerant we needed to get more of these to market faster. And millions of people whose lives would have been lost or would be lost otherwise to cancer and other genetic diseases and so on over the years to come will be safe because these therapies will get to market faster. And so, yeah, it's it's a, it's a it's a great point. And and maybe, I don't know what the calculus is between the lives lost and the pandemic versus the lives gained via these treatments coming to market faster. But it's certainly a good way to think about it, the way to look at it. We look at the days of life lost, right? They actually could actually predict how long someone's going to live and the, you know, extension of life. I think we come out of this ahead finally on our docket, London Bridge calls for better policing in San Francisco after this insane surge in crime. Here's the video and it's time that the reign of criminals who are destroying our city, it is time for it to come to an end and it comes to an end. When we take the steps. To be more aggressive with law enforcement, more aggressive with the changes in our policies, and less tolerant of all the ******** that has destroyed our city, we are going to turn this around. This is a city that has a population of less than 1,000,000 people with an over $12 billion budget. The residents of the city have been extremely generous in providing us with the resources we need to make a difference. And now. The priorities we need to make must be to protect them, must be to turn things around in their neighborhoods. When you are in a room full of people, I would say probably anywhere between 90 and 95% of folks could raise their hand and say that either their car has been breaking into, broken into, or they've been a victim in some capacity or another. That is not OK, that is not acceptable, sacks. I thought crime was down and that everything was great and that we were going to defund the police. What is happening here? What's the big turnaround? Well, it's it's exactly what I was saying that well, first of all, I loved it. I loved what she said. It's exactly what I've been saying for the last year. And it's really great to hear her say the same types of things. I started this, this campaign back in January after New Year's Eve. You had those two women get killed by a repeat offender who was released by Chase Boudin. And then as I dug into it, I saw that he was doing this all the time as part of his agenda of Decarceration. So and, you know, a year later. Like we've talked about throughout this this whole time and the city has totally degenerated into some sort of dystopian Gotham like city. This did feel like the beginning of a Batman movie. I mean it was a strong statement. I thought it was great. This is just the beginning of what needs to be done. I predict that London breed is going to eventually **** heads with Chase Abu Dean. There is no way that he will support this agenda of fixing the city. She wants to increase the police presence. So like you said, she is going to refund. The police not defund the police chase of Udeen is. I mean, the only people he's passionate about prosecuting are police officers. So we have a huge problem that the Police Department is actually, we have too few of them. We're understaffed. We take that job. It's not just because of budgets, also because they're demoralized and they've got, you know, they've got this prosecutor. By the way, there was a case just recently where a repeat offender bashed a vodka ball over the head of a cop, and chase had just announced that he's getting sentimental health diversion instead of being prosecuted. I want to post this. Yeah. Up and not go to jail. In the city of San Francisco, yes. This is why the cops are demoralized. So in order for London Bridge to fix the problem, she is going and I think she's on the right track here. He's gotta go. So here's my prediction. On February 15th, they are having the recall election for the Education Board and I predict that that board, at least two of the three are going to be recalled. The parents are sick and are sick and tired of it. They are going to be out. I think that's going to embolden London Bridge to then support the recall of Chaser Boudin and the June. Election and and I think between to pick his replacement. When? Exactly. So that's what she's doing. She basically flipped. She was quiet up until this point. And progressive left are slowly eating themselves. Yeah, I mean, I think this is self preservation, right? Chamath. I mean, if she didn't make a change here, she's going to be out of office too. She'll get recalled. It's not self preservation. They're realizing that these policies don't work. Moral absolutism didn't work on the left or the right. These guys have. Pride and a small scale to do what a certain fraction of the Democratic Party has been trying to do at a national level. It doesn't work. Overspending under policing, under educating, it doesn't do anything there. I think there is going to be a schism. I think it started after the young conviction in Virginia, and I think it's going to accelerate throughout. For the next year, and especially after the red Wave in November 2022, there's going to be a schism between liberal pragmatists and these extreme radical. Progressives I think London breed represents. She's obviously very liberal, but I think she's pragmatic. I think she wants to find solutions that work, whereas Chaser Boudin is a radical ideologue who will never change so much no matter how much evidence is presented to him. Those policies don't work. In our backfiring. I think there's a simple formula. The person who gets you into the mess is likely not the right person to get you out of the mess. And well said, you know, she, she talks about San Francisco having a $12 billion year budget. Can you guys imagine if she was the CEO of a tech company that had $12 billion a year in OpEx and she ran the business into the ground with the board, say, go ahead, turn it around. Absolutely not. The board would step in. And in this case, the board is the citizens of San Francisco and they would say, let's find the right person to turn this thing around and while she stood up and said the right things and and maybe, maybe it would. So, and I think, you know, even if it echoes within David Saxe's heart, I'm sure it's echoing in a lot of hearts of more liberal San Franciscans. But I think that the apathy being asleep at the wheel and allowing the disorganization across the departments within that city is ultimately her responsibility. And I don't think that any amount of, you know, verbiage or action she might take at this point justifies the damage she has caused. Call being the leader of that city and I think that you'll and and by the way, I think you'll see to sax's point earlier, I think you'll see the same response across the nation where folks feel like the the leaders that got them into the mess that they're in locally in cities and and elsewhere around this country are going to vote those folks out of office because they want to change. And it's the same reason we saw folks vote Trump into office and the same reason we saw folks vote Trump out of office. The more you want to see a change, the more you're going to make a change. Your political right, Friedberg is so, so right there is a phenomenal Twitter account. His name is Rob Henderson, and he's like a PhD student right now. I think he's in Europe on scholarship. You know, he's this, this, this. This guy has an incredible background, which you can talk about later. But Rob Henderson has this thing, which I love, which is that, you know. A lot of this stuff is borne out of what he calls luxury beliefs, right? Like defunding the police is a luxury belief. If you're like this rich, middle class, cloistered person that can sit behind a gate, have armed security, yada yada yada, because you're not living in the ghetto where the byproducts of. The byproduct of defunding the police are borne out, or decarceration are borne out. Or, you know, if you send your kid to a private school, you can completely be for all these crazy radical ideas like defunding, you know, Advanced Placement, defunding the gifted program. Because if your kids smart, you'll just pay for a tutor and you can do whatever you want. Those luxury beliefs exist more in the progressive left, in such a small cohort of people, than in any other political class that we have in America and when they get a hold of power. They've now had the right to show whether those luxury beliefs can actually work. The data says it doesn't. OK, with competence. I mean, how about that? Like, just keep people safe and make the education system luxury beliefs belong in sociology, sociology textbooks, in anthropological articles. They they they're they're better off and like, we're beatnick smoke pot and talk about it over a glass of wine when you clean up something. Just so look, I have no special desire to defend London breed. I'm sure there are many I knew I didn't know I knew. I'm sure there are many better people. You breed brand sweater. Is that yeah, that London Bridge. I'm sorry, top four top Ford tougher, tougher. Look I I'm sure there are better mayors. But just to I I think I think we have to sort of temper what you said based on the realities of politics in San Francisco which are which are this. We actually have a weak mayor. The mayor can't do anything without a vote, without the vote of the Board of Supervisors and the soups are controlled right now by a bunch of crazies who are basically adds Dean Preston and Manny and Hillary wrote who are who are allies of chase about. OK, so London breed I think wants to do some good things. I think that she is more pragmatic than these ideologues. I think that she could have been more aggressive and more outspoken about standing up to them, however earlier. OK, but I think she is now doing the right thing in terms of the speech she just gave, basically calling for refunding the police. And we're sick of the ******** and we're going to take action. Those are the right things to be saying right now. She did the right thing in terms of supporting the recall of this school board. And what I'm saying is, let's give her a chance to see if she does come out in favor of the recall of Chase Abu Dean because I think that's where it's headed. And if she gets on board with that and she shows she's pragmatic, she may actually survive. You said you would have this coming racer if she gets out. It's happening all around the country, right? We saw Bill de Blasio, who was the first real progressive leftist elected to a major city, completely ran New York City into the ground. Now Eric Adams is going to go clean it up, right. We had Glenn Youngkin, who basically ran a centrist campaign. Take over, Virginia. It's over. It's over, Johnny. Let's call it it's over. Game over. Tourism pragmatism, enough of these extreme polar opposites, OK, let let Antifa and the proud boys go and Make Love to each other and some deserted island. It's over. It's done. Let's stop talking about it. I heard somebody said to me like proud boys and what's the other group, oath Keepers or something. They they there's a woman who's gay said. She's like, oh, you know, it was Rachel Maddow. She's like, I think these are like gay activist groups, aren't they? Like proud boys. It sounds like a gay activist group. I think we're seeing the the correction of the overreaction of the pandemic cause what what Neil Ferguson calls pandemic politics that we that the pandemic bred a strain of radical politics that we saw all over the country and I think on both sides, and I think the country is going to come out of that. Did you see these idiots go to Cheesecake Factory and do a sit in? Without their masks on. And that that's their form of protest is like, we're going to go into The Cheesecake Factory you're talking about. It was a Cheesecake Factory protest and now it's going national with people who are anti mask, anti VAX. They're don't want to have to show their cards or wear a mask when they walk to their seat. So they're literally doing sit in that Cheesecake Factory. I was like, I would protest going to a Cheesecake factory. I'm not going to protest in a Cheesecake factory as well. Some people are on a diet like you, Jake, and they enjoy cheesecake. Well, where are you? What's the number, sax? Just give us the number. What's your weight, 170. I'm 174. So I'm right. I'm coming right up behind you. You hear the steps? You hear the stacks on stacks. I'm gonna tell you, bro. I love your sweater. I'm gonna drive to the city, come to the mausoleum and Make Love to you with that sweater on. Oh my God. All right, everybody, we'll see you next week on the love You Boys podcast. Love you, besties. Love you. Love you. Sex back at you. Let your winners ride. Rain Man. David sassa. We open sources to the fans and they've just gone crazy with it. I'm going. Besties? Play a dog taking out your driveway. Ohh man. You should all just get a room and just have one big huge order because they're all useless. It's like this, like sexual tension that they just need to release stuff out there. Beat your feet. We need to get merchants.