E154: Presidential Candidate Dean Phillips in conversation with the Besties + Xi's SF visit & more

(0:00) Bestie intros! (1:25) Democratic Presidential Candidate Dean Phillips shares his business background (13:11) Dean's time in Congress: witnessing legal corruption, thoughts on Biden's mental state, advantages of not being a career politician (29:10) Foreign Policy: Russia/Ukraine, Israel/Hamas, China/US de-escalation, how he'd handle TikTok, immigration, border security (56:08) US fiscal situation, healthcare, defense spending, restoring cross-party common ground (1:19:30) Post-interview debrief (1:29:12) Xi and Biden meet in San Francisco, Newsom up next? (1:45:00) Science Corner!: DeepMind's new weather forecasting model 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/TalentiGelato/status/487275228952014848 https://www.pinterest.com/pin/491244271857449720 https://designreplace.com/dean-phillips-us-congress https://braveneweurope.com/michael-von-der-schulenburg-hajo-funke-harald-kujat-peace-for-ukraine https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/biden-floats-newsom-for-president-apec-in-sf-18496249.php https://www.axios.com/2023/11/07/china-economy-negative-foreign-investments https://twitter.com/chamath/status/1718016818118553622 https://twitter.com/disclosetv/status/1724093441519341573 https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/biden-floats-newsom-for-president-apec-in-sf18496249.php https://deepmind.google/discover/blog/graphcast-ai-model-for-faster-and-more-accurate-global-weather-forecasting

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Congressman, how should we refer to you today? Well, I prefer Dean, but you know.

• 0:06Jason Calacanis?

  Let's go with Dean. Let's go with that, Mr. Phillips.

• 0:09Speaker 00

  And just, I'm asking people to be keen on Dean, so I might as well run with it. Ooh, there you go.

• 0:13Jason Calacanis?

  Well, you know what? I'm a big supporter of the Dean machine already.

• 0:16Speaker 00

  Oh, you know about the Dean machine?

• 0:17Jason Calacanis?

  With this gelato, I'm all up on the Dean machine.

• 0:20Speaker 00

  By the way, I bought an old International Harvester Metro van for Talenti's when we did activations like South by Southwest and. I used to own one of those, by the way. No, you did? Yeah, I bought it for my ranch. Come on, I love that baby. So I bought one for Talenti and I saw how people just immediately were attracted to it and fell in love with it. And I thought, hey, when I ran for Congress, I'm going to do the same thing. So I created the government repair truck. Are you driving around in this International Harvester? Of course. You're kidding? Yeah, I'll show you. I'll send you a picture of it. It's cool. It's, uh, it's got a 1980 Chevy chassis under it, but it's still the, still the basic, uh, nuts and bolts. Sax, we're referring to a type of automobile.

• 0:57Jason Calacanis?

  You can ask one of your three drivers about it, David. All right, David, your driver can take you in. Ask your Miami driver, he probably owns some muscle cars. I don't think your LA driver owns muscle cars. Here we go. Let's start the show. Three, two.

• 1:25Jason Calacanis?

  Hey, everybody. Hey, everybody. Welcome to the All In Podcast. With us again today, the dictator himself, Chamath Palihapitiya, the Rain Man, David Sacks, and the Sultan of Science, David Friedberg. We are going to continue our conversation series with presidential candidates today. Our fourth presidential candidate is on the program. Dean Phillips represents Minnesota's third district. And he's about 25 years younger than Trump and Biden at 54 years old. Dean, before getting into politics, I understand you were the CEO of your family's spirits business and you ran Talenti Gelato.

• 2:05Jason Calacanis?

  Oh, that pistachio flavor, amazing. So welcome to the All In Podcast. Meet the other besties. And maybe you could just start out by telling us why you are running for president.

• 2:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, I'll tell you, after being in the vodka business and the ice cream business, and actually, the coffee business, I think I understand at least what Americans want. So that's a good start. Uh, well, I'll tell you a little about my background and why I'm here. I lost my dad in the Vietnam War, uh, when I was just six months old. Uh, he had, grew up with no money in St. Paul, Minnesota. I earned an ROTC scholarship, uh, on behalf of the federal government, of course, uh, to pursue his education. Uh, went to Vietnam in 1968, just before I was born. Uh, got to see the US land on the moon, and I think regularly about how he looked up two days before his helicopter crashed and he died. Looked up and saw Americans on the moon, and looked down and saw America at its worst. And literally, that experience in no small way is, uh, what brings me to this day.

• 3:01Speaker 00

  And, uh, I was six months old, uh, my mom was 24 and widowed, and we moved in with my great-grandparents for the first three years of my life. And I got lucky. When I was three, my mom married a wonderful, extraordinary man who adopted me, Eddie Phillips. Brought me into a family of great blessings. My grandmother became Dear Abby, and my aunt Ann Landers, so I grew up in a family of a lot of advice. And, um, I've lived on both sides at an advantage, and I recognize it. I remember the day I turned, uh, 26, uh, and I counted the days, uh, that my father had lived, my birth father, and I remember the day after, um, I had lived as many days as him. Uh, my life changed forever. And I, I became inspired, uh, joined our family business after college, uh, ended up

• 3:44Speaker 00

  running our, our beverage business, where we created Belvedere Vodka, which we sold LVMH, and then got into the ice cream business and did the same thing. You guys created Belvedere? Yeah, we, my father and I and our partner Steve Gill went on a trip to Poland in 1993, hoping to sell them Phillips Schnapps, which we made in Minnesota. We thought Eastern Europe was ready for peppermint and peach schnapps. And, and we, we were touring distilleries and we see, both in, in duty-free in the airport and in the distilleries, the most beautiful packaging we had ever seen in the spirits business. Now, mind you, this is when Absolut and Stoli were like the pinnacle of luxury. Right. Fifteen dollar, you know, average now. And my father immediately, yeah, sat at a restaurant that night, literally, this is a literal napkin story.

• 4:29Speaker 00

  He, on a napkin, created a little matrix and said if Stoli and Absolute are fifteen dollars, and they're the most premium in a fast-growing category, why shouldn't there be a twenty-five-dollar vodka and why should this not be it? So we negotiated with the Polish government. Our partner, Tad Dorda, from Poland, helped us. And we first obtained the distribution rights. And then when Poland privatized their spirits industry, we acquired the distillery and the IP. And the rest was history. And, you know, cork-finished, beautiful bottle. Now, we sold it. We talked about the lowest common denominator, the pens we used to write the orders, the way we carried it, made all the difference in the world. And then we used that same template in ice cream. Because what we found is, in every category, every consumer product category

• 5:13Speaker 00

  in which there are two main competitors, Coke and Pepsi, Stoli Absolute, Ben & Jerry's and Haagen-Dazs, they tend to fight to the bottom. Lower pricing, you know, frankly, demeaning consumers. And there's always an opportunity to introduce something a little bit more premium, a little bit more special, that's still an affordable luxury. And Belvedere, by the way, was built by Jay-Z. I can tell you that story if you want to hear it, it's an extraordinary one.

• 5:38Jason Calacanis?

  Yeah, yeah, tell that story, too.

• 5:40Speaker 00

  So.

• 5:40Jason Calacanis?

  So far, you're our kind of candidate. We're like, exactly. Yeah, you just got four votes, apparently. We're all looking at you like, who is this guy? This is awesome.

• 5:48Speaker 00

  So when people ask me about my platform, I'll say, I'll be a storyteller about vodka.

• 5:52David Sacks?

  I'm ready to start popping bottles over here.

• 5:54Speaker 00

  By the way, that's exactly what Jay-Z did.

• 5:56Jason Calacanis?

  Sacks and I popped many a Belvedere bottle when we had our run in L.A. True or not true, Sacks?

• 6:02David Sacks?

  It was a tough choice between Belvedere and Grey Goose.

• 6:05Speaker 00

  Oh, I'll tell you that story, too, by the way. Anyway, so we introduced Belvedere and it, and... By the way, what we learned in hindsight is that our aperture was way too small. You know, we were way too, we sold it by the bottle, not by the case. We only went to restaurants and bars at first, not to the big stores. We wanted it to be special. And we completely underestimated the size of what this category could be. Sidney Frank, who introduced Grey Goose, took a much bigger approach. Anyway, so I'm sitting at home getting ready for work one day. I have MTV on, and it's probably a year after we introduced Belvedere. It's doing well, but not, not big.

• 6:38Jason Calacanis?

  So, sorry, this is what, mid-'90s?

• 6:40Speaker 00

  Yeah, I can't remember the year, Chamath. It's probably, you know, ninety-five.

• 6:44Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Yeah.

• 6:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, ninety, thereabouts. Watching MTV, I see a Jay-Z video and it is all Belveter. It's in the fridge, he's holding it, there are people dancing, he's pouring it on him. And I froze, called my dad immediately, who of course didn't have MTV on. And, and I said, you gotta turn it on. He couldn't find the channel. I'm like, hey dad, you know, MTV repeats the same videos, you know, five, ten times a day. So we got to the office. And sure enough, we had the TV on, it came back on, the whole company gathered. At that time, we were probably ten people. And we gathered around the TV and watched this video. And I'm telling you guys, within two weeks, the brand completely popped. And my dad, Jay-Z

• 7:23Speaker 00

  ended up calling my father. They had a dinner in New York City, a memorable one for both. Actually, he ended up introducing a vodka some years later called Armadale.

• 7:34Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Ah, right.

• 7:35Speaker 00

  And it failed miserably. But it was one of the first times that I think in this new culture of influencers and celebrity endorsers, that that magic happened. He almost literally made Belveter. So that's the story.

• 7:47Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Did you guys sign him to a deal and pay him money or?

• 7:49Speaker 00

  No, no, in fact, we talked about that. And the core, so this is the brand foundation of the brand house was authenticity. We didn't do a damn thing that had anything to do with anything that wasn't true. The makers of it, the product itself, we didn't, we didn't pay people to talk about it, unlike Sidney Frank with Grey Goose. So we chose not to. It was all natural. And then, here's the other cool thing, and this is how my campaign's gonna work. We sent two hundred bottles in very special, beautiful boxes to two hundred influencers. We, we believe that if we could simply seed the brand with two hundred people all around the US, that they could be the content makers and the advocates, the ambassadors. In fact, one of them went to this guy right behind me, Bill Clinton.

• 8:32Speaker 00

  And Robert De Niro, another example, Robert Redford, you know, leaders of industry and actors and, and the like. Robert De Niro gets one of these things. And there's a note inside with a picture of the distiller, Bogdan Zelensky. It said, watch page three, the Tiffany section, I'm sorry, the Tiffany location of the Wall Street Journal on, call it, it was like Monday, February 6th. Only 200 people knew what was coming. The ad in the paper didn't show a bottle of anything. It just said Belvedere. Bogdan wants to know how you like it. So we literally did an ad that cost, gosh knows, back then, probably a hundred thousand dollars, tiny little top corner ad, that spoke to 200 people in the United States of America that had no idea,

• 9:13Speaker 00

  nobody else knew what it was. Robert De Niro goes to the Beverly Hills Hotel or the Peninsula, I can't remember, orders a Belvedere martini soon thereafter. The barman says, Mr. De Niro, we have Absolut, we have Stoli, I don't have that brand. And he says, I don't think you heard me, I want a Belvedere martini. So the barman sends like the bar back to whatever the wine and spirit shop is on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. And the guy, he comes back with a bottle. And the entire bar watched this little episode. And I'm telling you once again, within a week, that store was selling through Belvedere like it was water. So these little moments where you identify the right people, and now, mind you, this is in the analog era. There was no internet, there was no social media. This was people

• 9:54Speaker 00

  simply talking to people. So we sold Belvedere to LVMH, and then we looked at the ice cream category. Saab Ben and Jerry's doing the same thing.

• 10:01Chamath Palihapitiya?

  If you can, tell us about that. What is it like to negotiate against LVMH and Bernard Arnault? And why do you sell it when it's working, I guess, maybe is the question?

• 10:10Speaker 00

  You know, I'll tell you, well, this is not a story I've shared with many. They were very disingenuous. And it deeply troubles me to this day, the way that my father was treated, the promises that were made simply to get a deal done and then not kept. I think is a reflection on principle, and I'll leave it at that. A lesson learned. In fact, rather than going through a competitive process, which I think any enterprise would do to maximize value of a brand, our family ethos was a little different. And, and I think we bit, and in hindsight, it was a mistake. But I'll leave it at that. You learn less, you know what? You learn lessons every experience to this very day. I'm learning them every day

• 10:54Speaker 00

  on the campaign trail, too. That was one I would never make again.

• 10:59Chamath Palihapitiya?

  All right, well, you got the two Davids votes with the vodka. You got mine with the gelato. And if you launch a luxury fabric brand or sweaters, I think you're gonna get your mouth.

• 11:07Speaker 00

  First, I got some other work to do for eight years, so we'll do that afterwards. I'll just wrap this long story up. So we introduced, you know, Talenti, obviously does well. We sold it to Unilever. Then I opened a couple of coffee shops with my family in Minneapolis, thinking this would be kind of a fun folly. And then we're watching the 2016 election at home. I thought I would wake up the next morning, we'd have Hillary Clinton as president. Not that that was thrilling to the world, but it would have been safe. And lo and behold, you know, it happened. And I remember telling my family that night, like, look, give the guy a chance. He's not gonna act like that in the White House. The presidency changes you, it humbles you, it moderates you. And my family thought I was a, you know, I was a joke. And I woke up the next morning, my 16-year-old was in her room crying. My 18-year-old was a freshman at college.

• 11:51Speaker 00

  We FaceTimed her, and she's crying. And I sat at the breakfast table, guys, and I promised my daughters I would do something. I raised them to be participants, not observers. And I looked around at my district. I thought, maybe I'll run for Congress. I looked around, and I hadn't, the district had not been won by a Democrat since the 1958 election. This is the, now, we're looking at the 2018 election, 60 years. And the man who had won, won his fourth term by 14 points. And people told me I was crazy. You know, you're out of your mind, you're giving up a good life to run for misery, and you'll never make it, and you'll embarrass yourself. Which is why I did it. And not only did we win, we won by 12 points. We had fun, we used invitation, not confrontation.

• 12:34Speaker 00

  And I drove that little van all around the district to the most unhospitable parts. I opened the service window, I served coffee, and I sat, I put two chairs out, and people would just come up and talk. And I found magic in just letting people share what's on their mind. They're so unheard. Anyhow, I get to, well, I can tell you now, I want to tell you why I'm doing it, but that's the story of where I came from, and why I'm doing this. And look, at the end of the day, I'm the one of those that got lucky. You know, there's a lot of kids who lost their dads in Vietnam, who did not have the magical moment that I had to be adopted by an amazing father. And that was the difference for me. It's my job to make sure others get that same chance. Simple as that.

• 13:11Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Before we jump into the future, about why you're running, and what you, what you see for the country, talk about the years that you spent in Congress. What did you observe there? What, what is it like, day to day? And what do you think is working, and what isn't working?

• 13:28Speaker 00

  I wish we had three hours. I get there, Chamath, I get there the first week of 2019. And like all of you that come from organizational and enterprise experience, I assume that Nancy Pelosi and Kevin McCarthy would have a have a strategy to introduce the new members of Congress, both Democrats and Republicans, you know, get to know each other, do a ropes course, you know, and build some trust or something. And my goodness, it was just the opposite, guys. We were put on separate buses going to different events. And I realized right away that they had a systemic segregation strategy on day one. You mean the two parties? Sincerely. The two parties. This is, I tell you, what I've learned, we'll talk more about this. The only people that want to protect the status quo of the duopoly and the political industrial

• 14:11Speaker 00

  complex that just surrounds it all are the two parties. And it is destructive, and I will get into that. But I recognize right away, all of my colleagues, that the leadership in both Democratic and Republican side, they wanted to keep us separate. They did not want to give us education and information. And they wanted to keep us so busy that we could not become threats to their power structure. You can imagine, members of Congress tend to be pretty ambitious people. And ultimately, they were smart to do that because they made members of Congress, they do to this day, raise raise money all week long. 10,000 hours per week is what senators and House members spend raising money. I've got a bill, actually, that would preclude it from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

• 14:55Speaker 00

  because it's such an unmitigated joke and disaster. The fact that in the United States, that a PAC representing a special interest or corporation can hand a $5,000 check to a member of Congress at a steakhouse on Wednesday evening, and then that member serves on a committee in which that business or special interest has business in front of the next day, is the most unbelievable form of legal corruption you could possibly imagine. So that's one. Needless to say, I resolved right after that first week of orientation that I would do it differently. I befriended my Republican colleagues. My wife, Annalise, and I started having bipartisan dinners at our house. I joined the Problem Solvers Caucus. I hope you guys know about it. It's the most

• 15:37Speaker 00

  important small caucus in Congress. We're now 32 Democrats and 32 Republicans, committed to doing what we're supposed to do. Get to know each other, talk policy, and try to make a difference. Now, we're the workhorses, not the show horses, so you don't know most of our names, including me. But we were the ones invited to the White House. In like week three of our service, I was one of four Democrats. There were four Republicans that President Trump invited to the Situation Room to make a proposition to get us through the shutdown, which I can talk about that bizarre hour of my life as well. And that's how I resolved to do it. Now I'm ranked, depending on the survey, number one, number

• 16:16Speaker 00

  two, number 10, most bipartisan members of the entire US Congress and including governors. And I vote relatively progressive. It's not about just the votes. It's about the ethos. It's about Republican-sponsored bills that come from me. It's about me sponsoring Republican-led bills. And that's what makes me a little bit different than I think just about every member of Congress, not to mention, I think I'm the only one that's willing to torpedo a career so that the country isn't torpedoed by this nonsense and dysfunction. There's a lot more to talk about, but it all starts with a systematic segregation and a focus on fighting each other instead of fighting for each other. I can talk about it all day long.

• 16:56Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Let's start there, Dean. What? Give us the assessment of what's happening in the White House right now. Before we talk about your candidacy, just like, what's going on?

• 17:04Speaker 00

  Well, let me just say, I respect President Biden. He's a man I've had in my house for an event. He's a man with whom I've flown on Air Force One twice. He did a beautiful video for my daughter. He called my mother. I think he did a fine job. I think he was the only man that could have defeated Donald Trump in 2020. And I have to say, I think it's fair to say too, he's probably the only Democrat who could and will lose to Donald Trump in 2024. He's a human being. He's now in his 80s. He is clearly on the decline. He's not incompetent. I believe he's surrounded himself by competent, able, principled people. And I believe the White House is running as a team, as most do.

• 17:48Speaker 00

  But do I think that he will be in a position to continue leading this country in the future? I do not. I think I'm joined by about seventy-five percent of the country in saying that. I also believe the policies that we passed, for the most part, are investments for the future. In infrastructure, the CHIPS Act, I think, is a very important bill, which, by the way, has national security implications, as you guys know. The Inflation Reduction Act, a bizarre name for a bill that's really an energy and climate bill, I think is pretty good legislation. And I think he reconstituted our allies around the world that had been frayed to a point of great danger during the Trump administration. So I salute the past, but this is really an election about the future. It's about a generational change. It's about creating, you know, really a new American century that will be powered by

• 18:33Speaker 00

  systems, structures, people, technologies, that I'm just afraid that President Biden and former President Trump can't even comprehend, let alone create thoughtful policy to both nurture and also manage. And I think that's where we're at. And I want to, I think, we have wars overseas that I think in no small part are caused by a generation that is so focused on techniques and tools of the past that they can't even dare look to building peace for the future. That's, I think, why we have the Middle East still going. That's why Ukraine, you know, the Vice President has some ownership in some of these issues that I'm afraid have to be exposed, and they're the truth, and I'm happy to talk about them. But most of all, I'll wrap it with this.

• 19:15Speaker 00

  Affordability in the United States of America is absolutely the most challenging issue facing Americans. They don't believe that their government is listening. They don't believe the President understands. They don't believe Congress is able to do anything about it because we're so dysfunctional. And that's another mission that I'm on right now, to end this nonsense. I am going to build a team of rivals. I will have a White House and a cabinet comprised of both Democrats and Republicans, the most able leaders imaginable, who have run multibillion-dollar organizations in some cases, understand customer service, will employ zero-based budgeting to the extent we can. We will employ a world-class consulting firm to look at every single government program,

• 19:55Speaker 00

  system, structure, and personnel to identify ways to save money. These are things that this President, and frankly, no President, Who doesn't have business experience, nonprofit leadership experience and government experience could possibly imagine because they're so stuck in their siloed ways of thinking. He's been there for 50 years and it's time for change. I was two, three years old when he became a senator.

• 20:20Jason Calacanis?

  So let's get specific on the issues and go into foreign policy, which is David Sacks' I think number one issue this election.

• 20:27Speaker 00

  Of course.

• 20:28Jason Calacanis?

  But first, just to be clear on Biden, do you believe he's in cognitive decline? Do the Democrats privately believe he's in cognitive decline and to what extent? Do you think he'd make it through the next presidency? Or do you think this is sort of a Ronald Reagan situation where he might look back on it and he's got some early onset of some cognitive decline? What do you personally think and what do Democrats think?

• 20:49Speaker 00

  I don't want to impress upon anybody or give you the sense that I think he has a form of dementia or Alzheimer's or significant cognitive decline. But anybody who pays attention can see the change. And I'm not, I'm not, you know, people are saying that I'm causing his problems. I could risk his, you know, reelection. You know, I'm not the guy that has him losing to Trump nationally down in five of six battleground states, the lowest approval ratings in presidential history almost. And I'm certainly not the guy that has shown his, you know, his decline. That's on video. That's on audio. You see it. It's natural. He's a human being for goodness sakes. All I'm doing, you guys, is saying the quiet part out loud. The only one.

• 21:33Speaker 00

  You ask the question, do others talk about this? The question is, is anybody not talking about this? Of course they are, you guys.

• 21:41David Sacks?

  They've really created an opportunity for you because like you said, everyone's talking about this.

• 21:45Speaker 00

  Of course.

• 21:46David Sacks?

  But no one's willing to say it.

• 21:47Speaker 00

  Of course.

• 21:47David Sacks?

  What, what has been the blowback in the Democratic Party from your declaring?

• 21:52Speaker 00

  What do you think? I'm not being thrown flowers and parties. Let me tell you that. Guys, I'll tell you, I think most would consider me an affable, friendly, well-liked member of Congress. I know that. That's my ethos. My friends are still my friends. I think they're disappointed because this is not what you do when you're a member of a party. You fall in line, you shush up, you sit down, you get in line, and you do nothing to upset the apple cart of others who've been waiting in line perhaps a little longer than you. So you can imagine, the pushback has been strong, the arrows sharp, and the pain quite significant, but nothing compared to the pain that Americans are feeling right now, and that's why I'm doing this. And I should also let you know, I had no intention of doing this.

• 22:35Speaker 00

  A year ago, I was on a radio show, and a host asked me if I thought the president should run again, and I said, "Of course not." He implicitly, if not explicitly, said he would be a transitional president, kind of the bridge. Most members of Congress thought he was going to stand down. That's why Newsom and Pritzker and Whitmer and so many others were kind of making their plans. And I said, "And if he doesn't pass the torch, then we should ensure that at least that the stage has newer generation candidates to give voters a choice." Anyway, months went by, I started seeing the polls change dramatically. The tenor and tone of constituent discussions with me and every single one of my colleagues was changing graphically. All the independents, moderate Republicans, that voted for the president, I think for

• 23:20Speaker 00

  the right reasons, were increasingly telling us that they're not going to do it again. They may not vote for Trump, but they're not going to vote, rather than vote for Biden. And over time, it got to a point, actually, guys, where I resigned from the House leadership table, because my position was so incongruent with those who were in positions to do something about it, that I didn't feel it was appropriate for me to sit with them anymore. And I was really frustrated. I called Gretchen Whitmer, I called J.B. Pritzker, I made public calls to the candidates whose names are better known than me, to jump in. You know, the water's warm, you guys, it's a Democratic primary, that's what we do. Not only did those two not take my calls, which they would have any other day, they

• 24:01Speaker 00

  had their political operatives take those calls, and they told me, "Please, don't use their names." That's the culture, that's the culture, you guys, that we're dealing with. You will be blackballed, you will be disenfranchised, you will be let out the door if you so much as even issue a word that you might challenge a sitting president of the United States. This is the United States of America, it's appalling. Anyhow, I'm frustrated.

• 24:26David Sacks?

  We saw that, we saw that happen with RFK Junior.

• 24:29Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 24:29David Sacks?

  Because he declared initially as a Democrat, and Biden wouldn't give him Secret Service protection despite the, you know, enormous personal safety risks and threats.

• 24:39Speaker 00

  Which is the same thing for me, by the way, guys, you can imagine.

• 24:42David Sacks?

  Yeah, and.

• 24:44Speaker 00

  Biggest line item in my budget right now, by the way, is security. The biggest line item, the second biggest line item that's going to surpass that is getting onto the ballot.

• 24:54David Sacks?

  Right, well, that was the thing, is they wouldn't let, they wouldn't let RFK on the ballot, they wouldn't debate him, they just want to pretend like he didn't exist, and they basically drove him out of the party, so now he's running as an independent. Do you think you're going to be able to get on the ballot as a Democrat on, in these primaries?

• 25:07Speaker 00

  Absolutely, and we're making those choices right now, David, because, first of all, it's obscene, I want to let you all know that in a country that prides itself on being a democracy, a democratic republic, I can't even tell you how many states literally create high barriers to entry to satisfy the two parties to ensure that their coronated candidate has an advantage over anybody else. I'm talking about.

• 25:32Jason Calacanis?

  What are the most egregious ones? Give us an example of what you have to do.

• 25:34Speaker 00

  Oh, the most egregious are oftentimes the deepest blue. New York is, is close to impossible. When I say impossible.

• 25:42Jason Calacanis?

  How so? Explain it to us, like, what you have to do.

• 25:44Speaker 00

  So, the reason I started in New Hampshire is it has a 103-year-old tradition of being the first in the nation primary. They take this really seriously, they're the most engaged Americans in the country, they have a process, that, you know, we walk through the snow, we answer their questions, and you also, all you need is a thousand dollar check. You gotta be thirty-five years old, you gotta be born in the United States of America, and you too can become a candidate for President of the United States. That's what I did. They have the most beautiful ritual in the State House in Concord, New Hampshire that is worth going to one time just to see the majesty of filing for President of the United States. So there are twenty-one of us on the Democratic side of the ballot, because that's how it should be. Take, take a state like Virginia.

• 26:26Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Wait, wait, hold on. There's twenty-one people running for the Democratic. But that's incredible. I had no idea.

• 26:32Speaker 00

  Yeah, Chamath, twenty-one. Marion Williamson and I are the best known of those twenty-one because the President of the United States chose not to. So that's how you have it. You ask about other states, though. New York, Virginia, four-hundred-and-fifty to five-hundred-thousand dollars to pay consulting firms, to pay people twenty-five, twenty-six dollars per signature to just sit outside and just say, "Hey, can we get your signature to get this guy on the ballot?" It's not grassroots. It's not old-school caucusing democracy. It is pay-to-play. And we would, we would need, we would need, well, we're going to have to raise, probably six, maybe, I'm sorry, maybe, maybe, maybe less than that, maybe five million dollars.

• 27:17Speaker 00

  We have a staff of three people right now and legal counsel just to get my name on a primary ballot. It's absurd. Marion Williamson, you know, she, she's not going to be able to. RFK as a, as an independent, by the way, I think he should be. I, I'm not someone who, I'm concerned about some of his positions, but I think he should be able to get on the ballot. It's, you guys, it's absurd. It's obnoxious. And what I've discovered in the last three weeks is going to be my mission after being President to fix, because it is going to destroy the country from the inside. And that is why we have the kind of candidates we have year after year after year, and Americans say they're, and that's why we have Trumpism.

• 27:55David Friedberg?

  I like the fact that- You know, most people become politicians as a career. I've harped against this for a while. And so they have everything to lose if they stand up against the party and they stand up against the political establishment within which they're meant to operate and therefore just a few people get to make all the decisions and control all the levers and everyone else is just a marionette.

• 28:18Speaker 00

  And they stay there forever, Dave. They stay there forever. And there's no term limits, which is what we need. That's why we need them.

• 28:23David Friedberg?

  The fact that you're self-made and you don't have anything to lose. You can leave Congress and you'll be fine. You're a citizen that can go back to work and do what you do. And you're doing this as a service. You're doing this because of your interest in the country, it sounds like. Not to say that other folks don't, but they're largely going to be driven and unfortunately adversely affected by the fact that they have to fall within the way that the game is played in order to operate and will not stand up and say the things that need to be said in order for us to make progress and get out of these situations. But.

• 28:55Speaker 00

  Those are the perverse incentives.

• 28:56David Friedberg?

  I commend you for doing it. I'm glad it's possible. I think, Jason, we should probably talk about the topic.

• 29:01Jason Calacanis?

  We have two topics that I think we're all passionate here. The first is foreign policy. The second is the budget and our out of control spending. Let's start with Sacks. You said you wanted hard questions. Welcome to the pod. Sacks.

• 29:13Speaker 00

  I love nothing more. Let's bring it.

• 29:15Jason Calacanis?

  Before we came on, you both said hard questions. Let's go.

• 29:17Speaker 00

  Please.

• 29:18Jason Calacanis?

  Meet David Sacks.

• 29:19Speaker 00

  Hey, David.

• 29:20David Sacks?

  Dean, you said a minute ago that one of the reasons why the world's on fire is because of the Biden administration's handling of foreign policy has kind of led us to this point. I think there was a really good example of this. A week ago, there was a new report out by a former UN Assistant Secretary General named Michael von der Schulemburg, who worked at the UN for 34 years. He did a detailed study and reconstruction of what happened in March of 2022. So the month after the war. And what he concluded is there was a bona fide. Deal on the table between Russia and Ukraine where Putin was willing to pull back and

• 29:59David Sacks?

  leave and leave the territorial integrity of Ukraine intact if Ukraine would agree not to become part of NATO. And this is something that's been discussed. There've been many reports of this over the last several months. Ukrainian Pravda had a story about that. But now there's yet another confirmation that such a deal was available. And yet Boris Johnson and Joe Biden said, no, we want to pressure Putin not work out a peace deal with him. And so thanks to Western intervention, that deal never happened. Now we're 20 months later and Ukrainian counteroffensive has failed. It's been a fiasco. The casualties have been absolutely massive.

• 30:39Speaker 00

  Horrifying.

• 30:40David Sacks?

  Horrifying. You saw there was this article on Time Magazine, this new profile of Zelensky, where his own aides and advisors say that he's delusional. He can't accept that they're losing the war. They furthermore say that even if the US provides more weapons, more aid, they don't have enough men, they have enough soldiers to use them. Things are going that badly. I think there's now a fear that Ukraine could collapse in the next year, even if we provide more aid. So I guess, you know, I know that early on in the war, you supported Biden's policy. I'm wondering, have events on the ground now changed your view at all? How do you feel about it today? Do you think it was a mistake not to try and work out a peace deal in those early months of the war? And if you were president, what would you try and do differently now to try and end this thing?

• 31:24Speaker 00

  Well, first of all, I think we have to back up to 2014 to talk about this, David. You know, first of all, I've seen that reporting. I do not have confirmation of the validity of that. And if I did, I could talk about it more directly. But if that's the truth, I would first ask, did that include Crimea? And secondly, it is not the, it's not a United States decision about whether or not Ukraine should agree to a peace deal. It is Ukraine's decision, plain and simple. But I do want to turn back the clock a little bit because I think this all kind of plays together.

• 31:56David Sacks?

  But by the way, it didn't, it didn't include Crimea. But Zelensky was willing to go for that deal. And it was the West who intervened and said, no, we want you to pressure Putin and fight.

• 32:04Speaker 00

  And David, like I said, you know, I never speak to him unless I can verify that myself. And I've not seen that intelligence in the skiff. I've not seen that presented to me. If, and by the way, there are some times where I don't know, most times, none of us know everything. If that is the case, I would absolutely answer this question differently. But based on what I do know, I want to turn back the clock to 2014. You know, this is where foreign policy matters. You know, President Obama was a great orator, I think, an inspirational leader. You know, he came to the US presidency with only organizing state legislative and a couple or few years of Senate experience as a very young man. And Joe Biden was his

• 32:44Speaker 00

  vice president. And when Vladimir Putin took Crimea easily, you know, that set the tone for what's going on right now. And we have not done a very good job of prevention. That's true in healthcare, that is true in poverty, that is true in our foreign policy, which is, by the way, maybe what happens when you spend 83 billion a year on diplomacy and 850 billion a year on bombs and missiles. Not to mention, go back to Eisenhower and the military industrial complex, David, and you well know this, it does, it controls a lot of our policy. Because those who are making great profit, find ways to influence

• 33:24Speaker 00

  those who open the piggy banks. I think the Crimea moment in 2014, the writing was on the wall, that was Putin's test. If I take an inch, maybe they'll give me a mile. And what happened during the Biden presidency, of course, he took the mile. I think it has implications now, though, David, and all of you, you know, if we do not do our best to support Ukraine and defending, I think it doesn't just send a message to Putin, a post Putin Russia, which is going to be a failed nation with a brain drain and something we should talk about. But it also sends a message to Iran, North Korea, and even China. And I want to talk about that, too, because I think we have a much brighter future with them than most people portray, as it relates to Taiwan. And that's the sad truth, is we

• 34:05Speaker 00

  get ourselves into these situations that then layer up the consequences by withdrawing.

• 34:12Speaker 00

  And Afghanistan was another example of that. So to answer your question, had there been a peace deal at that point, that simply would have, and the deal would have been, we'll give you your territory back in return for not entering NATO, who in their right mind would say that was a bad deal? Who in their right mind, especially? Boris Johnson. Well, by the way, that's what you get when you get people like, well, I'm gonna make this case, as you guys know, for comprehensive new generation of leaders all around the world in our country and in others that are sick of this nonsense, sick of the bloodshed, sick of enriching enterprise at the expense of human beings. It happens here, it happens in Ukraine and Russia, and it's happening in the Middle East. Plain and simple.

• 34:53Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Sacks, anything else on foreign policy you want to go to?

• 34:56Speaker 00

  Hacking off now would be, I think, a shameful, horrible mistake. Though, one thing I would argue right now, David, is those who are most likely going to be subject to Putin's terror, the countries in Europe, should be carrying a much bigger, bigger part of this load. You know, we have 750 bases and installations around the world in 80 countries. We have the most dominant presence in world history of any government, and we spend more on our military than the next, I think, 11 nations combined, for gosh sakes, you know. And if anyone thinks that a kinetic risk to the United States is the most likely harm that will be done us, not cyber, or not social, or not biological, I think you're

• 35:38Speaker 00

  out of your mind. Those are the risks that I think are most threatening, that I think this president does not quite understand, and we have to re-comprise and recommit to diplomacy and defending ourselves against the most important literal risks, including nuclear weapons that can be carried in a backpack and detonated in New York, or Tel Aviv, or anywhere in the world. And if we don't start changing how we do things, we're not going to be ready, and we are just sitting still in dysfunction.

• 36:08Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Okay.

• 36:08Speaker 00

  I'm gonna change it.

• 36:10Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Let's talk about China for one second, and I'll give it to you in two arcs. Arc number one, the comments that President Xi made yesterday, which were very, if you just heard them or read them, were very specific. We have zero desire to seek Chinese hegemony. We have zero desire to find a cold or hot war.

• 36:33Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Which was, but then there is what wasn't said, which is part of what you said, which is, well, okay, maybe there's no kinetic war, but the cyber risk is still there. And actually, the psychological war risk is there. So two questions. One is, how do you react to what President Xi said last night? And then the second is, how do you react to what's happening with this TikTok Osama bin Laden psyop thing that just seems to be frankly, just getting out of control here?

• 37:04Speaker 00

  I agree. Well, let me say, I was so pleased to see President Xi's remarks. I think President Biden responded by saying, we should trust but verify. I think that's appropriate. I was troubled, though, when a question was shouted out to President Biden on his way out about whether he considered President Xi a dictator. And he said, yes, he's a dictator. And I think that may have undermined this entire rapprochement, which I think is terribly important. You know, words matter. The playbook matters. And the negligence or ignorance of another culture as it digests our words, our actions, our intentions, is very consequential. And unfortunately, we see this pattern with the president of doing what he did today in using

• 37:49Speaker 00

  that term. Whether or not it's really true or not, there are ways, as we all know, to simply not comment, because that is going to undermine, I think, a very important, otherwise very promising, outcome. And, you know, to your, to your, to your question, I'm concerned that we have made China perhaps into the very enemy that ostensibly now our military industrial complex wants to defend us from, which happens time and time and time again through our history. And it concerns me deeply. We should be partnering with China. Our disagreements are real. I think they should be litigated and bridged with diplomacy, not destruction. And

• 38:31Speaker 00

  imagine what can be accomplished in this 21st century world if two nations like ours recognize the potential of spending less on destruction and more on human beings. You know, it astounds me.

• 38:46Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Do you think TikTok itself is a threat to the United States? And would you, if you're a president, ban it or force them to divest and remove the servers in China and the algorithm from China, et cetera?

• 38:56Speaker 00

  I'll make this really simple.

• 38:57Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Do you think it's actually being used for psyops?

• 38:59Speaker 00

  I'll make this really simple. You know, if we want to change our constitution and change what we consider speech, change how the federal government or any domestic government affects people's rights to what they watch, what they read, what they eat, how they pray, how they think, where they go, with whom they congregate, you know what, that's up to Americans. But I think to target one app is a huge mistake. And my, I have a very simple solution. Hold every single platform to the same standard, transparency via their algorithm, have an independent commission perhaps that is charged and responsible with assessing and, and holding those platforms to account.

• 39:41Speaker 00

  And if any of them violate the terms that we pass into law, then they should be banned. But to target one, I think is nonsensical.

• 39:48Jason Calacanis?

  Well, we do have foreign ownership rules for media outlets, yeah.

• 39:51Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 39:52Jason Calacanis?

  So this has many more users and is much more powerful with the algorithm. So then how would you respond to that sort of counter argument?

• 39:59Speaker 00

  I'm just going to say this. If we want to change our constitution, this is what the Supreme Court, I'm afraid, is going to say if we start doing this. Then change the constitution. That's what they said, by the way, about women's reproductive rights. You know, in the absence of Congress doing anything, in the absence of that, we're going to assess it the, the way it, it reads. Right now, I don't think that's necessarily really possible without a significant Supreme Court challenge. My belief is yes. Is it a threat? Yes, it's a threat. By the way, every social media platform is a threat when used by malign actors.

• 40:30Jason Calacanis?

  Do you think we should force reciprocity if they, if we allow TikTok, they allow Twitter, Facebook, Instagram in China?

• 40:36Speaker 00

  I think that's, I think that's, that's the kind of thinking Jason and I like. In fact, reciprocity as it relates to IP, enforcement of IP, of theft, of trade, this is, that's, you just hit the nail on the head. Reciprocity. You know, let's, let's, let's be reciprocal in the nature of a relationship. If you're going to ban our apps and our platforms, or our products, or our brands, well, why, this is to me an opportunity for the next generation to say, this is nonsensical. You know, if you're going to succeed, by the way, China, you all know, has signi, they have a, they have a bubble they're facing that will Make ours in 2008 uh look like a a gumball by comparison. Uh and that is coming down the pipe. I think that has a lot to do with this kind of step towards rapprochement.

• 41:20Speaker 00

  But yes, reciprocity and to know that Facebook is not allowed. Uh yeah, perfect example, but in the United States, that doesn't change my uh contention that we should set the same standard for every platform, every every media entity, whatever it might be. Hold them accountable and if they don't qualify or perform, then they're banned.

• 41:38Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Give us your just maybe societal then commentary on the number of people on TikTok right now.

• 41:45Speaker 00

  That's sickening.

• 41:46Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Advocating for. I don't even know what you want to call it. I guess reading and sympathizing.

• 41:53Speaker 00

  Yeah, with Osama Bin Laden's.

• 41:54Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Justification.

• 41:55Speaker 00

  I I'm sure you guys do too. I I I look at TikTok. I consume as much media as many platforms as possible, so I understand why some of the nonsensical perspectives are being shared with me by so many people right now. So I get it. Your fun, but back to the fundamental question, what do we do? This has been, by the way, an age old issue since our very founding. It used to be anonymous pamphlets that would spread misinformation or condemnation and and fire people up. Now it's just instantly available. It doesn't matter if you have a printer, you can push a button. And yes, am I concerned? Of course I am. I'm the fact that when I'm spending time on college campuses right now and listening uh to otherwise really well-educated, privileged kids saying things

• 42:38Speaker 00

  that are so nonsensible, so ignorant and so shocking, I know where it's coming from. Uh so I understand the problem just like all of you. I think this question is what do you do about it? And all I'm saying is we should have the same standard for every platform because the same issue is on every platform. That is my.

• 42:53Chamath Palihapitiya?

  What do you think about you? You're about to say this, but what do you think about what Nikki Haley suggested?

• 42:58Speaker 00

  I you know, I I was shocked that people um.

• 43:02Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Maybe just frame for the for the listeners who don't know what she said.

• 43:04Speaker 00

  So Nikki Haley and I tell I asked Mark Zuckerberg this one. So too, I'll tell Nikki Haley proposed uh that every platform, every social media platform have verified accounts, uh no more anonymous accounts.

• 43:16Speaker 00

  And she got ripped, got ripped. You know, I understand this is, this is, it's a reasonable argument to have, but I got to tell you, I'm surprised that that's something that seems somewhat reasonable to people who are paying attention would have such a, uh, such a response that she actually retracted it. I'm not proposing it. I'm just saying that I think we should be throwing ideas on the table. And I know from experience, just like you guys, when you hide behind a fake name, you can be not just a jerk to someone, you can be downright dangerous. When your name's attached to it, you behave in a very different manner, not a mention when you're face to face. So, um, I don't think that was as absurd as, uh, people considered it. I asked Mark Zuckerberg after a financial services hearing a couple of years ago, you know, why, why doesn't Facebook just verify accounts, make

• 43:59Speaker 00

  this so much easier to hold people accountable and, um, have higher standards of, um, accountability? And he said it would be a competitive disadvantage.

• 44:07Jason Calacanis?

  And

• 44:08Speaker 00

  Well, of course it is. If he only had to do it.

• 44:10Jason Calacanis?

  Yeah. And this has been tested. Korea had their version of this. In order to sign up in Korea for their social networks or ISPs, you had to use your social security number.

• 44:20Speaker 00

  Sure. And that makes sense. And the other thing, guys, is you know that, you know, if you write a, a letter to the editor of most major newspapers, you have to, you have to attach your name to it. It has to be verified. It's, this, I, I just think it's a conversation that we should be having. And by the way, you know, it might be time to read Future Shock again by Alvin Toffler, who predicted so much of this mess in which we find ourselves, the incapacity of human beings to adapt to such rapid technological change, which by the way, you know, you on this, you, just the handful of you on this, um, on this podcast have more expertise than the entire United States Senate and Congress combined as it relates to the issues we're talking about on tech. There is no capacity, no competency.

• 45:05Speaker 00

  So on whom do we rely? The very lobbyists being paid by the very enterprises that so easily can set the standards.

• 45:12Jason Calacanis?

  Right.

• 45:13Speaker 00

  That there aren't people of better capacity.

• 45:15David Friedberg?

  And only 11 members of Congress have an engineering degree.

• 45:17Speaker 00

  Only 11. And by the way, I was, I was on, uh, Kevin McCarthy invited me to join his AI cabinet, uh, which just, it was a few, four Democrats, about four Republicans. We had our first meeting and started making plans right before he was deposed. And now... I don't know anything, if anything's going on in that respect.

• 45:36Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Where do you stand on the spectrum of decorum online on one end and free speech on the other? Where the absolutists would say absolutely not verified accounts is a nonstarter because it just fundamentally undermines the First Amendment and this other thing, which is more organized decorum?

• 45:54Speaker 00

  Chamath, I think that's the issue of our day, maybe the most important when it's true both online, it's also true in our Congress right now. Where's that intersection between debate, discord, and comprehensive division? I don't have the good answer for it right now, is the truth. And I'm afraid that if you interpret our Constitution, you know, free speech has to be met with more free speech. But I'll tell you, but that also will conflict, and increasingly is, with the right to pursue happiness. I mean, that's just true. I mean, it's a, it's a, it's the most complicated issue in our era. Would I like to see our kids safer, our mental health and emotional health improve, and the division reduced, and misinformation and

• 46:37Speaker 00

  disinformation rectified, of course, because I do think-

• 46:41Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Would you put a minimum age on use of social networks? You have kids, would you make it 15, 16 years old as a minimum?

• 46:46Speaker 00

  I think it would be healthier, look, we have minimum age for alcohol, that's, you know, that's older than you have to be to fight in a war, for God's sakes. It's ridiculous. You know, we have cannabis, cannabis is still banned at the federal, the hypocrisy of the federal government is also what I'm running against right now. So Jason, I think that is a good idea. You know this, and I've had daughters that grew up in the social media era. It is one of the most destructive, it is far, it is as destructive as I think drug consumption to adolescent health as anything else. So to answer your question, I think that's A, perfectly legal, B, perfectly reasonable, and you can't just entrust parents to do it because Johnny's parents will allow them to have the phone and the apps, you know, and Jill's won't. And you can't, there has to be, I think there has to be. We do

• 47:30Speaker 00

  that for a lot of other things, and I think we should talk about at what age any of this is reasonable, but absolutely, I think that's not unreasonable. I want kids to be safe, just like you guys, and so does everybody-

• 47:39Chamath Palihapitiya?

  It sounds like driving a car is a good benchmark, 15, 16, 17 years old.

• 47:42Speaker 00

  We should also allow kids to learn how to drink before they learn how to drive. We're the only country that does it like this, you know? Drive for five years until you legally can drink, so when you have your first drink, you don't even know what it's gonna do to you. You know, it's absurd.

• 47:54David Friedberg?

  Freiber. I know we're going to talk about spending in a second, but just before we get away from foreign policy, I think it's important that we ask, what would be your goals with respect to conflict in the Middle East? What's the strategy you'd employ to achieve those goals and who are the people that you'd surround yourself with?

• 48:10Speaker 00

  Well, I'll tell you, my strategy is quite simple. It's peace around the world and it's prosperity at home, plain and simple. And I can build, I can put the legs of that stool together for you as quickly as I possibly can, but let's talk about the Middle East. You know, I'm 54 years old. President Biden has been in the US Senate or in the White House for 50 years. None of us on this podcast have lived through anything but bloodshed, reciprocal misery between Palestinians and Israelis. This cycle has continued for decades. I've had enough. I cannot stand the sight of babies being pulled from the wombs of mothers by Hamas and Israel any more than I can watch babies being destroyed by bombs and missiles in Gaza.

• 48:55Speaker 00

  And it's got to stop. I am about to issue a statement to that end that says essentially Hamas must release all of its hostages, period, of which there are nine Americans, guys. Nine Americans are being held in Gaza by a terrorist organization. And as president, I would be making that my, not my daily desire or request, my daily demand, all hands on deck, these hostages must be released immediately.

• 49:21David Friedberg?

  Would you send in special forces to collect them?

• 49:23Speaker 00

  I would, absolutely. It is the, it is incumbent on the President of the United States to extract Americans being held against their will by any foreign entity. I don't know. Got to ask him. But good luck asking him because he doesn't do any press conferences.

• 49:36David Friedberg?

  The goal for peace is reasonable, but, but these, like maybe some specifics around your strategy.

• 49:41Speaker 00

  So let me, yeah, let me, so, okay. So first, at the, at the moment, the hostages are safely released, there should be a ceasefire, period. And at that very moment, there should be a multinational peacekeeping force sent into Gaza to maintain security immediately. And when I say multinational, the very nations that are connected to Gaza, Arab nations have to be part of it, not the United States, not Israel, of course, but a significant force there to keep the peace immediately. Concurrently, a multinational coalition designed to eliminate Hamas by every nation in the world that wants them eliminated, which frankly is most. And then we have got to invest, again, nations of the world, investing in a democratic civil society, infrastructure, education, facilities,

• 50:25Speaker 00

  and security, so that a new generation of Palestinian leaders can create a circumstance whereby another nation can be created, period. And it's not going to happen with Israel and Palestinians trying to do this. It has got to be imposed. It has got to be a coalition of the willing. And then only then and only then will we see the conditions for, hopefully, elections for Palestinians for the first time since 2006, 17 years. And concurrently, it is time for Israelis to call an election to replace Benjamin Netanyahu, because he is absolutely part of Israel's security problem. I've looked him in the eye. I told him before this happened earlier this year, I've been with him twice, looked him in the eye. I said,

• 51:08Speaker 00

  what you are doing is affecting the relationship with the United States and Israel and will absolutely affect security moving forward. I had no idea what would be coming on October 7th. But the settlement policy, the right wing government, the distraction that the judicial reform initiative has created in that country is made the conditions ripe. And by the way, having been in Riyadh recently too, you know, it was really getting close. The Saudis and Israelis normalizing. And that was exactly why I believe, whether it's implicit or explicit, Iran inspired Hamas to do this. Then, and by the way, in the United States, mark my words, there are our adversaries are watching the dysfunction

• 51:48Speaker 00

  and distraction right now with the same open eyes. And we have borders that are awfully easily to get in. And that's the truth. And I'm a Democrat saying that. I would do this entirely differently.

• 52:00Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Can you actually talk about the border? Tell us what would you do there?

• 52:04Speaker 00

  Once again, I've got a lot of colleagues who make their decisions by reading an article, seeing a tweet, or seeing a TikTok. I go. You know, I've been to Israel and the Middle East twice, just in the last number of months. I've been to the southern border twice. I've seen with my own eyes. It is the most despicable, embarrassing failure of American policy I have ever seen. I have seen women walking across the Rio Grande with babies in their arms, who have spent six or $7,000, their whole life savings, paid to gangs and coyotes to bring them across the border. I've seen the extraordinary beauty and grace with which Border Patrol agents have looked after these people. I've seen babies who were abandoned,

• 52:46Speaker 00

  that were on 24-hour care of Border Patrol agents who took as good a care of these little kids as they would their own. I saw people in cages. I saw the most archaic, out-of-date, inefficient, ineffective ports of entry. I saw lines of trailer trucks, probably two, three miles long, idling in the hot, hot weather, waiting to get across. I saw a mile-long of human beings, waiting to come into the country to do their shopping, or their job, or their education. And it was horrifying. And if we think, by the way, we need much better border security. Barriers, technologies, and facilities. And by the way, we also need it at the northern border. I'm a border state in Minnesota. People walk across farm fields

• 53:29Speaker 00

  in Manitoba into Minnesota. We don't know who they are. Some of them get caught. That's true. But I'll tell you, guys, if we think that we can solve the problem at the border, that's the issue right there. This administration, and past ones, just don't get it. We should be adjudicating asylum cases in countries of origin. Why make these poor people take their life savings that they have no, then they have no money. They're set off in the streets here. They're supposed to come back to a court two years from now. Let them keep their money. Let's build dormitories next to our consulates or our embassies in the northern triangle countries, wherever migrants are coming. Create some safety, security there. Invest in local economies, so that there can be some opportunity, and adjudicate

• 54:08Speaker 00

  their cases there. If they qualify, let's bring them to America, with six or $7,000 in their pockets, so they can start a nice new life and pursue the American dream. And if they don't... They will be kept in their countries of origin and of course, we have to work with Mexico as well. But this is not rocket science. It's simple problem solving. And the fact that we continue to do this stupid policy to this day, you guys is embarrassing.

• 54:31Jason Calacanis?

  On the other side of this, talk about recruiting. Many countries, Canada, New Zealand, a lot of the Nordics have a point-based system and they actively recruit talent. You're an entrepreneur, you've been CEO of multiple companies. It is an absolute arduous pain to get talented people here right now. Recruitment of talent in the United States is bundled with the southern border. How would you decouple that? Would you be in favor of a point-based system and recruitment of talent to get more talented immigrants in our country? Which by the way, three of the four besties here were not born in the United States.

• 55:02Speaker 00

  And which isn't a, and by the way, my foremothers and forefathers came here for the same reasons. Same reasons that every one of those moms and dads is coming across the Rio Grande. So to answer your question directly, Jason, I think, I think we can do both. I think we should have a merit-based system to attract the best and brightest, most talented. I'm sure all of you had, came from enterprises that would afford benefits, perhaps education to people. You would expect them to actually stay at your enterprise for a number of years to kind of as a payback. We are right now, the United States is training some of the best and brightest in the world, not creating opportunities to stay. And of course, Canada is the beneficiary, the Nordic countries, European countries, you guys know this. This notion that we can't do two things at once, that we can't welcome the most disadvantaged, who simply want to pursue an American dream and start at the very bottom,

• 55:47Speaker 00

  and match that with some of the best and brightest who can actually start at the very top. My goodness, why, why does everything have to be binary, you guys? Black and white, good or bad, yes or no, it's nonsense.

• 55:57Jason Calacanis?

  Before we run out of time.

• 55:59Speaker 00

  Oh darn, that's way too short.

• 56:00Jason Calacanis?

  No, no, for you. I think we got a little overtime.

• 56:03Speaker 00

  Hey, I got time, guys.

• 56:04Jason Calacanis?

  Oh, okay, great. We really want to talk.

• 56:06Speaker 00

  I got time, yeah.

• 56:07Jason Calacanis?

  Friedberg and I are, I think.

• 56:11Jason Calacanis?

  Friedberg, you know, moved me to his position on this. Number one issue for this election, Friedberg, correct me if I'm wrong for you, is still our out of control spending. Friedberg, maybe you could tee this up.

• 56:21David Friedberg?

  Yeah, I mean, I've said this in the past. I think the US is facing a fiscal emergency in the sense that arithmetic starts to play out, that the cost of debt spirals. We can't accomplish any of the other stuff we're talking about unless we can figure this out. We have $33 trillion of debt today. The Treasury estimates it's going to grow to 47 trillion by 2033, just 10 years away. One and a half trillion in deficit this year, trillion in debt interest expense alone this year, and a third of our debt is coming up to be refinanced soon. It's going to get refinanced at 4.5% interest rate instead of 2%, 2.5% it's sitting at today. So the interest will swell, the deficit will swell, the debt will swell, and we're already taxing 18% of GDP as federal revenue, which a lot of economists have shown you can only

• 57:06David Friedberg?

  get to 20%, at which point the economy starts to shrink. There's, I think, pretty good research on this. Some would argue differently, but I think that's kind of a natural limit. So the only kind of response is, what's wrong with spending? Like, why do we have the spending problem? I guess the question for you is, what is causing structurally the spending problem? A lot of people have said that this is late-stage empire, the failure of democracy, because everyone votes themselves all the money eventually. Or is it a politically oriented problem where folks don't want to address the biggest line items? They don't want to hold programs to account? And what is the answer here?

• 57:45Speaker 00

  So to answer your question directly, you asked what the cause is. It's incompetency and perverse incentives. Period. There is no political... There used to be a political reward for conservatives who were focused on fiscal responsibility because they would win elections over tax and spenders. But that party is long gone, long gone. There's no reward. That's why Trump added $7 trillion to the deficit and that's why Biden will probably add about that much as well. So, by the way, I think I'm one of the only Democrats who has been named by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, one of their fiscal heroes as a Democrat. And also, I'm a Hamilton-Jefferson Award winner by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

• 58:28Speaker 00

  And I'm also pro-worker. This notion that you can't be, by the way, pro-business and pro-worker, that they're somehow mutually exclusive, that's BS. They're mutually mandatory. But back to your question, 30 trillion in debt, by the way, our economy can accommodate more. That's the sad truth. The issue is our debt service. And nobody's talking about the fact that it is going to go from mid-400 billion a year to, to your point, Dave, with the higher interest rates, probably approaching a trillion, maybe 840.

• 58:54Chamath Palihapitiya?

  It's already over a trillion. Is it trillion one today? It's gonna be trillion five.

• 58:57Speaker 00

  I would argue that maybe, we could have a little argument about if it's there quite yet. But either way, let's call it, let's call it a trillion. That means literally, that means literally, we are spending way more for the past than we are investing in the future. That means we have literally no dollars left for any discretionary spending. Every bit of it is now consumed by Social Security, Medicare, and our military. And on top of that, we've got people sleeping on the streets in every single town and city in America. We have kids going to school hungry. We have one of the most, to me, failing public school systems in the entire developed world. We

• 59:39Speaker 00

  have a healthcare system that is not healthcare, it's sick care. A fee-for-service model that should be capitated. And our outcomes are mid-pack.

• 59:46Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Yeah.

• 59:47Speaker 00

  And we have a $2 trillion deficit. And by the way, no childcare, no pre-K education. I can go on down the list. It's nonsensical. And we're spending $2 trillion more. So to answer your question, you guys know the answer here. We're a country with, I think, 150-some million, trillion dollars, 150-some trillion dollars in total United States household wealth.

• 1:00:09Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Where do you cut? Let's start by getting into those specifics. Do you cut? Entitlements, do you cut military? Where do you cut and how do you cut?

• 1:00:19Speaker 00

  So here's what I would do. Starting with social security. It is social security, you guys, is the most successful anti-poverty program in world history. And I believe it would be not just a dereliction of duty, it would be counter to every American principle if senior citizens struggled. By the way, we don't have a culture in America that takes care of the elders, like in most Asian cultures and other wonderful cultures in the world. So absent that, we have to afford resources. So two things, as you all know, social security, the trust fund will face probably reductions in 25, about 25% cut levels by 2033, based on the current path. Two, eight, two easy things we can do. $160,000 a year is the cap right now, I think roughly.

• 1:01:04Speaker 00

  We should make that 250. That means it's a very regressive tax. If you're making 160, you're paying a whole lot more of your income than someone making 250, 300,000 dollars a year, not to mention 3 million or 30 million. So we should raise the cap to 250, make sure that fund at least is solvent through probably 2046, 2047. And then I would do something different for the first time in American history. For all the millions of Americans who've done well, don't need their social security, that wish to become philanthropists, I would create a pool, not that goes back to the treasury, a pool that would be automatically redistributed to the lowest 5 or 10% of all social security recipients in the entire country.

• 1:01:46Speaker 00

  And let's, it might be a $500 boost, it might be a $1,000 boost a year for the, for the most challenged elderly Americans. But when 40% of Americans can't afford a $400 car repair or emergency expense, you know, that literally, not for this group, but my goodness.

• 1:02:04Chamath Palihapitiya?

  To your point, I think it was the Fed or it was Treasury that published a study. I was shocked by the actual number of American millionaires that exist. And it's countered to the narrative because you would, if you, if you just read the headlines, you think America's in economic despair, and it's not true. And the wealth creation is actually quite, quite pervasive, which is a great feature of American capitalism. So to your point, there probably are a lot of people who would be willing to pay it forward to folks that didn't have it if you gave them the choice. It's just not possible today.

• 1:02:35Speaker 00

  So why shouldn't we be a government that creates, so just, Chamath, if I could just say,

• 1:02:38Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:38Speaker 00

  You know, one of my, one of my perspectives and intentions is to not necessar- by the way, we don't have to spend money to expose young people who never get out of their neighborhoods in many cities in this country, expose them to possibility, you know, get them into factories, into ad agencies, into high-tech centers, show them rockets and, and music makers and artists. We don't, we don't need to spend a whole lot more money to simply completely change the path of young Americans' lives, not to mention old Americans' lives. And that's just a perfect example of a simple solution that costs zero and lets Americans actually be Americans.

• 1:03:18Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Okay, so now, now go to Medicare, but I think I know what you're gonna say, cause you mentioned it, capitation, but

• 1:03:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:03:24Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Maybe talk very quickly on that and then military. What, what do you cut there?

• 1:03:27Speaker 00

  Yeah, so, so quickly on healthcare. Look, guys, I, I represent United Health Group in my district. Tens of thousands of Minnesotans, many of them who live in my district, earn very handsome salaries from United. They've done some great work, uh, in many ways, but I have to tell you, uh, since I've joined Congress in my third term now, uh, you would be in tears if you had to sit with the people that I've sat with over so many occasions, who thought they had coverage, whose son got sick, or whose, you know, whose mother broke a leg or something, and they literally have gone bankrupt or take on tens of thousands of dollars in medical debt and they get surprise bills, and then they read in the paper that

• 1:04:07Speaker 00

  their health insurer reported annual net income of over twenty billion dollars. And I don't know how you guys feel, but I gotta tell you, you know, I'm a capitalist, uh, I'm also compassionate, and I can no longer reconcile that. I really can't. There's a reason we're the only nation in the world that does it this way. I think it's time the way, by the way, from Roosevelt to Truman to Richard Nixon. Richard Nixon proposed universal health coverage and it was Ted Kennedy that undermined it, if you can imagine that. If we don't, if conservatives and progressives don't come to the table and talk about how we can deliver a national health insurance program that is portable, let's gig economy participants do their thing, that people don't have to make choices about where to work just because of the healthcare.

• 1:04:51Speaker 00

  I don't know why we wouldn't talk about that. And by the way, I'm not talking about the provision of care. It's really important because Fox News and some Republicans have tried to say this is a socialized solution. Uh-uh. Just the coverage, because the money is in the system already between three, four, five, six X pharma costs, between two X health, per capita health costs, 10,000 per person compared to any country in the world at five. The answer is, I think, right there in front of us. The money's in the system, would not require a tax increase. I think we could actually save substantial money. I'm working on a proposition right now. I would argue that the model is part of the problem. Fee for service is antithetical to what we need. We need a capitated model that gives an incentive to the, to the providers to keep people out of the hospital.

• 1:05:36Speaker 00

  At least try. At least try. So that's the answer on that. And by the way, you know, right now Medicare, as you probably know, it covers, I think, 23% of the, of the country, or no, between Medicare and the VA, which are single payer systems, 25% of Americans right now are covered by a single payer system. And by the way, it works better than the other system. Medicare recipients are pretty pleased.

• 1:05:58Jason Calacanis?

  This would also be a huge benefit as a capitalist running companies. I mean, how much of your time was spent running your companies, dealing with healthcare and the dysfunction of employees staying at companies because they couldn't?

• 1:06:10Speaker 00

  Awful.

• 1:06:11Jason Calacanis?

  Get healthcare in another company. What about military, Dean? What would you do then?

• 1:06:14Speaker 00

  Okay, now military, and this is where, how, to answer your question very directly once again, nobody can tell you that they can even begin to address our fiscal challenges without looking at that ridiculous number, approaching a trillion dollars a year. And by the way, the Pentagon has not passed an audit. They would, in my administration, it would, there would be a top-down assessment of every single program, every single base and facility, every, an explanation of why we are in those 80 nations and whether or not we should be employing 21st century strategies to keep our country safe. And I think one of the simplest solutions, you guys, is we should be entrusting countries more proximate to the problems to manage them.

• 1:06:59Speaker 00

  Doesn't mean we're not a good ally anymore. It just doesn't mean that we are in a position any longer to be the policeman for the entire world when we can barely take damn care of our country itself. It's just so damn simple, and I'm frustrated by it because as someone who lost his father in a completely obnoxious and unnecessary war, a guy that I have on my phone right now, digital audio tapes that he used to send back tapes to my mom, where he says, "I've come to the conclusion," and he loved America. He did not like that war, but he loved America. He said, "I believe the only reason we're still here is because so many people are making so much money." He saw it, and the same thing is happening to this day, you guys. That trillion dollars, that's going somewhere.

• 1:07:44Speaker 00

  It's going in people's pockets, and I believe, we can cut that in, I'm not going to make a proposition, but I believe, after a comprehensive assessment, that we can save hundreds of billions of dollars that can either be saved on the bottom line, or better yet, actually invested in human beings instead of the destruction of them, period.

• 1:08:01Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Would you zero-based budget them?

• 1:08:02Speaker 00

  Absolutely. Why, Chamath, I've had to go back to Washington twice to vote on CRs, continuing resolutions.

• 1:08:10Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:11Speaker 00

  It is, the dysfunction is absurd. There's not a, there may be five people that can read a P and L or a balance sheet in the whole damn Congress. Our budgeting system is completely broken, and yes, as president, I would demand a zero-based budgeting and, and, uh, uh, procedure, and, like I said, a comprehensive, independent assessment of every program, and if it is not generating return, or if it could be outsourced to the private sector that can deliver it for a better value, that's how we should proceed. And by the way, it may not be easy, it may take time to get done, but why we don't try is absurd, and to answer your final question, if we don't... And once foreign investors no longer consider the United States of America the safest

• 1:08:55Speaker 00

  place to deploy capital, it's too late. And I will not, certainly under my watch, will not let us get there. But we've got to re-craft. And lastly, can I say one more thing quick on that, Chamath? Please. If, the only way that I think we can address the biggest issue in the country, which is the growing disparity between those who have wealth and income and those that do not, we can't, we're not a nation that will redistribute. I think we've been, not just unsuccessful, we actually created some of the problems we now find ourselves in. The way to do it is to raise the foundation. The same way it was raised for me, by a good, a stroke of good luck. You know, I was adopted by a dad who gave me everything. And who

• 1:09:35Speaker 00

  knows where I would have been if that didn't happen. I want to do the same thing for everybody. Have healthcare, have great education, have childcare, make sure you have a house, a place to live. If we give everybody the same thing, then we can be a country-

• 1:09:50Chamath Palihapitiya?

  So let's-

• 1:09:50Speaker 00

  -that believes in self-determination and-

• 1:09:53Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Talk about education then briefly. So if the spectrum is the teachers' union on one end of the spectrum, and Vivek Ramaswamy, who would dismantle the Department of Education at the federal level and just push all the responsibility to the states with the voucher program, he talked about it here once. Where are you and what's your, what's your philosophy on the state of the education?

• 1:10:13Speaker 00

  I, I, I would say I'm in the middle, because I think there's some, I think there's some worthiness to both of those perspectives. What would I do? I would fundamentally reinvent American public education. With the best and the brightest, with students, with teachers, with families, with the nonprofit sector and the business sector, because right now, business needs to participate in 21st century education to advise the teachers and the administrators and the curricula designers what skills they need. They're not even part of the conversation, you guys.

• 1:10:44Chamath Palihapitiya?

  And why do you think that, well, why do you think that there are certain places, progressive, liberal bastions, if you will?

• 1:10:52Chamath Palihapitiya?

  That had been the first to dismantle things like STEM and AP classes. Why is that happening?

• 1:10:57Speaker 00

  I wish I had a good, I wish I had a good answer for that. It's appalling. But, but I do have a good solution. I'm sure like you guys, you all know this, the single most important determinant of a child's success educationally is the quality of their educator. Every single study says the same thing. The United States of America right now, we pay about eighty-one percent of the per capita GDP to teachers for compensation. The best performing systems in the world, and there is a correlation, pay one-twenty, one-thirty, sometimes one-forty, one-hundred-and-forty percent of their per capita GDP. They make teaching one of the most admired, elevated professions in their nation. They identify great teachers when they're still young. And I think we should be a nation that does the same thing. We're not attracting the best and brightest any longer.

• 1:11:42Speaker 00

  When Teach for America teachers outperform teachers who have tenure or been at it for ten, twenty, thirty years, does that not say the quality matters? It's not the school how it looks. But anyway, I would reinvent. And the other thing is this, you and I'm sure like you guys, I remember a couple of teachers that made a huge difference in my life, and they're about fifty, I could barely remember it all. They should all be those two. And then furthermore, if you think sitting in front of a blackboard is the way to teach kids in this day and age, no, you gotta get out of the school. You gotta look at Scandinavian countries and Asian countries and how experiential learning, learning, learning from the best, most extraordinary educators in the world through screens on occasion, but to experience, you know, AI is going to fundamentally change employment as we know it.

• 1:12:27Speaker 00

  We have nobody in Washington that gets it. We need an administration in twenty-twenty-four that does and begins to simply rectify all of these problems anticipating the change that's coming. This administration is not going to do it. And education should be redesigned based on the change we know is coming. And I don't have all the answers, but I know a lot of people out in California and around the country and around the world who could help us.

• 1:12:52Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Is it too early to regulate AI?

• 1:12:54Jason Calacanis?

  Or is it?

• 1:12:55Speaker 00

  No.

• 1:12:55Jason Calacanis?

  No, you think we should.

• 1:12:56Speaker 00

  I think I think it should be. I think it should be very, you know, Jason, I would say right now it should be very limited. And and and this is where back to the conversation about um anonymous accounts. We do have to set, I think, some standards and penalties for nefarious use of AI. If we don't do that early and set the tone, I think it will get out of control. So to me, that's all we should do right now. Uh, and let it grow, let it expand, uh, let large enterprises and small come up with extraordinary ways to save money. By the way, AI is going to save extraordinary sums of money for the federal government and healthcare for businesses. We can anticipate how employment will change and what jobs will be jobs of the future. Uh, but if we don't think about that now, we're going to do what Congress always does.

• 1:13:40Speaker 00

  Get caught off guard, have to come in on a midnight ill-prepared with a thousand-page bill that nobody understands because it was written by a lobbyist that had skin in the game and does not serve America. And that maybe wraps up this whole conversation.

• 1:13:53David Friedberg?

  Yeah, I'm just not sure folks really understand in Congress what they're doing.

• 1:13:58Speaker 00

  No.

• 1:13:58David Friedberg?

  This front.

• 1:13:59Speaker 00

  No.

• 1:14:00David Friedberg?

  The difference between foundational models and the utilization of those models in an endpoint are very different regimes to think about regulation. And they're not even, that that that framework isn't even understood.

• 1:14:16Speaker 00

  Not at all.

• 1:14:17David Friedberg?

  We're not even talking about regulating outcomes.

• 1:14:20Speaker 00

  No.

• 1:14:21David Friedberg?

  Or actions. We're talking about regulating the infrastructure that could cause various outcomes.

• 1:14:26Speaker 00

  Regulate, regulate.

• 1:14:28David Friedberg?

  I'm very, I'm very much against where this has all evolved to.

• 1:14:31Speaker 00

  I agree.

• 1:14:31David Friedberg?

  And I think like some folks kind of want to say, hey, this is a regulatory capture moment. But I want to see someone in Congress stand up and demonstrate an understanding first before they can even have the right to articulate.

• 1:14:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:14:44David Friedberg?

  You know, a framework for regulation.

• 1:14:46Speaker 00

  Well, Dave, I can tell you, there's one man, I want to shout out this guy. Don Byer is a former US ambassador, Democrat from Virginia. He must be 70. He went back to college, I think Johns Hopkins, and just received or is pursuing his degree in artificial intelligence. That's the kind of representative. Isn't that cool? You would never know his name because he's not on, you know, Fox or MSNBC screaming at night, but those are the kinds of people that should be celebrated. A lot of my Republican colleagues that got thrown out of Congress because they had the audacity to support the Constitution when Trump was impeached the second time, you know, those people I celebrate. Can I, I gotta run, but can I tell one quick story to wrap my whole story up and about what I want to try to do?

• 1:15:27Speaker 00

  You know, at the, at the end of the day, none of this occurs, none of the successes, none of the policy ideas, none of the ideation occurs if we don't repair, and that means restoring friendships, our families, our communities and our country. So I do a series back home in Minnesota called Common Ground. I get six Democrats and six Republicans invited to a table. We break bread, we introduce ourselves, tell a little bit of our life stories. We talk about healthcare policy and we talk about immigration policy, which is where everything I share tonight comes from both Democrats and Republicans. And it's a two-hour session facilitated by an extraordinary group called Braver Angels. I encourage you to look them up, they are remarkable, doing this work all around the country.

• 1:16:10Speaker 00

  And at the end of these sessions, we go around the table and each person at the table shares a little bit about what they got out of this experience. And I had an episode not long ago that sums up my whole mission. A young woman, Emily, looks across the table at Dave and says, "Dave, when you drove up in your F-150 with the Trump sticker on it, I almost got back in my car, left the parking lot and drove away. I could not bear to go in the building, let alone sit at a table with you." And she said, "But I gotta say, I so loved sitting here and you're a good guy and I, I learned something." Goes around the table, comes to Dave and he looks at Emily and says, "Emily, when you drove up in your Prius, I wanted to run it over."

• 1:16:51Speaker 00

  And he says, and he says, but hey, I gotta tell you, Emily, I've never met a progressive as cool as you, and I really am glad I came to this today. And at that moment, Emily and Dave stood up in front of our table and they embraced. And to see a bleeding heart liberal and a dyed-in-the-wool Trumper do that probably was the most important moment in my entire career in service. If that is the only moment of its kind in my career in service, it would have made it worthwhile. And that is exactly what I'm going to inspire as President of the United States. Get Emily and Dave to hug it out. All they have to do is be invited for a little dinner, give them some space and place to recognize their common cause

• 1:17:35Speaker 00

  and their common ground. And that's how we're going to do this. I don't see a candidate right now on the ballot that has that intention, has that capacity, or has that capability. So I just want to thank you guys and...

• 1:17:46Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Last thing, and just, just yes or no. Can everybody expect that you will be on the ballot in every state?

• 1:17:52Speaker 00

  I can't say I'm going to be in the ballot in every state, Chamath, because I don't think it's possible. Between time and money, I'm going to have to make some choices. And that's just the sickening truth. I will, I want to salute Bernie Sanders. He actually made it possible for a candidate like me and probably future candidates who are subject to this nauseating system to actually still compete and get to the convention and maybe win because he de-powered people like me, members of Congress that used to have outsized votes, disproportionately so, versus voters. And I celebrate him because he was right. I used to think he was a sore loser. Bernie Sanders was absolutely right about a rigged system that is keeping people out of the process, keeping candidates out of the process,

• 1:18:37Speaker 00

  and keeping debate out of the process. So I'm going to be in the most, I'm going to be on most ballots. I've got to raise money. And frankly, I hate to be shameless, but the truth is, if we want to get on ballots, I need support. And it's easy, dean24.com. You know, I, by the way, I'm at 15% in New Hampshire after just two weeks. We thought it would take six if we were lucky.

• 1:18:57Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Wow.

• 1:18:57Speaker 00

  So people can throw 15 bucks our way to get on ballots at dean24.com. And by the way, Joe Biden? 27%, 73% of New Hampshire Democratic voters do not want the sitting President of the United States as their nominee. And mark my words, we're going to bring change. Thank you, guys.

• 1:19:17Jason Calacanis?

  All right. Thank you so much. Thanks for the time.

• 1:19:20Speaker 00

  Thank you very much. Keep the faith, guys. I mean it. Love to see you again. See you later.

• 1:19:24Jason Calacanis?

  Yeah, great. 90 Minutes with Dean Phillips. Everybody go to dean24.com if you want to learn more. All right, besties. I think that was another epic discussion with the presidential candidate. What's your thoughts? Chamath, you set up this interview. Where does he stand in your likely votes for president in 2024? Where would you rank him now?

• 1:19:48Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Andrew Yang texted me like last week and said, could you guys do this? And I was really interested because mostly I didn't know where he was coming from, to be totally honest. But I think his national visibility is probably going to increase a lot. My reaction is that he is who he says he is, which is like kind of down the middle. He doesn't take either extreme. And he kind of takes a moderate point of view and says there's a balance of this and that that can work. And that's actually good that he owns that as opposed to it being sort of a consequence or a byproduct of not getting what he wants. He kind of like that is where he starts. So I like that about him a lot. I thought

• 1:20:28Chamath Palihapitiya?

  he was really candid about what doesn't work. I really appreciate that honesty. He's saying some of the right things around capping Medicare, zero-based budgeting the military. I think all of those things are right. I didn't like, to be honest, the free speech part. I thought that that was, I don't think you can have some kind of registry of verified accounts or something. I just think that's a nonstarter for America. It's a super slippery slope.

• 1:20:58Chamath Palihapitiya?

  But in general, I was really impressed. And his war stories as a businessman were pretty cool.

• 1:21:06Jason Calacanis?

  Pretty awesome. Sacks, what's your candid thoughts on, obviously, he's not part of your political party, but what do you think his chances are versus Biden? And how would you assess his performance here today?

• 1:21:17David Sacks?

  I was pleasantly surprised that he made the case for himself, not just based on Biden's age and the fact that he's 54, but he also, I think, took a number of interesting policy stances that were a little different than where Biden is. He did it on foreign policy, did it on domestic policy. So I think he took a number of positions that were refreshing. And a big one, I think, relates to his personal story, where he talks about how he lost his father in Vietnam, and that that war was kept going much longer than it should have been because, basically, the greed of the military industrial complex. And he didn't fully connect the dots all the way to our present situation in Ukraine.

• 1:22:00David Sacks?

  But at least I think he would be skeptical of the influence of the MIC in our politics. What he said with respect to Ukraine is, we said that it would be shameful to abandon them now, but he also said that if it's true, he wasn't willing to concede it because he just didn't know factually, but if it's true that we could have avoided the war by taking NATO expansion off the table, then it would only be common sense to do that. I think that when the histories of this are written, it's going to be abundantly clear that we could have done precisely that. So his difference of opinion with me isn't in the logic, it's just in what, in what facts he knows to be true. So I actually thought that his position there was reasonable.

• 1:22:42David Sacks?

  You know, if it came down to a choice between Dean Phillips as the Democratic nominee and someone like Nikki Haley as a Republican nominee, I'd vote for Dean Phillips all day long.

• 1:22:56David Sacks?

  You know, one other thing I like about him is he is a business owner and he presents as a Bill Clinton Democrat. I mean, I think that it's not an accident. He's got a picture of Bill Clinton on the wall behind him. You know, he presents as a

• 1:23:08Jason Calacanis?

  That was exactly my takeaway, too.

• 1:23:10David Sacks?

  Yeah, he presents as a moderate Democrat who's a little bit of a throwback to the Democratic Party of the 1990s. If RFK Jr. is trying to bring back the Democratic Party of, say, the 1960s, the party of John F. Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy, his father, I think that Dean Phillips is more trying to bring back the Democratic Party of the 1990s.

• 1:23:29Jason Calacanis?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:30David Sacks?

  Both of them, I think, are ultimately very out of step with where the Democratic Party is today, but they're out of step with it in ways that I like. So he is a candidate who I could support against a Republican who, if we ended up getting a sort of stale neocon type Republican candidate, I would take a Dean Phillips all day long.

• 1:23:47Jason Calacanis?

  Really? Wow, great. Friedberg, your thoughts?

• 1:23:50David Friedberg?

  I mean, I think if Joe Biden runs, he obviously doesn't stand a chance just based on the structural issues that he described. If Joe Biden doesn't run and drops out, I think there are probably a lot of other Democratic candidates who are going to have deeper pockets and more support from the party and more celebrity or what have you to get themselves elected. With respect to his candidacy and whether it's a realistic kind of campaign, I would probably argue no. But what I really like is the fact that he is making the case, I think, in a stronger way than even RFK Jr., was on how these incumbents and how the incumbency

• 1:24:33David Friedberg?

  in the party system prevents new candidates from actually participating in a true democratic process. And it feels to me a lot like what goes on in that sense is the equivalent of like regulatory capture, but in politics. It allows these party leaders and influencers, which is a very small group of people, to decide who gets to go on a ballot in a state, to decide who gets to be the nominee, who decides who gets to run for president. The best thing that he's doing is exposing a system that Bernie Sanders calls rigged and that clearly, I think, is very inequitable and doesn't create a true kind of democratic process. So it's really great to see him doing this work and telling this story. And I'm glad we gave him the forum to do that for just that reason.

• 1:25:17Jason Calacanis?

  And if you were to have a choice of him or Biden, you'd pick him? Yeah. If you had a choice of him or Vivek on the other side, who would you pick? No comment. No comment. Okay. Taking off my moderator hat for a minute. Loved his business story. So I agree with you, Chamath. Really excited to see somebody under the age of 80 run for president. And I thought there were really two powerful moments there when he said he would send special forces in and then he was pretty aggressive in his assessment of Netanyahu's leadership. And overall, he did engage with every single issue and had interesting policy issues. No, Chamath? It seemed pretty, uh, pretty engaging there. So overall, great job, everybody. I think four for four on the presidential candidates. And just as a programming note,

• 1:26:00Jason Calacanis?

  we have sent the first podcasting kits, first microphones to four presidential candidates, for those of you counting at home. What do you think will happen post this, Chamath? Vivek got a big bump, RFK got a big bump. What do you think is going to happen post this?

• 1:26:14Chamath Palihapitiya?

  I think that Dean Phillips is going to poll really well. The more that people get to see him, and I think New Hampshire is set up well for grassroots politics like this.

• 1:26:24Chamath Palihapitiya?

  It will, it will go over very well. The question, I think, Friedberg points is the, is the key one, which is the party infrastructure has tremendous antibodies. And if they decide to shut you out, which they did very strongly and vocally for RFK, you don't have much of a choice except to run as an independent. So

• 1:26:49Chamath Palihapitiya?

  his candidacy is precarious, not because of the viability of him as a candidate, actually, because I think it's quite high, or his likability, which is quite high, or his electability, as Sacks said, which against the right person is very hot. This has all to do with the antibodies of the infrastructure.

• 1:27:05David Friedberg?

  Sorry, just a quick programming note. Jake Al, are you drinking a chocolate milk?

• 1:27:10Jason Calacanis?

  I'm thinking a core power 26. 26 grams of protein. I'm still on my try to eat more protein, but I did have a super gut bar earlier today for breakfast, which was quite nice.

• 1:27:21David Friedberg?

  Thought that was a chocolate milk.

• 1:27:23Jason Calacanis?

  This one's got 26 grams. It's a 42 gram protein. Yeah, I don't want to give a free add to core power, but Sacks, in addition to the antibodies that, you know, kicked RFK out of the Democratic Party, the press also blocked him. CNN, etc. wouldn't let him on. The right would let him on all day long. Does this same antibody kind of system exist on the right at all? Or is the right more open to multiple candidates, just generally speaking?

• 1:27:46David Sacks?

  No, I mean, you look at Republican debates and they are vigorous debates. There is real disagreement on the right. There are real debates on the right and

• 1:27:55David Sacks?

  there is a real working out of contested issues. The Democratic Party, by and large, is a machine. It works in lockstep. That's why what Dean Phillips is doing is so sacrilegious. I mean, he is pretty much ending his career as someone who can just move up through the ranks that are the Democratic Party. Maybe this will turn out in a way where it gives him like a leapfrog, but I don't think so. I mean, I think he's basically signaling to the higher ups in the Democratic Party that he's no longer a candidate for advancement through the regular course.

• 1:28:29Jason Calacanis?

  Got it.

• 1:28:30David Sacks?

  And one analogy is that the Democratic Party is like the empire and the Republicans are like the rebel alliance, you know? The Republican Party is a bunch of misfits. It's a bunch of

• 1:28:42Jason Calacanis?

  He walks.

• 1:28:44David Sacks?

  He walks.

• 1:28:45Jason Calacanis?

  And solos.

• 1:28:47David Sacks?

  And solos, whatever. But the Democratic Party marches in lockstep.

• 1:28:51Jason Calacanis?

  Is that why the Democratic Party wins more? Is because they're in lockstep?

• 1:28:53David Sacks?

  Yeah. They're much better fundraisers. They're more disciplined. They have their act together right now. I don't think this was always the case, but I think it's true right now.

• 1:29:02Jason Calacanis?

  Yeah. Okay. Well, we had a couple of other issues we wanted to get to, so I think we can wrap there. Great job, everybody. That was spectacular. Great job getting the candidate, Chima. Thank you for that. All right, we have to touch on what happened this week with the US and China relations. Everybody knows Xi Jinping was here in the Bay Area to meet with Biden. Yellen welcomed Xi at the plane. Maybe she's selling some treasuries. I don't know.

• 1:29:26David Sacks?

  That's what the press said. I mean, like, we're like some sort of piss poor company that's selling its junk bonds. I mean, the second that she gets off the plane, she's hawking our shitty bonds.

• 1:29:38Jason Calacanis?

  Well, listen, everybody's raising the fund right now. You know, fundraising is hard.

• 1:29:42David Friedberg?

  Did you guys hear the commentary that the Treasury auction had a really tough, tough moment last week? They had a big auction on, what was it, 10 and 30 year bonds? The 30 year bond bid was not really there. And so they're, they gotta get buyers in the market. They gotta go get the Chinese.

• 1:29:55Jason Calacanis?

  And she's coming to raise money apparently too. She, she's here. Everybody's having a hard time raising right now. Pretty, pretty crazy. But Chamath, you and I tweeted about this clip where Xi Jinping said that, you know, he's basically for peace and that we have to work together. Let me just start there with you, Chamath, so we can get through this quickly. Do you take him at his word? There were cynical people saying like, hey, you know, he's just desperate, needs more trade, needs more business. How do you interpret Xi's peace pipe here, you know, and

• 1:30:26Jason Calacanis?

  his dinner with a bunch of executives last night?

• 1:30:29Chamath Palihapitiya?

  I think he's pragmatic. He's somebody that wants to not just rule over China, but he wants to do it for the rest of his life and he wants to do a good job. And I've said this many times, China's issues are endemic and pervasive and they're demographic. And so he has huge structural issues that he has to fix in the Chinese economy. And so I think all of this is just about him focusing on his priorities, which makes sense, which is really about domestic policy. There's an enormous real estate issue that has to get sorted out. There is a GDP issue that has to get sorted out. There's a youth unemployment issue that has to get sorted out.

• 1:31:09Chamath Palihapitiya?

  And then there's an aging and a birth rate and replacement issue that has to get sorted out. All of these things are enormous efforts. And so I think he's pragmatic enough to not also then add foreign misadventures to that plate. And I think what you heard was him being very clear.

• 1:31:29Jason Calacanis?

  About just exactly that. Sax, what was your interpretation? There's so many jumping off points here. You got foreign policy, you got TikTok, fentanyl. I mean, there's a long list of issues. But does it feel like we're turning a corner on relations? Hey, they need us, we need them. What was your interpretation of all this?

• 1:31:46David Sacks?

  Well, I think what's going on here is that the administration has its hands full with two wars. We still got this war in Europe over Ukraine, which is going very badly. And now we have a new war in the Middle East that caught them completely by surprise. Recall that literally a week or two before October 7th, you had Jake Sullivan saying the Middle East has never been more peaceful. So they absolutely did not anticipate what was coming. And now we have half of our carrier groups in the Middle East positioned there in cases, you know, blows up into a wider regional war. So I think the simple fact of the matter is, is that the Biden administration, this is more than they can handle. Or let's put it this way, they're trying to put the China compete on hold. They're trying to put it on ice while they figure out a way to rescue this losing effort

• 1:32:32David Sacks?

  in Ukraine and to prevent the situation in the Middle East from spiraling out of control. It's just too much for them. They don't have the bandwidth to deal with a war or conflict breaking out in the Asia-Pacific. So I think that's the Biden administration's motivation here is they're seeking to ease tensions because they're just too bandwidth constrained to deal with it. By the same token, I think Chamath is right that she realizes that he's got his hands full with domestic economic problems. He doesn't need a ratcheting up of tensions with the United States right now. And I would also add that on foreign policy, I think what you're seeing in his remarks

• 1:33:12David Sacks?

  is a return to the far away from this kind of wolf warrior diplomacy that they had going on a few years ago, where they were kind of saying these very bellicose things and they're kind of flexing their muscles in the Asia-Pacific region. That really backfired on them because it raised the hackles of all those other Asian countries. And it was making it too easy for the United States to form a containment alliance against China. So he's moving away from that type of wolf warrior rhetoric that got them nowhere. And he's moved back to the rhetoric of a Deng Xiaoping, who said that China's policy should be to bide its time and hide its light under a bushel. In other words, just get stronger and stronger. Don't let people.

• 1:33:54David Sacks?

  Get wise to how strong you are and then when the time is right, you will flex your muscles. But just keep, you know, keep getting stronger. And I think he's returned to that, that policy and you saw this with the Belt and Road Conference that in Beijing just a few weeks ago, where you saw countries like Vietnam participating. And I think that China, their strategy is now to try to use some honey to catch some flies as opposed to Vinegar. Using this kind of bellicose rhetoric.

• 1:34:23Jason Calacanis?

  And saber rattling. And if we look at this chart, I think this chart speaks volumes, Friedberg. In foreign investment into China has absolutely fallen off a cliff. In the decoupling, the saber rattling, you know, and other countries looking to have resiliency and not be dependent on China has obviously blown up in his lap. What are your thoughts on foreign trade and our business relationship with China and their relationship with the West and the rest of the world?

• 1:34:52David Friedberg?

  This used to be a thing to do to make money. And then it became a question mark of whether you can make money.

• 1:35:01David Friedberg?

  Couple of years ago and now as of this year, I would argue you are a pariah. If you were trying to invest in China or do any business in China, it's almost like you can't do business with the enemy. That's the tone shift that I think accelerated in the last 24 months. And as that tone shift happened in the business community and the investment community,

• 1:35:24David Friedberg?

  it obviously escalated the tenor of what is the broader relationship look like? That I think catalyzed, hey, we got to simmer things down because we can't really afford or deal with that escalating escalation right now. But I don't know, I mentioned this to you guys. I was at a conference this past summer, the summer of 22, it was like, hey, maybe, you know, when are things going to get bad with China? To this summer, it's like if you were doing business in China, you're trying to pick up pennies in front of a freight train. Like you're going to get run over. And it happened in one year. That was my observation. It was like this

• 1:36:01Jason Calacanis?

  The chart shows that, right?

• 1:36:02David Friedberg?

  This, yeah. And I could tell from the tone of what everyone is saying on stage. It was like universal. There wasn't anyone that disagreed. And similarly, as you guys know, we've heard this from both political parties in the US. It suddenly became the new, new thing for Democrats and Republicans to denounce China, denounce investing in China, denounce doing business with China. Too much, too fast, I would argue, has led to an observation of the consequences. It's a deeply coupled economic partner to the United States. China is the largest buyer of US agricultural exports. $200 billion a year of farm products that we make get shipped out to China. China is a major supplier to our electronics industry.

• 1:36:44David Friedberg?

  We don't need to recount all the relationships, but trying to decouple too quickly, trying to call China the enemy too fast, I think, has led to a realization that that's not really attainable. So I would argue that maybe this week has been a moment. I don't know if it really changes the long-term trajectory, but it seems like it's certainly a very important and critical pause in the escalation. One thing I wanted to comment, I think one of the biggest winners this week, I'd love your point of view on this, guys, is like Gavin Newsom. I mean, he was all over this week, like he was at the plane greeting Xi, he cleaned up San Francisco. He got a shout-out from the president. He was, yeah, he was at the dinner. I mean, do you guys think like Gavin is, you know, gonna be there when Joe says, "I'll

• 1:37:27David Friedberg?

  see you later, I'm not gonna run again," and then you hear? Joe and I spoke. Yeah, what's happening here? It's all just a big coincidence. He actually went on stage in San Francisco, made all those comments about the city should be cleaned up and we haven't been doing it, we could have the whole time, he's very honest about it.

• 1:37:44David Sacks?

  Well, that's not quite what he said.

• 1:37:45David Friedberg?

  Yeah, but I look, I mean, I don't know, what do you guys think? He's quasi-owning it, right, Sax? Quasi-owning it?

• 1:37:49David Sacks?

  No, I don't think he did own it. He gave these really weird remarks about how, there are some people who are saying that we're only cleaning up San Francisco because there's these fancy people here. That was just such a weird term as well.

• 1:38:00David Friedberg?

  And it's true because it's true.

• 1:38:02David Sacks?

  And it's true, but yeah, it was like he was headed in one direction and then realized he was making a mistake, but couldn't quite figure out what to do about it.

• 1:38:08David Friedberg?

  Let's pull it up, let's pull it up. It's good.

• 1:38:10Speaker 05

  Yeah, here, play it. They're just cleaning up this place because all those fancy leaders are coming into town. That's true, because it's true.

• 1:38:21David Sacks?

  What he's basically doing there is admitting that he, as the governor, has the power to snap his fingers and wave his magic wand and clean up the streets of San Francisco. And that is completely different than what he's been telling us for years. For years, he's been maintaining that the problem of homelessness in California is owned by local officials, or by judges, or by, somehow by the system itself, and it's too complex and is beyond his power to simply do something about it. But he just admitted that, in fact, he does have the power to do something about it. In fact, he is the boss of a one-party state, and all he had to do was snap his fingers and make this homeless problem go away. And he's willing to do that for Xi Jinping, he's willing to do that for Dreamforce, he's

• 1:39:05David Sacks?

  willing to do that for the Super Bowl, but he is not willing to do that for the ordinary citizens of San Francisco. And I think that ultimately is going to be a huge vulnerability. What he should have said here is, "It's true that we cleaned up the city to represent ourselves well for these foreign leaders who are coming in, but the truth of it is that we should be doing this every day. And here's my agenda for fixing it, point 123, and if we could get everyone on board with this agenda, we could fix this problem." But that's not what he said. What he basically communicated was that, "I can solve this problem anytime, but I don't give a shit about you, ordinary citizens. We only do this for the fancy people."

• 1:39:45Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Chamath, any reaction to that? He's auditioning. I mean, I think that much is clear. Again, I would just say, you can't just go to China and meet with Xi Jinping. So that has to be endorsed, it's negotiated, it's enabled. You go there with talking points, you go there in discussion with state and treasury and the rest of the federal bureaucracy behind you. So that was a clear audition of some kind.

• 1:40:14Chamath Palihapitiya?

  And I think it was obvious that they wanted the APEC summit to be the backdrop of a Biden G meeting. And so you're doubling down on California. So I think it's, I think it's kind of like a dry run here is what I would say. I mean, I'm not sure that it's, I don't know what for.

• 1:40:35David Sacks?

  It definitely made him look presidential. And I think you're right that when he went to China a few weeks ago to invite G to the summit, that was clearly sanctioned by, gotta be by Blinken, by Sullivan, by the

• 1:40:46Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Of course, you can't, you can't do that on your own.

• 1:40:48David Sacks?

  Of course, of course. But again, the reason why they sanctioned that is because they really want to ease tensions with China right now, given how full their hands are with the Middle East right now and with Ukraine.

• 1:40:59Chamath Palihapitiya?

  No, no, no, I'm not, I'm not debating that. I think that that makes all the sense in the world. I think that you could have sent any number of, well, not any number, but one of three cabinet secretaries and it would have been just as appropriate. I think sending the governor, I think was a little bit of a, it was a test. Can he perform? And I think he did a good job there.

• 1:41:17David Sacks?

  He helped himself. I mean, he hurt himself with the, it's true because it's true, but he helped himself in terms of the optics of a caring presidential.

• 1:41:24Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Can I say it though? I, I, I think he did look presidential in China. And I actually, that was the first time where I thought Gavin was really being a normal person because he actually told the truth. He's like, yeah, this state is a, at its best, no, but this state at its best is a center of innovation in the future. And at its worst, it's where every bad progressive idea goes to die.

• 1:41:47David Sacks?

  But wait, he said that?

• 1:41:49Chamath Palihapitiya?

  No, no, no, I'm saying that. I'm saying San Francisco embodies both of those two things. On one day, it's full of people on crystal meth and fentanyl. On the second day, it's the OpenAI dev day. Yeah, we'll take the president. Within a block of each other. So I think, and I think he just admitted what we all know.

• 1:42:06David Sacks?

  But imagine if he said something like that, that would make him so much more real.

• 1:42:10Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Well, maybe he's trying to find his voice.

• 1:42:12David Friedberg?

  I think, I think his tone has shifted a bit. I don't know. That's what I'm saying. It felt like in seeing some of the talks he gave this week and his positioning and where he was sitting, it was, he looks like very legit.

• 1:42:22Chamath Palihapitiya?

  I definitely, I definitely will say that the Gavin Newsom of three years ago was a little bit smarmy and more of like a political insider. The Gavin Newsom of like the last week and particularly even just that comment to me, David, was actually being honest. And I think that that's a more viable path if they decide to give him the candidacy.

• 1:42:48Jason Calacanis?

  Which I think is a really good observation because he could just come out and say, listen, we tried a bunch of things. We had good intent. It didn't work and now we're reversing them. But, you know, Biden did say that he would possibly be running for his job. I want to thank Governor Newsom, want to thank him. He's been one hell of a governor, man. Matter of fact, he could be anything he wants. He could have the job I'm looking for. That, that was, I don't know if you guys heard that quote from Biden. Biden said that last night. So I guess conspiracy, let's put our tinfoil, tinfoil hack corner time. Sacks, your favorite. Percentage chance Biden runs or drops out, whichever way you want to do it. Anybody have some tea leaves here?

• 1:43:31David Sacks?

  I still think there's about a 70% chance that Biden runs.

• 1:43:35Jason Calacanis?

  Okay, so 30% chance he doesn't.

• 1:43:37David Sacks?

  He's not gonna voluntarily retire. He, the, the party apparatus, whoever's, you know, behind the scenes pulling the strings, the Wizard of Oz is gonna have to go, the party elders have to go to him at a certain point and say, sorry, this is just not gonna work. And we're not there yet.

• 1:43:54Jason Calacanis?

  Okay. Chamath, what do you think? I'm curious.

• 1:43:56Chamath Palihapitiya?

  I think David's right. The leaders and the powers that be will not make that call right now. I don't think it's, I don't think it's time yet.

• 1:44:01Jason Calacanis?

  Free Bird, you gotta take?

• 1:44:04David Friedberg?

  I don't know. I think it's speculation. I really don't know.

• 1:44:07Jason Calacanis?

  Okay. Hey, Chamath, one question here just on markets. Hundreds of billions of dollars not being invested in China on that chart, foreign investments. Where does that money go? Any thoughts on where that's going? Is it just sitting in accounts? Do you think it's being invested in other geographies?

• 1:44:22Chamath Palihapitiya?

  We talked about it last week with Jared Kushner, but if you look at just the the ton of cash and cash equivalents, I think it just speaks to how everybody's just a little bit on the sidelines waiting to go, waiting for the green light, which, you know, you saw CPI this week, by the way. I mean, we talked about it last week, which is that it looked like CPI is turning over. And now the consensus forecast is you're going to see CPI with a low 2% handle by February or March of this year. So you're going to see 2.2% CPI or something. Watch out.

• 1:44:53Jason Calacanis?

  Watch out as in, hey, markets could come roaring back. Maybe not Zerp environment, but hmm, could get interesting. All right, listen, we don't want to leave without doing a Science Corner. Everybody loves Science Corner. I know DeepMind has been working on, you know, many projects, Friedberg, and DeepMind, of course, is Google's AI arm. They did Go, they did protein folding, and of course, they're doing Bard, but they announced something this week about predicting weather. Tell us about this paper that was released, Friedberg.

• 1:45:25David Friedberg?

  Yeah, so I think this was pretty exciting. You guys know I used to work in weather when I ran Climate Corps. We did a lot of work with weather forecasting and weather modeling. So DeepMind published a paper in the journal Science this week introducing Graphcast, which is actually a publicly available model that does weather forecasting using machine learned models. It's a 37 million parameter model. Just to give you a sense how small that is, that model compared to ChatGPT, which is like a 1.5 trillion parameters in the ChatGPT model, this is only 37 million parameters in this model. And the performance that they got out of Graphcast, which they published in the journals, they've made the model available.

• 1:46:07David Friedberg?

  You can check it out. You can read the paper on how they built the model. They're very open about that. When the model actually forecasts weather over a 10-day period, better than traditional weather forecasting. So let me just talk about how weather forecasting is normally done, and what they did differently, and why this is such a big breakthrough. So, weather forecasting is usually done by chopping up the atmosphere into little cubes, little blocks. And, you know, the weather is a fluid. It's like a liquid. It's air and moisture being moved around with energy. And so, normal weather forecasting systems are what are called numerical models. You run physics. You run the formulas for physics on each of those little cells of the atmosphere, and figure out how they affect the cell next to them, and the cell next to them.

• 1:46:51David Friedberg?

  And you run that cycle forward, and you run all these calculations, and then you figure out how those cells are going to be different in hours, and then in days, going forward. And these numerical models, basically because they're compute-intensive, they're running actual calculations from physics to model all this stuff, they require a lot of compute power. There are hundreds of variables that are measured, and that are output from forecasting models, and they're generally run on these very expensive compute clusters. There are two major weather forecasting systems. One is run by ECMWF, which is the European Weather Center, and the other one is run by NOAA, called GFS here in the US.

• 1:47:33David Friedberg?

  And ECMWF runs on a million cores across 7,700 compute cluster nodes. They spent about $200 million on this compute cluster. And the GFS model runs on a 29 petaflop system, so 29 quadrillion floating operations per second. It costs $270 million. And when they run the forecast model using this traditional way of doing things, they're running all these physics calculations on these little small blocks of the atmosphere, and perturbing it, fast-forward, try and capture as much data out of the model runs as they can. And every six hours, they run the model, and there's a new output every six hours. And it costs a billion dollars for NOAA to run forecasts every year and disseminate that information.

• 1:48:17David Friedberg?

  And then all the weather companies you know from Weather Channel and AccuWeather, they're all buying or getting free access to these forecasts that come from these big compute clusters. And that's how all weather forecasting is done. They're actually done primarily by these big centralized government super compute clusters. And then they're made available for everyone to consume. And the more data and the more compute you get, the better the forecasts, the higher the resolution, meaning the more local space you can forecast on, the smaller the time scales, meaning you can go from one day forecast to one hour forecast, break it down, and the further out you can be accurate, whether it's five days and then 10 days and so on. So more compute has been the name of the game for many, many years in weather forecasting. The more compute you get, the better the forecasts.

• 1:49:00David Friedberg?

  So this breakthrough that DeepMind has had is they basically took all the past weather forecasts and they built a model that figured out how to take the current weather and the weather from six hours ago, just the data, so the data feeds from today's current weather and weather six hours ago, and trained a model that predicted weather for the next 10 days. The same output as you would get from these big expensive numerical models. And they did this using what's called a graph neural network. That's the architecture for the model. A graph neural network is far more complicated than, say, predicting an image, which is two dimensional, it's pixels next to each other, or predicting a text stream, which is one dimensional, it's what's the next word in a sentence.

• 1:49:42David Friedberg?

  So these are, a graph neural network is a fairly complicated model. And so they describe all the techniques they used and everything they built in the paper. They were really open about it all. And then they were able to train this model using past, you know, forecasting data going back to the 70s. And then they ran the model. If you pull up these charts, so the first chart that we're going to pull up here basically shows the model's performance, graph cast against the big ECMWF model. And what you'll see is that the model across all time scales, going out to 10 days, is better. And there's a bunch of ways to measure this, primarily what's called root mean square error.

• 1:50:19David Friedberg?

  Which measures the skill of the forecast. So here you can see the black line is the numerical model run by ECMWF, which is the big weather forecast model that most people in the world rely on every day. And the bottom is the machine learn model. And by the way, the entire Graphcast model runs in one minute. So you basically input current weather data and you input weather data from six hours ago. And in a minute, you get all the forecasts. Whereas currently

• 1:50:48Jason Calacanis?

  And it could run on what, like a smartphone or a laptop?

• 1:50:51David Friedberg?

  Yeah, not that small, but yeah, I mean, you could run it on a small compute and you could get the results in a minute. And so basically, everyone can now be a weather forecaster. What used to be

• 1:51:02Jason Calacanis?

  Is this, is the gap between the black and the blue line significant? Is that an important?

• 1:51:07David Friedberg?

  It is significant in two ways. One is first of all, it's better, which is amazing because researchers have spent billions of dollars and decades trying to make their numerical models better. So the fact that a machine learn model is just simply better is really profound. And the second point is that this machine learn model is only 37 million parameters and can be output in a minute. So you could be running this thing continuously.

• 1:51:29Jason Calacanis?

  And does this, does this work for weather all around the world?

• 1:51:32David Friedberg?

  All around the world. Exactly, all around the world. And the second thing that they measured, if you pull up the second graph, was well, okay, great, you can measure, you can do basic weather forecasting, but are you good at picking up extreme events? The things that are really outside of the normal distribution curve, the things that we should worry about, like cyclones or extreme heat or atmospheric rivers. And the answer again is absolutely yes, that this model trained on this data is better at forecasting extreme weather events.

• 1:52:02Jason Calacanis?

  On that bottom left one, is it saying that HRS doesn't actually predict cyclone tracking? And that Graphcast gives you like two, three, four days lead time?

• 1:52:11David Friedberg?

  That's just an error difference. Yeah, it's just a measure, it's a measure of delta.

• 1:52:15Jason Calacanis?

  So what's the downstream effect of this? People will be able to get out of an area that could have extreme weather or insurance? You did climate.com, right? So you've been in this business for a long time.

• 1:52:25David Friedberg?

  Yeah, so I think one of the most interesting things is how this is going to change how weather forecasting is done. Again, billions of dollars, there's a big system in Japan, a big system in Europe and a big system in the US that forecast the weather. There's some of the biggest compute clusters in the world. And now you can Run it in your home. You can run this model in your home because all the weather data that is the input to the model is available all the time on the internet for free. So we could just take that data and anyone could run it. You could get faster results, more frequent updates, certainly a much lower cost. And I think this is just the beginning of obviously a long road of optimization and iteration that will go from here where it'll be really amazing to see what else can be done with this model. It totally upends a lot of different business models as well.

• 1:53:09David Friedberg?

  What's really important also to note, this is an incredible proof point of these graph neural nets. Graph neural nets can be applied in other areas like chemistry, biology, material science, anywhere where you're simulating physics or physical properties or three-dimensional space over time, showing that you can train off data and be better than physical models that just use physics to make a prediction. And you can just have the machine figure out how to do it on its own and it comes up with this prediction that's better than running physics in a compute cluster is really incredible. And I think it'll also, it's a great way to highlight the opportunity for machine learning models being applied to things like chemistry and biology for discovery purposes and other areas over

• 1:53:49David Friedberg?

  time. I thought it was a great paper, another really incredible proof point by DeepMind.

• 1:53:56Jason Calacanis?

  I mean, are they going to just throw away those clusters running other weather models now?

• 1:54:00David Friedberg?

  Dude, I'm telling you, like, that's redundant. And by the way, talk about accountability. So if I'm running the Department of Commerce, which oversees NOAA in the US, I'm like, what are we doing spending a billion dollars a year on this now? We can just run this thing on a MacBook.

• 1:54:12Jason Calacanis?

  So a perfect example of how AI is going to save billions of dollars. This is like an incredible proof point for the government getting more efficient to circle back around to Dean's point earlier in the episode. Okay, this has been an amazing episode for the dictator himself, Joma Poli-Hapatia.

• 1:54:26Chamath Palihapitiya?

  I want a more accurate forecast of the temperature on Uranus.

• 1:54:30Jason Calacanis?

  Oh, it was coming in at any moment.

• 1:54:32Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Oh, man.

• 1:54:33Jason Calacanis?

  It depends. Did you have?

• 1:54:35David Friedberg?

  It's cold and dark, cold and dark.

• 1:54:36Jason Calacanis?

  It's cold and dark, or maybe you had the hot sauce. Anybody knows. All right, listen. And for the Sultan of Science, The Day After Tomorrow, beautiful, it was a great fun movie. David Friedberg and the Rain Man David Sacks. I'm amongst amongst the world's greatest moderators. Great job the last two weeks Friedberg. And this is your favorite podcast, the All In Podcast. We'll see you all next time. Bye bye. Bye bye. Oh, also, also, also happy Thanksgiving, everybody. Happy Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving. No episode next week. No episode next week. You never know, somebody goes rogue. Happy Thanksgiving to everybody. Gobble gobble. Lachibitan gobble. Make me thankful for your besties gobble gobble.

• 1:55:20Speaker 06

  We'll let your winners ride.

• 1:55:23Speaker 06

  Rain Man David Sacks.

• 1:55:27Speaker 06

  And it said, we open source it to the fans and they've just gone crazy with it. Love you, S. I'm the queen of Kino.

• 1:55:40Speaker 06

  Besties are gone.

• 1:55:43Speaker 06

  Let's play a dog. Can you get a notice in your driveway? Oh, man.

• 1:55:51Chamath Palihapitiya?

  We should all just get a room and just have one big huge orgy because they're all just. It's like this like sexual tension, but they just need to release somehow.

• 1:55:59Speaker 06

  What your B B. What your B. B. We need to get merch. I'm going all in.