0:00
Do you want to see something? Look at my eyes.
Search this video
0:02
Look at my Look at Look at my eyes. Look at his eyes.
0:03
It's [ __ ] contagion over here. Broski, what happened? You have conjunctivitis?
0:06
Yeah, double eye I got it from my daughter.
0:10
got something in his eye.
0:11
And then I got this like [ __ ] allergic reaction to it.
0:12
It is a It is I'm just messed up, dude.
0:14
For 2 days now I haven't been able to see.
0:16
Okay, well, let me tell you about this weekend, which was the most [ __ ] exhausting weekend of my life.
0:21
I mean, have you I Where do I even start?
0:23
Okay, here's here's where I start.
0:24
So, I [ __ ] fly home from Italy. From Italy.
0:26
Get back in the air at 35,000 ft I I decide to troll the mids. Oh, no.
0:34
We'll talk about that later.
0:34
But anyways, sipping a beautifully chilled white burgundy.
0:39
By trolling the mids, you mean that you were occupying their airspace.
0:44
You were flying at the level of commercial jets. a flyby. I said 45,000 ft. I did a 45,000 ft.
0:48
I went down where the public airlines fly and I was like blah blah blah blah blah mid mid mid and then I came back.
1:14
I land in LA and I go straight house.
1:14
I land at like, you know, I get there like 1:30 or 2:30 or something, 3:00, something around there. In the morning.
1:23
I take a No, in the afternoon.
1:23
Take a nice bath and boom, we start playing at 4:00. Okay.
1:27
We start playing for the start of the It's not a big deal.
1:29
It's like one day of poker.
1:30
We play poker, we finish at like 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning. We're exhausted.
1:33
Kevin shows up in a wheelchair cuz he had pulled his [ __ ] abdomen. Kevin Hart.
1:38
Kevin Hart in a race with Stephen Ridley.
1:40
He had a 40-yard dash with Stephen Ridley.
1:42
Pulled Pulled all his muscles like tore I think you mean a 40-in dash if it was Kevin Hart. That's a 40-in dash.
1:49
Anyways, Kev Kev pulls all these muscles like it.
1:53
The door in the car opens and the wheelchair comes in.
1:55
He wheels himself to the table.
1:59
And I So, that was the beginning.
1:59
I was like, this is like a This is an odd way to start poker.
2:02
We played till 4:00 in the morning. Go to bed. Wake up, do our thing.
2:06
Start the game again Thursday at 4:00. Okay.
2:13
We play again till [ __ ] 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning.
2:16
Wake up, we go to Burbank at 10:00 and we fly to Puerto Vallarta for bachelor party. It's unbelievable. Okay?
2:23
10 bedrooms, huge compound on the beach, the whole nine yards.
2:27
We start gambling on the plane.
2:30
I just want you guys to know that we slept 9 hours in 4 days.
2:35
And we just kept playing and playing and playing.
2:37
At one point said, and this is exactly how the interaction went.
2:39
Said, "Hey guys, maybe we should go to the St.
2:44
Regis for din" and then as soon as he was about to say dinner I was like, "Shut up. Keep playing."
2:50
The point is that we played from the plane, in the car we played on an app, then we played in the house.
2:56
The food was served buffet style.
2:58
It all decorum just went away. We didn't do anything.
3:02
We didn't leave that house, we didn't walk on the beach, we didn't [ __ ] nothing.
3:05
You didn't put your feet in the ocean.
3:07
I played until I landed in Moffett on Monday afternoon.
3:15
Can you [ __ ] believe it?
3:15
It's So, it's like almost like, you know, 6 days straight of poker.
3:18
I will say this, it's an incredible house, the food was incredible.
3:22
I really wish I could have seen more than my bedroom and the poker table.
3:28
I wish I could tell you that the sitting room was nice, but I have no [ __ ] idea. You peed in a bucket.
3:32
You didn't even see the bathrooms in this house.
3:36
No, I had the doors opened so that I could run to my room and pee and come back.
3:40
I mean, it it was to waste time.
3:41
You don't want to waste time.
3:43
It was the most degen weekend I've ever been a part of.
3:45
And And then all of us, by the way, were so exhausted.
3:47
We slept for [ __ ] 10 hours a day for the like the last 3 days.
3:50
Oh, and by the way, so smart, you know.
3:52
You think it's a bachelor party, it's like there'll be girls, there'll be nothing.
3:55
Not even the housekeepers were women. Everybody was men.
4:00
There was no distractions.
4:03
Literally no distractions. It's just all dudes.
4:04
Dudes cleaning the house, dudes cooking, dudes dudes doing this, dudes doing that.
4:08
Our one attempt to go offsite to go to a dinner I was like, "No. Sit down." The best. He's the best.
4:15
That should pay for us something to kill a research. He's the best.
4:16
My lord, I I just want to I don't want to make this into tequila part two, but my email is filled with 8,000-word tequila missives and overviews from Friedberg and every tequila producer in the world.
4:31
And my Twitter, my X, is filled with posts about Chamath's man in the arena comments.
4:36
They have set off an absolute fury as Chamath was alluding to.
4:41
So, the man in the arena tweet I I don't know the timestamp here. Looks like 10:22 a. m.
4:45
I don't know what that is, Italian time, but Chamath decided to say, "I'm in the arena trying stuff.
4:52
Some will work, some won't, but always learning.
4:54
You're anonymous and afraid of your own shadow. Enjoy the sidelines."
4:57
And this, of course, was to somebody who is criticizing a SPAC or something.
5:00
And I think this person had eight followers.
5:05
And let's just go through the memes here.
5:07
Here somebody with the AI revolution has made a Chamath version of Gladiator, who is Russell Crowe, and Chamath's DNA being mixed.
5:14
Friedberg, I didn't know this was possible in DNA today, but I guess there is a new actor storming Hollywood and it's Chamath Crowe.
5:25
It's Russell Polihopatia. Beautiful.
5:25
I mean, what a great job that is. Looks like you.
5:30
So, great job to whatever mids did that in whatever mid software.
5:33
Do you want to actually talk about the man in the arena comment and what the context of it is?
5:39
Can we talk about that actually? Yeah, go ahead.
5:40
I think people got upset because what I said was the truth.
5:44
And this is no different than when I've said stuff before that's become a huge meme and a huge moment, cultural moment.
5:51
Telling the truth, especially when it's so clear and so obvious, sometimes can really touch a nerve.
5:57
And what I said is basically the following, which is that there are all these people, the four of us are examples, who are constantly doing things.
6:07
And then we come into X and we don't confuse X with the arena.
6:12
You know, we don't do stuff in the in X, we talk on X.
6:16
But then you go back and you actually do things.
6:18
You start companies, you invest in businesses, you incubate ideas, you help founders get their businesses off the ground.
6:24
Those are meaningful things and success is never guaranteed.
6:26
But there is a small strain of people who just violently either hate themselves or hate the fact that you're doing things and then that you talk about them.
6:40
And I think what this touched was just that in a simple nutshell.
6:44
It forced people to confront the fact that, "Hey, hold on a second.
6:46
Am I this anonymous rube on the sideline that just throws shade or am I actually doing stuff?"
6:52
Here, I just wanted to take an actual direct line of attack on people who are constantly blaming others for everything.
6:59
And if you aren't trying and iterating, you're a [ __ ] loser.
7:02
Go out and try something.
7:07
And whether it works or not, X is a great place to then go and talk about it. That's the cycle.
7:12
Sachs, your thoughts on the man in the arena?
7:16
Well, look, I think speaking of crazy politically motivated witch hunts, did you see this latest story today that now there's a new government investigation of Elon.
7:24
They're investigating him for supposedly Tesla was going to build him a glass house.
7:34
Which he has basically said is ridiculous, it's not true.
7:35
So, the administration, you know, I guess to turn a phrase, people who live in glass houses shouldn't be investigating glass houses.
7:43
You have the Biden administration now, the latest revelations is that Biden was using a pseudonym in emails.
7:52
emails and uh He was emailing Hunter Biden under the name Robert Peters.
7:58
Why would you do that about Burisma?
7:58
So, this is how they were communicating.
8:02
First, Biden said he said he knew nothing about uh Yeah.
8:06
Well, first Biden said, remember, at yahoo. com.
8:10
First Biden said, "I don't know anything about my son's business."
8:11
Then it turns out, based on the sworn testimony of Devon Archer, who was Hunter Biden's partner, that Biden participated in over 20 phone calls where he would call in when they were in the room with clients to quote be the brand.
8:24
And now we find out that Biden was communicating with Hunter about Burisma using a pseudonym account, basically a burner account, under the name Robert Peters. allegedly, allegedly.
8:35
Okay, but this is what the Comer investigation has turned up.
8:38
It's certainly not looking good.
8:38
And as you said, this is all partisan politics.
8:42
houses shouldn't be investigating glass houses. the thing.
8:44
Like if you are going to evaluate and and listen, obviously I'm biased, but if you're going to investigate Tesla over this, like people can buy and trade the stock however they want.
8:56
Like there seems to be some Biden administration you know, like jihad against Elon.
9:02
They're going after him for this and Totally.
9:04
Well, now remember, a week or two ago They wouldn't invite him to the EV summit.
9:07
I mean, it's Well, I think that's where the whole thing started is that they wouldn't invite him to the EV summit because they're not a union shop.
9:14
And then Elon spoke out about that.
9:15
Remember, Biden introduced the CEO of GM giving her credit for launching the whole EV revolution.
9:21
So, Elon criticized the administration for that.
9:24
But I think the main reason why they don't like him is because what he's done with free speech on Twitter. Twitter. Yeah.
9:30
This glass house investigation is the second one.
9:32
The one that happened last week is they're investigating SpaceX for supposedly screening out foreign nationals in the hiring process.
9:41
They They are saying Wait a second.
9:43
The The DOJ is alleging that SpaceX was hiring too many Americans.
9:46
And they needed to hire more refugees. My head's spinning.
9:51
Even though Even though there was a law Not refugees. No, refugees. No, no, Refugees.
9:57
A refugee is somebody fleeing a country Nick, you can pull that up. persecution.
10:03
What What Where did the term refugees come from? No, it is a term.
10:07
A refugee is somebody fleeing a country because of political persecu- persecution.
10:12
Why would they use that term?
10:13
The DOJ suits SpaceX basically for DEI foot faults.
10:16
They said that there was not enough refugees and asylum seekers that were being adequately considered and being hired by SpaceX.
10:25
The problem with that, as it turns out, is that the DOJ is not even allowed to hire asylum seekers. I mean And refugees.
10:34
No, no, SpaceX is governed under the same laws uh because it's a rocket company as advanced weapons contractors.
10:41
And they And the whole industry has been under the belief for many years that they could only hire American citizens and green card holders for these very sensitive jobs. Of course.
10:52
happened is earlier in the year, the Biden administration released what they called a clarification. Here, I'll post this.
10:59
Nick, can you pull this up?
10:59
So, the US Depar- US uh DOJ Civil Rights Division released this, again, what they called a clarification, how to avoid immigration-related discrimination when complying with US export control laws.
11:11
The export control laws is what governs rocket companies and weapons contractors.
11:15
It's basically the companies that are involved in these sensitive national security areas.
11:22
Until now, the government was pretty clear that you were only supposed to hire US citizens and green card holders, what they called US persons.
11:30
Explain to me the motivation.
11:32
because they have this crazy idea that that these companies, these national security companies, should be hiring more refugees and asylum seekers Wait, wait.
11:42
even though this is the definition of a national security risk.
11:44
But the really crazy thing is So, first of all, I think this this update that they issued, this is law making, okay?
11:49
They called it a clarification, but this is the Biden administration making new law through Yeah, that's not the process, Sachs. agency.
11:57
I think this is a crazy law.
11:57
Uh it's really the opposite of what we should want, which is more Americans getting jobs.
12:03
But Sachs, can I ask you a question?
12:03
But what they've done with this lawsuit is they're going back and remember, the key here is that that was only issued in April of this year.
12:09
They've gone back and said that from 2008 to 2022, SpaceX is governed by this new understanding.
12:17
So, they're basically making it retroactive.
12:19
Okay, put- putting aside this uh legalese here for a second, I just want to talk first principles.
12:22
If you were a foreign government and you wanted to infiltrate some company like SpaceX or Anduril or whatever, would it not be easier to send a quote-unquote refugee to America to get in versus flipping an American who already works there?
12:39
It should be a much easier process. So, this makes no sense.
12:43
Right, because especially since all you have to do is go to the hole in the wall in Yuma, Arizona, as RFK Jr.
12:49
showed, and you just mention the word asylum, like the cartel has taught you to, and all of a sudden you're a refugee. You're in.
12:57
They give you a piece of paper that tells you you're going to be in court in 3 years, but you're in.
13:01
Thousands of people, tens of thou- Millions of people have done this.
13:04
Also, another pragmatic question for you, Freeberg.
13:06
How many people who are coming in as asylum seekers have the advanced degrees or background to work at Anduril, SpaceX, I don't know, pick a pick an aerospace weapons-based company.
13:18
Like, what percentage of refugees do you think coming across the southern border or whatever border they're coming in would actually have those qualifications?
13:24
So, anyway, this seems insane.
13:27
and and so, J Cal, you raise an interesting point because I think one of the really unusual things about this DOJ lawsuit against SpaceX is that the remedies they're seeking are unprecedented.
13:37
What they've said is anybody who was screened out as part of this process was entitled to back pay, lost wages since they were screened out.
13:47
So, in other words, it assumes that every single one of those people would have been hired the job.
13:51
Well, in fact, they probably hire one out of a thousand or one out of a hundred applicants gets hired. Right.
13:56
And if they could have gotten a job at SpaceX, as we all know their bar for hiring is incredibly high, they probably didn't have damages cuz they could probably get jobs at ten other companies as well. Oh my god.
14:04
The Biden administration is just like self-inflicted wounds here. This is so dumb.
14:09
What What a stupid approach.
14:09
Is the glass house thing a misallocation of funds claim?
14:15
Like it's a securities issue?
14:16
Is that Yeah, it's a securities issue that it was improperly disclosed and that they may not have filed the proper taxes because it would have been a paid benefit to Elon. Right. Right.
14:26
But I mean, don't you feel like this is a stretch?
14:28
I mean, they are stretching every law they can to go after this guy.
14:32
It's getting to be a little bit Trump-like. bring it Let's be clear. Here's what's happening.
14:37
I think that when Elon bought Twitter, what effectively happened is the biggest psyops organization for the Democratic Party was taken away from them.
14:49
And I think that they are increasingly feeling like if it really does if Twitter or X becomes a town square, that's really bad for them.
14:59
And so, they can't shape people, they can't amplify the victimization, they can't amplify the government's going to save you narratives.
15:08
And so, this is the sort of death by a thousand cuts approach that the blob has of trying to bring him down.
15:14
And so, you see a DOJ lawsuit over here.
15:17
It's, you know, nominal, but whatever.
15:20
Then you're going to see, you know, the SEC investigation over $50,000 of glass.
15:27
I mean, the guy is worth a quarter of a trillion dollars and we're sweating the $50,000 glass purchase.
15:34
But the point is the goal is to tie him up and to distract him and to basically take resources away, his mind share, from working.
15:44
Now, we all know him, so he's going to do the exact opposite. Not going to work.
15:49
Alex Spiro is going to have a job for the rest of his life, that's his lawyer from Quinn Emanuel, and Alex is going to be beat these things back, and generally Alex will win most lawsuits. I say most. And not all. But not all. But not all.
16:06
But anyways, the point is that the point is that uh Well, Chamath, I think you're exactly I think you're exactly right about what's motivating this and what's going on.
16:13
But I I'll tell you when it all began is that Biden had a press conference where he said that Elon needed to be looked at. Do you remember this? Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
16:23
Biden said, "Well, I I don't know that Elon's done anything wrong, but I think we need to look at his relationships with other countries."
16:28
So, this was the signal to all of the ambitious apparatchiks in our law enforcement agencies who were looking for advancement that he's the target. Go after him. Find something.
16:44
Now, in fact, they couldn't find anything.
16:46
So, they look at his relation with other countries, and what you would expect is that maybe he hired some foreign nationals he shouldn't have.
16:55
But it was the exact opposite.
16:55
They didn't hire foreign nationals, so then they make that the crime. We'll get you on that.
17:01
it reminds me of the whole Alvin Bragg thing where Alvin Bragg made that case that Trump was required by campaign finance laws to pay Stormy Daniels using donor money.
17:14
But you know, you know that if they had found that Trump paid Stormy Daniels with donations, they would have charged him with that.
17:21
It's like investigating the guy, finding he did nothing wrong, and then charging him with the opposite of what he did.
17:26
No equivalency between these and and Trump's behavior, but sure.
17:30
It's a weaponization of the justice system.
17:31
It's show me the man and I'll show you the crime.
17:33
No, incorrect with the last two.
17:35
I mean, he he he committed a lot of crimes.
17:37
But we'll leave that off the docket for now.
17:38
We're going to agree to disagree on that one. Okay.
17:42
Just very interesting media-related story and finally Robert Peters too much credit. I mean, Joe Biden. I'm Listen. Biden's got to go. Trump's got to go. We need a new platform.
17:55
I have announced that I am supporting Nikki Haley and uh Chris Christie {slash} Vivek Vivek.
18:03
That That would be my ideal ticket right now.
18:04
I want So, the only person, Freeberg, who brought up spending in either party Nikki Haley.
18:11
let's just agree to disagree, J Cal, move on.
18:13
Let's not get distracted.
18:14
I just want to also say, we were wondering who won the um debate last week.
18:17
Biggest increase, Nikki Haley.
18:20
So, do Apparently, she is making it look like I think she went from two to nine seven to nine in different uh in different uh polls.
18:28
So, it's it's somewhere in between she tripled her numbers. a huge bounce.
18:32
I think you went I think you're right, she went from two to seven.
18:36
There was one two to seven, one two to nine.
18:37
But anyway, putting it aside, the biggest increase are actually promoting it because they want Trump to be up against a bunch uh they want to be up against Donald Trump. I guess what Yeah. Yeah.
18:46
Yeah, three people at 10 to 15% is better than one at 30.
18:50
I I It's probably correct.
18:53
Can I just ask cuz I didn't I haven't followed it this week.
18:54
What was the set What What after it settled, after the bounces and the spikes, Saxby Pooh, what where where we at now in the Republican race after this past week and having people having a chance to really figure out what happened in the debate? Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
19:10
I think the consensus view just about is that the biggest beneficiary of the debate was Vivek Ramaswamy. By far.
19:13
Yes, Nikki Haley did get a little bit of a bounce, but Vivek got a much bigger one.
19:20
He's much better known to the base now.
19:22
And I think that it's Vivek and DeSantis are now more or less neck and neck for number two.
19:29
Haley might be number three at this point.
19:31
But I think it helped Vivek the most.
19:34
Now, it's also true that he got a lot of criticism, but I think that's kind of where he wants to be.
19:40
I mean, you want to be the center of attention.
19:43
And the people who are attacking him now are all these neocons.
19:47
It's basically the whole military-industrial complex.
19:49
It's all the bought and paid for politicians and think tanks who, you know, want America to be in these forever wars.
19:56
So, I think he's being attacked by the right people and that's going to help him. Yeah.
20:02
So, Sachs, you you see him like basically it's going to be Trump versus Vivek if this continues. Well, Mhm. it's hard to say.
20:10
I mean, I think DeSantis is still is still in the mix.
20:14
I think it's noteworthy that the top three candidates all have expressed significant either misgivings or opposition to our involvement in Ukraine.
20:23
Uh Trump, Vivek, and DeSantis with varying degrees of strength have basically all opposed Biden's policy.
20:31
And they are the leading candidates in the Republican primary.
20:33
I think that's telling you something very important.
20:38
Haley, Christie, Pence, Tim Scott, they all would like to do even more in Ukraine and that is not where the party is.
20:46
So, It's not where the country is. Nobody's there.
20:48
One other piece of uh debate fallout that I thought was really interesting was that they interviewed Oliver Anthony.
20:55
You remember the the guy who sings that song, the Rich Men North of Richmond?
20:59
Because Fox News made the first question about his song.
21:04
And he clarified what the song was about.
21:06
What he said is, "The rich men he's talking about, North of Richmond, are the people in DC. It's the blob."
21:11
And specifically stage, yeah.
21:13
Well, but what he said specifically was it was the it was the people who got us into all these endless wars when I was growing up.
21:20
It was the Republicans who did specifically.
21:22
He was talking about Bush, Cheney Republicans, neocons.
21:27
He made that explicit and clear.
21:29
"I'm singing more about like a lot of the older super conservative politicians that brought us into endless war through my entire childhood."
21:40
Those are Bush era neocons.
21:42
He said the people on that stage is who I'm talking about. Don't use my song.
21:45
This song is not a left or a right song. It's about the people.
21:47
It was a song about his contemporaries is what he said.
21:50
Not And he's talking about both parties.
21:52
And he said specifically it's the people on that stage I'm talking about. Don't use my song again.
21:55
Okay, let's go on to the next story.
21:59
There was a leaked document and we had this come up last week.
22:01
The leaked document that was sent to Chamath and it was about Tiger Global's struggles.
22:08
It had a line at the top that said this was a spiked or a draft of a New Yorker story.
22:13
I think a draft is the way they said it.
22:16
And we had a little conversation about here.
22:19
We decided not to publish it.
22:19
We had a little discussion because we did not think in our private discussion that this was a real story.
22:26
High stock grammatical errors in it.
22:28
Sachs said, "We really can't publish something like this because it it's slanderous and we don't know the provenance of it."
22:37
And on Friday, Tiger sent a letter to its LPs in response to the document.
22:41
They wrote that they are being targeted quote targeted with a series of misinformation attacks anonymously using encrypted messaging platforms like Signal.
22:48
We strongly believe these were written by a disgruntled former employee with whom we parted ways.
22:54
Unlike the anonymous cowards spreading this false narrative on the internet, you know who we are and we are here and ready to answer your questions.
23:01
Rest assured, our team remains highly focused on our core business which has been performing this year.
23:06
So, Chamath, just your broad thoughts on the Tiger Global non-story.
23:13
The fake faux story by a former employee.
23:17
Chase is a incredible person. I've said this before.
23:19
He helped me get into the business of investing.
23:21
He seeded my first angel fund.
23:26
I was pretty helpful, I think, in getting them on the cap table at Facebook many, many years ago which helped them get going as well.
23:34
So, I think that he's a wonderful human being and I've had nothing but positive things to say about him.
23:40
Scott Leif I don't know as well.
23:44
But he seems like clearly a hard charging person that's achieved quite a lot.
23:48
And so, I'm glad that we didn't publish it or talk about it.
23:50
And if there is something to be said, the story will be validated and people will get to the bottom of it.
23:59
What is crazy is I don't understand what this document actually serves except exactly as you said, to a disgruntled person who has absolutely no economics.
24:10
Meaning, if you're an LP, you don't want this document to be out.
24:15
If you're a partner that has carry, you don't want this out into the out in the wild either.
24:21
If you're a portfolio company, you don't want this document out in the wild. It hurts you.
24:27
So, I tend to believe that this is just a a disgruntled person.
24:30
Again, look, I've had this experience as well.
24:32
So, which is that there are all kinds of employees who work with you.
24:39
We try our best as leaders of organizations to compensate them well.
24:44
But invariably what I find are people overestimate their contributions.
24:49
And people try to take way more credit.
24:52
They try to take credit for deals that they've done that they didn't actually do.
24:57
They try to take credit for all of the internal workings.
25:01
And then invariably when the leadership decides that those folks aren't a good fit anymore, mostly for cultural reasons, and are exited, they have a bone to pick and an axe to grind.
25:14
And they try to sort of distribute misinformation to other LPs, to other GPs, to portfolio company CEOs. It's happened to me. It's happened to Chase.
25:25
It's happened to Sequoia.
25:27
It's It's happened to any of us that have been successful.
25:29
So, Axe to grind people, yeah.
25:30
So, it's just like again, it's just another example of like there are the people that are in the arena doing and then there are the people that kind of get kicked out and get really upset and lose track of what's important.
25:42
These people, instead of writing these missives, should be working. Yeah. Get back to work.
25:51
how disgruntled Sachs does a former employee need to be to put in this kind of effort to write a 10-page faux New Yorker style expose.
25:58
And um you were the voice of reason, I think, in our group chat and just saying like I I don't even think we should talk about it in a meta kind of way.
26:06
We weren't going to cover the details of it, but even a meta discussion of it, you put the kibosh on.
26:12
Which we would have been first I kind of highlighting this craziness, but you took a pretty hard stance. So, your thoughts on it?
26:18
Well, it was written like it was some sort of journalistic article, but a journalistic article has a byline. You know who wrote it.
26:25
You know who publishes it. It has provenance.
26:27
You know, therefore, who is liable if it's slanderous. Yeah.
26:34
This piece that was going around had none of those things and therefore my view was that we shouldn't discuss it.
26:40
And my view is we shouldn't even mention it because all you're then doing is drawing attention to something that again, you don't know the provenance of and you don't know whether it's true or not.
26:48
And you don't know who's standing by it.
26:50
Now, what's happened in the last week is that Tiger has issued a statement about it and that statement was covered by the press.
26:56
So, I guess we can talk about the fact that they've had to respond to this.
27:00
I'm still not comfortable talking about any of the contents of it because again, nobody's put their name by it.
27:05
So, why even put them in the position of needing to respond to it? Yeah.
27:10
Until somebody is willing to basically raise their hand and say, "This is what I think."
27:13
The piece that was circulated was a mix of both business criticism or business issues and slander. and personal slander. Yeah.
27:21
So, I mean, are there business issues in there that we could discuss?
27:25
Yeah, I mean, then they would be interesting, but until we know that there's some authenticity to it, I don't feel comfortable giving any attention whatsoever to this thing.
27:34
Personally, I think even talking about it now is still kind of a waste of time.
27:37
Chamath, Freeberg, any thoughts on it just as we wrap here?
27:41
No, it's clearly a disgruntled person trying to cast a negative light on the firm. bro.
27:50
All right, dedollarization corner.
27:52
BRICS added six new members climbing to 11 total.
27:55
And BRICS, of course, everybody knows Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa.
28:00
These four countries make up 40% of the world's population, 25% of global GDP.
28:05
Joining the BRICS block are Saudi Arabia, Iran, Ethiopia, Egypt, Argentina, and the UAE.
28:12
New BRICS and this is kind of being set up as like an alternative to G7, G8, I guess.
28:17
New BRICS makes up almost 50% of the global population with a third of GDP.
28:24
This is the first expansion in 13 years since South Africa joined.
28:29
Sachs, you've got some thoughts on the BRICS and a little presentation here. Inform the audience. All right.
28:35
So, J Cal, like you said, they added six new members, Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and UAE.
28:40
This is on top of the original five members.
28:44
Now, you've described this group of countries as mid.
28:48
I don't know what metric you're using to make that determination.
28:51
If you look at share of global GDP in purchasing power parity terms, and we can debate whether that's the right method or not, but a lot of economists believe that PPP is the right way to look at it.
29:04
The original BRICS were 32% of global GDP.
29:08
The new BRICS bring it to 37% and there's a couple dozen more countries that have expressed an interest in joining BRICS, which would bring it to 45. The G7 is only 30%.
29:21
And that number's been declining over time.
29:23
Back in 1995, it was all the way at 45% whereas the BRICS were only about 17%.
29:29
You can see that decline or shift here in this chart going all the way back to the 1980s.
29:33
This is why I think a lot of Americans have this casually dismissive attitude towards the BRICS is they're thinking that these countries are still living in the era of the 1990s of unipolarity when the G7 was, you know, more than half of global GDP.
29:51
But now the BRICS are bigger than the G7, again in terms of PPP.
29:58
The rest have risen and has become a very substantial part of the world economy.
30:02
If you look at global oil production, the new BRICS now have 54% of global oil production.
30:07
It's almost double what the G7 produces despite the US still being the number one producer of oil.
30:14
We're not the biggest exporter because we use it all.
30:18
Just to to add to that point, oil is of course a declining commodity with renewables and nuclear and people are going to rely on it less, so sure.
30:25
I don't think renewables are anywhere close to being able to replace fossil fuels.
30:30
If BRICS adds if if BRICS adds we finish if BRICS hold on.
30:35
Let me just to answer to that.
30:37
It's cheaper now and Chamath can speak to this to install solar, wind than it is to do a lot of the um carbon-based uh fuels.
30:44
So, it actually has tipped economically uh where it's I think cheaper in 80% of cases, 85% of cases to install renewables.
30:51
So, is that correct, Chamath? Am I only speaking?
30:55
The cost of solar is effectively now the the cheapest form of energy.
30:58
Yeah, on a kilowatt per hour basis. Great. Okay, continue, Sax.
31:03
Well, this isn't preventing Germany from sliding into a massive recession because they're not able to get cheap energy anymore.
31:09
Yeah, they turned off their nuclear.
31:11
That also supposes that you have the actual supply and to David's point, why Germany has such a difficult issues because they turned off natural gas, they turned off the reactors and they there's not enough solar installed right now.
31:22
So, you know, you have to think about country.
31:24
Uh what I just meant was more the levelized cost of energy, which is if you had an installation here and an installation there of two different modes of energy generation, solar is cheaper.
31:34
But Dave David is right, like, you know, it's still going to take some time for the proliferation of solar so that the Yeah, we all agree.
31:41
The US is already roughly energy independent.
31:43
We produce about 20 million barrels of oil a day and we consume about 20 million, so we are roughly neutral with respect to the world.
31:52
We're neither a net importer or net exporter as of now.
31:56
So, I oil is still going to be a huge It's the number one global commodity.
31:59
If BRICS adds Venezuela, Algeria, and Kazakhstan as they may do as soon as next year, they'll control 90% of all oil and gas traded globally.
32:09
You're going to have an OPEC plus BRICS sort of symbiosis because Russia and Saudi Arabia basically run OPEC plus.
32:18
New BRICS is also really strong in food production.
32:20
Five of the world's six biggest food producers are now part of BRICS, China, Brazil, India, Argentina, Russia.
32:26
The only other one is the US.
32:29
They have 46% of global population, 36% of global landmass.
32:32
So, my point is BRICS isn't just strong in global GDP, they're strong in the production of what are currently the two most important commodities in the world, which is oil and food.
32:46
Uh they also have influence over strategic trade routes.
32:48
So, if you look at where these countries are located and I'm sure this went into the thinking of who they just admitted to BRICS because they had a lot of choices.
32:56
That's something like 26 countries applied and these are the first six they've added.
33:02
So, they now control the Arctic Sea Route, which is basically as the polar ice cap starts to melt in the Arctic, you're seeing a new ability to create maritime routes north of Russia basically from Europe to Asia.
33:16
It's a much faster route than going around the Horn of Africa or through the Suez Canal.
33:19
You have this international north-south transportation corridor, which is basically a combination of overland routes and some maritime that connect Russia, Iran, and India.
33:31
You've got Belt and Road, these east-west corridors.
33:33
You've got the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, and the Suez Canal.
33:37
They're all now part of BRICS.
33:41
And the point of that, I think, strategically is to bypass choke points like the Strait of Singapore, the Strait of Malacca, the Bosphorus, and the Strait of Hormuz.
33:48
So, the point here is that the US Navy has very strategically over decades been encircling China with military bases on, you know, island chains around China.
34:00
This is going to basically neutralize that whole strategy because China will have ways of of securing its trade routes overland or again oversea going through the Arctic.
34:12
So, this has huge geostrategic implications.
34:15
The other big thing that I think BRICS is doing is they have this 5 to 10-year goal of allowing BRICS members to settle trades in local currencies.
34:22
I think that you guys may be seeing it the wrong way.
34:25
The goal here is not to create a new reserve currency, it's simply to create a way to bypass the dollar complex.
34:31
They're trying to break the petrodollar monopoly.
34:34
This is not an offensive organization and they're not necessarily trying to create a single alternative to the US dollar.
34:43
They are trying to create a way to not have to go through the dollar complex in order to do their trade when they're trading with each other.
34:51
They would like to What China and Brazil are doing is a test case for this where they are setting up a yuan clearing arrangement with Brazil.
34:59
And the goal, to be clear, Sax, here is to have a voice versus the G7, which they feel they've a lot of these countries feel they've been left out of.
35:09
And to maybe not have as much dependency on the West and um a bigger voice in the world, right?
35:18
That is the state of the world.
35:20
I'd go a little further and say this isn't just about them having a voice, it's about them having economic sovereignty.
35:26
They do not want to be completely dependent on the United States to secure their economies.
35:30
And the big driver of this has been the weaponization of the US dollar. Hence Swift. Yeah.
35:38
But what we did to Russia with Swift, yes.
35:39
So, in conjunction with this Ukraine war, the US seized Russia's foreign reserves, which were in dollars.
35:46
They've widely imposed sanctions.
35:46
We're now sanctioning dozens and dozens of countries and we are tactically limiting who can use Swift as part of this.
35:54
So, if you are any of the BRICS countries, you're asking yourself, "Wait a second, when I am doing business with another member of BRICS, why should the US be any part of that transaction?"
36:08
Yeah, they In a way, transaction to be mediated by the US at all.
36:12
In a way, it's like people buying crypto so that they don't have to deal with the US government.
36:15
They have a you know, they have Bitcoin over here and and they're not subject to the rules of the US dollar, right?
36:22
It's like a way of opting out and having some independence.
36:24
Yeah, I I totally get it.
36:26
They're willing to play by the US's rules when they're trading with the US, but they do not want to have to play by the US's rules when they're not trading with the US or the G7.
36:33
And this is about creating that independence.
36:35
I think it's great that they have, Chamath, that there is a competitor to the US dollar because it makes us be more thoughtful about our spending ultimately and our balance sheet.
36:44
What do you hear that's on all this, Chamath? I have a couple.
36:46
So, if you go back to when the BRICS was created, this is a like 20 plus years ago.
36:53
It was first just BRIC and with a small I. yeah.
36:56
And um and then it became BRICS with a big S when they admitted South Africa.
36:59
I think the the fact pattern in that organization is pretty poor.
37:05
You know, when they first got organized, they tried to create a competitor to the IMF.
37:10
I think it's called the IDB, the International Development Bank.
37:14
That bank has not dispersed a single dollar in 23 years.
37:19
They tried to create a joint program to lay undersea fiber amongst these countries hasn't even started.
37:25
So, I think it's good that this organization is growing.
37:31
I think the problem is that the actual amount of legislative coordination that these countries has been able to exhibit has been literally zero.
37:38
And the problem now is that their regional rivalries are only growing.
37:43
So, China and India, which are the two anchor partners of BRICS, are literally in a in a land war.
37:51
There's a border that they fight over with with guns.
37:55
You have a growing anti-Chinese resentment inside of both India and Brazil.
38:01
Nick, you can just throw up this little chart.
38:02
In India, they've blocked a lot of apps, they're about to block a bunch of imports, but India sees China as his ex as an existential threat.
38:12
The Brazilian population, this is just a a poll that that the Economist put in.
38:16
There's just a lot of anti-Chinese sentiment.
38:18
So, it's very hard to see folks that are such polar enemies actually working together even if they're part of an organization.
38:26
So, I think that the the odds of legislative coordination in the future are probably less than what they were even 10 years ago.
38:34
So, I expect even less and it's hard to expect even less when nothing has been done.
38:41
And then the second is I just look at the data and if you look at Swift in July, you know, the Swift volumes in US dollars was the largest ever.
38:48
And so, it's kind of one of these weird things where I think that it's good that that organization exists.
38:55
Don't get me wrong because I do think that if they could Oh, the other thing that I'll say about the BRICS, which is kind of odd, is that unlike the G7 and unlike NATO, where you have democratic ideals that underpin the organizational framework, here it doesn't because you have China, Russia, Iran, which are total polar opposites to Brazil and India in terms of democratic governance.
39:20
And I don't know enough about Ethiopia or or Egypt um to say anything.
39:25
So, if they can get states at a minimum.
39:28
Well, no, no, I'm just saying they're not democratic.
39:30
The way like NATO and the G7 are all democratically elected countries. very good point.
39:36
They don't share the same operating system.
39:37
The authoritarians and democratic nations put together.
39:40
So, then the last thing is, could you see a currency framework to compete against the US dollar?
39:47
And I think the practical complexity is, if you take all of these other issues, land wars, and import controls, and growing Chinese resentment, and now try to boil that into an exchange rate mechanism where the renminbi and the rupee and the rial can be interchangeable?
40:07
I think it's very difficult to see because if you look at the last time that happened, the franc, the lira, the pound sterling, the Deutschmark, that was possible because all of those other factors were not on the table.
40:19
They were not fighting with each other.
40:20
There wasn't this anti-resentment in one country to another country.
40:22
They roughly held the same democratic ideals.
40:25
So, I think my comment is, I think it's good that BRICS is growing.
40:30
I think that if they can get some legislative or policy coordination wins, it'll be great.
40:35
The track record is literally zero.
40:39
And the setup doesn't to me mean much yet, but hopefully that something happens. Who knows?
40:44
Friedberg, your thoughts?
40:46
I think the arguments about the pragmatism of non-dollar denominated trade and the progress that's been realized or can be projected to be realized from current policy can be debated.
41:02
What I think is most important is the signal that's being given, which is that there is a desire by a larger percentage of global GDP than is represented by the G7 to de-dollarize.
41:18
And so, while these intentions may be difficult to translate into policy in the near term, that signal says a lot about the influence and perhaps the policy of the US in addressing and dealing with a lot of these countries and global economic actors.
41:37
But I don't think they want to de-dollarize.
41:39
That's not part of their They want to increase trade is the stated mission, and they want to collaborate on trade.
41:44
That that is But Friedberg, That is the stated mission.
41:48
Do you think the stated mission is de-dollarization, or do you think the implicit outcome is de-dollarization?
41:53
No, the local currency support initiatives are implicit de-dollarization.
41:58
I don't hear anyone saying we got to destroy the dollar cuz they're all very important trade partners.
42:03
Most of those countries are very important trade partners with the US and very dependent on on trade with the US.
42:09
It seems less that it's about, "Hey, we've got to hurt the US."
42:13
And it's more about, "We have to be independent from the US.
42:15
We have to be independent."
42:17
Implicit in that is independent from the US.
42:19
So, and I think that that tone, that signal says a lot about US economic policy and US foreign policy that there's something off with the unipolarity as as Sax has pointed out, that it's not de facto anymore, that there is intention here for there to be something different.
42:40
Yeah, that's very healthy.
42:40
That's very very healthy.
42:42
And I think that that opens up avenues and paths that we're not thinking about today, that all of a sudden we'll wake up and we'll be like, "Whoops."
42:47
And we need to be thoughtful about that.
42:50
that's the most powerful part of Sax's commentary is that it's a very firm establishment even if of of the of the non-unipolarity of the world.
43:01
But the the thing that the BRICS have to do is I I would just encourage them book a quick win.
43:07
There has to be some policy coordination that they could do to prove that there's something there that's more than just a get-together once a year.
43:18
And that's been missing for 22 years so far.
43:20
And that would have a really important I think effect.
43:25
Yeah, I agree with you, David.
43:26
I think that's the litmus test.
43:28
That hasn't happened yet.
43:28
Let me partially agree with that and then partially respond to what you're saying before, Chamath.
43:33
So, it's true that BRICS does not have an impressive record of accomplishment to date. That's simply true.
43:41
However, recent events, I think, have provided the motivation for this group of countries to now try and get something done.
43:48
In the past, it was just so phenomenally convenient to be based on the the US dollar complex because everything's priced in dollars, easy to transact in dollars, and when you run a trade surplus, the US has an open capital account, and you can just park the money in US treasuries.
44:03
So, there was never a reason for any of these countries to want to leave the US dollar complex until more recently, when again, US foreign policy has militarized and weaponized the dollar and to try and make it a coercive instrument to get these countries to do what the US wants.
44:22
And all those countries now are bristling at that, and they want to maintain their sovereignty.
44:26
And so, now they have tremendous motivation to get this done.
44:30
Now, the thing they've already agreed to and done as part of BRICS is that when you join BRICS, you agree not to sanction any other member of BRICS.
44:40
That is a meaningful commitment.
44:40
And obviously, it has a lot to do with this Ukraine war and the fact the US has been demanding that the whole world sanction Russia, and most of the world has not been sanctioning Russia, and that's why the sanctions have not been effective is the US has not been able to get that done.
44:56
The US will not be able to get it done in the future with respect to at least the countries who are members of BRICS with regard to their trade with each other.
45:05
And as we saw in the percentage of world GDP, BRICS very rapidly, once they add a few more members, they're going to be at about 50% of world GDP.
45:11
So, the US is only going to be able to influence, call it roughly that half of global GDP where the US or the G7 is a major trading partner.
45:22
Now, what BRICS will be lacking is the way on a technical level to bring about the sovereignty they want.
45:28
So, they need to have a way to settle and clear transactions, and they need to have a place to park the surplus that's created for net exporters.
45:38
And they haven't quite figured that out yet.
45:40
So, for example, there's a recent news item where Russia, which is selling a huge amount of oil to India right now, it was saying that they don't want to accumulate more rupees.
45:51
So, they've got to figure out, "Well, what do we do with all these extra rupees?"
45:54
So, there's a lot of pieces to figure out here.
45:57
And that is why they're saying this is a goal they have over the next 5 to 10 years.
46:00
It's not 1 to 2-year time frame, it's 5 to 10 years.
46:02
But them make They should make their own euro.
46:05
If they feel so strongly that they're a great voting block, make a euro.
46:09
And then they can all put into it, and you can see what happens when a bunch of dictators and a a long tail of failed states now share a common cur- a common currency. It's not going to work.
46:18
These countries don't all like each other.
46:20
Yeah, failed states whose share Egypt, Ethiopia, these ones are all very troubled states, by the way.
46:24
Yeah, I Their share of GDP has been going up like a rocket, J Cal. That's the whole point.
46:29
inflation, democracy, human rights. Yeah.
46:32
Their goal is not to create a common currency like the euro.
46:38
And I know I'm just saying India and Brazil are not going to replace yuan and rupees with some sort of new euro-like currency.
46:46
Moreover, they're not trying to create a reserve currency that's going to be a currency for the man on the street.
46:51
This is about settlement of global trade flows and getting out from under the US dollar complex.
46:57
My point, just to be clear, Friedberg, is if if you were to think of it as a thought experiment, these, to Chamath's point, these are culturally and strategically very different countries.
47:07
And I think what they have in common is that they haven't been included in the G7.
47:10
And and really America's reaction to this should be to get India out of this and get them into the G7 and make that strategic decision that India is the most important country for us to have strong relationships with.
47:21
It's kind of hard to put Saudi Arabia and to put UAE in this because they don't share the democratic principles of the rest of the G7, but we should be trying to any democracy that's in the BRICS, we should be trying to include in the G7.
47:33
That that's the strategic chessboard that would make the most sense.
47:36
And then you would just leave BRICS as all authoritarian dictators, and they do not work well together.
47:42
They always wind up Well, you're forgetting that Brazil is still nominally a democracy.
47:48
No, that's what I'm saying.
47:48
Like, getting Brazil I just said, getting anybody who's a democracy and moving them towards democracy and getting them into the G7 should be our stated goal.
47:56
That's what the West should do.
47:56
Lula, who's Brazil's president, is one of the most ardent advocates for de-dollarization.
48:02
Here's his quote, "Every night I ask myself why all countries have to base their trade on the dollar." Yeah, they don't.
48:10
They can So, maybe we'll regime change him, J Cal.
48:11
Maybe the CIA will get rid of him.
48:13
No, that's that's stupid.
48:14
That that's a stupid statement. Nobody's saying that.
48:16
I just said the exact Actually, somebody is.
48:20
There are people saying that. But Oh, not me. Just to be clear.
48:21
You're putting words in my mouth that are the exact opposite of what I just said.
48:24
I I just said include My point is My point is this is not a simplistic dichotomy between dictators and democracies.
48:32
Another way to think about consists By the way, South Africa is a democracy as well.
48:36
It's the majority just on a population basis.
48:37
If you took India out and you got them into the G7, it would be majority, overwhelming majority percentage of citizens in the BRICS living under authoritarian rule.
48:48
But India Let me respond to that and then also, Chamath, maybe you should respond to country in the world now.
48:52
I mean, this is the That's the strategic important piece here in in my mind.
48:55
I think India and the US will pull tighter together in terms of security because of a mutual desire to balance the power of China.
49:04
So, I think Chamath is right about that.
49:06
However, India also has a very strong anti-colonial impetus to their politics, and especially their foreign policy.
49:15
They do not like being told what to do by the West and the United States.
49:20
And in particular, they do not believe in many of their politicians have said this, "We don't see why we should have to sacrifice for you.
49:26
We're going to do what's in the best interest of our own people."
49:30
And that is why India has rejected enormous pressure from the US not to trade with Russia.
49:35
India and Russia's as bad as the relationship is between India and China is the relationship between India and Russia is very strong.
49:43
It historically always has been.
49:45
And Russia right now is supplying half of India's oil.
49:48
And India has adamantly refused to play along with the US's sanctions. so. And rightfully so.
49:55
Yeah, they should make their own best decisions, yeah. Right.
50:00
So, I think a lot of people are thinking that India's not here to be a bootlicker of the United States. [ __ ] that. Exactly. Exactly.
50:06
So, look, I think India will pursue its interests.
50:08
I think when it comes to security, they will align with the US to balance the power of China.
50:14
But I think when it comes to economic policy, India will pursue its own interests, which I think has to do with maintaining their economic sovereignty. 100%. cheap oil. They need cheap oil.
50:23
Yeah, they're a developing country, right? They need They need oil.
50:28
And it's the lowest price oil.
50:28
Another way to think about the framing is that the priorities for many of these countries for the last two decades have shifted going from a state of economic insecurity, civil insecurity, government insecurity.
50:44
And as you obviously establish systems and certainty in certain elements, the dollar complex as Sachs frames it was very useful in helping them with that transition.
50:59
But as they start to move from emerging market to developing market to developed market, the priorities start to shift.
51:05
And then the priorities become much more about sovereignty, independence, institutional destiny, etc.
51:13
that kind of start to make this more realistic that maybe they don't have their their ducks in a row at this point, but there's certainly a conversation or set of conversations that emerges when you're not worried about civil war or you're not worried about economic strife.
51:26
And you can now start to think on a global stage.
51:28
And that's evidenced by the PPP data that that Sachs shared where, you know, you've seen them become a much larger percentage of of global GDP share over the past 10 or 20 years.
51:38
That's a good metric for that general opportunity to say, "Hey, I'm going to shift my priorities now."
51:43
And that's why maybe now's the time to start to pay attention to what's happening.
51:47
And think about US policy to participate in in some reconstruction that's necessary here.
51:53
I tell you what the most important thing here is all this all these conversations seem to come back to energy, Chamath.
52:00
Cheap oil, Russian oil, Saudis, UAE all participating in BRICS.
52:03
And then if you look at nuclear, we just had a bunch of I think it was senators signing a bill.
52:08
I think you might have tweeted it, Chamath, of support of nuclear.
52:13
21 nuclear power plants are being constructed at this moment in China, eight in India.
52:16
The United States only has one, which is kind of an extension. In Gujarat up nuclear.
52:20
In Gujarat, India just In India India just turned on its first home-built one.
52:24
So, just Yeah, literally today.
52:26
So, big big news in India.
52:26
If we really want to have a great relationship with India, an incredible path, and with some of these other countries, would be for us to really invest in Well, what I don't understand and help people build them and help them get energy independence from Russia's oil.
52:40
We should be building 50 reactors in India.
52:44
I don't know enough I don't know enough to know whether that's true or not.
52:49
And part of it is that what like whether we should be building those reactors in quotes because I don't know what those means.
52:56
Gen 2, Gen 3, Gen 4 reactors, any small modular reactors.
53:00
My big comment in my thread is just more that I think that the regulatory support in the United States for nuclear is so constipated that it's impossible to get it done.
53:11
So, you could have the greatest technology in the world.
53:12
I just don't see how the laws change fast enough and the zoning changes fast enough and the NIMBYism goes away to make these things viable.
53:21
And so, that's actually the real question.
53:23
I don't know you know, Friedberg States?
53:27
What What I'm advocating for here, Sachs, is hey, what if the United States policy was we're going to help India and some other countries They don't need our help. They grow.
53:34
They don't need our help. They're independent.
53:36
They don't need They don't need our help.
53:38
They just turned on their own home-grown nuclear reactor.
53:39
We haven't done one in 20 years.
53:42
our new I guess we call them Gen 2, Friedberg.
53:46
These these new reactors, would that not be a possible path if we're spitballing here to help them get more energy independence from Russia?
53:53
Wouldn't that be a great long play?
53:55
They don't need our help.
53:55
I don't think you're understanding.
53:57
Like it's like you're thinking like we're We're like Michael Jordan and we're about to teach some kid how to throw free throws.
54:01
This is not what's happening.
54:04
Any help would be helpful.
54:04
I mean, if people are trying to build a large number of reactors You don't You don't You don't need a numbnuts to come and help you build a product, do you?
54:11
You don't hire some two-bit product manager to help you when something is is scaling and working.
54:16
India GDP is going to be 7% a year.
54:18
They're off to the races.
54:18
They're on a rocket ship.
54:19
They're doing everything right.
54:21
What What What can we do?
54:21
We can help them rewrite their laws to make them Byzantine so nothing gets done?
54:25
So, that zoning is impossible?
54:29
Okay, as a strategy, if we had the ability to build nuclear reactors in other parts of the world, which is exactly China's policy.
54:35
That's the Belt I think the whole I think I think you in a nutshell right now is summarizing why there's this dismissiveness, which is like we can help them.
54:42
But what makes you think you're better?
54:46
Uh China's taken the same approach.
54:46
I'm saying copy China's strategy, which has been to go to other countries.
54:49
Listen, India might need less help, other countries might need more.
54:52
But we have this capacity.
54:55
So, what if we What capacity do we have?
54:58
We don't have any demonstrated capacity nuclear.
55:01
We have plenty of companies building these new nuclear reactors, Friedberg. None of them work. None of them work.
55:05
What are you talking about?
55:05
What do you mean none of them work? None of them work. Okay. None of them work.
55:10
When you talk to politicians in a lot of these countries, what you describe as Americans coming in and helping, they describe as exploitation.
55:22
They call it China's strategy or neo-imperialism.
55:25
Yes, they call it neo-imperialism or neo-colonialism.
55:28
it as collaborating on energy independence, broadly speaking.
55:30
So, you're being dismissive of my concept.
55:34
asking you to think of What do you want Do you want Zimbabwe?
55:35
Do you want the Zimbabweans to fly in and mutually collaborate with you to build something in America?
55:40
Would you be open to that?
55:42
to make jokes about me, I'm proposing a strategy I'm I'm just saying you're making a joke.
55:46
I have a very viable strategy here is which is to look at what China's doing.
55:49
And what China's doing in the Belt and Road strategy, which we've talked about here on this program, is trying to help other countries get more energy. How could we do that?
55:55
We do have Listen to what Larry Summers said.
56:00
Remember he said that when China goes abroad, they give money for infrastructure, bridges, and hospitals.
56:07
When the US goes abroad, we give a lecture.
56:09
Which is exactly not If you want to accomplish what you're talking about, stop this explosion of sanctions.
56:15
We're now sanctioning dozens of countries.
56:17
Stop weaponizing the dollar.
56:19
Stop militarizing the dollar.
56:21
Stop seizing other countries' reserves without any due process of law. Russia right now?
56:28
They're entitled to due process of law just like any other country.
56:29
The country that invaded their neighbor?
56:33
So, you get to just get to steal their reserves?
56:36
Oh, I think it's a pretty great idea. a rules-based order.
56:40
Oh, I think economic sanctions are much better than yeah, starting a war.
56:44
Yeah, I think economic sanctions are But this is We're talking about We're talking about the seizing of another country's foreign reserves, which is what the US did.
56:54
Uh yeah, I would say that's an extreme thing to do except in the case where people are invading other free countries.
56:58
And then it's a great choice. doing right now is Yeah.
57:01
Yeah, this is the way that the administration reacted.
57:04
What you're doing right now is making up the rules.
57:07
That's what the rules-based order means to these countries.
57:09
It's that Americans will make up the rules.
57:13
Two years ago, foreign reserves were something that was not part of American foreign policy. They were your reserves.
57:21
Then this Ukraine war happens.
57:21
Biden says, "Ah, nah, you know, those are ill-gotten gains. Seize them." Those are the new rules.
57:26
In other words, the rules-based international order is whatever Americans say it is.
57:32
And then you run around saying no, no, no, no.
57:33
The entire The entire West made this decision on Sachs.
57:36
The entire West made this decision together to sanction Russia. It wasn't just the US.
57:39
You're mischaracterizing that. And you know what?
57:42
If Hitler was invading other countries or Putin or any dictator, I do think it's fair game to seize their resources.
57:47
of the world is not buying into this narrative.
57:48
70% of the world does not buy into this narrative.
57:50
They understand And And those are majority dictator countries.
57:55
Those are majority dictator countries.
57:57
70% of the world's population does not believe this narrative about the Ukraine war.
58:01
They understand that the US is at least equally responsible for this war.
58:05
Laughable to say the US is equally responsible That is you are a spokesperson for Putin if you believe that that the US is 50% responsible. Okay, you know what?
58:16
You can quote any polling you want.
58:17
The US is not 50% The US is not 50% responsible for Putin invading Ukraine.
58:23
That is laughable and disgusting.
58:27
Every country Every country that wants believe the US is 50% responsible for Putin invading Ukraine. Unbelievable.
58:35
It's not about what I believe.
58:35
It's about what the world thinks. You said it.
58:38
So, do you believe 50% we're 50% responsible for Putin invading Ukraine?
58:42
That's I don't know what percentages I would ascribe, but I believe this war is easily You had no problem saying 50%. Can I finish my point? Go ahead.
58:54
The way you're acting right now is exactly why all these countries want to create BRICS.
59:00
The dictator want to be subjected to this virtue-signaling foreign policy by the United States.
59:06
We've discussed the ways many times the US could have avoided this war. It didn't.
59:11
Yeah, respectfully disagree.
59:13
Putin's responsible for the war.
59:13
This is why India does not want to be subject to the whims of people like you.
59:20
No, don't you don't say people like me.
59:21
I think the West made the decision that we needed to take action against The US made the decision.
59:26
And listen, the West is We We don't get to make decisions for the UK and France and Germany.
59:30
We don't get to make their decisions.
59:33
Respectfully, they make their own decisions. That's not really true. Okay.
59:37
The US runs Hold on a second. Let me explain to you.
59:40
The US runs NATO because we pay for it.
59:42
All these countries go along with the US because they like the defense and security that we provide. The US calls the shots.
59:49
And within the US the Biden administration calls the shots.
59:50
So basically a handful of people in the Biden administration, Biden, Nuland, Blinken, Sullivan that's who makes the policy.
1:00:02
I do not think Biden gets to choose not want to be subject to their whims.
1:00:03
I I respectfully I don't think Biden gets to choose what Germany and France and the UK do.
1:00:10
Oh, I think Olaf Scholz is eventually going to be voted out and Macron is eventually going to be voted out because their people are waking up.
1:00:15
But absolutely they are the lapdogs of the United States.
1:00:20
Uh we would like to go on to any other topics.
1:00:22
I want to talk about the summit next week. I'm really excited. Sure. Great.
1:00:26
We're coming in hot to the summit. Kicks off next Sunday.
1:00:27
I'm really excited for everyone that's going to join us.
1:00:30
Obviously we'll be putting out videos of the content as quickly as we can.
1:00:34
J Cal has uh I don't know Sacks and Chamath if you guys are aware, but he is in charge of the parties.
1:00:41
And he has gone well well beyond budget on these parties.
1:00:44
They're going to be outlandish.
1:00:45
They're going to be out of control. Show the three posters.
1:00:47
Let me show you Pull pull the posters The posters explain everything.
1:00:51
Night one is our 007 party or our bestie royale if you will.
1:00:55
And here is bestie royale presenting on Sunday night bestie royale.
1:00:59
Wear wear your best spy outfit.
1:01:02
You could be Austin Powers, you could be Daniel Craig, you could be Sean Connery, you could be Charlie's Angels, any spy you can be uh and here is bestie royale coming at you on Sunday night. A little poker.
1:01:14
Here is the closing night party.
1:01:17
We're going out of order.
1:01:19
Bestie runner, cyberpunk rave with the besties.
1:01:23
Announcing Grimes will be DJing.
1:01:23
So we will have Grimes uh doing a set at the bestie runner party. That's awesome. It's going to be fun.
1:01:32
And so wear your best cyberpunk.
1:01:34
It could be Fifth Element.
1:01:35
You could go with any cyberpunk can I just say I give up right now because Claire's going to win? Of course she is.
1:01:41
Yeah, she's going to win.
1:01:42
Okay, she's It's like it's not even worth trying.
1:01:44
Well, I'm just going to come in jeans and a [ __ ] t-shirt. Yeah. Blade Runner every day.
1:01:48
But we'll have some neon uh stuff for you to put on there as well. outside?
1:01:52
No, this is inside and this is occurring at a film studio.
1:01:54
So we have three warehouses at a film studio where we we created part of the set of Blade Runner.
1:02:00
There's some incredible Asian street food will be done. That's awesome. It's going to be great.
1:02:04
And then Monday night is going to be absolutely blow the doors out at Fast Times at Barbie High. And uh here we are.
1:02:13
Wear your best Spicoli outfit, your best surfer outfit of any kind or Sorry, will this be outside?
1:02:18
This is going to be outside.
1:02:20
We have a tent for the VIP party so the weather works.
1:02:24
You should You should Well, we'll see what the weather is.
1:02:26
So you should wear It's going to be warm.
1:02:29
So you can wear your bathing suit if you want.
1:02:31
Just wear a trench coat over it.
1:02:33
Chamath, if you're going to do a thirst trap live and in person.
1:02:37
And Mick will be DJing again so the dance floor will be lit.
1:02:40
Just because we went well over the budget, we brought in some sponsors to help us cover the costs.
1:02:43
I want to thank those sponsors, I connections which is actually running the app uh that we're using uh to coordinate the summit.
1:02:49
Our law firm that does the legal work for us, Cooley has agreed to sponsor.
1:02:55
And there's a group of entrepreneurs from South Africa started a company called House of Macadamias.
1:03:01
They make macadamia nut snacks. Delicious.
1:03:04
Uh they're they're sponsoring the And they You know why they they reached out?
1:03:07
Because Chamath and I eat salt and vinegar pistachios.
1:03:09
So they made a salt and vinegar macadamia bag in our honor. I love it.
1:03:13
Oh, salt and vinegar like this episode.
1:03:15
And then we've got a group called Pavise which makes mineral-based sunscreen and obviously they heard us talking about sunscreen so they reached out.
1:03:22
And Brewbird which makes a a coffee brewing device came in and wanted to be a sponsor.
1:03:28
So a lot of the sponsors came to us having heard about us talking about something on the show and it was very helpful in helping us cover the cost of the event.
1:03:35
So I want to say thank you to all of them. Thank you guys.
1:03:37
Thank Thank you to all of you our sponsors. Thank you very much.
1:03:40
That's very kind of them. Yeah.
1:03:40
And then we're doing a high and low thing at where we have incredible food trucks where we've elevated the food to like a higher level.
1:03:49
And so we want to pair these food trucks with some nice wines.
1:03:53
Um and so they sent you a list of all the different foods.
1:03:54
And then Bo is doing the steak at the first night.
1:03:59
Roku Sushi, really great sushi place in LA, is doing the sushi the first night.
1:04:02
So we got some really great vendors and all the Asian street food in the Blade Runner party is going to be great.
1:04:05
So Asian the last night, steak and sushi the first night, and then these elevated food trucks that we're doing the night.
1:04:11
When is my year to do this?
1:04:14
Uh your two Yeah, I'm your three, you're a four. Yeah, I'm 24, you're 25.
1:04:20
I'm just going to tell you in advance that I'm taking full complete control.
1:04:26
You All you will have to do is show up.
1:04:27
I don't want any intervention.
1:04:30
I don't need to be involved.
1:04:30
Please after this year and last year I had Please leave me out of it. Great.
1:04:35
I'm taking the Sacks approach. I'm showing up.
1:04:36
Where are you going to do it, Jason? I have three ideas. grift? Brooklyn? Exactly. Tokyo?
1:04:40
Well, I'll I'll I'll take you through it.
1:04:45
Brooklyn, my hometown, is one. So that's in my mind.
1:04:47
Uh my favorite city is Tokyo.
1:04:49
You know I love going to Japan so that's in my short list.
1:04:51
And then on the grift side, uh UAE might be great.
1:04:53
I have some partners there.
1:04:55
And so that could be amazing to do it in Dubai as a uh you Dubai would be nuts.
1:04:59
Dubai would be kind of crazy.
1:05:01
My friend Andrew Sassoon is in charge of opening I think it's the Wynn's casino there or is he in charge of all the entertainment and nightlife?
1:05:09
That would be incredible.
1:05:10
Sassoon can light it up in Dubai.
1:05:13
I I also took Europe off the table because I had the sense that Chamath might pick I'm saying 750.
1:05:18
I may I may No, no, no, I may go to Oman.
1:05:20
I may but I'm going to go to do a destination thing which is going to be Everybody will stay in the same place.
1:05:25
It'll be a much smaller number of people and it'll be end-to-end curated. And 750? 500 people.
1:05:33
There'll be clothes, there'll be everything. Okay.
1:05:36
For the Sultan of Science with his sunglasses on, the dictator, and the architect, we'll see you all next time on uh All-In Pod. Bye-bye. Let your winners ride. Rain Man David Sacks.
1:05:59
And as Sacks open-sourced it to the fans and they've just gone crazy with it. Love you, Bestie. Queen of Quinoa. Besties are back.
1:06:14
That is my dog taking a piss in your driveway, Sacks. Oh, man.
1:06:22
We should all just get a room and just have a one big huge orgy because they're all just useless.
1:06:25
It's like this like sexual tension that they just need to release somehow.
1:06:30
Wet your bed, [ __ ] Wet your pee pee. We need to get merch. I'm going all in.