SPEAKER_03: Hey, everybody, welcome to a another all in podcast. This is an all bestie, no guestie episode of all in the last time you heard from the besties. It was election night. And it was a shit show. A fucking crazy shit show. Let's be honest. I mean, we if we go back and look at that historical document, we had moments where we thought Trump was going to absolutely crush. Then we had moments of confusion. And now here we are. And I think we have to give a couple of bestie kudos to first off chamath pointing out Pennsylvania was going to be big. And then second, when we went through the possible scenarios of who, what what could possibly happen, a big giant blue wave, Trump winning it all. And then maybe something in the middle option three came through. And that was sexy poo nailed it. I think that was your assumption, sacks the soft landing, the soft landing. Yeah. So why don't we just for the
SPEAKER_03: people who didn't tune in live? Sorry, Jason, can I ask a question? sexy poo, sexy poo was that your like projection? Or
SPEAKER_01: was it from that from that guy who lives in his dad's basement, his mom's basement that you brought in? My researcher. Well,
SPEAKER_05: Newman works for me. Newman. Newman. Yeah. Newman. Newman and I worked together on those takes. But yeah, the take that we thought was was possible, but probably unlikely, but could represent a really good scenario was the soft landing, where you get a split decision. And I think that's what the American people voted for. You know, you had the Democratic frame on the election was that we needed to return to normalcy and decency. The Republican frame was that the radical left cannot be trusted with power and voters basically said they were both right. They sort of surgically removed Donald Trump while thwarting the radical left's dream of total control in Washington. And that what the electorate seems to be saying is they want the parties now to work together instead of voting for extreme ideology. But TBD sacks I mean, Georgia still up
SPEAKER_04: for grabs. They're gonna go after it hard, right? I mean, they just they filed in Pennsylvania.
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, so I think there's a series of court challenges we can talk about. I think that they're unlikely to prevail very, very unlikely. I think Joe Biden will be the next president. We can kind of compare this to, you know, Bush v. Gore from 2000. And if you you want to compare Trump's case to Gore's case, it's weaker in every respect. I mean, first of all, with Bush v. Gore, Gore only had to overturn one state, which was Florida, whereas Trump has to now contest and overturn three or four states simultaneously. Second, you know, Gore was within a few hundred votes of Bush, it was extremely close. Trump is no closer than about 12,000 votes in Georgia. That's the closest one. Third, you know, Gore, or Bush never trailed Gore in any recount. And Trump has that problem that he's never, he's very far behind Gore as well. So you look at those three things, and you'd say, you know, Gore couldn't overcome it. And he had a closer situation than this. And of course, I'd say finally, you know, a W had the velvet hammer James Baker working for him, whereas Trump, frankly, has Rudy Giuliani, who's throwing press conferences in the parking lot of forces and landscaping between a dildo shop and a crematorium. I mean, you can't make this stuff up. I think somebody was tweeting, you know, this is perfect, because, you know, they were saying they wanted Rudy to fuck off and die. So it was so appropriate that this press conference was held between a dildo shop and a crematorium. So, you know, it's not exactly the A team that Trump's got playing for him here in the courts. But
SPEAKER_01: I mean, David Bossie, by the way, David Bossie, who's in charge of the whole thing. David Bossie has not even a lawyer. And then he gets COVID. So he's on the sidelines. I mean, just there's so many angles we can take here,
SPEAKER_03: including the fact that, am I correct that Trump's campaign advisor got COVID? Like the day after or is no no Mark Meadows. Eva staff got it. But David Bossie, who's in charge of this
SPEAKER_01: whole recount process got COVID as well. Okay, so I want to just
SPEAKER_03: shift us now to what could have so many things went right for the Democrats. But there was also something very clear here that happened, which is the what I call the HSP, the hysterical Socialist Party of America, I think was dealt a death blow. If you look, this was very close. And so, you know, even if we want to talk about the electoral college, etc. These are still very low numbers. I believe if the Pfizer news comes out last week, Trump wins. Or if any combination of AOC Biden, AOC Bernie, or Warren were in any way involved in this election process, and Warren pushed to the side, the squad was squashed, because we knew that if they got any kind of play, Trump sales into victory. So when we look at what happens going forward, and I'll let any one of the three of you take this, what does this say about the hysterical Socialist Party, the HSP, the squad, the Bernie Bros, what does this say about them? Well, you have a you have a look, you have a you have a
SPEAKER_01: you have a loud group of people on both sides. And the reality is that both extremes of both parties, actually, after this election, have very little to stand on that's unique. Because if you think about what the plurality of Americans want is actually just a common, decent, centrist, do no harm alternative. And they're going to pick that more times than they're not going to pick it. It's only when things get extreme, like in 2016, in order to send a message, will they do it? And until it's resolved, they tried to do it again now. So we should actually talk about that. I don't think that this was, you know, a runaway, it was way too close on too many dimensions that actually matter for the future prosperity of America. But that being said, what does it mean for the future? I think the future is like a Pete Buttigieg must be high fiving, you know, the people in his camp right now, because a common, decent, thoughtful centrist platform will win. For example, like, let's just say you believe in gay rights, guess what, you don't need to be at the fringes to believe in that that's mainstream, you believe in like a reasonable form of health care that's mainstream. If you believe in climate change, it's mainstream, you start to go and tick off the things that the extremes would want to believe, there's very little room for them to stand on. So one party is going to be basically about like, a federalized nanny state and the other party will be a bunch of conspiracy theories crazies. And I think it's going to force more and more people to the middle. I think that's the future. To me, that's, that's a much safer place to be than I think where we could have been if, you know, Trump had won, or if the extreme left had basically been been validated with a candidate that won.
SPEAKER_05: Right. And I would add to that, that the the proof of that the proof of the electorate's desire to tack towards the center is you look at the down ballot election. So, you know, in the Senate, the Republicans are still holding on to majority pending the Florida runoff. But the Democrats failed to take out Susan Collins, Tom Tillis, Steve Danes, these were three incumbent Republicans who were way behind in the polls heading into election day. They didn't come close to taking out Lindsey Graham or Mitch McConnell despite spending get out of this one alive. Explain Susan Collins. No, Lady
SPEAKER_03: G. Lindsey Graham. Oh, I see. You know, Lindsey Graham, they
SPEAKER_05: said that it was neck and neck and he actually ended up winning that state by like 14 points. It wasn't close. The polls were wildly off. And, and you saw that across across the board in the house to Democrats expected a gain of 10 to 15 seats. Instead, they've lost about 10 seats, they failed to defeat a single GOP incumbent. The GOP House members ran about two or three points ahead of President Trump. And that and then the Democrats were completely shut out in Texas, which was supposed to be going purple. There were eight open GOP seats, Democrats won none of them. So this, you know, so anyway, I'm providing some support to the idea that this was a split decision election. The voters voted to remove both of the or to voted against the extremes of both parties.
SPEAKER_03: So Friedberg, when you look at this, you see, I think, an absolute just people don't want to deal with Trump anymore. How much of this do you think is Trump derangement system as syndrome and what got Trump into office eventually taking him out, which is the guy just takes up too much oxygen in the room. And that's coming from me. And the guy is just incredibly annoying to have to deal with day to day. That's also coming
SPEAKER_01: from you. And that's also coming from me. I think we've I think
SPEAKER_04: we've been at a rave for four years and everyone's like coming down from the Molly and you're not going to go to a Marilyn Manson concert like right after being at a rave. Like, you want to go sit in the parking lot. And you just want to chill out a little bit. And we all just want to like, have a beer and relax, you know, like, I mean, I think that needs some five HTTP and a
SPEAKER_03: banana. You just Yeah, you want to go sit in the 711 parking lot
SPEAKER_04: at four in the morning and you want to like go get a fucking sweet cappuccino and smoke a cigarette and relax like it's been it's been too much. And I think it's like, everyone's just kind of ready to chill out a bit. And so this whole fucking swinging back to the you know, to the concert across the road sounds just as bad as what we've just been through. So let's just you know, let's just live our lives a little bit. And you know, we'll come back in four years and figure out how to fuck things up again. I think that's kind of the psyche. That's right. I think that I think voters want a presidency
SPEAKER_05: they can forget about, you know, I think Trump's sort of Achilles heel as he demanded too much of the voters constant time and attention. There was like this psychic cost to it. It obviously antagonized the other side and drove turnout for the Democrats. But but it seems like voters are saying, look, just leave us alone. We want to just forget about what's happening in Washington for four years. And now they can because you know, pending the Georgia runoff, it looks like Mitch McConnell and Joe Biden will have to be in a power sharing arrangement. And nothing gets done unless the two of them agree. And by the way, just on that there was a great tweet by Paul
SPEAKER_01: Graham. He said, the day after the election, something to the effect of it feels like some background process in my computer was just killed that was consuming 5% of my CPU. And it's so true.
SPEAKER_03: Mac operating system spinning wheel of death.
SPEAKER_01: But it's David is so right. It's like, you know, it's been this omnipresent thing in all of our lives over the last four years. And it's just exhausting. And, you know, there wasn't that much value that came from paying so much attention and worrying so much. And so it's just a great opportunity to come off the sugar high and reset ourselves and take a nap.
SPEAKER_03: I think that's a very astute point, Chamath in that what what it was gained from this Trump derangement from this Trump sucking all of the attention and constantly tweeting. And, you know, I think the big win here, freeburg is, if you look, the proof is in the pudding. Trump, we find out on Saturday morning that Trump is, you know, has lost and Biden has won. And 48 hours later, we find out Pfizer has 90% efficacy on their vaccine. Obviously, these two things are highly correlated. Biden has already delivered the vaccine in just 48 hours. And then today we got the rapid testing has been approved by the FDA. I mean, look at this by if at this rate, Biden's going to cure global warming by the end of the year.
SPEAKER_04: Look, first off, I think it's a little um, it is pretty paradoxical that the vaccine news came 48
SPEAKER_03: hours. Yeah, and it's paradoxical. I mean, that was crazy. I mean,
SPEAKER_05: you know, there's supposed to be an October surprise, not a November surprise. I think if Trump has any legitimate argument about being done dirty in this election, it is over this vaccine news because, you know, the Chinese announced it three hours after Biden's declared president, Pfizer announces it a day after Biden's declared president. I mean, you know, when Trump went around this, the, you know, was campaigning, saying a vaccine was mere weeks away, everyone thought that was bullshit. But as it turns out, he was telling the truth. And if those guys had announced it, Jason, like you were saying, two weeks before the election, it might have changed this thing. But you guys might have 100%. 100%. And this is not something he can go to the courts. It's not like he can go to the courts and get the election recounted or overturned because of this. So it's not something that's legally actionable. But I do think that on this news alone, Trump, in four years, will be able to claim on some level that this was a stolen election.
SPEAKER_04: But couldn't the same be said about Hillary's email server, right? So like, that news came out, like, and it was like timed around the election. And I do think that there was a concerted effort to not let, you know, the progress with COVID get in the way of the election in any way, you know, biased it either way. And I think it's like, pretty reasonable and fair to say, like, let's just not make this part of the news cycle leading into the election. And this was expected, like, if you guys go back a couple of podcasts, like, you had a prediction on when we would have a vaccine, I think I predicted end of September, because of the way that they set up the production cycle in parallel with the testing cycle and the way that they were fast tracking a lot of the testing in a way that wasn't normal for this sort of a development. And it was it was going to happen this fall. If I'm an executive at one of these companies, I don't want my vaccine to become a politicized event, right? Like, I just want to be like, I think it's the reasonable thing to say, like, let's just put it on hold, let's deal with it all after the election. We're still moving forward. We're not holding anything up in terms of production and getting this thing across the finish line. It's just the announcement of where we are. So why make that part of the new cycle? You know, and I think like people learned their lesson with Hillary's server last time. It's like this one use, you know, bombshell drops in the news cycle spins up and she loses the election. Everyone blames her losing the election for that coming out. No one wants to be culpable for that, right? I'm a Pfizer exec. I'm just trying to make fucking medicine. Like I don't want to be on the hook for said another way. I'm winning or
SPEAKER_03: losing an election. I said another way, Chamath. Nobody
SPEAKER_03: wants to go to a Warriors finals game versus the Lakers and have the refs called, you know, decide the game in the final couple of minutes. So do you think Chamath? This is if you were running Pfizer, if you were on the board of Pfizer, and you have this information, and you know, we can come out in this two week window at any time. What decision would you make Chamath? Well, just imagine that the vaccine was 90%
SPEAKER_01: ineffective, and it was announced two weeks before the election. You'd have an entire cohort of people saying this was meant to basically sabotage the election in the other direction. So the point is it's a no win situation. The only answer is to wait until after the election because that's the only way that you can actually say, you know, we were not, we were being impartial. So I'm sympathetic to this idea that all the news had to wait two or three days. Or maybe it was two or three weeks. Now, knowing in advance what the answer was, obviously, you can read into that. But I think even if it was 90% ineffective, it should have waited till after the election as well. I don't get the sense that you do agree with that,
SPEAKER_03: Sax. Well, let's put it this way. I mean, we know from our
SPEAKER_05: time working in large companies that it takes them weeks to even approve a press release. And so Pfizer had this news weeks ago. Now, I understand their reason for not wanting to appear to be influencing the outcome of the election. So that's why they held on to it. I think everybody saw the way that Facebook was scapegoated four years ago for the election, and no one wants to, no corporation wants to put themselves in that position of being accused of affecting the election outcome one way or another. I'm sure that's why they did it as opposed to a conspiracy against Trump. But, you know, this news was available, I think we will find out weeks ago. And so I guess you'd have to blame or there'd be some culpability on the part of Trump's election team, or you know, his, his head of the FDA or what have you, they must have known some of this information. And you would think they would have done a better job getting it out there. No, he did say it every rally.
SPEAKER_03: It's just around the corner. It's just around the corner. We're rounding the corner. And we all thought it was bullshit.
SPEAKER_05: You thought it was bullshit. We thought it was bullshit, right. And you know why we thought it was bullshit? Well, because
SPEAKER_05: Trump Trump does have a tendency towards hyperbole. hyperbole on
SPEAKER_03: Trump's most honest day, he's hyperbolic on Trump's average day, he is lying incessantly. So if anything, if he was right, and he was right that we were turning the corner and the vaccine was coming, and it was going to be beautiful, beautiful, perfect vaccine, and everybody was going to get it. He's paying the price for being a liar for four years. Right. But it's the kind of thing. No, no, no boy who cried wolf.
SPEAKER_05: Well, and so does the media, by the way, but but yeah, look, I in order for a piece of news this big to be believed before the election, it can't come from a candidate. And it's, it's it's pretty amazing that none of this news got out there through some other source, you would think that some of the people on the healthcare task force that Trump appointed might have been, you know, surfacing this or paying attention to it. Maybe Pfizer did a really good job hiding it. I don't know. But it is pretty amazing that didn't come out sooner. Well, the other crazy thing is like, you know, even the Pfizer
SPEAKER_01: team didn't exactly know what was going on. The chief, the head of vaccine research, she said, we're not part of the federal government's, you know, warp speed program. And then, two days later, Pfizer was like, actually, we are part of the warp speed program. It's just that, you know, we're a supplier. The whole point is that I'm not sure that Pfizer actually knew two weeks in advance, David, I think that they were probably trickling stuff together, and they probably had a sense of it at the end of the last week. I'm surprised it didn't leak, to be quite honest. That's the more shocking thing, which means that it was probably something that very, very, very few people knew about. Well, the CEO put out a statement saying that he would be first in line to take the new vaccine, which I thought was a
SPEAKER_05: great statement because a lot of people were questioning whether, you know, how real it was, or how rushed it was. But in order for him to do that, and in order just to get like a press release announced, I don't think that's the kind of thing that comes together in the next few weeks. Announced. I don't think that's the kind of thing that comes together in the, you know, one or two day period between the announcement of Joe Biden winning the election and their and their announcement. So, you know, I just think they had to know weeks ago.
SPEAKER_03: I just want to say to my Greek brother, Alberto, bore loss, the CEO of Pfizer, a great Greek who has led to the saving of the world. OOPA, K
SPEAKER_01: konnies, OOPA, K
SPEAKER_04: re
SPEAKER_03: correct to you that people in the States are going to take it? I think I think I would take it isn't this like, although
SPEAKER_05: everyone who's high risk will take it? Yeah. And as of about
SPEAKER_04: two months ago, you know, it was estimated that 30% of people on the East Coast had already developed immunity due to the seroprevalence studies that showed antibodies. On the West Coast, it was much lower closer to 3%. You could estimate based on the growth in cases since then, and assuming we're kind of missing a bunch. We're probably on a national basis, we're at 10% back then, on a national basis, you're probably up to 20% right now of Americans have already been effectively immunized by getting the virus. So you know, if that's true, then you're at 55%. And you're getting pretty close to a, you know, an ability to kind of inhibit this thing from from spreading rapidly again. So how do we each feel? I'll just go around the horn.
SPEAKER_03: How do we each feel about the COVID-19 end game? When will we see all schools open? All NBA arenas open with no distancing? Give us a quarter in 2021. When in America, enough vaccines will have been delivered and distributed and rapid testing. That life goes back to, let's call it 85% of normal. Yeah, I
SPEAKER_04: don't think you ever get there. I mean, it's like, we talked about this a couple episodes ago, but it's after 911, you know, the TSA emerged, and American travel never went back to the way it was before. And I think there'll be a lot about the way we live, that's going to be, you know, kind of permanently scarred and permanently changed here for a while, whether it is taking people's temperatures at football games, wearing masks, and you know, farmers markets, who knows, there's going to be all these weird rules, they're going to pop up, they're going to last for years, regardless of how much immunization takes place, regardless of how cheap and available testing is, we're going to have this scar for a long time. In terms of how we live as a society, I don't think we should kid ourselves that we're going to go back to quote, unquote, normal. And I do think kids are going to get tested and schools are going to be like, this friggin, you know, almost like TSA is now, you know, kids are going to go into school and get tested regularly, and they're going to do all sorts of stuff that we would have never dreamed imaginable in a free country a year ago. And I think that's permanent. I think you know, we're going to you're already seeing people going nuts at bars and restaurants and people that have had it are out there partying and living their life again. So there's certainly don't you think if you get the vaccine,
SPEAKER_03: you're just going to be like Yolo, I've had enough of this? Yeah, but I don't think that that systems are going to
SPEAKER_04: change back to normal. I think systems have changed to the point that we've now got a way of living that we think is safer that we think is we are now kind of inhibited because of the system. Shemagh, you agree?
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, there'll be a lot fewer as what Dave Chappelle said on
SPEAKER_01: Saturday, there'll be a lot fewer mass shootings. The pandemic has done a great job of keeping the whites at home. We watched it together. Three out of four besties watched it
SPEAKER_03: together. All you all you guys go down your mass shooting rant pages,
SPEAKER_01: you know, the whites are at home. They're frustrated, but they're at home. Thank God. So I think there'll be some advantages. Well, I mean, but let's talk about it. Shemagh does 2021
SPEAKER_03: mean? Let's go back to school. I think 21 September, no problem. No, I think free burgers, right? I think that the best
SPEAKER_01: we'll get back to is sort of this 80% state and I don't think it happens until probably 2022. And maybe 2023. But probably 2022 because you have to remember, like, we have to ramp up now billions of vaccine production, like it's a this is a non trivial path from here to, quote unquote, mass market. And that takes a long time. I think we have to figure out how we're going to administer it. By the way, it's and the way that the Pfizer vaccine works, and maybe these other folks is you get the shot. And then, you know, three months, three weeks later, I think you get a booster. So you have to take two cycles of this thing. And it's not gonna last forever.
SPEAKER_04: And it's not gonna last forever. So this is free burgers,
SPEAKER_01: right? It's the beginning of a very different way of living. I think I think that the good part about it is that, you know, we've made a lot of changes that makes our lives a lot more efficient. The bad part about it is, we're even more detached from our neighbors. And, you know, we're probably even more likely to be a little bit more separated if we don't make an effort to be together.
SPEAKER_03: Sachs, do you buy this? Because I get the sense that you might be more optimistic than freeburg. Yeah. Yeah. I guess I am. I think COVID is going to be a distant
SPEAKER_05: memory by next summer. I think we'll have one to two quarters of transition. But I think that once the vaccine is widely available, plus the treatment and the testings for the people who slip through the cracks. Yeah, I tend to think things are going to snap back very fast. And COVID will just be this bad memory, a very distant, bad memory. And I think, in fact, I think things may bounce back the other way. Everyone having been cooped up and afraid of getting some life threatening illness are going to come out of this. Really wanting to party. I think the whole world's going to be like Tel Aviv for, you know, a few months or something. And, yeah, I mean, I really do think it's going to bounce back, I think to the point politically, where a few years from now, people could ask, wait, why was it again that Trump lost, you know, you know, this COVID thing will be, it will be so in the rearview mirror that will wonder why we were so afraid of it.
SPEAKER_03: I think this is I'm going to go with David's Saxe's position here because of the simple fact that we had 130,000 confirmed cases, you know, up until this election period, the last week or so, and deaths still not spiking, it's a little just a minute minor uptick, you know, we had a day with like, I think maybe 1500, but still staying in that, you know, 1000 range, even with cases spiking. And I think that we were so incompetent with test and trace in this country, that we didn't see exactly what happens in an authoritarian country, or a country that is lucky enough to be an island and has easy borders, which we almost do. I mean, we basically have two borders, we're like, two thirds of two, you know, 50% Island, but Hawaii, Taiwan, Japan, and Australia, all quarantine people on the way in, they tested them, and they had extremely, extremely low death counts and extremely low case counts, with the vaccine being half as effective as you know, they claim and rapid testing, which some of us have no, some of us know people who have experienced rapid testing at homes. That combination, I believe is going to make this go solo. And the people who are high risk are still going to be scared staying home. I think, like David, come the summer of next summer, people are going to be at a rave with freeburgs, you know, custom made Molly or whatever he's making during this downtime, going absolutely bonkers. I think Burning Man next year, becomes like the the greatest Burning Man ever. It'll be it'll be the burn of all burns. Why was let's shift a bit over to the economy. What rip did we see when that Pfizer I mean, the election and Pfizer this week led to a huge rip. Obviously, there's a little bit of cyclical movement, the tech stocks were the big winners. Now people are starting to buy Disney back up to 140. I guess people assume the parks will reopen. What's our outlook for the stock market in David Sachs is, you know, scenario three, you know, I don't say gridlock government, but forced to compromise government. What do we think the markets look like the next two years? I think you have to cut sexy, but no,
SPEAKER_01: I was gonna say gridlock is great for the markets. But both
SPEAKER_05: when Bill Clinton was president with a Republican House and when Obama was president, and there was a Republican House and I guess, Senator, a period of time, gridlock is great for the markets, especially given the amount of stimulus that's taken place. I mean, you had the Trump tax cuts, especially those corporate tax cuts, really set the market on fire. And then you've got this pumping by the Fed and the Treasury, all the stimulus money for COVID. I mean, those conditions, and then you know, why is gridlock good? We didn't explain that here. Well, because
SPEAKER_03: we're playing to somebody who doesn't understand why gridlock is good, why gridlock is good?
SPEAKER_05: Well, because it creates predictability for business. And it means that Washington's not going to get in the way and do something to screw up the good times. We have fundamentally, you know, great underlying conditions for economic growth, which is we have now pretty low taxes. And we had this, for better or worse, we had this tremendous amount of stimulus, fiscal stimulus.
SPEAKER_01: What we know historically is over the past 100 years, right since the 20s, independent of Republican administrations or Democratic administrations, you know, more progressive, less progressive, more conservative, less conservative, during world wars, not during world wars, the markets go up 8% a year. So the do no harm solution is that things inflate naturally by 8%, especially if those things are public stocks. So, you know, the markets love the fact that there's nothing that could theoretically get in the way of that natural 8%. And then when you layer on top of it, as David said, all this free money, that's just like rocket fuel, jet fuel. But you know, but you saw though, that there was a rotation, right? There was a rotation out of these high growth software names, particularly the work from home bid kind of got crushed, you know, I mean, I think zoom was off 25% over two days or some crazy thing like that. Meanwhile, sort of all of these theme park stocks and cruise lines and airlines all of a sudden ripped. So I mean, look, the reality is, the scary thing about all of this is if any of that stuff actually comes to pass, we're going to see inflation. And the reason is because if you start going out and spending a bunch of money on tickets and vacations and flights and this and that and pumping money into the economy and taking all that stimulus money, and putting it back to work, prices will go up. And by the way, that's not such a bad thing for the economy, which needs a little bit of it. So all of this is, I think, generally very, very good news.
SPEAKER_03: Friedberg, do you have a position on what you think will happen in the coming? Let's look, I would think the midterm is what people care most about. So that would be, let's call it two to six quarters.
SPEAKER_04: There's one potential speed bump still, which is what I mentioned at the beginning, which is Georgia. The Democrats could still win both runoffs in Georgia for Senate. And they could, because Kamala Harris would then have the breaking vote, it would be a 50 Republican 50 Democrat Senate and, and the vice president would would break any ties.
SPEAKER_01: The question is, if you have that same turnout, where do the libertarians break? Because I think the libertarians were almost 2% of the vote.
SPEAKER_04: Well, I think, yeah, what's interesting is the I don't know if you guys have, but I've gotten emails from a lot of people asking me to donate money for this runoff campaign in Georgia. I think we're on I got so many so many. I think we're gonna see literally the biggest, the biggest funding for a Senate runoff race in history by far, don't you think sacks like probably north of $100 million being spent, maybe 100 to $200 million being spent on advertisements in Georgia to try and get people to go vote one way or the other. The Democrats think they have a real run at this. They think it's make or break two years to kind of get their, you know, history changing policies in effect. Republicans think it's saved the nation time. So everyone's rushing to Georgia right now. So the markets are going to have a very close eye on what's going on over there. I think I'm, you know, I'm very nervous about it. If the Democrats look like they're getting much more money into the state, and they're actually going to, you know, get people to the polls and to the voting booths and actually get into this runoff on January 5, and actually flip, get both of those seats to be to be blue. It's going to be a very different market environment. I mean, you could see the market drop by 3040% in the next six months, we have we have a situation where it's 4848. There are two
SPEAKER_03: seats up for grabs. Those two seats are in a runoff. And I want to get into the end. Let me correct that, Jason. It's 4850.
SPEAKER_05: Yes, the Republicans have a 50 to 48 advantage with two open seats in the runoff. Actually, sorry, what one seat is open the other? It has an incumbent Purdue who's facing awesome. Purdue one in the last election, he got like 49.9% 50. You have to get 50% of you get to this runoff in January, Georgia, the only place that has this where you have to get to
SPEAKER_03: 50 in order to win. It's crazy. It's crazy. So weird. Is this
SPEAKER_03: just they want the extra attention or who came up with this idea? This seems just like every state's got its own
SPEAKER_04: history. It's crazy. It is one of the unique things about
SPEAKER_03: living in the United States of America as opposed to America. Let's talk about exit polls.
SPEAKER_01: Well, this is what's incredible here. Let me tee this up for you. So in in 2020, Biden got 80% of the black vote, Trump got six, this is aggregate. So we can break this down by man and age group and you can it looks even even more interesting. Latinos, Biden got 67. Trump got 22% of the Latino vote. Between the ages of 18 to 34. So boomers are sorry, pardon me, Gen Z, and millennials. Again, I would have thought 100% Biden, it was on it was 62% Biden 23% went for Trump one in four, amongst women. And again, you know, we thought, oh, okay, you know, suburban women are breaking Biden 80-20. It turned out Biden got 58% of women. Trump got 35% of all the female vote and the coup de gras whites with a degree. Again, you would have thought this would have been 80-20, 90-10 and said it was 53% Biden, 38% Trump. So this really was something that if we look at the if we
SPEAKER_03: look back on this, the pollsters were completely wrong in thinking, once again, that these groups of people are monolithic. And then I think the most the most mind boggling to me, and I had a candid discussion about this was the term Latin, Latin X is a catchall term for people who are of Latino, Spanish speaking descent. And what somebody told me who is in this Latin X group is that it's the most insulting thing they've ever been told. It's almost as a term, like the term saying oriental to describe people from Asia, you're just grouping us all into one thing, people from Cuba, Venezuela, Mexico, Mexico, all think the same. This is the absolute, you know, end game of identity politics, which is, we have to put you in a corner, we own you, we own your opinion. And you belong to our party, whichever party it is, oh, you don't have a degree. You're a GOP hillbilly. Oh, you, you're Latin X. Okay, well, then we own you, you're a democrat, David, what and I know that this is an area where, you know, you have a lot of expertise. What are your thoughts? Well, as it turns out, promoting socialism to people who fled
SPEAKER_05: Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela to escape it, turns out not to be a great election strategy. And, and so yeah, it's this this idea that Latin X is is one block, it's not it consists of a bunch of different immigrants from a bunch of different nations. And the ones who fled socialism are not eager to reenact it in the United States. The Republicans flipped to house seats in South Florida, where there's a lot of Cuban Americans. And even in the the heavily Mexican American counties in along the Rio Grande in Texas, Trump improved. Let's see, he looks like he improved 59 and 30% 39% respectively over his 2016 showing. So this is not just some fluke of the exit polls. It seems like Trump really made progress in a lot of these groups that seem to defy their you know what what the promoters of identity politics the way that they wanted them to vote. Gay Americans were another one. I think Trump improved his share of the gay vote from 14% in 2016 to 28% this year. So I mean, really, it's pretty amazing. People are not voting the way that they're supposed to vote. Trump also improved from 12 to 18% with black men, and four to 8% of black women. I mean, those are still pretty low numbers, but there was improvement there. And I think part of the reason is that not all of the African American community is on board with defunding the police. Well, I also think what it means is identity politics is a
SPEAKER_01: stupid strategy. Forget whether you're offended by it or not. At this point, what's clear is it's a stupid fucking strategy. It doesn't work. It's a path to losing. Because the more and more you do it, the more and more you're going to disenfranchise individuals who want to be judged, sort of sound mind and body. Right? I mean, if he took 1000 Sri Lankans and put them in a room and said, I'm going to judge them. I'm going to judge you as a Sri Lankan vote, I would tell you to go fuck yourself. I would be deeply offended by that. And this is where I think the radical left is going to have to
SPEAKER_05: retool because their theory of how they take power in America was always that demographics is destiny. That as the country simply becomes more diverse, they're automatically going to vote for us. And there's a lot of data in this election to show that that's not what's going to happen. You actually have to run on issues that people care about. Let's think about this in the context of internet advertising,
SPEAKER_04: right? The world prior to internet advertising, you had, you know, channels, and you would have an audience that was estimated to be made up of some demographic set on that channel, and you would buy an ad spot on that channel. And that's who you would reach. And so you would create a message for that. Now, today, we can create personalized ads and personalized messages. And internet advertisers are much more thoughtful about targeting targeting based on their targeting targeting based on psychographic profiling, behavioral targeting. And I think that's where politics has to head in the United States. It's kind of keeping up with this personalization of both products, but also of media and ads. And I think that's what we're going to see. If you listen to James Carville, who's like, you know, a classic kind of Democratic campaign advisor. And he did a podcast just leading up to the election. And if you listen to this podcast, these guys are very old school. It's like the whites are going to do this and the blacks are going to do that. And though the college educated are going to do this, and the others are going to do that. And they don't realize that the segmentation that's possible today, I think, reveals a lot more about the character of the of the population. They're basically I
SPEAKER_03: think it's such an astute point, freeburg. They're basically living in the level of granularity of network TV. It's like cable TV. Yeah. Like they got to cable TV. And they're like, okay, bet ESPN NASCAR, and guess what, like, like, the
SPEAKER_04: media is much more complex individuals have found their own personal voice. And they found their own personal voice through social media, through Instagram, through this ability to kind of define themselves not fit within a cohort. And I think that's
SPEAKER_03: what maybe they always did feel that way. And we just had never had the technology to get there. Yeah, but I think it's I think
SPEAKER_04: it's also that people like people have complex points of view, you know, the four of us sit here and none of neither of us, none of us identify as a party anymore. We all identify with with certain points that we think are important to us individually. And then we have a point of view on those points. And I think that's the case for the majority of the population in the United States. I don't think people are like, I'm just a fucking democrat, no matter what number Republican, no matter what people care more deeply in a more complex way. And I think politics needs to resolve to that. And, and that's going to require a shift in how you communicate how you message how you get feedback, how you drive blocks for voting. And it's gonna it's gonna, you know, be a really interesting change over the next 15 to 20 years. And it may be what saves the world. I think this is an incredible observation. It might
SPEAKER_03: be the observation of the episode. And I just want to point to a tweet I did because this is this election has really led to me doing two things. One, I've been just thinking deeply about what do I actually understand about Americans in America. And then I also, you know, there's all these red pills around. So I decided I would crush up a red pill. And I would just, you know, put a little on my finger and I try a pill for a second. And everybody told me I've been red pilled on Twitter and that I'm a Trump fan. I'm not I hate the guy. It's horrible. But I did this quick survey here. I said if you voted for Trump, I want to understand what percentage of your vote vote was based on the combination of a cancel culture be identity politics, see socialism, D coastal elites telling you how to live, explain other issues that contributed in a reply, ie spending immigration, SC, the Supreme Court, etc. And I just said 0%, one to 2526 to 50, at over 50. And I got 12,000 votes, go ahead and look at the results. Not the replies, but go ahead and vote. It doesn't matter which one you pick. Over 50% of people who voted for Trump, and I know this is unscientific. It's my followers, but it's definitely feels directionally correct. The people who felt 26 to over 50% was part of the cancel culture identity culture was what they were trying to communicate with their vote. Well, this is this is such an important thing, because I think
SPEAKER_01: this is what we're fighting over the every single 70% of them every single election going forward. Like if you if you put this on top of the 70 odd million people that voted this kind of roughly makes sense, which is that, you know, there's probably about 20 million people who will completely vote Democrat no matter what, and 20 million people who will completely vote Republican no matter what. Their just eyes are closed, their ears are closed, they don't care. But when you take those people out, there's this enormous amount of people in the middle who have the ability to vote a split ticket. You know, and as Saxifu said, like they'll vote a Democrat into the White House, but then down ballot, they'll vote a bunch of Republicans, and they'll just make sure there's a balance of power. So they've been telling us about this kind of centricity for years. And so if you want to win an election, you do two things. Part one is you understand this dynamic that centrism wins. And part two is what Friedrich says, which is you understand that we need to enter sort of the Google CPC world of political advertising, and really cater not just the ads, but also the message to individual people and stop the, you know, the gross high level categorization, which isn't working anymore. Yeah, and Jason, can I add the connection between cancel
SPEAKER_05: culture and this election? So, you know, obviously, the pollsters got everything completely wrong. Again. Again. But the reason is because of cancel culture. So in exit polling, 45% of Republicans with college degrees, express fear that their careers could be at risk if their views became known, compared to only 23% of Democrats saying that. And so there were these, you know, quote unquote, shy Trump voters who are afraid to tell pollsters what they really think. Now, it wasn't the Trump voters that you think of, when you see the pickup trucks and the convoys go by or the rallies, sort of those, those were the voters from 2016, who weren't counted, it was sort of the non college blue collar voters, the Michael Moore people who turned out for Trump in big numbers and weren't properly counted four years ago. The pollsters actually counted those people correctly this time, the people they completely underestimated was actually the white college vote, who swung from Democrats to Republicans. They voted for Trump because of this issue, and they were afraid to say anything about it, because they're afraid of getting canceled. And by the way, they are every other person, everybody
SPEAKER_01: listening to the same thing, and they're afraid of getting canceled. And by the way, they are every other person, everybody listening to this podcast works with. And so deal with that one.
SPEAKER_05: Right, exactly. Anybody who's not actively virtue signaling on Twitter for Biden is a Trump voter.
SPEAKER_03: Not sure if that's exactly correct, but I don't think it's
SPEAKER_05: wrong. Roughly, you know, if people aren't, if people in tech aren't explicitly endorsing Biden on Twitter, they're probably closet
SPEAKER_03: in the same place. It is going to be very interesting for people to go back to offices because now we have had a resolution and identity politics, cancel culture, and extreme is among both sides, hysterical and trolling, trolling, Republicans, hysterical libs. This has been a loss for both of those parties. And now the pandemic is going to be back in offices at some point. I mean, what is office culture going to be like? Are people going to go with the Brian Armstrong? Let's just get work done here. Let's not talk about politics. It's just too charged or not. It's going to be a very interesting,
SPEAKER_01: it's every it's every come, it's every company's right. You know, it's every company's right to care about what they want to care about every board, every CEO, every controlling shareholder, and then it's every employee's right to vote with whether that's okay or not. And I think that look, I mean, the whole Brian Armstrong thing, again, just to say one of the most pathetically poorly written, you know, pieces of English prose I've ever fucking seen, you know, He's a crypto in fairness, my dog, my dogs, he's not a coder,
SPEAKER_01: he's a CEO, my dog slamming his herpaw on the keyboard would have created a better pros in that. But he was coming from a reasonable place, he had the right to say what he said. The problem is that it's so antithetical to what you're allowed to believe, for example, living in San Francisco. But I think that that's going to change because you can't ignore every other person telling you that there are meaningful economic issues that matter, and that the prioritization and the policing of these, you know, sort of high value social signaling issues are no longer a priority. And I think that what's going to happen is there will be room for a party that focuses on that, and a group of people, but they will be relegated, just like on the other side. That will happen to the republican version of that as well. I just think this whole thing to this honesty, for me, it was it seems like such a tight election it is, but I really think the huge winner here is centrism.
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, 100%. I agree with that. And I would say that this election proves that Brian Armstrong was right. Because the average American is tired of these highly charged political situations. And the last thing they want to do is have these conversations at work, where they can get reported to where they can offend their co workers and get reported to HR. They can make them feel unsafe. They don't want to have these conversations at work. Certainly, by the way, only 5% of Coinbase's employees took Armstrong up on that offer to leave. So the number of people who actually want to have a politically charged workplace is very, very small. They're just the noisiest. They're the squeakiest wheel. I mean, that was a ridiculous deal. I mean, what did he say
SPEAKER_03: six months and we've vested? He made it really attractive to leave if you didn't agree with
SPEAKER_05: his policy. Was that was that written? Because I couldn't figure that
SPEAKER_01: out. Yeah, it was. It was an attractive deal to leave if you
SPEAKER_05: wanted to leave and 95% chose to sit. Yeah, I did I say it was poorly written. I didn't understand it
SPEAKER_01: because it was so poorly written. So anyway, so 95% stayed. So my point is just the number of
SPEAKER_05: people who actually like this highly polarized politically charged situation in which we're all arguing with our friends over politics, and children are divorcing their parents because they're not woke enough. I mean, people don't want to live in that kind of country anymore. And I think this is the thing that Joe Biden really got right in his campaign. I mean, this is why I mean, this is the only way that his basement strategy could actually work and results in him getting elect elected is people actually do want this return to normalcy.
SPEAKER_03: You know who the biggest losers going to be coming out of this I think not when you think holistically about the ecosystem. It's going to be the media, because they have made an absolute fortune over the last four or five years picking aside. What is the point of watching Rachel Maddow, January 20? What is the point of tuning into Fox News, or reading the hysterical opinion page of the New York Times, all of these places that were being propped up by either Trump ism, or the anti Trump ism are now going to find themselves where they started, which is a job without a job. And we just wanted you to tell us the news and tell us the straight, there was a great article in New York Times have an opinion page, rip the opinion page out of the New York Times, rip it out of the Wall Street. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, I know, I disagree. I think the
SPEAKER_01: opposite happens, which is that opinion page was meant to be where people could have an opinion so that everything else was fact. And the problem is that all the other pages became opinion as well. Nobody told anybody. Nobody can tell the difference.
SPEAKER_03: That's right. They can't tell the difference. And look at that
SPEAKER_05: expose about how Barry or Barry Weiss was run out of the New York Times. It basically the activists ran her out. And the reality is activists have completely captured the New York Times and CNN and MSNBC. And there is no always had Fox, and
SPEAKER_05: the New York, they always had Fox, but but now we have no objective neutral media. And so who's going to call the election? I mean, you complain about the fact that Trump is sowing dissent, but who is the universally trusted spokesperson for neutrality the way that Walter Cronkite was when he could just declare and that's the way it is. And people believe that's the way it is.
SPEAKER_03: Who did the best job? Friedberg that night when we were doing that? Let's reflect on the live stream. I have two questions for the live stream. Number one, who is your bestie? Yes, the Who did you think get it the most as a guestie? And why? And then number two, or do we're doing what we're gonna do a poll, a human valuable
SPEAKER_01: way before I got a lot of feedback on the guesties. There
SPEAKER_03: were girly people. Can I say one more thing on this, Brad?
SPEAKER_01: Before before we go there, there was a there was a really good article in the New York Times about Maggie Haberman. Right. And Maggie, who's a fantastic journalist, but built an entire career, really amplified came to a head in 2016. And she just scoop after scoop about Trump. But the most compelling thing about that whole article was somewhere near the, you know, third of the way from the bottom. She's like, look, at the end of the day, she said something like, I'm dispensable, and I know it. And it was the most honest thing, because it's like, despite her popularity, and despite sort of, you know, how big of a stick she carries, the reality is sans Trump. There's just nothing to do. There's nothing to leak. There's there just is not nearly as much to do. I did just put in the the chat here, the Washington Post, Fox
SPEAKER_04: News, The Hill, basically, like the full gamut of, of media opinion, have highlighted that the media generally is the biggest loser of the of the 2020 election. And I think I think they've just lost the the faith of their audience. And, you know, it's, it's, I mean, it's to Saxe's point, I don't know how many people were, you're either looking for objective, and you've lost it, or you're looking for opinionated, and you feel like you're, you know, your aligned opinion setting media partner has betrayed you. You know, the fact that Fox called it for, for Trump, and Trump's now saying Fox is a liar. The fact that the New York Times doesn't feel like they're being objective anymore. And they're, you know, they're running people out of the out of the newsroom. In general, I just feel like we've been disenfranchised. And I think that's, that's something that's going to be really hard to kind of recover from and resolve. And to the love of God, can somebody please get I don't want
SPEAKER_03: you to break any laws. But however, if we could read the slack channel of the New York Times reporters leading up to the 100 days of this election, that would become the greatest best selling book of all time to watch the New York Times writers bicker with each other. Sachs. I mean, we could do 10 hours on that. No problem. Let's talk. Okay, bestie guesting guestees. What'd you think of our guest?
SPEAKER_05: I thought they were all great. I thought they're all great. Are we now becoming media critics? We're gonna now Why don't you go? We got navel gazing. You go for navel gazing. Jason wants Jason wants to throw mute under the bus. Go ahead, Jason. No, no, no, no, no, no. Oh, contrary. Does anyone have a
SPEAKER_01: video they want to share person on the pod?
SPEAKER_03: Mute in this place that it was not the it was not the point guard in this case. Somebody pulled the dremond and pulled
SPEAKER_03: him on the side and said, Stop, you got to pass the ball. I do think Brad did a great job. He had some great insights. I think Bill Gurley had some great insights. We I think we just agree, really good job of getting some people to rotate and I enjoyed it. Yeah, I thought it was really everyone was great. I'll give a shout out to my bestie Newman.
SPEAKER_05: He was better. He was better as a political analyst and all
SPEAKER_05: those jokers on CNN and Fox and MSNBC. The dude with the with the map and he kept touching the map.
SPEAKER_04: And yeah, that guy gets paid to do that. I can't believe he gets paid to do that. She could do that. When I on CNN, who does that? John King, John King, John King.
SPEAKER_03: God bless this guy, because I don't know how much Adderall he's on. But I turned it on at 8am. And he was zooming into Pennsylvania. And he's like, Oh, of course, in 2018, this time 2016. He's like, let's zoom out. And let's go back to Arizona. Of course, in Arizona, this place. I was like, is this guy a GM? geography teacher? I mean, he was amazing. And just the dexterity. He looked like he was Tom Cruise and Minority Report with the finger. I don't know. I don't know if I'd call him Tom Cruise. When I look like Tom Cruise, but the Minority Report
SPEAKER_04: pinch and zoom in and out. It was incredible. When, when, when
SPEAKER_03: does Trump call this thing? That's a great question. Well, I
SPEAKER_01: think he has to run out these core challenges, which will take
SPEAKER_01: a few weeks, but I predict by Thanksgiving. But it may be
SPEAKER_05: have to go up to the Supreme Court. But he's gonna he's gonna dot the dot every I and cross every T that he's got legally. But he's got like we talked about the very beginning. He's got a huge uphill challenge. I see the court ultimately ruling against him or throwing it out. What is the point, David? What is well, because why shouldn't
SPEAKER_03: he exhaust? He's not gonna win? Well, I don't I don't know that he knows that he he I think it's
SPEAKER_05: his right to exhaust every legal possibility and legal legal possibility. And let's remember Al Gore didn't concede for 37 days after the election. So I certainly think Trump is within his rights over the next few weeks to run this out. In terms of what the point is, I mean, other than the obvious attempt to challenge it legally, I do think this is partly a branding exercise by Trump. It's a marketing exercise. I don't think he's going to come up with enough malfeasance to overturn an election. But I do think he'll probably produce a lot of smoke. And this is about protecting his brand as a winner. And, you know, if he kicks up enough, you know, examples of voter fraud, or what have you, he'll always be able to say, you know, years from now that this was it was a stolen election. And when you combine the fact that COVID really did drive this this election, you could call that Chinese election interference if you want. The fact that the vaccine is now here already, you could call that, you know, some sort of election interference. He's going to have enough arguments where if he wants to run four years from now, I think he probably gets the Republican nomination again.
SPEAKER_03: What's the percentage chance, Chamath, that he runs again in four years? Zero. Freeburg?
SPEAKER_04: Trump?
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
SPEAKER_04: I think he's gonna be making so much money, he's not gonna know what to do with himself. He's not going back to that fucking torture house. He's gonna be thinking about the White House, like some terrible Blumhouse production movie set. He's like, Fuck that. I'm not going back there. It was awful. Where's he going? Where's he going? He's going to Shanghai? Is
SPEAKER_03: he going to
SPEAKER_04: gonna be in New York, he's gonna buy a law firm, because you're gonna need a law firm to keep everyone at bay. And he's gonna be probably printing 100 million bucks a month, you know,
SPEAKER_03: put it at Dubai, Saudi Arabia. I think I think I think he's definitely gonna launch a media
SPEAKER_01: business. And he'll strip she'll try to become kingmaker. I think I think he will become a kingmaker Republican politics,
SPEAKER_05: he will launch a competitor to Fox News, but it will also be Fox News hybridized with a grassroots movement like the Tea Party. And every Republican will need to go get his endorsement, or they will be primaried by the Trump Party. And I would not put it I agree more. Could not disagree more. I think he's a disgrace. I
SPEAKER_03: think he will. I think what that's not what David said. He's gonna come not you David, I'm talking about Trump. I think David's incredible. No, I think the stuff that comes out after this the day lose the number of SDNY suits, all the grift and the graph. It's all coming out. Not only is he not going to be a
SPEAKER_03: kingmaker, he will not be able to get the backing for this network. It'll be Breitbart lite. And it'll be shut down within 24 months. He'll fail so miserably that when he walks into a restaurant, it'll be like Game of Thrones. Shame. Shame.
SPEAKER_01: Well, I don't I don't I don't I don't think so. I think that it's very likely that the Donald Trump that runs for president in 2024 is Donald Trump Jr.
SPEAKER_03: Oh, God, no, he's horrible. Whole Republican Party has to start over. Let's end on this. Pompeo did a press conference. Is the State Department currently preparing to engage
SPEAKER_02: with the Biden transition team? And if not, at what point does a delay hamper a smooth transition or pose a risk to national security?
SPEAKER_00: There will be a smooth transition to a second Trump administration. Right? We're ready. The world is watching what's taking place here. We're going to count all the votes when the process is complete. There'll be electors selected. There's a process the Constitution lays it out pretty clearly. The world should have every confidence that the transition necessary to make sure that the State Department is functional today, successful today, and successful with the president who's in office on January 20. A minute afternoon will also be successful. Can I can I just say I don't disagree with the position
SPEAKER_04: they're taking. It's not immoral. It's customary and traditional to concede your election. But, you know, December 15 is the date that Congress ratifies the electoral votes to determine who the next president is going to be. And these guys are just taking a very kind of pragmatic legal line that is not immoral in a way they believe that they have some case on what the vote should be. The votes are all very close, yada yada. I'm not saying that he's going to win by any chance. But I don't think that folks saying like, let the votes be counted and let Congress do their job of having the states tell them who their electoral votes are going to, is is an inappropriate position to take. I sound like I might sound like some conservative, you know, Trump head, but I'm not I think that these guys, what I'm just saying is that these guys aren't that immoral in kind of asking for that for that, you know, sorry, I also think at the fringes of the Republican Party,
SPEAKER_01: this is what you keep all these militia folks and all these other folks at bay is just you show a really methodical, you know, stepping away from the spotlight. And I think that this is, honestly, it's, this is a very deliberate, safe, calming thing to do. Because I think there's been nothing about the Trump
SPEAKER_04: administration from 2016 through to this very moment that has been customary or traditional. And so I don't know why we all expected him to step in and say, like, I can see like the way that we've been doing it. It would be worse, it'd be worse if he had conceded and all of a
SPEAKER_01: sudden was holding a bunch of protests and rallies all over the country that he's not doing anything illegal. No one has any
SPEAKER_04: legal requirement to concede. And, you know, and I think as long as these guys on December 15, which is the date that we should all be watching and waiting for, as long as these guys do the appropriate thing at that point, then, you know, that that that's the only point in which I would have any sort of concern or worry about what's going on with the Trump administration. I don't know what's going on with the transition in the government. But sorry.
SPEAKER_01: I think this is about saving face and saving brand as Saxif who said he'll he'll be out by December 15. Meaning this will
SPEAKER_05: all be done. Yeah, I agree. And look, let's remember that Al Gore was able to challenge the election result for 37 days without being hysterically accused of undermining democracy. So let Trump have his day in court, it'll play out over the next few weeks, I expect that the obstacles he has to overcome are he will lose these lawsuits, it might go to the Supreme Court, it would not be a bad thing if the Supreme Court were the ones to make this decision. They're one of the last institutions that still trusted clearly the media are not. And I think that you know, Trump will accept the result. He may not concede, but he will accept the result when it comes from the Supreme Court.
SPEAKER_03: Is there a nonzero chance that he could win on a recount?
SPEAKER_05: He would have to prove systemic fraud, because it's not like Florida where there's just one state and a few hundred votes. He's got to overcome over 12,000 votes in at least three states. So that's the issue is, is percent on its acts if you had to lay money on it.
SPEAKER_05: Oh, I mean, it's like some 10% chance, I think,
SPEAKER_03: sub 10% chance one in 10, you'd give 10 to one odds.
SPEAKER_05: No, I'm saying it's under 10%. I'm saying it's a very small change.
SPEAKER_01: Well, here's the thing. So Bush v. Gore, the Supreme Court ruled seven to two. I mean, you would have thought it was nine to zero. So clearly, there was some sympathizers in Bush v. Gore. So hopefully, you know, it's something like seven to two. And, you know, we move on.
SPEAKER_05: I believe if it gets to the Supreme Court, it will be at least seven to two, if not a one or nine zero. Just because I think Trump has a much harder case to prove. In Florida, the issue was simply whether the recount should be allowed to continue. James Baker went to the Supreme Court to stop the recount that was in process because of the fear that the local corrupt election officials basically steal the election for Gore. But Bush was always ahead in that election. There was never a time when Bush was behind. Biden is now ahead in every swing state that matters. Trump has to now overturn that result in at least three of those states. I don't know how he does that. By tens of thousands of votes. I just don't know how he does that. He has to prove some sort of systemic fraud that took place across the nation. And look, I think from like a marketing or branding standpoint, he'll be able to create a lot of smoke. I think they will actually find quite a bit of misconduct because I don't think our elections are perfect. But will it rise to the standard that the Supreme Court is going to set for overturning an election? I don't think so. I don't think so. I mean, they'll probably find it on both sides. There's got to be
SPEAKER_03: some crazy Trump supporter who has 10 ballots they signed and there'll be some crazy liberal who did this. Well, the nuanced issue is whether they can do a
SPEAKER_01: constitutionally valid recount by, you know, the time necessary as well. So the longer that this delays on, then they'll be forced to basically say no to that also, because otherwise it will be effectively throwing out an election. And so
SPEAKER_03: as we wrap here, San Francisco's continues to devolve revenue down 40% in terms of taxes, budget is double what it's been just a few years ago, crime is going crazy. Walmart is closing their stores and leaving because of Walgreens, I'm sorry, Walgreens, we don't have a Walmart here. And there's 20 there's more homes on the market now than there have been too much of anything is a bad thing. If you eat too much broccoli,
SPEAKER_01: it's a bad thing. You know what I mean? So too much of a single party monoculture is bad, whether it's Republican or Democrat, you need a diverse, centrist plurality. And in the absence of that, many cities that veer in one direction or the other will decay and die. And San Francisco is going to be the tip of the spear for the left's version. And there's been a bunch of cities that have already been the examples of the right's version. So you know what? Apparently, the water is warm and they want to join. Anybody else?
SPEAKER_03: I can't find a lot to disagree with there. I think San
SPEAKER_05: Francisco, we're basically in Atlas Shrugged. I mean, half the storefronts are closed, they're boarded up. The city is completely surrendered to the criminal element. You can't park your car anywhere in the city without having it getting broken into. They won't prosecute people for crimes, including increasingly violent crimes. The city is about to go bankrupt. And the entrepreneurs are all disappearing. They're all leaving. I mean, it's right out of Atlas Shrugged. Yeah, I mean, it's the action is the wrong action, right? So San
SPEAKER_04: Francisco, the biggest disappointment of election night for me was the new business taxes that were passed for San Francisco businesses. And there was also this like, for 99.99999 percent of people, they're gonna shrug and say I don't give a shit. But there was this new tax of 6% for homes that get sold over $10 million. Now, if you're a successful entrepreneur, an investor, or a CEO of a company in San Francisco, and you know, it's like a slap in the face. You add the business tax with that kind of high end property tax. And it's almost like an invitation to leave the city. And some people are nodding their head. This 6% is on leaving or buying
SPEAKER_03: transaction when you sell. So you literally 6% off the top
SPEAKER_04: when you sell a home. The city basically just took 6% of my house. Yeah, the city just
SPEAKER_05: took 6% of my house. It's now they're now a part owner of my house. Yeah, it's an estate tax. And so there are people like there
SPEAKER_04: are people in San Francisco, who we all know, how much warning did you have before they took your
SPEAKER_03: non bedroom? Yeah, I mean, there's a London breed, put some
SPEAKER_04: people in Saks's 13th bedroom on the third floor. They're all living there right now. But it's okay. I got like wings. I don't even know about it's like
SPEAKER_05: it's like Richie Rich's house or something. So nobody cries. Nobody cries for super rich people. And you know, but it was short sighted is the point, right? Right. Exactly.
SPEAKER_04: I'm not complaining about the taxes on me, but it's gonna do
SPEAKER_05: tremendous damage to the city. People are not going to want to move here. And we Yeah, yeah. I look I've built businesses in San Francisco
SPEAKER_04: since 2006. And I will not build another business in San Francisco. And I hear the same from other entrepreneurs. If you're going to build a business, do it in the South Bay, do it in the East Bay, do it in the North Bay or do it in Austin or LA or somewhere else. But this is just not a place to build businesses. The city is basically saying we don't want you here. Now, that would be fine and dandy if the city was being conservative in the way that they spend. And if they were actually reducing their budget, and you know, kind of reducing the city's activities. The problem is these these taxes diverge with the budget because the taxes are now going to go down because businesses are leaving people are selling their homes, they're not going to buy expensive homes anymore. And we are seeing a budget crisis San Francisco, I think it's looking at a 1.7 to $2 billion budget shortfall this year. I mean, like, where's that money gonna come from? This is a city with 800,000 residents. And we have and there was that expose in the San Francisco
SPEAKER_05: Chronicle talking about how there's over 20,000 city workers making over $150,000 a year. 30,000. Yeah, what are we getting for all of that? The evidence is not apparent. And this is where Okay, look, I'd be happy to give the city 6% of my house and pay all these high taxes if we actually got something for it. But the city just keeps getting less and less livable. Yes, city budget in 2013.
SPEAKER_04: So we have a fiscal crisis and we have a livability crisis that
SPEAKER_05: I think is even worse. And that's a huge problem. And let's be frank, San Francisco was always the accidental beneficiary of Silicon Valley. If you will, San Francisco was the accidental billionaire. It was Silicon Valley that created this enormous wealth and all the jobs and the companies. It wasn't San Francisco policies or politics that created any of that. It just so happens that Silicon Valley got big enough. It started around Stanford. It got big enough that San Francisco as the nearest metropolitan area really was a beneficiary of that. And because they never really did anything to create the conditions for that prosperity, frankly, they took it for granted. And now that the rug's been pulled out from under them, I don't think they're really gonna know what to do. Local San Francisco politicians treated Silicon Valley
SPEAKER_04: success as a grab bag. And Uber set up here and Twitter and Square and Salesforce and San Francisco politicians put their hand in the honey jar and took as much as they could. And it's now backfiring because new businesses don't want to set up here. Entrepreneurs don't want to operate here. And as Sax is pointing out, the rapid kind of inflation has caused this tremendous decline in the quality of service. There's zero accountability, zero checks and balances. So San Francisco is in for a really frank, scary reckoning. And a lot of people are really worried about it. And it's like a very real problem. It's not like, oh, the city's fucked. Haha. Like a $2 billion budget shortfall. You're either gonna have to cut a lot of jobs of public employees, or you're gonna have a city that's gonna go bankrupt and bonds are gonna get defaulted on. And at the same time, you're gonna have this mass exodus of people and businesses. And it is a very kind of unwinding knot right now. So it's a scary moment. I don't think it's a real great answer for what to do. It's more nuanced. I think it will happen. Mark my word, San Francisco will file
SPEAKER_01: for bankruptcy in the next 10 years. Wow. I mean, Pelosi held out a major city filing for maybe 15
SPEAKER_03: maybe 15 years, but yeah, 10 years. Remember a big part of
SPEAKER_01: what Pelosi held out on the big thing she held out on in the
SPEAKER_04: stimulus negotiations last month was for local and state governments to get bailout support in this stimulus package. And she's acutely aware she lives one block away from me down the road here. She's acutely aware of what's going on in San Francisco. And the solution may not be to bail out these cities and these states, if they're going to continue to operate the way they are because it's so it needs to break in
SPEAKER_03: order to rebuild. Well, you need to cut budget. I mean, any of
SPEAKER_04: us running a business know like, you know, if you have little revenue coming in, and you're spending too much, where the fuck's the money coming from? You can't just keep going to Big Papa in DC and asking him for more money. Well, Masa Yoshi son, maybe he'll he consider coming in and
SPEAKER_03: maybe back maybe we do. I really fine. I'm gonna spack San
SPEAKER_01: Francisco. Can Masa Yoshi side to the secondary and then
SPEAKER_03: we spack San Francisco? Listen, I think Chamath is right about
SPEAKER_05: San Francisco being the proof of what happens when you have a one party system. And I really hope that the tech community, the tech liberals who are listening to this podcast, they're not gonna listen to me because they probably think I'm too conservative. But, you know, Chamath is pretty liberal. And, you know, he makes the right point. And, you know, we cannot have a one party system that remains healthy for very long. We need the pendulum to swing back towards the center. And, you know, I really hope that yeah, power corrupts absolute power corrupts. Absolutely. As you've
SPEAKER_01: as you've said many times. Yeah, that's true. That's Lord Acton said that. We this is literally what the Dark Knight
SPEAKER_03: Batman series is about. It's literally about not having a basic standard of policing and allowing criminals to be allowed in criminals to run a city. We've turned into a goddamn comic book. Like, you have to arrest people who commit crimes. And I'm sorry if that hurts your feelings. And one of the things that beat people up. Yeah, you're right.
SPEAKER_05: And one of the things that's like the comic book is the sense of fatalism. You know, it's like everybody knows San Francisco is broken, but nobody thinks they can do anything about it. That's really the tragedy of it. That is the
SPEAKER_03: tragedy. And you know what, if any of us, I've said it before, I'm like, I know exactly how you can stop all these car break ins. You there's a thing called a bait car, you put 10 bait cars out, you put cameras in them. Now that Einstein is spoken,
SPEAKER_01: boys, I love you. I love you all. I miss you all. I can't wait to see again. And for those of you who would like to
SPEAKER_03: advertise on podcast, the advertising rate has been set at $10 million a year for however many episodes we do, I will read the ad at the end of the show if you give $10 million to the charity of chamat picking, which apparently is going to be San Francisco, I think that'll valid point 7% of the budget. Follow Friedberg on the Twitter, follow David Sachs, follow chamat polyopathy. If you like the show, tell your friends and write a review or don't we don't care. We just do this because we like hanging out with each other. We'll see you all. Oh, and if you want to be a guest on the show, we don't accept any guest recommendations for the love of God. I don't know how many people are begging to be on the show. It's there's room enough for four people maybe on a live show bestie guesties. You're not getting your CEO of your whatever company on the show, period. End of story. And I cannot introduce you to chamath to SPAC your company enough of that. Love you besties.
