Hey, everybody, welcome to another. All in podcast. This is an all bestie no guest e episode of all. In the last time you heard from the besties, it was election night and it waas show. Ah, fucking crazy shit show. Let's be honest. E mean we if we go back and look at that historical document, We had moments where we thought Trump was gonna absolutely crush.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 came off pointing out Pennsylvania was going to be big. And then second when we went through the possible scenarios off Who? What what could possibly happen? Ah, big giant Blue Wave Trump winning it all. And then maybe something in the middle. Option three came through and that

was sacks. IPU nailed e Think that was your assumption, Sacks the soft landing s So why don't we just for the people who didn't tune in live Sorry, Jason can ask a question. Sexy, Sexy. Who was that? You're like projection. Or was it from that from that guy who lives in his dad's basement? You my researcher, Newman Newman works for May. Yeah, Newman, Uh, human I worked worked together on those takes, but yeah, the take that we thought 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. Um, 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 dream of total control in Washington. And what the electorate seems to be saying is, they want the parties now toe work together instead of voting for extreme ideology. But TBD sex. I mean, Georgia still up for grabs. They're gonna go after it hard, right? I mean, they filed in Pennsylvania. Yes, I think there's a Siris 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 toe, 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, Uh, Gore only had to overturn one state, which was Florida, whereas Trump has to now contestant overturned three or four states simultaneously. Second, you know Gore was within a few 100

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 Uh oh, are Bush never trailed Gore in in any in any recount. And on day, Trump has that problem that he's never, um and 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, Uh, between a dildo shop in a crematorium. I mean, you can't make this stuff up. I think somebody somebody was tweeting, you know, it's this is perfect because, you know, they were saying they wanted Rudy to fuck often die. So it s so appropriate that this press conference was held between a dildo shop in a crematorium

. So, you know, it's not exactly the a team that Trump's got playing for him here in in the courts. But I mean David Bossie, By the way, David Bossie, who was in charge of the whole thing. David Bossie is not even a lawyer. And then he gets Govind that so he's on the sidelines. E mean, just there's so many angles weaken take here. Um, including the fact that am I correct that okay. Trump's campaign adviser got co vid like the day after or no Mark Meadows, Chief Chief of staff Got it. But David Bossie, who is in charge of this whole recount process, got covert as well. Okay, so I want to just shift us now. Thio 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, uh h S P the hysterical Socialist Party of America

, I think was dealt a deathblow. If you look, this was very close. And so, you know, even if we want to talk about the Electoral College etcetera, these air still very low numbers, I believe if the Pfizer news comes out last week, Trump wins or if any combination of AOC bided AOC, Bernie or Warren were in any way involved in this election process and warrant pushed to the side, the squad was squashed because we knew that if they got any kind of play trump cells into victory. So when we look at what happens going forward and I'll let anyone of the three you take this, what does this say about the hysterical Socialist party? The HSP, the squad, the Bernie Brose? What does this say about them? Well, you

have Ah, you have Ah, look, you have a 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 ah 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? Andi, 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 P Buddha judge must be high fiving. You know, the people in his camp right now because a common, decent, thoughtful, centrist

platform a 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 on, 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 one, or if the extreme left had basically been been validated with a candidate, that one, right? And I would add to that that the proof of that the proof of the electric desired attack towards the center is you look at the down ballot elections. So, you know, in the Senate, the Republicans are still holding onto majority

pending the Florida um, runoff. But the Democrats failed to take out Susan Collins, Thom Tillis, Steve Daines. These were three incumbent Republicans were way behind in the polls heading into Election Day. Uh, they didn't come close to taking out Lindsey Graham or Mitch McConnell. Despite spending. How did Lady G get out of this one alive? Explain that Susan Collins. No, Lady G. Let's see. Oh, I see. You know Lindsey Graham. they said that it was neck and neck and he actually had a winning that state by like, 14 points. It wasn't close. The polls were wildly off. And, um and you saw that across across the board in the house to, uh, Democrats expected to 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. Um, and that and then the Democrats were completely shut out in Texas, which was supposed to be going purple. There are 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 toe, remove both of the or two voted against the extremes of both parties. So friedberg when you look at this, you see, I think an absolute, um just people don't want to deal with Trump anymore. How much of this do you think is trumped arrangement system as a syndrome? And what got Trump into office, eventually taking him out, which is the guy just takes up too much oxygen in the room that's coming from May, and the guy is just incredibly annoying to have to deal with day to day. That's also coming from you. And that's also coming from free. I think we've I think we've been in a rave for four years and everyone's like coming down from the Mali and you're not gonna goto Marilyn Manson concert like right after being in a rave like you wanna go sit in the parking lot

, 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 htp. You wanna go sit the 7 11 parking lot at four in the morning and you wanna like, go get a fucking sweet cappuccino and smoke a cigarette, 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 of it. And so this whole fucking swinging back to the, you know, to the concert across the road sounds Justus bad. It's 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 what I think. I think voters want a presidency they can forget about. You know, I think Trump's, um sort of Achilles heel is. He demanded too much of the voters. Constant time and attention. There was like the psychic cost to it. It obviously antagonized the other side and drove turnout for the Democrats. But But it seems like voters 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 Graham, he said The day after the election, something to the effect of it feels like some background process in my computer had was just killed that was consuming 5% of my CPU, and it z True Mac operating system's spinning Wheel of Death. But it's 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. I think that's a various two point trauma and that what what 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 one 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. E mean, look this by at this rate Biden is going to cure global warming by the end of the look. Um, first off, I think it's a little, um, it is pretty paradoxical that the vaccine news came 48 hours, and it's paradoxical. I mean, that was crazy. I mean

, you know, they're supposed to be in 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 that the Chinese announced that three hours after buying declared president, Pfizer announces that a day after buying declared president, I mean, you know, when Trump went around this the you know, what was campaigning, saying the 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're saying two weeks before the election, it might have changed this thing that might have 100 100% 100% and and this is not something he can go to the courts. It's not like you could go to the courts and get the election recounted, 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. But couldn't the same be said about Hillary's email server? Right, So, like one of the news came out like, Oh, 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 Cove. It 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. On the way they were fast tracking a lot of the testing in a way that wasn't normal for this sort of ah development and it was. It was gonna 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 wanna be like, I think it's 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 the state cross the finish line. It's just the announcement of where we are. So why make that part of the news cycle? You know

, Andi, I think like people learnt their lesson with Hillary's server last time. It's like this one, 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 fighter, exact. I'm just trying to make fucking medicine like I don't want to be on the hook for yet another way winning or losing an election, said another way, Jamaat. Nobody 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 Mammoth, This is If you were running Pfizer, if you were on the board of Pfizer and you have this information and you know it can come out in this two week window at any time, what decision would you make? Sheymov. Well, just imagine that the vaccine was 90% ineffective and it was announced two weeks before the election. Um, you'd have an entire cohort of people saying this was meant to basically sabotaged the election and

in the other direction. So the point is, it's a no win situation. The only answer is to wait until after the election. Um, 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 elections. Well, e I I just think that I don't get the sense that you do agree with that sex. Well, let's put this way. I mean, we know from our time working in large companies that it takes them weeks to even approve. Ah, press release. And so Pfizer had this news weeks ago. Um, now I understand their reason for not wanting to appear to be influencing the outcome of the election. So I I 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 toe. 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 would 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. It's just around the corner. It's China. The corner where round way. All thought it was bullshit. You thought it was bullshit. We thought was bullshit, right? And you know why? We thought it was bullshit? Because Trump Trump does have a tendency towards hyperbole. Hyperbole on 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 gonna be beautiful, beautiful, perfect vaccine and everybody was going to get it, he's paying the price for being, Ah, liar for four years, cried wolf boy who cried wolf well, and so does the media, by the way. But but yeah, look, in order for a piece of news this big to be believed before the election, it can't come from a candidate, and it zits pretty amazing that none of this news got out there through some other source. You would think that some of the people in the health care task force that Trump appointed might have been, you know, surfacing this or paying attention to it. Maybe Pfizer is a really good job of hiding it. I don't know, but it is pretty amazing. That didn't come out sooner. Well, the other. The crazy thing is like, you know, even the fighter 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, uh

, you know, warp speed program. And then two days later, fighter 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, um I'm not sure that Pfizer actually, um, new 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 last week. I'm surprised it didn't leak, To be quite honest, that's the more shocking thing. Which means that, um it was probably something that, uh, very, very, very few people knew about. Well, the CEO, the CEO put out a statement saying that he would be first in line to take the new vaccine, which I thought was, you know, a great statement because a lot of people are questioning whether you know how real it was or how rushed it. Waas. 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, you know, one or two day period between, uh, the

announcement of Joe Biden winning the election and their and their announcement. So, you know, I I just think they had to know weeks ago. I just want to say to my Greek brother Alberto Borle us the CEO Ah, Pfizer. Ah, great Greek who has led to the saving of the world. You papa con, uh, saga Naki is on me if you if you if you take 90% efficacy and you assume at most in the United States 40% of people will take the actual vaccination. You have 36% of the population covered, which is still not enough to get the are not less than one. Is that correct? Freeburg? What do you think? I don't know. I'm not an epidemiologist. I'd have toe Look. I mean, does it sound directionally correct to you that credible in the states are going to take it. I mean, you

don't take it. Isn't this like everyone who's high risk will take it on. As of about two months ago, you know, it was estimated that 30% of people on the East Coast had already developed, uh, immunity due to the syrup prevalence 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 were a 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. Thio, um, 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? How does we each feel about the cove in 19 endgame? When will we see all

schools open? All N b A 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 don't think you ever get there. I mean, it's like we talked about this a couple episodes ago, but it's after 9 11, you know, the TSA emerged, and American travel never went back toe the way it was before. Andi, I think there will be a lot about the way we live. That's gonna 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 gonna be all these weird rules they're gonna pop up. They're gonna last for years, regardless of how much immunization takes place. Regardless of how cheap and available testing is, we're gonna have the scar

for a long time. Um, in terms of how we live as a society, I don't think we should kid ourselves that we're gonna go back to quote unquote normal on Di Do think kids are gonna get tested in schools. They're gonna be like this frigging, you know, almost like TSA is now. You know, kids going to go to school and get tested regularly, and they're gonna do all sorts of stuff that we would have never dreamed imaginable in a free country a year ago. Andi think that's permanent? I think you know, we're gonna You're already seeing people going nuts at bars and restaurants and people that have had it or out there partying and living their life again. Eso There's certainly don't you think if you get the vaccine, 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 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 way we're now kind of inhibited because of the system. She mafia. You agree? Yeah, There'll be a lot fewer is what Dave Chappelle said on Saturday There will be a lot fewer mass shootings. A pandemic is in a great

job of keeping the whites at home. E watched it tells you all you fucking your pasties. Watched it together. All you all you guys got on your mass shooting rampage is you know the whites are at home. They're frustrated, but they're at home. Thank God s. I think that, uh, well, I mean, but let's talk about it. Came off. Does Does 2021 mean can't go back to school 2021 September? No problem. No, I think three burgers, right. I think that the best we'll get back to is sort of this 80% state. And I don't think it happens until probably 2022 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 gonna administer it, by the way it's and 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 to cycles of this thing. Um

, it's not gonna last forever, And it's not gonna last forever. So this is, uh, free burgers, right? It's the beginning of a very different way of living. Um, e 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. Sacks, Do you buy this? Because I get the sense that you might be more optimistic than Freeburg? Yeah. Charm, I guess. I guess I am. I think Cove, it's gonna be a distant memory. By next summer. I think we'll have 1 to 2 quarters of transition. But I think that once the vaccines widely available, plus the treatment of the testings for the people who slipped through the cracks Um, yeah, I I tend to think things were going to snap back very fast. And covert 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. Um, everyone having been cooped up and afraid of getting some life threatening illness, they're going to come out of this really wanting toe party. I think the whole world is gonna be like Tel Aviv for, you know, a few months or something on. Um, yeah. I mean, I really do think it's gonna bounce back, I think to the point politically, where a few years from now people could ask why, Why? Why was it again that Trump lost? You know, um, you know that this covert thing will be it will be so in the rear view mirror that will wonder why we were so afraid of it. I think this is I'm going to go with David's Saxes 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 the little just a 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 we're so incompetent with testing 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 dio. I mean, we basically have two borders were like two thirds of to, 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 assed 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 so low. 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 free birds, 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, of of all burns. Why Waas? Let's shift a bit over to, uh, the economy. What a 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

Sacks 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. Well, I was gonna say gridlock is great for the markets. Um, but both when Bill Clinton was president with a Republican House and when Obama was president and there is a Republican House, and I guess Senate for a period of time, uh, gridlock is great for the markets, especially given the amount of stimulus has 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 co vid I mean those conditions. And then why is gridlock good? We didn't explain that here. Well, because playing to somebody who doesn't understand why gridlock is good. Why gridlock is good. Well, because it creates predictability for business. And it means that Washington is not going to get in the way and do something to screw up the good times. I

mean, 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. What we know historically is over the past 100 years, right since the twenties, independent of Republican administrations or Democratic administrations, you know, more progressive, less progressive, more conservative, less conservative during world wars, not during world wars. Uh, the markets go up 8% a year. So the do no harm solution is that things inflate naturally by 8% especially if those things or 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. Um, 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 Zuma's off 25% over two days or some crazy things like that. Um, 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 toe work, prices will go up on, by the way, that's not such a bad thing for the economy, which which needs a little bit of it. So, um, all of this is, I think, generally very, very good news. Friedberg. Do you have a position on what you think will happen in the coming? Let's let's I would think the midterm is what people care most about. So that would be, Let's call it 2 to 6 quarters. So there's one

potential speed bump still, which is what I mentioned at the beginning, which is Georgia. The Democrats could still win both run offs in Georgia for Senate, and they could because Kamala Harris would then have the breaking vote. Would be a 50 Republican, 50 Democrats, Senate and the vice president Would would break any ties. The question is, if you have that same turnout, where did the Libertarians break? Because I think the Libertarians were almost 2% of the vote. Well, I think yeah, what's interesting is, um, 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 I s o e. I think we're gonna be 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 or $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 there, you know, history, changing policies. In effect, Republicans think it saved the nation time. So everyone's rushing to Georgia right now. Um, so the markets are gonna have a very close eye on what's going on over there. I think I'm you know, I'm very nervous about it. Um, if the Democrats look like they're getting much more money into the state and they're actually gonna get people to the polls and to the voting booths and actually get into this runoff on January 5th and actually flip, get both of those seats to be, uh, to be blue. Uh, it's gonna be a very different market. Environments. You could see the market dropped by 30 40% in the next six we have. We have a situation where it's 48 48. There are two seats up for grabs. Those two seats air in a run off and I want to get into the Let me correct that. Jason. It's 48 50. Yes, the Republicans have a 52 48 advantage with two open seats in the runoff. Actually, sorry

Won. One seat is open. The other. It has an incumbent, Pardue, who's facing gossip. Purdue won in the last election. He got like 49.9% 50. You have to get 50%. You get to this runoff in January. Georgia. The only place that has this, where you have to get to 50 in order to win. It's crazy, so weird, or is this just they want the extra attention? Or who came up with this idea that seems just like you? Crazy? It is. One of the unique things about living in the United States of America is supposed to America. Let's talk about exit polls. Uh, well, this is what's incredible. Here, let me tee this up for you. So in 2020 um, Biden got 80% of the black vote. Trump got six. This is aggregates so we could break this down by men 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 on millennials again. I would have thought 100% Biden it was on. It was 62% Biden. 23% went for Trump, one in four amongst women on again. You know, we thought OK, 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 2090 10 and said it was 53% Biden, 38% trump. So this really waas like something? If we look at this, if we look back on this, the pollsters were

completely wrong in thinking at once again that these groups of people are monolithic, the and then I think the most the most mind boggling to me, and I had a candid discussion about this was the term Latin X is a 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 in tow. One thing. People from Cuba, Venezuela and Mexico all think the same. This is the absolute, you know, endgame 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, so you don't have a degree. You're a GOP hillbilly. Oh, 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 Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela to escape it turns out not to be a great election strategy and Um And so, yeah, it's this This idea that Latin X is is one block. It's not a consists of a bunch of different, um, of immigrants from a bunch of different nations, and the ones who fled socialism are not eager to reenact it in the United States. Um, the Republicans flipped, uh, two house seats in South Florida, where there's a lot of Cuban Americans and even in the the heavily, uh, Mexican

American counties in along the Rio Grande in Texas, uh, Trump improved. Uh, let's see. He looks like he improved, Um, 59 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. And a lot of these groups that seem to defy their you know what, the promoters of identity politics, the way that they wanted them to vote. Um, gay Americans were another one. I think Trump improved his share of the gay vote from 14% in 2016 to 28% um, this year, so I mean, really, it's it's pretty amazing. People are not voting the way that they're supposed to vote. Um, Trump also improved from 12 to 18% with black men and 48% of black women. I mean, those were 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 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 him in a room and said she mouth, I'm gonna judge you as a sweet Duncan vote, I would tell you to go fuck yourself, and I would be deeply offended by that. And this is where I think the radical left is gonna have to retool because their theory of how they take power in America was always that demographics is destiny that, you know, as the country simply becomes more diverse, we're gonna 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 gonna happen. You actually have to run on issues that people care about. Let's think about this in the context of Internet advertising, right? The

world prior to Internet advertising you had, you know, channels on, you would have an audience that was estimated toe 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 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 adds, 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 adviser. Andi 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 the college educated I'm gonna do this and the other is 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 population. They're basically I think it's such a stupid point. Freeburg. They're basically living in the level of granularity network TV. It's like cable TV. It's like they got to cable TV and they're like, OK, B E T ESPN NASCAR And guess what like like the world 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 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 it's also about 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 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, I'm a 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 Republic. E think this is an incredible observation that you might 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, um, two things. One. I've been just thinking deeply about What do I actually understand about Americans in America on Ben? 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 little red pill for a second on. Everybody told me I've been Red Pill now on Twitter and then I'm a Trump fan. I am not. I hate the guy. E think it's horrible, but I did this quick survey here. I said If you voted for Trump, I wanna understand what percentage of your vote

was based on the combination of a cancel culture. Be identity politics. See socialism. De Costa leads telling you how to live. Explain other issues that contributed in a reply. I e. Spending immigration SC the Supreme Court, etcetera. And I just said 0% 1 to 25 26 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 this is what we're fighting over the every single 20% 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 they're just eyes were closed, their ears or closed. They don't care. But when you take those people out, there is this enormous amount of people in the middle who have the ability to vote a split ticket, you know, and as and as a sax, IPU said, like they'll vote a Democrat into the White House. But the 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 centris ity for years. And so if you wanna win an election, you do two things. Part one is you understand this dynamic that centrism, winds and part two is what Freedberg 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 thio individual people and stop the, um you know, the cat, the gross high level categorization which isn't working anymore. Yeah, and and Jason Limit. Can I can I add, um, that the connection between cancel culture and this election? So, you know, obviously the pollsters got everything completely wrong and again, but the reason is because of cancel culture. So in exit polling, 45% of Republicans with college degrees expressed 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 were 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

that Michael Moore, uh, you know, people who turned out for Trump and 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 for a lot of swung from Democrat to Republican. 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 they are every other person everybody listening to this podcast works with and so deal with that one, right? Exactly. Anybody who's not actively virtue. Signaling on Twitter for Biden is a trump voter. Not sure that's exactly correct. But roughly roughly, you know, if people aren't people in tech aren't explicitly endorsing Biden on Twitter, they're probably closet trump voters. 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, um, on both sides, hysterical and trolling trolling Republicans hysterical lives. This has been, ah, loss for both of those parties, and now the pandemic is ending. We're gonna 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 worked on here. Let's not talk about politics. It's just too charged or not. Um, it's going to be a very interesting It's every It's every company. It's every companies, 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 their feet about whether that's OK 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, in fairness, my dog, my dogs, my dog, he's not a coder. He's a Caesar CEO. My dog slamming his herp on the keyboard would have created a better prose in that. But he was coming from a reasonable place. He had the right to say what he said. Um, the problem is that it's so antithetical to what you're allowed to believe, for example, living in San Francisco. Um, 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 gonna happen is there will be room for a party that focuses on that on a group of people. But they will be relegated, just like on the other side. Uh, that will happen to the Republican version of that as well. I just think

this whole thing, too, that this honestly, for me it was It seems like such a tight election it is, but I really think the huge winner here is centrism now 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 dio is have these conversations at work where they could get reported toe where they can offend their coworkers and get reported to HR. Make them canceled safe. They don't wanna have these conversations at work. Certainly, by the way, only 5% of coin bases 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 there, the squeaky ist wheel. I mean, that was a ridiculous deal. I mean, what did he say? Six months and the vest. You made it really attractive to leave. If you didn't agree with his policies, that was that written because I couldn't figure that out

. It was an attractive deal to leave if you wanted to leave, and 95% chose to say, Yeah, I did. I say it was poorly written. I didn't understand it because it was so cool. So anyway, so 1995% stayed. So my point is just the number of people who actually like this highly polarized, politically charged situation, which were all arguing with our friends over politics and Children are divorcing their parents because they're not woke enough. I mean, people don't wanna 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 result in him getting elected is people actually do want this return to normalcy. You know who the biggest loser is going to be coming out of this? I think not. When you think holistically about the ecosystem, it's gonna 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 Mato

January 20th? 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 trumpism or the anti trumpism are now going to find themselves where they started, which is without a job. And we just wanted you to tell us the news and tell us straight there was a great idea of the New York Times. Have an opinion page ripped the opinion page out of The New York Times? Rip it out of the Wall Street. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, I E no, I disagree. I think the opposite happened, 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 e. Nobody could tell the difference. Look at that. Tell the difference. That's right. They can't tell the difference. And look at that expose about how Barry Barry Weiss was run out of

The New York Times. It basically the activists ran her out on. But the reality is activists completely captured The New York Times and CNN and MSNBC, and there is always had Fox and 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, uh, 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. Who did the best job Friedberg that night when we were doing that? Let's reflect on the Livestream. I have two questions for the live stream. Number one. Who was your best tst? Who did you think added the most as a guest? E. On why and then Number two We're do we're doing what we're doing. We're gonna do a poll human Valuable e got a lot of feedback

on the guest. These girly Can I say one more thing on this Brad 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 on Dshea. She just scoop after scoop about Trump. But the most impelling thing about that whole article was somewhere near the, you know, third of the way from the bottom. She's like, Look, uh, 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 Sands Trump. Uh, there's just nothing to dio. There's nothing to leak. There's There just is not nearly as much to do. I did just put in the chat here. The Washington Post, Fox News

, The hill, basically like the full gamut of 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. Z. I mean, it's just access 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 you're aligned. Opinion setting media partner has betrayed you. Um, you know, the fact that Fox called it 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. Um, on I think that Z that's something that's gonna be really hard to kind of recover from and resolve. And for the love of God, can somebody please

get I don't want 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 bestselling book of all timeto watch the New York Times writers bicker with each other Sacks. I mean, we could do 10 hours on that. No problem. Let's talk. Okay. Bestie guesting. Well, guess these. What do you think of our guests? I thought they were all great. I think they're all great. Or we now becoming a media critics were gonna know we owe our podcast audio. You become stable, gazing become so solipsistic. Navel. Jason, Jason, Jason. Once Jason wants to throw em Youth under the bus. Go ahead, Jason. No, no, no, no, no, no. Oh, contraire. Does anyone have a video with

you in this place? And it was not It was not the point guard in this case. Somebody pulled a dream on and pulled Help you decide and said, Stop, You gotta pass the ball. I do think Brad did a great job. He had some great insights. I think Bill Gurley had some great insights, which I think is just a really good job of getting some people to rotate. And I enjoyed it. Yeah, everyone was great. I'll give a shout out toe my best in human. Hey was better. He was better as a political analysts and all those jokers on CNN and Fox and MSNBC. The dude with the map. And he kept touching the map. Yeah, E gets paid to do that. I can't believe he gets paid to do that. I'm gonna get my daughter. She could do that when I die on CNN. Who does that? John John King. John King. God bless this guy because I don't know how much Adderall he's on. But I turned it on at eight AM and he was zooming into Pennsylvania. And he's like

, Well, of course, in 2018, this I'm 2016. He's like, Let's zoom out. Let's go back to Arizona. Of course, in Arizona, this place I was like Is this guy, a geography teacher. I mean, he was amazing and just the dexterity. Hey, looked like he was Tom Cruise in Minority Report with the finger. I don't know if I call him Tom Cruise when it looked like Tom Cruise, but the minority report pinch and zoom in and out, it was incredible. When when does Trump called this thing? That's a great question. Well, I think he has toe run out thes court challenges, which will take a few weeks, but I predict by Thanksgiving, but it may 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 really against him or throwing it out the point Well, because why shouldn't he exhausted? He's not gonna win? Well, I don't I don't know that he knows that. He I think it's his right to exhaust

every 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. Um, it's a marketing exercise. I don't think he's going to come up with enough malfeasance toe 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, um, you know, examples of voter fraud or what have you? He will 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 Cove it 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 gonna have enough arguments where if he wants to run four years from now, um, I think he probably gets the Republican nomination again. What's the percentage chance cha meth that he runs again in four years. Zero Freeburg from Yeah, he's gonna be making so much money is not gonna know what to do with him. So he's not going back to that fucking tortures torture house. He didn't think about the White House like some terrible Blumhouse production movie. Said he's like, Fuck that. I'm not going back there. It was awful. Where is he? Where is he going to get China? He's going to Shanghai. Is he going to? He's gonna launch your New York. He's gonna by a law firm because you're gonna need a law firm to keep everyone obey. And he's gonna be probably printed 100 million bucks a month, you know, put it at Dubai, Saudi Arabia E. I think he's definitely gonna launch of media business and he'll he'll try to become kingmaker. I think I think he will become a kingmaker. Republican politics. He will launch a competitive 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 primary by the Trump Party. And I would not put it more. I could not disagree more. I think he's a disgrace. I think he will be. I think what David said. He's going to come, not you, David. I'm talking about Trump. I think David's incredible. Uh, no. I think the stuff that comes out after this, the day luge, the number of S. D. N. Y. Suits, all the grift and the graft. It's all coming out. Not only is he not going to be a King maker, he will not be able to get the backing for this network. It'll be Breitbart's light and will 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 they

will they? 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 2024 is Donald Trump Jr. 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 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, there will be a smooth transition to a second trump administration. All right, we're ready. The world is watching what's taking place here. We're gonna count all the votes. When the process is complete, they'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 20th, a minute afternoon will also be successful. Can I can I just say I don't disagree with the position they're taking? It's not immoral. It's customary and traditional Thio concede your election, but you know December 15th is the date that Congress ratifies the electoral votes to determine who the next president is going to be. Um, and these guys are just taking ah, 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 gonna win or 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 state's tell them who their electoral votes are going. Thio 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 thes guys, I'm 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 that the fringes of the Republican Party, this is what you keep all these militia folks and all these other folks at bay is just you show a really methodical um you know, stepping away from the spotlight. And I think that this is you know, honestly, it's This is a very deliberate, safe, calming thing to do because I think there's there's been nothing about the Trump 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 concede, like the way that we've been doing it. It would be worse if we worse if he had conceded in all of a sudden, was holding a bunch of protests and rallies all over the country that but he's not doing anything illegal. No one has any legal requirement to concede. And, you know, and I think as long as these guys on December 15th, 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, um 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 transition in the government. But sorry, I think I think this is about saving face and saving brand of sacks. IPU said he'll he'll be out by December 15th, meaning it'll this will 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 will play out over the next few weeks. I expect that the obstacles he has to overcome are too large, and 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. Uh, they're one of the last institutions that still trusted clearly the media or 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. Is there a non zero chance that he could win on a recount? He would have to prove systemic fraud because it's not like Florida, where there's just

one state and a few 100 votes. He's gotta overcome over 12,000 votes in at least three states. So that's the issue is, is it percent on its sex? If you had to lay money on it? Oh, I mean, it's like some 10% chance, I think sub 10% chance one in 10. You'd give 10 to 1 odds. No, I'm saying it's under 10%. I'm saying it's a very small change. Well, here's the thing. So Bush v. Gore, the Supreme Court ruled 7 to 2. I mean, you would have thought it was 9 to 0 eso Clearly, there was some sympathizers in Bush v. Gore. So hopefully you know, it's something like 7 to 2 and you know, we move on, I believe in. If it gets this report, it will be at least 7 to 2, if not a one or 90 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 that you know. But but 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, but I just don't know how he does that. He has to prove some sort of systemic fraud that took place across the nation. That and look, I think from a 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's 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 gotta be some crazy Trump supporter who has 10 ballots they signed, and there'll be some crazy liberal

who did this in the nuances that out. The nuanced issue is whether they could do a constitutionally valid recount by you know, the time necessary as well. So the longer that this lays 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 a zweiri rap here, San Francisco's uh, continues to devolve revenue down 40%. In terms of taxes, budget is double what it's been, uh, just a few years ago. Crime is going crazy. Wal Mart is closing their stores and leaving because of Walgreens. I'm sorry, Walgreens. We don't have a Walmart here on Day 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, 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 lefts version. And there's been a bunch of cities that have already been the examples of the rights version. So you know what? Apparently the water is warm and they want to join anybody else. E. I can't I can't find a lot to disagree with their I think San Francisco we're basically an Atlas shrugged. I mean, tha the, uh, you know, half the storefronts are closed. Their boarded up, uh, 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, uh, increasingly violent crimes. Um, the you know, the city is about to go bankrupt and the entrepreneurs air all disappearing. They're all leaving. I mean, it's right out of Atlas shrugged. Yeah. I mean, it's It's

the, uh The action is the wrong action, right? So San Francisco, the biggest disappointment of election night for me was the new business taxes that were passed, Um, for San Francisco businesses. Um, And there was also this, like, um, for 99.9999999% 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 and investor or a CEO of a company in San Francisco and you know it's like a slap in the face, um, 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 heads. This 6% is on leaving or buying transaction when you sell so literally 6% off the top when you sell a home. The city basically just took 6% of my third city just took 6% of my house. Now

they're now part owner of my house. Yeah, it's in a state tax. And so there are people like they're people in San Francisco who we all know. How much warning did you have before they took your none Bedroom e mean there's a London breed. Put some people in taxes. They're 13 bedroom on the third floor on there. They're all living there right now. But it's okay. I got like wings I don't even know about. It's like it's like Richie Rich's house or something. So look, no, nobody cries. Nobody cries for super rich people. And, you know, it's a short sighted is the point right? Right? Exactly. I'm not complaining about the taxes on me, but it's going to do tremendous damage to the city. People are not gonna want to move here on. Yeah, I Look, I've built businesses in San Francisco since 2000 and six, and I will not build another business in San Francisco. Andi, I hear the same from other entrepreneurs. If you're gonna build a business, do it in the South Bay, doing in the East Bay doing the North Bay or doing in Austin or L A. 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 gonna buy expensive homes anymore. And we are seeing a budget crisis. San Francisco, I think, is looking at a $1.722 billion budget shortfall this year. I mean, like, you gotta come from, you know, 800,000. And we have And that there was that expose in this Francisco 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. Um, and this is where Okay, look, I'd be happy toe 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. Uh, way have a fiscal crisis, fiscal crisis. And we have a livability crisis that I think is even worse, Um, and that that that's a huge problem. And let's be frank. San Francisco was always theatrics. Ident. 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 company's. It was in San Francisco policies or politics that created any of that. It just so happens that Silicon Valley got big enough. It started around Stanford. I got big enough that San Francisco, as the nearest metropolitan area, really was the beneficiary of that and and, you know, because they never really did anything to create the conditions for that prosperity. Frankly, they took it for granted, and now that the drugs been pulled out from under them, I don't think they're really going to know what to do. Local local San Francisco politicians treated Silicon Valley success as a grab bag and uber set up here

and Twitter and Square and Salesforce and, um, San Francisco politicians put their hand in the honey jar and took a much as they could. And, um, it's now backfiring because new businesses don't want to set up here. Entrepreneurs don't want to operate here, and a sax is pointing out. The You know, 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 ha ha! 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 you know Bond is gonna get defaulted on on. But the same time you're gonna have this mass exodus of people and businesses on DIT is a It is a very kind of unwinding. Not right now. Eso it's a It's a scary moment. I don't think is a really great answer for for what you. It's more nuanced, but I think I think it will happen. Mark my

words. San Francisco will file for bankruptcy in the next 10 years. E. Pelosi. You know, Pelosi held out a major city filing for maybe 15, maybe 15 years. But remember, a big part of what Pelosi held out on the big thing she held out on in the 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 May 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 in these states. Um, if they're going to continue to operate the way they are because it Z needs to break in order to well, you need to cut budget. I mean, any of us running a business. No, 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. A big papa in D. C and asking for more money. Well, Masayoshi, son, maybe ho, he consider coming in and maybe back. Maybe we Oh

, really? I'm fine. I'm gonna SPAC San Francisco bax ca Masayoshi sought to the secondary and then we owe Francisco. Listen, I think trauma trauma is right about 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, you know, think I'm too conservative, but, you know, try mouth is pretty liberal and, um, you know, he he makes the right point. And, you know, we cannot have ah 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 power corrupts absolute power. Corrupts absolutely. As you've as you've said many times, that's true. That's yeah. Lord Acton said that Well, this is literally what the dark knight Batman Syria's is about. It's literally about

not having a basic standard of policing and allowing criminals to run a city. We've turned into a goddamn comic book like you have to arrest people who commit crimes. And don't worry if that hurts your feelings on one of the things that people up your right 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 tragedy. And you know what? If any of us I've said it before, I'm like, I know exactly how you could stop all these car break ins. There's a thing called the bait car. You put 10 bay cars out, you put cameras in them. Now that Einstein is spoken, Boys, I love you. I love you all. E u all I'm going to see again. And, uh, for those of you who would like to advertise on, uh, podcast, the advertising rate has been set at $10 million a year for however many

episodes we we dio I will read the at at the end of the show. If you give $10 million to the charity of tomatoes picking, which apparently is gonna be San Francisco, that ballot point 7% of the budget follow Friedberg on the Twitter follow David Sacks followed small Palihapitiya. If you like to 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 know. And if you want to be a guest on the show, we don't accept any guest recommendations. For the love of God, stop asking E 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 guest. He's You're not getting your CEO of your whatever company on the show, period. End of story and I cannot introduce you to come off to SPAC your company. Enough of that, love you besties.