E100: Reflecting on the first 100 shows, fan questions, nuclear threat, markets, Amazon & more
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J out.

Give of interros today. No, I don't have time for interest.

Oh, come on.

Oh, I fine. He started as a with no followers on twitter. Now isn't there that gets recognized when leave in the shade?

He turned water into wine. He just was to please us now he's a mixture of committee frog and a science nair jesus. He's the man with the stands, the queen of kinda, the sulton of science, the prints of prozac, lord of lexapro.

He gets stops for self fees all over town. My producer fey gave A A mental breakdown resulting of zoo mr. R. D. freebies.

It's true. I didn't give .

me a breakfast. You're over now. You just named drop three S S, R. eyes. That was incredible.

Well, I talk to his, I talk to his psychiatric, said he's working on the cocktail.

Yeah, save them for me.

Oh, you speaking of you, he's got very quick wit and impeccable grammar known for a building beautiful products that he used to invest, a now brigade of ukraine bots he spending so much time in his bunk er is starting to get smelly. We see them only three times a week, all in tucker and Megan Kelly to invest in your start up if you had the neck. But right now, he needs that cash for his G O, P.

Super pack, the world's biggest saul, the rain man himself. mr. Davis x.

that's a repeat joke. That's not.

I know, but IT kills every time, so i'm going to keep repeating. And so you stop loving his warder of cross so much. He can't get into a scuffle.

He bought all his friends with his right truffles. He scaled facebook to a beauty that why in collection, it's just fuck and silly. He's on the world tour meeting with princess and kings.

Is he talking luxury sweaters or maybe bigger things? The dict himself? Chali happier. I was really .

nice actually. Wow, I mean.

I appreciate .

obvious trying to get invited to dinner to i'm trying to get off the alternate alternatives.

He's trying to get off the alternative that the email was harsh. Nine was alternate.

alternate. I know I have a seat. As for me on the world's greatest moderator who can take a note compared to these guys, i'm just a millionaire who's broke.

He all in summer almost killed us. But we came back from that store. I knew we peaked when freeburg took over the dance floor.

We love the fans, but we love each other more. Thanks for the first one hundred fellows here. Two.

one hundred more, really good. That's really.

really good. Look at you. Touching.

surprisingly, came prepared today.

First time he found after a hundred emersons, he finally figured out he .

had to prepare. So that was the note. Just prepare.

Do your .

job to do your b do your .

b do your job.

Hear so .

good. D sex is that you got a big care package from moncler.

Yeah, that's true.

What what I think we're all going to declare today is that we all want to wet our beak. And if moncler sends each of us a care package, we will all wear moncler epo .

de hundred and brand.

you decided.

Moscot Laura, piano, I got my clear. You go get like, you know, I saw or something. I, I actually I got, I said to you this, I.

I, I got get .

kids for J, K, L, except you don't declare your mom clear gift package by now. And that was a discovery we made this weekend.

So I want to think, I want to think the folks that there's a company called. And they sent me this give actually this hoody this month are hoody.

which I never what this plug you. They send you a hood for twelve hundred dollars.

and they get fifty thousand. There are seven of the things that I bring you guys each a shirt from month lair short.

you have award speak. These guys are getting hundreds of thousands of dollars of revenue.

yeah. How bad is your portfolio that you're griffe? Did you put this one Clair stuff on you .

like ebay if you got IT I was already wearing and they sent .

me more so know where this food .

is pretty ool. What can I say? I'm not at okay? You just send my package to let up.

There's no upgrade that's gonna put you fuck.

i'm to bring guys .

month per game .

tonight. Ys, even flat weet party.

And there is A A blue Angels party. And there is someone there who started to telling me, like, did you hear that to the many?

There was a little. But it's to this. We were .

talking about the podcast percent.

IT was away hundred percent.

No, no. Wasn't what? No one person was a jeff.

No, what what my friends was in the manager and he saw this like care package from on care. And he really admired this like jacket. IT was like a puffer jacket, but with like wool sleeves .

or something.

I so you gave to him and I gave IT he you like .

to so much like like here you nick so he .

was walking around with he was really, if so, maybe he said something.

Well, I let's just say there was a lot of conversations going on about your care packet sacks.

Well, and IT makes us wonder sacks, are there other care packages that have come in? And have you been promoting .

other stuff on here?

Who makes the couch to pay for over the past year?

A percent?

I would never, I would never .

accept IT for free. It's it's way.

Note, all joking, decide it's hard if you're running a clothing business, especially if you're like a small niche provider stuff. So have responsibility to pay for this stuff, not to griff together .

for I when I was at the european store on fifty seven treat manhattan, the eighteen thousand for foot store, I was taking the same thing. These poor people, how do they survive? Rpd red may be there .

beyond gh rears freedoms .

g exploiting poor baby goats.

what whatever. I mean.

the fact is the markets down this gna be a little drifting on the margins. It's understandable.

We open sources to the fans .

and just got. Free berg, he loves to produce every seventeen. The episode does a great job.

I know I like to prepare, or at least know what the we're going to talk .

about when we get together. He .

got this.

all right. So first up on a freeburg curiousness. This is freeway.

This is how you're gonna do IT .

let's get that OK. So go, go, go. Why do you think china people love the pocket?

Why do you think they listen? Why do you think they love IT? What what is the the phenomenon? What lightning has been captured .

in this bottle first is I think that they appreciate our friendship. It's kind of like odd and quirky. And I think a lot of, you know, IT maps to like relationships that they have among gs their own friends.

So that's what makes IT relatable. But the second is that all of us uniquely have a point of view about stuff that matters more and more in the world. I think that's just the basic of IT, like it's not like technologies is going away and it's not like its impact in the world is going away. And the more becomes mainstream, the more is important for a lot of folks to understand what's happening. And I think we provide a pretty unfiltered view of IT, and we do IT where and this is a lot of credit to sex more than anyone else on the show, has to take a counterpoint and man, what would otherwise be controversial views, and if he didn't have his three friends around them, that would make the pod meaningful ly worse, I think.

Can you fact for people who don't know what steal manning is, what that means?

That just means like to tap intellectual honesty around a point of view and actually put your best foot foreign trying to explain IT even when it's not worth dox, even when it's not what the mainstream would say is right? And so what IT actually does this create a contrast against every other alternative that you have to learn about things which you find incrementally is biased? And I think that's what we gotten, right? We are four friends that have a reasonable point of view rooted in some amount of success. And I think that that's important because he gives us credibility and we take all sides of issues yeah and often times IT is not the obvious simple reductive answer and I think that that's where um IT really shines just what people know about the steel man .

arment sure people that I think most people referred to IT as the act of presenting the other argument in the strong this way possible to be intellection honest.

like obvious actually because the way the debate happens on twitter and so forth is it's almost like the intellectual debate is being attacked. Uh, using opposition research tactics like a are political campaigns.

In other words, they go back through anything you might have said or written, take the the the thing that was most wrong or at least justifiable or the thing they can even just take out a context and then we'll try to make IT about that as opposed to the argument you're actually making. And we do see this tactic over and over again. And it's not an intellectually rigorous way of having a debate about something.

You don't learn anything, right? And deep down inside you know that it's contrived and that is the inner nut ell. So IT IT, almost in many ways, has less to do with how good we are, but Frankly, how bad all the alternatives are.

So even if you wanted to learn about tech and you go up and you sign up for these a news letters, or if you look at some of these tax sites, they're really terrible. And they have done an increasingly terrible job over the last five years in telling the most important things, the truth and everything in between. And so if you can find the source for an hour a week, that is trying to tell you how basically the world is going to come together in a really integrated, multifaceted.

It's not like we're right and it's not like we know Better than other people. In fact, many times a lot of criticism I get is how dare you talk about x or how dare you talk about why? Because IT makes people who are experts that feel, you know, feel like how dare you come into my rem and even have an opinion on, uh, what russian politics was like in the one hundred and eighties.

And those things really annoy these folks because they feel that those opinions, that knowledge, should be cordoned off and held tightly as a secret that only they are allowed to talk about into the world. And this is the point where, with the internet, all this knowledge is accessible. So the value of that knowledge, in my opinion, is the least it's ever been.

It's the interpretation that's valuable and is the ability to actually like think narratively around how all these things connect. And this is why I gave a lot of credit. I think you guys doing incredible job.

I think the way free brook things is super unique. I think the way the saxes thinks is unique. I think jicks out your courage to basically fight back is very special.

All of IT together is a really unique recipe. IT works. And what I will tell you consistently is the number of people that listen to this of import and influence.

I am constantly shocked. And if you are not sure of IT, you need to get out of this stupid little echo chAmber of silicon valley, go to new york, go around the world. And if you're in the right meetings, it's incredible how folks are getting educated using this pott.

And I think that's that's really amazing. Yeah, I think I I think there's like in a tendency in like what we call media today historically kind of you communication among humans IT IT was very slow for a communication cycle to go from beginning to end to closed because we had print and books and then telegraphs and and telephones and the television and radio and the internet, I think, has really changed the cycle, the loop cycle, to the point that you know a story. I iterative and deliberates very quickly.

A lot of people talk about the new cycle being very short nowadays. What that means is that there is a group think approach to resolving to a point of view on what the news is. So the news comes out, everyone in erratic tes on IT, they form their point of view, and all the sudden everyone's on the same point of view.

And so there is no room for decent or debate or discussion because the cycle clothes so quickly and everyone coa lessons around the same point of view. And nowadays, I think we see not just that unipolar behavior, but we see this bipolar behavior, where everyone coal lesson on their point of view, and how their point of view is, is the opposite of the other side. And everyone has their own heroism for what the other side is.

There is this popular in verses, a leaders and sighting. There's this red versus blue sighting. There's this us versus them citing, U S versus china, citing.

Everything is now bipolar. And so you very quickly go less around what your poll says and what your poll is instructing you to believe. And that is what is fundamentally wrong with how the system is working today.

And I think what people find refreshing about a discourse that doesn't the calm to that by polarity as a standard is that IT provides people the ability to have a real rational, out of sink point of view that maybe changes one's point of view and changes one's mind in a meaningful way. And I think that's what's really missing today. And I think maybe sometimes we do a good job and we touch on that. So that's what I would strive to do, is to always trying to avoid that bipolar on everything. You know the zambo is called a dealer isc thinking, you know the human brain and generally the universe seems to evolve into this kind of dealers on everything. And it's not really always the case that there are shades of grey, that there um is nuances, uh, that there is a complex, a dimensionality to things that I think people really, if they take the time to understand, recognize that maybe it's not left and right, maybe it's not elite and popular m, maybe it's not all black and White and that's an important hopefully framing that maybe we can bring bring, bring to light through through our diagnosis of what's going on and things right now.

Yeah, I like that to that. I think there there's a ton of great journalism going out there. We see IT um there's a ton of great subsets after their people go deeper.

There's all the great podcast out there. And right now, it's a tumultuous time for media journalism and and getting information. And what trust what sources do we actually trust who actually is thinking in a crip way and informing people.

And you, having been a former journalist, when we were journalists, we knew that we would get ten, twenty, thirty, forty percent of a story. We would publish IT, and we will try our best. But journalism is changed dramatically in the last twenty years.

And I can tell you, nala dead. Sorry.

some great journalism occurring. It's on the margins. It's irrelevant.

And i'll tell you why, because the facts are known instantaneously on twitter and through the internet. We don't need people to relate. You need people to wrap facts in context and allow us to come to our own conclusions.

That's why I think journalism isn't what I used to be. That's why people who are historically journalists struggle, because now they actually have to create context and narrative and have an opinion. But when you publish that into the wall street journal over the new york times, IT becomes very confusing.

They don't know that that's what they were supposed to do. That's not what they used to do. Not how few surprises were were historically given out. And that's why everybody then, you know.

rance and rails things going. If if you look at IT as journalists, people don't know this, but journalists are being compensated. The little salaries in many cases are based on their follow accounts.

They're based on what audience they are bringing to the table. And you see this in subsection. Subsection just said, we're gona hire the top journalists on who have the most followers on twitter.

But you have to change the words so that you change how people think about. These people are not journalists. These people are opinion makers.

okay? In some cases, they are doing journalism in some cases. And no, no, there are some cases where they're actually doing real journalism from.

There are people doing investigative reporting still. It's not the majority of what you see, but it's still exist if it's just a very much more a percentage. But putting that aside, if you think about can A P virtuous .

blanket around every one thousand people because of the acts of one.

i'm not and i'm not I said there is a range here. It's a small percentage. But what do you think of something?

What do you think that percentage.

Content creation, I put to five percent. No, no.

it's less than one.

And let me finish this one. But here know if you are gone to be hired and compensated. And we we talk about systems here a lot.

So just think you from first principles, if you're a journalist, if you're a rider opinion writer, whatever you produce content for a wall street journal for pocket tic today, let this sink in your follow account is what your book advances, is what your compensation is. It's who hire you. Now if that's the truth and it's it's not all the time.

but I think this point at that, your job is not to .

we can get actly. And so then what happens is how is follow account on twitter actually drives? How do you get that follow count by being trial? And so what happened is journalists became tribal.

They get big followings, they give spicy takes, they pick aside, and then their follows IT. And that's why new york, that can we all stop on twitter, and they really put needed. Then you look at this podcast, I think people look at all says, you know, in their mixture, podcasting, long, foreign, taking the time week after week to spend ninety minutes chopping these things up.

I think that's what, to the original question, freeze g you had is what people find so great. I I when people ask me, I say it's really about the fact that there's there's a friendships here and it's funny, but it's also informative and it's insights. And at times, as you pointed out to math, you know random x of bravery and taking positions that are not popular and .

and to think that you and freeburg almost bw this up over a few hundred? K I didn't know. Yeah, no, the equal icy.

the bad.

Feelings .

already .

get for many words we involve during the pot just a time.

And on this point, I mean, I think i'm in violent agreement with you guys, but I frame a little differently. I think the reason why people seek out our podcast and other podcast and sub stacks is and sort of this kind of independent journalism and are win to pay for, is because the mainstream media has become totally devoid of substance. It's as partisan and in ideology as it's ever been.

Reporters are an extremely ideological. You look at the new york times, the washing post the year, major television networks is all kind of the same thing. And yeah, there is like a little bit of an echo chAmber problem in terms of the partisan politics, but the mainstream media is the most ideal giza ever been.

I mean, just to give you one small example that we talked on the pod, the we had two quarters of negative GDP growth, which the media has always consider to be the definitive recession. And then all the sudden, they said, no, we can't know what a recession is anymore because they know that be a horribile headline for biden right before the metro elections. That's more of a parzon version.

I think on the a more idio logical version would be just around the war. I mean, is just incredible how BIOS the cover is. They don't even present the other side of the story like this called the mere shemmy take about how we got to this point that we're in.

So the american people just aren't being informed at all. You know, we love to talk about how the people of all these other countries are being propaganda ized by their governments. We never talk about how propagandized american people are.

The media does not present the other side of the story at all on how we got into the ukraine war and how we're now at the brink of what biden calls arma. Get in. So how we get out of IT, how we going to get out of IT?

Any topic, by the way, I so many topics that we see, you know, effectively short form and short form, meaning IT can be presented in a sound by or on a tiktok clip or in a couple paragraphs where someone's attention span before someone's attention span labs is out, always misses the dimensionality that got us to that point. And so there's one perspective, one point of view on one dimension.

And the dimension, like sex is talking about about the time and the history of the dynamics of all the countries and all the people, and all the interactions that have happened for the past couple of decades that LED up to this moment. But then this moment is take IT in its context alone, and replay sized as being something that is good verses evil. IT completely misses the entire storyline of what happened.

It's like going to the end of a fairy tale and saying, here's this moment of what happened. And all the build up and all the things that occurred are often missing. And all the different sides of the story are missing.

And I think that that's really what makes is so difficult today to feel like you can trust authority and that you can trust the the the media that presented to you as a consumer, not just in the U. S. Or in the west, but around the world because there's so much that's left out and manipulated and kept away.

And what people are waking up to is the fact as to mark points up. But so much of that information, the direct information, is available now. And so this investigation, the ability to uncover the data and the story lines and the perspectives that are typically missing from one form of media, is making people realized that there is so much that being left out the line.

one hundred percent, hundred percent. And I think, in this part.

really shocking to people nowaday. And I think that's what makes maybe to some degree, the position of P.

I D drop to you a second their sex. But I did see this happen in three specific topics that we discuss here. Uh, if you remember, we talked about abortion and we were on that topic very early and no one wanted to talk.

I remember when we started talking about the number weeks, maybe how europe looks at this, that wasn't in part of the popular conversation. That was always just, are you against choice? Are you for killing babies? IT was like a very two dimensional look at IT immigration.

Same thing. Nobody would talk about the numbers. Nobody talked about recruit. Nobody talked about the point systems used in other countries. IT was almost like those basic things were not allowed to be discussed. Why can't the media discuss those new answers and freedom of speeches? I think the biggest one, and the search for truth, you know, nobody wants to talk about the fact that the a you used to actually protect unpopular speech and unpopular speeches is, you know, the hardest thing in the world to protect IT.

How did that become something we can even talk about now? right? And and just the snap, uh, silencing of any opinion, whether it's shaped or you know pick pick a topic freedom of speech trump c center a you know who gets protection for freedom speech? We'll talk about that later on the news with alex Jones, obviously a very, very h .

controversial topic as well. good. You think ukraine uses an example of the biggest power is the power to define when time begins on an issue.

So serve well like right with ukraine. We're part of an inspired spiral that's been going on for well, more than nine months. This issue been going .

on sense two thousand .

decay over a decade. So another words, if you come in in like the seventh inning OK, so to free point, you you come in at the end of the story and it's been an escalating spiral. But the media just pretends like time begins on february twenty fourth, of course, you're going to have a certain kind of view on the subject.

Whereas if you know the history of the situation, if you know that back in the nineteen, nineteen nineties, you had people like George kennan, who was architect of our cold war containment policy, you had Williams, Jerry, he was bilkins ins. Defense secretary, you had enry, kissinger's, you had to, mr. Shammy, all warn that bring nado right up to russia from porch was extremely provocative to them, that they would see that as a provocation that would eventually lead to a moment of crisis.

When the moment of crisis finally came. We we're not told that this was predicted. We're told that anyone who says that this war has anything to do with nato expansion is basically a putting apologist and the spelling putin talking points.

All right, let's save some enough. The ukraine talk we're going to talk about in .

the new is nobody agree or disagree with that take. But the point is the media does even portray IT.

They really just pick aside. And I think I like your analogy of like just coming in for the last fifteen minutes of the game and just describing that you need to have a deeper discussion of how did we get here? How did we get here on immigration?

Why don't we have a point system? Why do we look at people suddenly coming from south of the border differently than we did just twenty years ago? How did that become a politicize issue? What's the right solution here? Especially if we can hire people for basic jobs in the united states? Everybody wants to know this question.

What would you you have a favorite moment, or at least favor of a great moment in the show history and and then I guess one move on maybe to some audience questions here. But let's let's get this one who's an embarrassing moment, your favorite moment, your least favorite moment of a moment. Now you look back on and particularly .

of I think I think that they are a unbelievably human and funy and Normalizing, they are by far the best part of the pod in my and yeah so that's my that's my absolute a favorite part by by, like miles. And miles .

actually got a favorite moment, other than ukraine, other than ukraine. I know you got ukraine on the brain.

probably when you started talking about joe pesci. The joe peachy voice .

doit on command of that, your mother sex. Don't you talk to me like that? I gna fuck IT bad at IT. I seriously have any other favorite moments or things you're particularly proud of, things that people tell you, you know, hey, I love what? I love this part of the show.

I'm also proud that we, we were able to air a dirty laundry little bit in public and still get over ourselves and our own egos. And we're still here that think that takes a lot of courage and a little bit of a little bit maturity that that's not in uh, public visibility all the time in the media.

I like I like that sentiment a lot. I think there's a lot of people they were uncomfortable about. IT I think is a lot of personal worth that's going on here um for all of everybody invoked in a free bird you got a favorite moment .

other I like you when you and sex fight that's that you .

at least every moment and .

I turned I turned my headphones off and I like to some email ing .

IT really is IT really is just as political thing but yeah does come up I don't like .

the that all the moment like that just happened five seconds ago. Like, you know, those are .

usually prety tough.

What I what I did enjoy, I did enjoy meeting people at the summit who shared that this has been like a really important thing for them to listen to. I think I was at a pizz coffee in the city and some guy came up to me. This was one early after early when we were doing the podcast and he was like, listening to you guys has really helped to me get through of IT. And he was like, locked in his apartment and he have a lot of friends, and he would have a lot of people to talk with.

And just being able to hear through, you know, kind of a good conversation around, once this going to end covered gonna, you know, what's going to change in the city? And hearing our friendship really made a big difference for him and IT was actually really interesting that was off the show but IT made me realized that the show actually is impactful and helpful and may gave me kind of the energy to keep going even though i've had h frustrations um in the past. So I don't know.

I like I like those moments a lot, to be honest, that there's real value here for people. I also I thought the summer was a lot of fun. I mean.

I had to get up, but you know it's I i'd think we're staring towards I think we're stirring towards summer twenty, twenty three.

I was me starting the part a little bit. I think one done. I, I, I as far as i'm concerned.

you do IT you produce IT or you you higher producer all show. You I don't need to make a product surfy. You can do IT, you can take the production fy.

whatever is our guys. I got a couple of questions here from the audience. You guys, uh, see this list you. Thank you. So here's a question um we got IT over email from Nathan and Nathan said we know the reasons uh the reason you guys started the pod. What is the motivation of each best day to continue doing IT every week?

Now I asked .

myself that every week that x is therapy. He was derby. And I just thinking about .

taking a break, not because I don't like doing IT, but that is time consuming, and I do want time to get back to doing some business writing. I was on a pretty good track to publish a book about before we start doing the pod. I'd written a lot of business box .

and taking a break. You how many .

weeks for .

ten weeks where you .

thinking about something? Yeah.

four weeks.

Doing jumping jacks in his backers and put me in the game.

Well, we could do that. I mean, i've got like five half and business blocks in my harper that I really want to finish. And so I don't know the show .

does take a lot of cognitive energies.

What you're saying. IT takes a lot of those cycles. I mean, as you guys note the tapes only a couple hours, but then is keeping track of all the issues. And then if from preparing takes for this pod, I also turned on .

those takes into articles .

new week or the american, whatever, and read, responding and tweet takes as i'm coming up with them.

My point, which I think the load for sex because he is the most heterodox, is the heaven est. And this is like poorly. It's easy to just basically be on the side of the current conventional wisdom or do not have an opinion and to talk about things that gal. But David is consistently the one that weighs into the middle, the ocean and IT is I I I can understand why, you know, because he has to be more prepared than the rest of us, because he is more open to .

the attack for all of these .

nettes witter I, the cancer of people who comment on twitter is the following. They suffer from the worst kind of cancer, which is a lack of belief in themselves. And so what they do is they point to other people and try to convince yet more people to not believe in them.

But that has nothing to do with anything. It's just misdirection from their core problem, which is they don't believe in themselves. And so, you know, David has to fight all of itself off, but he has to fight IT off of logic, which must be exhAusting.

You know, my approaches has been to turn off, do not start. This is the single biggest problem, I think, that social media is, it's at this heighten point. Where is this violent strain of a lack of belief in oneself that manifested is hatred that you direct anybody else that believes?

Interesting.

interesting theory. Yeah I would just just to add to that. You know it's not like I haven't heard any the arguments that they're making.

I guarantee you they have not heard the arguments i'm making, but but I ve heard all the arguments are making. I'm totally familiar with one thousand nine hundred thirty eight munich chAmbers in all this kind of stuff. I just don't think that is the correct understanding what's happening right now.

I think the correct to circle knowledge is either in one thousand nine hundred fourteen with one or one and the blank jc guarantee or is thousand nine hundred sixty two the cuban missile crisis? The people on the other side generally don't understand that they are just kind of part of this, like twitter mob who's buying into the current thing and whatever they're told by the media. So IT IT is little bit haul.

I think that that's where people don't know know you. When this thing got very popular, the two or three days after an episode comes out becomes your tax, your email, your dms and your replies become filled.

Especially again, I I would encourage to keep doing this thing and just to turn off comments and don't come back. IT is hard for the first few weeks, and then you realize ninety nine percent of people who come and have nothing important or useful or interesting to say, like zero, like negative zero, and again, that there is like ninety nine point nine nine nine percent of the world that just reads your content and couldn't even care about their comments.

yes.

And I I would focus on what gnp would .

make IT .

less exhAusting, but I would .

still be time consuming. There is a bunch of business box I want to get done.

So I mean, instead you take two weeks off. You come back and see how you feel. I mean, you can do IT week by week too. I mean, you take one week off and see.

I think .

thank you here.

great.

Great question from Nathan.

Thank you for your participation, Nathan. Next question, I actually like this one. I'm to pull IT out. It's a email question from one t OK. Want to. I want a bill girly recently put out a piece explaining how this might be as good a time as in a decade to build a company. How are you guys seeing your own portfolio companies trying to take advantage the situation? And I guess all you guys agree and how you think about this is a moment .

for company building. I could take that when I am seeing a lot of the companies that where you had done a great job racing around seat around series a, never got product market fit. Now wrap IT up right there shutting down. They're doing the wine down process, and we're seeing list of very talented people. And i've talked about this before on the show, the consolidation of talent behind the winning ideas, the, the, the experiments that actually worked, products that got some traction are now having an easier time hiring talent.

And so to the point, he's got a lot more change in this than the four of us put together is actually right when you build in this downer is harder to raise money, of course, but talent is what makes great products and products that to let customers get the fly will going. And if you survive through this and you have that talent, you're not going to face twenty copycats. And there's not fifty new products coming out a day.

People have more time to actually engage and try a product which they've been burnt out on and the peanut butter spreading. You know, we get delay of peanut butters talent now it's getting consolidated in the winter. So absolutely a great time for five ceos with in founders or know ten founders across five companies to consolidate down to two. Do those talking acquisitions and get focused and build really good teams and cut the weakest people on the teams as a lot of weak talent that have been overpaid and aren't actually contributing to these teams and they need to get cut and then you pull in the all stars. It's a fantastic time in two hundred years, right?

All of them. If you look back in history, since two thousand, all of the best performing funds of all times were the ones that were formed right in the middle of downturns. O three, oh, eight, o nine.

These are the vintages that have always been the best. And what that means, it's a proxy for investing, which is it's the hardest time right now. It's when you have the shake his hand when you're writing the check. But it'll probably be where all of the real money is made or the real generation wealth, both for the entrepreneurs who have the courage to start and the investors who have the courage to invest. There was a story that I heard in new york.

I was talking to a really well known hedged fund or family office, and they were talking about how they were meeting with a CEO of a vintage unicorn, very well known vintage unicode n and they said they left the meeting, and they said this person had an unbred livable disrespect for money. And IT was the most elegant interaction that they ever heard. And they said, under no circumstances would we invest in this guy, in this company at any Price.

And in a one behold, a year later, that company is now visibly going through a bunch of and IT just reminds me that, Jason, we've always had two problems when times are good. Problem number one is that there has never been a check and baLance on that kind of behavior. A lack of respect for capital and and almost a disregard for business models, which is just inexcusable. And I think it's partly the fault of a very Young entrepreneurs. It's also partly the fault of a board who doesn't know how to drag that person enabled is well.

But then the second the second thing is we've always had this you know this big tech put on the table where every time you will try to really hone in on running a lean, highly efficient to organization, the alternative would be to go work at, you know, google, facebook, apple, amazon, microsoft, where the terms are just completely different to what the experience was, you know, at a startup. And the big of the gap, the harder IT was free you to be able to hire and retain good people without just copying them. And now that that's also coming off the table, that is a key moment.

So girl y is one hundred percent right. There is no longer the big tech put. Those are the generals that are about to get shot over the next eight to twelve months, in my opinion, in the public markets, in terms of market captain, employment and perks. And then second is that these really thoughtful investors who felt pretty deeply disrespected, will now be able to call the shots, and these founders will have to come back back in hand and either apologize or just completely find a different religion. And I think in that you'll have um a lot of amazing and opportunities .

to build companies tax, what do you?

Yeah I think that's right. I mean, look, when times there is fault y as they were, a lot of bad idea is get funded and there's a lot of bad behavior that occurs. I don't think all of its intentional. Some of IT is just the lack of discipline that when capital is so freely available, people are building their business is in ways that we're optimize zing solely for one variable, which was top line growth. They just warn, paying enough attention to gross margins or burn.

And when you then have a downturn and capable is not so available, if you have to build your business in a much more capital of fishing way and you can't create fake businesses where you're buying growth, that's not um economically justified, where you've got negative uneconomically around the growth. So I think that this downturn is going to create a shakeout. It's going to weed out bad ideas, bad practices and and a lack of food focus, bad boards and or also .

and then one c .

far sports ATS one trick ponies. You know there's .

just a lot of one trick ponies out there who've optimized growth but don't have a real business. And it's gonna require it's going na require entrepreneurs to play sort of more like multivariate calculus or math, not just single variable.

IT is extremely difficult to convert T V P P I, you know the value paper values into actual distributions. And that takes a skilled hand. And I think that a lot of Young folks were hired into venture that fundamentally did not know what they were doing. They've neither ever build a company or help build a company or actually learnt how to generate returns. But they became very good, had buying, you know, free call options on companies.

You know, I remember, like a lot of people, the way that you, these Young people remember, I heard the story that you would sell against girls, right? So I say you are trying to do a deal and bill gives you A A term ship from benchmark and you get, you know, somebody else. The Young folks like our bills too negative, and he doesn't get IT, and they will try to convince these entrepreneurs that know these rainy days don't happen.

My experience with curl is he is the most sophisticated investor of our generation. And what I mean by that is, you know, he was trained as an equity analyst that really understood business models and cost of capital. And so in a moment like this, the way that girl would help you on the board is meaningfully more important than how some, you know, middling V P, it's a rental startup was now, you know, june or partner adventure firm because that person has literally no clue. And so these companies are going to go through a very difficult moment, which again is the reason why a good, steady hand, who knows what they're doing, we will make a tone of money in this next cycle.

And for people who don't know T, V, P, I let me just give you a quick definition. This is the total value divided by the pain capital. So total value, his distributions, like, hey, here's your Robin hood stock is restock, here's cash plus the net asset value, what's that fancy way for the value of the uh shares of the companies that haven't had an exit? And so you divide those two numbers, you get a ratio one point five, one point two acta.

But to trimm's point um net asset values debate in some of these right in distributions or what matter? You you can eat the 呀， B I R R. You've got to eat the stuff. Just been striving.

Ted, let's keep going. I'll do one more. I'm going to skip over. Well, all just the the the question on twitter that got the most votes. What's the exact network of each basket?

Uh, I would make the case that, that's probably not the best way to measure oneself. And I don't think we're going to do IT. I also would argue that we're probably all exposed to .

a lot of fuzzy map with private assets that .

I don't think it's a big focus in terms of objectives. Uh, i'll say the next a one that I got a lot of votes.

which I really like. It's a lagging indicator and a buy product of what we do. There are moments when what we do reflects in value that, Frankly, where we are over earning.

And then there are periods where what we do is under reflected and we are other earning. And so the through line has to be that you need to survive in both good times and bad times, which means you gotta like what you're doing. And if you get caught up in a numeracy number, there's all kinds of math you can do to make IT look a lot bigger than IT is, but it's all meaningless.

Yeah, I would argue your as as long as you're actively developing yourself over time, the waiting machine will do its job.

Somebody told me in my twice when I was a day a well, he said, you know if you're coming because at the time I you know I grow up on welfare. I thought the goal was to make money. I didn't know any Better. I've learned later that there's a lot more leading indicators of happiness and things that actually great happiness.

Why .

traf I was .

to find. And but .

but .

he said to me, you know, your goal should be to just be in the upper a few percent of your age bracket and just enjoy what you're doing and he said, let time take care of everything else because as long as you find something you you know you decently enjoy and are good at, you'll just get Better and Better at that thing.

And then at some point, you know, you will lose track of what the you know measures of that is because you're just too caught up in and how much you enjoy doing the thing. And I thought that he had no idea what he was talking about. And now, twenty five years later, I can tell you he was totally right, totally great.

Yeah, by the way, this was a question I was going to skip over. So.

no, but IT LED to a good fork. What is happiness here?

Yeah, I think after you observing outcomes for twenty five years, what I would say is that if you're smart, hard working, don't have behavioral at sabotage yourself and you know take intelligent risk, you will be successful in this business. I mean, technology is such a wind at your backs, is such an engine of wealth creation.

How can you not do well? But the exact magnitude of how well you do, I think, is openly this essentially affected by timing? And you know like if you were employee, whatever number x at google, you're going to do Better than most founders, even of a unique company.

And when you found your company and then when you exit what the market is doing, those things have a huge impact on the act, on the magnitude. So whether you end up being a billion aire, a seven million aire, a deck million aire whenever you want to, those things are very affected by timing and chance, but not whether you're going to be successful at a substantial level. And so IT just be smart, be hard working, don't saboor tize yourself, you know, get into tech and you will do well exact how dependent on some you know static tic factors, but not the fact they are going to do well.

We are enormous beneficiaries of having been born when we were because we are a bunch of late forty and early fifty, some things that in the prime of our korean attack, um the federal reserve to grade zero and we had no idea a priority how important that would be in all of our outcomes.

But they were and even more importantly, pcs, internet and mobile happens.

All of that hard work was done beforehand by an entire court of people that had to fight much stronger headwinds, and we had to fight. So, you know, David, I just want to build on that like we were extraordinary ily lucky. And so don't get cut up in that because this, all these factories, you don't you cannot control.

I'll see one more thing that I thinks the most important observation i've made .

in terms of whatever IT .

is building wealth over time is to make sure you're building equity uh, in yourself if you're in a services business and every day and and whether that serving the clients of the company you work for or just serving clients on behalf of yourself and everything you do is a transaction and that transaction doesn't build on itself, doesn't compound value in some way. Then you're missing out in an opportunity every year that goes by that you're earning income where you're not building equity, uh, is is a non compounding youth and it's compounding equity value that I think ultimately pays off for you as an individual. And I can give a lot of examples of this.

But if you're A A A broken age business and you just do deals and you might make have a good year, you might have a bad year, the real question you need to ask yourself is what is compounding? Are you growing a client pace? Are you growing your skill set? Are you next year able to do more things or have more options than you have this year? And if the number of options you have is declining or a static every year, then you're limiting your value and that ultimately will translate into limited wealth creation.

Can I in on on that point around equity? So yeah, when I discovered what equity was, this was also in law school. And actually the guy explained me, was antonio Garcia a lil really went off for me because my dad is a doctor and I was on a path to becoming a lawyer.

And in both those cases, you're a professional. The way you get paid is you more less charge an early rate. And so the amount of money you can make is cap, right? Just take the number hours in the day in the week, multiple ly by your rate, and that's the most money you can make in a year.

And the difference between that and equity is with equity, you own a piece of a business and that business could be ultimately worth you know, any amount. And so your equity could therefore be worth virtually any amount. And so you're uncapped.

And so just you know, if you want to have outside success, you have to have equity in something. I think that is exactly right. If you're just basically working for wages, you even if you are the best of what you do and you get paid and seeing our ly rate again, you can be successful.

But you're not going to be uncapped. And so that is the beauty. That's a beauty. Silicon valley is all these companies offer equity.

everybody, and it's not just shares in something. You can actually get equity and create leverage in your life in this era, more than any human has ever had in any error prior. Because of software and computing and automation.

You can create a website that prints cash for you every day. If you want to do, you can create a service that you get leverage chaff and there's equity value. And that and I think that's really key because then you can go build another one, another one of your building value over time. And that's just the the most simplistic example of how technology today provides leverage that can really allow anyone h to pursue a path of equity.

And I think you make a good point about what do you getting leverage off of? yes. So there's a budget, different things you to get .

leverage off abo, right?

right? So the old way was leverage off labor. And I guess if you were to own like a consulting firm that or like some sort of factory, then the more people you have working, the more money you'd make the other way would be like you can get leverage of capital like A N manager at, or you get leverage off of technology because software can basically create these super scale outcomes. So you need to fight out like what is that you're going leverage off of?

yes. I so all the last one, which I I thought was a really good question, and I ve got a lot of votes from marcos or tea. If you have to start from scratch, no money, no connections, only the knowledge you have right now, and one hundred box, what would you build in twenty twenty two?

I would build something in energy transition or in .

life sciences with .

one hundred dollars, yeah.

I would build a start up incubator venture fund of some time, a way to fund entrepreneurs and just be a capital allocate or much or earlier in my car.

I would create A B to b software company that actually i'm really creating IT.

So I haven't unveiled, but there's when you're big, what is going on here?

I I ve gotten .

you raise .

money .

for I rai think .

of this idea or two point.

You IT was a joke I gave you though i'd let you win tech. Ron fifty, I put the fuck .

and fix David just to put my pitching. I ran in in ICQ. help. Facebook was an invest n. Hammer was the for serious investor slacks.

I'm ready for you there, for us. We needed you back at year days, like J, L.

talking about, your wife .

came to .

my sex as .

to win techland .

fifty.

Let me in sex. Let me in. Let, let lean three.

three round. Did you just agree on T.

V.

Aging this one thing to do, which is you ve got to put out slack and instead .

hundred percent. I know I am going to be very onest with you. The day I left facebook, I stop using IT. The day we sold, we distributed like stop.

I'm all in absolutely the right. Let's do the show. The show free.

Are you to answer that question? What would you do? Well, actually, I would get some water vaporizer, and then I would get some molecule, so and I would make a new super protein that was made out of, sorry, I keep going.

I like IT.

I think to be with protester. I you d makes some kind of stake that takes a Better to stay flurry.

It's something I would definitely build a business again. I think the you know the chAllenge is a as you move past that stage in your career where you know you have the willingness in the time to be a hundred and twenty percent building one product every day, uh, it's it's really hard to go back to that. And I think if I was in a and again, right, had no money and had no.

I think that's a key part of the question, not one hundred dollar part yeah.

I think I would go back to building something. I do think the intersection of life sciences with software create this era of opportunity IT would probably be something in the realm of A I M L meat life sciences, uh, where you can actually work in a leverage way with software to drive outcomes in these important market.

So I would actually create the co founders .

sex .

will let you .

in the .

free round .

if .

you let us in your prevent.

Okay, kay.

you want to take us forward.

Should we go forward? Okay, let's see what's on the docket. We've got rushes invasion of ukraine. You had bited last .

week saying we're facing in the risk of my getting.

how's that not the top story?

Go take IT. Here we go. Let me just cute IT up for sex .

by in last week are facing rer again. That's your OK we go and then and then leon panada just lit up j out. We don't need. Everyone knows what was going on. Then you pana.

Leon panada, just who was a former security, defense and direction central intelligence road, an opped for politico, saying that intelligence analysts have now raised the probability of the use of a tackle nuclear rapidly, ukraine, from one to five percent at the beginning of the war to twenty to twenty five percent now, is what he says. So and I don't think you'd be saying that if this wasn't pretty much conventional ism in washing. Now I mean, haneda is sort of a very respectable figure in in the bellway and I said IT.

right for the first time.

said facing the most dangerous situation and the highest risk of nuclear wars and security missile crisis, he called the risk of armor get in. The problem is that no body is willing to say what we should be doing differently to avoid this situation. So you know, people are always attacking us for having a point of view on foreign policy.

First, all this affects us. I don't know why we're not left point of you, but you know in in our business thinking where there is an existential sue, you have the attitude of drop everything and figure this out. If somebody told you that there's a twenty five percent chance of your company blowing up, maybe in the next few weeks you will drop everything and focus on that problem.

But it's like, you know, africa getting comments. It's like the media just passed over IT. It's like, oh, this is like crazy bit and whatever IT was minimized IT was contextualized the White house walked IT back.

Nobody y's really focusing on this and wish we doing differently. And in fact, what peneus recommend, and petra said the same thing, is that if russia uses a technic in ukraine, then we should respond by attacking russia directly. Now if we do that, we are literally in war three.

And remember, at the begin of the war, biden was really clear that we, we're onna, get directly involved. He vetoed the idea correctly, of of the nopi zone, which would have required us to shoot down russian planes by in member. He was asked in the press conference to begin the war by lester hold.

He said, halt, said, no, mister present. What if americans are trap behind the my lines in ukraine? Would you send in american trips to o get them bin said, no, I think very properly said no because he said, listen, we do not want to rise war or three.

But now, because of mission creep and a slippy slope, and we've all got a more involved in the swar, we've got a more emotionally committed. You now have panetta atrs calling for us to directly attack russia and get in war three. The russians almost certainly would respond with nuclear because it's all we've got.

They don't have the conventional forces to stand up to us. So look at how close we have now gotten to the brink of a nuclear show down. And has anybody we assessed? Is anyone calling first to reevaluate? Because that's the conversation which we having right now.

And freeburg this spring up two points that I think you you can comment on naval uh, actually the founder of Angel list, Angel investor and just public thinker, I say public intellectual.

He came on to calling with the two of you and he know outline like who does get to have an opinion on ukraine and other issues, which has up with this? Like who gets to be an expert in the world today? And of course, at the same time, not only sex has been commenting on, hey, what's the opener elon has been talking about? Hey, you know, how do we get out of this? Do we have some votes? Uh, you know, by these are regions that have been an ex or that are in dispute.

Aoc now is getting criticize on investor people shouting her down at a public event today or yesterday that she's a war monger and SHE won't be out against more. How do you frame the public dialogue about this freeburg? And then do you see a potential offer? And here, other than putin leis russia, which is, I think, the public dh, by a lot of folks, you know, putin can end this. He just has to leave ukraine in order for this to end. So two questions .

for your fever is very hard to have good dialogue about any situation where an argument could be made on the grounds of morality in an absolute sense, making IT really difficult to have a discourse around what the right thing to do is because you don't agree fundamentally on the objective you're shooting for. One side says the objective is to preserve the integrity of democracy and the freedom of people.

And the other side says the objective should be to secure the interests of the west in the united states and preserve the world from nuclear hola cost. I think that's what makes this a chAllenging conversation. The objective can be refrained, and then from that objective, each side can make their own case without being forced to take in the point of view of the other side.

And it's why we're a bit of a standstill and it's also why it's so easy to get swept up in A A mass point of view, A A coal less point of view of the masses that makes one feel good about what may end up being a very bad situation. IT feels good to say, i'm doing this for freedom of the people. I'm doing this to save lives.

At the end of the day, IT may cause a nuclear war. And it's okay because I feel good going into the debate that this is the right thing. It's the morally superior thing to do.

What's very hard is that we can't actually say as a group, our objectives should be to preserve the integrity of democracies around the world to an extent. And that's a new once point of view to an extent means i'm willing to preserve the democracies through certain actions but are not willing to cross a certain line. And absolutism doesn't need to come into play.

That's what I think is making the such a very difficult conversation, and it's why it's so hard to actually have a conversation around IT. And it's really I I would argue, the most points and the most dramatic moment in what we talked about earlier, which is this deep seated kind of you know, by polarity. And once you're sitting on your poll, you don't want to come off and you don't realize that so much.

The dialogue is in the middle. And we have to come to some point of view that maybe this isn't about an absolute outcome. It's not absolutely gonna be nuclear war and it's not absolutely gonna the end democracy. There's some conversation in the middle that's very difficult to have. And people that work somewhere in the world, hopefully ambassadors, foreign policy people, state department people, hopefully are having the more you on critical conversation about how do we resolve to the maximum outcome, that doesn't necessarily take up to an absolute .

end to to that point is going to be an imperfect outcome here.

I think this is much, much simple than all of this. Leon banana is a senior counsellor to a this defense contracting agency called peaking global strategies, who works on behalf of ratio. I found that out while feedback all was talking in a two second google search, I suspect that if you looked for portrays his conflicts of interest, you would find that through some business team set of, you know, a strategic consulting organza that might not.

He also works on behalf of the defense industry. So you have these people who will generate more revenue and more profit if there is a massive war. And those people have been trying to push us into a land war in europe since this whole thing started.

Um and so this is just yet another attempt. It's just the most final way of doing this. So I would just encourage people, whenever you see all these folks clamoring for war um is just to keep in mind that they are riddled with conflict and that you can find that out again. This information is sitting in plain site on the internet and you can figure out whether this person is is really advocating a truth that makes sense, or they're getting paid to shill, 嗯， a revenue generating mechanism for some part of the military industrial sex.

How much of this is people talking their book, their book being the military industry complex in your mind?

I think it's big part of IT. I think all of these washington tanks are funded by defense contractors. I think it's short sited, obviously, because if IT leads to nuclear war.

Does nobody would a defense industry? There will be anything left. So but luck.

I think that I think that washington is wired for war, in part because there's a huge lobby for IT for all these defense contractors. And what's the lobby for peace? I mean, there's no one really arguing for peace.

Speaking of this, elon.

i'll tell you, i'll tell you it's lobbing for peace and i'm going to connect what may seem too desperate ideas together. But the single biggest thing I think that will prevent nuclear war is the inflation that we're feeling. And the reason is because IT allows the fed, in my opinion, for the first time, really in the last fifteen years, to act properly.

And if they hold the line and they take interest strates to four, five percent, I think one non obvious outcome of all of that is IT becomes extremely expensive, next to impossible to finance military adventurism abroad. And that's a practical economic outcrop of, really know, meaningfully high rates greater than zero. And so I actually think the reality is that for a lot of these governments, the more that inflation sticks around the stickit is the higher rates are in general, the bigger the problems at home r and the last prone they're going to be likely.

I actually think that explains, that explains the escalation of this retort. C, because people want to try to make this issue and put IT on the table. But you understand that, you know folks don't say it's a ninety percent likelihood they go from one percent to twenty five percent, which if you understand probabilities is effectively a left till rist.

That's effectively the same. And the reason they're trying to do IT is they're trying to get IT back, David, as you say, to time stamp IT, to get IT in front of people's perspectives, to make IT important in a moment where everybody increasingly, not just in the united states, but in the U. K.

In the europe, are looking internally and trying to figure out how to keep their economies in a reasonably functioning way and how to make sure that their financial and other infrastructure keeps working. And that is not necessarily a priority when rates or zero, but when rates or four percent. I mean, just by the way, if you guys saw what happened today, IT was the competing of two narratives.

This week. There is a financial narrative of the U. K. Having to bail out their pension system, right of all of a sudden, the pensions being forced sellers of those four sellers now spilling into the united states debt markets, C, L, S. And color ized loan obligations and junk dead, which then could theoretically ally spill as a contained to other parts of the market. That was narrative of one.

And and all of that, by the way, is a result of hiding inflation and the, you know, that moving up rates and you know, other countries is being forced to to attack inflation with higher rates and creating all these these ocasio narrative of one, veris narrative two, which is hay hall of a sudden we have to put the nuclear risk of the table. And if you actually saw the print that was spilled, the disproportionate amount of the retina c actually focus on the former narrative and not the latter. And so I think that that's why the these folks are escalating the reti c in order to kind of create and inequality so that they get enough print. They want that version of the outcome.

What what you're saying is you you have the the world saying we can't afford to have this conflict. We are broke without too many obligations .

of the world to say we are increasingly under enormous domestic pressure. And as a result, we cannot spend on things abroad.

We can't afford this. And then the other side saying, well, we need you to afford this. So nuclear is gna happen.

There's going to be a nuclear there. A small attention. There's a small strain of folks who would economically benefit. We are now ratched IT up their rhetoric so that that second path becomes more and more on the table.

What do you think of this freeburg? This analysis is these two polar, these two uh, groups vying for the attention and our budget of the world the the .

military industrial complex versus yeah .

uh citizens saying our country can afford this, we need to focus inward.

not citizens of central banks.

Okay, but I think the central banks influence by citizen right like this is a whole a system here we're talking about. People are, you know, watching the tension go away. They're watching jobs get up.

If I was a betting man, I spent, I would guess, at the next apa, trillion to a trillion dollars that is spent in western world economies will be to subsidize something that's broken internally inside of one of our countries, whether it's the U. K. Pension system or whether it's the high yield ld credit markets. And IT will not be the finance military adventurism in russia.

just that point. So there's article today in the washing post about how the U. S. Government's debt service is going to be around five hundred seventy billion this year, which is the forty five percent increased binders budget for twenty twenty three is only one point six trillions. So you're talking about something like over a third now of the official budget is already going to debt service because it's a variable.

right?

It's a variable, right? exactly. Because so much of IT is that it's not locked in the long term rate. So because in stress are gone up so much the debt service gone up and interests are still going up.

And so you know, drug Miller had those points around how the death services within a decade is going to eat up actly the whole federal budget. So trump is right that we'd never really had to choose between guns and butter before. In the past, IT was just less to do both and will rack up more national debt.

I do think there will be more, more pressure to question this type of spending and why we've already given ukraine eighty billion dollars in the handouts when we can afford to basically pay for major entitlement at home. So I think theyll be more pressure now. I think I don't know if that pressure is going to come in time though, to D.

S. Late this more. And that's what concerns me. And just to cut to the chase on this, I think where the rubber meets the road on ukraine is crimea is.

And why? Because the russians have a major naval base there. It's of a stop, is the home of the black, a sea fleet. And they will never give that up.

They are willing to use nukes, I believe, to basically protect that assets, a vital interest of their so on eighty percent of the population of crimea, their russian, and three quarters of them polling that was done by galen, by a german polling firm. So not russian polls indicated that they see themselves as russian. We want to be part of russia.

So if we support yourself, determination will be fine with premier being part of russia. But here's the rub. Ukrainian nationalism demands that every square inch of crimea goes back to ukraine.

And IT is a state department policy right now that we will never recognize crimea as being russian, will never recognize the unix ation, which back in two thousand and fourteen. So something is gotta give here. Something got to give. Either we have to sit down zillion ski and say, i'm listen, you're not getting back crimea. We're going to make that part of peace deal or we're gonna back the ukrainians in their military effort to retake crimea with the result that I think is quite likely that the russians will be willing to use a tactical nuke to prevent their total defeat.

So at some point we're going enough to choose here, which these outcomes do you want? Do you want to basic go for a negotiated settlement, which means telling the ukrainians they cannot have everything they want? Or do you really want to risk a nuclear war to take back crimea, which is russian, and the people they see themselves as russian? So we need to make a choice here .

yeah ah so you on put out a tweet for and got savage for IT and he outlined so sort of what you're saying here so do you think his plan he said, radio elections of anax regions under us supervision.

Russia leaves if that is the wheel of the people and then he says crime formally party russia, as it's been since seventeen three water supply to crime a short, as you're saying you can, remains mutual should the west force ukraine to accept these type of terms, essentially a elections. And I don't know why crimea wouldn't be part of that election process. Do you think U. N. Supervised elections in those regions should occur and we should force? So let's get to do them.

He who pays the piper calls to the tune. Of course, we need to have a point of view on how this work .

should be resolved when we listen.

It's not about force. They can fight IT on and do whatever they want as long as they .

want to hold on with america. s. And we if zelinski .

wants our weapons and support, which appear to be infinite, we should not give a blank check. R, N, T, the blank check is, is what started war. War won.

The german kiser gave austria blank check guarantee IT LED to war, or one. That is how great powers get pulled into the wars of minor powers. And we absolutely have to have a point of view on how we do not get pulled into this. And I think our one of our lines should be that we are not going to fund the ukrainians in retaking crimea.

got IT. So just to put up to clear this so we can move to the next topic, you are in support of removing our not giving further weapon support to the ukraine.

not negotiate. It's not going to come to that. We each have a point of view on .

how you are support of stopping our support. If they don't sit down and negotiate a settlement.

that what you would do, amErica needs to have a point of view of what is in a own interest. What is in our interest is for this to get resolved diplomatically at some point through negotiated settlement, not for to escalate into a nuclear war that we can get pulled into. The only way that's going to happen, okay, is if crimea goes back to russia, i'm telling you, they will be willing to pull out all the stop and use. They could even use techniques before crimea. Can you answer the question .

now that I asked three times? Would you remove american support in weapons if they don't accept that? If ukraine doesn't accept that, would you be comfortable taking we are support.

and I don't going to come to that, but yes.

we be willing to threat that.

But just trying to get to answer that one because they are a client state of the us. They do not call the shots where amErica we call the shots. We're the big dog here. That's the bottom light. And you really .

want to get pulled into a nuclear .

war because our. We are an american national alist. At least I am.

I'm not a ukraine national alist. I sport self rule. I think we accomplish something by preventing care from getting topped. But I wanted to support people for the people OK.

It's time for a settlement in sex of my I think .

the most important thing that we can all be thankful for, which I think we will prevent a lot of wars in the next ten or twenty years as inflation and non zero interest rates. It's just gonna be really tough like the U. K.

Cannot do anything right now other than make sure that they have foreign currency reserves to back up the pound, which they don't really have that much. They're gonna need money to build up their pension system. Whoever thought this was a good idea to allow pensions to run levered risk was IT obviously insane. Could you imagine if IT turned out that the teachers pensions and the firefighters pensions in amErica were running levered long? I mean, you .

together now I know .

a breaking point of fancy and fancy looking. The treasure is not allowed to call goldman sax and say i'm going around two turns of leverage on this money that is not allowed to happen in united states. Okay, I get in some fancy way that could be thought of as level long with, you know, all kinds of interaction.

But that is not how the world works today. Practically speaking, this is how the U. K.

works. A treasure in the U. K. Pension system is allowed to call a an investment back and actually run level.

That is insane. okay. So my point is when rates are non zero, all of that gig is up. Governments are forced to bottom down the hatches, and you know, husband cash for god knows what will break in the system. And I think that that is, and as disruptive as that is, IT may actually be the bull work against war.

The jack is up, folks. Uh, I mean, I think that what we should take away from this is we can't afford this. And the new states is funding IT. We have to force a settlement here.

And I will be a profile car. Maybe the silver .

lining of inflation OK andy, Jesse had all hands meeting. Amazon is freezing hiring for corporate roles in its retail business. Almost ninety VP or higher level exec have left amazon since twenty twenty one.

Or this week there was an all hands presentation. The slides were leaked to business insider. Some of them constraint breed resources in their self sufficiency and innovation.

There are no extra points for growing high count legesse or fixed expense life ways to accomplish more with less sounds familiar, something like something the U. S. Needs to do and foreign policy needs to do. Amazon and leadership team urged employees to double down on Jessie also spoken the meeting just a couple of minutes, and then i'll get your thoughts to math.

It's on a lot of people's minds and of course, none of us know for sure what's gonna en, but there are a lot of science that point to this being a difficult and rough economy ahead us. And I don't know how long last, but I think it's one of the things that we are thinking about. And we decided that we're going to be more streamline in how we expand in twenty, twenty three good companies that last a long period time who are thinking about the long term, always have this push and pull to math.

What you read into this, there are three quick things. One is that today, thursday, october thirteen th, we had an inflation print, which was worse than expected and the markets are materially higher. right? So strange why? Well, I you know we talked about this um a few weeks ago, but you know my thought then and same is is the same that I think now is that we've effectively seen the near turn bottom and we're now consolidating.

And so every opportunity people have to justify that most of the news is behind them. They take and they use that as a reason to buy. okay.

Ay, so that's the number one, which is that we are sort of near the end. The second, however, is that if we do see another leg down, there is really only one cohorts of company that hasn't been really wacked. And i'll summarized IT very quickly by saying its microsoft, amazon, apple and google.

That said, even facebook has now been sort of put into the bucket of everybody else where, you know, we've been crushed sixty, seventy, eighty percent in those companies. So, so, so what does that mean while those four companies are now being identified for what they may be, which in capitalism is called over earning, okay, they are making more money than we think is appropriate. This letter from andy, Jesse, is his way of effectively telling his major shareholders that he is now moving the business to become more of a cash cow business.

Tim cook made this incredible decision in twenty sixteen, seven hundred and eighteen that effectively did the same thing. That's when buffett came in. That's when he established a huge or ownership in the stock.

That's when the stock absolutely ripped because IT moved into a different bucket in people's minds. IT became growth at a pretty reasonable Price. And I think andy is making the case that amazon is gonna become one of these garp stocks growth at a reasonable Price.

He he's gone to generate a tunny cash flow. He's going to keep expenses nominal. He's gonna return a tonic cash to shareholders with buybacks. That's the reading in between the lines of that letter. I think it's a really profound statement and a very smart move because you haven't seen that letter or a version of that letter yet for microsoft, and you started to see hints of that letter from soon on. Where he is and he's not battling .

is not very yet.

He's in the appetite. He hey, guys, let's create some fancy acronis but suitors got courage. No, but he's got courage. He is gona rip the bandit off to. And so I think what that means is these three and maybe these four companies are gonna draw a hard line in the sand and say we are not over earning, do not abandon the stock that again will help put in the bottom in the stock market.

What do you think free berga you worked at this company and uh, you know the the the principles across the board, the saber rattling will turn into sabor swinging. Q 4， q one, you think google, apple not coming?

Amazon is affected in a .

different way because they .

Operate this physical supply chain business. They're delivering goods to people's homes that people are buying. So, uh, they really have to a change their trajectories very quickly.

IT was incredible. You guys remember when cov e hit, you tried to place in order on amazon. IT was like three weeks to deliver because the infrastructure wasn't there to do IT.

So they actually were seeing more orders than their system had predicted and they did massive build out. They hired what a million people or something uh, in their network uh, to meet demand. And then over the next year, uh, earnings went through the roof. Uh, their infrastructure and employee had can't went through the roof. And now we're obviously coming back down the other side of a mountain and they're having to shift a strategy and and shift the Operating model.

Uh, yet again, there's A A broader set and that's because they're the the direct commerce business, microsoft, google and other kind of software companies, some of which benefit from advertising, which is almost like a first derivative on the consumer market or a first derivative on the spending of companies that sell to consumers. Have a little bit of different calculus there. Uh, much higher margin business, thirty percent even a kind of business with uh, ebata margin business with a very uh, distinct kind of set of chAllenges on how advertising revenue is going to be affected over the next couple of quarters and balancing that against the cloud platform, which is sold to enterprises and the media consumption platform, which is generally like youtube, a google's case, which is less affected.

So it's not as much of a direct access. I will say what happened over the past decade, which were now seeing change, is these companies have had extraordinary growth, are hiring people to no end. There is always been, you know, kind of this extended expense on capital, on human capital.

And that expense on human capital has driven the average cost per employee through the roof. And it's not just the salaries, it's the cost of the R S. Use, is the cost of the facilities and the free ice cream and games and all the other stuff gone on to compete. That's now changing.

And so I really is creating a different model for Operating that hasn't existed for the last decade where everything has been you know, how many more things can we throw in the kitchen? You throw like the kitchen and sink of this problem to get all the human capital here. And I think that's really what was gonna kind of structurally change in the valley. It's not as a cute as what .

amazon is dealing with. IT does feel like that those are .

the last cities to falter off.

They are the ones.

They are the ones that take the index to thirty two hundred. If we're gna try to do IT, there's only one place to look. You walked everybody else.

Everything is down to fifty to ninety percent in some cases. So and then finally, before a quarter, S N P dollar was crowded in those names a quarter. So you gotta there. yeah. I mean, also.

they are automatically bought, right? They're automatically bought by these index funds. And so who's at the wheel saying we're not.

We going to take the money out of them, right? Who who in their right mind is taking money out of apple, amazon and microsoft way? Do you put IT? I guess is everybody y's question right? Try out like if if you take that out.

they are where do you put IT? Well, no, I think I think it's just that when when you have patterns of selling, typically, as i've seen IT my experiences that initially it's the algorithms that really start to push your market in the direction, then you have you know, the more traditional fund complexes that the hetch funds and along only they follow suit. And then the last group tends to be retail and IT works in reverse the other way as well. And so you know obviously, there's exceptions.

all of these, but as a general rule, so of retail starts spelling on amazon.

They are.

But again, time to buy IT. But again.

this is this is where sort of organized ed capital now is finding a bottom again. Like when you start to shake, just think about the psychology of like being delivered bad news. After bad news, you go through the cycles, right? There's denial, there's anger, there's depression, there's bargaining.

But then at some point, there's acceptance. And in that acceptance phase, you're like, yeah, you're right, things are bad. But when you see a market rally into a print like this, it's uh it's really, really interesting. Psychological turning point .

as a proof point to what you're saying sex, uh to moh and sex. I want you you're comment on this venture capital firms like eaa, excel and others that have now changed their status, as you know, just private companies but also doubling in public, are buying public equities, which basically means they see more opportunity in public enterprise tech stocks, growth stocks eeta than they do in late stage private companies. correct. In the austria journal story.

i'm assuming .

sex and I saw that. Do you read what you read into that? Is IT overblown or is IT .

indicative of something I think probably blown that is a head fund and recent became a bridger and investment advisors that they could buy public security. So I look, I don't think most venture funds are always on investing in public markets. We aren't even allowed to do that as far as I know, nor will we ever tried to. So I think probably .

it's like to give up sex V C exemption but you can do ah .

yeah I mean we won't want to but is kind of the point but look, I can explain why the market did what I did today. I could like moster, I could spend some sort algorithmic you buying or selling um but I just think that the overall news today was the economic news was just another really bad report. I mean, just look at these headlines from the new york times today.

OK. I'm going to read you the headlines on a single sort of score page here. Number one, inflation came in much Better than expected. Bad news to the fed. Take away from another painful inflation report. Three disapointment flag data keeps democrat on defense had a mitral elections for food Prices clip again weigh on household budgets five, rent inflation to remain indebted, troubling sign six, use car .

Prices are in declines, much as the common to host give free break a chance to gas .

Prices is fall silly, but overall energy costs are soon expected to rise and eight retiree's are getting in eight point seven percent. So security cost saving ways the biggest and decades I get that one is a positive, but it's like literally negative headline after in the new or times.

But can I reinterpret that for you? I think I think the way to think about IT is this gives the fed the resolve IT needs. It's gonna by seventy five. It's proven to go another seventy five. We're going to have rates by four to four, fifty to five percent, probably within q wan, which means if you're trying to figure out where the bottom is, it's roughly nourish. And so that's why you see smart money, David, shaking this thing off um and starting to enter the market. And so again, and the other version interpretation is when rates are four five percent, the cost of serving united states that is so meaningful as a percentage, their budget, the incremental spend that they would need to make to enter a new war, is too much.

I think I love this point. I love this point, are weaving all these .

things together. Do what you right on the economic page of the new, or times you is the disastrous headline after the disastrous headline, the new turn, the foreign policy page. You ve got tom freedman writing a column here saying we are suddenly taking on china rush at the same time.

And tom freeman historically has been a huge hawk. And he is even saying he, the on the bricks never fight russian, china and at the same time, so he says, we are an in charted waters. I just hope these are not our new forever words. It's like, wow. So bit macy, look, our economic base, our economy is rumbling at home, the same time that we are doing unprecedented sabor addling abroad.

This is not compute. We need to take a time out. But my, my prediction is that we will not enter a new war with rates flexing up as aggressively. I love, I love weaving these .

two stories together and think that makes a lot of sense. We didn't have time for alex Jones, but we will save that. Another episode, gentleman, I think, is our best episode ever.

It's an honor and a privilege to spend this hour and or so with you every week. I love you like brothers. And it's been a great hundred episodes. I look forward to a hundred more sax if you need a mental health break the freight burgs he's got him doke up.

I like David. Don't read your replies.

Get off. I just want to say how .

much I love you guys and i'm really proud of what we've created and i'm really excited to get to the next hundred and uh, i'll see you guys tonight.

I'll break out the White trouble so you want to keep going.

That's the news today for handy for I will say that jake .

OS moderations been a lot Better since got brigadiers is this way .

of saying he'll be he'll see you next friday and .

let's see it's been one hundred episodes. I love you, tramp. I love you free burg, let's see if we can get sex to do IT. It's been one hundred episodes has been .

set at you but I, dave are coming. I get back like, but the .

same second S I love you began to say.

I love you like.

go on around the horn or can you say.

I say, I see. I CIA.

that's a hundred, baby, that's a hundred. You.

I ve, I.

your.

World, man.

We open sources to the fans and just .

got crazy with.

A B A.

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