SpaceX-Cursor Deal, SaaS Debt Bomb, New Apple CEO, SPLC Indictment, Colon Cancer Spike

Jason, you are the unique person that is. at the intersection of both the. and the SPLC files. Do you have. [laughter] a comment? >> Do you have a comment, Jason? >> in the SPLC files. I. >> Yes, you are. You're adjacent to the. vice president. You're SPLC adjacent and. you're. What does that mean? In the Venn diagram. >> Thank you, though, for putting me in the. crosshairs of all the losers. >> He's got a I got a really good way to. select. I mean, >> There's a reason why I'm carrying this, guys. It's because the people. >> What the [ __ ] is going [laughter] on? >> THERE'S A REASON WHY I CARRY a stiletto.

and a P35. >> What the [ __ ] are you doing? [laughter]. >> There's a reason. If you want to jump. the fence, feel free. >> [laughter]. >> J CAL IS READY. >> YOU LET YOUR WINNERS RIDE. [music]. >> RAIN MAN David Sacks. >> And I said, "We open-sourced it to the. fans and they've [music] just gone crazy. with it.".

>> All right, everybody, welcome back to. the greatest podcast in the universe, episode 270 of the All-In podcast, your. podcast for your favorite podcast. With. me again, your sultan of science, David. Friedberg, the dick. tater, Chamath Palihapitiya, and yeah, the Rain Man is back. Yeah, it's. definitely David David Sacks. He's. definitely in DC with a with POTUS, yeah. POTUS lets him drive in the. driveway. Uh Sacks, what's going on? You.

you pushed back, you big-shotted the. entire crew, and pushed the show back an. hour. >> Simple text. He's like, "With POTUS.". >> Start unbelievable. >> Start later. >> Okay, we'll just wait. Okay, Daddy. Look. at him. All right. All right, big shot. What's going on? >> No, look. I was in DC today and I was at. the White House and. I just asked if the president had time. and he made time. And we had we did have. a little meeting and so we did push back. the pod for that. One thing I just want.

to say is just what a pleasure he is to. deal with. You know, when I read in the. media, they're always describing him in. a certain way that you know, he's. yelling at people or he's moody or or. something like that and that's never. ever been my experience with him. He's. always pleasant to be with. He's always. genial. >> Super charming. >> questions. He's interested in the. subject matter. It's just a completely different. portrayal. I don't get where the media. is coming from at all on this. >> He's charming AF. >> Totally. Totally.

>> He's charming. >> maybe if you double-crossed him, maybe, I don't know, but I've just never seen. any evidence of of how they describe him. at all. And I think on our issues of AI, I think we're really lucky that he's the. president who's in the White House when. this AI revolution is happening. >> I mean, doing alt history, Sachs, what. would happen if Kamala ding-dong was in. right now and we'd have like no data. centers? >> We'd have no data centers and they'd be. using AI to censor us and they'd be. promoting DEI values through AI. That. was in the Biden executive order.

President Trump just wants the country. to win and be successful and he doesn't. have these like doomer neuroses about. it. That's not to say we don't support. any regulation at all, but we should. have specific solutions for specific. problems as opposed to being cowering in. fear over this and just trying to halt. all progress. And I think a really good. example of that was his idea around data. centers where he said over a year ago. before data centers even became a hot. political topic, that we should let our. AI companies stand up their own power.

generation behind the meter. And that's. a much better approach than the Bernie. Sanders approach of just shutting. everything down. So, I don't know. I. think we're like very fortunate that. he's the president during this critical. time in development of this technology. And like I said, he's always been. interested in it. He talks a lot of. business leaders. I'm always actually. very impressed with what he already. knows. He listens to like all the the. guys in the industry and he synthesizes. what he hears. I think he's very good at. that. >> He was talking about the Anthropic guys, and he was like, "These are brilliant. guys." And he was like, "Giving the. flowers to them and how genius they.

were, and that they were working on a. deal." Any insights there about the. relationship between the White House and. Anthropic? >> I thought what he said was very balanced. and accurate. Like you said, he said. that they were very smart guys. They do. have a great product. I've certainly. acknowledged that. He also said that. they were very left-wing, but that was. something we could work through. >> Hm. >> Didn't have to [clears throat] be a deal. killer. He said they tried to tell the. Pentagon what to do, which the Pentagon. didn't like. But in any event, I mean, look, he wants American companies to be.

successful, and he he I think genuinely. really does like high-IQ people. I mean, he says it all the time, and people. think he's joking, but I actually think. it's like one of his core convictions is. he just really likes smart people. He. likes being around smart people. >> Loyal people, smart people, people who. are good on camera seem to be the three. circles. And hey, Sachs, you fall into. two of the three. [laughter]. Uh all right. >> I thought the audience would bring it. that out. >> Uh topic one, SpaceX has signed a huge deal with. Cursor. You know Cursor, that's the AI coding.

startup. Really, they they they defined. the category. XAI and Cursor are. building and collaborating on a new AI. coding model that would, quote, be the. world's best coding and knowledge work. AI. Here's the deal as it's been. explained. SpaceX will either buy Cursor. by the end of 2026 for $16 billion. That's $10 billion more than they were. rumored to be raising at, or they will. pay Cursor $10 billion for their. collaboration together. Bloomberg says. you can think of that $10 billion.

essentially as a breakup fee. So, I. think it's fait accompli that this deal. is going to get done. Cursor's run rate, $2 billion at the end. of February. This is a money-printing. machine. They expect to end 2026 with a. $6 billion dollar rate. They're going to. triple it. SpaceX projected revenue. between 22 and 24 billion in 2026. So. this is quite accretive to the revenue. story at SpaceX at the IPO of SpaceX, which is now targeting a valuation of 2.

trillion. Which would be trading at roughly 80. times top line revenue, which is a, you. know, people would say it's a high. valuation, but also commensurate with. the opportunity. Cursor's valuation. would be 30 X. So this is a good deal, I. think, for everybody at the end of the. day. Cursor started, I think, built off. of Anthropic's LLM. You could use any. LLM previously on it, but in March. Cursor released the second version of. their proprietary model, Composer 2. And. uh here it is. It's It's ranked pretty.

high right now. It's between uh GPT-4. 5.4 and Opus 4.6, as you can see on the. screen. The key part of the story here. is that Elon has 550,000. GPUs in Colossus. He's scaling up to 1. million, and then of course he's going. to bring it to space. So if you believe. that infrastructure matters, and it's. pretty clear it does, this is incredible. for Cursor, who has been compute. constrained. So this is peanut butter. and chocolate. If you put these two.

together, I predict that this is going. to move. Space X X XAI and Cursor to the front of. the coding leaderboard within 12 months. That's my prediction, Chamath. >> Shareholder in SpaceX via the. acquisition of the Starlink company that. you were a backer of. What are your. thoughts? >> The acquisition was essentially. negotiated, and the way that it's. structured is so that the S-1 doesn't go. stale. So I think the way that it was.

announced has more to do with the fact. that they don't want to slow down and. have to rewrite parts of the S-1, have. to redo the disclosures, um. have to redo the risks. and so I think. what you're going to see is that this. will get done. In fact, the deal is. effectively done. But what's so smart is that where is. SpaceX today? Let's call it. a trillion. Where could it be? Just for the purpose of this argument, let's say 2 trillion. So when the deal.

gets done on a stock for stock basis, it's going to be if again, if it's 60. billion in tomorrow dollars, effectively Elon's gotten a 50%. discount. And what has he bought? He can. issue a 60 billion dollars of stock at a. 2 trillion dollar valuation and get a. model and a service that I think is. extremely compelling in coding, which is. where we know all of the immediate and. short-term revenue gains are. It's also. patterns that are hard-fought and are. really valuable in reinforcement.

learning. He gets all of that. And then. he gets a very cracked team, which, you. know, we've known for a while that the. cursor team is absolutely excellent. If. you look at the Grok usage, it shows. why he had this excess capacity. There. was a moment where Grok had a very steep. and very aggressive discount on their. output tokens. And in that moment, there was just a lot. of experimentation and usage. And over. time, that sort of. went away. So there was a lot of capacity and.

relatively low utilization, I think, inside of Colossus that he was able to. turn around, jujitsu move the whole. thing, and basically acquire the most. interesting and valuable third-party. wrapper service in AI right now. So, and. the fact is that they got it. effectively, I think, at this price for. 30 billion. So I think it was a really good deal, really smart deal. >> Sacks, your thoughts if you want to. unpack it a bit. Under the framing, I. think it's be interesting for you. If we were sitting here 3 years ago, the.

Biden administration didn't invite Elon. to. the EV summit, and the SEC, and other. organizations, Delaware, they were. explicitly involved in lawfare. They. were trying to put Elon in prison, and. here we are, the most important company. in the history. of the United States, SpaceX AI and. Tesla, now on the verge of just creating. the greatest products in the history of. humanity between SpaceX, clusters in space, and Optimus. Your.

thoughts? >> Well, you're right. I do remember a. press conference where Biden said we got. to look at the sky. And so, on the heels. of that, the DOJ brought a a lawsuit. attacking the company for not hiring. enough asylum seekers. Remember that? >> SpaceX, which they can't under ITAR. >> They couldn't, exactly, under ITAR. Anyway, that's all ancient history, so. let's let's put that behind us. Look, I. I agree with your guys' analysis on. this. I think these two companies are. are very complementary. Cursor, obviously, is very strong in coding.

And that's what it brings to xAI. xAI. brings compute, and they bring a. foundation model. And the problem that. Cursor had is that even though coding is. kind of like the white-hot area of AI. right now, when it got started, it was really. competing against generalists in the. form of Open AI and Anthropic. But now. those generalists have decided to. vertically integrate in this area of. coding, right? And so, Cursor's now. competing against Quad Code and Open.

AI's Codex. And so, they were dependent. on foundation model companies that were. getting in the business of competing. with them, which was just not a good. place to be, right? So now, they have. this new alliance with a different. foundation model company, which also. brings the compute. Just makes a lot of. sense, and then they bring Cursor brings. to xAI. the training data, a lot of enterprise clients, and the. experience in coding. And I think this. will accelerate xAI in this area. >> Sacks, you think they're going to dump. Kimmy K2.

.6? Cuz I think Cursor Composer 2 uses the. Moonshot model. There's no reasonable. way that Elon's going to pay $60 billion. and not run on top of Grok. I got to. think. >> It seems like it. >> Yeah. >> Likely, but I don't know. >> I think it might be tough depending on. the the users. One of the things that. makes Cursor so good is. >> wait. Say Say more on that. What do you. mean? >> So, I think that the different. developers. want to have choice in that sense. There's a toggle. So, one of the things. that's really good about Cursor is. they've got this very well-built out. IDE, this application layer that puts.

them probably from a UX perspective, meaning developers are using the tool. above Codex, above Claude, above. anything else. You can use a third-party. IDE and integrate the models or. integrate whatever other third-party. service you're using. But I would. imagine that the developers are going to. want to. continue to have at least some choice on. what's actually writing the code for. them. The thing that people are waking. up to in the last 120 days.

is just how much of the value of AI is. being realized by writing software. And. we've kind of got this wrapper term we. call it agents. But agents are. fundamentally just quickly spun up. applications. But for all of them, as we're realizing. very quickly, you end up making too many. agents. They end up being super. inefficient. They need to be engineered. And you still need to have a strong. software engineering capability and. competency to fix all the agents, to. build all the harnesses, to make. everything work well together. And.

that's why having a strong developer. environment, a strong IDE, actually. solves that biggest problem. So, eventually all the enterprises that are. getting hot and heavy on agents are. going to be like, "Whoa, wait a second. We've actually got to fix how this is. all being done." As we saw this week in. that story with Amazon, where there's. like a million agents being spun up. inside and everything's wasting. resources, redundant data creation, redundant data stores, redundant API. calls, et cetera. Tons of money being. wasted. So, you have to centralize. still. You have to have good software. engineering talent that's making good.

infrastructure and good use of these. agents. And that ultimately will require. an integration of the AI tooling with a. standard software engineering front end, which is the IDE that Cursor has. So, I. think that that's probably where. everyone's waking up to the fact that. having the the software engineers. may end up winning you the arms race. here. And seems pretty smart for Elon to. buy Cursor. >> One other piece of it, you mentioned K. me uh K2.6. Yeah, I mean, so I think. that one of the things that's going to. become a priority over the next several.

months is this idea of optimizing. because enterprises token bills are. going through the roof right now. I. mean, this month over month they're spending. increasingly large amounts because their. employees are just building more and. more software, but I'm not sure that. anyone's been incentivized yet to be. efficient about it. And it really only. makes sense to go to a frontier model. for a frontier task, but more mundane. things can be done using an open source. model or less expensive model. And I. think like you're saying, whether it's.

the IDE or something else, there needs. to be some sort of. middleware that determines which model. you go to and how much you're willing to. spend and what the most efficient way of. getting the tokens is going to be. >> I am deep in playing with XAI's suite of. products and I would predict. we're going to be sitting here in 6 to. 12 months and they are going to be. dramatically dramatically improved. >> Let me just flag one other area that I. think is maybe the white-hot center. within this red-hot area of [snorts].

coding, which is cyber. And I think Mythos has kind of woken. everybody up to the potential of. frontier models to be a weapon that can. be used by either cyber offense or cyber. defense. Now, the issue with Mythos is that it's. very large and expensive. It's something. like a 10 trillion parameter model. And. there's a lot of reports that Anthropic. just doesn't have enough compute to be. able to serve it. I'm not sure it was. ever built to be a commercial model, to. be honest, because I just think it's so. big and expensive, but.

I think what will happen is. these companies will start training. dedicated cyber models. They'll say Mythos comparable models, but with a lower token cost, and. I think there's a real race on right now. to get those products to market, because. I think IT departments and CISOs are. very worried about the risk of hacks. right now, AI-powered hackers. So, this. is something I think over the next 3-6. months will be, again, this maybe the. hottest part of the market.

>> Polymarket says all of this is fake. Complete SpaceX acquiring Cursor, 74%. chance. SpaceX IPO by the end of August, 80% chance. So, this is happening, folks. All right, let's keep it moving. >> I think that deal structure is smart, because, I mean, to Chamath's point, yeah, it prevents the IPO process from. being disrupted. Also, it kind of gives a huge motivation to. these Cursor guys to bust their ass and. make it work over the next, I don't. know, 6 months. Yeah, they have a $10. million break-up fee, but I'm sure they. want the deal to be successful.

>> Well, the $10 million break-up fee will. go back to SpaceX anyways, because if. they actually run the compute and. they're not owned by SpaceX, they're. going to have to pay for it. That is not. cheap. >> I mean, we saw a bunch of these. xAI co-founders leave after the. acquisition by SpaceX. I don't know if. that was the reason why, but, you know, all of a sudden they're sitting on. SpaceX stock, and they may have felt. like. they had it made, you know? >> Well, it's actually. >> always a problem. It's always a problem. with with M&A. >> This Cursor thing came about pretty. quickly, because.

Okay. Let's just say friends of ours who. were supposed to wire into that round. were like, "Where's the wiring. instructions?" It all just evaporated. Here's a tweet from Elon. We don't have. to um speculate too much. Here's Sachs. He was very clear that uh xAI wasn't. um built right the first time around. The quote, "XAI was not built right. first time around, so is being rebuilt. from the foundations up." Same thing. happened with Tesla, and uh that tweet. is from.

about 5 weeks ago. >> How crazy is it then when he tweets he. gets 50.8 million views? >> It takes the four of us 7 months to get. 50.8. >> our collective. >> It's unbelievable the distribution he. has. >> Well, also, how many CEOs would just. fess up like that and say, "Yeah, that. we didn't do it right the first time and. now we're rebuilding it." I mean, most. of them are not willing to say that. >> He's a magnet for talent. He's a magnet. for the right kind of talent, and the. SpaceX talent has his philosophy. He. inherited, I think, a lot of.

you know, maybe uh people for XAI or for. Twitter that were not in his mold, and. they're clearly getting aligned. And. it's also going to make his day-to-day. life much easier when all of these. things are occurring in the same. building with the same team. The. continuity of not having to task switch. between companies is going to be great. We talked a little bit about the. possibility of Tesla and SpaceX merging. >> Even Walter Isaacson now is on the Tesla. SpaceX merger train. >> Mm, there you go. >> He just did a pod. >> Everybody's confirmed it. It's going to.

happen. We called it here first. >> Okay, topic two. Is there a SaaS debt. bomb in private equity? Thoma Bravo, we had Orlando Bravo at the. fourth All-In Summit last year, is. nearing a deal. to hand its company Medallia over to its. creditors. This is a SaaS. for customer experience company. TB. acquired them in 2021 for 6.4 billion. all cash. at the top of the market.

As part of the deal, they incurred 3 billion in debt, and for. background in 2021, this company had 470. million in revenue growing 20% a year. Earlier this month, Bloomberg reported. that TB's debt servicing costs for. Medallia were about to triple from a. hundred million a year to three hundred. million a year. Blackstone and other. firms refused to extend. a lifeline to the company to the SAS. company. So, it looks like Thoma Bravo. just handed the keys back and wiped out.

5.1 billion in equity. Chamath, your. thoughts? We've been talking about the. SAS headwinds for a bit. You've been. quite vocal about it. >> Well, first of all, I think Thoma Bravo. is an unbelievably well-run. organization. Their returns are bonkers, and Orlando is. really, really, really good investor. So, what do I think happened? I suspect that they probably got enough. of their equity, if not all of their. equity. There's probably a decent chance that.

they did at least one or two dividend. recaps in the last five years. And if I had to guess, I suspect that. they are. positive return. It may not be the. return that they would want. And so, turning the keys over becomes easier cuz. you have to remember, in private equity, the entire playbook. is for transformations of assets that. are at some point not working. Right? It's very rarely that they're. buying the same kinds of businesses that. the four of us would buy, which is just. sort of this, you know, clean white.

sheet de novo grow at all costs kind of. business. So, they have operating. partners and all of these other people. waiting in the wings. to un-. situations. That's the whole playbook. Mhm. So, to turn it over, I suspect. means that there is a core rot. that people couldn't fix combined with. the fact that they have probably gotten. enough downside protection that it's not. a huge thing for them. Now, this is an issue for the bondholders,

and then that'll maybe flow through to. the borrowing costs that Thoma Bravo has. to pay maybe for a a. deal. I don't know, but I doubt that. they would just walk away from a. business. So, I suspect they probably. got most of their money out. >> I don't know if that's true. There was. someone that published some internal. data showing. that the sales team was like 18% of. target at Medallia. You guys know what this company does? Medallia? >> Customer support is the general arena. and customer experience. >> Customer experience management. I don't.

know what I don't know what that means. >> Yeah, they'll basically send like you go. on Caribbean cruise ships and you get a. survey afterwards and then they use that. survey data to provide management. insights and operational insights to the. leadership team and the operating team. on how to improve the quality of their. product or their service. So, it's sort. of like this feedback surveying loop. So, if I were to tell you guys, "Hey, you want to. build a feedback surveying loop to run. your business better, are you going to. buy SaaS today or you going to ask your. AI to spin up an agent for you to do. that?" And I think that's a big part of. what's happened is all these sorts of.

companies where the alternative to. buying a SaaS product is to spin. something up internally and it's much. cheaper and easier to spin it up. internally. You get a custom workflow. >> I agree with that. But, I'm just saying. in the last 5 years, you think they sat. on their hands and didn't take a dollar. out? They're not that dumb. >> Maybe they took cash out, maybe they. didn't, but there was still a big debt. overhang and the debt's clearly. um gotten impaired, which means the. equity. >> The debt holders The debt holders are. clearly screwed here. >> Yeah. >> The question is is Thoma Bravo screwed? And I would say, if you sat around for 5.

years, they're That's not their style. They generate too much money. They're. too good. >> So, they may have taken cash out and. covered some of their their costs, but. the equity got fully impaired and then. the debt is clearly impaired cuz you can. see how the debt and. the uh CLOs are trading, which indicates. that this business is just not doing. well. And then someone else on Twitter. posted some internal information from. Medallia saying the sales team is just. not hitting their targets. They're like. way, way off their sales targets. Which. I think speaks to the underlying problem. here. >> Yes.

>> Which is that all of these. >> that. Yeah, yeah, please. Yeah, so the. underlying problem is that these. businesses in the SaaS space where. you're driven by net new sales every. year, how many new customers are you. signing up and then you're trying to. manage retention and you're trying to. increase sell-through and retain. customers, they're just having a really. hard time sourcing new customers and. there's probably higher than model. attrition. That's right. And when you. have a very kind of typically. historically predictable business where. you can say, "Hey, I've got a net. revenue retention of 118%. or what have you, meaning I'm I'm. selling into my install base by 18% over.

what I'm making last year and then I'm. signing up new customers, you can lever that business, right? You. can borrow money against those cash. flows because it becomes predictable. And what's happened in the last year in. particular is agents have become so good. and so fast and so cheap that many. enterprises can simply spin up an. alternative to a vertical SaaS solution. and that's crushing the sales team's. ability to sell in. That's who you're. competing against. Now, I want to make. one point and just link this with. something else that happened this week. and that's Kevin Warsh's hearing.

for Fed Reserve chair. Kevin Warsh went and talked a lot about. the deflationary effect of AI. And I. actually think we all talked about the. SaaS apocalypse as if it's the sort of. like isolated business phenomenon where. these SaaS companies are getting blown. up. I think another lens to look at. what's going on is the incredible. deflation of how much it costs to. successfully run a business and you. don't have to pay a premium price for. SaaS products anymore. Meaning that that. piece of the business can suddenly get.

much cheaper. That AI is delivering on. its deflationary promise. I'll just say. one thing about what Warsh said. Warsh. spoke a lot about the deflationary. evolution promised by AI and that he. expects that it will drive productivity. growth like we've never seen before. But. he said, "I don't know what that's going. to do to the job market that there may. be a dislocation between that. productivity growth being realized and. how the labor markets are going to be. able to respond to those things. But. fundamentally, he's saying that we're.

going to see economic deflation. The. problem with economic deflation is that. when it occurs, it means some business. is seeing their revenue go down. And if. that segment of the economy is levered, if they have debt sitting on top of that. piece of the economy where it's supposed. to always, always, always grow, like a. SaaS company's top line is always. supposed to grow, suddenly that debt. gets impaired, and that can have an. economic ripple effect that is adverse. But what he's pointing out is that as a. result of deflation, because it's not. coming from some cost cutting or.

economic contraction, what he's saying. is that the deflationary forces. ultimately lead to economic expansion. because other parts of the economy will. now grow. So if I can suddenly cut, you. know, call it 50% of my SaaS budget, and. I can reinvest that capital in other. ways of growing my business instead of. managing my expenses, all of a sudden my. enterprise will grow, and the economy. will grow. He also said, just as an. aside, and I want to make sure I cover. this so so that we're really clear, he. said the way that we've been measuring.

inflation is wrong. And that he doesn't. agree with the way the Fed has been. measuring inflation because you can do a. survey of any household and they'll tell. you, "My god, everything's so. expensive." So all of the indices and. [ __ ] that are being used to. calculate an inflation index is. completely misrepresenting what the. average American is actually feeling. And so he wants to rethink how the Fed. is addressing inflation from an interest. rate perspective, but he does think that. the overall kind of economic picture is. one of deflationary pressure and. productivity gains coming out of AI. >> Sacks, I'll I'll drop this off to you. I.

think it's pretty clear what's happening. here is that the loss SaaS's loss is the. token dealer's gain, right? And startups. are now, and we always see that they're. the tip of the spear. They're writing. their own tools, they're making their. own dashboards. I see that every day. And if you look at the SaaS product. index, here it is. Salesforce down 32%. uh in the past 6 months. Shout out to. Bestie Benioff, best guest we've had on. SaaS at the summit. ServiceNow down 54%, Snowflake down 43%, Adobe down 33%, and.

Figma, which had a huge IPO pop. and is now down 67%. So, what is the role of venture capital. and then private equity in addressing. the software market? Software was eating. the world. Now tokens are eating. the SaaS business and the software. business, yeah? >> Well, I'm of two minds about this. I'm. going to talk about the opportunity for. private equity. Let me just say backing up that. historically we only had two good exits.

for software businesses. One was IPO, the other was M&A. And then these big. private equity shops came along and gave. us a third potential exit, which is you. would sell to them. and then they would raise the capital. based on, I don't know, 1/3 equity and. 2/3 debt. So, it was debt-financed. buyouts, which is something that's been. around in let's call it the non-tech. part of the economy for a long time, but. was a relatively new entrant into the. world of technology. And the reason for. that is that if you're going to. debt-finance a purchase, you need to.

have very stable cash flows. because if you miss. if your cash flows miss and you can't. pay your interest on the debt then. you're going to lose all your equity. because the debt holders will foreclose. So, in order to do a debt financing of. any kind, you have to have very. predictable cash flows. And it was. believed for a long time that software. did have those predictable cash flows, at least for the mature businesses, the. ones that were at the stage where they. could IPO as a potential alternative. So, it was a very attractive thing. I. Like I said, I think it was great to.

have that third option. I I'm of two. minds about where the private equity. business is today. On the one hand. the pricing now has got to be super. attractive for them. I mean, we're. seeing public SaaS companies that are. doing a billion of ARR with 20% rates, 80% gross margins, and they're trading at three times ARR. You can buy a dollar for 50 cents. So is that an opportunity Sachs you. think. hit rock bottom you should do a roll up?

Well, on the one hand I do think that. the pricing has never been more. attractive if you're a private equity. shop looking at a business like that. I. mean those companies used to be valued. at 13 times ARR now it's three. I'm talking about like a category. leader. Now the downside of that. Salesforce is off 9% today. I don't know. if you guys saw this but the market's. absolutely tanking today after the. Medallia. announcement came out. Right. Okay, so. so that would be like you know I said. I'm of two minds about it. So. I would be bullish for private equity.

just based on pricing but the bearish. part is that in order for their business. model to work you have to have. predictable cash flows. You can't have a. SAS company go from I don't know 120%. net dollar retention one quarter to 80%. net dollar retention six months or a. year later because a big part of their. customer base is attrited to using. tokens, right? Or to basically creating. some bespoke software. You just said the. absolute critical thing in all of this. which is you have to have predictable. cash flows. I think what happens is when.

you're a startup. you typically have to figure out how to. disruptively price to enter the market. So you're like, okay, if I deliver $10. of value I'm going to charge a dollar. and that's that's the normal playbook. like a 10% ratio, right? Of price to. value. The problem is when you start to stack. venture capital into it and you then you. stack growth equity into it what you're. effectively. creating in in the preference stack of. your company. is that you are creating a higher return.

hurdle. Right? You got to clear 300 million, 500. million, a billion of pref and then you. have to return 15 or 20% on top of that. So what do people do as they raise more. money? they increase price. But the problem is at some point when. you increase price, you engender a ton of competition and. you put a huge target on your back. Private equity is the last stop. because when you they come in and they. lay in billions and billions of dollars. of not just equity, but also debt and.

that has to then be completely. predictable and paid back, their only lever is to raise price. They. can never cut price to take share. They. don't they can't underwrite that to pay. back their debt holders. And so Sachs, part of the big problem. here and why nobody wants to touch these. companies is that they are overpriced. Yes, they're making a billion dollars of. ARR, but the unit cost has gotten out of. control. It used to be 10% of value. It's probably now 30% of value and. everybody's looking at their contracts.

thinking, well, when it comes time to. our renewal, I'm going to just cut this. in half. or I'm going to cut this by 2/3 or I'm. going to cut this by 75%. because the value isn't there anymore. >> Or they can threaten to and negotiate a. better deal. >> And it becomes even worse because the. minute you make these products headless, right? And you say, I'm just going to. communicate with these products via MCP. and with agents, you can't charge on a per seat basis. What do you do then? Free book doesn't need 50 seats of.

you know, work day. He needs two seats because the agents. act as the way to write in and out of. work day. So he wants to pay for two. seats, not 50. And then if you multiply. that by a million companies, that's what gets us to this place where. it just feels like a falling knife. And I think it comes down to these unit. costs. The unit costs and the price to. value of these products are out of whack. with what the market needs and wants. And until they reset that or you find. new products that can do it cheaper, we're not going to get a cleansing and a.

clearing here. >> Yeah, I think. >> way, Salesforce today is down 9% 140. billion enterprise value on 15 billion. of free cash flow. This thing is trading at less than 10. times free cash flow. It's unbelievable. >> I think it might be a bargain to be. honest. >> Yeah, it sounds like bargain hunting. And what if Benioff, who's the king of. acquisitions, what if he just starts. >> Well, we didn't we didn't put that he's. a buying his own stock. >> Yeah, and we didn't put this on the. docket, but did you guys see his kind of. headless product announcement? >> Yeah.

>> Do you see this? It's it's actually very. he's very smart. >> Yeah, I mean I think it's very smart. >> There's ways that that business can. maneuver, right? And I think they're. pretty unique. It may be that of all the. businesses in the scape, like. that you know, the ones that have that. scale, that have that multi-product. platform, that have a lot of your data, there's a lot of opportunity for them to. you know, maneuver their way into an. evolution of the business. >> one and cuz like if you look at it and. you compare it for example to other. companies, I think the Workday response. was to say, you can't have an AI.

interact with us without paying some. kind of like toll. >> You're exactly right. >> Whereas Benioff is the exact opposite, which is he's like, okay, we're going to. go headless for the whole thing, which. is really. >> right. You're exactly right. I think. that's that's going to be the. distinction of the winners here and the. losers and are you on the wrong side of. this? >> The problem is that we have to figure. out what is the bottom clearing price. and that has nothing to do with business. quality. And so is Salesforce a good buy. at 10 times free cash flow? Historical artifacts would tell us a.

screaming yes. The problem is that if you cut. everybody's cash flows off at year five. or six or seven, then all of a sudden, I think you see. the natural compression to between three. and five times free cash flow. And that is nothing to do that's that's. crazy. >> That has nothing to do with business. quality. That just says you you. literally mathematically take year seven. through end of the future and you. discount it to zero. >> And having free cash flow in a war chest. gives massive optionality. We've seen.

this with Salesforce, we've seen it with. Apple, we've seen it with Meta, with. Google, with Uber, just having massive. free cash flow. When you've got tens of. billions of dollars, you can put it to. work and you can weather these storms. >> J Cal, I think another another way to. think about this is. you know, to the question about. maneuverability and who has the gumption. to make the hard choices right now. >> Yeah. >> Look at Benioff. He's the founder of the. company. He's run this thing since its. founding decades ago. He is willing to. bet it all. He's willing to make the.

change. And it may be that the index you. buy in this era of AI transformation is. the index of founders. That the founders. who are still running their businesses. are going to be the ones who are most. likely to see. >> They can burn the boats. >> They'll burn the boats. They'll. maneuver. They'll make the changes. >> And all and all of the guys who have. hired managers to run the business are. going to do the things that Chamath's. talking about, which is trying to charge. fees and try to maintain the old way of. doing things as opposed to reinvent for. the new future. >> If you look at the 10-Ks, if we could. figure out what the unit price cost and. the trend and the inflation is of a per.

seat license for these products, I will point to the ones that are going. to die first. >> Chamath, two quick points. So. >> Yeah, wrap us up. >> Yeah. One is, yes, I would like fully. endorse what what you said about. Benioff. He's made every previous wave. work to his benefit, whether it was. social, whether it was mobile, whether. it was big data, all that kind of stuff. What are the odds he's going to make AI. work to his benefit? I'd say pretty. good. So, his stock might be a bargain. right now. So, that is me, point number. one. Just And I want to say just a.

thing about venture debt, which is I. look, I think it's fine when private. equity guys use it cuz they know what. they're doing, but I've always hated. when founders take on venture debt. And. I know J Cal you agree with me. Part of. it is that founders forget that they. have to pay it back. They treat it like. venture capital and they forget about. that. And then they get surprised. But. the other thing I've never liked about. it is it makes you more fragile. It. basically subjects you to a bunch of. business covenants and it makes it. harder for you to do an abrupt shift in. your business because now you've got a.

bank looking over your shoulder and they. want to make sure they get paid, and. they have to review your financials and. all the rest of it. And to your point, J. Cal, the companies that have free. cash flow right now are the ones that. have the most maneuverability. I hate. taking away maneuverability from. founders, and that is what debt does. because it subjects you to a fixed. schedule of payments. And so, this is. always a thing to remember, whether. you're a business or you're an. individual. You know, when you put on that debt, it. makes you more vulnerable to big.

disruptions in the market. >> Yeah, it just you become incredibly. brittle, and founders who are listening, when you get that in in peak markets, peak zero. you're going to have venture debt people. offer you tons of cash, and then the. problem David and I saw up close and. personal in many different companies. where the founders would look at it as. like, "Oh, I'm extending my runway.". Well, if you're a hot startup, there's. always more venture capital, there's. always more people who want to own. equity. The equity sale gives you. optionality, and you have more people on. your team, more people rooting for you,

and aligned with equity interest, as. opposed to now you have a debt. instrument, they have a different goal, they have different downside they're. trying. >> No bank wants to be your last 3 to 6. months of runway. Because that means that in a high. percentage cases, they're going to lose. their money. >> Yeah. >> So, they're they're built to try to. avoid that. >> I've never seen venture debt work well. to improve the quality of the business. Never. Never. It doesn't only only ever seen. venture debt leave tracks that damage.

companies. And if you get the venture. debt, you can never actually use it. So, the venture debt investors that. ultimately make money, it's because they. put money in a company and the company. never actually used the money they gave. them. I hate this business. I think. venture debt's like the worst. vulture-like business in Silicon Valley. It's terrible. >> If you get down if if the last money in. the bank is the debt you owe to the. bank, they're going to rug you. That's. when you get rugged. >> 100%. >> You think they can afford to lose 100%. of their money when they're getting an.

8% return or something like that? No. way. That's not how it works. VCs can. afford that because we have the. opportunity for. a 10x or 100x or 1000x for that. moonshot. So, we can accept a bunch of. zeros. The bank can't accept a bunch of. zeros. >> Well, and then when they when they do. get scared and when they do think. they're going to lose their money, wait. till you see what they extract in terms. of value, what they ask for. They will. ask they'll double the interest rate, they'll ask for warrants. It's basically. like being in debt in prison. Chamath,

you can talk a little bit about your. experience when you were. >> [laughter]. >> in debt in prison. It's not going to be pleasant. I've been. in debt. I mean, I've had a $420 million. credit line. And I had a moment where it was. reflexively kind of collapsing inward. because the assets that I was using to. secure it shrank in value in a moment of. market disruption. I was scrambling and then at the same. time. there was a risk It was the worst moment. of my professional working life. I had.

like a couple hundred million dollars. sitting at Credit Suisse and they were. about to implode. And so, on a weekend, I was trying to figure out whether my. money was still there. I had always had this rule, don't have. debt and then I violated it to try to. run the number up. I almost got run over. I almost lost. everything. I will never do it again. And if I ever. do it again, if you guys ever hear me do. it again, please just come and punch me. in the face. >> Oh, we will. We've been waiting for an. excuse. >> Can we punch you in the face for other. things, too?

>> Buffett has this line about how smart. guys go bankrupt is they take on debt. >> Debt equals prison, [ __ ] Keep it in. your mind, guys. >> Unless you socialize the debt and then. everyone thinks it's okay, which is what. we do with governments and that's the. problem with governments. >> He's going to start going off. >> Yeah. >> Don't push the button. All right, listen. We got to talk about TJ. >> just just just a quick aside on that. In. the 1950s, all the corporations in. America had pension plans where you. would get some guaranteed payout at the. end when you retire. And they were all.

like, "We're all going to go bankrupt.". Because a pension plan is either. significantly overfunded or underfunded. If it's underfunded, you're bankrupt. If. it's overfunded, you've wasted all this. money, you can't do anything with it. So, they all moved to 401(k)s and. everything got moved to defined. contribution plans except except. governments. And that's because the. government employees formed government. public employee unions and they're like, "We want to keep the pension plans." And. now the pension plans, it turns out 70. years later, are going to bankrupt all. the governments in the United States. >> That guy Spencer By the way, that guy. Spencer Pratt who's running for mayor,

he started uncovering all of the. salaries of the union folks and their. pensions in Southern California. It's. bonkers. They're making four, five. hundred thousand dollars a year right. before they go on pension. Then they. double their overtime and they get. two-thirds or a half. The pension. doesn't work. You got to go. superannuation fund. I don't know how. many times we've talked about it here, but. >> You you don't need an annuitization. fund. You just need a 401(k). Like. people have a have an account. They got. their money in their account. >> Yeah, but it's just a way to force. people to contribute to it. So, a forced.

401(k) is different than a 401(k). You. got to force people and it's you're not. allowed to force people into the 401(k), as you know. >> As we've seen in California, everything. related to the government is a giant. grift, is a giant scam. There's tons of. fraud going on. Uh we've talked about. the homeless industrial complex, 12. billion a year to homelessness, but the. number of homeless keeps going up. There's a million examples like that. >> industrial complex? >> Yeah, maybe it's a good time to let's. shift to SPLC cuz I think it's a good. example. >> Well, we'll get to it. We'll get to it. Um yeah, but you know what's even better.

is you can just pass a law like the Nick. Sherly Act and you can put your fingers. in your ear, cover your eyes and say la. la la la la la and just pretend the. fraud's not happening, which is their. reaction in California. >> Uh hey, how much fraud has Nick. uncovered so far in California? >> Billions. He should be a billionaire. >> Where's his. >> a billionaire. >> You know, he should be doing it. privately and then getting the. whistleblower awards. I think that. actually would be a better strategy for. him. >> We told him that was the We told him. that business model, remember? >> Yeah, I know. He I think he's addicted. to the views, but I mean, he could.

literally raise money on. >> Well, he's making. He's making thousands when he could be. making billions to Free Brooks' point. >> No, he's. >> Well, but it's better It's better for. the public that he's doing what he's. doing. >> thank god for Nick Shirley. Let's thank. Nick Shirley. >> whether you could be making more money. or not, what you're doing is. >> And you know what he also did? He shamed. the mainstream media who's forgotten. about investigative journalism, who. forgot the ability to knock on a door. and just ask a basic question. And now Bari Weiss with CBS has.

deputized one of her reporters and she's. doing the exact same playbook and. meeting him punch for punch. Where's CNN? Anderson Cooper should have. a Nick Shirley on his team. The New York. Times should have Nick Shirley. The LA. Times should have a Nick Shirley. Why. don't they? >> Cuz you're. You're talking You're talking about old. media that does things one way and the. point about Nick Shirley is it's new. media. It's citizen journalism. It's. people on the street distributing. fact-finding, distributing information. gathering and old media in order to. survive became an opinion organization.

>> Didn't the media used to care that the. Pentagon was paying $900 for a hammer or. what have you? I mean, like 60 Minutes. used to do things. Now, it's like the. media just wants to protect the waste, fraud, and abuse. no matter how egregious it is. Remember, I mean. >> Remember that guy, Dennis Kozlowski, the. CEO of Tyco, who went to jail and they. like had it just a feeling because he. had. >> He umbrella stand the like the $6,000. umbrella stand. >> Made out of like ivory from like. >> [laughter]. >> a rhino elephant.

>> I know you bought that at auction, didn't you, Jim Matt? >> Sachs, you're so right. People really. used to care except when it was their. team. And then the minute that it was. their team, they're like, "Oh, no, no, no, let's just look the other way.". >> It was a. >> If it's a CEO, if a CEO basically. engages in some misbehavior, and I'm not. defending it, the press will be all over. that. But when the government does it, they don't do anything. And in fact, we had one of the most. successful, probably the most successful. entrepreneur of our generation donating. his time to the government to find.

waste, and the media basically drove him. out of that. >> They vilified him and drove him out. >> Yeah, they made it untenable. >> Well, this is whoever comes up with a. way to eliminate waste, fraud, and. abuse, like Chamath did, and they. productize that and make them that make. that their platform, that's the way to. win in 2028 and going forward is to. convince the public that they don't need. to have their taxes raised, they could. have their taxes reduced just by. eliminating the minimum of 20 or 30% of. waste, fraud, and abuse there is in the.

system. Uh we'll get to Tim Cook. stepping down in just a moment, but I. want to remind everybody. liquidity sold out. I'm sorry, we added. a couple of tickets. We we we burned. through them immediately. But you can. still get into the All-In Summit. This. is our fifth edition in Los Angeles, September 13th, 14th, and 15th. allin.com/events to apply. Please apply, and then don't come to us 60 days out. and say, "I didn't get a ticket. I'm a bestie, get me in." Just buy your. damn ticket and don't get left out. >> I have a liquidity announcement.

>> Oh, yum, yum. >> We are going to do one. political panel. >> Okay. >> And it's going to be. Dave McCormick and John Fetterman, the. two sitting senators from Pennsylvania, on stage with us. talking about all topics from a left and. right perspective. >> Amazing. So, Fetterman's coming, which. means the dress code is now sandals, uh. shorts, and a T-shirt. That's great. >> Construction Construction sheet. >> Get your Timberlands [laughter] out.

I mean, is he really going to show up. looking like a hobo? I love his hobo. style. It's great. >> McCormick's very fit and handsome. So, like he he'll balance him out. So, I. think. >> That's what we should program it as. Like, he should wear his best Brioni. suit versus. the Old Navy from Bettermint. Who. [laughter] wore it better? All right, listen. Just rapid fire here on the Tim. Cook. resignation and moving on. This guy, John Ternus, is a 25-year vet. He did.

lots of hardware, worked on iPad, AirPods, and he was the favorite on. Polymarket since day one. He's a bold. decision-maker according to reports. And. unlike Tim Cook Cook, Tim Cook did a. great job of squeezing every last nickel. out of Steve Jobs' product line, which. lasted for a decade, iPhone, Apple TV, Watch, I don't have to need to repeat. them. But, here we are. We got a product person in the seat, which is what we all know they needed. Because, hey, these tools are getting a.

little bit stale. Siri, disgraziad. AirPods, disgraziad. The whole system is. not built on innovation anymore. It's. built, Freeberg, I think you would. agree, on just bringing more profits, more profits. What's your hope here? Because, man, they missed so many great. swings at bat. They didn't get the. Oculus, you know, Ray-Bans that Meta. did. They canceled their self-driving. car. What would you hope that this new. CEO of Apple focuses on, Freeberg, in.

terms of innovation? They don't have a. problem selling phones still. They don't. have a problem selling laptops and. making a ton of money. But, if you were. in the seat, if you were on the board of. Apple, which wouldn't be a bad idea for. them, if I'm being honest, what would. you tell the new CEO to focus on, David. Freeberg? >> I mean, I don't know. The software layer. of the future is not the software layer. of the past. So, >> Okay. >> It's pretty obvious. I don't know if how. much there is to talk about, but you. just need the Siri equivalent that's. ubiquitous in all of your devices, knows. who you are, personalized to you, sees. your email, sees your calendar entries,

knows what kind of music you like, has. connection to your home. Basically, build that AI layer for your life. And. make it ubiquitous in all of your Apple. devices, that no matter what device. you're using, it knows who you are, you. can engage with it using kind of a. natural language method. And it's, you. know, it's it's pretty obvious. >> Yeah. They should buy WhisperFlow, yeah. I. mean, that would be. >> I don't know how they're I don't know. how they're running the business, but. >> Well, they're running it for profits, obviously, Sachs. I would say buy. WhisperFlow and just replace the Siri.

team with that, because Siri's been just. The fact that Siri can't spell. Polyhymnia or Calacanis after 20 years. of us giving them $20,000 for iPhones is. just disgraceful. Sachs, if you were on. the board of Apple, again, not a bad. idea, what would be your hope for the. company? What would be your sage advice. for the new CEO? >> Well, I mean, everybody is going to be. asking the same question, which is what. are you going to do about AI. I don't. know that they needed to be on the. bleeding edge of it, but they are going. to need an answer at some point, and.

Siri's going to need to be AI-empowered. Probably the way it should work is that. you get to choose your model. I mean, I. don't know that they need to pick just. one model provider. It could be a. setting where you go in and you set up. your account with whatever ChatGPT or. Grok or Claude or what have you. And you. can choose your own model provider, and. then you'll have more customization and. more. ability to control your your storage. Let me just say this on Tim Cook's. retirement, he had an incredible run as.

CEO of of Apple. I mean, he ran it very. effectively for 15 years. The market cap. of the company went up by over 10X, the. revenue grew from roughly 100 billion a. year to over 400 billion a year. He also improved the quality of revenue. by moving the mix into services, which. is probably why it got why it got a. higher valuation. And, you know, people say that well, they never did any innovation under Tim. Cook, but you know, I've seen people. tweet list of products that were. released under him. And there were a lot of them. Now,

it's true, nothing as big as the iPhone, but they did release a lot of products. under Tim Cook. And then just finally, I. mean, you you look back over the last 15. years and there really weren't any. public snafus or scandals or imbroglios. with with Apple. It's one of the few. tech brands that is still, I think, beloved by the population. I think a major part of that was Tim. Cook's dedication to privacy and keeping. the company on the right side of that, which I think users do appreciate. And,

you know, he even Tim Cook even got. praise from the president. I think it. was just unsolicited where the president. talked about how Tim Cook didn't call. him up that often, but when he did, it. was something important and therefore. the president tried to help them out. Seems like he nurtured a good. relationship with the president over. over the last decade or so. So, you just. have to say that he navigated what could. have been a turbulent period with a. great deal of grace and aplomb. >> Clearly, Chamath, he was a great steward.

of the brand, even though that list of. products were all. developed under Steve Jobs and they were. just executed well, but he didn't. bring in a lot of new products or. services. Any final take. >> Actually, Chamath, can I kindly ask you. a question? What do you think. other than AI, you know, AI-powered. Siri, let's say. What do you think he missed? I mean, what should Apple have done that they. didn't do? >> They would have out by now a pair of.

glasses that weren't 17 lb like the. Apple Vision Pro. They would have gotten. glasses that pair perfectly with your. phone, take videos for kids, and they're. coming out with it. It's just on a. really broken timeline. They would have. had a killer Siri. They would have had a search engine-ish. Perplexity like product. They would have. had a self-driving car. When you went to. the Apple Store, you would have been. buying two or three very important. products. Glasses, a car, and probably a. television set. If you look at actually.

what they did innovative under Tim Cook, I think that they have great taste and. Apple TV produced a lot of great. programming. I he was working on a. television set. Not Apple TV clunked. onto the back. I think those three. products would have been four products. Siri, glasses, car, television set. Those would have been extraordinary. And. who knows what he would have come up. with. When they lost Jony Ive, and. obviously Steve Jobs passed away, they. lost the soul of the company. They lost. the innovative, groundbreaking soul of.

the company, and they just went into. profit. and iteration mode. But no acquisitions. of note. Nothing important was acquired, and nothing important was released. Vision Pro, you can give them like maybe. that's like the sixth best product or. something. But it obviously hasn't hit. the mainstream. Chamath, any final. thoughts from you? >> Yeah, I have um. three specific things to say. The first. is that he had honestly like an. impossible job. It's sort of like you play.

basketball with Michael Jordan, and then. you're asked to be Michael Jordan. And I think that that's an impossible. task. And on that dimension, I think he. has done just an incredible job. He has. been. an incredible steward of the business. Sachs is right, no major snafus. I think. he did a really smart thing around. doubling down on privacy. And just as a. practical matter of being a great CEO. Like if you I think you can categorize. CEOs in two buckets. One is.

the innovator, the person that's pushing the envelope, and then the second is just a great. steward. He's at the top of the top of that. second category. Um I sent you couple of. charts to to show this. And he found a. lane that allowed him to separate. himself from Steve Jobs. So, you know, as an example, like what does it mean to. be a steward? Well, when you're a. steward, you're allocating resources, and the two most important resources you. control.

is capital. and people. And I think on that. dimension, what Tim did, if you just. look at this, is. he was able to invest appropriately in. R&D. They completely divested their need. of Intel. They spun their entire new. line of silicon. That silicon, it turns. out, and this will be important in the. future, is very useful. in AI with all of this open claw stuff, and you know, some of you guys are. completely addicted to it. And they've kept the acquisitions light.

So, he was very capital efficient. If. you look at the. the next chart, what's so interesting is like it is the. exact opposite of what Steve Jobs did. Look at the amount of money that Steve. Jobs returned to shareholders in his. tenure at Apple. It's easy to count. It. was zero. He loved to to keep that money on the. balance sheet, and he probably, or. maybe, I'm guessing, would have directed. that at some huge shot on goal. In the. Tim Cook era, it was very different. He. shrank the share count by almost 50%. I. think it's like 44%.

>> That's insane. Is there any. corollary to that, Chamath? >> No, he's he's been a prolific. shareholder friendly CEO, finding ways. to give us money back, which I think. everyone who's owned the stock. has very deeply appreciated. The last thing I'll say, though, is what. is the future for John Turnus, and I. think it's in this final chart. We. talked about. the problematic nature of increasing per. unit pricing in SaaS. And what I would say is if you look at.

the iPhone, the unit price has gone up, and people. would say, "Yes, but the capabilities. have gone up in turn, and I acknowledge. that. But the problem with the per unit. pricing being as high as it is is what. Freeburg says is going to happen. AI. rips open the canvas. of the devices that we will use to. interact with information and knowledge. We are going to live in a much more. heterogeneous world in the future. It's. not going to be two devices and two.

different operating systems that get you. to knowledge. There's going to be all kinds of stuff. Pens, orbs, who knows, Jason? Your glasses, whatever. And so, the problem is if you get too. addicted to a single thing. that has an incredibly juicy profit. margin and great stickiness and the. ability to raise price, it's a hard drug to get off of. So, I. think really what John Turnus has to do. is figure out how to move to this world. where everybody will be launching.

umpteen devices. via MCP or otherwise, all of these services will be open. It'll be agentically talking to. everything. I think the most decay. And I think if that happens, that's. problematic if you're too reliant on a. single thing to kind of keep it going. >> Yeah, and just expanding on what you. said, like wearables is where they. really uh made some good inroads in. terms of getting people to use them, whether it's AirPods or the watch. And.

the next wearable, like this is an. applaud pin that I use to record. You. can put it here, put it on your wrist. That AI synchronicity of having your. eyes, having your ears, having your. watch, having your phone, your desktop. all sync together with AI could be a. huge product line. I'll also add a. fifth, robotics. You know, the I think. to I think Steve Jobs, if he were alive. today, would have been looking at. Roomba, he would have been looking at. Optimus, and he would have said, "Hmm.". >> [clears throat]. >> Consumer robotics, in addition to a.

consumer car, those are two things I. think he would have absolutely uh. executed on at a high level. Okay, let's. keep moving here. Uh. >> Just come and come and one last point. >> Chamath, we'd love to have you on the. pod, John. So, just come on the pod when. you're ready. Uh we'll have you come sit. in. Go ahead. Sachs, you get the final. word. >> This one last point on this is that I. think the succession at Apple. is reminiscent a little bit of the. succession at Disney. And apparently. Steve Jobs and Tim Cook had this.

conversation back when Steve was alive. and and Steve. told Tim, "Don't do what Disney did.". Where basically after Walt Disney died, the company kind of languished because. it felt so beholden. to Walt's vision that they never really. iterated. Now, when Walt died, his. brother Roy took over and Roy was. already in the business. He was sort of. like the business co-founder. He was a. COO type, a little bit like Tim Cook. And he kept the magic going for about 5. years and then he himself died. I think. it was around 1971. And then you had.

this string of CEOs who took over were. kind of uninspired and it wasn't until. Eisner came in in 1984 that he sort of. revitalized the business. And so, as I understand it, Steve and. Tim had this conversation. And Steve told him, "Don't be too. beholden to my vision. You need to. figure out your own and extend it.". I think that, you know, you could argue. that Tim in a way was like the Roy. figure here. Very effective business. partner. of Steve. He got a 15-year run. Roy only.

got five and I think again, he added a. zero to the value of the company. The. market cap went up over 10x. So, you. have to say fantastically successful run. as CEO. I think the question now for. John Turnus is, "Okay, you're now past. let's say the the Walt Disney and Roy. Disney part of the business. Is it going. to be like the 1970s. Disney or is it going to be more like. the 1980s? Do you figure out a way to. revitalize it or do you have to go. through. uh you kind of a funk first?

>> Mhm. Yeah, and if I I think it's like. really illustrative of this discussion, Eisner and Iger. Cuz Eisner's innovation. was he realized that Disney was uh I. think he called it the vault strategy. He would and we probably remember this. from our childhoods, he would re-release. all into theaters all of their IP every. 7 years. You couldn't get some of those. Bambis, whatever. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, you. couldn't get those products except in.

theaters and he figured out a cadence to. keep publishing. But then Iger came in. and said, "Hey, what if we use this. balance sheet and we use this. distribution at the parks uh and you. know, with their brand. to buy Pixar, Marvel, uh and Star Wars." And so, there's. multiple ways to do it. There might be. something there in terms of. acquisitions, bold acquisitions with the. Apple balance sheet could be super. accretive to shareholders as opposed to. lowering share count and just.

distributing a ton of cash. All right, listen. We're going to talk about the. Southern Poverty Law Center racism. corner. Let's go to race Fake fake. racism corner. >> I want to know how the SPLC managed to. accumulate 822. million dollars in offshore bank. accounts. >> Yeah. >> This is incredible. These are big. numbers. Okay, SPLC. >> How was that possible? What is going on? >> All right, let me tee it up here for the. team. >> It's like one of the biggest grifts of. all time. >> Anyway, Jake has to do it. This is a big. one. SPLC has been indicted indicted,

not found guilty yet, on 11 counts of. wire fraud and money laundering. Keep. that in the back of your head. Wire. fraud and money laundering. Here's the. core allegation. Between 2014 and 2023, the Southern Poverty Law Center used. hidden bank accounts to funnel 3 million. in donor money to paid informants. Like these are confidential informants, like the police or FBI might use. They. use these as a non-profit NGO to. infiltrate hate groups. And so, the.

official mission of the SPLC. is, quote, to be a catalyst for racial. justice in the South and beyond, working. in partnership with communities to. dismantle white supremacy, strengthen. intersectional movements, and advance. the human rights of all people. Okay, sounds great on paper. Examples of. organizations they were trying to. infiltrate great KKK Aryan Nation. neo-Nazi groups, and the Unite the Right. organizers. Proud Boys, labeled as a. hate group by the SPLC. Oath Keepers, not listed as a hate group, but part of.

the militia movement. My friend Sam. Harris, he was not listed as a hate. group, but he was also pinned by the. SPLC as, like, hate adjacent in their. Hate Watch headlines. And this is. something that I had a major problem. with this organization on, which is they. would just very loosely label people as. hate speech and try to get them. canceled. All of this kind of came to a. head. The revenue before. Charlottesville, you remember the. incorrectly clipped uh Charlottesville. hoax, where they said Trump said both.

good people on both sides, but they. didn't give his full quote. Very unfair. to President Trump. Uh we found out. later. And that was the reason Biden. of course ran. He said the. Charlottesville both sides thing was his. inspiration. 58 million in 2026, to your. point, Chamath. Doubled and spiked to. 136 million, more than double. And it's. remained elevated ever since. Here are. some, you know, images. For the. indictment, and I'll wrap on this and. then get everybody's uh feedback. They. had F-37 as one of their confidential.

informants. He was a member, and this is. according to the indictment, quote, member of the online leadership chat. group that planned the 2017 Unite the. Right event in Charlottesville, Virginia, and attended the event at the. direction of the SPLC. F37 made racist postings under the. supervision of the SPLC and helped. coordinate transportation to the event. for several attendees between 2015 and. 2023. The SPLC secretly paid F37 more.

than $270,000. That's the legal case here. Let me pause. there. >> Can I add one thing? >> Sure, keep adding. There's a lot of. detail to this case. Yeah. >> Yeah, so you're right that the SPLC. allegedly did fund $270,000 to help plan. Charlottesville. In addition to that, they secretly funneled more than $3. million. to. to a bunch of violent racist extremist. groups including the Ku Klux Klan, the. American Nazi Party, Aryan Nation,

United Klans of America, and it goes on from there. So, I think. don't forget about the $3 million bucks. So, this group that was supposed to be. fighting racism in fact was fomenting. racism by paying these groups to. basically organize protests. that SPLC could then point to and say. that America has a huge racism problem, donate to us. And that's basically what. happened after Charlottesville. They increased the amount of money that. they were able to fundraise by $81.

million. So, that $270,000 investment. led to an $81 million return, pretty. good. But this is kind of the whole. point of the story is that these guys. are basically running a grift. And one. of the ways that you know this is a a. grift is because according to the. indictment. that they opened bank accounts under. fictitious entities to conceal the. payments that they were making from. their own donors. Because if their donors knew. that they were funding the KKK,

they wouldn't be getting all these. contributions from Hollywood celebrities. and all the rest of it. So, it's really. just this unbelievable story. >> Under. >> Uh it It the mind. >> And just to clean up a little bit there, these are allegations. They haven't made. the jump from planning these events and. the SPLC. claims they were not planning these. things, they were monitoring. So, that's. going to be their argument on the side. I'm not saying I agree with that. >> I know. I know. You're You're You're. right that the SPLC's cover story is.

that they were simply paying informants. That's what they've claimed. But, there's two problems with that. story. Number one is they were paying. the actual leaders of these groups, not. just sort of moles who were infiltrating. the groups. And second, these leaders, they weren't paid to inform, they were. paid to foment the activities. So, I'm. just saying that's the the flaw. I. understand they have this cover story. that they were just paying informants. I'm just saying in my view, that does. not hold up. And again, if they were. just paying informants, why the.

extraordinary efforts to conceal the. payments from their own donors? If they. were proud of these efforts to. infiltrate these groups, they should. have basically informed their donors. what they were doing. In fact, they hid. it. >> And well, here's the reason uh that it. was hidden, according to them. Again, I'm not taking the side. SPLC is not an. organization I'm endorsing in any way. Their version of this is we didn't plan. any of this. If we put. SPLC. bank accounts together for informants, that would be like the FBI sending a.

check to an informant from an FBI. account. That's their explanation of it. >> They're not a law enforcement agency. >> Well, that's actually the question I had. about all this is like what is a. nonprofit doing hiring confidential. informants, Chamath, to infiltrate these. organizations, to what end? And then if. you show me an incentive, you're going. to you're going to see an outcome. And. the outcome here is, "Hey, we'll get. more donations if there's more racism.". Uh your thoughts, just generally. speaking here, Chamath. Again, all of. this is alleged. >> These NGOs have completely run amok.

They're cause-playing as these. overlords and power brokers in our. lives, and it needs to get stopped. They. should all be dismantled. The people. that donated to the SPLC should sue. them. Rip open all of the documentation, get. their money back. Because just so you. guys know, if you are listening or. watching and you have donated, there's. $822 million of your money sitting in an. offshore bank account waiting for you to. get it back. Okay? And then separately, if you are thinking of donating to any.

of these organizations in the future, unless there is a. full transparent auditing of it, you. actually may be doing the opposite of. what you thought. If you are against. racism, you may be supporting racism. If. you are against discrimination for gays, this could be actually promoting. discrimination for gays. If you are. supportive of trans rights, this may be. pushing back against trans rights. Cuz. the playbook seems to be do the opposite. to create the narrative, give it to your. friends in the media who will look the.

other way and just amplify it, tell the. lie, create the craziness, and then. raise a bunch of money, make a bunch of. stink, and try to. curate power. >> Friedberg, you think this is. in your estimation or your gut tell you. this is arsonists. firefighters? They're lighting things on. fire so that they can go put it out. Or do you think this is like. a law fair as some people are claiming. because there hasn't been to Chamath's. point, it's they don't have donors.

taking this action. They're being. accused of wire fraud on behalf of. donors who haven't shown up yet to do, you know, a legal action. What's your. take on all of this, Friedberg? >> The IRS definition of what a 501c3. nonprofit organization is meant to be. doing is to engage in exempt activities. The definition of exempt activities is. charitable, religious, educational, scientific, literacy, public safety,

or fostering amateur sports competition. or preventing cruelty to children or. animals. You tell me how the [ __ ] 90% of what we. call nonprofits today fall under that. definition. We have completely closed. our eyes to the fact that organizations, regardless of political affiliation, social interest, have fundamental. commercial and probably not aligned. interests with the definition of a. 501c3, and we've allowed them all to get.

away with it for far too long. I don't. think that this is a blue or red thing. I think that this is a thing where we. let these organizations make it easy to. get money, to hide the money, and to do. whatever the hell they want with the. money, and we need to stop it. And I. think that it's an amazing opportunity. right now for everyone to kind of reset. the decks by cleaning all the [ __ ] up. and getting all of these organizations. flushed and make sure that any. organization that wants to do whatever. [ __ ] nefarious things they want to. do, by all means do it. But it's not a. nonprofit, and you shouldn't get a.

charitable donation deduction, and the. government should not be putting money. into these sorts of things. This is an. entirely different sort of activity in. the social order. And as a libertarian, I'm all for it, but I don't think that. they should be tax-exempt, and I don't. think they should be getting government. money, and I don't think that. individuals should be benefiting from. giving them money. And if we could fix. all that [ __ ] up, I think a lot of these. problems are going to go away, and I. think this is a major problem. >> I think the theme of this episode is. audit everything, whether it's. government waste and abuse, or it's.

these NGOs, or it's people like Dow. making these chemicals that 30 years. later, you know, perhaps are correlated. with cancer. We need to audit. everything. We need to take a fresh look. at this cuz it's not red versus green. Red This is not red versus blue. It's. green. This is clearly a monetary. incentive, and it is incredibly. disruptive for society to not know the. truth about. what's going on with race in this. country. I got. absolutely, you guys might not know. this, but in this is part of the cancel.

culture moment in time where they tried. to take people having reasonable. discussions about race in this country. and tried to cancel them. They tried to. do this to me in 2014. Very famously, you guys may not know. this, but I have won a couple of awards. in my career. Most offensive tweet ever. by Vice in 2014 was my. alleged racist tweet where I said, "Hey, if you want to get into uh blogging and. journalism, there's no racism in Czech. journalism. All you have to do is. publish for a couple of years a blog.

post, nobody can stop you, and there'll. be a ton of jobs available to you." And. then what they did was they tried to. cancel me and tried to cancel all my. media properties and my investing. And this stuff had like a modest impact. on me maybe for a year. And then now it's obviously all being. >> Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait. I'm not sure I. understand. [clears throat] J Kyle, you're saying the SPLC put you on a. cancellation list? >> No, they put Sam Harris on it. Vice put. me on a cancellation list. I It didn't. get picked up by the SPLC, but I. experienced the same thing, which was. they said because I said. you know, race does.

race doesn't play a role in hiring. >> You're so careful about your virtue. signaling. I'm just shocked that anyone. would try to cancel you. >> Well, that's what's shocking about it. It's like [laughter]. I know I was very clear. I said, "In. journalism, like a very vertical thing. that. >> skilled at experiencing You're very. skilled virtue signaler, so. >> [laughter]. >> I mean. >> They tried to cancel me, guys. I don't, you know, it's They tried to cancel you, too, Jamal. >> Jason, go ahead. >> You have a question for me? >> I'm uncancelable. >> Yes. >> Cuz I don't give a That's what we found. out through all this shenanigans. You.

care about all what all these idiots. think. But. >> don't. I never have. [laughter]. >> Jason, I have a question for you. >> Go ahead. >> What percentage odds now do you keep in. the back of your mind that your. petite little illustrious Human Rights. Watch. >> [laughter]. >> is actually creating human rights abuses. to try to. >> This is actually a very good point. You. know, a lot of the human rights. organizations from back in the day that. >> What is the organization that you were. What is it called? >> Amnesty International. >> Oh, yeah. >> When I worked at Amnesty International, a very fine. mandate. The mandate was human rights. abuses as described in the Universal.

Declaration of Human Rights created by. Eleanor Roosevelt and the uh. >> This is like science corner. Wait until. this is done, Sam. >> No, but they It was torture. [laughter]. It was people being put in jail and. being tortured. It was people being. censored because of freedom of speech. And And that's what I worked on when I. was at Amnesty International. These. groups went adrift in order to get. money, Human Rights Watch included, and. then they started taking on things like, you know, uh transgender rights, this. rights, that rights, and censoring.

people. They They went after Sam Harris. because he had Charles Murray from the. Bell Curve. >> with all this [ __ ] I'm asking you a. very specific question. >> chance that all these organizations are. involved in human rights. >> 50/50 chance. >> Depending on the organization. SPLC, I'm. going to guess 95%. Yeah. >> Amnesty International, you think is. 50/50 that they're engaging in nefarious. [ __ ] to try to whip up people's. belief that there are human rights. abuses happening that are not happening. You're saying it's a coin flip. >> I think it's probably a coin flip, yeah.

That's what I would say today because. these organizations all got co-opted. SPLC might have had a great origin. story, but now it is. >> your intellectual honesty and I. appreciate you saying that. >> Well, I mean, just based on facts. So, let's see what this. legal case brings about. >> Well, let's be clear. This is not Let's. be clear. >> them investigating SPLC, 100%. >> When you bring a grand jury indictment, you've already previewed the evidence. This is not like some guy's trying to. whip up lawfare. Okay? >> Um actually, you don't have to bring all. the evidence, but that's a side thing.

And And they're very frisky about. allowing you to indict somebody as we. experienced with Trump. >> Grand juries are a whole different. animal. >> Yeah. They They will indict a ham. sandwich is the line. Um so, we'll see. Let's give them their day in court is. always my position. >> Well, I mean, regardless of what happens. in court, if it's true that the SPLC is. funding the Ku Klux Klan and the. American [laughter] Nazi Party, >> ago, just so we're clear. They stopped. using confidential informants. >> That's good enough for me. >> loud, it's insane. >> It's good enough for me. >> You know, it's insane.

>> Here Here's the systemic problem with. nonprofits and NGOs. Is Let me just. contrast it with business. In business, you set up a company, the company has to. make revenue, it has to make profits, and if it doesn't, it's going to go out. of business, right? Because it'll lose. money. So, there's a feedback mechanism. from the market. The company has to. create products that people are willing. to buy, and those products have to make. money. With an NGO, nonprofit, what have. you, they raise money, they don't sell. things, they fundraise from donors in.

order to engage in an activity. But what. happens over time is the actual. activities may stop mattering, and all. that really matters is they're able to. keep fundraising, right? Because they're. just trying to figure out a. justification to keep going back to. donors to get more and more money out of. them. That's how it perpetuates the. organization. >> And they're trying to keep their job. >> Exactly. And then, if it's an NGO that. gets money from the government, then. it's even worse, because all they do. from that point forward is try to lobby. the government to get more money. And it. doesn't really matter whether the.

program is working or not. All that. matters is whether they can spin it as. working. >> Why wouldn't the Southern Poverty Law. Center focus on Southern Poverty, which. is an issue that actually still exists. in some parts of the. >> Shouldn't that be a better thing? I. mean, and why do you call it one thing, focus. on racism, and then all of a sudden whip. up. >> I'll tell you why. Here's my theory. Here's my theory on it. Is I do think. that at one time in this country, civil. rights was a noble cause, a very. legitimate cause. We had the the legacy.

of segregation and Jim Crow, and there. were groups that were set up to. basically change that, and they. succeeded. But again, no one in an NGO or a. non-profit ever declares victory. They're never going to say, "You know. what? Like we we addressed this problem. We solved it." You know, I always. thought that in 2008 when when. >> me. Fire me. My job's done. >> Yeah, well well when Obama got elected. in 2008, I thought that regardless of. whether you liked Obama or not or agree. with his politics, I thought that at. that point most people could see that.

this was not a racist country. >> 100%. >> Whatever else you could say, the fact. that the highest office in the land was. not denied to any body showed that this. country was not holding people back. based on their skin color. And instead of just basically packing up. shop and saying, "Okay, we've achieved. our goal.". >> [laughter]. >> The goal posts all got moved. Remember, that's when the whole anti-racism thing. started was was around Obama's second. term. And what anti-racism was, it said. that. it's not good enough not to be just not.

to be racist. You actually have to be. anti-racist, but what anti-racism meant. was was basically that all the. distributions had to match the. population. Basically, it meant equality. of outcomes, not equality of. opportunity. So, effectively. this whole goal post was moved from. equality of opportunity to equality of. results. >> you see it, you can't unsee it. It's. like they sat around and they said, "Now. what?" And one person was like, "I got. an idea.". >> [laughter]. >> Well, and make race a symptom again.

>> Exactly. >> if they just said if they just said at. that time, "You know what? We're going. to move the goal post from equality of. opportunity to equality of results. We're going to basically make everyone. equal at the finish line, which is to. say I guess communism or or some sort of. identity socialism." People would have. said, "Uh no, we're not on board for. that." So, instead they created this. whole new terminology to justify it. It. has taken us years to unpack that and. realize what's really going on. >> Gosh, I don't want to put myself in a. position of defending the SPLC. They. were partners with the FBI for a long.

time. To your point, Chamath, or or. Sax's point, rather. There was probably. a time when it was important to. infiltrate the KKK and the Nazi groups. >> It's not 2025. >> not in 2026 like I think necessary to be. doing this work. I think more than four. people can handle it. Uh in 20 26. >> to give you guys a newsflash. I just got. this just hit the wire. Um this is. really important. >> Breaking news here. >> America is profoundly less racist than. you think, okay?

>> There we go. Okay, breaking news. >> Wake up. >> Friedberg wanted to do a surprise. science corner. This is the first. We. don't know what he's about to talk. about, but David looks like he's been. working really hard and he needs a nap, so Friedberg, you have the microphone. Let's go. >> This was not. >> Surprise science corner. >> Yeah, this is not necessarily a big. surprise, but there was a really. interesting paper published this week. on trying to elucidate the underlying. cause or predictor of colorectal cancer.

So, I don't know if you guys know any. young friends, but colorectal cancer or. Nick, if you could just pull up this. first image, or colon cancer. has become now the third leading cancer. Over the last 20 years or so, there's. been a scary rise in the number of young. people, people generally under 50 years. old that are getting colon cancer. That. number has climbed by. over 80% in just the last. two decades. Historically, it's been an age-related. disease. So, as you get older, over 70.

years old, your probability of getting. colon cancer shoots through the roof, but this rise in young people getting. colon cancer has been pretty alarming, and there's been a real question mark on. what is causing it. What's the. underlying. trigger. So, this research team out of Barcelona. in Spain did an amazing study. where they looked at the difference in. the epigenome or the gene expression. in tumor cells. of patients that are under 50 years old.

and those that are over 70 years old. This sort of data will show you what. different environmental triggers are. associated with those changes in gene. expression. So, whenever we're exposed. to something in the environment, whether. it's some food or some drink or whatever. else it is, some chemical in the. environment, the cells in our body that. are exposed to that chemistry or exposed. to that environmental trigger. have genes that get switched on and off.

And you can see which genes are on and. off by looking at the RNA of those. genes, which tells you that those genes. are expressing RNA to make protein or. not make protein. And you can look at. that gene expression to determine what. is changing when a cell is exposed to a. particular environmental trigger. And. so, they were able to get these samples. of colon adenocarcinomas. from the Cancer Genome Atlas, which is. funded by the federal government. And. they were then able to take a look at.

these cancer cells from colon cancer in. patients that are under 50 and patients. that are over 70, and look at the. difference in the gene expression. profile. and what um environmental triggers are. associated with that gene expression. profile. So, that will tell you, "Hey, these environmental triggers are more. likely the cause or an underlying driver. of the risk of getting this colon. cancer.". And one thing rose to the top. So, they. looked at a whole bunch of things. They. look at lifestyle factors, they look at.

eating index, how much you ate, how. overweight you were, alcohol, birth. weight. They adjusted for gender, they. adjusted for all these different things. And as you look down this list, you'll. see this is the difference between. people that got colon cancer that were. over 70, when you typically have a very. high chance of getting it, and people. that are under 50, when you don't. And. what is going on with people under 50? And you can see there's this one row. here that's all orange. That row is a pesticide called picloram.

Picloram is a pesticide that was. developed by the Dow Chemical Company. in 1963. This is the. chemical formula for that pesticide. It's related to auxin, which are these. hormones that plants make. And in the. 1960s, there was this big rush to try. and make synthetic plant hormones that. you would then apply to a plant. It. would cause the plant to overgrow, and. the plant would quickly die. And. picloram became a very widely used. herbicide.

in our environment. It's used to manage. weeds in rangeland and pastureland where. cattle graze. It's used to control weeds. near roads and near railroads, on. industrial sites to clear weeds away. from highways and utility corridors. And. the problem with picloram, one of the. the things that's been known about it is. it's very persistent. It doesn't. biodegrade very well. Picloram sticks. around for well over a year. It stays in. the water. It moves into groundwater, and it's persistently in the environment. after it's been used for some period of.

time. I went back and looked at the EPA. data on this chemical. The last time. there was an EPA safety study done was. in 1995. And so this was before we had this. capacity to do epigenomic studies like. what was just done to elucidate that. even though a chemical might not be. causing cancer immediately, and you. can't apply it to a cell and see it. trigger a cancer, the long-term use or exposure to certain. chemicals in our environment causes a. change in the epigenome, which means.

that these genes are being turned on and. off. And when certain genes are turned. on or off in the wrong way, it can. trigger cells in the tissue to start to. malfunction and go haywire, and. ultimately lead to cancer. And I think. that this paper shows a pretty strong. effect of picloram in driving colon. cancer in young people. It will very. likely lead, and it should lead to an. EPA review on whether this should be. legally allowed, but it should also lead. to a new mechanism by which we assess. chemistry that we're using in our food. supply, in our environment, in our.

industrial applications, because we can. now look at all of this at sort of. epigenomic data to try and figure out. what are these chemicals doing to us. before we see them cause the problem. So, I thought this was like an amazing. paper done by this team. They did a lot. of work to try and make sure that the. statistics were sound in the studies. that they did. It really. uh I think elucidated something pretty. scary. >> Is this like a Monsanto thing where like. one company makes it or. picloram is broadly available? >> It's off patent now and so I'm pretty.

sure my guess, I haven't looked into. this, but my guess is most of this is. made generically in China and then it's. probably packaged up with lots of. different brands in the US and all over. the world. So, it's one of these. chemicals that's just become ubiquitous. in our use. that just shows up everywhere, but I. think it really speaks to the fact that. historically, think about 1995, you can. look at what the immediate chemical. application of something does to a a rat. or a human cell and you can say like, "Oh, it didn't cause cancer. It's good. to go. Let's go." You know, didn't. didn't cause quote toxicity.

>> Can I ask a question? In that study, are. you exposed to picloram based on where. you live. >> Oh, yeah. Sorry. That's a that's a great. question, Chamath. So, I was going to. talk about this. Thank you for asking. that. They then took that uh picloram. exposure and then they looked at all the. counties across the United States. They. were able to gather data where there was. enough data in California, Connecticut, Georgia, Iowa, New Mexico, Utah, Washington, and they were able to look. at picloram use estimates from the. Pesticide National Synthesis Project and. try and deduce in places where picloram. was highly used and not highly used. And.

once again, it elucidated signal, which. is that when picloram was used in the. environment in the counties more. frequently, there was a much higher. frequency of colon cancer in those. counties. >> And that R squared is weak or it's. strong? >> Reasonably strong. The odds ratio is. like 3x. It's very strong. >> This is accomplished Freeberg from a. combination of big data. and this uh science. >> I think it's important Yeah, I think. it's important. >> testing as well, right? So, you have. this confluence of increased testing,

increased data, you know, knowing where. these instances are occurring, and if. you add a layer of AI onto this. Freeberg, this is like a really positive. use. Going back and looking at all these. compounds and figuring out which ones we. need to eliminate. >> Yeah, so I'll I'll put my PCast hat on. Thank you, David Sachs, for the role. And I think this speaks to one of the. important roles that government has in. doing fundamental science and. fundamental research. So, the the. National Cancer Institute in the federal. government stood up this genome atlas.

with a hundred million dollars a couple. years ago. They spend only a few million. dollars a year now to maintain it to get. cancer tissue samples and then create. the availability to scientists to use. those cancer tissue samples to do the. sort of epigenomic analysis this and. study supported by, you know, government. grants, or in this case supported by. a foreign university getting funding to. do it. And so, there's there's an. important role that fundamental science. still has in elucidating this that we. would have otherwise not been able to. see if we didn't have this resource.

available to us from the federal. government and federal funding of. scientific programs like this. And that. leads to this discovery. You don't need. fancy AI for this, to be frank, Jay Cal. There's an incredible amount of data. that's available or or resources that. are available. What's happened in the. last couple years is what's called RNA. sequencing where you can actually look. at which genes are on or off, not just. what's the DNA, but in the DNA, remember. we've talked a lot about the epigenome, what genes are on or off, and how that. changes when you have different cancers. or when you have different chemicals,

and when you have a certain chemical. like picloram, your colorectal cancer. goes through the roof, and you can see. that relationship in those tissues. And. then you can put all the data together. and say, "Oh my gosh, there's a lot of. evidence here that points to this. connection. Very powerful. I think it's. important that it opens up the window. that this shouldn't just be a one-off. research project conducted by a team in. Spain, but maybe should be a fundamental. role that some of the government. agencies play, which is to stop. Americans and the world from getting. freaking cancer. Let's figure out the. things that we got wrong in industry and.

go back and delete them out of our food. supply and out of our industrial supply. And I think this is a really good. example of that. >> So X, uh, how does Freeberg's focus on. Uranus, uh, in you know, inform your. co-leading of P-cast here? Are you going. to go deep into this colon research? How. deep do you plan on going? And how will. you get through eight of these. presentations a day at P-cast? >> [laughter]. >> All right, it's all good. This is why we. hired Freeberg. >> Yes. >> By the way, did you guys. >> He's going to handle, uh, Mars, Neptune,

and Uranus. >> Absolutely. He's [laughter] going to go. deep into Uranus and clean it up. We. need to clean up Uranus. >> Uh, great work. >> Anyway, Freeberg, great great work. >> Anyway, I think I think this is. important and I don't think there's any. news attention on this since it came out. a couple days ago. So I thought it would. be worth bringing up on the show and. making people aware. >> All right. >> But thank you guys for sitting through. it. >> Well, no, I think it's it's great work. you're doing there. >> I just read the paper. >> Yeah. >> All right, everybody. That's it for. episode 270 of the world's greatest. podcast. I am your world's greatest.

moderator. Thank you Chamath, David. Sacks, and David Freeberg for the. episode. To your friends, your. neighbors, and we'll see you all next. time. Bye-bye. >> Love you boys. Bye-bye. >> Let your winners ride. [music]. >> Rain Man David Sacks. >> And I said. >> We open sourced [music] it to the fans. and they've just gone crazy with it. >> Love you guys. >> I'm Queen of King Wa. >> Let your winners. >> [music].

>> ride. >> Besties are back. >> That is my dog taking a [ __ ] in your. driveway, [music] Sacks. >> Oh, man. >> [music]. [music]. [laughter].

[music]. >> I'm going all in.