All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
00:10:16 · David Sacks, Jason Calacanis, David Friedberg
[00:10:16] S1: their own opinions, but we have to pay attention. I think our side has to pay a lot of attention to them because without them, we don't have any media that supports us. So I think that losing them was a big deal. It fueled Yeah. The sense. And I think that a lot of those people showed up and then did a protest vote. Cause they wanted to send the message that they want out of this war. [00:10:39] S0: Friedberg, just a couple of quotes for you to react to. Ted Cruz called it a Watergate level repudiation. Chamath, DeSantis said, quote, close to an extinction level event for the current GOP. And in a very long expos that JD Vance did, that was pretty surprising for everybody that there's some reporting. It was approved, maybe not approved. We'll we'll get all that out later. But what's important is what he said. He's in line with The war was the driving force here in the loss and that the GOP has to rebuild trust with voters on four axes, ending the war, focus on cost of living, putting America first, and maybe a little controversially, change our relationship with Israel. What are your thoughts on JD's post and the other reactions, and just why did this turn out to be a tsunami? Don't know if it's as [00:11:35] S3: much of a positioning and marketing issue as it was sort of fundamental. I'll go back to the clip from the prediction show right after Trump was elected. Okay. Can we pull that up, Nick? I think
00:11:35 · David Friedberg, S4, Chamath Palihapitiya, Jason Calacanis
[00:11:35] S3: much of a positioning and marketing issue as it was sort of fundamental. I'll go back to the clip from the prediction show right after Trump was elected. Okay. Can we pull that up, Nick? I think [00:11:49] S4: that the the party line is that socialism was defeated in this election cycle and that there was a resounding kind of vote from the American populace against socialism. And I actually think my my contrarian belief is that we'll [00:12:05] S3: see a rise, a dramatic rise in socialist movements in 2025 in The United States. [00:12:12] S2: Okay. [00:12:12] S3: And I think that we are gonna see, as Gavin pointed out, [00:12:15] S4: an acceleration of progress. We're gonna see an unleashing of, economic growth because of deregulation and AI. But I do think that some industries and some companies are gonna be huge winners and some companies are gonna be huge losers. There's gonna be some parts of the economy that are gonna be big winners and some parts of the economy that are gonna be big losers. [00:12:33] S3: So I just wanted to know nailed [00:12:34] S0: it there, Friedberg. That was, very accurate for the first year of the presidency.
00:12:38 · David Friedberg
[00:12:38] S3: And so if you just zoom out a little bit, the macro condition was there was a moment after the election when when there was this idea of Doge, this idea that government spending would be reduced, which I believe fundamentally would have affected the cost of living. And we can argue about that. People disagree. They wash that point away. I do think it is the fundamental driver on the cost of living is government spending. The more the government spends, the more expensive things get. I believe that. And we can go through the analysis on what happened in France. You know, government spending as a percent of GDP is one metric. How many people are employed or depend on government checks is another metric. But as the government's involved in more of the economy, things get more expensive. So when Doge was coming around, the idea of Doge, the idea of government efficiency, the idea of making sure that every dollar spent by the government has a positive ROI for the people was a great idea. We visited DC in March 2025 and we visited Elon and we talked about Doge and he was struggling. It was pretty clear he was struggling, not just internally, but with congress and with the public perception of what was being done there. And I came away from that visit in March 2025 where I also met with multiple members of congress on that visit, Republicans and Democrats who did not give a shit about improving government spending efficiency, did not care about the total government spending as a percent of GDP. It was not a priority. And on 06/05/2025, Elon left and it was the end of Doge. The idea that Doge was gonna continue was over. And I said China just won because to me at that moment, the day that that this ended, that this administration ended that effort, is the day that it was clear that we were going to have a runaway cost of living and a challenge for progress for the majority of Americans, and the end result of that is voting in more of these kind of socialist principles, socialist policies, socialist politicians. So for me, my tweet on June 5 was China has just won... Was the day that it was announced that Doge was basically coming to an end.
00:14:37 · David Friedberg
And then the one big beautiful bill passed in July 2025, which had some entitlement cost reductions, but all of the fundamental spending of the government has not been reduced, and we're still running a $7,000,000,000,000 a year government budget with a 2,000,000,000,002 trillion dollar a year deficit. So I don't think congress was ever on board. It is a structural fundamental problem, and no one's on board with it. And I think that was key to what happened here. For the majority of Americans, they don't feel like they're getting ahead. They don't feel like they can afford things. They don't feel like healthcare is accessible and they are struggling and it wasn't addressed. My view was it wasn't addressed in the way it should be, and we can all disagree on policy matters, but that's my view. And as a result, people still felt that way, and that's what drove the vote. But I do think on AI, it's this idea of this oligarchy. If I'm not getting ahead, someone else is because, quote, the economy is growing, quote, the stock market is growing. Who is getting all of that growth? Because I'm not getting it. The AI guys are, the tech oligarchs are, and so on. And I think that that's why AI was poised for this. But I do think that there was some external influence that happened on AI, and I'll pull up this chart here real quick, which I shared around on the group chat yesterday, which is an incredible Gallup study that shows AI optimism and pessimism in countries around the world. The most optimistic country for AI is China. 93 of Chinese citizens think AI will mostly help people in the country, and 93% of people think AI will make their daily lives better in China. And we can believe or not believe how Gallup does their surveys in China. The US is fourth last. We are worse than Afghanistan, and we're just slightly better than Malawi and Bangladesh. We're fourth on the list of countries at 36% of Americans believing that. And so I think that in addition to the priming of the pump, which is if I'm not getting ahead, someone's getting ahead and the AI guys, because we create the AI in this country, are getting ahead, made it really easy to attack with this oligarch narrative that there is a group of people that are benefiting and making a lot of money, and then there's a large percentage of people that aren't.
00:16:44 · David Friedberg, Jason Calacanis, Chamath Palihapitiya
And so I think it's pretty clear that this this vector was a really effective one. Whether it persists or not is TBD, and I think we should talk a little bit about what's next later in the show because I do think AI is gonna play a major role in how the politics are gonna play out over the next year. [00:17:01] S0: That's two incredibly concise and candid recaps of what happened there, Chamath. And just as a side programming note, great job on Rick Rubin's podcast this week. You haven't checked that out, Chamath was on Rick Rubin and it was awesome. [00:17:14] S2: Thank you. [00:17:15] S3: Chamath, did you sit barefoot in his backyard with him, Chamath? [00:17:18] S2: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, by the way, when you go to Rick Rubin's recording studio, he walks you around and he's like, oh, Chamath, here's Bob Dylan's old touring van. That's where we recorded Adele's album. And then he's like, this is where Kanye and I laid down this album, and then here's where Jay Z and I... I mean, it is the craziest place, but it puts you in a totally centered state of mind, I gotta say. Yeah. And we sat around in his studio barefoot, sitting across each other just talking, and then they they put it out as
00:17:18 · Chamath Palihapitiya, Jason Calacanis
[00:17:18] S2: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, by the way, when you go to Rick Rubin's recording studio, he walks you around and he's like, oh, Chamath, here's Bob Dylan's old touring van. That's where we recorded Adele's album. And then he's like, this is where Kanye and I laid down this album, and then here's where Jay Z and I... I mean, it is the craziest place, but it puts you in a totally centered state of mind, I gotta say. Yeah. And we sat around in his studio barefoot, sitting across each other just talking, and then they they put it out as [00:17:50] S0: a conversation. Telling people this is where I introduce them, Polymarket. So greatest stock market highs of our lifetimes, lowest unemployment of our lifetimes, and we still had the tsunami. When you look back on it, Chamath, what do you think happened here? And you said you were... I mean, in a moment of great candor and self reflection during the livestream, you said, hey, listen. I had a blind spot here. [00:18:16] S2: I got it totally totally totally wrong. I got it totally wrong. [00:18:20] S0: Okay. Unpack.