Wealth tax, dealing with inflation as a capital allocator, big tech earnings, Facebook's rebrand, paternity leave & more

The episode opens with banter around a newborn. A host jokes about a luxury cashmere sweater, calls the material the softest natural fabric on earth, and says it is not subject to supply-chain constraints. The transcript is garbled here, so brand names and who is speaking are unclear. The bit is comic and carries no argument.

One host remarks on how hard it is for people in power to take time off after a baby, then another sets up the controversy. According to the hosts, Joe Lonsdale tweeted in reply to a post from an Axios writer about Joe Rogan criticizing the time Pete Buttigieg was taking as a new father. The tweet said it is great for fathers to spend time with kids, but that any man in an important position who takes six months of leave for a newborn is a "loser", and that in the old days men worked harder to provide for the future.

The hosts frame the tweet as part of a wider fight over whether people should avoid being canceled, with one host saying the right is now simply stating how it really feels. One host says he did not find the tweet offensive: in his reading, Lonsdale's point was that someone in a position of power who checks out for six months puts everything under pressure. Another host notes that Lonsdale used the strong word "loser" for those people.

The hosts reconstruct the background from memory. One says Rogan objected because Buttigieg had two children via surrogate, and that Buttigieg is taking leave of unclear length, with another host saying three months and that nobody knows whether he is working part-time. The Axios writer then pointed out that Spotify has a six-month leave policy. A host counters that Rogan does not work for Spotify, since he has a licensing deal, so he could not be expected to know its internal policies. Another host calls that a fig leaf, and the first replies that he is not defending Rogan, only asking how Rogan would know.

Asked whether men who take paternity leave are losers, the hosts say no and describe it as a personal choice, but several call six months a long time for someone who prioritizes work. Asked whether it would affect an investment, one host says that a business principal who disappears for six months is unrealistic, and another adds that a mature company can absorb a founder's absence while a startup facing weekly decisions cannot. The remark that a startup may have only six months of runway is offered as a hypothetical, not a data point.

One host says he could never take six months and expects to be out for three weeks to a month. He describes his role as mostly moral support and helping with feeds and diaper changes, and says his bond with his children has improved as they have grown. He adds that he finds it much easier to connect with his twelve-year-old than with a two-day-old, and calls this his own limitation.

A host raises class: Lonsdale is described as a billionaire, and for a billionaire, 24-hour night nurses costing, in the host's estimate, $1,000 to $2,000 a day are trivial. For two working parents without that money, he argues, taking leave is practically the only option, because somebody has to be home with the child.

Another host, who says he is from Canada, describes the Canadian system as a shared year of leave that the family can allocate, with a guaranteed job and pay that he recalls falling from full salary to about half, while cautioning that he may have details wrong. He relays that his sister, a lawyer at a research hospital, planned to take the full year but was "losing her mind" by month six and needed more adult contact. His conclusion is that six months for the second parent seems long.

One host says he could not take six months off but that resources help, and recalls that in the first weeks the routine is a constant stop-and-start of sleep, diapers, feeding and short play. The hosts agree lack of sleep is the hardest part and compare it to feeling drunk. A host describing himself as a bit player says he cannot understand how mothers manage.

The conversation turns light as the hosts note that one of them has a newborn on his chest during the recording, joke about it boosting YouTube subscriptions, and compare raising boys with girls. They note that several of them are fathers of girls. Another host mentions that a baby arrived the day after another host's. The banter then drifts to jokes about daycare and a "learning pod", and to a picture of a sleeping baby sent by a spouse.

One host says he gives Lonsdale credit for saying what he thought and does not find the remark especially vilifiable, though better wording was possible. Another host says he would never judge anyone who takes six months, but that he could not do it himself, suggesting he is too selfish or that the secondary parent has little to do, and that he could cover perhaps 10% of what the primary parent does.

A host objects that Lonsdale made the point gender-specific and was not merely giving an opinion but attacking men who do take time off. He argues that the line about men working harder to provide, called "the correct masculine response", is what triggered people, and that this was a view about men who care for their kids. Another host cuts in to say the group should slow down in how it reads a tweet written quickly at 8 AM.