Winter is Coming, Europe's energy crisis, Kim Kardashian's new PE firm & more
全文文稿 · 按对话顺序保留完整内容，深入理解上下文。
§01Segment 1
point of privilege, Saxx wore this hat last week. What what's this brand? Is this a Moncler hat?
New Year?
Yeah. And actually, did you see that that tweet? People it started
--
It's trending.
--
it started trending after I wore it. So
It's sold out, dude. You sold out the Moncler hat. So we have no advertising.
We -- I feel like if if we're not gonna do any advertising on the show, we should at least get free clothes. We get to pick through them, wear what we like,
I know. Where's my cut? Where's my cut as an influencer?
The tweet basically said that I name drop Laura Pianna and send it through the roof and then state tropical player. Both brands, obviously, are Italian. Both entrepreneurs, we know very well. And so asked Matt. I said, Matt, can you basically send this tweet over to that?
So maybe they can give us free photos.
I haven't
heard that. Yeah. I'll take
this stuff.
Let's get
the GIF going, boys. Now we're talking. Now we got some bestie grist, guard dog. You speak in my language. Yeah.
This is his cup of tea. Let's go. Speaking of grist.
I do like Montclair the way that like store or piano.
Just so you guys know at the birthday, Jason, that you missed.
Oh, wait. I lost you.
--
play poker. we had a birthday we had a surprise birthday party for me that threw it. Saks showed up. Freebrook showed up. their wife showed up.
It was incredible. Jacob basically stiff arming.
I'm very sorry. So, by the way, that came together 4 days before your birthday. So just show you.
Uh-huh. Well, you know what? Kevin Hart showed up.
Give us the best one liner. Which one landed?
Oh, no. Jake, you have no idea. These guys roasted me. it was fucking incredible. But the best of it was at the end, khard gets up with no preparation and skewers everybody.
Friedberg I mean, do what did you think of, like, Kevin's worst thing for us?
--
Carter. He was so funny. He's like, My wife walked in here, and she looks at me, and she's like, these
these guys were so fucking flicked by
out, Nick, but he was so funny. He dropped a line
after -- Well, he's a ringer. He's a professional.
Wait. He's he's maybe the funniest person in the world.
And then Saks had to come after.
Yeah. Exactly. Zander I don't know why Zander was the m c.
But -- because I don't even know.
--
save Kevin Hart for last. But instead, he calls up k hart in the middle.
Sacks was so tilted.
Okay. So wait. So I I couldn't make it because I had Burning Man. besander does the m seeing. Then Kevin Hart, what you were saying is just to fill in the audience here so they can understand it.
Kevin Hart comes in, he gives this incredible ad lib roast, and then Saks has to go after him. Yeah. It's
Xander did it on purpose. First of all, it's Anders is funny.
That's a great sandbag. What a sandbag?
It's a root canal.
It's Anders is funny as a root canal. Like, he should all have been the emcee. So, yes, we did miss you. Jay Kal, you should have been the emcee. 2nd, k hart should have been left for last, obviously.
Of course. But Xander, you know, Zander being a good liberal couldn't censor me outright.
So he
had me go after k Art. That's, like, the next best thing.
Did you steal his documents? Did you steal all his jokes? and put them in your -- I
just threw I had all these, like, jokes written. I just threw them out the window because I can't what am I gonna do? I'm not gonna deliver jokes after Kevin Hart. So I just told a story. You know?
Kevin Hart, like, killed. I mean, the room was rolling. That's like set that's
like getting punched by Mike Tyson and being like, oh my god. That hurt. He's like, Shats, Mike Tyson. Yeah. The Leonard Winter Pride.
Rainman David Sanders. And I said -- We open source it to the fans in ages. Gone reason with We were at the The Code Conference. We had the poker game. It was the last one after 20.
Big
shot up to Cara Swisher. Big shot to Cara
Swisher. I wanna say to Walt Mosberg and Cara Swisher, because they did the conference many years together. Congratulations on a 20 year run. They're not gonna do it. Oh, Kara's not gonna do it next year, but My friend, Jim Bancoff, who runs Vox, is gonna run it next year.
So congratulations to him and Kara for for a great run-in all things deep. You know, they they they they had Steve Jobs with the first one, the first speaker, and you can look it up. I got to ask him a question.
Jake, I don't know if you remember that you and I were there. when Gates and Jobs
--
Yes. -- did that speech together.
Unbelievable. What what what what an incredible legacy that she documented on this.
code. Codey's incredible. Like, I mean, the number of the amount of memories I have from that place is incredible.
That's great. And so we'll see where the poker game goes next year, probably the Olin summit.
To think the Olin summit could have been that.
It's it's heartbreaking. It's heartbreaking. I'm not saying that I'll be hosting the code conference next year, but, you know, they're looking for an impartial. This is the problem with pot is we're drawing too many high profile people in now. But interestingly, Friedberg and I, we now have the press Once the the the the press are trying to do a profile of the pod.
And so we had 3 or 4 different press outlets now. I won't say which ones, but have all asked us to do, like, a a sit for a profile. We've said no. But just because -- And I
said, why don't we do a profile with them? Who's to make them the media? You know? Well, I mean,
it's Exactly.
Our competitors our competitors wanna do a a piece on us. Why would we
cooperate with that?
You know it's gonna be a hit, a hit piece.
It'd probably be a hit piece. Yeah.
Of course. because we're we're stealing influence and clicks and views away from them.
It's definitely
--
And besides, they're ideologically motivated anyway. So there there are message police.
Sex, you don't think you're ideologically motivated?
Listen, if you contradict the official narrative, then they write a hit piece about you. That's how they try to enforce discipline.
It's true, actually. But not all moderates. I like the independent ones. I do have to say, like, this whole, you know, sub stack movement in independent artists, educated by a journalist becoming even more Indian. In fact, Cara Swisher is more Indian now.
She'd left the New York Times specifically because they were you know, giving her a hard time about certain guests or certain conversations, and now she's, you know, doing her pockets independently with Vox publishing it for her. you're seeing more and more of the voices go independent.
New Republic is doing a hippie saw me right now. I have no idea why. It's the
same thing. You know me. And ICC is dumb, and I was like, Here's my official comment. I can't wait to visit Saks when he's in the White House in 20 years. And the guy's like, so you're saying Saks is writing for a president?
I'm saying, no. I'm saying that you don't understand a joke. That was a joke. Yeah.
And then and then after you copied me, then they're like, oh, yeah. We were reaching out to David 2 to get in no. Yeah.
And they hadn't reached out. to you yet. Right?
They had to out. Anyway Yeah.
So they were going a little sneaky sneak. They were trying to get
me to talk about it before. I don't have time to talk to them.
No work that looks a nice That would be a nice profile, I think. Nobody reads
--
It's it's not what it used to be. If it were if it were Michael Kinzley running the New Republic, I'd be happy to you know, take the time but it's not that anymore. It's just another left wing rag that's into policing speech. You know, they asked they sent us a bunch of questions like, you know, why well, I don't I don't have them in front of me. But they're, like they're basically, like, why did you support the recall of chasing boutiques and stuff like that?
And my, you know, PR person got back to him and said, have you seen the all in pod? Have you read David's, like, Twitter? Because he explained this, like, abundantly for the 2 years, he was advocating
for this. Every week,
we talked about it. We talked about this.
There's a
And the guy was like, oh.
sitting there in the transcripts.
Right. He's like, oh, he talked about it on the pod.
He guy didn't listen to a bot?
He is like, he tweeted about this? No. He just thinks I'm like some right wing donor who was, like, trying to get Chase kicked out. That kinda narrative. You know?
So I'm like, this is a total waste of my time. Go read all my tweets. Go watch the all in pot. And then come back with any questions that haven't been
That's just lazy reporting on the New Republic's part. Why would you do a profile if you didn't actually -- I
got better.
--
to you. Alright. I'm having a serious conversation about freebird. He's fucking around with his backgrounds enough.
What is his background? What is that?
It's a future city in Saudi Arabia.
Who else is planning on doing a hit piece about us?
Okay. So the information reached out, and we said no.
Are you going are you setting this actually on the show right now? I I guess.
I think this
way we should deal with all inbound inquiries is we'll tell them no and then discuss it on the pod.
Yeah. They
If they want a quote if they want a quote, listen to our pod and then transcribe what we say on this pod.
or reverse it.
My quote from the New Republic is that if Michael Kinsley were still the editor, I'd be happy to spend my valuable time talking to you.
But you feel they won't they you feel it's gonna be a fair profile.
Of course, it's not gonna be fair. There are the speech police now.
And the
fact that you didn't even know The fact you didn't even know that I wasn't just a donor on the Chase of Boudin thing. I was the first person that I'm aware of at least within Silicon Valley who called out Cesobudin for the horrible job he was
--
Well, I mean, that that was bipartisan. By the way, It's not like David Sachs is 1 of the 3% of San Francisco's who are Republican. Like, he's not able to vote for the 69% of people who voted chesabhudi now. So, like, you can't spin that one.
You're categorizing me as, like, just a partisan. That's not really how I come at these issues.
Can we go back to your quotes? So that was your comment for New Republic. Jakeel, do you have a comment for New York Times and then
--
Well, no. It started Eric I I gotta be fair. Eric Nucumber, who's awesome, who worked at the information, started his own substack, which is really good, by the way, and asked. Is saw my other pod. He's awesome.
And so I'm gonna be a guest on his pod because I promised him and he does my pod. But I'm not gonna be a guest. My philosophy is I told him I said, you can have me as a guest but it can't be more than 10% all in because I don't want it to become an all in profile. We agree it as a group. We're not doing an all in profile right now.
So up to 10% can be about all in, but the other 90%'s gotta be my other projects. And he said totally fine. He understands. But he asked first. And, actually, I would be inclined to do with him because he's if we were gonna do it.
But then
--
What what do they need? I mean, like, we create, like, hours and hours of content every
And the drama's out here for everybody to
Like, I don't understand. what is what what do you need our cooperation
for? I think you wanna no. You wanna maybe frame and get a couple of -- -- sweet. No. You want you just wanna get a couple of quotes that are unique, so that's worth reading
§02Segment 2
the story.
--
guys have shoved their heads up each other's asses.
Totally take a It's like a serpent, a number engine serpent. You're clear up here.
Clean bill of health, Saks. So, anyway, Eric Nucumber asked, and then the information asked. And then Kevin Ruth -- No.
The New York Times' Disass. Right?
Kevin Ruth. Oh, yeah. What was a
nice -- The New York Times. Right? Take your comment.
My comment there at times is, yeah, enjoy the pod while it lasts.
--
or try to keep it together? I mean, I'll say the other big issue is I gotta approach by a couple of by 2 different people who wanna who want to represent the pod, they say they're 7 and a half $1,000,000 in advertising we're leaving on the table by the way a 150 a
Good.
Woah. Okay.
Good. And that and, literally, that was I want
that lemur to grow to 10,000,000 to
20,000,000
to killing me. You realize I would have a plane if you guys just let me sell the fucking heads. I'm gonna say, I could get, like, a 1,000,000 and a half dollars in jet speed.
You would have a plane if you just did one other thing. You're doing a 100 different things. Just do one thing.
I'll tell you what it is. You don't
have a plane if you're smarter.
That's not that's not nice. Sucks. That's not nice. I would have a plane if I got luckier. I will say whoever said this is gonna help our our core businesses, and that's the reason.
I think it might have been Nutramak. I am raising my 4th fund. I am doing it 5060, which is public. I tweeted about it. I had 1200 people sign up for the webinar.
And this means I might have to increase the size of my 4th venture fund because so many people listen to this pod and wanna hang out. So thank you to everybody who listens to the pot. I think
--
For you, bro. I'm proud
of you. I mean, it's just nice. You know? I I, you know, I I struggle to raise the first couple funds. You guys backed me, but, like, I couldn't break through as a solo GP with the with the big LPs, but I'm hoping to get one big LPs this time.
And, you know, it's I'm gonna be oversubscribed with all the high net worth individuals and everything. But I'd like to get, like, a memorial sl encountering or somebody doing cancer research just to feel good about it. You know?
I just wanna say that I supported Jay Kal as a friend. In fact, I was the first l p check-in
your fund.
Yeah. But that does not mean that I -- You're
torched in any way.
--
in any way that anybody else should come in?
I mean, whatever. You're I I don't wanna say the performance, but hey. You're doing okay. Let's leave it at that.
And I would like
to say that I'm I was not the first, but I was the biggest
Yeah. You did you did pretty big. Yeah. Absolutely.
And I will say that I'm still waiting for that moment to join you guys in Jake Kelsey.
Yes. Exactly. Yeah. I'll and I'll just keep coming to your LP meetings and entertaining your end piece. Thanks, Kyle.
Oh, entertaining.
Wait. Is Jake Allen an investor in production board?
No. We we have done we've done a syndicate together.
You are you are my smallest investor. You're in the middle of the week.
I don't know. that happening. But yeah. Let's get to work, guys.
Do you guys wanna show the queen, the passing of the queen real quick before we start, or is that I
would like to yeah. I was born in Sri Lanka. I was raised in Canada, so And now I live in the United States, obviously, I've been a citizen of all three countries. So 2 of the three countries I've been a subject to the Queen. I mean, I'm part of the Commonwealth.
And I just wanna say, it was really sad for me. Like, these last couple days when I would saw that she was sick and then she had passed, I gotta be honest with you, like, it really touched me. She is an I can't describe to you guys, for someone who is part of that realm, how important she is as a person And then, you know, if you've seen, you know, the the show on Netflix, it kind of romanticizes a little bit, but You know, she has seen 17 prime ministers. She's seen so many presidents. She has seen the history of the world.
the modern world being made in front of her. So, yeah, I'm a little sad, and I think she's an incredible person. And even if you don't agree necessarily with monarchies in general. I think you have to be super positive.
For history of imperialism, there's a lot of people that are kind of using this at the moment to be negative. Right?
Jamaica wants to become a republic, Australia wants to become a republic. They'll prosecute that in due time. But for right now, I just think that we have to celebrate this incredible woman who lived to an incredible age who saw incredible things and who dedicated her entire life to the public service and lived it totally neutrally, which in today's world, nobody else does. Everybody else takes a point. It takes
a point.
Everybody else Everybody else tries to basically, like, you know, create a schism. She never did that in 70 years as the Queen.
Yeah. Like, very stoic. Very stoic in a symbol of service, not a symbol of dictatorship. Right? I mean, there seems to be a very different role that she's taken as a monarch, then I think what -- Yeah.
--
has maybe historically been the role, which is
--
Incredible. Pretty profound. Right?
It's extraordinary that somebody would put 70 years of service and be that diligent and I think stoic and and there for her people and and to the people who are you know, suffering and and and grieving. You know?
That word you said really resonated with me, like, diligent is such a great word because it's, like, your discipline, you put in hard work, your focus on the long term goal, and then your selfless. Yes. Not many people not many people, Jake, how do you know this? Exhibit that at all, but then definitely don't exhibit it over 70 years.
It's it's extraordinary. And, yeah, it's I I I know a lot of people are grieving right now, so you you have as
I said, it's another monarchy. I am of the Commonwealth rather, I am pro Queen Elizabeth, and it deeply saddens me to
see that she passed it. Alright. Listen. We gotta talk about winter is coming. I'm not talking about Game of Thrones.
Let's talk about something serious that's going on here. And we, you know, we don't like to be too repetitive here, but I think we correctly predicted that, you know, this if this Ukraine I think maybe Saxu pointed this out of this Ukraine. What do you
mean weak Kimosabi?
Alright. Listen. I'm trying to give you fucking credit and you interrupt him. Can you just take the fucking win? You're such a miserable bastard.
I try to give you one fucking win.
Finish finish what you're saying.
and you cut me off. Alright. Listen. We've been talking about this Ukrainian thing. Snacks correctly predicted.
If this goes to winter, this is going to get acute. And of course, right on cue, here we have it. Russia has essentially cut off gas to Europe right now by claiming that the North Stream 1, the north pipeline, that Russia belt that goes onto the Baltic Sea, They basically say a turbine's broken in it magically at this point in time right before winter. This turbine broke according to Putin. And he needs a turbine.
And if they give him a turbine, he said he's gonna turn it back on. This in the face of Europe saying they were gonna cap the price of Russian gas. I don't know how that works exactly that you tell people what they can charge for gas. But Russian gas shipments which Germany is particularly dependent on have fallen 89% since last year. And the price of liquefied natural gas in Europe is four times level a year ago.
And eight times, the level of the US, obviously, we are have gotten incredibly lucky to find all this natural gas here, and we are a huge exporter of natural gas and oil in the United States. So we're good. This is the highest power prices have been in
3
decades. And the perfect storm is not limited to oil and the Russia and the Ukraine war. France's 56 nuclear power plants are running at half strength because of shutdowns over corrosion problems. And as we talked about maybe 2 episodes, droughts have undermined hydroelectric power because of these -- That's
not the main issue here. The main issue is the cold
crushing gas. This is there is a perfect storm here.
It's not just that. 40% of Europe's energy consumption comes from Russian natural gas, 40%. And so you could see variants There's a base load requirement for lighting and electricity, and then there's industrial production, and then there's heating and cooling. Heating and cooling demand is linearly tied to the number of degrees above or below 65 Fahrenheit on on average. And so as the temperature goes up, people turn air conditioners on.
As the temperature goes below 65, they turn their heaters on. there's a linear demand for power consumption at those. So number 1 is you could kind of you it's you could either cut base load, which is lighting and basic kind of operations. Number 2 is cut industrial production, which is already happening. A lot of fertilizer plants are shutting down in the country that are dependent on natural in in the in the continent.
that are dependent on natural gas. And number 3 is the scooting heating and cooling, and that really ends up being kind of a market driven function, which is how pricey is this stuff. because there's limited supply. So you could normal in a normal year, see fluctuations around
5, 10, 15%,
maybe, with good kind of action and behavior. 40% of energy being cut is a massive, massive problem. There will be significant price declines for the kind of variable demand and heating and cooling and so on. But for the price to go up by 6x, 7x, 8x, 10x, 15 x over normal prices for someone is unbearable by the average household, unbearable by the average small business, unbearable by the average small building. And so it it's causing critical failure across the economy, across the currencies, across debt markets, and there's real concern that ultimately be shutting off of 40% of the energy supply to the continent leading into winter, winter is coming where energy demand spikes because of the need for heating is gonna cause real kind of problems.
So there's the cataclysmic problem of people actually being able to heat their homes. There's the industrial problem of parts of the economy shutting down. And then there's the currency problem of the government's needing to step in and bail out industry by super expensive gas, give it to their citizens and their businesses at a discounted price, and seeing their national and sovereign deaths skyrocket, which is now expected to happen. And as a result, the British pound is trading at its lowest level since 1985. And as a result, people are rushing to the street from Prague to Cologne, Germany, even in London proclaiming that the governments aren't doing enough, number 1, to stall the the rate of inflation, to make energy prices cheaper through action by having the government subsidized, And number 3, which I think was inevitable and is now becoming kind of the surprise factor to the Ukraine crisis, citizens are saying end this war now.
§03Segment 3
get to the table with Russia, come up with a settlement, and get the heck out of Ukraine. By the way, that's not everyone saying it. Just to be clear, But there is this rising rioting, protesting behavior happening across Europe, particularly in Eastern Europe as a result of the Ukraine war. And so we're seeing you know, I think a big shift in attitude and a big shift in kind of the societal perception of this war, particularly in Europe, because they're so acutely feeling the effects, and we are not in the US. They're acutely feeling the effects, and they're saying, we need to stop this war now.
We need to get out of the way. We need to let Russia turn the gas pipeline back on, and we need to figure out a resolution. Stop supporting Ukraine. And that's what I said -- That's a voice that that's a voice that did not exist very loudly at the beginning, and it's and it's starting to swell.
Running out of food or you know, running out of heat to keep your kids warm. I mean, these are pretty acute situations. Tremont, what's the vibe in the Middle East about this? Are are they looking at it seeing it as an opportunity? Are they looking at it and seeing it as, you know, a manageable crisis?
And or and what do they consider their participation in this to be?
there's a very structured framework for energy production, which is OPEC and OPEC plus. And, you know, they have done not just the Middle East, but frankly, the Middle East plus the United States. the best job possible to basically get the maximum demand so that there's as much energy as possible. The reasons that Europe are in an energy crisis really should be discussed, honestly. So number 1, an entire continent essentially allowed a sixteen year old girl to dictate their energy policy.
And when Greta Thunberg was able to shame an entire continent into basically walking away from nuclear and not really evaluating how you can actually have energy independence. What they did was they put Europe in an incredibly fragile position. And at the beginning of this war, it wasn't clear how much damage the lack of Russian energy would do to the European economy But now it's absolutely clear.
How did they not see that?
We set it on the pod.
We set
it on the pod in February.
How did they not I mean, Trump said it years ago. I mean -- The first thing we said, how is it not obvious?
The problem is you had these look, to be honest, you had these 2 gooffault. you had a goofball on the left, which was a sixteen year old girl who knew nothing. And you had a goofball on the right, which is a president whose language turn people off even though the message that he was delivering was a 100% right when when Trump went to the United Nations, He was clear. He was precise. And in hindsight and I'm saying this as a Democrat.
He was right. Oh, about -- Obviously. Right. Yeah.
--
the German reliance on Russian gas and and the European reliance on gas.
What did they think would happen?
The important thing was was the reaction. Remember the German delegation snickering while he was
talking to? They were laughing. But but we're we're but we're missing the real lesson. The real lesson is that in all of our haste to basically overtly judge Trump because of his delivery and his you know, his personal style or whatever, we ran towards a sixteen year old person who has no rooting in science or technology. to dictate the energy policy of an entire continent.
I mean, the she was nominated for a Nobel Prize Just to remind you guys, this is how we insane all of these people were. So in an effort to virtue signal to the Hale and beyond what we essentially did, what the entire world did was turn a blind eye to science. And turn a blind eye to mathematics and simple understanding of supply and demand. And so now you have this situation where the entire the continent of Europe is probably on the precipice of at at the minimum recession. But, frankly, there's a lot of scenarios where it could be meaningfully worse.
And I think what it does is, ultimately, it has forced the Russian endgame. And that Russian endgame is essentially the following, which is that Germany will probably be the first to capitulate. But it'll be the combination of the United States and Europe who negotiate some kind of a settlement.
They have to fold.
And and the reason well, without calling it folding, I would just say there's a settlement. And the reason the settlement is necessary is you were gonna start to impact Tens of millions of people's lives in an incredibly arduous way. And those people are asking their leaders to tell them why it's worth it. That's why you're seeing protests all around Europe. people have decided that this war has gotten two or three steps beyond what they thought they were getting into and that it was shining light on a whole set of decisions that never should have been made.
Sacks, what's oh, I I I think what people most wanna know and I'll go to Friedberg after sex. Freeberg, I think people are gonna wanna know how do they close this gap in terms of the 40% dependency. So you could start thinking about that. but, Saks, how do we resolve this issue with Russia without enabling them? because nobody wants to enable them and reward them for invading countries.
But here we are. They didn't settle this thing in the whatever 9 months we're in now, and they don't have any more cards to play. They they need heat. They need People can't freeze to death in Germany. So they're gonna have to fold in some way, and it doesn't seem like there's any gap that can be closed here in terms there's not firewood to go around.
It's only stories about stockpiling firewood. That doesn't seem practical. Sure you could reduce consumption by
10, 20,
maybe 25%. That does seem reasonable. But they're still a huge gap here. So so what's the end game, Saks? I mean
--
Well, first, just to just to put some numbers on this. There's a good report by Goldman Sachs. called Europe's energy crisis is at a tipping point. This came out on September 8th, and it says here that the price of natural gas in Europe, it used to just be €20 per megawatt hour. It's now above 200 per megawatt hour.
So we're at 10 times the 10 year average in the market. And winter isn't even here. So, you know, Europe is the Titanic. Winter is the ice spurt, the main difference between this and the Titanic stories that everyone can see the Friedberg, and yet no one is really changing course. So Liz Trust, the new prime minister of the UK, so that Ukraine can depend on UK for support in the long term.
Olaf Scholz said that Germany will support Ukraine as long as it takes Macron, you know, from France so that NATO will stand together and prevent Russia from winning the war. So, you know, leader after leader is doing the opposite of what you and and Chamath have just said, which is try to figure out a compromise. In fact, in the last week or so, new information came out about actions Boris Johnson took back in March or April when there remember when there was discussion about a peace deal, about a month into the war? It turns out that Boris Johnson went to Ukraine and said, no deal. Do not take the deal.
We need to weaken Putin and Russia not compromise with them. So the fact of the matter is that the European leaders are increasingly out of touch with their own people. The agenda they are serving is not the agenda of or the desire of their people to basically stay warm in the winter or pay reasonable energy bills, they are serving this larger foreign policy agenda. This is why you're seeing people in the streets in Czechoslovakia and these other countries. And this is why the crisis will only grow in winter.
I think you guys are just assuming there's gonna be a compromise. I'm not sure that's true. These leaders are stubborn. So this is why, for example, we've already now seen in the UK, Boris Johnson, lost power, although Liz Trust basically has the same policy. Mario Draghi has basically lost in Italy.
At Bulgaria replaced their PM, So the leaders, the dominoes are starting to fall in Europe. And I think there's gonna be a lot more of this and who knows what governments we're gonna end up with in Europe. And
6
months -- -- then? I mean, what do you what do you predict will happen? You think they're gonna hold their ground and not have a compromise?
Jamal pointed out the mistakes that these leaders made following Greta Thunberg. I think there's another mistake they've made, which is I think all of these leaders have pulled a Tony Blair. Do you remember Tony Blair? Tony Blair was the Bill Clinton of the UK. After Margaret Thatcher, he was the 1st labor PM to get elected.
He was incredibly talented as a politician. And he was very popular in the UK until he did one thing. You know what that one thing was? He went along with George W Bush's Iraq war. The people of the UK did not wanna get involved in that war, and Blair acted as w's lap dog and went along with it and bought into all of the lies about that war.
And today, he has zero credibility. in the UK. It's really actually a sad story. I think that these European leaders are making a similar kind of mistake with respect to Biden's proxy war against Russia. Now let's go back.
§04Segment 4
I wanna go back to a point you made, Jason, just to then I'll turn it to Friedberg. which is you talked about the fig leaf that the Russians are blaming this on a turbine. I don't think that's even really true anymore. I mean, the Russians are being upset.
--
is lying, of course.
Yeah. But but I think the Russians have basically said that that, listen,
this is about your sanctions.
It's about sanctions.
it's sanctions and a turbine. It's like pick
1.
Right. But listen. But but but but the point I'm trying to make it look, obviously, this is retaliation by the Russians. The problem is the stupidity of Western Leaders in not thinking there's gonna be retaliation. I mean, all you're hearing right now from Western Leaders is indignation that Russia would play the only card they have, the card that was obvious they were gonna play.
You know, meanwhile, look at what we've done. So you've got administration officials talking about the fact that we have commandos on the ground in Ukraine. You've got administration officials bragging about the fact that we are helping to pay targets on the backs of Russian generals so they can be killed. You have administration officials boasting about providing the the artillery spotting so we could sink the Moscow, the the Russian flagship. I'll provide receipts for all of these things.
Okay? you've got Biden saying that Putin cannot remain in power. You've got Lindsay Graham saying
he's -- Okay. We know all this. What what is the let's go forward. How does it resolve?
You've got Lindsay Graham that needs to be assassinated like Caesar. You've got the US appropriate
40,000,000,000.
Too hard.
Hold on a second. In weapons to Ukraine. So my point is this. Okay? The US and the Western alliance, they are doing everything in Ukraine except pulling the triggers.
Okay? they are doing the -- To this point, we didn't do this. Okay. So the point is we are in a proxy we're with Russia. What did you expect was gonna happen?
These leaders are not even playing checkers.
--
should happen. Going forward
to me, you're in the rearview.
Forget about playing chess. They're not even playing checkers. Meaning, they cannot even anticipate what the Russians are gonna do next. It was eminently predictable, eminently predictable that the Russians were gonna turn off European gas and create this crisis. So what should they have done what they should have done was work out a mixed deal.
I know that, but we're we're kind of repeating the same position you have every week here. I'm trying to get to going forward. So Friedberg, what should we do going forward here? Both on an energy basis and a political basis. That's the thing I I get the sort of breakdown of what occurred here in your position, Saks.
But what do you think Friedberg should happen going forward? How do
we resolve it?
There's a
there's an acute energy shortfall you can't just make that up. You can't convert oil into natural gas to heat people's homes. It's impossible structurally right now in the time frame that it's needed.
What should the US and what should the EU be doing now that they're not doing?
Yeah. I I think that there's gonna be this inevitability that we're gonna need to broker a deal with Russia. And there's and and what what I think you'll see over the next couple of months, particularly because winter is coming is you need to there's gonna be a lot of saving face. And so I think I've always said from the beginning, I think that Putin's calculus is to go as far and as deep as he can go so that he could eventually negotiate himself back out in a way that leaves him with what he originally wanted in the first place. And I think that there are certain strategic regions and certain strategic assets.
that it's pretty clear and evident he wanted. And if he's gotten enough in addition to that, he can give up the additional part and he can get sanctions lifted and he can turn gas back on and be left with what he actually wanted and ultimately get out of this thing. And then the the face saving will be from the west will be, hey. We got him to give up this. We got him to give up this.
We got him to agree to non incursion. And there'll be some sort of, you know, hey. We got Putin knocked down a bit, and, you know, we got him out of there. We did it. We won high 5.
Meanwhile, Putin's smiling because he got exactly what he wanted. I think that's where this is all gonna end up over the next several months. I think that's that's if it doesn't, there's gonna be significant rioting and civil unrest in Europe. and and there will be a significant significant economic effect because so much of Germany and so much of the broader continent is dependent on a stable, low cost or lower enough cost energy supply for the production of things that are produced in Europe. And if those things can't be produced profitably because the end market won't pay for it, the economy will be shattered.
Economies will be shattered. and people will be really unhappy, food will climb, and the currency will will be destroyed. And you know what happens when currencies get destroyed? all imports become inflated in price, and then you have inflation. If there isn't a resolution in the next few weeks, there will be civil unrest.
there will be a really cataclysmic concerning economic effect. And you
think that forces the governments to just fold to Putin and give him some
--
Yeah. And I because we
don't know for sure is what are they gonna do from a face saving move perspective? What are they gonna say they
got from them? -- or the the west slice?
--
Ukraine. We are gonna have to plow so much money into the Ukraine to make them feel okay about what we're gonna ask them to do in order to remove or or to end the crisis. And so there's gonna be this huge check, this huge investment in Ukraine, the western investment in Ukraine, the the the support mechanism for the country, for the people left behind in order to get this thing resolved. And so my guess is huge amount of money from the West and EU going into Ukraine Ukraine, Ukraine agrees to, like, Putin keeps some region, some assets. Putin agrees to remove himself from certain regions.
and give up certain assets, sanctions are partially lifted, but they're partially lifted enough to get the flow of gas going and to get the economy turning again.
Jamath, any final thoughts here as we turn around 3rd base here on this of lessons learned and how to avoid this future.
You may you may wanna find a clip Nick from July where I said the tip of the spear in the fall was gonna be the European energy crisis.
Oil is at a 105 bucks a barrel. Russia is basically trying to break the back of Europe by now messing with their nat gas supplies. The German energy minister yesterday said that if that happens, it could be a contagion equivalent to Lehman Brothers. With respect to energy, you're already starting to see food riots, food insecurity, energy insecurity, rampant inflation, sovereign defaults, and you have to ask yourself, like, how are
we going to really turn to get
this whole thing and prevent A much bigger contagion like Friedberg just talked about. If Russia decides to play hardball against Europe or America, We better hope that it's a mild winter because very quickly, you can go from plus 1,000,000 barrels to minus 2 in a in a heartbeat.
Yeah. My final thought to the following, which is that I think that the European system is gonna be put under stress because there are really a bunch of different countries with very different incentives right now where some countries are in desperate need of energy. some countries can probably stave it off for a little bit longer. Other countries are so adamantly focused on their position on Russia over and above any source of energy that they may need or don't have. So I just think like this is a really good point to take a step back and realize that in all of these conflicts, Sadly, whenever you have, like, all of these very complicated countries fighting very complicated wars, it's really important to understand what these trade ups are.
Because, ultimately, what we're learning in Europe is that irrespective of what you morally and ethically believe is right in the Ukraine The minute that it affects you and Jason, you've said this, what is it? Like, you're only one meal away from a revolution. Is that -- Yeah. It's 3 meals away.
Yeah. And I think it would be -- News away. You're only, like, 5 days away from having no heat before people ride on the street is probably the equivalent.
But but that but that's the lesson, which is that at the end of the day, it is When you're in a position of comfort, you can focus on forward and out looking moral attributes and ethical perspectives that matter. But the minute that you are affected at home where you cannot take care of your children or heat your house, All bets are off. And I think this just goes to show you that if you're going to sort of engage in proactive foreign policy, you need to make sure that domestically, you don't have any Achilles' heels. And Europe had a massive Achilles' heel, which is energy. And then, you know, the minute that they were
They just tested it now. They're gonna have to take this much more seriously going into next year because they've enabled the mad men.
That is the dominant narrative. There is a simplistic binary that has been set up that this is a war between autocracy and democracy, and that's all there is to it. And my point is that this conflict has always been more complicated than that. Okay? And if you really wanna understand this conflict, you have to go back and understand the history of it.
And, you know, the American media and the British media, they basically act as if this whole thing began on February 24th. For a good example of this, there was an excellent piece by William Perry, who is Bill Clinton's defense secretary. Okay? He said, how the US lost Russia and how we can restore relations. And he talks about how we can chart a way forward for peace, which I think is your question.
What Perry points out remember, again, he was Clinton's defense secretary in the 19 nineties. He almost resigned in protest over NATO expansion eastward. This was basically a contradiction of the verbal assurances that James Baker and and president George River Walker Bush had given Gorbachev that we would not expand NATO 1 inch eastward. In any event, that's when NATO expansion began was the late nineties. Perry was against it because like George Kennen, like former ambassador of the Soviet Union, James Matlock, he understood that it would be provocative.
§05Segment 5
It would be seen as a provocative move by Russia. Okay? He was against that policy. The other thing he points out is that in the 19 nineties, the Russian economy collapsed because they moved off of the Soviet system. And we did absolutely nothing to help them.
As a result of that, we bred the conditions for a strong man to emerge who basically prioritize the restoration of Russian pride, dignity, and strength. Okay? So he points out the ways that our policies help create Putin. I think what he basically suggests in terms of the way forward is, look, we have to realize that the security architecture of Europe was crafted in the late nineties early 2000 at a time when Russia was flat on its back. Okay?
What are the Russians basically demanding? What were their demands prior to this war? There were two things they really didn't like. Okay? Number 1 was didn't want
NATO at their doorstep. We've been on this. Yes.
They didn't want Ukraine limited to NATO. And then number 2 is they didn't want American missiles right on their border that could hit Moscow in 5 minutes. Okay? Those were their 2 demands. The fact of the matter is we never were willing to negotiate at all on those 2 demands at all.
And instead, we basically disclaims they were a pretext by the Russians for an invasion. Well, look, We never earned the right to call those a pretext. If you want to call them a pretext, you take those issues off the table. Then if the Russians invade, you know they're liars. The truth of the matter is we refused to negotiate in any way.
We never play that move, and so we'll never know. I I I don't disagree with you about that point. Okay. The big
--
So at the USAA
-- --
the u the the European Union needs to learn the lesson of energy independence and not spending more money.
I I wanna I wanna keep going with this because I think this issue is so much deeper. Okay? Listen. One of the problems we have in this country is that when a war doesn't work out, we just ghost it. We never talk about Afghanistan anymore.
We never talk about Iraq anymore. We understand they were gigantic mistakes. But who is analyzing why they happened who who's responsible for the failure? The fact that matters there's been no accountability. The same people who drove our disastrous foreign policy in the Middle East are the same people who have driven our Ukraine policy in Eastern Europe.
There is no -- You under
military concept?
Not just that. It's the foreign policy elite in this country. Okay? So my point my point is this. My point yeah.
Okay. So my point is this.
And you're
--
It sounds to me like you're willing to now say, what compromise can we find to get out of this war. Okay? My point is
-- --
since I'm I'm trying to avoid war from the beginning. I I do think we did not play the piece of, hey. If NATO is not here, if we don't let them in NATO, we take that off the table, will you move these troops back from the border? And who we don't know if they ever offered that or not, but it doesn't
--
We do now. Actually, there was there was new information that came out the last couple of weeks. Okay.
Obviously, they should have offered that. I mean, the the the real issue here is dependency on dictators for energy. because if he if he did not have the ability to yank that gas chain. If he didn't have that Nord, he he would be neutered right now.
But we knew that. We knew that. So so if you're playing
you're not even saying it accurately. It's not that if he didn't have nor it's that doesn't exist without an entire other counterparty agreeing to it.
I agree. If if Germany had kept their nukes going. And if they had made other plans, perhaps with the Middle East -- Okay.
But but being point to let
you know -- -- the United I mean, we don't and
don't forget Biden canceled our energy and dependence the first day he was in office.
It doesn't matter that it's a dictator on the other side. there is a dependency on the other side, and that's an issue for energy independence
since the beginning. I've been talking about nuclear since the beginning. for decades I've been talking about.
But, Jay Kal, one of the challenges is if everyone creates independency on all of their supply, then there is no export market for countries that benefit from exports because they have a surplus. And so we see this around the world with food, with energy, with manufacturing, with kind of manufacturing
-- --
with oil? be a good thing with oil, wouldn't it? China may -- -- market for it.
If there was no market for oil, then a lot of countries that a lot of countries that do not have energy, stocks, locally would not be able to acquire energy stocks. And so a more free, more global war
--
If you if you're saying if we lowered our use of oil, that would make it cheaper, which means that developing countries would pay less.
Jacob, well, just just let me finish my point for one second. In every country, you are either an importer or an exporter. You're an importer of manufactured goods or an exporter of are good. You're an importer of energy. You're an exporter of energy.
An importer of food and exporter of food. It doesn't matter, and we often use this as a way to characterize the leadership at these countries as being bad when we end up in conflict with them. It doesn't matter that this person is that there's an autocracy on the other side or if there's a democracy on the other side. At the end of the day, if there's a global trade agreement, if there's a supply agreement, and that supply agreement gets broken. It's both party's fault for being dependent on the supply agreement and then allowing conflict to assume.
--
think what you're saying is accurate, and I'll explain why. reasonable parties who are democracies, if they get into a trade dispute, generally do not invade each other's country. So that's where your argument breaks down. It would be absolutely fantastic if the less in the European Union learned here was let's not be dependent.
What did the United States do to have contracts?
Hold on. Hold on.
What did the United States do to Iraq? Okay. Did we not invade those countries? I'm not talking about that.
I'm talking about the debate. No. That is what you just said.
You said that democracies do not invade. And, Libio,
I said, we did
invade. And we
are democracies.
2
democracies that are in a trade war generally not gonna invade each other. We invaded Afghanistan
instead of
911.
Okay? And the the 1st Iraq war, we invade we protected Kuwait. Right? And so, you know, I'm I'm not here to justify every word the United States has been in. I'm just talking about in this situation, the EU lowering your dependency.
And if you were gonna lower your dependency on any country, you'd start with the autocratic ones. You'd start with the dictatorship. It's not not logical to you, Friedberg, or fair statement. There is a
there is a neoliberal view. Hold on a second. There was a neoliberal view. I'd say courted neoliberalism. It's called economic inter appendix theory, which is that as nations become more interdependent with each other, they're less likely to go to war.
China was the perfect example. Right?
China was the perfect example. There was also a belief that China became richer, they become more democratic. That hasn't worked out so well. I'd say economic interdepends theory hasn't worked out so well either. Yeah.
So this is a core failing. Now you're modifying the theory to say, Only economic interdepends among democracy is fine. But that was not the view. That was not the view for the last 20 years. It was a times you We don't know if we make ourselves dependent.
If we make ourselves dependent on these other countries, then somehow it's gonna lead to peace. No. actually has just led to dependency. It was a foolish policy. We should have been energy independent.
Europe should have been energy independent. They should not have made them I do agree that it was foolish word.
--
agreement. Yes. You're disagreeing
with February.
Got it. Okay.
No. No. I'm not disagreeing with February. I think but
but -- By the way, I'm not I'm not a proponent people not being energy independent. The reason I think people can be energy independent today is because of technology like nuclear. And I think that all these every country in the world should find a way to get energy independent. I'm also an advocate of global trade. I am an advocate because I think that global trade enables economic progress.
It allows the consumer to get the cheapest product possible and for the producer to find a market for the products that they make. And that that there's an element of this, which is energy. But energy doesn't need to be a trade traded market as much anymore because of technology. Manufactured goods, food, we still haven't cracked again, I'm
very sorry. We we
are then in agreement, Friedberg.
Yeah. I mean, this is sort of an this is sort of an ancillary point, but I just wanna say that historically, there's been no basis for believing in economic interdependence theory. If you go back to World War 1, Germany and the UK were each other's largest trading partners before War 1 didn't stop them from getting into war. World War 2 I think Russia's biggest trading partner was Germany up until the moment when Hitler invaded them. So listen.
Economic interdependence has never has never -- Bad
bad theory.
Correct? Yeah. But the point is, there's very little historical basis for believing that economic interdependence prevents wars. which by by the way, that really speaks to the foolishness of our China policy. But, look, this is sort of a
side issue.
--
question, Saks, though -- Yeah.
--
with the with the China policy. because I think this is a very important discussion we've discovered, which is energy independence is one thing, and then you have trade, which is another, and does this actually push off wars? Do we actually know that we we might have actually pushed off a war with China because we make iPhones together? could we have been in a conflict earlier if we weren't so independent? And have we actually pushed out a potential conflict with Taiwan, etcetera?
with interdependency.
With the benefit of hindsight, what we can see -- Yeah.
--
with the benefit of hindsight, what we can see is that our Chinese policy of interdependency, really, was called constructive engagement
--
Right.
--
was a complete and unmitigated disaster. It was. It was. Because we made China rich you go back to the beginning of dengxoping, beginning beginning his economic reforms.
So we back -- The
average Chinese made $2 a day. Now their economy is roughly the same size as ours. And how are they using their newfound economic wealth to build up their military, their navy, they're basically militarizing, the South China sea. They're basically being aggressive towards their neighbors. We fed that Chinese tiger until it became a dragon that was capable of challenging us for global preeminence.
That was a foolish, foolish strategy. The fact of the matter is that And listen. This is a mistake that economists make is that they only look at whether trade, create surplus as opposed to the distribution of those benefits. And the fact of the matter is that China benefited disproportionately far more than we did Yeah. From the China trade over the last
§06Segment 6
10
years -- -- argument we've made on this podcast is, I think Friedberg made it, is that we lifted 500,000,000 people. I think I made it as well. out of object poverty in China. But as to your point, what yeah. It's it's going to explode.
We have created we have created a return of a we've created the return of of great power rivalry, we have created a competitor to the US who has roughly almost our same size economy and that is gonna challenge us for privacy in in Asia.
We need diplomacy. We need very sophisticated diplomacy because this situation with China it's it's not a clear path
to Why why why why is it that you think that we need diplomacy with China when we didn't need it with Russia?
No. I I do think we did. I I I fully conceded that we should have avoided we should have taken note off the table. I said that from day
1.
Listen. It's it's really important to not just say that, oh, we failed to play chess here that this policy isn't working. Like, let's not forget how we got into this conflict. We got into this conflict because the administration said, I think there were 4 main pillars to our current Ukraine strategy. Number 1, that Ukraine could basically defeat Russia if we basically just gave them weapons, that has not happened yet.
Number
2,
The administration said that sanctions would we weaken Russia, maybe even destabilize its leadership and collapse its economy. That has not happened the rubles at an all time high. And because gas prices have gone up so much, their economy has suffered, but on the whole, it's still doing pretty well. The 3rd contention that was made by advocates of this proxy war is that the sanctions would hurt Russia more than Europe. That has not happened.
Europe is already hurting more than Russia. And it's about with winter coming. It's gonna hurt even more. And then the last thing, the last contention that was made. our support for Ukraine would rally the world around us and would strengthen the Western Alliance.
And I think what we're starting to see is that the Western Alliance is fracturing. And you see these gigantic protests in Prague and these other countries. So listen, these were the pillars of our Ukraine policy, and they have all turned out to be flawed and wrong, and they're becoming more wrong by the day. And yet, there is no reappraisal of our policy that's coming out of Washington or London or Paris. None of these leaders are saying that there's a problem.
So I think we're headed for not just an economic crisis, but at the local crisis in Europe because the fundamental tension between the needs of these people, which is to basically preserve their economy and to stay warm in their homes. And the ideology of their leaders who are financially committed to waging a proxy war against Russia, instead of finding a diplomatic outcome that was available last year, it was available. In January, it was even available in March or April. That disconnect is the fundamental problem.
Alright. Let's go. Come on. Let's talk about Kim Kay. Come on.
There's no word on how much money she's raised for her private equity firm from Russian oligarchs. But him will serve as co founder and co managing partner. The firm was co founder with 16 year Carlisle veteran, j Sammons who run day to day ops. And people may not know this, but Kim founded skims. That's her undergarment company in
2019.
It was last valued at
3 $2,000,000,000.
She is obviously got the largest following and is the biggest influencer in the world. 329,000,000 followers on Instagram alone. our friend, Gavin Baker, responded to
--
Mister Beast actually MisterBeast actually just passed him.
Okay. So those are two examples of people who can put a consumer package good in the world and make it number 1 instantly. Gavin Baker, a friend of ours, tweeted that she adds massive value in this exact regard. What do you think, boys? Is she gonna -- Here's here's
why I think here's why I think this is so important.
Go.
I I have a really strong belief that in the next 30 years or so, all traditional brands are gonna die. And I think that what we're seeing happening right now with the with the power of democratized media like us creating a podcast There are hundreds and now thousands of individuals who have stood up and created their own brand and their own presence because of the content that they create, on Twitch, on Twitter, on YouTube, etcetera, on podcasting. And as a result, they become the trusted sources of influence, and it's why they're called influencers. and, ultimately, these influencers are becoming the brands. They can, like Mister Beast, launched a chocolate bar, became like the number one chocolate bar in the country, He just opened up a burger restaurant last week.
10,000 people showed up. Number 1 no. More than that. Like, a 100,000 or something. It was insane.
It was, like, the number one burger restaurant opening or number one restaurant opening in history. Kylie Jenner, launches a makeup brand, takes off, becomes this $1,000,000,000 brand. Kim Kardashian launches a clothing brand becomes a $3,000,000,000 brand. These are not just brands. They're businesses, and here's what I think is the most transaction of 2022, and you guys could tell me I'm crazy.
I think the most important M and A deal of
2022
was when Penn Gaming bought barstool sports. because it shows that every consumer packaged goods or every consumer services business ultimately needs to be a content business. And if you don't naturally have content creation in your blood, you have to go and buy a content business or you are gonna die. And that's why I think all traditional brands that aren't oriented and built around content creation as their primary differentiating foundation will not survive and will not be able to compete effectively. And instead, what we're gonna see is influencers and individuals that create content, build, and distribute consumer goods and consumer services in a more efficient way because guess what?
They've got distribution built in. Distribution. Distribution is the number one problem with all consumer services and all consumer goods. So I think in the future, All advertising -- Yeah.
--
all advertising and marketing gets replaced by content creation, and content creation direct to consumers through the the social media platforms becomes the mechanism by which people are aware of and buy goods and services. Shamal. So that's why I think this deal is so important I think it's a it's another one of what we're seeing in 2022, which is the stacking away towards the end of nameless faceless brands and the evolution of the influencer.
I think Kate Kardashian is incredible. She is an incredible businesswoman. and the fact that she can stand up, what will probably be, like, a multibillion dollar private equity fund. And, frankly, the companies that she invests in has a really compelling chance of being successful because she can basically core so much visibility and notoriety and awareness of a brand into that company, that that cap table, if I was a director, I would say, of course, Gabriela, whatever she wants. So that's the first thing.
And the second thing I would say is that I think what Friedberg says is completely right. I think we're at a point in time where the biggest thing that if you wanna build a consumer business, my advice to you as an entrepreneur is you need to build direct distribution and scale because what that translates into, what Kim Kardashian proves, what Mister Beast is proving, is it's all about subsidized CAC, where you don't customer customer customer acquisition. Where you are not paying dollars to Facebook and Google, But instead, because you have direct distribution and a relationship with tens or 100 of millions of users, you can pour them into different experiences. And when you can do that, it is basically virtually zero cost. Your entire margin structure of how you build the consumer business has changed overnight.
So that's what they've proven. They've proven that you need to first build the brand, and then you can put you convert that brand into a distribution funnel and then to basically pull all kinds of services into it. And one of the services as it turns out is now a private equity fund. So I think it's incredible, and I hope she's super successful.
Sachs, do you think this influencer strategy is here for and gonna have a major impact on the venture business?
think it's pretty interesting.
We're soaking it. But -- I
think it's pretty interesting in the consumer space for the reason Friedberg said, which is distribution is so hard. So Creating a great product is hard. Distribution is even harder. And this is a realization I had, you know, many years ago and which is when I started doing Yammer and then, you know, Craft started focusing on SaaS, which is at least when you do a b to b product, you know, software as a service, you can charge enough money for it that you can get a sales team to pencil. So in other words, you charge an enterprise enough money for the software that you can then pay a salesperson to go out and sell it.
So there was always a distribution model built in for b to b, And that's why I've always liked that is there's a playbook there. Where if you just build a good enough piece of enterprise software, a good enough product, There's always gonna be distribution for it. However, that's not true with consumer because consumer products are usually ad based. You can't generally charge that much if you can charge it all. they have high churn rates.
And so, therefore, b to c only works if you can find a very low cost scalable distribution channel.
And I
think that's what to Friedberg point, I think that's what the Kardashians are offering. It's clearly worked for their own products. I guess we'll see how extensible it is. But this is really the key challenge with all consumer stuff is just how do you find a very cheap way of distributing it. In the past, the consumer products I've been involved in like PayPal or investing in social networks like Facebook, they were viral.
Then they they were exponentially viral. So they were able to basically grow virally for free. So you either have to have, you know, extraordinary virality to the product or some other distribution trick that allows you to scale at low cost because you can't afford a sales team.
§07Segment 7
And what we're seeing is the base of doing that is to create content. Mister Beast created content for years before he built a big enough audience to do that. Kim Kardashian did content for years before she had a distribution to do that. Dave Portnoy and barstool sports. I mean, the guy, Dave Portnoy, I mean, Jason Calicanis.
Jason Calicanis. Yeah. Seriously. I mean, Portnoy was out raiding pizza. And, you know, now he has all these other kind of, you know, media and content kind of branches of his platform, but it's all content creation.
And on top of that content,
everybody's -- -- good at it, Friedberg. That's the other problem.
I get it, but that's not what I'm saying. And and that's my point. So let's say Coca Cola tried to build a content business today, how good would they be? Not very good. That's why they're gonna end up dying or they're gonna end up needing to buy.
That's a really interesting concept. I mean, do you think Mister Beastberger could beat McDonald's?
Yes. And that's what I'm saying. That's my point. That's why I opened up
the game.
--
insane when you think about it. If Mister Beast had 5000 franchisees.
Yeah. But this is exactly my point that I said at the beginning, every traditional brand will get destroyed in 30 years. and they will get destroyed by the influencers that have built an audience through content creation and now creating businesses on top of that that compete with the traditional incumbents, not technology advantage businesses. I'm talking about core consumer goods and services.
They also have to be -- -- good thing.
Penn gaming Penn gaming does betting. know, there's no real advantage in betting. You build a sports book. That's it. The reason Penn Gaming bought bar school is they now have an audience that they can drive to their sports books.
Right. And so the same will happen with -- You still
have to make a great product, though. I mean, that that's the other challenge here is can you also be a product Savat? Can you be a virtuoso in building a product in addition to being an influencer. Yeah. And I think that's what Kim gets right.
She makes great product, and Mister Beast His first burger was not good, but now this new burger from what I understand is awesome. So you have to have both things switched on.
Think about think about what's easier and what's harder. What's easier building an audience of 2,000,000,000 or a billion people that listen or watch you every week or building a great burger. It's a lot harder to build the audience. Yeah. And so we'll know the product.
If it's a car -- If it's a car, it's really hard.
Yeah. It's not a I'm not talking about complicated cars and stuff or electronics. I'm talking about basic consumer goods. cereal, beverages, food.
Why not?
Commodity. Music, audio like like, all this stuff that's commodity yeah. betting. I mean, this is not
like -- -- the bar. Betting.
Betting is not a differentiated service offering to consumers. So, ultimately, how do you differentiate? It's the it's the audience that you've now built, the brand that you've built through the audience because of content creation. And so this is why I just wanna point out distributed content creation, I think, represents one of the most profound investing opportunities over the next decade. Because if you can give individuals the ability to make high quality content, They can scale an audience that that that now can be monetized in a 1000 ways, not just putting frigging ad spots on YouTube, but there's a 1000 products you as an as an influencer can build on top of your audience or sell to your audience.
Boom. It really changes the whole landscape for CPG And Services. Well and not to bring work.
everything back to Mister Beast. But a large number of his videos, he told us he lost money on. So the videos at some point started losing him money, and it was an investment in that brand. And, you know, it's it's clearly gonna pay off now. I saw Alexis O'Hannian from, you know, Reddit fame and
-- 776. -- 776
is a new fun. he went to go see the burger place and he's like, what? Like, there were, at that point in time, ten thousand people online, Mister Beast had to tell people, please do not show up, which, of course, then do I have some people show up? Anybody have plugs or anything that they wanna get off their Sachs, anything else? I do.
I do. Okay. We gotta plug it.
I do. There is a an epidemic right now of the overprescription of amphetamines to children who are diagnosed with ADHD.
It's terrible.
it is an enormously important issue that doesn't just touch kids anymore, but now also touches adults. you've seen a lot of really kind of bad companies that are overprescribing this stuff get shut down and get sanctioned. So I just wanted to let anybody who's listening know. And this is me talking to my book, so take this with a grain of salt. But there's a company that I'm involved in that has a video game that has been approved by the FTA to be a a useful treatment for kids who have been diagnosed with ADHD.
So if you have an eight to eleven year old, You can go and talk to your pediatrician to find out about this solution. It's called Achilles. And it will allow you to prescribe to them a video game that they play 30 minutes a day.
I just wanna make sure people hear the name. It's Akili, a k i l i. So if you were able to search for Akili, a k ILI interaction.
Go talk to your pediatrician. If you are
a parent of the
child that's dealing with this, go and read the label, have the doctor decide Okay? So I'm not telling you to go do this, but I'm asking you
--
Look into it. -- applies to you just
--
Look into it.
But the the idea is that there are drugs that affect your brain, and now we are increasingly able to design software that exquisitely targets certain aspects of your brain and are able to train them. And this is really first example of such a thing that the FDA who has reviewed all kinds of clinical data has decided to approve. And so it's launching in the next few weeks. We've already written prescriptions to kids in every single state of of the United States. And so to the extent that you're deciding what to do or you have a child or you have somebody in your family that is of age, eight to eleven years old, that's dealing with this would just encourage you to learn about it.
That is a plug and, you know, all the display
--
I know. It's a great plug. And we I think we should at the end just talk about some of the things we're working on, and this is an incredible one. the number of kids on these, you know, ADHD drugs, attention drugs, depression drugs, anxiety drugs -- Millions.
--
it is out of control. There is listen. I don't wanna tell parents how to parent, but I will say, this is becoming a dependency and the number of drug I the interviewer saw that New York Times where they put this one girl on 10 drugs. They're prescribing multiple drugs, and we don't know exactly what the long term effects of children using these are. And there are other solutions.
I'm not judging any parent. I'm not judging any teachers who's advising this, but this country and a society needs to really look deeply at this issue and say, should children because we didn't go on these drugs. So meerkids, they didn't exist. And and they haven't existed for all of humanity. And we need to think what kind of experiment are we running on 10, 20, 30% kids in some schools.
You're you're stating something so incredibly important. You know, when you have kids that are preteens and teenagers, Their physiology is changing dramatically. And all of a sudden, when you introduce a secondary chemical compound into all of that, You're exactly right. We don't really know what the outcomes are. And right now, I think a lot of people are worried that the overprescription of drugs in this kind of condition is gonna create a next version of an opioid pandemic or epidemic.
And I think, like, that a thing that
That's exactly the analogy, Shamalff. Right now, I this statistic is crazy. This is in the New York Times. Express Scripts, a mail order pharmacy recently reported that prescriptions of antidepressants for teenagers Rose
38%
from 2015 to 29. We are prescribing these at an alarming rate. I have many parents at my circle who have kids who had what I would consider modest behavioral issues or modest attention issues. And they talk to me about this, and they felt in multiple cases like they were being bullied or pressured by teachers to put their kids on behavioral drugs because their kids were behaving
10%
as badly as I did in middle school or or high school. This is being used, I believe. This is my personal belief. I know there are some kids who need these drugs or I assume that there are. But I think this is being used to keep kids in their seats and to make it easier for parents to have to deal with what are normally the hardships of teenager, you know, teenagers.
And just be very careful parents. about the extent to which, you you know, you might be being pressured. Perhaps parents have told me they felt bullied into giving their kids these drugs. It really is experiencing to me. And I think it's really great that
you -- We -- -- investment.
People should look into it. Exercise, talking to your kids, these things also work.
This sounds like I'm in town through this. we had a guidance counselor at at our school tell me that they thought that one of my children should just get put on these drugs. And I was like, it was the most random statement, and all I could get from her was that she just didn't wanna deal with the fact that every now and then, this kid would just, you know, be exuberant.
Yeah. To your point I wanna kill their spirit. I had the same conversation. I don't wanna get into it too much, but, you know, I think that these teachers now and I'm not saying it's all teachers. They are like it's it's just easier to manage kids who are on focused energy drugs.
And then there are some parents who want their kids to do really good on standardized testing. would have done better on standardized testing if I was on Adderall or whatever these attention drugs are. We everybody would score 10% better. But what does it do to the quality of your life long term? That's the question we need to ask about this stuff.
And we don't have answers for it. I don't wanna be Tom Cruise on this podcast, but there are other ways to keep you know, kids healthy and to deal with these issues. And and I think these things are to say they're overprescribed, it's gonna be a huge understatement. We don't look at this like the opioid crisis. I guarantee it.
§08Segment 8
I think that's exact I mean, if you you start dope sick. Right? And people thought they were doing the right thing. Oh, these people have pain. This drug manages pain.
And then they found out, like, oh, yeah. You know what? This drug also make could make you an addict and could ruin your life. Great job on that investment, and I and I hope it works. Thank you.
Yeah. Thank you. Snacks, anything else, any companies in your portfolio you wanna give a shout out to? We might as well get something out of this fucking pot since we're leaving $7,000,000 on the fucking table. you guys wanted to let me run all in Summit too so I can get a half Millie.
I don't have anything to plug right now, but
--
No company you invested in in for. How about you? Supergut, can we get some supergut.com in here? These bars taste great, Friedberg. I love the supergut.
Thank you. I literally
just ordered another pack of them.
I'm glad. Thank you. Great question.
Supergut do you have supergut.com? By the
way, this is where I'm having, yeah, supergut.com, but I'm this is I actually one of my B2C companies where I'm having a lot of these conversations about how do you actually avoid just buying ads on Facebook and Google, and how do you actually build an audience. Right? How do you ultimately convert your customers by creating content? And so
--
This was originally unique. Right? And then you changed the content.
Yeah. Based on the science around around resistant starch and how it changes the gut biome. And so but this is general. I'm I'm the board of a couple of D2C companies, and it is universally the conversation right now. because in the last year, the cost of D2C direct to consumer marketing on face book and Google -- That's brutal.
--
double, tripled, and a lot of the unit economics are falling apart on D2C Businesses because of it. You know, costs a lot more to acquire the customer than you make from them. And so everyone's scrambling to figure out, okay, how do I acquire customers? And that's where this content creation strategy is becoming a critical linchpin. for most
consumer businesses now. It's a really important part of it. I think a couple of us are investors in 8 Sleep, and they were like, please let us advertise on Wallen. I was like, sorry. No answer, but I'll shut you out here.
8
Sleep. It's a great product.
I have
a plug, but I wanna save it. So I fucking drop a plug for a while. No. No. The product hasn't launched yet.
Give me
like a month.
Alright, yo.
And if anybody wants to be a venture investor, jason@calicanice.com, to come to one of my webinars and see my latest fun. Since when you start allowing all these plug
Calacanis thought we had
2
of them. It was a setup. It was a setup. I just wanted to do a round up a plug so I could get mine in. So I was being generous work.
Plan worked. I got you on the hook for yours. What was your what was your step
plug? are you doing your your venture fund?
I'm doing one for.
And -- Well, if I plug in stuff, I'll plug I'll plug the call in app. -- .com if you wanna call in
We're all involved. Everybody's calling up.
Let's you know what we should do with Colin? We should all do, like, an after hours where we take questions from the audience. That would be great.
I would do that. Yeah.
We'd do that.
I would do that. Can I get a point? Alright. Let's go. Everybody, this has been all in episode 95.
Wait. Wait. Shall we do that?
--
create more bands. Jake out
That wasn't that that was another
deal you turned down just like the Ukraine deal.
This is a theme here is that you turned down deals you later Great Dale, are you admit I'll try I'm a call you, but I was right. You should've taken the deal.
I should've taken the deal. I should've taken the deal. I should've taken the deal. I should've taken the deal. I should've taken the deal.
I should've taken the deal. I should've taken the deal. I should've taken the deal. I should've taken the deal. I should've taken the deal.
I should've taken
the deal. I should've taken the deal. I should've taken
the deal.
I should've taken the deal.
I should've taken the deal. It's, like, 11:30. Right? Midnight? It's 11:30.
Oh. It's 11:30. That's okay.
I'm losing my bike, but I lost my bike. I lost my
voice this morning. Send send us an invite for AMA for the 4 of us on Collin.
Collin. I'll do that. Everybody download Collin.
--
do that. Okay. Just remember all of the -- -- props maybe?
Yeah. Live AMA. Live AMA with the bus
--
I'm gonna show a car.
Jake a shoot show over
show up. Maybe I'll show up for Saks
1.
I'll show
up. Jake yeah. I'll I'll show up. I'll I'll be happy to do it. I'm back in the United States tomorrow.
Alright. Well, let me play poker in 14 hours. In 2 hours, if you can, you're gonna ask somebody to come play poker. We'll meet you
in the airport. We'll pick you up from We'll
pick up the airport. We'll play Chinese poker in the back of the car. Alright, everybody. Chamelos
and Chamath.
You need something -- Little honey tea.
I I I need a lozenge. I have some tea over there.
Alright, Gelo. How about you, guys? Love you, besties. See you soon. to let your winner slide.
Rainman, David Saffens. I'm doing all. And it said open source it to the fans and they've just gone crazy lately. what airliners were. Besty's our car.
I don't know the 13th stop. That is my dog thinking, and I was driveway. We should all just get a room and have one big huge order because they're all just useless. It's, like, this, like, sexual tension that they just need to release that mountain.
What? You're the bee bee. flirt. You're a fee. What?
I couldn't feel it.
Where did you get Murphy's arms at?