Jul 26, 2024 · 1h 39m · allin
Mag 7 sell-off, Wiz rejects Google, UBI, Kamala in, China's nuclear buildout, Sacks responds to PG
Jason Calacanis · 29m spoken David Friedberg · 22m spoken David Sacks · 20m spoken Chamath Palihapitiya · 15m spoken
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Episode 189 of the All-In Podcast covers major tech business developments including Wiz's rejected Google offer and CrowdStrike's outage, political shifts following Biden's exit from the 2024 presidential race, Sam Altman's UBI study, tech ecosystem feuds, and China's nuclear energy progress.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. The hosts hold 100% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
The hosts as informed peer 6.5 Guest teaching 5.5 Guest disagreement 3.5 The hosts pushing back 3.4
speaking balance: gold is the hosts, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 1:11:20 Sacks refutes Paul Graham and Parker Conrad narrative
Sacks aggressively counters Paul Graham's online attacks by pointing to official SEC sanctions and regulatory discovery outcomes against Parker Conrad.
Hardest push from the hosts ▶ 16:25 Jason challenges CrowdStrike deep state conspiracy claimsJason openly mocks and pushes back against Sacks' assertion that CrowdStrike is linked to deep state operations.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 1:03:16 Friedberg reveals real-world boardroom antisemitismFriedberg educates the rest of the podcast co-hosts on how identity politics and Gaza conflict fallout actively impacted a recent major board chairman election.
The host holds their own ▶ 1:28:00 Friedberg presents China nuclear capacity and tech superiority dataFriedberg demonstrates deep expertise by breaking down generation 4 pebble bed reactor physics alongside stark macroeconomic comparisons of US versus China energy policy.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | The hosts as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | The hosts pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wiz Rejects Google's $23 Billion Acquisition Offer | 6 | 5 | 2 | 3 | Friedberg and Chamath provide technical and financial context on Wiz's rejection of Google's acquisition offer, pointing to ARR growth and GCP margins. Jason moderates smoothly without severe conflict. | |
| CrowdStrike Outage and Cybersecurity Vulnerabilities | 4 | 3 | 4 | 4 | The hosts discuss the massive CrowdStrike Windows outage. Sacks raises deep state theories regarding CrowdStrike, drawing light teasing and pushback from Jason. | |
| Stock Market Sell-Off and Tech Sector Rotation | 6 | 4 | 2 | 2 | Chamath details macro factors driving the market rotation out of the Magnificent Seven, citing VIX spikes and consumer credit concerns. The panel agrees with the macro assessment. | |
| Sam Altman's OpenResearch Guaranteed Income Study | 7 | 6 | 3 | 3 | Friedberg and Sacks breakdown OpenResearch's UBI study results showing zero long-term health or employment gains. Chamath shares personal perspective on growing up on welfare and human motivation. | |
| The Rupert Murdoch Media Empire Succession Battle | 5 | 4 | 3 | 3 | Sacks explains Fox News' market positioning and how Rupert Murdoch's succession dispute relates to populism versus neoconservatism. The discussion remains analytical and calm. | |
| Joe Biden Exits Race as Kamala Harris Secures Nomination | 6 | 5 | 3 | 3 | Friedberg clarifies the constitutional mechanics of the American federated republic regarding delegates versus direct primary voting following Biden stepping aside. | |
| Analyzing Democratic VP Candidates and Swing State Path | 6 | 5 | 3 | 3 | Sacks maps out the electoral college paths for Kamala Harris and compares potential VP picks including Josh Shapiro and Mark Kelly. | |
| VP Strategy, Identity Politics, and Boardroom Antisemitism | 7 | 7 | 4 | 4 | Friedberg reveals a firsthand account of boardroom antisemitism regarding leadership votes, sparking strong reactions across the panel about identity politics. | |
| Paul Graham Feud and David Sacks on the Zenefits SEC Investigation | 8 | 7 | 7 | 5 | Sacks addresses Paul Graham's social media accusations by laying out the official SEC investigation findings and regulatory context regarding Zenefits. | |
| Y Combinator's Culture, Online Feuds, and Civil Discourse | 7 | 6 | 6 | 5 | Chamath and Jason critique Y Combinator's historical power dynamic and protection culture, while Sacks addresses allegations regarding VC backchanneling. | |
| Science Corner: China's Nuclear Buildout and Pebble Bed Reactor Safety | 9 | 8 | 2 | 2 | Friedberg delivers a comprehensive Science Corner on China's Gen 4 pebble bed nuclear reactor safety test and contrasts US vs China energy buildout projections. |
Statements from this episode (29)
Calacanis: Wiz reached $500M ARR and $12B valuation prior to Google offer
“Wiz was valued at twelve billion in its most recent funding round. They've got about five hundred million in ARR.”
Friedberg: Google Cloud generated $10.3B revenue and $1.2B profit last quarter
“GCP in the last quarter did 10.3 billion in revenue, which is up from eight billion in revenue the year before in the same quarter the year before. And importantly, in this past quarter, they're running at a 1.2 billion dollar operating profit out of GCP.”
Friedberg: Tech acquisitions either mean buyers overpay or sellers sell early
“Either the buyer pays way too much or the seller sells way too early.”
Friedberg: Wiz could hit a $100B market cap in a couple of years
“If Wiz continues to grow at this rate, it's conceivable they could be in the range of a Palo Alto Network's hundred billion dollar market cap in a couple of years.”
Calacanis: CrowdStrike fell 25%, erasing $24 billion in market cap
“Shares are down 25% since Friday, so that represents twenty-four billion dollars in market cap.”
Chamath Palihapitiya predicts eventually all digital information will be hacked and leaked
“In the meantime, I think you just have to assume that everybody will get access to all of your information and that eventually everything is hacked and everything is leaked.”
Sacks confirms his firm does not run CrowdStrike, citing lack of trust
“Similarly, I had my IT department check and make sure that we didn't have it running anywhere. We don't. I'm just gonna be frank. I don't trust this company.”
Chamath: Broad consumer pressure and revenue misses will hit in fall 2024
“I think that when you see a broad-based set of revenue misses, that, that will kind of mean that the consumer is really under pressure. I think, I still think that that's more in the fall. But we're headed in that direction.”
Friedberg: Tech sell-off reflects a deflating mini AI bubble and portfolio rebalancing
“No, I think it's definitely this Mini AI bubble deflating a bit and transactions are, let me get out of some of these high multiple tech stocks that are expected to grow rapidly because of AI and shift more into stable market recovery.”
Chamath: UBI fails because it misunderstands human motivation
“So it's great to kind of confirm at least my intuition, which is that UBI is a wonderful idea that I think doesn't really understand how humans are both motivated and wired.”
Sacks: Cash transfers do not solve poverty and trap people in dependence
“I think what we saw from the study, just to echo what Freeberg said, is that cash transfers don't work. We saw this in the Great Society, just handing people money doesn't solve poverty. It actually traps people in conditions of dependence.”
Friedberg: AI automation will lead humans to create new jobs and industries
“And I expect that the same thing will happen with this next evolution of technology and human progress. Humans will find ways to create new things, to push themselves forward, to drive things forward.”
Sacks predicts Fox News will lose viewership if liberal heirs take over
“Now if, you know, let's say the more liberal members of the family like James take over and change the content and the programming to serve their own political views, they're going to lose viewership. They're going to lose their audience.”
Sacks: Neoconservatism is losing out to populism in the Republican Party
“I would already say that Fox News has a market position problem, which is that Ruber is very much a neocon and neoconservatism is on the way out in the Republican party in favor of a more populist conservatism that you see with Trump or now his running mate JD…”
Chamath: Democrats had no choice but to nominate Harris due to campaign funds
“I don't think the process was super open and transparent and Democratic, but I don't think they had much of a choice. And I think we've talked about that because too much of the money would have had to Essentially been returned. And I don't think you can fight…”
Friedberg: Anti-Trump voters will quickly rally behind Kamala Harris
“Pretty quickly there's a lot of people who are anyone but Trump that are gonna rally behind her, and she seems to be polling well in the polls that have come out in the last couple days here”
Sacks: Kamala Harris has more political upside than Joe Biden
“The polling shows that Trump is still ahead in most of the swing states, but look, Harris has more upside than Biden does because she can actually campaign.”
Sacks: Josh Shapiro is the strongest VP pick for Democrats
“The guy, the scariest, the one I would pick is Josh Shapiro. He's the governor of Pennsylvania, rising star.”
Chamath: Picking a vice president to win a specific state is misguided
“I think this idea that you pick somebody because they can deliver a state is pretty misguided. I just don't think that that in reality is what happens.”
Friedberg: A major board denied a Jewish candidate chairmanship over geopolitical climate
“There was a, an individual on the board who was supposed to be elected chairman. They went in for the vote. And in that board meeting, this individual who happens to be Jewish, there was a conversation that ensued about, you can't be the chairman at this time,…”
Friedberg: Identity politics de facto creates losers when selecting candidates by demographics
“The inevitable outcome of identity politics by giving everyone a definition on their race or their gender or their background or their religion is that you ultimately end up picking winners and losers. And you don't just get to pick winners. When you make sele…”
Sacks denies ever meeting or doing business with Paul Graham
“The thing is, I've never met Paul Graham. I don't know him. I've never done business with him”
Sacks: Parker Conrad was the only person fined in Zenefits SEC probe
“There was only one person who was named as being aware of the misconduct, and there was only one person who was fined and held accountable by regulators. In fact, he was fined more than the company.”
Sacks: Zenefits had $200M cash and $60M ARR when handed off
“When I then handed the torch to the new CEO, we had two hundred million dollars in the bank and sixty million of ARR with a clean bill of health.”
Palihapitiya: Sequoia and Y Combinator returns decay as they scale
“As with all things, when you're successful and you try to scale, returns decay. And this is not a slight on YC's returns, but it's what happens to everybody. So if you look at Blackstone's returns, they were incredible when they started, then they're Ok today.…”
Calacanis: Y Combinator bullies rivals and falsely claims exclusive founder-friendliness
“Y Combinator does circle the wagons. They do bully people. And they do put out a presentation that we are the only people in Silicon Valley who are founder friendly, you know, even though they're getting seven percent for a 125 K like we do in our accelerator,…”
Sacks denies asking his portfolio founders to defend him online
“No, I never asked anybody to do that, and a good reason why is I don't want to trouble my founders.”
Friedberg: U.S. electricity costs up to three times more than China
“Today, just to give you a sense of the relative cost of electricity, China's about seven to nine cents a kilowatt hour. The US is 17 to 25 cents a kilowatt hour.”
Friedberg: China will beat U.S. industrially without U.S. nuclear deregulation
“This is why investing in and deregulating nuclear reactor technology in the United States to enable a competitive playing field with the United States and China in the decades ahead is so critical, because if we don't, China will beat the United States industr…”