Jan 26, 2024 · 1h 33m · allin
E163: Market rips, Media RIFs, Texas defies Biden, Fintech reckoning, ARkStorm 2.0 & more
Jason Calacanis · 25m spoken David Sacks · 21m spoken Chamath Palihapitiya · 18m spoken David Friedberg · 17m spoken Tucker Carlson · 47s spoken
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In Episode 163 of The All-In Podcast, the hosts analyze contrasting US economic signals, the structural breakdown of legacy media, the Texas border standoff, and the post-ZERP financial reckoning facing startups. They also examine tech journalism incentives and potential extreme atmospheric weather impacts facing California.
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 98.5% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
The hosts as informed peer 6.6 Guest teaching 1.9 Guest disagreement 3.0 The hosts pushing back 3.2
speaking balance: gold is the hosts, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 52:29 Tucker Carlson 22M voter clip
Tucker Carlson forcefully argues that Democratic border policy is an intentional effort to grant citizenship to 22 million illegal immigrants and lock in a permanent electoral majority.
Hardest push from the hosts ▶ 36:22 Sacks challenges Calacanis on border statsSacks directly confronts Calacanis, claiming he has been running interference for over a year regarding border encounter statistics and crisis severity.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 18:38 Calacanis breaks down journalistic unit economicsCalacanis clearly explains the broken business model of modern print digital media by calculating journalist salaries, overhead costs, and required article pageviews at current CPMs.
The host holds their own ▶ 1:23:30 Sacks details payment processing margin decaySacks demonstrates deep domain expertise by taking a hypothetical $1 billion gross payment volume figure and illustrating how interchange, fraud, and support reduce it to just $2.5 million in net revenue.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Phil Hellmuth's WSOP Costumes Banter | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | The hosts engage in light banter regarding Phil Hellmuth's World Series of Poker costumes without any formal analysis or disagreement. | |
| Corporate Cooling, Banking System Vulnerabilities & Geopolitical Risks | 7 | 2 | 2 | 2 | Chamath outlines his market melt-up thesis based on Tesla demand signals, while Sacks complements the economic picture by citing BTFP program endings and Chinese market turbulence. | |
| National Debt Escalation, Interest Expense & Stock Market Concentration | 8 | 2 | 1 | 2 | Friedberg presents Paul Krugman's inflation-unemployment chart and calculates that federal debt interest costs $1 billion per day, supported by Sacks' data on Treasury yields. | |
| Shifting Interest Rate Regimes & Operating Businesses Post-ZERP | 8 | 1 | 2 | 2 | Chamath and Sacks analyze how operating businesses changes post-ZERP with sustained 2-4% interest rates and yield curve dynamics. | |
| Legacy Media Collapse, Business Model Failure & Direct Distribution | 8 | 2 | 2 | 3 | Calacanis breaks down unit economics of digital journalism while Friedberg and Chamath detail the shift toward decentralized analysis and Google search interest trends. | |
| Texas Border Standoff: Supreme Court Ruling & Constitutional Crisis | 6 | 3 | 5 | 6 | Sacks and Calacanis debate border encounter trends and the Supreme Court ruling on Texas razor wire, with Sacks accusing Calacanis of running interference on border statistics. | |
| Analyzing U.S. Immigration Policy, Border Economics, and Elitist Self-Loathing | 7 | 3 | 6 | 6 | Chamath strongly rejects the economic argument for open borders offered by Friedberg, calling it a cover for elite self-loathing and arguing for merit-based immigration. | |
| Political Motivations in Border Policy and the Viral Tucker Carlson Analysis | 6 | 3 | 7 | 5 | A viral clip of Tucker Carlson asserts that illegal immigration is a Democratic strategy to add 22 million voters, sparking debate among hosts over political incentives versus elite ideology. | |
| Media Leaks, Startup Transparency, and Journalist Incentives | 7 | 2 | 3 | 4 | Friedberg questions the public value of media outlets publishing leaked financial data from Brex and Anthropic, while Sacks and Calacanis analyze leak incentives. | |
| The Fintech Reckoning and Unit Economic Realities | 9 | 2 | 2 | 2 | Friedberg, Sacks, and Chamath deliver a deep operational breakdown of fintech unit economics, explaining how gross payment volume shrinks down to thin net margins after interchange and loss rates. | |
| ARkStorm 2.0 Weather Models and California Climate Concerns | 6 | 1 | 2 | 2 | Friedberg explains the historical 1861 California flood and USGS ARkStorm models before the discussion devolves into jokes about California weather and roof maintenance. |
Statements from this episode (31)
Calacanis: US Q4 GDP grew 3.3% year-over-year, beating expectations
“The GDP numbers that just came out smashed at 3.3% year over year in the fourth quarter. Expectations were just two percent.”
Chamath: Tesla warned of a significantly different demand curve in Q1
“Tesla put out a pretty important missive at the end of market close yesterday, which essentially said that expect a very different demand curve in Q one.”
Chamath: Stock market will be materially higher in 18 to 24 months
“When we look back 18 to 24 months from now, the market will probably be materially higher because there's just so much money on the sidelines, and that just continues to grow and grow and grow.”
Sacks: Expansion of Middle East conflict could trigger an oil price shock
“I still think we get an oil shock in the Middle East. If this situation broadens into a larger regional war, maybe with Iran, you could get, you know, a shock in the price of oil, and then that could have a big impact on the economy.”
Friedberg: US federal debt reached $34 trillion from $22 trillion in 2019
“We've seen US federal debt climb from 22 trillion dollars at the end of 2019 to 34 trillion dollars, which is where it sits today.”
Friedberg: Every 1% interest rate increase costs US $1 billion daily
“Every day that interest rates are off, are one percent higher based on the current federal debt level, we're paying an incremental billion dollars in interest payments per day.”
Sacks: Average US debt interest rate doubled to 3% since 2020
“The average interest rate on our debt is now around three percent. That's up from about one and a half percent in 20, 20.”
Chamath: Rate cuts with moderate growth will reinflate risk assets
“As long as you have rate cuts and a reasonable inflation and reasonable growth, there's no reason to think that the, that people will not reinflate risk assets.”
Sacks: 10-year Treasury yield will hover around 4% long-term
“It's not clear that the tenure is going to be going to be going back down to two, three percent where it was during the ZERP period. It probably will be around four percent plus or minus.”
Calacanis: Tech will not repeat 2021 market euphoria for 20 years
“I don't think in our lifetime, we're going to see that 20, 20, 20, 21 again. I don't think that's happening for 20 years or so.”
Calacanis: Digital ad gains shift to Google, Meta, TikTok, Amazon, and Uber
“All the gains in advertising have gone to those two firms and now TikTok obviously. And Amazon, Uber building respectable ad businesses as well. So all of that takes ads out of publications and puts it closer to the point of purchase, right?”
Calacanis: Experts going direct drains 20-30% of legacy media business
“Experts Encroaching and people going direct to sources. That's probably taking 20 to 30% of an already crippled business. So it's going to get worse and worse.”
Chamath: Media cannot build a profitable business on facts alone
“If telling the truth, which is basically a commodity, it's weird, but it actually is a commodity. It's just there. The truth is there. And you can't build the business by telling the truth.”
Sacks: LA Times financial losses are driven by 'woke' leadership
“There is a go woke, go broke dynamic going on. I mean, you talk about like the LA times. The reason why they're losing so much money is that family that bought it. They put their woke daughter in charge of it.”
Sacks: Gell-Mann amnesia wears off as consumers go direct to experts
“I think because experts are able to go direct for every section of the paper now, people are realizing that the whole thing is bogus, and I think gel man amnesia is starting to wear off, and people are realizing That they should just go around these official c…”
Calacanis: Solo journalism will solve the media business model collapse
“So I think the solo journalism The independent voices is going to wind up being the solution because nobody's going to want to try to hire a thousand journalists for a hundred K each.”
Sacks: Six million border encounters have occurred under Biden
“Even the encounters, there's something like six million encounters since Biden took office.”
Sacks: Abbott will likely lose in court but win public opinion
“Well, I think Governor Abbott here is probably gonna lose in a court of law, but he's gonna win in the court of public opinion.”
Chamath: Immigration policies are bankrupting US cities and harming security
“The manifestation of that is bankrupting all of our major cities, and it's creating an enormous security vulnerability for this country.”
Carlson: Yale study estimates U.S. undocumented population over 22 million
“Yale University released a study last week by three researchers, all the liberal, I believe, who concluded that the actual number of illegal aliens in this country is not eleven million. It's north of twenty two million.”
Calacanis: Border strategy could backfire on Democrats as immigrants favor Republicans
“I think this could blow up in Democrats' faces if it is their strategy, because a lot of people who are coming here, immigrants, don't want to be part of the Democratic and the liberal woke Democratic Party. They want to be part of the Republican hardworking p…”
Sacks: Biden could lose the 2024 presidential election over border policy
“But Biden could lose the election this year over this issue. I mean, this is his worst issue.”
Calacanis: Anthropic raised over $7B at a $19B valuation
“They've raised over seven billion at a nineteen billion dollar valuation recently, and their gross margin was leaked this week.”
Calacanis: 90% to 95% of Engadget leaks came from company insiders
“I can tell you in, you know, when we ran Engadget, 90% of the leaks, 95% of the leaks were calls from within the building, so.”
Sachs: Five minutes with a P&L reveals if a business is good
“I could tell you in five minutes if it's a good business or not by looking at the P&L.”
Friedberg: Most fintech startups have margins identical to traditional finance
“A lot of quote fintech businesses are looking like fin businesses without the tech, meaning their margins and their LTV to CAC or their return on invested capital. It looks the same or in some cases worse than The traditional financial services businesses that…”
Friedberg: Startup lending customer acquisition costs jumped from $4 to $60
“There was a lending company I was involved in early on as a main shareholder, and we were spending four dollars to acquire a customer making 12 bucks a month in gross profit. Fast forward 24 months, and it was costing north of 30 to 60 dollars to acquire a cus…”
Chamath: S&P 500 average gross margin is 43% over 25 years
“The average is about 43% over the last, kind of, 25 years, except in two years”
Sacks: Payment startups require tens of billions in volume to succeed
“I mean, it needs to be not just like a billion is not enough. You need to be doing. Trillions. Tens or hundreds of billions of volume to make these businesses like exciting at all.”
Friedberg: Ocean warming reduces California mega-flood intervals to 25–50 years
“These sorts of events are predicted historically to happen every 150 to 200 years, but based on the warm temperature in the oceans we see, it's now predicted that these will happen every, call it 25 to 50 years or much sooner.”