Dec 23, 2021 · 1h 47m · allin
E60: The 2021 Bestie Awards PLUS Jack Dorsey starts the Web3 Wars
Jason Calacanis · 27m spoken David Friedberg · 26m spoken Chamath Palihapitiya · 20m spoken David Sacks · 20m 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 60 of the All-In Podcast, hosts Jason Calacanis, Chamath Palihapitiya, David Sachs, and David Friedberg present their 2021 Bestie Awards, recapping the year's top winners, losers, surprises, and breakthroughs across politics, business, technology, science, and media.
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 99.7% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
The hosts as informed peer 6.6 Guest teaching 2.3 Guest disagreement 3.2 The hosts pushing back 3.0
speaking balance: gold is the hosts, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 1:42:20 Sacks rejecting sentimental banter
Sacks aggressively shuts down the heartfelt declarations of friendship among the hosts, dismissing it as 'effeminate bullshit' and exposing private disputes that almost destroyed the podcast.
Hardest push from the hosts ▶ 37:35 Friedberg pushing back on COVID antiviral pillsWhen Sacks predicts oral protease inhibitors will end the pandemic, Friedberg steps in with scientific pushback, warning about unstudied adverse biological side effects in human cells.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 1:26:27 Friedberg explaining Ray Dalio's global empire cyclesFriedberg delivers a masterclass on macroeconomics, breaking down Ray Dalio's historical patterns of reserve currency collapse, wealth inequality, and political populism across 500 years.
The host holds their own ▶ 1:03:46 Sacks detailing Peter Daszak's Wuhan lab conflictsSacks lays out a detailed case against zoologist Peter Daszak, citing public grants, the Lancet letter, and undisclosed conflicts of interest to demonstrate how lab leak inquiries were stifled.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Welcome to the 2021 Bestie Awards | 5 | 3 | 4 | 4 | The co-hosts banter about Jack Dorsey's Twitter exit and his sudden Web3 conflict on Twitter with venture capitalists. Sacks pushes a sharp critique regarding Jack's stance on Twitter censorship versus Bitcoin's censorship resistance. | |
| The 2021 Bestie Awards Show Opener | 6 | 2 | 2 | 3 | The panel opens the 2021 Bestie Awards with their picks for Biggest Winner in Politics. Sacks argues for Eric Adams, Friedberg selects blockchain, Chamath picks Glenn Youngkin, and Jason nominates Joe Manchin. | |
| Biggest Loser in Politics Award | 6 | 2 | 3 | 3 | The Besties debate the Biggest Loser in Politics, citing Elizabeth Warren, political extremes, Kamala Harris, and Anthony Fauci. Sacks highlights Kamala Harris's low approval ratings while Friedberg critiques Fauci's deterministic communication. | |
| Biggest Surprise in Politics Award | 7 | 3 | 3 | 4 | The group analyzes political surprises, focusing on Joe Manchin's pivotal role in blocking Build Back Better. Chamath compares Manchin's controversial stance to former Fed Chair Paul Volcker taking short-term heat for long-term fiscal discipline. | |
| Biggest Winner in Business Award | 7 | 2 | 2 | 2 | The co-hosts present their choices for Biggest Winner in Business, including retail investors, Elon Musk, and big tech mega-caps. Sacks highlights Tiger Global's data-driven productization of growth capital stage investing. | |
| Biggest Loser in Business Award | 7 | 2 | 3 | 2 | Discussion turns to business losers, covering short sellers crushed by GameStop, Chinese tech billionaires, Big Tech employee morale, and Meta. Sacks explains the CCP crackdown on tech founders like Jack Ma. | |
| Biggest Surprise in Business Award | 7 | 2 | 2 | 2 | The panel picks business surprises of the year, including Miami's tech boom, NFT creator monetization, DAOs, and BioNTech/Moderna. Sacks details Miami Mayor Francis Suarez capitalizing on tech founder relocations. | |
| Biggest Breakthrough in Science Award | 8 | 4 | 4 | 4 | Friedberg presents cell-free starch synthesis, while Sacks nominates oral COVID antiviral pills. Friedberg pushes back on Sacks, warning that protease inhibitors have significant unstudied cellular side effects. | |
| 2021 Bestie Awards: Biggest Flash in the Pan | 6 | 2 | 3 | 3 | The Besties select the year's biggest flash in the pan, targeting buzzwords like 'transitory' inflation and 'Web3/Metaverse'. Sacks notes how quickly media and political figures abandoned the 'transitory' narrative. | |
| 2021 Bestie Awards: Best CEO | 8 | 2 | 2 | 2 | The group awards Best CEO to executives who executed masterfully or made bold culture decisions. Sacks praises Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong for banning political activism in the workplace despite severe press backlash. | |
| 2021 Bestie Awards: Best Investor | 8 | 2 | 3 | 3 | The Besties nominate top investors across hedge funds, venture capital, and market makers. Sacks highlights Ken Griffin's Citadel for generating massive returns while successfully navigating the Congressional Robinhood inquiry. | |
| 2021 Bestie Awards: Best Turnaround | 7 | 3 | 4 | 3 | The panel discusses best business and public turnarounds, covering Ford's EV transformation and WeWork's post-debacle survival. Friedberg humorously compares WeWork surviving its near-collapse to Rocky Balboa making it to the 10th round. | |
| 2021 Bestie Awards: Worst Human Being | 7 | 3 | 5 | 4 | The Besties discuss their picks for Worst Human Being, ranging from politicians and violent criminals to scientific figures. Sacks nominates Peter Daszak, alleging he concealed conflicts of interest surrounding NIH gain-of-function research in Wuhan. | |
| 2021 Bestie Awards: Best Meme | 4 | 2 | 2 | 2 | The hosts share lighthearted picks for Best Meme of 2021, including Bernie's mittens and the Ever Given Suez Canal digger. The group good-naturedly mocks Friedberg for lacking a pop culture subroutine. | |
| 2021 Bestie Awards: Most Loathsome Company | 7 | 3 | 6 | 5 | Picks for Most Loathsome Company spark a debate when Friedberg selects Tyson Foods and claims history will view animal agriculture as worse than human slavery. Chamath and Jason immediately push back on Friedberg's provocative comparison. | |
| 2021 Bestie Awards: Best New Tech | 8 | 2 | 2 | 2 | The panel outlines top technological developments of 2021, including commercial space travel, Substack, Starlink, and plasma fusion. Friedberg explains the scientific step-changes achieving net energy gains in nuclear fusion experiments. | |
| 2021 Bestie Awards: Best Trend | 8 | 2 | 4 | 3 | The co-hosts evaluate top positive and negative societal trends. Sacks passionately argues against rising global authoritarianism, citing lockdown mandates, government overreach, and social media censorship. | |
| 2021 Bestie Awards: Books, Movies, and Media Picks | 7 | 2 | 2 | 2 | The Besties exchange media recommendations across books, television, and music. Friedberg delivers a compelling synthesis of Ray Dalio's book on long-term macro debt cycles and the decline of global reserve empires. | |
| The Rudy Giuliani Award for Self-Immolation | 7 | 2 | 4 | 4 | The panel creates a mock award for public figures who ruined their own reputations. Sacks highlights the simultaneous political and media ruin of brothers Andrew and Chris Cuomo. | |
| Favorite Bestie Picks and Summit Announcements | 4 | 1 | 1 | 1 | The Besties share genuine expressions of gratitude for their friendship and partnership before announcing details for upcoming live summit events. Jason reflects on how meaningful moderating the podcast has been. | |
| Podcasting Dynamics, Internal Feuds, and Backhanded Compliments | 5 | 3 | 7 | 6 | Sacks cuts through the sentimental moment by calling the declarations 'effeminate bullshit' and revealing behind-the-scenes feuds that nearly broke up the podcast. The group exchanges humorous, backhanded compliments to close out the episode. |
Statements from this episode (54)
Sachs: Jack Dorsey is behaving like anyone who quits and shitposts
“Jack is just like any other guy who quits his job and then goes on a shitposting rampage.”
Friedberg: Jack Dorsey believes blockchain is the future of the internet
“No, he wants to focus on blockchain. Clearly, he has religion on this, and he believes that it's the future of the internet, and he cares deeply about the democratization of access to finance, and I think it would be awesome to hear his views on this.”
Sachs predicts Eric Adams will reverse damage from de Blasio's tenure
“He is going to reverse the damage done under de Blasio.”
Friedberg: Blockchain is a serious threat to existing political and economic systems
“And it is a very serious threat to the current system of politics and economics and social order.”
Chamath: Glenn Youngkin's election model is a canary in the coal mine for US politics
“And so I think Glenn Youngkin was a real canary in the coal mine for the political future of America.”
Sachs: Kamala Harris polling at 28%, lowest VP rating since Quayle
“She has a 28% approval rating. Polls show her lagging Biden by about 10 points. No vice president has polled this poorly since Dan Quayle was the bud of every late night joke about 30 years ago.”
Friedberg: Fauci lost credibility over deterministic claims that vaccines end COVID
“He said, go get the vaccine. The pandemic will end. Everyone got the vaccine and the pandemic certainly didn't end and it evolved and it became this very fuzzy gray map on where we sit today. And I think as a result, he completely lost credibility with a broad…”
Chamath: Joe Manchin will be remembered as this generation's Paul Volcker
“I think that he will probably Be looked back on in time as our generations, Paul Volcker.”
Calacanis: The Democratic Party sidelined Kamala Harris due to a lack of faith
“The biggest political surprise was Kamala Harris being sidelined. Where is she? What is she working on? I thought that the democratic party was going to want to feature her showcase her with some great projects in order to maybe prep her for running if need be…”
Sachs: Joe Manchin warned the Biden administration about inflation in May and was right
“He warned them in May that he was very worried about inflation and they were saying it was transitory and then he turned out to be right.”
Chamath: Individual affiliations competing with organized capital is a key trend
“This was the year that loose affiliations of individuals could compete on a level playing field with organized capital. And I think that that's a really important trend for the future.”
Sacks: Tiger Global was the biggest VC winner by productizing late-stage funding
“In our world, the biggest winner was Tiger Global. They basically productize growth stage capital by far the biggest deployer of late stage funding. They productized it. So pretty much founders can just send their metrics on like a single sheet of paper and th…”
Friedberg: Tiger Global deployed $15 billion in 2021
“Fifteen billion. I think it's the amount they deployed this year.”
Friedberg: Gabe Plotkin borrowed $2.75B from Citadel and Point72 during GameStop rally
“He had to borrow 2.75 billion dollars from Citadel and .7 just to get through his month.”
Friedberg: London hedge fund White Square shut down $500M AUM following retail short squeezes
“White Square, a firm in London shut down half a billion AUM.”
Sachs: China effectively shut down foreign IPO market for Chinese tech firms
“China's pretty much shut down the foreign IPO market for their tech companies.”
Chamath predicts Big Tech will hit peak market cap by 2023
“I think that this is sort of peak big tech market cap is probably within the next year or two.”
Calacanis: Apple and open-source platforms will handily beat Meta in VR
“I think that their VR efforts, AR efforts will be beaten handily by Apple and by the metaverse and You know, open source slash decentralized solutions.”
Friedberg: Most current NFT projects will fail and lose people money
“And I think, yeah, there's a lot of fluff and a lot of noise and a lot of bubbles going on within this NFT space right now. Most of it will die and it will look terrible when people lose lots of money and feel bad about the decisions they made during this phas…”
Calacanis: OpenSea monthly volume rose from $8M to $3.46B in 2021
“And just as a side note, OpenSea had eight million in monthly volume at the beginning of the year in January and 3.46 billion in August.”
Sachs: Oral COVID antiviral pills could end the pandemic in 2022
“These new pills have, I think, a very good shot of doing it next year because they're protease inhibitors, so they stop the virus From replicating, and just, and even if the spike proteins mutate, it will not prevent these protease inhibitors from working. So …”
Friedberg predicts new COVID antiviral pills will cause significant adverse side effects
“And I think as more people use them, you'll see more crazy stories about side effects that are really significantly adverse.”
Chamath: 2021 marked major human breakthroughs in in vivo CRISPR gene editing
“My best science breakthrough is that this year we actually were able to inject in vivo, so in the body genetic code for CRISPR, two cases specifically. One was to basically reduce the production of this toxic Liver protein in a bunch of folks, and then the sec…”
Sacks predicts the political use of 'transitory' will itself be transitory
“The inflation was not transitory, and so the use of the word transitory, I predict will in fact be transitory.”
Chamath: The concepts of 'metaverse' and 'web3' will entirely disappear
“I just think that this whole concept of metaverse and web three goes away and we replace it with real solutions for people that give them value.”
Calacanis predicts SF District Attorney Chesa Boudin will be recalled
“Chesa Boudin and all of these Whack jobs are all going to get voted out and recalled.”
Chamath reveals Slack was forced to sell to Salesforce to survive Microsoft
“We had to compete with him at Slack when he was, you know, he decided to turn the sites on on with teams onto us, we had no choice but to basically sell to Salesforce.”
Friedberg: Leadership requires defining direction and creating religious conviction in employees
“Leadership is all about defining where you're headed and then creating religion in the troops to follow you to go there.”
Friedberg: More CEOs will communicate directly on Twitter in coming years
“Creates a model that a lot of other CEOs I think should and will start to follow. And I think we'll see a lot more of this kind of like Twitter going direct type of activity happening in the years ahead.”
Sacks: Only 5% of Coinbase staff took severance over political ban
“They gave a generous severance package to anyone who didn't go along with it. It was only five percent took it.”
Calacanis: Sequoia's top recent portfolio exits exceed $300B combined valuation
“Over the past two years, they've had DoorDash, Airbnb, Snowflake, Unity, all these incredible companies worth over three hundred billion dollars combined.”
Chamath: Ford logged roughly a $20B gain on Rivian in 2021
“I think they printed like a twenty billion dollar gain on Rivian.”
Calacanis predicts Disney will roll over Netflix in the streaming wars
“I think they're going to roll over Netflix.”
Friedberg: WarnerMedia will be a juggernaut stock post-merger
“When that WarnerMedia deal gets done, I think that's the juggernaut stock you want to own.”
Palihapitiya: Derek Chauvin and Ahmaud Arbery's killers are terrible human beings
“I am going to pick Travis McMichael, Gregory McMichael, William Rody Bryan, Roddy Bryan, and Derek Chauvin. Four white men who killed in two different incidents, an unarmed black man. They are scumbags, and they should go to jail, and they will for the rest of…”
Sacks: EcoHealth's Peter Daszak helped unleash COVID-19 and is 2021's worst human
“So this, you know, this guy not only helped unleash a plague upon the world. He then lied about it to cover his ass and protect his millions. That makes him the worst in my view.”
Chamath: PG&E was charged with felony manslaughter over California wildfires
“It is PG&E, who this year was charged with felonies and manslaughter in the death of four people because of the wildfires that they started because of their inability to maintain their power infrastructure throughout the state of California.”
Friedberg predicts humanity will ultimately view animal agriculture as worse than slavery
“I think one day the human race will look back and identify animal agriculture as worse than human slavery. I do think that that will be a profound realization over the next century for our species”
Sachs: The New York Times is the most loathsome company
“The most lowestem company, I had the New York Times.”
Chamath: All-In Podcast will pass CNBC and Fox in viewership
“I think we've probably eclipsed MSNBC, any show that, and we're probably going to pass CNBC and Fox by the end of this year.”
Calacanis predicts DAOs will handle $4 billion capital formations within ten years
“I say DAOs because I believe that they will become legal and global capital formation for the first time on an instant basis will exist, and I believe forty million is the dry run for the Constitution, four hundred million and four billion will happen in the n…”
Sachs: Starlink is faster than fixed broadband in seven major countries
“Now it's reported that Starlink is faster than the fixed broadband average in Belgium, Canada, Australia, Germany, the UK, New Zealand, and France.”
Palihapitiya discloses that All-In podcast hosts own SpaceX equity
“All I can say for all of us who own SpaceX.”
Sacks predicts progressive left will lose 2022 elections and drop woke purity
“They should have listened to him, and maybe they finally will next year after losing more elections.”
Friedberg: Media gatekeepers are falling away as direct creator models succeed
“The gatekeepers are falling away. And the Go Direct model is working.”
Palihapitiya: China controls key battery materials and rare earth elements
“China has done a masterful job. They control, you know, a lot of the lithium, a lot of the nickel, a lot of the cobalt, a lot of the graphite. They control a lot of the rare earths that go into the permanent magnets.”
Friedberg: Rebranding existing virtual worlds into a corporate metaverse is misguided
“The notion that we call this thing, the metaverse, and everyone's trying to reclassify it as some future singular universe, and therefore they can own that singular universe is, is a pretty misstated and misguided kind of concept.”
Friedberg predicts the United States will ultimately lose reserve currency status
“It is absolutely critical to understand that the global world order is being reclassified as the United States has taken on too much debt and will ultimately lose its reserve currency status, as we have seen with the transition of five or six empires over the …”
Sachs: Progressive city policy backlash will recur in 2022
“I think it is going to be the blueprint for a major backlash that's already begun here in San Francisco with London Breed taking on Jason Boudin. I think that's going to be a recurring theme next year.”
Chamath: Mimetic theory is a top mental model for understanding conflict
“One of the most useful models that I have found is this idea of mimesis or mimetic theory, which is that people copy each other that causes conflict.”
Chamath: Elizabeth Warren is an authoritarian who lacks economic knowledge
“I think Senator Karen is the obvious choice for me. Kind of proved that she doesn't really know much about economics is, you know, kind of mean and just basically wants to, you know, is a moral absolutist authoritarian just on the left.”
Friedberg: Populist authoritarian political rhetoric will only get louder
“This sort of stuff that you guys are talking about, Senator Karen and others kind of saying is only going to get louder. I'm convinced.”