Dec 18, 2020 · 1h 16m · allin
E15: “The Besties” All-In’s inaugural award show covering the best, worst & most memorable of 2020
Jason Calacanis · 27m spoken Chamath Palihapitiya · 14m spoken David Friedberg · 12m spoken David Sacks · 12m 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 15 of the All-In Podcast, hosts Jason Calacanis, Chamath Palihapitiya, David Sacks, and David Friedberg present their inaugural 'Besties' award show, analyzing the defining winners, losers, breakthroughs, and political blunders of 2020.
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 99.6% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
The hosts as informed peer 4.8 Guest teaching 1.4 Guest disagreement 1.9 The hosts pushing back 1.5
speaking balance: gold is the hosts, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 30:37 Chamath rejects culture war tropes for real-world economics
Chamath forcefully interrupts the MX pronoun conversation to demand focus on species loss, reopening businesses, and dropping stimulus checks into citizens' hands.
Hardest push from the hosts ▶ 1:01:11 Sacks directly attributes election loss to mask stanceSacks refuses the framing that Trump's defeat was inevitable, asserting that endorsing masks early would have secured him a second term.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 47:58 Friedberg lays out Bill Ackman's trade mechanicsFriedberg educates the group by breaking down how Bill Ackman converted $27 million in credit default swaps into a $2.6 billion fund payout.
The host holds their own ▶ 41:10 Friedberg explains mRNA regulatory timelinesFriedberg demonstrates deep domain expertise by detailing how 15-year-old mRNA technology was held back by regulatory barriers until the pandemic emergency.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Airbnb's Historic IPO & COVID Crisis Turnaround | 5 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Sacks and the co-hosts discuss Airbnb Series C valuation and how Brian Chesky navigated the COVID crisis by refunding hosts. | |
| Chamath Addresses Virgin Galactic Share Sale | 3 | 1 | 3 | 2 | Chamath explains selling Virgin Galactic shares for liquidity before roasting Jason over a past weight bet and Code 13 rumors. | |
| The Besties 2020: Biggest Winner in Politics | 4 | 1 | 1 | 1 | The panel nominates Joe Biden, Xi Jinping, and Kamala Harris as the biggest political winners of 2020. | |
| The Besties 2020: Biggest Loser in Politics | 4 | 1 | 2 | 1 | The group picks political losers including Trump, Nancy Pelosi, American democracy, and Rudy Giuliani. | |
| The Besties 2020: Biggest Winner in Business | 5 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Friedberg nominates Moderna while Sacks and Chamath celebrate Elon Musk's historic valuation gains. | |
| The Besties 2020: Biggest Loser in Business | 5 | 1 | 2 | 2 | Discussion centers on tech antitrust, small business closures, AMC's struggles, and government stimulus delays. | |
| The Besties 2020: Biggest Winner in Culture | 4 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Cultural winner picks range from BLM and Baby Yoda to social gaming and podcasting. | |
| The Besties 2020: Biggest Loser in Culture | 5 | 2 | 3 | 2 | Chamath forcefully rejects identity politics and wokeness, arguing focus belongs on stimulus checks and biodiversity loss. | |
| The Besties 2020: Biggest Turnaround | 4 | 1 | 2 | 1 | The best turnarounds highlighted include Airbnb's recovery, Biden's primary comeback, and the resurgence of censorship. | |
| The Besties 2020: Biggest Flash in the Pan | 5 | 1 | 3 | 2 | Sacks criticizes the WHO's shifting guidance, while Jason attacks Nikola as a potential zero-value bubble. | |
| Biggest Breakthrough of 2020 | 6 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Friedberg explains the scientific breakthrough of AlphaFold and notes mRNA technology existed for 15 years before emergency regulatory approval. | |
| Smartest Business Move of 2020 | 7 | 3 | 2 | 2 | Chamath jokingly claims his SPAC work as the smartest move, while Friedberg breaks down Silver Lake and Bill Ackman's high-yield trades. | |
| Dumbest Business Move of 2020 | 6 | 2 | 2 | 2 | The panel critiques SF politics, California lockdown hypocrisy, Slack selling to Salesforce, and market-timing errors. | |
| Smartest Political Move of 2020 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 1 | The group discusses strategic political maneuvers by Jim Clyburn, Biden's low-profile campaign, and Nikki Haley's long game. | |
| Dumbest Political Move of 2020 | 5 | 1 | 3 | 2 | The besties discuss political blunders, including Giuliani at Four Seasons Total Landscaping and Trump's refusal to endorse masks. | |
| Best and Worst Political Theater of 2020 | 4 | 1 | 3 | 1 | The panel mocks political stunts ranging from Trump on the White House balcony to Democratic leaders kneeling in Kente cloth. | |
| The Giuliani Self-Immolation Award & Tech Hearings | 5 | 2 | 2 | 2 | Discussion turns to Giuliani's hearing mishaps and Congressional tech illiteracy before concluding with holiday well-wishes. |
Statements from this episode (38)
Sacks: Airbnb Series C investment generated roughly a 40x return
“It's like a 40, it's like a 40 X or something like that.”
Sacks: Airbnb paid $250M to hosts to offset COVID-19 cancellations
“At the company's expense, they refunded something like two hundred fifty million dollars to the, to users who had canceled reservations, but they gave the money to the host to keep them afloat.”
Chamath Palihapitiya plans to deploy nearly $2B in investments in 2021
“I have a lot of projects that I intend to fund in 20, 21. I'm probably going to put another, I don't know, I think the forecast was almost two billion dollars to work, and, ah, I needed to manage my liquidity for this year and make sure that, you know I could …”
Palihapitiya: Joe Biden and political centrism were 2020's biggest winners
“Centrism and Joe Biden were the huge, huge, huge winners.”
Calacanis predicts Kamala Harris will become the first female US President
“She winds up actually becoming president, and will be the first female president of the year of the history of the United States, and that could happen in the first term, or if Joe Biden doesn't run for a second term, and they do a halfway decent job, Kamala p…”
Sacks predicts Nancy Pelosi will lose the speakership within two years
“I predict that she is set to not be speaker anymore in two years and headed for retirement.”
Friedberg: Moderna is the biggest business winner of 2020
“I think that the biggest winner in business this year is a company that started a few years ago called Moderna.”
Sacks: Elon Musk is on track to become the world's first trillionaire
“Elon seems to be on track to be not only the world's richest man, but the world's first trillionaire.”
Sacks: COVID lockdowns do not work
“The politicians got to keep eating at French laundry, but it was the small business people who got absolutely decimated by these lockdowns, which don't even work.”
Calacanis: Amazon and Netflix will each buy a movie theater chain
“I think Amazon will buy one chain, I think Netflix buys the other.”
Sacks: Baby Yoda helped Disney+ reach 86 million subscribers
“That his ascent to icon status helped Disney get eighty-six million subscribers. For Disney Plus which just blew away expectations and has established Disney Plus as the main rival to Netflix.”
Sacks: Elite media abandoned neutrality to target Trump, destroying public trust
“The media, starting with the New York Times and other sort of elite media, they ripped the umpire jersey off their backs to go after Trump. Well, they got him, but at what cost? Half the country will never trust them again. This makes conspiracy theories more …”
Chamath: Wokeness and cancel culture are corrosive and lost in 2020
“I think that this whole cancel culture and wokeness was incredibly corrosive. And I think that, that they lost.”
Calacanis: Airbnb reached an $88B valuation five months after massive layoffs
“They laid off 25% of the company in July. 1900 of 7500 employees. They cut their marketing budget by eight hundred million, and then they IPO five months later, ah, and they had raised a billion dollars at an eighteen billion dollar valuation, according to Pit…”
Chamath: Facebook, Twitter, and Medium suppressed facts and science in 2020
“The amount of people that have been muzzled, stifled, the amount of fact and science that literally just gets judged willy-nilly by our distribution points like Facebook and Twitter and Medium. It's really scary. So censorship made a roaring comeback in 2020.”
Sacks: Major tech platforms censor posts contradicting the WHO
“Google, YouTube, and even sites like LinkedIn or Nextdoor are now censoring People's statements if they contradict the WHO, apparently without irony, because nobody has contradicted the WHO more than the WHO itself.”
Calacanis: Nikola stock will go to zero
“I predict it will be worth 60 cents. I kid you not, this company will go to zero, is my prediction.”
Calacanis warns against investing in pre-product companies valued over $1 billion
“I made a rule, which is, if a company has not released their product, and it's worth over a billion dollars, be careful, because it could be a fraud or it could be a disaster.”
Friedberg: AlphaFold is biology's ARPANET moment that will transform medicine
“AlphaFold feels to me like what ARPANET was, which was the origins of the internet, you know back when it was first installed, and no one really Kind of grappled with the ramifications of what would emerge. And I think, you know, once we have the ability to de…”
Friedberg: Regulatory barriers delayed mRNA vaccines despite 15 years of existence
“The mRNA vaccine technology has been around for like, 15 years, and regulatory barriers and regulatory constraints have largely kept this stuff from coming to market.”
Friedberg: Media focus on rare side effects will drive vaccine hesitancy
“I think a lot of people are going to latch on to the small number of cases that are going to be amplified of people having adverse reactions to this, you know, new technology vaccine. In Alaska the other day, like two days ago, there was a nurse who got the va…”
Calacanis: Slack will ultimately be more important than Salesforce
“I think Slack will be more important than Salesforce ultimately in business.”
Friedberg: Silver Lake turned $1B Airbnb debt into $4B in six months
“Silver Lake swooped into Airbnb in April, gave him a 12% debt deal for a billion dollars, and they got warrants that, the warrants today, Are worth about 1.4 billion dollars. And this debt is probably worth three times what they put in. So in like five months,…”
Friedberg: Bill Ackman turned $27M hedge into $2.6B return
“He turned a twenty seven million dollar insurance instrument into 2.6 billion of returns for his fund, and he still didn't sell his portfolio.”
Friedberg: Larry Ellison's $1B Tesla investment grew to over $10B
“Larry Ellison bought a billion dollars of Tesla stock less than two years ago that is now worth over ten billion dollars”
Calacanis: Slack's board selling the company was a stupid business move
“Conversely, I'm picking my dumbest business move with Slack's board selling Slack. This is the stupidest thing I've ever seen.”
Palihapitiya says he would have acquired Slack if given the chance
“I would have bought Slack if I could have, if they would have given me a shot.”
Friedberg calls shorting the market in March 2020 his worst move
“Me and anyone else that fucking hedged or shorted the market or sold during the dip in March I learned the most valuable lesson I've learned in my investing career to date.”
Sacks: Joe Biden would not be president without Jim Clyburn's endorsement
“Without him, Joe Biden would not be president.”
Friedberg: Biden's smartest 2020 move was staying quiet and letting Trump self-destruct
“Smartest political move of 20 20 was Joe Biden staying quiet, hanging out in his bunker, and letting Trump do his own damage.”
Chamath: Nikki Haley will be the 2024 Republican presidential nominee
“Nikki Haley, who I think will be the Republican nominee for president in 24.”
Sacks: 'Defund the police' slogan cost Democrats control of Congress in 2020
“They introduced the slogan of defund the police, and it scared voters across the country into voting for Republicans in Congress, and it probably cost Joe Biden, not the presidency, but Congress”
Sacks: Trump might still be president if he endorsed masks earlier
“If he had just gotten on board with mass, it would have been a very easy thing to do. Politically, personally that could have made the margin of difference. He might still be president if he had gotten on board with mass about three months earlier.”
Sacks: LA Supervisor Sheila Kuhl dined out hours after banning outdoor dining
“LA the LA County supervisor Sheila Kuhl cast the deciding vote to shut down outdoor dining in Los Angeles, only to be photographed eating at El Fornaio in Santa Monica, Two hours later.”
Sacks: Lockdown hypocrisy could spark a California recall election next year
“This is why there could be a big recall next year in California.”