BONUS EPISODE with Jason Calacanis: The Civil War in Silicon Valley
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Hey, y'all, I had a little special bonus interview with Jason Calacanis. For those of you that don't know him, he's a massive angel investor, a big early investor in Uber. And he has this podcast called the all in podcast with co host David Sachs, Chamath Palhapatiya, and David Freeberg. Jason's kind of like the squishy centrist on this podcast, Sachs and Chamath have gone all in with Trump.

I posted a video, which you'll get to hear on this episode on Twitter of the four of them talking after January 6th. And they all sounded quite a bit like the Bulwark podcast. And Jason was the one who wanted to defend himself and defend his honor and say he hasn't changed his views on all of that. And so I invited him on and we want to have a wide ranging conversation that got a little bit into his view of politics and the Silicon Valley view of politics as well as a couple of burning questions I have.

about Silicon Valley. It went way longer than I thought, in part because Jason took the mic and started asking me questions. And so rather than try to shoehorn it into our existing daily podcast, we just wanted to put it out as a bonus. And for those of you who cannot stomach listening to somebody that is on the fence between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, you can maybe skip this one. But for the rest of us, I think it was a very interesting exchange that shed a lot of light on

these tech bros who are getting weak in the knees for Donald Trump and why that is. And I think that some of Jason's answers and some of his non-answers were pretty revealing on that front. So I hope you enjoy it. Once again, his name is Jason Calacanis, at Jason on Twitter. So if you have positive or negative reviews, you can reach him there. Up next, Jason. Jason.

All right, I'm here with Jason Calacanis. I must just say to start, we didn't have to do this. JCal, they call him, over in the All In podcast. I, you know, took a little swipe at the All In boys, at some of his besties, his podcast co-hosts on Twitter. And Jason engaged in good faith. And so let's do this. Let's hash it out. And I'm grateful that he did it. So here he is on the Bullard Podcast, a little crossover. How are you doing, Jason?

I'm well, and I appreciate you pulling up the clip from, was it episode 16 or something? Four years ago, and it was our reaction to January 6th.

I hadn't seen it since then, so it was great. The edit was a little dicey, but overall, I thought it's great that you linked to it because it is good to see how people's opinions have changed over time about that day. Yeah, we'll get to that on January 6th. We don't need to start with old Trump. We'll talk about a few other things. I was actually an early, I don't think episode 16 early, but pretty early listener of All In because I was mostly interested in, I just am looking for ways to consume information outside of my little bubble.

And so kind of learning about tech stuff. You guys are a bunch of VCs and you're an angel investor. And so I was learning things about what was happening in the tech world that I wasn't getting from my other media. And then David Sachs made the whole podcast about politics. So I've started to tune out lately, I have to admit. But you don't have to comment on that if you don't want to. The balance has shifted a little towards politics. Oh, I'm not a politics guy. And so I find it...

Yeah.

And then it comes to politics, people become incredibly partisan and that kind of goes away. So it's been interesting to watch my friends, David included, who really care, who are partisans, you know, and then Reid Hoffman on the other side and Mark Cuban, who I've been friends with both those guys for a long time, over 20 years. So watching this civil war in Silicon Valley as a moderate independent from New York who's voted,

I would say I voted Democratic two out of three elections and, you know, voted for Pataki, Giuliani. You know, when you live in New York, you don't really have much choices. My people, the rhinos. Back when Giuliani was a rhino, you know, that was my type of politician. Yeah, exactly. And he was a great mayor. But anyway, I'm kind of independent, socially liberal, and fiscally conservative. And kind of like, and I don't know where I fit in the spectrum anymore. But it's been really fascinating to watch people.

Yeah.

For people who don't know, just give us a real quick reader's digest on the show. We've got some listeners who probably just don't care about tech news, don't follow it, so might have no idea who you are. What's the shorthand? So, yeah, 14 years ago, I started – I'm a former journalist, publisher from New York. I did a magazine in the 90s called Silicon Alley Reporter. I did a blog company, Assault AOL, which did Engadget, Autoblog, and competed heads up against Nick Denton and Gawker.

I made a bunch of money selling that. I became an angel investor in startup companies. And when I did that, I started a podcast 14 years ago, and I've done 2,000 episodes of something called This Week in Startups, just about startups. And then two of my frequent guests and friends, David Sachs and Chamath Palihapitiya, who are capital allocators as well and entrepreneurs, we created this new podcast during COVID because we couldn't see each other called All In. It's just a Zoom podcast.

I named it all in after the fact that we used to play poker every Thursdays, and during COVID we couldn't. So it was just a way for us to chew the fat, and it became extremely popular extremely fast. And now when the episode comes out on the weekends, if you were to look at the...

like Apple charts or something, you know, sometimes it breaks the top 10 episodes, typically the top 20 episodes. It's once a week. We've done 199 episodes. There's a conference that goes with it called all in summit. And we've been doing that for three years. And this year was kind of a high watermark for both the pod and for the event in that, like Trump came on, JD Vance came to the event. Elon was at the event. Sergey Brin was at the event. Travis from Uber was at the event. So it's,

If you were in the tech business, you would listen every week. If you're not in the tech business or finance business, you might have heard about it, but probably not. Yeah. And the flashpoint, I guess, for the pod this year, and as I said, you said you had Trump on, but of your co-hosts, you mentioned two of them. You also have David, who's kind of the afraid- Freedberg, yeah. And token lefty, though maybe not that left. But Sachs and Chamath.

Both had a fundraiser for Trump earlier this year. Your co-host. Yeah, that was a big seminal moment, I think, in the history of Silicon Valley and politics. Because, you know, if you were to...

actually come out in public support of Trump in Silicon Valley, that would be, I don't want to say career ending, but it would be damaging to your startup. You would lose employees. So during the, you know, let's call it the hyper woke era of Silicon Valley, it was, you know, Trump, like in New York,

Trump was considered an existential threat to democracy, capitalism, America. And, you know, he was so toxic that to even say you would vote for him was kind of crazy. Now, that doesn't mean people weren't voting for him, but you would never in 2016 or 2020 host a fundraiser for Trump.

To your point, since you led us right there about this change, right? Like that this is something has changed, right? Where being for Trump would have been verboten and now it is not. I mean, that was, I guess, the fundamental point of the video that I, that I had put up, but that nothing has changed with Trump, right? Like Trump hasn't changed. I would agree with you that Trump hasn't changed. Yeah. I mean, I think there was a moment when people felt he was changing and

And I called that Trump 2.0 or all in Trump. Some people called it because he had an appearance where he was fabulously normal on all in.

And, you know, people came to me and said, wow, you're going to vote for him? Like, I mean, it seems like he's actually learned a lot. He's like maybe matured. He's, you know, he's evolved and, you know, he's different. And then, of course, after the first assassination attempt, we watched that RNC speech and people were like, hey, first half of the speech, he seems like a changed guy. Like, I guess almost dying would do that to you. In the second half, he went right back to insult comic, you know, name calling. Right.

And so I think he should be up right now 10 points at least if he was that Trump 2.0. And maybe J.D. Vance is that, you know, in my mind, which is somebody who believes in traditional American values, free markets, less spending, doesn't believe in identity politics. But Trump has obviously reverted back to full insult comic grievances, you know, adjacent to kind of racist, sexist stuff, right?

So what do you think explains the change in attitude towards Trump and about your co-hosts specifically, but I guess maybe Silicon Valley broadly, right? Because you said that now there's more things, like you don't have to speak for them specifically, but like why? So that's hard for me to wrap my head around because-

So, you know, if we look at Biden and his performance and what happened in San Francisco over the last decade, I think people are very nervous in the capitalistic part and free market part of the economy. I'm not speaking for David Orchamoth, but just in general, what I hear from folks is

they don't want socialism and they don't like identity politics and they like meritocracy. So there was a moment where, you know, DEI kind of was the main focus in Silicon Valley. Everybody had a DEI department. Everybody was obsessed with it. And now founders have started talking about merit, exceptionalism,

and intelligence, MEI, I think is their like, you know, counter trolling. And so if you have Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders attacking, uh,

capitalism, success. That is how I think a lot of folks have been flipped by the Republicans. And if you look at Joe Rogan, Elon, Chamath, and a number of folks, they all voted for Biden. They all voted for Obama. They voted for Hillary. They, in some of these cases, ran fundraisers. And then that party then set a test, I think, you know, a purity test for

for, you know, people who are moderates and capitalists in the middle, and we all failed it. And I think that's when people looked at Trump as the better option. They felt, and you know, really, losing Joe Rogan and losing Elon is like the most ridiculous self-inflicted wound of the Democratic Party. They had them. All they had to do was just say like, hey, you know, we might disagree about

I don't know, taxes, meritocracy or whatever, but there's room in this tent, this democratic tent for, you know, capitalists, for billionaires, for,

And they kicked him out. Yeah, I guess I don't. That's the part I don't really get. I mean, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren lost in the Democratic primary to Joe Biden, who did not institute any type of socialism, who passed a lot of bipartisan bills, frankly, on the chipsack and infrastructure issues.

Type stuff that Elon would have liked. I think it's the general tone of the Democratic Party is what people were picking up on. But Kamala is not running on DEI or socialism. I mean, her platform does not include anything related to socialism. There's no threats to capitalism. I had Doug Emhoff on the podcast last week, and he called himself a capitalist. Yeah, most people believe she's lying in her move to the center.

Okay. Well, even if you believe that, like her 2019 platform, even the most left version of herself, I think we can all agree kind of the Democrats got caught up a little bit and the sort of lefty woke-ification, if you will, of the party during 2019. But like she never ran on socialism. She never ran on socialism. I guess I just don't understand it. I think.

that's people's perception is that there is a hatred of entrepreneurship and I'm not saying this is real I'm just telling you the perception in Silicon Valley my brother-in-law works for Uber her husband was a corporate lawyer you're making a great counter case I'm just telling you you asked me how it happened okay sir this is how it happened you don't invite Elon to the EV summit

That's kind of like not inviting Michael Jordan to the All-Star Game. You kind of get the message loud and clear as entrepreneurs. You introduce a wealth tax. You put a tax on people selling their homes in LA or in San Francisco for over $5 million.

And if people feel like you're constantly under attack for building and creating jobs, that's, that was what the democratic party did to capitalists in their minds. I'm not saying it's true. You can make counter arguments for it. I'm telling you about the perception I hear from inside the room where people discuss these things. They feel like the democratic party is absolutely anti-capitalist. And I think,

process in which, you know, they hid Biden's, you know, mental capacity and then Kamala not having to, you know, do a proper primary. They consider all that part of this deep state machine of elitists and really

we, I see you smirking. Come on. I mean, you're on a podcast of four billionaires. The deep state elitist. I'm not a billionaire yet. But I mean, that's a superficial way of describing us.

We're actually, three of them are immigrants and we're all self-made. So you can be dismissive and say, oh, four billionaires. You're talking about other elites, like there's some elite cabal. Like, I mean, Elon runs the biggest one, the biggest social media platforms. Like there are all kinds of- So the thing you're missing, Tim, is self-made people versus Ivy League elites who had it handed to them and journalists. That's the perception in Silicon Valley. Now, again, I'm not saying this is necessarily my take on it.

But you asked like, what's driving it? You take a bunch of people who are self-made and then you start attacking them and you just sort of take over the Democratic Party and you don't have a primary and you hit this guy who is obviously in mental decline. That's the kind of stuff that kind of counters how Silicon Valley and how capitalists think. They think about performance, think about meritocracy. They think about,

radical independence and being self-made. That's their worldview. And then when a bunch of elite people, and by elites, the derogatory comment is Ivy League educated, working as journalists, working in think tanks, working in politics, but having created jobs. And then that's the tension that I think led a lot of them to flip to Trump. And so that's the answer to your question. Why did they flip there? I think the Democratic Party,

And that elite machine kind of made them feel like even though they were donating money, that they were hated. Does that make sense? No, I mean, no. And yes, it makes sense that they think that, but the argument doesn't make sense. I mean, Kamala went to Howard and she hasn't attacked self-made people. I don't think she, I mean, her argument for her campaign is that she wants to have an opportunity economy. If you just look at her economic proposals, there's nothing in there that is an attack on self-made people. Oh, when it comes to Kamala, that's a different story. They just think she's dumb.

They just think she's dumb. I mean, that's not what I think, but I think generally people think she's not that bright and not well-spoken. And they think that Donald Trump is, what, smart? I think they think he's a better option. And they think J.D. is very smart. So the people who have flipped, that's their perception. Let's just go back to your perception for a second, because you sent one tweet you really agree with. And I just, I want to have one agreement here for a second. You wrote this. I like this a lot.

You're out. My Lord, what a run up. The last two administrations added 8 trillion each to the debt and the stock market is ripped. Entrepreneurs in the U S are violently and consistently building amazing humanity, changing products. Unemployment is at record lows and wages are rising faster than inflation. You can learn anything, anytime for free. And y'all are miserable. This is the golden age. So soak it in. It can be a lot worse. I,

I totally agree with all of that. That is the thing that's so flummoxing to me. There are plenty of little criticisms you could make of Biden or Kamala or their policies or all this, but we are not in American carnage right now. There is not an attack on entrepreneurship. It's never been better. I don't understand why this is the moment to say we really need a radical shake-off of the system. I don't get that. Yeah, so what the counter-argument that these folks make is...

So, there is a new phenomenon that people perceive the economy, and this manifested itself after Bill Clinton, and it happened during Obama, and I'm not sure, I'm not a political science expert, but people's perception of the economy bifurcated and became inversely correlated with their political party. So, during a Republican, you know, like during Trump,

Republicans thought the economy was great. Democrats thought it was terrible and vice versa. And there's a psychological phenomenon here of this tribalism that's been talked about and they've written about it, but it didn't exist actually during Clinton and Obama and Bush and other presidencies. It was minor, like maybe 10% difference of perception of the economy. Now it's just become totally tribal. So if you point out to a Republican who's voting for Trump and supporting them, lowest unemployment of our lifetime.

highest stock market of our lifetime and 60% of Americans participate in the stock market. So almost everybody benefits or the majority of Americans are benefiting from that. Inflation has been tamed and looks like we're going to have a soft landing. Then they immediately go to, yeah, but the border and the immigrant crisis and, you know, and the truth is, is really actually not that much difference between these two past administrations. If you actually looked at it from brass tacks,

They both spent an enormous amount of money and put us into massive debt. And they both will do the same in their next administration, I predict. They both had relatively, if you take COVID out, the same GDP, similar unemployment. I mean, everything's been basically the same. So any perception you have of this, or when you talk to partisans, you can tell who a partisan is, is because they'll look at it and say, oh my God, people are suffering.

There's always people suffering in the world. That's the nature of human existence. But the amount of suffering in the United States, we are the envy of the entire world right now who are still suffering from 5%, 6%, 7% inflation, 10%, 15%, 20% unemployment in other countries. And so there is an argument to be made that obviously printing money has created a lot of this and government spending is not healthy at this level. If we do this for two more administrations, it'll be cataclysmic. Right?

One more administration, we might survive it. This happens for eight years of Kamala or, you know, eight years of Trump and then Vance. This country is going to have really seismic level problems. It will be cutting services at a rapid rate and raising taxes at a phenomenal rate.

All right. I want to get to January 6th, but just to put a button on that. So we agree. We both agree that the deficit is a big problem that neither party is taking seriously. But we both agree that the entrepreneurship, capitalism, the economy during the Biden-Harris administration has been basically fine. Been great. The policies that they have put in place have been great.

have like maybe they did some, they goosed inflation, I think probably by spending a little too much at the beginning. But besides that, it's hard to come up with specific policies that are attacks on entrepreneurs. Yeah, it's more the vibes. People feel, you know, that they are not

If people donate a bunch of money to your party and then you spend a decade criticizing them, they might – don't be surprised if they flip parties. So their feelings are hurt. Chamath and Elon's feelings are hurt. I don't speak for them. They just didn't get invited to the parties and they didn't get invited to the White House. Once again, Tim, I don't speak for Elon or Chamath. I've never been invited to the White House. I'm just telling you how entrepreneurs feel writ large.

That's how they feel. They feel when they hear the Democratic Party, which I would say Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren coming out and saying ban billionaires and all that rhetoric. Yes, that is. And being anti-free markets and then the government spending is what I would say I hear most of all from people who've switched parties. That's what I hear most of all.

Let's do January 6th really quick. Well, not really quick. It's impossible to be really quick, but we'll do it. It'll do it in a way that you can feel that you have a full-throated context for your argument. I guess actually before we do the January 6th, because we haven't answered that. So Saxon and Chamath, because we're going to hear from both of them in this clip that I played that you said was a little out of context. And so they're both for Trump and fundraise for him. Have you said who you're voting for? I'm a double-hater.

You're a double hater. Are you going to decide, do you think? I'm a resident of Texas, so my vote doesn't matter. Might do a write-in vote. Can I work you over? What about All Red Cruz? Do you have an All Red Cruz vote yet? I don't know what that means. The Senate race in Texas? Oh, yeah. I haven't actually given him much thought. I just became a

I just moved here this year. You're a Texas resident? Okay. Well, I don't really think it's probably the best use of our time for me to try to convince you to vote for Colin Allred over Ted Cruz, but we can do that in the green room if we still like each other at the end of this. All right. So this is what started all this. We went back to, as you've said at the beginning, this podcast from right after January 6th. Obviously, emotions are running high, and we put out a one-minute version of it, obviously an hour-long podcast. And so I want to replay that, and then you can tell us what you think was missing from it. But let's listen.

I would rather take every single person arrested and give them zero days in jail and add it all up and give it to Trump. He is a complete piece of shit fucking scumbag. He's garbage. Is Trump responsible? Yes. I mean, clearly. 100%. 100%. Yes, because...

He he is the one who who put forth this theory that the election was stolen and was constantly repeating it for the last two months. If you want to see that this mob is a gun, I think he loaded the gun. He pointed it in a certain direction. And I think most of his political career, I think he's I think he's disqualified himself from being a candidate at a national level. Can I ask you guys what you think of this?

Basically, Pelosi has told Pence, you have to invoke the 25th Amendment or they're going to take up impeachment. What do you guys think about that? I think it's the right thing to do. He's a maniac. I mean, this is insane, deranged, criminal, lunatic behavior. It's completely possible that he could do something more dangerous in the last 14 days. Naturally, I agree with all of that. Yeah. So I stand by my statements 100%. Yeah. The biggest blocker for me with Trump has always been

you know, his behavior on January 6th. I come from a family of law enforcement and I was going to be a cop and then an FBI agent. And I just happened to get accepted to night school and didn't go into the forest. And my brother went into the forest and he's a cop and retired now. You

Anybody who's got members of their family in law enforcement understands exactly how bad that day could have been. And the fact that those cops did not— One was for some law enforcement. I mean, some got injured. Yeah. But in those moments, when a cop's getting beaten like that, if one of those cops had done what other cops told me would have been absolute proper protocol, which is shoot their guns—

defend themselves against people spraying them with bear spray and beating them savagely, we would have had 50 dead Americans, 25 dead Americans. And I think that that is the thing that anybody who is voting for Trump has to really deeply consider is that he could do this again. And the fact that he didn't accept, you know, the election results and that they're still on about like the election wasn't a clean election or

Despite them doing everything they could to fight it and every lawsuit getting turned over by Trump judges half the time. And then Pence, his own vice president saying like, you're lost, bruh. That's it. It's over. And then his own family saying, hey, call off the hounds. You know, you sent these people there. You said fight like hell.

But, you know, I think for for partisan people, you know, they've reframed their position on Trump. They've re underwrote it. I have not re underwritten my Trump position. You said you're a double hater. And so I just don't like how do you get from a place where somebody is criminal to

Yeah. Insane, deranged, a lunatic, possibly liable to do another insurrection. Yeah. And then say, well, I don't know, even Steven, I don't like Kamala because Bernie Sanders said something mean about billionaires. Like, I just, I don't understand. Why not just be for Kamala? No, I just don't know that. I don't think she's qualified for the job is my honest opinion. I mean, she's been an attorney general, a senator, vice president. Yeah. I am not impressed by her.

Sure, but I mean, there are plenty of people I'm not impressed by that I would vote for over Trump. I mean, I guess I disagree with you on Kamlo. Yeah, I mean, you're making a strong argument. I don't disagree with you. Yeah, there's 435 people in Congress. I mean, I would probably vote for all of them over Trump, except maybe Marjorie Taylor Greene. I don't know, Ilhan Omar, but like, I mean, you could pick a random person out of the hat I would have over Trump. I don't understand what...

How do you go from saying this person should be jailed, he's disqualified, he's a maniac, to being like, well, I don't know? Well, I'm not a fan of either person, and I'll probably do a write-in vote. But I don't think Trump's going to win, if I'm being honest. I think women who had their rights taken away by Roe v. Wade, which is my second major blocker with Trump, January 6th being number one and overturning Roe v. Wade number two.

I think women are going to come out in force and he's going to get shellacked, but I could be wrong. You know, I'm no political expert. Sure. You had him on the podcast. Oh, you didn't even ask about January 6th. So this is the other thing I don't understand. Like Chamath. I was going to go to jail. He called him a piece of shit, fucking scumbag. And then he comes on the podcast and,

And you don't even ask him. You can ask Chamath about that. I was going to ask him about it and we ran out of time and I am only 25% of the questions, but I did get my two questions in about abortion, which went national news and a visa, you know, visas and immigration, which went national news. So I had three questions I wanted to ask. And I, in my interview technique was going to increasingly go with the more difficult ones. And then when we got to January 6th, they, they pulled the plug on it. Yeah. Yeah.

I just, but no, sincerely, Tim, you're laughing, but I don't know. I'm laughing because it's just like, I don't, I mean, did you hear my other questions? I did. They were fine. There were tough questions. There were tough questions. I mean, I'm the only person who asked tough questions. Yeah. You're the only one. And I followed up three times on this. Why don't you look at your colleagues? You don't, in the post game though, then I listened to the post game and it wasn't like you were like mad at them for not asking him or you didn't say like, Hey, Jamal, you thought he should be jailed. Like, I just don't understand how you get there from, I thought he should be jailed.

I'm going to host a fundraiser for him. You'd have to ask them. Like, does he no longer think he should be jailed? You'd have to ask them. It just seems like, well, why don't you ask him though? You guys have a podcast you meet every week. Isn't that, aren't you a little curious? Actually, we've had the debate many times on it. So then do you understand what changed? I mean, again, Trump has all the things that led to January 6th. Yeah, I mean, Chamath did a whole episode where he talked about his re-underwriting of it. So you can listen to that episode. Yeah, okay.

Like I'm saying, like, you know, I'm here to talk about my opinion. I don't, can't tell you about theirs. That's fair. Yeah. Well, but your opinion is still neutral though, which I'm struggling with. Like I just, I struggle with how a main match. I think Trump's. Is Kamala an existential threat? I think if she spends a ton of money, I think they're both existential threats. If they spend another $8 trillion, yes.

So you said you weren't a politics guy, so maybe I can, I'm going to try to win you over here. The Senate right now is 50 to 50, 51 to 50, 51 to 49, excuse me. And Joe Manchin is one of the Democratic senators. He's not running again. So the Republicans are going to win that state. That's West Virginia.

So the Republicans have at least 50 senators. They're almost certainly going to win the Montana Senate race, which is John Tester. He's running. Nice guy. Lost a couple fingers. But it's just Montana's pretty red these days. And so Republicans are going to have 51 Senate seats.

Like if the threat to Trump is he might try another insurrection, he's going to mass deport people, he might unilaterally put in a tariff. And the threat to Kamala is she might spend a lot of money, but there's going to be a Republican Senate. It just seems like you're a risk assessment guy, right? When you're deciding what to invest in, isn't it like general risk analysis part of this thing?

Yeah, I think she's a bit of a neocon. And I think the one thing, the one thing I do like about Trump, I will say, yeah, I think she will start wars. And I don't think she will be able to handle those geopolitical situations as well as Trump. This is the only thing I can say for Trump that I appreciate about him is his ability to bond with dictators. And he does quite well with them, communicating with them. And he doesn't like to start wars. And he's, you know, I think that he will do better on that issue.

So that was that where your risk is because that's really what kind of lands for me. I just like even if I were a double hater, which I'm not like my risk assessment is I look at the two sides and it's like it's like we've established that the things are basically fine in the country right now, even good. And it's like we could continue that path with

with mixed Washington, with Supreme Court being Republican, with the Senate being Republican, with Kamala Harris as president, or we can take a flyer on Donald Trump unleashed. We've already seen what happened at the Capitol. Who knows what would happen in a second term? Like, doesn't the risk, isn't it just a, isn't like a basic risk assessment? I think your analysis is excellent. Yeah.

So have I won you over? Have we done it right now? You have breaking news? I'm in Texas. Your vote kind of matters. You just said at the beginning, you have a lot of people that listen to your podcast. I'm sure there are a lot of Jason's out there. I'm sure there are a lot of people that are annoyed with Saks and they're like listening to Jason and they're like, I don't know. I'm on the fence right now and I live in Atlanta and I'm an all in fan and maybe you can nudge them one right direction.

Yeah, I'll take it under advisement. Okay. All right. That was a good try. I mean, I also, I tell you the other show I have with Kamala is not her not going on any adversarial podcasts or talking to people who are adversarial. She's doing Fox this week. I finally, finally, yes. I give her credit for doing Fox this week. Yes. That's the other big thing. Like, I really feel like there should be three debates.

I agree.

I wish there was a primary, but also parties picked presidents like this for a long time. And so I don't, I don't like really see it as a grave threat to democracy. Would you rather have than Kamala? If you had like your, yeah. Um, I mean, Kamala has grown on me to be honest. And I don't like, so why I, well, for the part, maybe part of the reason that you don't like her, the Kamala is a neocon thing. I like, I feel like her foreign policy, uh,

comments have all been directly in line with where I'm at, basically, on foreign policy. So she's grown on me in that sense. I thought her convention was really an appeal to the big middle and to, you know, kind of the American tradition, particularly when it comes to

you know, immigration and speaking about, you know, kind of the diverse backgrounds of her and Tim Walls and, and giving people opportunity and protecting freedom. I just think all of her rhetoric's been right in line. What do you think of Tim Walls? I didn't like that pick. I wanted Shapiro. Me too. I like Shapiro a lot better. Why didn't she pick Shapiro? It makes no sense to me. Like, is it this idea of like, you don't want somebody who's a little bit brighter in terms of shining bright, not brightness, intellect, shunned.

shines brighter. I have on pretty good authority. I think that the reason was simply vibes that like her and walls clicked that walls was more of like a cheerleader type. Like I'm here for you. I'm going to be your second command. Also the, like kind of the vibe of bringing a little bit of balance, like Shapiro, despite the fact that they're different, like they both are still like coastal lawyers, right? Like I think Shapiro is still like was a lawyer, you know? And yeah, so it's kind of a double lawyer thing versus a lawyer and a guy that's like a teacher and a veteran and,

So I think that I just think that was really the reason why. But yeah, I don't know. It would have been interesting to have a whole primary file. I think that she's really like stepped up and exceeded expectations in the big moments in the debate at the convention speech. I mean, just to be candid, like back before it was all I was, my argument was just solely focused on beating Trump. And I was like, you know, if we could move on from Biden and get

a Shapiro and Whitmer situation where they both are popular in their home states and center-left Democrats, that that would be the safest way to beat Trump. If she loses, why will she lose? And if Trump loses, why will he lose? I'm curious.

It's a good question. If she loses, it will be in part totally out of her hands because globally incumbents have done horrible since COVID and inflation, despite the fact that, you know, Republicans want to make this all about like America, like we've had actually the best inflation and inflation hits people, particularly working class people hard. And so we've seen incumbents lose all around the world. And I think that if she loses, it's because she loses with non-college income.

you know, kind of middle and working class people that had traditionally been democratic voters and there's bleed there. Like, I don't think that there's going to be a ton of bleed among my people, like the center college educated folks. I kind of feel like the, your Silicon Valley people, a little bit of a weird outlier for some of the unique reasons we discussed, but I think like mostly Silicon Valley people are weird. Yeah. Can confirm. I think most of the suburban, yeah, the suburban types and that like the Democrats have continued to do better with will continue to do better with. So I think it would be a bleed among working class Hispanic voters.

And I think that would be the reason why she'd lose. And I think it would have hurt that she would have had such a short runway to do a campaign. And I think that Biden, unfortunately, will have some culpability with that. So I think those would be the...

main reasons. I guess I have a darker reason about what it says about the nature of our country, but I don't know. Maybe this podcast probably isn't the right thing for that. Race or gender? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I just, again, I just, just to my same perplexion, how perplexed I am asking you about how people could go for Trump a third time. I think if the country goes for Trump after seeing what happened on January 6th, it's hard to come up with

It's so interesting how people who had reactions where they're like, hey, this is terrible, have now reframed it in their minds as it was like an outing that got out of control and that Trump had nothing to do with it. And if you look at the Oath Keepers- It's delusional. We've had this debate many times online. The Oath Keepers came there explicitly to take over the Capitol and they brought guns to the hotels around it. Like,

Those individuals are highly qualified in many cases, ex-military and ex-law enforcement individuals. And they could have made, they obviously would not have overturned the government. But man, you could have had a lot more than this being a riot that got out of control kind of situation. Or imagine if Mark Milley would have been Michael Flynn. Yeah.

Or imagine if instead of Brad Raffensperger in Georgia, Marjorie Taylor Greene was the Secretary of State and actually did try to find the votes. I mean, like there were so many catastrophic, and again, this just circles me back to the risk assessment, like there were so many catastrophic potential outcomes, and

And it's like, I had a debate with Dan Crenshaw last week. Can I use this analogy? I was like, it's like when I listen to Saks, Troth and some of these people who've come around and changed their views and Dan for that matter, it's like saying that I got hammered at the bar. I drove a hundred miles an hour from LA to Vegas to go gambling for the night. I spun out on the highway and flipped around three times and landed going straight and ended up in my hotel in Vegas. And meanwhile, my friend over here was like following the rules and got T-boned.

And the lesson that I take away from that is that I should get hammered and drive a hundred down the highway. It's just like, just because we survived, it doesn't mean it was okay. Like it was an extra, it was wildly dangerous. And there were a ton of, what do you think of the law fair? I'm curious accusations like this first case that they did against Trump, obviously with like election, the hush money case, uh,

and like kind of extending that that one felt like to me the weakest of all the cases it felt like a little bit like it was lawfare and political whereas the other ones don't seem as much and and their claims you feel like they're weaponizing i agree i mean i agree that it was weak the weakest of all the cases but again like we have a system of i mean john edwards was charged with a similar thing and got off and he was a democrat i just but as for the january the lawfare thing this again i know you don't speak for chamath but i want to go back to the podcast

He said that he wishes that all of the people that stormed the Capitol, we added up all those sentences and gave them to Trump. That was a current Trump donors views. Like I agree with that. I Trump, it was Trump's fault. If there was anyone except Trump,

that had lost, including people I hate. Like if it was Ron DeSantis or Ted Cruz or Bernie Sanders that had lost, like they would have just conceded and there wouldn't have been a rally that day and nobody would have charged the Capitol. Like the only reason anyone is in jail is because Trump lied to them. And so then to say it's a lawfare, I don't get that. Like it's Trump, it's obviously Trump's fault. It was plain that it was Trump's fault from the moment that it happened.

So I don't see it as lawfare. Yeah, I'm in total agreement that he was culpable that day. I think if he had just said, we're going to go there and it's peaceful, be peaceful, and don't fight like hell, and if he had actually like...

you know, not told the oath keepers. They shouldn't have even gone there though. This is all it takes us to like, like he lost, like he lost clearly, right? There shouldn't have been a rally. He should have, he should have been working with the Biden team on the transition like every other president in history. Yeah. And they will bully you into saying that you're overreacting about January 6th. And that, and that's what I face. I mean, constantly online, people are bullying me like, oh my God, you're, there was just a guy in a shaman outfit. I'm like, no.

Yeah, the mentally ill guy in the shaman outfit is different than the guys who brought long guns to their hotel and then were acting in formation to breach the barriers. And a woman jumped through a window with a pistol in her face from a Secret Service agent who begged her not to jump through the window. And she decided she would breach that window.

With multiple guns trained on her saying, do not jump through that window. We will have to shoot you. And she still did it. I mean, you want to talk about Trump derangement syndrome. That's the definition of it. Amen, brother. Okay. We've gone too long. I want to, but you picked my brain on politics. I get to pick your brain about one thing that you're an expert on that. I don't know nothing about. I was excited to see this when I was Googling you.

You tweeted this last year about crypto. For a decade, I said most crypto projects were a scam and I got brigaded with laser eyes saying, have fun being poor. As a non-Silicon Valley person, as a total neophyte on all of this stuff, I've tried to get into crypto. I've looked at it. I've considered it. I've had smart people talk to me about it. And everything that I look at, I'm just like, this is a scam. It's a fake. It's nothing. It creates no value and I don't get it. So have you changed your view on that or do you also share that view? Yeah.

When executed, it's 99% of the time a giant scam or incompetence or a combination of those two things, incompetent people running a scam, which is why it looks so weird. There are a collection of underlying technologies like blockchain or NFTs and decentralization that are real and that could have applications. It's just if you created a global casino...

where there was absolutely no oversight, what do you think would happen? Bad actors would take it over and it would become a scam. And that's what's happened. Yes.

And there should be some reasonable regulation. Absolutely. This is the other thing that the crypto people get mad about Kamala about, and she's actually been more pro-crypto on her leg than Biden was. But like, yeah, right? There should be some regulation. It's crazy that there's no regulation. It's really simple. The regulation in this space is super simple. There's something called accreditation. 6% of the country are accredited investors, which means they make over $200,000 a year. They have over a million in net worth. Yeah.

you could create an accreditation test, like a test to own a firearm or drive a car or cut hair and be a barber. We should get rid of the cut hair test, but I'm with you on all the rest of it. Yeah, and you just do 50 questions and people take a three-hour course. They answer 50 questions. If they pass that test, and it doesn't have to be onerous like a Series 7, which takes weeks and a couple of hours to take a test. If they pass that basic test, they could invest in crypto. And then on the crypto side, they should have to have insurance insurance.

be registered, but they should be allowed to let people buy NFTs and trade them and go crazy. As long as the people coming in are sophisticated enough to understand diversification, do not put your entire net worth into it. And then they could look at it alongside gambling on DraftKings or going to Vegas. Sure. And it would be part of that, which is,

The reason there's a little bit of tension here is there's a group of people who do look at it as like DraftKings, and they look at it like going to Vegas. And then there's another group of people who think they're investing in the next Uber or the next Google, and they don't realize they're actually at a casino. And that's where education would be something the SEC could do really easily. And then if you took a course...

and you knew there were no customers and there was no revenue and there was no profits and you were still invested in a project, you would be an angel investor like I do. And you would take small bets and then increase the investment size as they proved the product and the use case. So yeah, I'm hoping...

That's some reasonable legislation. And there has been some around a path to becoming a sophisticated investor is the term I use. So it's a term in Australia, as opposed to accredited, which is just a nebulous term. Sophisticated is like a really good term, an educated investor.

We've ended with several agreements. Thank you so much, Jason Calacanis. And if I've won you over, you're going to think about this. You're going to sleep on it tonight. And if I've won you over, like we're not airing this podcast till tomorrow, I'd be happy to have breaking news that Jason has agreed with me and he's going to reluctantly vote for Kamala Harris. I would love to. I would love to be the person to break it.

I plan on announcing my vote on the all-in live stream on election night. Okay. Well, maybe you don't want to do it before. A little guilt. A little guilt will come in place. You'll think about those cops at the Capitol. Everybody should make their own decision. All right. We'll see you. Thank you so much, Jason. We'll talk to you soon, man. My pleasure. Okay. So your heart is broken. You're sitting around moping, moping, moping. Crying, crying.

You say you're even thinking about dying Well, before you do anything rash Baby, yeah, listen to this Everybody plays the fool Sometimes There's no exception to the rule Listen, baby It may be factual, it may be cruel I ain't lying Everybody plays the fool Falling in love is an easy thing

But there's no guarantee that the one you love is gonna love you. No loving eye they cannot see. A certain person could never be. Love runs deeper than any ocean. You cloud your mind with emotion. Everybody plays a fool sometimes. There's no exception to the rule. It may be factual, it may be cruel. Everybody

The Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.