WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.600 Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today we are stripping 00:00:03.600 --> 00:00:05.799 down the operating system of one of the most 00:00:05.799 --> 00:00:08.880 volatile figures in modern capitalism. He's a 00:00:08.880 --> 00:00:11.060 fascinating subject. He really is. I mean, if 00:00:11.060 --> 00:00:13.460 you were writing a character for a prestige HBO 00:00:13.460 --> 00:00:17.339 drama about Silicon Valley, someone who embodies 00:00:17.339 --> 00:00:21.280 every excess, every brilliance and every contradiction 00:00:21.280 --> 00:00:23.480 of the industry, you would essentially write 00:00:23.480 --> 00:00:25.839 Chamath Palihapitiya. You really would. Yeah. 00:00:26.219 --> 00:00:29.160 It's rare to find a single individual who serves 00:00:29.160 --> 00:00:31.339 as such a perfect barometer for the industries. 00:00:31.940 --> 00:00:34.140 Well, for its id. That's a great way to put it. 00:00:34.200 --> 00:00:36.240 Yeah, because depending on which year of the 00:00:36.240 --> 00:00:39.259 data you look at, he is either the scrappy refugee 00:00:39.259 --> 00:00:42.460 outsider, the ultimate insider, the social capital 00:00:42.460 --> 00:00:44.740 philanthropist, or, you know, the guy telling 00:00:44.740 --> 00:00:46.439 you he doesn't care about human rights. And the 00:00:46.439 --> 00:00:48.179 swings are just, they're violent. We're talking 00:00:48.179 --> 00:00:50.000 about a guy who arrived in Canada as a refugee, 00:00:50.219 --> 00:00:52.100 worked the fryer at Burger King to keep the electricity 00:00:52.100 --> 00:00:55.380 on. Right. And then grows up to buy a $75 million. 00:00:56.070 --> 00:00:59.869 Bombardier Global 7500 jet. The whiplash is incredible. 00:01:00.009 --> 00:01:03.350 And socially, it's just as severe. I mean, this 00:01:03.350 --> 00:01:06.530 is someone who spent 20 years as a reliable Democratic 00:01:06.530 --> 00:01:09.209 donor, you know, rubbing shoulders with the Clintons, 00:01:09.209 --> 00:01:11.709 Obama alumni. The whole establishment. The whole 00:01:11.709 --> 00:01:14.109 establishment, only to turn around in June 2024 00:01:14.109 --> 00:01:17.390 and host a massive, massive fundraiser for Donald 00:01:17.390 --> 00:01:19.590 Trump. In the heart of San Francisco, of all 00:01:19.590 --> 00:01:22.370 places. Exactly. So. That is the mission today. 00:01:22.510 --> 00:01:24.390 We aren't just doing a biography. We're trying 00:01:24.390 --> 00:01:27.489 to unpack the Chamath effect. How does one man 00:01:27.489 --> 00:01:30.790 go from running AOL Instant Messenger to being 00:01:30.790 --> 00:01:34.280 crowned... The SPAC king. A title he gave himself, 00:01:34.379 --> 00:01:36.680 by the way. Of course. And then when that market 00:01:36.680 --> 00:01:39.700 completely turns on him, pivot again in 2025 00:01:39.700 --> 00:01:42.640 to warn us all about a Sputnik moment with China. 00:01:42.799 --> 00:01:44.739 It's an incredible series of reinventions. It 00:01:44.739 --> 00:01:46.640 is. And we have a massive stack of sources to 00:01:46.640 --> 00:01:48.439 get through. We've got his investment letters 00:01:48.439 --> 00:01:51.859 from as recently as June 2025. We've got SEC 00:01:51.859 --> 00:01:54.219 filings, transcript records of his political 00:01:54.219 --> 00:01:57.459 activities, reporting from all over. It is a 00:01:57.459 --> 00:01:59.859 lot to get through. But the through line is just 00:01:59.859 --> 00:02:03.420 fascinating. really a story about how the incentive 00:02:03.420 --> 00:02:06.359 structure of Silicon Valley has shifted over 00:02:06.359 --> 00:02:09.819 the last two decades. And Chamath is, well, he's 00:02:09.819 --> 00:02:11.819 the guy who always seems to spot the shift five 00:02:11.819 --> 00:02:14.080 minutes before everyone else. He's the ultimate 00:02:14.080 --> 00:02:16.780 opportunist in a way. Or a visionary. It depends 00:02:16.780 --> 00:02:18.819 on your perspective. OK, so let's start at the 00:02:18.819 --> 00:02:21.639 absolute beginning, the origin story, because, 00:02:21.639 --> 00:02:24.550 you know. Often when tech billionaires talk about 00:02:24.550 --> 00:02:26.909 humble beginnings, they mean their dad was a 00:02:26.909 --> 00:02:29.069 dentist instead of a neurosurgeon. Right, right. 00:02:29.169 --> 00:02:31.849 But the sources here, they paint a picture that 00:02:31.849 --> 00:02:35.090 is legitimately gritty. It is pure survival mode. 00:02:35.550 --> 00:02:38.530 So he was born in Gali, Sri Lanka, back in 1976. 00:02:39.370 --> 00:02:41.810 But the pivotal data point, the moment everything 00:02:41.810 --> 00:02:44.810 changes for his family, is 1986. And they had 00:02:44.810 --> 00:02:47.189 moved to Canada at that point. They had. His 00:02:47.189 --> 00:02:49.389 father was attached to the Sri Lankan High Commission 00:02:49.389 --> 00:02:51.830 there. But here's the thing. His father made 00:02:51.830 --> 00:02:54.449 some comments. He was criticizing the violence 00:02:54.449 --> 00:02:56.550 against Tamils during the Civil War. And that 00:02:56.550 --> 00:02:59.189 did not go over well back home. Not at all. That 00:02:59.189 --> 00:03:01.969 criticism cost him his post. It meant they couldn't 00:03:01.969 --> 00:03:03.770 go back. There was nothing to go back to. So 00:03:03.770 --> 00:03:07.430 they went from being diplomats to... To asylum 00:03:07.430 --> 00:03:10.270 seekers. Almost overnight. Precisely. They applied 00:03:10.270 --> 00:03:13.729 for refugee status. And the economic shock, as 00:03:13.729 --> 00:03:16.509 you can imagine, was just severe. The sources 00:03:16.509 --> 00:03:18.569 describe a household that was completely defined 00:03:18.569 --> 00:03:20.750 by precarity. And this wasn't just, you know, 00:03:20.789 --> 00:03:23.810 we have to tighten our belts. No, no. His father 00:03:23.810 --> 00:03:26.310 struggled with alcoholism, with long -term unemployment. 00:03:26.669 --> 00:03:29.509 His mother was working housekeeping jobs just 00:03:29.509 --> 00:03:31.789 to, you know, keep him afloat. And this is where 00:03:31.789 --> 00:03:33.969 that Burger King detail comes in, which is so 00:03:33.969 --> 00:03:37.189 telling. He's 14 years old, flipping burgers. 00:03:37.509 --> 00:03:40.310 And not for pocket money. No, not for video games 00:03:40.310 --> 00:03:43.090 or concert tickets. He's doing it to help contribute 00:03:43.090 --> 00:03:45.030 to the household rent, to keep the lights on. 00:03:45.210 --> 00:03:49.090 And you have to think, that experience, it just 00:03:49.090 --> 00:03:51.530 installs a specific kind of operating software 00:03:51.530 --> 00:03:54.449 in a person. It creates a hunger that's completely 00:03:54.449 --> 00:03:56.710 distinct from standard ambition. It's a fear 00:03:56.710 --> 00:03:59.460 of hitting zero. It's a fear of having zero leverage. 00:03:59.680 --> 00:04:02.919 Exactly. If you look at his entire career, the 00:04:02.919 --> 00:04:05.620 aggression, the obsession with liquidity, this 00:04:05.620 --> 00:04:08.639 desire to own the platform rather than just work 00:04:08.639 --> 00:04:11.900 on it, it all traces back to that teenager wondering 00:04:11.900 --> 00:04:13.860 if they were going to lose the apartment. He 00:04:13.860 --> 00:04:15.680 wasn't born into the club, so he had to break 00:04:15.680 --> 00:04:18.160 the door down. He had to. And he used a very 00:04:18.160 --> 00:04:21.480 specific tool to do it. Math. He goes to the 00:04:21.480 --> 00:04:23.660 University of Waterloo for electrical engineering. 00:04:23.879 --> 00:04:26.180 Which is basically the MIT of Canada for anyone 00:04:26.180 --> 00:04:28.339 who doesn't know. And top tier school. Right. 00:04:28.560 --> 00:04:31.560 But look at his first job out of school in 1999. 00:04:31.959 --> 00:04:34.560 It's so revealing. It is. He doesn't go to a 00:04:34.560 --> 00:04:36.680 chip manufacturer. He doesn't go build hardware. 00:04:36.980 --> 00:04:40.100 He goes to BMO Nesbitt Burns as a derivatives 00:04:40.100 --> 00:04:42.360 trader. A trader. That is the key, isn't it? 00:04:42.399 --> 00:04:44.139 It explains almost everything that comes after. 00:04:44.720 --> 00:04:46.779 Right out of the gate, he's not thinking like 00:04:46.779 --> 00:04:49.660 a builder in that romantic, you know, Steve Wozniak 00:04:49.660 --> 00:04:52.220 soldering in a garage sense. No. He's viewing 00:04:52.220 --> 00:04:54.779 the world through the lens of arbitrage, risk, 00:04:55.040 --> 00:04:58.639 and leverage. He's a financier who just happens 00:04:58.639 --> 00:05:01.120 to understand engineering at a deep level. But 00:05:01.120 --> 00:05:03.819 he realizes pretty quickly that the real volatility 00:05:03.819 --> 00:05:06.819 and the real upside, it isn't in Canadian banking. 00:05:07.000 --> 00:05:10.660 No, it's in California. So in 2001, he makes 00:05:10.660 --> 00:05:13.240 the jump. He moves to the Bay Area to join Winamp. 00:05:13.519 --> 00:05:16.259 Wow, Winamp, that's a name from the past. It 00:05:16.259 --> 00:05:19.000 really whips the llama's ass. A legendary piece 00:05:19.000 --> 00:05:22.720 of software. And when AOL acquires Winamp, that's 00:05:22.720 --> 00:05:25.220 when Chamath enters the corporate beast. And 00:05:25.220 --> 00:05:27.759 this is where we see the first iteration of his 00:05:27.759 --> 00:05:31.220 ability to just navigate massive bureaucracies. 00:05:31.300 --> 00:05:34.220 He climbs fast. Incredibly fast. Yeah. By 2004, 00:05:34.420 --> 00:05:36.279 he's the youngest vice president in the history 00:05:36.279 --> 00:05:38.540 of AOL, and he's running the instant messaging 00:05:38.540 --> 00:05:41.579 division. AOL, which at the time was probably 00:05:41.579 --> 00:05:43.600 the most important communication protocol on 00:05:43.600 --> 00:05:45.560 the Internet for a huge chunk of the population. 00:05:45.560 --> 00:05:47.720 It was the social network before social networks. 00:05:47.819 --> 00:05:50.420 But AOL was the past. He could see that. The 00:05:50.420 --> 00:05:52.399 future was being built, you know, first in a 00:05:52.399 --> 00:05:54.439 dorm room and then down the road in Palo Alto. 00:05:54.620 --> 00:05:57.420 Which brings us to Section 2, the Facebook era. 00:05:57.680 --> 00:06:01.810 Right. So he joins Facebook in 2007. And it is 00:06:01.810 --> 00:06:04.449 so crucial to understand that he wasn't just 00:06:04.449 --> 00:06:07.930 hired there. He didn't just take a job. He effectively 00:06:07.930 --> 00:06:10.629 architected the modern discipline of growth hacking. 00:06:10.790 --> 00:06:13.490 Let's really unpack that because growth hacking 00:06:13.490 --> 00:06:16.970 has become this cheap buzzword for like scrappy 00:06:16.970 --> 00:06:20.850 marketing. But what was he actually doing? He 00:06:20.850 --> 00:06:23.610 was treating user acquisition as a math problem. 00:06:24.220 --> 00:06:27.259 Specifically, a derivatives problem. He set up 00:06:27.259 --> 00:06:29.040 the growth team not as a marketing function, 00:06:29.160 --> 00:06:31.079 but as a product and engineering team. So they 00:06:31.079 --> 00:06:33.600 weren't buying ads? No. They were looking for 00:06:33.600 --> 00:06:35.920 the viral coefficient. They were analyzing the 00:06:35.920 --> 00:06:38.879 data to find the exact aha moment. What do you 00:06:38.879 --> 00:06:40.800 mean by that? Well, they'd find a metric like, 00:06:40.899 --> 00:06:43.420 if a user adds seven friends in their first 10 00:06:43.420 --> 00:06:45.800 days, they are statistically locked in for life. 00:06:45.959 --> 00:06:47.939 They'll never leave. Okay, so once you find that 00:06:47.939 --> 00:06:49.980 magic number... You then engineer the entire 00:06:49.980 --> 00:06:53.100 user interface to force that outcome. You prompt 00:06:53.100 --> 00:06:55.120 them, you suggest friends, you make it frictionless 00:06:55.120 --> 00:06:57.560 to hit that seven friends in 10 days target. 00:06:57.720 --> 00:07:00.819 So he industrialized the social graph. He turned 00:07:00.819 --> 00:07:03.079 friendship into a math equation to be optimized. 00:07:03.540 --> 00:07:06.939 He optimized the engagement loops. And, I mean, 00:07:06.959 --> 00:07:08.980 you can't argue with the results. He was the 00:07:08.980 --> 00:07:10.720 engine room that drove them toward a billion 00:07:10.720 --> 00:07:14.120 users, which they hit in 2012, right after he 00:07:14.120 --> 00:07:16.240 left. But this is also where we see the break 00:07:16.240 --> 00:07:19.120 things part of the mantra. And sometimes you 00:07:19.120 --> 00:07:21.639 break things you can't fix. We have to talk about 00:07:21.639 --> 00:07:26.180 Beacon. Oh, yeah. Facebook Beacon. 2007. What's 00:07:26.180 --> 00:07:28.759 the idea here? It was. Well, it was an ad system 00:07:28.759 --> 00:07:31.699 that tracked user purchases on third -party websites. 00:07:32.060 --> 00:07:34.300 Okay. And then we would broadcast that activity 00:07:34.300 --> 00:07:36.620 to all your friends on Facebook. Automatically. 00:07:36.620 --> 00:07:38.540 Wait, automatically. So if I bought a movie ticket 00:07:38.540 --> 00:07:41.240 on Fandango or, I don't know, a book on another 00:07:41.240 --> 00:07:43.139 site. All of your friends got a notification 00:07:43.139 --> 00:07:47.389 without you explicitly clicking share. Wow. That 00:07:47.389 --> 00:07:49.470 sounds like a privacy nightmare. It was a complete 00:07:49.470 --> 00:07:52.009 disaster. There were lawsuits, a massive public 00:07:52.009 --> 00:07:55.810 backlash. They had to shut it down by 2009. But 00:07:55.810 --> 00:07:57.930 it reveals so much about his management style. 00:07:58.170 --> 00:08:00.470 He pushes the boundary of what the user will 00:08:00.470 --> 00:08:03.129 tolerate until he has a hard, hard wall. And 00:08:03.129 --> 00:08:05.209 he also had other failures there, right? It wasn't 00:08:05.209 --> 00:08:07.889 all just straight up and to the right. No, absolutely 00:08:07.889 --> 00:08:10.149 not. The sources mentioned he led the Facebook 00:08:10.149 --> 00:08:13.449 phone and Facebook home initiatives. Total flops. 00:08:13.529 --> 00:08:15.350 Right, I vaguely remember that. The phone that 00:08:15.350 --> 00:08:18.569 was just a Facebook... Yeah, nobody wanted it. 00:08:18.709 --> 00:08:21.509 So he had his misses, but his reputation was 00:08:21.509 --> 00:08:25.129 built on growth. The sources cite Stephen Levy's 00:08:25.129 --> 00:08:29.029 book, Facebook, The Inside Story. The word that 00:08:29.029 --> 00:08:31.009 comes up over and over again to describe him 00:08:31.009 --> 00:08:34.009 is aggressive. And not in a good way, necessarily. 00:08:34.409 --> 00:08:36.830 Not always. Former subordinates described it 00:08:36.830 --> 00:08:39.389 as a pressure cooker environment. He wasn't there 00:08:39.389 --> 00:08:41.370 to make friends. He was there to make the charts 00:08:41.370 --> 00:08:44.690 go up and to the right. He was a deeply polarizing 00:08:44.690 --> 00:08:46.830 figure even back then. But in Silicon Valley, 00:08:46.909 --> 00:08:48.850 especially at that time, if the charts are going 00:08:48.850 --> 00:08:51.549 up. Then polarizing is just a synonym for effective. 00:08:51.610 --> 00:08:54.149 You get a pass. Right. Until, of course, you 00:08:54.149 --> 00:08:56.509 leave and develop a conscience or at least appear 00:08:56.509 --> 00:08:59.889 to. Yes. The 2017 interview. He goes on CNBC 00:08:59.889 --> 00:09:02.610 years after he's cashed out millions and drops 00:09:02.610 --> 00:09:05.250 a bombshell. He says he feels tremendous guilt. 00:09:05.710 --> 00:09:08.330 He talks about the short -term, dopamine -driven 00:09:08.330 --> 00:09:11.049 feedback loops that he helped create. And he 00:09:11.049 --> 00:09:14.289 says they are ripping society apart. It was an 00:09:14.289 --> 00:09:16.529 absolutely viral moment. The ultimate question 00:09:16.529 --> 00:09:20.490 here is, do we buy that? Is that genuine remorse 00:09:20.490 --> 00:09:22.309 from a father who sees the damage firsthand? 00:09:22.629 --> 00:09:25.450 Or is that Chamath, the traitor, spotting that 00:09:25.450 --> 00:09:27.629 the narrative on big tech was turning negative 00:09:27.629 --> 00:09:29.769 and positioning himself perfectly on the right 00:09:29.769 --> 00:09:31.929 side of history? I mean, it's a million -dollar 00:09:31.929 --> 00:09:34.059 question, isn't it? And the honest answer is 00:09:34.059 --> 00:09:36.940 it's probably both. You think so? I do. He is 00:09:36.940 --> 00:09:39.659 a father. He famously and kind of ironically 00:09:39.659 --> 00:09:42.299 restricts his own kids' screen time. He sees 00:09:42.299 --> 00:09:44.940 the impact. But he's also a master of branding. 00:09:45.360 --> 00:09:48.419 By criticizing the monster he helped build, he 00:09:48.419 --> 00:09:50.679 separated his personal brand from Zuckerberg's. 00:09:50.740 --> 00:09:53.059 He became the honest broker. The insider who 00:09:53.059 --> 00:09:54.700 knows where the bodies are buried and is willing 00:09:54.700 --> 00:09:57.340 to talk. Exactly. And he needed that brand. He 00:09:57.340 --> 00:09:59.580 needed that credibility for his next act. Which 00:09:59.580 --> 00:10:02.519 brings us to section three, social capital. He 00:10:02.519 --> 00:10:05.559 founded the firm in 2011 with his then -wife, 00:10:05.799 --> 00:10:09.360 Brigette Lau. And initially, it was a spectacular 00:10:09.360 --> 00:10:12.379 success in the traditional VC molds. I mean, 00:10:12.379 --> 00:10:15.059 they had some massive early wins. What were the 00:10:15.059 --> 00:10:18.139 big ones? They got into Yammer, Box, and the 00:10:18.139 --> 00:10:21.000 really big one was Slack. A huge, huge return. 00:10:21.399 --> 00:10:24.120 By 2015, they were managing over a billion dollars. 00:10:24.340 --> 00:10:26.639 So if he had just kept doing that, he'd be on 00:10:26.639 --> 00:10:29.019 the Mount Rushmore of VCs. Another name like 00:10:29.019 --> 00:10:32.820 a John Doerr or a Ben Horowitz. Absolutely. But 00:10:32.820 --> 00:10:36.019 in 2018, he did something very strange. He blew 00:10:36.019 --> 00:10:39.580 it up. He restructured the entire thing. He pivoted 00:10:39.580 --> 00:10:42.480 from a traditional venture capital firm to a 00:10:42.480 --> 00:10:44.620 family office. And for the listener, this is 00:10:44.620 --> 00:10:46.379 a really critical distinction we need to make 00:10:46.379 --> 00:10:49.259 clear. A VC firm manages other people's money. 00:10:49.659 --> 00:10:52.279 You take cash from pension funds, from university 00:10:52.279 --> 00:10:54.659 endowments. You have limited partners or LPs 00:10:54.659 --> 00:10:56.659 that you have to answer to. You have to explain 00:10:56.659 --> 00:10:58.820 your strategy, justify your bet. But a family 00:10:58.820 --> 00:11:01.500 office manages your own money. You answer to 00:11:01.500 --> 00:11:03.879 no one but yourself. So why make that switch 00:11:03.879 --> 00:11:06.100 when you're on a hot streak, when you're winning? 00:11:06.259 --> 00:11:10.919 Two words, control and flexibility. He wanted 00:11:10.919 --> 00:11:13.200 to make bets that traditional LPs would find 00:11:13.200 --> 00:11:16.879 too risky, too long -term, or just too weird. 00:11:17.580 --> 00:11:20.659 He said he wanted to invest in atoms, not just 00:11:20.659 --> 00:11:23.919 bits. So real world stuff. Exactly. Deep tech, 00:11:24.100 --> 00:11:26.779 climate solutions, space exploration, biotech, 00:11:26.779 --> 00:11:28.899 things that don't necessarily have a clear five 00:11:28.899 --> 00:11:31.879 year exit strategy. And this brings us to the 00:11:31.879 --> 00:11:35.019 present day. We're very close to it. In his 2024 00:11:35.019 --> 00:11:38.080 and 2025 investment letters, this thesis has 00:11:38.080 --> 00:11:40.820 crystallized into something very, very specific. 00:11:41.159 --> 00:11:43.779 He calls it a Sputnik moment. This is from his 00:11:43.779 --> 00:11:46.980 June 2025 letter. It's a stark warning. He writes 00:11:46.980 --> 00:11:48.720 that he believes China has achieved functional 00:11:48.720 --> 00:11:50.659 parity with the United States in foundational 00:11:50.659 --> 00:11:53.860 AI models. Parity, not catching up. He's saying 00:11:53.860 --> 00:11:55.759 they're there. He's saying they are there. He 00:11:55.759 --> 00:11:57.940 believes the era of effortless American tech 00:11:57.940 --> 00:11:59.960 dominance, the one he personally profited from, 00:12:00.000 --> 00:12:02.440 is over. Wow. So what is he doing about it? How 00:12:02.440 --> 00:12:04.440 is he positioning his own capital? Well, he thinks 00:12:04.440 --> 00:12:06.460 the U .S. is at risk of losing the future. Yeah. 00:12:06.539 --> 00:12:10.120 So he is pivoting his entire $2 .1 billion portfolio 00:12:10.120 --> 00:12:12.960 into what he calls hard tech. Give us some examples. 00:12:13.159 --> 00:12:16.440 Companies like Grok, that's G -R -O -K, which 00:12:16.440 --> 00:12:19.679 is building AI inference chips, a direct competitor 00:12:19.679 --> 00:12:23.200 to NVIDIA's dominance. And another one is Palmetto, 00:12:23.259 --> 00:12:25.759 which is focused on residential clean energy 00:12:25.759 --> 00:12:28.110 grids. So he's betting that the next trillion 00:12:28.110 --> 00:12:31.169 dollars won't be made in a new photo sharing 00:12:31.169 --> 00:12:33.769 app. No. But in the fundamental infrastructure 00:12:33.769 --> 00:12:36.809 of national survival. That's it. Exactly. And 00:12:36.809 --> 00:12:39.250 he also believes the entire macroeconomic environment 00:12:39.250 --> 00:12:41.590 has fundamentally changed. He's very bearish 00:12:41.590 --> 00:12:43.649 on the Federal Reserve's ability to control things. 00:12:43.769 --> 00:12:46.330 How so? He argues that long term interest rates 00:12:46.330 --> 00:12:48.649 are going to stay high, not because of the Fed, 00:12:48.789 --> 00:12:50.210 but because the rest of the world is getting 00:12:50.210 --> 00:12:52.570 really worried about the level of U .S. debt. 00:12:52.919 --> 00:12:55.519 So the era of cheap money that fueled the last 00:12:55.519 --> 00:12:58.740 tech boom is over. It's over. Yeah. And you can't 00:12:58.740 --> 00:13:00.820 just rely on financial engineering anymore. You 00:13:00.820 --> 00:13:03.340 need to back businesses that actually produce 00:13:03.340 --> 00:13:05.919 tangible value. Which is deeply, deeply ironic 00:13:05.919 --> 00:13:08.440 because the vehicle he used to deliver value 00:13:08.440 --> 00:13:10.879 to retail investors became synonymous with the 00:13:10.879 --> 00:13:14.139 exact opposite of that. Oh, yes. We had to talk 00:13:14.139 --> 00:13:16.620 about the SPAC era. Section four. Rise and fall 00:13:16.620 --> 00:13:19.309 of the SPAC king. For those who blinked during 00:13:19.309 --> 00:13:22.190 the pandemic and missed this whole frenzy, can 00:13:22.190 --> 00:13:25.370 you just remind us what a SPAC is? Sure. A SPAC 00:13:25.370 --> 00:13:28.769 is a special purpose acquisition company. And 00:13:28.769 --> 00:13:30.679 it's basically a blank check company. A shell 00:13:30.679 --> 00:13:32.740 company. A shell company, exactly. You list it 00:13:32.740 --> 00:13:35.679 on the stock market. It has no business, no product, 00:13:35.779 --> 00:13:38.120 just a huge pile of cash raised from investors. 00:13:38.700 --> 00:13:42.320 And you, the sponsor, have two years to go find 00:13:42.320 --> 00:13:44.899 a private company and merge with it, taking that 00:13:44.899 --> 00:13:47.059 company public through the back door. And Chamath 00:13:47.059 --> 00:13:49.320 didn't just participate in this. He became the 00:13:49.320 --> 00:13:51.860 face of the entire movement. He did. He went 00:13:51.860 --> 00:13:55.139 on TV. He went on podcasts. And he pitched it 00:13:55.139 --> 00:13:58.169 as a moral crusade. That's not an exaggeration. 00:13:58.190 --> 00:14:01.330 He said he was democratizing access to high growth 00:14:01.330 --> 00:14:03.990 tech. I remember the pitch so clearly. He was 00:14:03.990 --> 00:14:06.190 telling the retail investor, the VCs on Sand 00:14:06.190 --> 00:14:07.990 Hill Road keep all the good deals for themselves. 00:14:08.250 --> 00:14:10.169 I'm giving you a seat at the table. That was 00:14:10.169 --> 00:14:12.929 the narrative. And for a while, it was pure euphoria. 00:14:13.110 --> 00:14:15.649 The first one was Virgin Galactic, right? Virgin 00:14:15.649 --> 00:14:19.929 Galactic, ticker IPOA, the space tourism play, 00:14:20.090 --> 00:14:25.340 the stock. Ripped. He was incredible. Then came 00:14:25.340 --> 00:14:27.879 Opendoor, the real estate company. Then Clover 00:14:27.879 --> 00:14:31.139 Health, a Medicare tech company. Then the fintech 00:14:31.139 --> 00:14:34.059 SoFi. He was on fire. People were buying anything 00:14:34.059 --> 00:14:37.620 with his name on it. Anything. But then, well, 00:14:37.679 --> 00:14:39.639 gravity kicked in. It wasn't just a correction. 00:14:39.779 --> 00:14:42.259 It was a bloodbath. An absolute bloodbath. Let's 00:14:42.259 --> 00:14:43.580 look at the numbers we pulled from the source 00:14:43.580 --> 00:14:47.059 material. By 2021, 2022, the collapse was total. 00:14:47.200 --> 00:14:49.980 Let's hear them. Virgin Galactic fell from a 00:14:49.980 --> 00:14:53.440 high of around $46 to $5. Clover Health went 00:14:53.440 --> 00:14:58.139 from $28 to $4. Opendoor from $30 down to $5. 00:14:58.159 --> 00:15:01.200 And SoFi. From $25 to $3. So if you were a listener 00:15:01.200 --> 00:15:03.360 who bought into that democratization pitch at 00:15:03.360 --> 00:15:05.299 the top. Right. You didn't get a seat at the 00:15:05.299 --> 00:15:06.720 table. You got taken to the cleaners. You got 00:15:06.720 --> 00:15:09.159 wiped out. And this is where the really serious 00:15:09.159 --> 00:15:12.059 technical criticism of Chamath comes in. It's 00:15:12.059 --> 00:15:14.039 all about something called the promote. Explain 00:15:14.039 --> 00:15:16.590 that. In a standard SPAC structure. the sponsor 00:15:16.590 --> 00:15:19.210 in this case, Chamath, gets a large chunk of 00:15:19.210 --> 00:15:21.990 equity, usually around 20 % of the company, effectively 00:15:21.990 --> 00:15:25.090 for free. It's his reward for setting up the 00:15:25.090 --> 00:15:27.870 deal. Wait, for free? So his cost basis is essentially 00:15:27.870 --> 00:15:30.570 zero? Essentially zero, which means he makes 00:15:30.570 --> 00:15:34.610 money even if the stock goes down. A lot. A lot. 00:15:34.750 --> 00:15:38.590 Even if the stock drops 50%, he is still deep 00:15:38.590 --> 00:15:41.429 in the green. So his interests were not aligned 00:15:41.429 --> 00:15:43.909 with the investors he was supposedly democratizing 00:15:43.909 --> 00:15:46.409 for? Not at all. He had an incentive to close 00:15:46.409 --> 00:15:49.169 any deal, good or bad, just to unlock his founder 00:15:49.169 --> 00:15:51.990 shares. The retail investor, on the other hand, 00:15:52.049 --> 00:15:55.019 needed a good deal to make a return. The incentives 00:15:55.019 --> 00:15:57.580 were totally misaligned. It led to investor lawsuits, 00:15:57.960 --> 00:16:00.500 congressional hearings. A massive reputational 00:16:00.500 --> 00:16:02.500 hit. Things got so bad he even had to liquidate 00:16:02.500 --> 00:16:05.419 two of his biggest SPACs, the ones with the tickers 00:16:05.419 --> 00:16:09.559 IPOD and IPOF, in September 2022 because he just 00:16:09.559 --> 00:16:12.000 couldn't find any companies to merge with. He 00:16:12.000 --> 00:16:13.820 had to return the money. You would think that 00:16:13.820 --> 00:16:16.259 would be the end of the SPAC story for him, that 00:16:16.259 --> 00:16:18.279 he would, you know, walk away from that model 00:16:18.279 --> 00:16:22.379 forever. You would think. But Chamath's superpower 00:16:22.379 --> 00:16:25.360 is that he has absolutely no shame about reinventing 00:16:25.360 --> 00:16:27.320 himself. He just keeps coming back. He does. 00:16:27.759 --> 00:16:31.679 Fast forward to September 2025. He is back. With 00:16:31.679 --> 00:16:34.480 a new ticker. And you can't make this up. It's 00:16:34.480 --> 00:16:36.820 called the American Exceptionalism Acquisition 00:16:36.820 --> 00:16:39.860 Corp. Oh, come on. I'm serious. It's listed on 00:16:39.860 --> 00:16:43.559 the NYSE. He raised $345 million. But look at 00:16:43.559 --> 00:16:45.919 the target sectors he's now focused on. Let me 00:16:45.919 --> 00:16:48.919 guess. Not consumer tech. Not at all. Energy. 00:16:49.629 --> 00:16:53.049 AI defense, decentralized finance. So American 00:16:53.049 --> 00:16:55.470 exceptionalism, it's not just a financial vehicle. 00:16:55.549 --> 00:16:58.330 It's a political statement. It's a brand. It 00:16:58.330 --> 00:17:00.210 connects every thread. It links his financial 00:17:00.210 --> 00:17:03.330 interest with his new hawkish geopolitical worldview. 00:17:03.610 --> 00:17:05.950 He has completely abandoned the democratized 00:17:05.950 --> 00:17:08.710 consumer tech narrative and adopted a national 00:17:08.710 --> 00:17:11.650 defense narrative. He's betting on the reindustrialization 00:17:11.650 --> 00:17:13.950 of America. And this dovetails perfectly into 00:17:13.950 --> 00:17:17.170 the other big piece of news from 2025, the 80 00:17:17.170 --> 00:17:19.930 -90 thesis. This is Section 5. Right. And this 00:17:19.930 --> 00:17:22.349 is arguably his most disruptive idea yet. Yeah. 00:17:22.450 --> 00:17:24.490 Because he's not targeting some new industry. 00:17:24.589 --> 00:17:27.049 He's targeting the very industry that created 00:17:27.049 --> 00:17:29.930 him, enterprise software. What is the 80 -90 00:17:29.930 --> 00:17:33.339 promise? The pitch is simple and brutal. He says, 00:17:33.460 --> 00:17:36.859 I can build you enterprise software with 80 % 00:17:36.859 --> 00:17:39.299 of the features of Salesforce or Workday for 00:17:39.299 --> 00:17:42.779 90 % less cost. 90 % cheaper? How is that even 00:17:42.779 --> 00:17:45.759 possible? That sounds completely insane. He claims 00:17:45.759 --> 00:17:48.519 he can do it by combining two massive deflationary 00:17:48.519 --> 00:17:52.619 forces, modern AI coding tools and cheaper offshore 00:17:52.619 --> 00:17:55.859 engineering talent. So robots and cheap engineers, 00:17:56.039 --> 00:17:57.940 basically. That's the formula. He calls it the 00:17:57.940 --> 00:18:01.079 software factory. He launched this new incubator 00:18:01.079 --> 00:18:04.519 in January 2024, and his core thesis is that 00:18:04.519 --> 00:18:07.140 American companies have what he calls sauce fatigue. 00:18:07.599 --> 00:18:10.279 I think we all have that. We all do. Companies 00:18:10.279 --> 00:18:12.640 are sick of paying $50 per seat per month for 00:18:12.640 --> 00:18:14.400 bloated software that has a million features 00:18:14.400 --> 00:18:16.539 nobody actually uses. So he's saying, forget 00:18:16.539 --> 00:18:19.140 the subscription. I'll build you a custom stripped 00:18:19.140 --> 00:18:21.500 down version for a fraction of the price because 00:18:21.500 --> 00:18:24.380 AI writes half the code now anyway. Precisely. 00:18:24.640 --> 00:18:28.039 He is trying to commoditize custom software. 00:18:28.430 --> 00:18:31.670 He's making a huge bet that the era of the $300 00:18:31.670 --> 00:18:34.910 ,000 San Francisco junior developer is over. 00:18:35.049 --> 00:18:37.670 And if he's right about that? If he is right, 00:18:37.829 --> 00:18:40.210 the profit margins of the entire SaaS industry 00:18:40.210 --> 00:18:42.750 are going to collapse. It would be an extinction 00:18:42.750 --> 00:18:44.650 level event for many of them. He's effectively 00:18:44.650 --> 00:18:46.710 shorting the entire Silicon Valley ecosystem 00:18:46.710 --> 00:18:48.890 that he came from. He is shorting the status 00:18:48.890 --> 00:18:52.609 quo and that burn it all down attitude. It extends 00:18:52.609 --> 00:18:55.390 directly to his politics. Which brings us to 00:18:55.390 --> 00:18:58.460 section six. The political metamorphosis. This 00:18:58.460 --> 00:19:00.259 is the part that I think confuses people the 00:19:00.259 --> 00:19:02.960 most, because for two decades, from 2000 to 2019, 00:19:03.380 --> 00:19:06.140 Chamath was a blue -chip Democrat. Solidly blue. 00:19:06.359 --> 00:19:09.160 The records show he donated over $1 .3 million 00:19:09.160 --> 00:19:13.000 to Democratic candidates and causes. He co -founded 00:19:13.000 --> 00:19:16.279 FWD .US with Mark Zuckerberg to lobby for immigration 00:19:16.279 --> 00:19:18.940 reform. He was part of the machinery. He even 00:19:18.940 --> 00:19:20.779 flirted with running for governor of California 00:19:20.779 --> 00:19:22.880 as a Democrat during the Gavin Newsom recall 00:19:22.880 --> 00:19:25.859 effort in 2021. He did. He had a whole platform 00:19:25.859 --> 00:19:27.599 worked out and everything. Eliminate the state 00:19:27.599 --> 00:19:30.319 income tax, introduce school vouchers, a $2 ,000 00:19:30.319 --> 00:19:32.980 tax credit per child. But then he backed out. 00:19:33.119 --> 00:19:36.200 He declared he would not run in February 2021. 00:19:37.660 --> 00:19:39.759 And that seems to be the real turning point. 00:19:39.900 --> 00:19:41.900 Because after that, the drift to the right wasn't 00:19:41.900 --> 00:19:44.400 a drift. It was a sprint. A full -on sprint. 00:19:44.599 --> 00:19:47.859 Yeah. By 2023, he's hosting a $50 ,000 per plate 00:19:47.859 --> 00:19:51.519 fundraiser for Vivek Ramaswamy. But the signal 00:19:51.519 --> 00:19:53.880 fire, the moment everyone really paid attention, 00:19:54.099 --> 00:19:57.640 was June 2024. The Trump fundraiser. The Trump 00:19:57.640 --> 00:19:59.940 fundraiser. Yeah. Co -hosted with his all -in 00:19:59.940 --> 00:20:02.900 podcast co -host David Sachs at Sachs' home in 00:20:02.900 --> 00:20:05.039 Pacific Heights. And for anyone listening who's 00:20:05.039 --> 00:20:07.400 not familiar with San Francisco geography, Pacific 00:20:07.400 --> 00:20:09.779 Heights is. Right. It's the old money. It's Nancy 00:20:09.779 --> 00:20:12.200 Pelosi's district. It is the absolute heart of 00:20:12.200 --> 00:20:14.299 the Democratic establishment. Exactly. So planting 00:20:14.299 --> 00:20:17.440 a magfag there in that neighborhood was a deliberate 00:20:17.440 --> 00:20:20.420 act of provocation. They raised $12 million that 00:20:20.420 --> 00:20:22.970 night. It signaled a massive vibe shift in at 00:20:22.970 --> 00:20:25.569 least one very loud corner of Silicon Valley. 00:20:25.710 --> 00:20:28.069 So what's driving it? Is it really just that 00:20:28.069 --> 00:20:31.369 they want lower taxes and less regulation? That's 00:20:31.369 --> 00:20:32.849 definitely part of it. But I think it's deeper. 00:20:33.130 --> 00:20:35.210 The sources suggest it's about acceleration. 00:20:36.450 --> 00:20:39.250 There's this feeling among that group, the all 00:20:39.250 --> 00:20:42.329 -in podcast crew, that the Democratic Party has 00:20:42.329 --> 00:20:44.910 become the party of regulation, of safetyism, 00:20:44.970 --> 00:20:47.369 of slowing things down. The party of no. The 00:20:47.369 --> 00:20:50.420 party of no. And they see the Republicans. specifically 00:20:50.420 --> 00:20:53.900 the Trump wing, as the party of chaos and disruption. 00:20:54.240 --> 00:20:56.660 And if you're a venture capitalist, your entire 00:20:56.660 --> 00:20:59.400 business model is based on disruption. You prefer 00:20:59.400 --> 00:21:02.680 it. Even if that disruption comes with some considerable 00:21:02.680 --> 00:21:05.559 baggage, which leads us directly to the baggage. 00:21:05.880 --> 00:21:09.359 Section 7, hard truths and controversies. We 00:21:09.359 --> 00:21:11.759 have to talk about the Augur comments. January 00:21:11.759 --> 00:21:14.940 2022. This was the moment the mask didn't just 00:21:14.940 --> 00:21:17.000 slip, it fell off completely. It was on the All 00:21:17.000 --> 00:21:19.740 In podcast. His co -host Jason Calacanis brought 00:21:19.740 --> 00:21:21.980 up the human rights abuses against the Uyghur 00:21:21.980 --> 00:21:24.359 people in China. And Chamath just cut him off. 00:21:24.420 --> 00:21:26.140 He said, and this is direct quotes from the transcript, 00:21:26.380 --> 00:21:28.799 nobody cares about what's happening to the Uyghurs, 00:21:28.859 --> 00:21:31.559 okay? The rest of us don't care. I'm just telling 00:21:31.559 --> 00:21:34.759 you a very hard, ugly truth. It was the coldness 00:21:34.759 --> 00:21:36.779 of the delivery that was so shocking. He said, 00:21:36.880 --> 00:21:39.460 of all the things that I care about, yes, it 00:21:39.460 --> 00:21:42.279 is below my line. He tried to rationalize it 00:21:42.279 --> 00:21:44.700 afterward. He argued that he prioritizes domestic 00:21:44.700 --> 00:21:47.539 issues. He mentioned black voices in America, 00:21:47.740 --> 00:21:50.859 supply chains, the economy over foreign human 00:21:50.859 --> 00:21:54.299 rights abuses. But the way it landed, it just 00:21:54.299 --> 00:21:56.140 sounded like he was dismissing a genocide as 00:21:56.140 --> 00:21:58.140 an inconvenient distraction from business. The 00:21:58.140 --> 00:22:00.880 fallout was immediate. Instant. The Golden State 00:22:00.880 --> 00:22:03.180 Warriors issued a statement within hours basically 00:22:03.180 --> 00:22:05.700 saying, this guy does not speak for us in any 00:22:05.700 --> 00:22:07.660 way. Right. You have to remember, he owned 10 00:22:07.660 --> 00:22:09.579 % of the team at the time. And he eventually 00:22:09.579 --> 00:22:12.059 sold that stake, didn't he? He divested his shares 00:22:12.059 --> 00:22:16.099 completely. in June 2023. It just solidified 00:22:16.099 --> 00:22:18.920 this public image of him as someone who values 00:22:18.920 --> 00:22:22.019 what he calls brutal honesty over any kind of 00:22:22.019 --> 00:22:24.059 empathy. He seems to think that moralizing is 00:22:24.059 --> 00:22:25.920 a luxury that we can't afford when we're in the 00:22:25.920 --> 00:22:27.940 middle of an economic war. That's his framing, 00:22:28.019 --> 00:22:30.519 yes. And it's the same kind of energy as that 00:22:30.519 --> 00:22:33.079 famous fight he had with Ron Conway way back 00:22:33.079 --> 00:22:35.500 in 2014. Oh, the San Francisco housing fight. 00:22:35.619 --> 00:22:37.880 Refresh my memory on that. Chamath was publicly 00:22:37.880 --> 00:22:40.819 proposing a new tax on startup equity. to help 00:22:40.819 --> 00:22:43.920 fund subsidized housing for the poor in San Francisco. 00:22:44.140 --> 00:22:46.880 Which sounds like a progressive position. It 00:22:46.880 --> 00:22:49.480 does, until Ron Conway, who's sort of the godfather 00:22:49.480 --> 00:22:52.599 of Silicon Valley, just yelled at him in a public 00:22:52.599 --> 00:22:55.299 forum. He pointed out that Chamath was living 00:22:55.299 --> 00:22:58.400 in a mega mansion in Palo Alto while criticizing 00:22:58.400 --> 00:23:01.400 San Francisco politics. It just highlighted that 00:23:01.400 --> 00:23:03.640 constant tension between Chamath the crusader 00:23:03.640 --> 00:23:06.220 and Chamath the billionaire. Speaking of Chamath 00:23:06.220 --> 00:23:08.319 the billionaire, let's wrap up with Section 8, 00:23:08.480 --> 00:23:11.109 personal life and wealth. Because the lifestyle 00:23:11.109 --> 00:23:13.730 is, in a way, part of the message. It really 00:23:13.730 --> 00:23:15.869 is. It's the billionaire starter pack, but dialed 00:23:15.869 --> 00:23:18.710 up to 11. He divorced his first wife and business 00:23:18.710 --> 00:23:21.849 partner, Brigette Lau, in 2018. Then in 2023, 00:23:22.029 --> 00:23:24.809 he married Natalie Dompe, who is an Italian pharmaceutical 00:23:24.809 --> 00:23:27.869 executive and heiress. He has five kids in total. 00:23:28.029 --> 00:23:30.490 And despite building his entire fortune on creating 00:23:30.490 --> 00:23:32.849 engagement loops and hacking attention, he famously 00:23:32.849 --> 00:23:35.829 bans screen time for his own kids. Strictly. 00:23:35.829 --> 00:23:38.230 It's the classic rule, right? The dealer never 00:23:38.230 --> 00:23:40.900 consumes his own product. He knows better than 00:23:40.900 --> 00:23:43.799 anyone how the algorithm targets the brainstem 00:23:43.799 --> 00:23:47.079 and rewires it. And the toys. The status symbols. 00:23:47.400 --> 00:23:50.740 Well, the big one is the Bombardier Global 7500 00:23:50.740 --> 00:23:56.000 jet. He bought it in 2020 for $75 million. It's 00:23:56.000 --> 00:23:58.160 a machine that's quite literally designed to 00:23:58.160 --> 00:24:00.920 shrink the globe for its owner. But he does give 00:24:00.920 --> 00:24:03.359 money away. To be fair to the source record, 00:24:03.539 --> 00:24:06.369 there is philanthropy here. There is. He gave 00:24:06.369 --> 00:24:08.829 $25 million to his alma mater, the University 00:24:08.829 --> 00:24:10.609 of Waterloo, for their engineering department. 00:24:11.009 --> 00:24:13.529 And he pledged $7 million for solar -powered 00:24:13.529 --> 00:24:15.829 water generators in California's Central Valley. 00:24:16.009 --> 00:24:18.809 So his philanthropy is very techno -solutionist. 00:24:18.829 --> 00:24:20.930 Very. He doesn't give to soup kitchens. He gives 00:24:20.930 --> 00:24:23.089 to engineering problems. He wants to fund a technical 00:24:23.089 --> 00:24:25.150 fix. Okay, so let's try to synthesize all of 00:24:25.150 --> 00:24:27.569 this. We have a refugee who became a derivative 00:24:27.569 --> 00:24:30.410 trader, who became a growth hacker, who became 00:24:30.410 --> 00:24:33.390 a VC, who became the SPAC king, and now he's 00:24:33.390 --> 00:24:36.339 an AI defense industrialist. What is the pattern 00:24:36.339 --> 00:24:38.500 here? What's the through line? I think the pattern 00:24:38.500 --> 00:24:41.380 is fear. Fear. That's the last word I would use 00:24:41.380 --> 00:24:43.839 to describe him. He seems like the most confident, 00:24:43.920 --> 00:24:46.359 arrogant guy in any room he's in. I think it's 00:24:46.359 --> 00:24:48.279 the confidence of someone who is constantly running 00:24:48.279 --> 00:24:50.799 away from an avalanche. Yeah? His entire career 00:24:50.799 --> 00:24:54.240 is based on a single premise. That the current 00:24:54.240 --> 00:24:57.579 system is fragile and about to break. And he 00:24:57.579 --> 00:24:59.960 needs to be on the next life raft before anyone 00:24:59.960 --> 00:25:02.380 else. Before anyone else even knows the ship 00:25:02.380 --> 00:25:05.140 is sinking. He realized the Internet would break 00:25:05.140 --> 00:25:07.799 traditional media, so he went to Facebook. He 00:25:07.799 --> 00:25:10.240 realized sauce was bloated and overpriced, so 00:25:10.240 --> 00:25:12.960 he's building a factory to automate it. He thinks 00:25:12.960 --> 00:25:15.920 the geopolitical order is breaking. So he's buying 00:25:15.920 --> 00:25:18.319 defense stocks and wrapping himself in the American 00:25:18.319 --> 00:25:21.180 flag. Exactly. He is the master of the pivot 00:25:21.180 --> 00:25:23.799 because he has zero loyalty to the status quo. 00:25:24.160 --> 00:25:27.019 The status quo is what he escaped from as a child. 00:25:27.200 --> 00:25:29.700 And that brings us to the final provocation for 00:25:29.700 --> 00:25:31.660 today. Let's hear it. Here's the thought I want 00:25:31.660 --> 00:25:34.289 to leave you with, listeners. Chamath is currently 00:25:34.289 --> 00:25:37.009 betting his fortune, his reputation, everything 00:25:37.009 --> 00:25:40.529 on American exceptionalism, on the idea that 00:25:40.529 --> 00:25:42.930 the U .S. will win the AI war against China. 00:25:43.109 --> 00:25:46.349 But his entire pitch is based on warning us that 00:25:46.349 --> 00:25:49.089 we are currently losing that war. It is the ultimate 00:25:49.089 --> 00:25:51.630 hedge. It's a beautiful trade. It is. Think about 00:25:51.630 --> 00:25:54.029 it. If America gets its act together and wins, 00:25:54.349 --> 00:25:57.049 his defense and AI stocks go to the moon. Right. 00:25:57.170 --> 00:25:59.390 But if America struggles, if the economy tanks 00:25:59.390 --> 00:26:02.210 and companies are desperate to cut costs, his 00:26:02.210 --> 00:26:05.069 80 -90 software factory, his cost -cutting tools 00:26:05.069 --> 00:26:08.009 become absolutely essential for corporate survival. 00:26:08.690 --> 00:26:11.450 He's engineered a scenario where heads or tails, 00:26:11.630 --> 00:26:13.349 the House wins. And when you look at it that 00:26:13.349 --> 00:26:15.670 way, all the contradictions just, they disappear. 00:26:15.970 --> 00:26:18.029 He doesn't really a Democrat or a... Republican. 00:26:18.089 --> 00:26:19.869 He isn't a hero or a villain. He's a traitor. 00:26:20.009 --> 00:26:21.910 He's a traitor. And a traitor only cares about 00:26:21.910 --> 00:26:24.170 one thing, being on the right side of the trade. 00:26:24.289 --> 00:26:26.250 Something to mull over. Thanks for diving in 00:26:26.250 --> 00:26:27.410 with us. We'll see you on the next one.