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Markets turn Trump, Long rates spike, Election home stretch, Influencer mania, Saving Starbucks Podcast Episode Description
(0:00) Bestie intros!
(3:49) Announcement: Besties are hosting The All-In Holiday Spectacular in San Francisco on December 7th! Get tickets: https://allin.com/events
(9:08) Macro and markets: making sense of unique asset diversions
(27:23) Gen Z’s economic cultural movements
(38:28) Reallocating assets for a new period of constraints
(53:52) Election update: Data leans Trump as we enter the home stretch
(1:19:01) Is Starbucks fixable? Or has it hit market saturation?
Get tickets to The All-In Holiday Spectacular:
https://allin.com/events
Follow the besties:
https://x.com/chamath
https://x.com/Jason
https://x.com/DavidSacks
https://x.com/friedberg
Follow on X:
https://x.com/theallinpod
Follow on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/theallinpod
Follow on TikTok:
@theallinpod
Follow on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/company/allinpod
Intro Music Credit:
https://rb.gy/tppkzl
https://x.com/yung_spielburg
Intro Video Credit:
https://x.com/TheZachEffect
Referenced in the show:
https://allin.com/events
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DGS10
https://www.google.com/finance/quote/GCW00:COMEX
https://www.google.com/finance/quote/SPY:NYSEARCA
https://www.google.com/finance/quote/BTC-USD
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/10/22/tudor-jones-is-long-gold-and-bitcoin-as-hedge-fund-titan-believes-all-roads-lead-to-inflation.html
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/stanley-druckenmiller-says-hes-shorting-u-s-bonds-and-staying-out-of-china-1fcf751e
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/10/10/cpi-inflation-september-2024.html
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A091RC1Q027SBEA
https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-tax-report-international/uk-budget-fears-push-owners-to-close-firms-to-avoid-tax-hikes
https://www.banque-france.fr/en/statistics/compagnies/business-failures-france-2024-09
https://www.reuters.com/markets/brazil-inflation-expectations-above-target-says-cenbank-director-picchetti-2024-10-23
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/09/14/more-than-half-of-gen-z-want-to-be-influencers-but-its-constant.html
https://pro.morningconsult.com/analyst-reports/influencer-marketing-trends-report
https://www.longtermtrends.net/market-cap-to-gdp-the-buffett-indicator
https://www.oaktreecapital.com/insights/memo/ruminating-on-asset-allocation
https://www.macrotrends.net/2577/sp-500-pe-ratio-price-to-earnings-chart
https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/president/general/2024/trump-vs-harris
https://www.natesilver.net/p/nate-silver-2024-president-election-polls-model
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/23/opinion/election-polls-results-trump-harris.html
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/10/24/polymarket-trump-french-election-bet.html
https://x.com/scubaryan_/status/1848072120699625968
https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/23/politics/video/border-wall-kamala-harris-cnn-town-hall-digvid
https://x.com/justintrudeau/status/1849467713711710699
https://x.com/scubaryan_/status/1848072120699625968
https://investor.starbucks.com/news/financial-releases/news-details/2024/Starbucks-Reports-Preliminary-Q4-and-Full-Fiscal-Year-2024-Results/default.aspx
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Markets turn Trump, Long rates spike, Election home stretch, Influencer mania, Saving Starbucks Podcast Episode Top Keywords
Markets turn Trump, Long rates spike, Election home stretch, Influencer mania, Saving Starbucks Podcast Episode Summary
In this episode of the All In Podcast, the hosts delve into several key topics, including the challenges faced by mature tech and luxury businesses like Starbucks, the current state of financial markets, and reflections on political events. The discussion on Starbucks centers around its recent struggles with declining sales and the strategic shifts needed to address these issues. The hosts explore whether these challenges stem from the brand’s maturity or a failure to adapt to digital trends, highlighting the importance of maintaining a premium experience as a brand scales.
The episode also revisits the January 6th events, encouraging listeners to reflect on past discussions about the implications for democracy. The hosts emphasize the importance of understanding the broader political landscape and the potential threats posed by certain political figures.
In terms of financial markets, the conversation touches on the unusual divergence in asset classes, with falling bond prices and rising gold prices. This segment provides insights into the complexities of current market conditions and the potential impact of economic policies.
Throughout the episode, the hosts stress the value of having substantial experience and achievements before becoming an influencer, suggesting that credibility is built through tangible accomplishments rather than mere presence.
The episode concludes with announcements about upcoming live events, inviting listeners to participate in future gatherings. Overall, the recurring theme is the need for adaptability and strategic foresight in both business and personal endeavors, with a focus on learning from past experiences to navigate future challenges effectively.
This summary was created automatically by Speak. Want to transcribe, analyze and summarize yourself? Sign up for Speak!
Markets turn Trump, Long rates spike, Election home stretch, Influencer mania, Saving Starbucks Podcast Episode Transcript (Unedited)
Speaker: 0
00:00
Jason, do you wanna go up to the bedroom, knock on the door, and wake Chamath up? Where is he? You’re in his house. Go get him. Let’s go.
Speaker: 1
00:06
He’s at
Speaker: 2
00:06
the office. He went to the office. He’s not here. Oh, he went to the office. We’re trying to find Chamath at the moment. Oh, here’s Chamath. Okay. Arya you wearing my goddamn sweater? What is what is
Speaker: 1
00:16
is that my where
Speaker: 3
00:17
ram my house? Chamath. Is that my no. I am so tilted. Where is my wife? What the
Speaker: 2
00:22
What don’t worry about your wife. Oh. Oh my god. Amore, this part is great. Where is Matt?
Speaker: 3
00:28
Hold on. I’m calling now. Take off my Amore.
Speaker: 0
00:32
It’s okay. Amore. Oh my god. My god. Oh my
Speaker: 2
00:36
god. Oh my god.
Speaker: 0
00:37
She’s fainted.
Speaker: 1
00:38
Don’t tilt it. I’m like,
Speaker: 0
00:39
it’s tainted. Amore. Don’t you worry,
Speaker: 2
00:42
Amore. You know your cashmere sweater? It’s sai, so
Speaker: 3
00:45
sai off.
Speaker: 1
00:47
Ai. It’s crazy.
Speaker: 0
00:47
This is so tilted. Get out of
Speaker: 3
00:49
my house. Take my Good Lord. But it will be done at
Speaker: 2
00:51
1 o’clock. So I’ll see you then.
Speaker: 0
00:53
Please let me
Speaker: 2
00:53
know ai you have lunch in the garden? Yes, please.
Speaker: 0
00:56
Lunch in the garden.
Speaker: 2
00:57
Wear something simple. Don’t don’t tell. Something simple is great.
Speaker: 4
01:01
Is that the cashmere sweater with the rhino horn buttons?
Speaker: 1
01:04
Sai It is.
Speaker: 3
01:05
You know what?
Speaker: 1
01:05
Though, I did some shopping while I was here. I did a little shopping. So I just
Speaker: 2
01:06
I shah ai I was here. I did a little shopping, so I just I filled up. You ai, I just these, these ASOPs are great because I don’t have these at my house. I have ivory soap, so I I got a couple of these from the Go Extreme.
Speaker: 0
01:20
Sticking. But you know what?
Speaker: 2
01:21
I agree. This sweater is not so great. I think I’m gonna switch this one.
Speaker: 3
01:24
Don’t touch that sweater, Jason.
Speaker: 0
01:26
This one’s incredible.
Speaker: 3
01:27
I cannot I’m actually
Speaker: 0
01:28
joking. Him, J. K.
Speaker: 3
01:29
He’s actually joking. I’m joking. Don’t put it on, please.
Speaker: 2
01:32
Don’t I won’t put
Speaker: 0
01:33
it on. I won’t put
Speaker: 2
01:33
it on. But you know what? This port,
Speaker: 1
01:35
I’m not
Speaker: 3
01:35
so sure. Shah?
Speaker: 1
01:36
Sean? Shah.
Speaker: 2
01:37
Yes.
Speaker: 1
01:38
Almost get out of the sports bins. Sean, that’s great. But, any other options?
Speaker: 3
01:45
We do have a delicious ai
Speaker: 0
01:46
wine for you. Come around here.
Speaker: 2
01:47
Let’s present.
Speaker: 1
01:48
Let’s present. So we just wanna win.
Speaker: 0
01:50
Yeah. This is what do we have people? You’re not on camera.
Speaker: 3
01:52
Ai what’s here. Bye, chef. Sean. Sean. Sean. Sean.
Speaker: 2
01:58
This is it looks like a deep pull. 1986 Chateau Teinte, Bauxite. What it I mean, this looks like it’s worth opening. I mean, it’s it was in the rack that said don’t open. Right, Sean? Yes, sir.
Speaker: 1
02:09
Alright. So
Speaker: 0
02:10
Well, let’s know this. Just pour it out.
Speaker: 2
02:11
And I’ll Yeah. Yeah. Let’s just but you know what? Pour half out because I like the bottom half, the texture. So just pour half into the arya,
Speaker: 1
02:18
put it
Speaker: 2
02:18
with the, the spinach, and then I’ll take the bottom half. Thank you.
Speaker: 1
02:21
Take off my sweater.
Speaker: 3
02:23
Oh my god. This is so brutal. Oh, yeah.
Speaker: 4
02:26
Go let your winner ai.
Speaker: 0
02:30
Ai Did you have a good night’s sleep at Chamath’s house? How did you sleep last night?
Speaker: 2
02:45
I slept so good. Let me tell you something. I will compare meh sleep here tonight. The lady of, Sai Manor just texted me, and she would like me to stay there tonight. So, you know, when I’m in the valley, I get a lot of different invites. I have to spread the wealth. So I’ll be dining with the Saxes tonight, and I may be staying at Saxes.
Speaker: 0
03:02
So that will help him wear a ai. Sai. Hide the Aesop silk from the bathroom.
Speaker: 2
03:07
I’m hoping he doesn’t have Aesop. I’m hoping he has something else. Locked.
Speaker: 4
03:09
This is like when he stole the Pappy Van Winkle from my plane. Remember that?
Speaker: 1
03:13
No. That was good.
Speaker: 0
03:15
Yeah. That I mean,
Speaker: 2
03:16
it was it was 3 quarters of a bottle. It’s just sitting there. I mean, when are you gonna drink it?
Speaker: 0
03:21
Sacks, how do you prepare for J. Cal coming over to your house to visit and spend the night? I mean, what do you do?
Speaker: 4
03:26
He ai anything that’s not bolted down is basically a it’s like a a gift. It’s like a freebie.
Speaker: 1
03:34
How do
Speaker: 2
03:34
you think I got that loveseat
Speaker: 1
03:35
in
Speaker: 2
03:36
my kitchen? I got that loveseat off the kitchen. That came from Saks’s designer. Yeah. Yeah. I just had 2 guys. My brother Josh came. We took it out the back. It was fun.
Speaker: 0
03:45
We took it out the back.
Speaker: 2
03:47
If I’m a guest, I’m leaving with something.
Speaker: 0
03:49
Why don’t you wanna moderate today? You’re on fire. Just moderate the show.
Speaker: 2
03:52
Well, no. I was just I was gonna be traveling, and I wanted to do a good job. And, you know, I thought maybe you you would love to get your chance at moderation. So lead us off here, fearless,
Speaker: 0
04:04
Jay Freiberg. Moderate So that is the announcement to start the show. Jason taking a week off for moderating.
Speaker: 2
04:10
Yes.
Speaker: 0
04:10
Gonna be a bestie, guestie. Gonna be a participant on the panel this week as we kick this off. So I’ll be moderating this week. We’re gonna do a a couple housekeeping points. First off, very excited to announce that we are doing another live event after the success of the summit.
Speaker: 0
04:28
During September, we had great content. We had great parties. Everyone had a great ai. But a lot of people said they wish they could have been a part of it. So we are gonna try and do more live events.
Speaker: 0
04:36
So we have pulled one together, very last minute, but we are gonna make it incredible. Saturday, December 7th, in San Francisco around 5 PM, we are gonna do the All In Holiday Spectacular at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco. It’s gonna be incredible. Tickets are going on sale today vatsal allin.com/events. Not gonna wanna miss it.
Speaker: 0
04:58
There’s gonna be a really fun show on stage with us and some guests followed by open bar, food trucks, DJ, casino party. It should be a really great ai, a real fun winter wonderland after party after the stage show. And so we’re really excited to have folks come and join us, at the Palace of Fine Arts on December 7th. It’s gonna be awesome. You guys excited?
Speaker: 3
05:18
Yeah. Totally excited. Yeah.
Speaker: 4
05:21
Alright. So I have a question.
Speaker: 1
05:22
Yeah. Mhmm.
Speaker: 4
05:23
Is our attendance required at this thing?
Speaker: 0
05:26
I knew that was coming.
Speaker: 4
05:27
I have no desire to participate in this.
Speaker: 0
05:30
You don’t wanna be able to hold a party
Speaker: 2
05:32
besides. Everybody in
Speaker: 1
05:33
the world wants to do something except Saks.
Speaker: 4
05:36
I thought I was signing up for a podcast. I don’t know why I need to do all these events.
Speaker: 0
05:41
This is literally a 2 minute drive from your house in San Francisco. We are gonna load you in a van. Jay Kell and his brothers are gonna come and grab you, throw you in the back.
Speaker: 3
05:49
It’s ai a ram.
Speaker: 0
05:50
Down there. We’re gonna prop you up on stage for a couple hours, and then we’ll put you back in the van and you can go home.
Speaker: 2
05:56
The good news is we might, drink some tequila, sex. We might we might have some tequila. So you have something to look forward to. And you get to see your friends. You get to see your friends. That’s worth it. Right?
Speaker: 3
06:08
They asked it. That would this is what you say yes.
Speaker: 0
06:10
No comment, he says. No comment.
Speaker: 1
06:12
For those of you listening
Speaker: 4
06:14
I’m happy seeing you guys through Zoom. You know? We don’t we we can it. We can minimize the
Speaker: 1
06:19
impersonal stuff.
Speaker: 2
06:20
His favorite holiday of all time. What’s your favorite holiday, Sai? Pandemic.
Speaker: 1
06:25
Can we have that back? Pandemic. He celebrates the pandemic for 6 months every year. It’s part of his new ritual to not see anybody for 6 months
Speaker: 2
06:36
bring back the pandemic. Socks, are you serving Wagyu tonight?
Speaker: 4
06:40
I mean, it’s possible. I’m gonna tell him not to anything that ai, though, for jcow.
Speaker: 1
06:45
Keep it simple. Burgers and dots? You put your
Speaker: 0
06:49
order in? JKL JKL, where did you put your order in?
Speaker: 1
06:51
Well, you
Speaker: 2
06:52
know, I talked to the I talked to chef, and, he said Morel’s not in saloni, but we we are on the tail end of, black truffle. So we have that locked in, but we’re too early for morels, obviously. That’s sai spring.
Speaker: 3
07:02
Okay, Jason.
Speaker: 0
07:03
And ai sai we’re
Speaker: 2
07:03
gonna miss white truffle.
Speaker: 3
07:05
Let’s meh feedback about last night’s dinner, Sean’s
Speaker: 2
07:08
I mean, let’s be honest. Sana is an underrated cut of meat. It’s a very people say it’s like a serviceable meat, but when cooked properly with proper technique, it will stand right up there with a rib eye or a New York strip.
Speaker: 3
07:22
It’s the best.
Speaker: 2
07:22
But people don’t believe that.
Speaker: 4
07:24
Picanha. Never even heard of that.
Speaker: 2
07:25
Picanha, it shows there.
Speaker: 3
07:27
But it’s like it’s like it’s the Brazilian word for it, but it’s like a specific cut of meat. Sean did it last night. Honestly, David, I’m telling you, it’s better than any other cut of meat you could meh. If it’s properly made, Sean crushed it yesterday, but it is bananas.
Speaker: 3
07:42
It’s so good. Yeah. Because it is.
Speaker: 2
07:45
I think that’s what I like.
Speaker: 4
07:46
A rump steak. It’s
Speaker: 1
07:47
like a rump steak.
Speaker: 0
07:49
Ai. Yeah.
Speaker: 3
07:49
I like it more than ai, a 100%. I like it more than the New York strip. That’s terrible. Filet, terrible. No fat.
Speaker: 2
07:57
It’s it’s, it’s got a a fat cap on it, which, you know, sometimes be a little overwhelming for people, but Sean did a great job of kinda meeting us halfway sai it wasn’t so fatty. Just a nice layer of fat, crisped perfectly, cooked to perfection. Carrots were great. Ai was great.
Speaker: 3
08:15
If I ai. Everyday.
Speaker: 2
08:16
No notes. Sai, you know, I talked to Sean after. I had no notes. So Okay.
Speaker: 3
08:20
What what the apple tart was ridiculous too?
Speaker: 4
08:23
Oh my god. Like New York.
Speaker: 1
08:24
Sugar apple
Speaker: 3
08:25
burnt sugar apple tart. What? You’re a New York
Speaker: 2
08:27
state guy?
Speaker: 4
08:28
I’m a New York state guy. Well done.
Speaker: 2
08:30
Yeah. Oh my god. What? Oh,
Speaker: 3
08:32
oh, snap.
Speaker: 0
08:33
Oh, that’s
Speaker: 1
08:34
savages. I think you just
Speaker: 2
08:36
lost, like, I think you
Speaker: 1
08:37
just lost 3 swing states. They said you won in the good state.
Speaker: 3
08:41
If you’re gonna do something, Ai would go to the New York. I’m fine to deal with the New York in sana, but well done, David Sacks. That is unacceptable.
Speaker: 2
08:50
Shout out to Rauls and, Balthazar, 2 best steak au poivs in Manhattan in my estimation.
Speaker: 0
08:57
Alright. We’re gonna poiv. Let’s get started. Welcome, Tier.
Speaker: 2
09:00
Why don’t we call an audible tonight to go for steak au poiv? Yeah. Just throw out the, the miso cod and the Wagyu and let’s just redo it.
Speaker: 0
09:08
Boys, welcome to the All in Pod. This is episode 201, and we’re gonna kick it off by talking about what’s going on in markets, which is one of the kind of most interesting, challenging enigmas of the day, or ram maybe it’s not, maybe it’s pretty simple. But there seems to be a diversion in assets that is pretty unusual that hasn’t been seen in in some ai.
Speaker: 0
09:31
And a lot of market market commentators, analysts, economists are kind of trying to figure out what’s going on and why. The first is that bonds are falling. So US Treasury yields, as a result of bonds declining in price, have spiked up. We nearly hit the 10 year yield dropping as low as 3.5 in September, obviously leading up to the the the big fifty bit rate cut.
Speaker: 0
09:56
And as of, this morning, we’re seeing the 10 year yield over 4 a quarter. At the same time, we’re seeing gold prices spike. So gold is typically a safe asset, and gold has moved considerably as you all can see here from the start of the year, whereas around 2,000 an ounce up to 27.50 an ounce.
Speaker: 0
10:15
An incredible run up. One of the best performing assets of the year. And then finally, in a market like this, you would typically see pain in equities, but we’ve seen the opposite. The Sai and P ai is up considerably, has been on this endless run up, all time high. That’s what it’s
Speaker: 1
10:31
going on.
Speaker: 0
10:31
Ai time high. Where’s your Bitcoin chart, buddy? And let’s pull up Bitcoin. Why do you show
Speaker: 3
10:37
that nobody cares about gold show Bitcoin?
Speaker: 0
10:39
Well, there’s a lot more assets that have moved into gold than Bitcoin, but here’s Bitcoin at today, this morning, 68,000.
Speaker: 3
10:46
Who picked that at the beginning of the year? Sai was it Hold on one second. Boop, boop, boop, boop, boop.
Speaker: 0
10:54
Well, Chubb, give us your read on what’s going on.
Speaker: 3
10:57
There’s a there’s another couple of nuances here that I think are important. The US dollar complex is thriving, which means, like, the US dollar is strong. Back end yields are rising. And then another thing that I look at is this thing called put call skew. So basically, like, on balance, how are people hedging in the short term? And in the bond market, they own a lot more puts than they do calls.
Speaker: 3
11:27
I think that this is the entire financial infrastructure of the world repositioning itself from what was a toss-up election to a Trump win. And when you look at why, it’s because when you forget the candidates themselves for a second, but if you think about the actual policies and where the spending will occur, I think that there has been a very clear decision that the Trump economic plan will drive better growth than the Harris plan.
Speaker: 3
12:01
And if you think that there is more growth coming, typically what will come with that is a little bit more inflation. The risk premium that you’re going to need in a high growth environment is ai. What is risk premium that is how much do I sana to invest for a risky asset versus a safe asset? And so all of these things are coalescing.
Speaker: 3
12:28
So I think that the short term takeaway that I have just looking at all of this data is that in the economic distribution of outcomes, this is now tilted overwhelmingly to a Trump win. And this is not an emotional statement or what I want to happen, but this is just an observation how about how tens of 1,000,000,000,000 of dollars of self interested financial actors have now repositioned their risk.
Speaker: 3
12:58
And if Trump wins, which it looks like he’s increasingly going to do, and if he wins by the margins that it looks like it’s going to do, you’re gonna see a lot of these things exacerbate. Gold’s gonna go up more probably. Bitcoin will probably go the short term economic upside for the economy will probably get reflected in higher equity prices, but it’ll also push out long term rates.
Speaker: 3
13:25
The inflation picture becomes a little bit murkier, But I think that that’s what’s happening. I think that the the financial markets are pricing in a Trump win.
Speaker: 0
13:34
Sorry. Just to understand better, why is gold go up in a Trump win?
Speaker: 3
13:39
I think in the short term, what happens is that you see more economic growth. But in the medium term, inflation goes up, and so you wanna hedge.
Speaker: 0
13:45
Right.
Speaker: 3
13:46
So it’s it’s more about a durational balance of assets. So in the short term, you’ll be long the things that will generate earnings. But in the medium to long term, you wanna hedge yourself. So Bitcoin and ai, I think, will trade that way.
Speaker: 0
13:58
Well, let’s pull up the video clip from Paul Tudor Jones, Nick.
Speaker: 5
14:01
Given all of the things you’re saying, are you off buying gold and Bitcoin and and
Speaker: 6
14:05
how Ai think all roads lead to inflation. We’re gonna end up if you so But does
Speaker: 5
14:12
all roads lead to inflation? Therefore, gold is a good investment? Is Bitcoin a good investment to you?
Speaker: 6
14:15
I Sai I’m long gold. I’m long Bitcoin. I think commodities are so ridiculously undrawn. So I’m long commodities. I think most young people find their inflation hedges via the Nasdaq. That’s also been great. It’s probably some combination. I probably have some basket of gold, Bitcoin, commodities, Nasdaq, something like that, and I would owe 0 fixed income.
Speaker: 6
14:37
If I had my cash, it would be very short term.
Speaker: 0
14:40
Sacks?
Speaker: 4
14:41
Well, I think as you heard right there, the key line that Paul Tudor Jones said was all roads lead to inflation. I mean, that that’s what’s basically happening right now is that the market is afraid that inflation is not whipped and is gonna resurface and the Meh may have to pivot from the pivot and raise interest rates.
Speaker: 4
15:00
That’s why he doesn’t sana own any treasuries. Separately, another financial legend, Stan Druckenmiller, gave an interview where he has something like a 20% short position, meaning 20% of his holdings are short US Treasuries right now, so he’s betting that there are long term inflation pressures and that rates are sana to have to ai, and you’re seeing again that since the Fed cut rates on September 18th by 50 basis points, that the 10 year T Bills yield has risen by 60 basis points.
Speaker: 4
15:35
So I I think my interpretation is that this is less about the election and more about the markets not liking the Fed’s rate cut on September 18th. I think that in hindsight it was too big. We discussed it on the show and I pointed out that the 50 base point cut was contradictory in the sense that the only two times in recent history where the Meh began a rate cutting cycle with a 50 basis point cut was in 2,000,012,008, which were on the verge of pretty big recessions.
Speaker: 4
16:11
And so the Fed felt like it needed to cut dramatically in order to help stave off those recessions, but that was not Powell’s rhetoric. What Powell said is the economy was doing very well. So what I said a month ago was with the economy’s doing really well, why won’t you just tiptoe into the rate cutting cycle with say a 25 basis point cut and then see how the market absorbs it and get another month’s inflation data.
Speaker: 4
16:36
Well, we’ve gotten another month of inflation data and it’s showing that these are not huge moves but it’s showing that inflation in, was it Core CPI was just a little bit higher than speak. So again, the market is concerned that inflation is not whipped, that the Fed may have been overly precipitous, and how it cut cut rates, and then the other thing is they just do not like the long term fiscal picture of the US.
Speaker: 4
17:01
One other chart we should bring up is interest on the national debt. What you can see here is that it has gone absolutely parabolic in the last couple of years. Our interest on the debt is something like, what, like ai, 1,400,000,000,000 in a year.
Speaker: 0
17:14
Oh, 1,350,000,000,000 run rate. Yep.
Speaker: 2
17:16
Yeah. $35100 per Meh.
Speaker: 4
17:19
Pre. And it’s something like 20 to 25 percent of federal revenue now is going to debt service and this continues to increase. Now Ai think there was an expectation that we’d be able to get this line to go back down once we had rate cuts, right? Because if inflation’s licked and the Fed can lower interest rates again and we can get back to a 2% 10 year bond, which is where we were a few years ago, then all of a sudden that National Debt Service becomes a little bit more reasonable, right?
Speaker: 4
17:48
I mean you can you could service that debt at half the cost but now it looks like that may not happen. So just to wrap this up, I just think that the market doesn’t like these fundamentals of the US fiscal picture. You’ve got rapidly increasing debt service costs. You’ve got an inflation picture that is murky and may not be going away and the bond markets are starting to price in higher interest rates for longer and this is why Paul Tudor Jones is saying Paul Rose leads to inflation, and this is why Druckenmiller is shorting US treasuries.
Speaker: 0
18:24
Jekyll, do you think either party, or either candidate in this presidential election is gonna drive a different outcome in terms of federal spending and the long term impact on deficit and, as a result, rates?
Speaker: 2
18:39
Well, if we look at previous performance as an indicator of future success, the answer is no. They’re not going to cut spending. Most of the reports out say they’re sana to spend another 10,000,000,000,000 in the next administration, independent of who you vote for. And I think that’s actually what you have to think about here is where does all that money wind up? Right? It’s certainly not sana to trickle down.
Speaker: 2
19:03
And what’s probably sana to happen is it’s going to find its way into equities. And that’s why these equities are so high is because people are recognizing correctly that if we do spend another 10,000,000,000,000 and go another 10,000,000,000,000 into debt, that money winds up somewhere.
Speaker: 2
19:19
Where does it wind up? Government salaries, contracts. And if we get a tax cut as well, that’s going to goose. And I think one party will do a ai tax cut and spend 8, 9, 10,000,000,000,000, the other party will spend 10,000,000,000,000 and maybe raise taxes a little bit. It’s gonna net net into the same place.
Speaker: 2
19:36
And then Ai think what we’ll see on top of that is what I think could be cataclysmic contraction in white collar employment in the United States over the next 4 to 10 years, next 2 administrations. And that’s gonna exacerbate this problem and create, I think, some social tension because we’ve had record low unemployment.
Speaker: 2
19:59
And so even though people feel bad about the economy generally, and and some of that is related to which parties, you know, which party you’re a part of and and how you perceive the economy and all this data, But just brass tacks, you know, we had the lowest unemployment of our lifetime for the past 5, 10 years, and it’s been absolutely fabulous.
Speaker: 2
20:17
And salaries have gone up. And this is going to result in, I think, a little bit of austerity measures coming at some point. Probably won’t come in this next administration, but certainly the one after that is gonna have to do some belt ai, and we’re gonna have to address this issue because spending you know, everybody in America having to pay their share of that interest alone is $35100.
Speaker: 2
20:40
I mean, let that sink in. You’re gonna spend, for every member of your family, $35100 a year in interest. That’s your part of it. Take the 1.3 trillion. It’s just a lot of money. And, if that is the case, it it’s gonna create a massive bubble in equities again.
Speaker: 2
20:58
And then if you look inside of the big companies, 3 or 4 years ago, Uber, Airbnb, Google, and Facebook had more employees or the same number of employees they have now ai growing. Those companies are all growing 20% year over year. So the earnings and the top line of these companies continue to grow while they have a static team size.
Speaker: 2
21:19
This is like an extraordinary thing we haven’t seen. So the two pieces here that we haven’t seen before is what happens when you put another, I don’t know, $20,000,000,000,000 of debt into the US economy, and what happens when companies, the big ones, stop hiring and they just become wildly efficient and become wildly profitable.
Speaker: 2
21:38
And this will be a renters rentier’s, you know, story, where people who have equities and people who own property are gonna do fabulous over the next 5 to 10 years, and then the 40%, 50% of people who don’t are gonna really be feeling a pinch.
Speaker: 0
21:55
Well, it does depend also on how levered they are. So just to give you guys a sense, total US household corporate and government debt, which includes state and local and federal. So household debt in the US about 18,000,000,000,000. Corporate debt’s about 11,000,000,000,000. State and local government debt’s 3,000,000,000,000,000, obviously. The federal debt, 36,000,000,000,000.
Speaker: 0
22:13
That adds up to a whopping $68,000,000,000,000 of total debt across, the US, which if you assume a 6% average interest rate, you know, you got corporate debt and household debt, so it’s a little more risky, so it carries a higher rate. That means we’re spending about $4,000,000,000,000 a year of an economy that’s only 29,000,000,000,000 a year to service the debt, just to pay the interest on the debt.
Speaker: 0
22:37
So 15% of every dollar that trades hands is going towards interest payments on existing leverage on existing debt. It’s a highly levered system. And if you look around the world, this problem is not just a US challenge. Global leverage is a problem that’s now becoming a crisis for, countries everywhere.
Speaker: 0
22:54
The UK is waiting on a big budget proposal this week. Higher taxes is what’s gonna be in there to make up for a budget deficit, which is currently at 4.4 percent of GDP. The UK economy is only growing at 0.9% a year. France has a major budget crisis underway right now. They’re struggling to reduce their deficit from 6% down to 5% of GDP, and they’ve got skyrocketing bankruptcies.
Speaker: 0
23:16
74% of people that can work in that country are working, and they have and that’s because of large social programs that support the saloni, 7.3% technical unemployment. And, they’re raising taxes on 440 firms 440 companies in the country that make a 1,000,000,000 or more in revenue with a, quote, temporary tax.
Speaker: 0
23:34
There’s a 4% surcharge on income over ai k that’s going into effect, saloni home real estate taxes, and so on. France is struggling to figure out a way to generate revenue to make up for the shortfall. In Brazil, there’s a major budget crisis. States owe a $130,000,000,000 to the federal government there. Inflation is accelerating at 4.6%. Rates are gonna go higher and longer, complicating other economic growth opportunities in the country.
Speaker: 0
23:58
So, this is becoming kind of a global leverage problem, which might explain the flight to safety and assets like gold and Bitcoin and, is gonna present a lot of real struggles for every global economy. Now the question is, does the US dollar maintain its reserve status? Because, ultimately, I think it is inevitable that the Federal Reserve in the United States is going to need to buy the debt.
Speaker: 0
24:23
They’re gonna need to monetize the debt, which means printing money. There is no one else to buy the debt. So pull up the China chart, Nick. China’s historically been the biggest buyer and owner of US treasuries, but here’s what’s happened in the last couple of years. It peaked at about $1,300,000,000,000 about 10 years ago.
Speaker: 0
24:38
And then recently, particularly starting around COVID, they began selling down and have been selling down at an accelerated pace. Today, China is back to the level they were at nearly 15 years ago in terms of their treasury holdings. And they have publicly declared that they are selling off US treasuries and buying gold instead.
Speaker: 0
24:57
So the biggest buyer of US treasuries has kind of left the market or is leaving the market. Who does that leave? Well, at the end of the day, the Federal Reserve has been the kind of buyer of last resort. And if they end up buying treasuries, that’s where we have a problem with too many dollars and inflation kicking up.
Speaker: 0
25:14
And so it feels like a lot of the trades in assets are what’s gonna benefit from the inflation. And it’s gonna be gold. It’s gonna be Bitcoin. And in some cases, because you’re pumping more money in the system, it’s gonna be equities. And, that might explain why equities are moving up as well.
Speaker: 0
25:32
Where do you guys invest here? I mean, Chamath, like, do you care about how the market’s positioned or how you’re positioned in this election right now and based on how we’re seeing markets trade and what these kind of macro indicators are telling us? Or you just business as usual, heads down, invest and build as you always have?
Speaker: 3
25:50
Yeah. I I think that you can’t trade these things. And any attempt to do it is probably a level of false precision where you’re gonna lose more money, and there’s a lot of slippage in even just trying to execute it. I mean, at the beginning of the year, I said the breakout asset was going to be Bitcoin.
Speaker: 3
26:08
I think it looks like it’s going to be the resounding inflation hedge asset for the next 50 or a 100 years. So that die has been cast. I think you’re seeing the last vestiges of people using gold as a rational economic insurance policy, but I think the future is specifically Bitcoin on that dimension.
Speaker: 3
26:33
So I guess you could trade that. You could speculate on that. I think the question that I’ve been grappling with is, in my scenario is what happens if Kamala Harris wins? What would the markets do? And I actually think it would reverse a lot of these trends over the, like, the last month and a half.
Speaker: 3
26:49
Like I said, I really do think that there’s a repositioning rebalance component to everything that’s happening right now. So I don’t think there’s much to do unless you have a very specific bet that you wanna make. I would just keep my head down and keep building.
Speaker: 1
27:04
Are you in the
Speaker: 0
27:04
same place, Saks? Are you are you JKL, are you guys trading at all?
Speaker: 3
27:07
Or I
Speaker: 2
27:07
mean, I I think trading is a mistake. Ai in market is better than trying to time the market. And as I said before, where is all this money gonna flow, all this spending But at asset ai.
Speaker: 0
27:17
Right? I mean, that’s the that’s the key question. Right? Like, do you change what assets you own?
Speaker: 2
27:20
I I don’t think so. And I I I do think there’s another thing that’s worth sort of unpacking here because when you do see people feel like the economy is working against them, all kinds of interesting movements start, cultural movements, etcetera. And I think that’s what we’re seeing in this election, is people who believe in capitalism and free markets and people who don’t, people who believe in free speech, people who don’t, people who see themselves as victims victims and then other people who see them as creators.
Speaker: 2
27:50
Ai really study a lot of, like, what young people are doing. And I don’t know if you guys are watching sort of the anti work movement or the ai movement, which is Financial Independence Retire Early. A lot of young people now are looking at financial markets, whether it’s Robinhood or Coinbase or ai picks, whatever market it is, young men especially, and they’re saying, I need to control my destiny.
Speaker: 2
28:16
I need to this capitalism is not working for me. I need to own equities. I need to make trades, and I need to retire early and have experiences because the capitalist system is broken to some extent. And then there’s another group of people who are just anti work, and there was this term back in the day called meh, not employed, not being educated, and not in training.
Speaker: 2
28:38
Basically, the people who are called the unproductives. And if you look at the peak engagement and employment in our country, and Japan has similar trends, although they are probably 10 years ahead of us in this
Speaker: 3
28:50
Sounds sounds anything but neat. Yeah. It’s not neat. It sounds terrible.
Speaker: 2
28:54
6 but we we peaked at 68, ai% labor participation, and we’re 10% off that, maybe more. We were at 61 or 62. I think a lot of people are gonna give up because the debt is gonna be so crushing that the logical thing to do if you don’t think you can get out from under it might be to move in with your parents or 2 or 3 other people, tighten your belts, and enjoy life and go skiing and and and go have experiences.
Speaker: 2
29:15
And a lot of young people are electing to do that. In other words, they’re opting out of the American dream.
Speaker: 3
29:20
Sorry. To your point, the one thing the one thing that I realized with a lot of young men that, Jason, I think you’re you’re really hitting the nail on the head is a lot of them now do not view the job that they do as their only path to economic independence. And if anything, they may do a job, but then they’re actively trading on the side something, crypto, options, whatever. They’re on Robinhood.
Speaker: 3
29:48
They’re using Coinbase because it’s almost like they’ve separated in their mind that the job they do will never give them the financial independence they want. And so instead, they’re gonna do that job because they like it. Hopefully, they love it. But then separately, they’re gonna go and speculate to try to make money.
Speaker: 3
30:04
It’s a really interesting thing because I had always been taught you earn your wealth through the job you have. And so if you wanted to make more money, you have to ladder up and do something different. Right? Sai think that that’s not true. That that idea has been sort of decoupled now. That’s a really interesting change in how people approach work.
Speaker: 2
30:19
I I call them GenBet. Like, they’re the generation that believes on there’s this, like, subset of them. It’s not all of them. Sana number of them are just quiet quitting, and they just don’t believe in capitalism. And then there’s this other group which are, like, trying to get control.
Speaker: 2
30:32
I call them GenBet because they just wanna bet on themselves and, you know, and if they don’t get wrecked by the financial arya chain trading options, you know, and and doing projects Sorry.
Speaker: 3
30:43
The other the other thing I’ll say just in recruiting a bunch of people at 80, 90 over the last 3 or 4 months is there is an enormous difference that I have seen psychologically in the people that are 25 and older versus the people that are 25 and under. And What is that? I’m calling 25 as a rough number, but there are kids that are 18, 19, 20, 21 years old that are off the charts good.
Speaker: 3
31:08
They’re motivated. They’re hungry. They’re like, let’s get after it. And they are honestly different in the way they approach their job than folks that are in their late twenties and early thirties. These folks
Speaker: 2
31:20
are the first generation who didn’t go into debt in college and didn’t buy into that. Like, so they might the the millennials ahead of them might have, like, taken the bullets. You know?
Speaker: 3
31:30
Yeah. The folks that are in their late twenties, early thirties, and I’m not trying to generalize or disparage, but they ai a level of motivation, again, generally speaking, that the youngest folks in the workforce have and that also that people in our generation sort of have.
Speaker: 3
31:44
So they’re sort of sandwiched in between a very different way of approaching work. And I and as a result, they stand out, and I don’t think they’re standing out for all the right reasons.
Speaker: 0
31:55
Well, the majority now of young people, the number Ai believe and, Nick, if you could pull this up. 57% of Gen zers want to be influencers as their primary career now. That the idea of working a job is almost like a secondary option. The primary option that everyone would ai for is to be, an influencer. And this number has grown considerably, continues to grow.
Speaker: 0
32:25
And in fact, if you look at the the rest of this report, this was out of a mining contract.
Speaker: 2
32:29
Sai 50% of Gen Zers aspire to be influencers? Correct. Okay.
Speaker: 0
32:36
57%. As their career or just
Speaker: 2
32:38
they wanna be influential and build a brand around themselves? I wonder.
Speaker: 0
32:42
That’s what they want to do for a living. That’s what they would like
Speaker: 2
32:45
to do. What they want their paycheck to be. Interesting.
Speaker: 1
32:46
That’s what
Speaker: 2
32:47
they wanna be paycheck to be. Independent, and they don’t think they believe this they believe the system’s rigged against them. Why wouldn’t you think the system’s rigged against you if you went a 150 or 250 k in debt and you couldn’t get a good job?
Speaker: 0
32:58
Sacks, as a successful influencer, how would you advise the youth on their career choices?
Speaker: 1
33:04
I’ll play it.
Speaker: 4
33:05
Yeah. Look. I think that believing you’re gonna be an influencer is ai believing that you’re gonna be, like, a rock star or movie actor or something like that.
Speaker: 0
33:14
Pro athlete. Yeah.
Speaker: 4
33:15
Pro athlete. Yeah. It’s like a 1 in a 1,000,000 shot. It’s just not a great thing to wanna design your career around because it’s just very unlikely to happen. So I think you’re better off finding a career that you’re passionate about but where you’re actually adding value.
Speaker: 4
33:32
The world doesn’t need 50 something percent of the population to become influencers. That’s kinda crazy. And it reminds me of a line from Fight Club where Tyler Durden says, we’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires and movie gods and rock stars, but we won’t.
Speaker: 4
33:48
And we’re slowly learning that fact, and we’re very, very pissed off.
Speaker: 2
33:52
And that was Meh x.
Speaker: 4
33:54
That was Gen yeah. So
Speaker: 1
33:55
Yeah. That was us. They’re headed
Speaker: 4
33:56
they’re headed for a, a ai club like realization about this.
Speaker: 0
34:01
Sacks, how do you advise a young person on there there’s this temptation to go and spend all this time making content and pursue that as your career, and that’s a life opportunity for you now. It’s more free and open, they would think, than perhaps being a movie star or a basketball player used to be.
Speaker: 4
34:18
So I think it’s it’s just, important to recognize that if we ourselves are influencers, the the reason why we’re not being hypocritical is that none of us here with the possible exception of J Cal ever set out to be influencers. Right? We did something different. We actually had a career and we did something interesting and then as a result of that maybe people sana to listen to our pod.
Speaker: 4
34:39
The idea that you can just go be an influencer without having actually done anything interesting, what’s your credential for that? So what I would advise is just people should go do something productive and then you know if it leads to other people wanting to hear from them then that that’s good, but setting out to be someone that other people should listen to without having any experience or having done anything productive in your ai, it’s like, why should we listen to you?
Speaker: 2
35:05
Yeah. One thing, I I did build and sell 2 out of my 3 businesses over the years. But there are tens of 1,000,000 of people making money in the long tail as a content creator, and it’s low 1,000 of dollars, in some cases, per month. But if you combine that with people who are gig economy workers and they don’t believe in the system because they worked really hard, they got this job at Google, they went to the office, then they got laid off and nobody cares about them.
Speaker: 2
35:30
Now they’re getting dragged back into the office. They still have these payments. And then they look at this other system where, hey. They started to get 10,000 followers. They started to make $1,000 a month, then $3,000 a month.
Speaker: 2
35:41
They actually see a path to being independent of a system that has no loyalty to meh, and that’s what I hear from folks. And I think it’s great if we’re not gonna be loyal as, like, corporations to individuals. Those individuals are now responding and the antidote to that poison of just being laid off randomly or being dragged back to the office after you told you to work from home, all that stuff.
Speaker: 2
36:04
They now believe, hey. I can be independent, and then you have to fight to get my services. And I ai that’s what this is about. If and and and we’re gonna talk about Starbucks later, and I think that’s a big part of the Starbucks problem. Having a side hustle makes you antifragile.
Speaker: 2
36:20
You you have other sources of income, and you can tell your boss to f off. And that’s what young people are doing. I’ve seen it. I’ve seen people just quit jobs and just say, you know what? I’ve got other ways to make money, and I don’t have a big burn rate.
Speaker: 2
36:32
And so that’s smart for young people to do that. And I think my advice would be to build your brand, be as independent as possible, and to make things in the world, and show people what you made. That’s the best thing you can do.
Speaker: 3
36:43
Can I can I give you the other side of this before we go back to macro?
Speaker: 2
36:47
Yeah.
Speaker: 3
36:47
Imagine that Tom Bryden, who really respected Bill Belichick, but I wouldn’t say is super fond of him. They’re not super close. But imagine that Tom Brady had a side hustle, and let’s just say he drove an Uber, and he made enough money where when things got hard and he didn’t get enough playing time, he opted out.
Speaker: 3
37:07
Would that have made Brady the person he was? I think the answer is no. I think there are a lot of people who arya companies after being in very difficult and challenging environments that stretched and pushed them beyond their comfort zone, and they lived in that world for years before they started something.
Speaker: 3
37:26
If all of a bryden, the answer is, let me have an escape hatch so that I can egress off whenever things get hard, I don’t think you’re gonna accomplish much of anything because I’m not sure that that is the kind of boundary conditions that push greatness upon people. So I would just keep that in mind as well. I’m not sure the side hustle solves anything.
Speaker: 3
37:48
It may actually allow you to quit before you actually get to the other side of something and realize what you’re capable of.
Speaker: 4
37:56
Yeah. I think that’s a great point. You kinda have to mentally burn the boats when you do a startup.
Speaker: 3
38:00
It’s Cortez. You gotta burn the boats. Yeah.
Speaker: 1
38:02
I agree with
Speaker: 3
38:03
that. Your life your life needs to be like Cortez. You gotta burn the boats. If you keep the safety net with you as you move through life all the time and you never put yourself at risk, you’re never gonna figure out what you’re capable of. And then you’re gonna look back at some point and the odds that you’re gonna be disappointed are higher than if you actually just tried and lived at it and and just said, okay.
Speaker: 3
38:26
You know what? I’m really glad I’m betting on myself here.
Speaker: 0
38:28
To wrap up the the conversation about where markets are headed, Sachs, I think we were gonna just do a quick round of the horn. Anything that you’ve repositioned in your portfolio around investing or asset classes that you shift as we face kind of looming budget crises, the election cycle
Speaker: 3
38:46
I’m trying to sell inflation. Single SaaS startup I have in secondary markets. And you know how many bids there are for these SaaS companies? Negative one bid.
Speaker: 2
38:56
That’s interesting.
Speaker: 1
38:57
I I
Speaker: 2
38:57
had a couple of my startups get get offers. I’ve had 3 or 4 secondary offers in the last 2 weeks I’ve had to, like, deeply consider, and they weren’t, like, 75. What kind of companies? Let’s see. 2 were SaaS, and then one Ai can’t say because it would be too easy to guess, but the bottom feeders went from offering, like, an 80% discount to now a 25% discount.
Speaker: 0
39:17
So You know you’re not allowed to sell your your shares and all in. Right?
Speaker: 2
39:21
I’m trying. I’m trying. Bryden Grosvenor has bought 7% so far. So I’m I’m I’m quickly off running
Speaker: 3
39:26
to Gerson as much as I can. You just you you just super tilted Freeberg there. Look at him. He’s laughing, but inside, he’s
Speaker: 0
39:32
he’s just about to
Speaker: 1
39:33
explode. The fib fest
Speaker: 0
39:34
guy here.
Speaker: 2
39:34
He’s gonna have 7%. He gets 16 minutes per episode.
Speaker: 0
39:37
You know what? If he’ll if he’ll moderate, I’ll have him.
Speaker: 2
39:40
I mean, is this moderation going okay or should I jump in and say we shout?
Speaker: 3
39:43
He should write all in a get fit memo.
Speaker: 4
39:46
Just on the question of, you know, how do you reposition? So first of all, the easy one to avoid is is treasuries. Right? I mean, do you really sana accept a 4.2% yield for 10 years to own a US bond? And with the looming inflation that is still out there or the looming debt crisis that might be out there. So that’s probably the easy one.
Speaker: 4
40:08
I think the hard one is around equities because equities are at an all time high. Part of the reason why they’re at an all time high is because the Fed telegraphed that we’d have big rate cuts this year. Remember at the beginning of this year they said there would be 7 rate cuts. Those expectations have kept coming down.
Speaker: 4
40:26
I think we had 1 I guess we had a double rate cut last month and we were supposed to have 1 more 50 bp rate cut this year. I have to wonder if that’s still going to happen and more to the point, if you believe Druckenmiller and Paul Tudor Jones, we might be in for a extended period of higher interest rates for longer and that will be bad for equities.
Speaker: 4
40:47
Equities normally are inflation protected in the sense that those companies can just raise prices over time and keep up with inflation and so equities are generally a pretty good thing to own in the face of inflation, but if we’re in for a period of high interest rates longer than anyone thinks, that’s gonna be bad for equities.
Speaker: 0
41:06
Well, I would just argue one thing, which is, except in the scenario where you believe the only inevitable path is for the central banks to monetize the debt, Meaning, the central banks step in to buy the outstanding treasuries that need to be issued, which both supports inflation, but also introduces capital into the system. And that’s where both equities that’s where you could see a scenario where equities and gold go up while fixed income goes down to to have higher rates.
Speaker: 0
41:32
So it’s effectively a money printing indicator or signal. Now my personal position on this going into this new era, if it manifests as the markets are telling us it will, is kind of where Paul Tudor Jones is. I think that commodities have and, you know, gold is a commodity.
Speaker: 0
41:49
Everyone talks about it as being the safe sai haven asset, but there are other commodities out there that are much more fungible and used in production cycles to make food, to make energy, to make goods. And a commodity linked businesses, meaning businesses whose revenue or profit grows with the underlying commodity price growing, will outperform other businesses.
Speaker: 0
42:10
They’re gonna struggle to raise prices or struggle to pay higher labor costs or struggle to to deal with higher COGS, whereas commodity linked businesses that effectively just make a margin on the commodity. Example. A mining business. Sai businesses that do mining of of natural resources, businesses that trade agricultural commodities.
Speaker: 0
42:30
So those businesses usually make kind of a fixed margin on the underlying commodity price, and they do they do well in these cycles. So, anyway, I think that Paul Tudor Jones rather because if you own a commodity, it’s not a productive asset. It’s not generating yield for you.
Speaker: 0
42:42
But if you own a business, it’s making a profit and
Speaker: 3
42:45
Just seems like it’s easier to own Bitcoin.
Speaker: 0
42:48
That’s one asset. But the Bitcoin isn’t a productive asset. Right? I mean, so that’s one one way to ai of build a portfolio. But I I personally like owning businesses where they’re doing something and making value and in the process, they earn a profit, especially if the profit grows with an underlying inflationary pressure.
Speaker: 3
43:03
On Vatsal’ point about the equity markets, there is this thing that people look at called the Buffet indicator, which is the total value of the Wilshire ai divided by GDP. He mentioned it in 2,000 and said it’s probably the most reliable measure of where equities are and where they’re about to go.
Speaker: 3
43:21
And there is this long run mean when you calculate it going back, you know, 50, 60 years. And every time it’s had a short term high, there’s been a pretty meaningful retrade. So in 2000 in the dotcom bubble, in 2007 during the great financial crisis, during COVID, and now we’ve actually set an absolute new high in this thing, which, again, to the extent that you believe in indicators like this, would kind of tell you that at some point here, equities are probably going to be cheaper before they’re going to get more expensive.
Speaker: 2
43:58
This is definitely the high end of normal. Nick, if you pull up the PE chart, this is the obvious one to look at. It’s, you know, not just the, how dramatic the stock market peaks are, but, you know, the the price to earnings ratio. And it’s, at the high end of normal at, ai, I don’t know if we’re at ai PE ratio on average.
Speaker: 3
44:18
26. David’s right. How can you get 4.25 ai when you have all of these risks looming over the next 10 years? Because, you know, Howard Marks, his letter, he he had an investment letter that he published this week. And it was so great because it was so elegant in its simplicity, which is investing in an equity and investing in a bond are just completely opposite to each other even though they’re treated and spoken as if they’re the same thing.
Speaker: 3
44:46
And his concept is, like, people need to understand exactly what the terms fixed income means. It means that you will get something reliably over a long period of time. And so the question is whether is that fair knowing everything you know today? And, I mean, all of you guys have said this now for feels like years.
Speaker: 3
45:06
And when you show these charts of, like, ballooning deaths and deficits, is it reasonable that the market clearing price for government issued debt over the next decade is 4%? I mean, my gosh. It could easily be 6%. It could easily be 7 or 8%. That is very scary.
Speaker: 4
45:26
Totally. The big difference between a bond and a stock is that the bond provides you with, like you said, fixed income payments and those would be horribly debased if you have high inflation. A stock gives you earnings and a company can always raise its prices and so in theory, it should be hedged against inflation.
Speaker: 4
45:44
But both a stock and a bond are similar in the sense that they’re both hurt badly by rising interest rates, ai, because the discount rate is higher. So this is where I’m just not sure about equities is if we do head into a new regime of higher rates longer, does that hurt equities even though equities normally are pretty good inflation hedge?
Speaker: 4
46:06
So I just don’t know the answer to that. I do think we’re headed for a period of constraints. I think that since 2,008, we basically were living in a sort of a consequence free environment where the Fed could keep interest rates at or near 0. The federal government could spend as much as it wanted. We, you know, we sort of normalized emergency conditions.
Speaker: 4
46:30
1st, we had $1,000,000,000,000 deficits as a result of the 2,008 GFC and then those got normalized. Then we had $2,000,000,000,000 deficits as a result of COVID and those got normalized ai then the Meh was also doing QE which means that it’s buying the US government’s own bonds thereby propping up US bonds and the bond arya.
Speaker: 0
46:52
So now that’s normalized. That’s normalized.
Speaker: 4
46:54
Yeah. Keeping interest rates lower than they otherwise would need to be to attract those bond holders. So for about 15 years, we kind of normalized emergency conditions and consequence free spending by the US government. I think now we may be entering an era of consequences and what that means is that you can’t push on one aspect of the federal government’s balance sheet without giving up on something else.
Speaker: 4
47:20
Sai in other words, if you’re going to allow higher inflation, basically monetizing the debt, the bond markets are going to make the government pay higher interest rates on its debt, right, because they’re not dumb. So we’re gonna be in a world of higher interest rates which means that equities get clobbered, real estate gets gets clobbered, the value of people’s homes gets clobbered, so there’s real consequences from that.
Speaker: 4
47:41
Or you can tackle inflation, you know, which means that the Fed’s gonna have to tighten, but then I think what that means is the federal government’s gonna have to get religion around spending. They’re not just gonna be able to spend all of this
Speaker: 2
47:55
money. We’ve seen this. Austerity measures in Europe, right, were were pretty hard for people in Greece and Spain and to get their heads around. I think Americans are gonna have to get used to. We can’t just spend and give handouts constantly. On the equity side, though, there’s also the concept, Sachs, that you can cut spending and increase earnings, and that that’s well within your control as a CEO and board, and that’s exactly what we’ve seen coming out of COVID.
Speaker: 2
48:19
And I said it here a couple years ago. I think the earnings are gonna do well because people have this other lever, and they can just turn the dial and reduce spending and increase earnings. And it’s like, oh, that’s painful, but it’s not so painful that it’s not worth doing. And so corporations have gotten religion around cost cutting and austerity and increasing earnings.
Speaker: 2
48:40
The question is and individuals have to, so they’re pushing out buying new cars and, spending on travel. So then what happens? When does the government get that austerity that companies and individuals are forced to do? And that’s the problem you keep talking about, Freeburg, is, you know, this entire election cycle is about who can meh more free Enough with the free Like, somebody’s gotta be an adult in the room and say, we don’t have an any more free left.
Speaker: 0
49:06
I think this is what the market is saying is that regardless of who gets elected here, they’ve both kind of shown that the deficit will increase, not decrease, under their presidency. And, look, maybe that is positioning to get elected, and maybe there is a kind of more rational underlying economic advisory group that is counseling a different path than what they are presenting.
Speaker: 0
49:28
And I I hope to whoever is listening that that is the case for both candidates. Very deeply hope. If you look at what happened in Argentina so we’ve talked a lot about Javier Millet. He came in as president. And, his austerity measures ai absolutely slashing government spending has reduced monthly inflation from 25% to around, you know, 3 a half percent.
Speaker: 0
49:52
So he’s really kind of brought inflation under control. But the consequence of that is that the economy has now shrunk because the government is spending less. That means there’s less revenue for certain businesses. There’s less income for individuals, so they spend less. So the economy has shrunk by 1.7% in the last quarter, and, unemployment has spiked. So now unemployment is at 8% in Argentina, and it’s rising fast.
Speaker: 0
50:15
So for the US to actually execute this policy when we have a fundamental mandate for the Federal Reserve to keep unemployment low means that something is gonna have to break. You can’t keep unemployment low and inflation low if federal spending gets too high and federal debt gets too high.
Speaker: 0
50:34
So we are in a condition now where federal debt is too high. And if we cut federal spending too fast, we end up seeing unemployment spike. And if we don’t, we’re gonna have inflation spike. Just one Those those are the two paths we could walk.
Speaker: 3
50:46
Just one thing to challenge what you sai because I actually I disagree with it is that Yeah. I don’t think that people view the spending packages of both candidates the same because the dollar is not created equal. So there are certain ram that the Republicans have proposed that are markedly different than the programs that the Democrats have proposed even if the numbers look the same.
Speaker: 3
51:12
And so this is why I think you have to look at how the short term arya, when they thought Kamala was winning, behave versus now the short term arya. Short term mean Right.
Speaker: 1
51:21
How do
Speaker: 3
51:21
you hedge this risk? And that has completely changed. And this is ai, I mean, over the last 30 days, you’ve had a complete and absolute repositioning of the front end of the yield curve in terms of risk and who’s making the bets. And I think why is because the the Trump package, whether we agree with him or not, is viewed as more stimulative to long term economic growth, which is why the inflation risk is being hedged out versus the common law risk, which is they’re just gonna spend money.
Speaker: 3
51:53
Now on top of that, what I would say is this may be where Elon Musk being able to streamline the government could be an incredible gift for us as well as our children, our children’s children. And why is that? It’s because if there’s this sort of Damocles hanging over us constantly of 1,000,000,000 and 1,000,000,000,000 of dollars of wasteful spending, he is probably in a position to show us that we have spent decades spending more and getting less, And now we can run the AB test where we spend meaningfully, meaningfully less, cut regulation, and if we actually get more, you will have the proof.
Speaker: 3
52:42
And that could set us on a long term path of being more judicious in how we spend money, and I think that we deserve to run that experiment somehow.
Speaker: 4
52:52
So just to go back to your your definition of GDP, it’s true that if you cut government, that might cut GDP because GDP includes government spending. However, one could argue vatsal, although technically that is how the definitions work, that by cutting government, you actually unlock resources that could be used by the private sector and that ultimately meh it would lead to more efficiency but also stimulate the private sector.
Speaker: 4
53:19
And I think that argument is strictly true when you’ve got an economy running at full employment. So, you know, if we had lots of unemployment, then cutting all these government workers would be very painful. But if you’ve got an economy that’s doing quite well and there’s a lot of job creation going on, then it’s a good time to actually cut government because the private sector can reabsorb these people.
Speaker: 4
53:39
We should use the fact that we still have that. We have a good employment picture to make these painful cuts now as opposed to waiting until it would be far more difficult.
Speaker: 0
53:49
Best point I’ve heard in a long time. That’s a great point, Sacks. Give us the election update. What’s going on? Are we gonna get your guy in office? Is it gonna be vice president Harris? What’s the sense of what the polls are telling you, of what the markets are telling us?
Speaker: 0
54:05
What’s your read on where we’re at?
Speaker: 4
54:06
All the data is basically pointing one direction, which is a a Trump victory and by data, I mean the polling, I mean the prediction markets, and then the early voting numbers. So if you look at the the polls, there were 2 new polls by mainstream media. 1, the Wall Street Journal yesterday said that Trump was up 3 nationally, and I think CNBC had a poll this morning saying that Trump was up 2 nationally.
Speaker: 4
54:31
That’s very good because
Speaker: 0
54:33
That’s the popular vote.
Speaker: 4
54:35
That’s the popular vote. So if Trump is winning the popular vote, it’s ai. Most prognosticators say that because Republicans have a slight electoral college advantage, that Harris would need to win the popular vote by more than 2% to have a chance at winning the electoral college.
Speaker: 4
54:51
So if Trump is winning the popular vote, then it’s a landslide. 2nd area is if you look at the state by state polling, Trump has been advancing pretty much in every battleground state for the last couple of weeks. If you use RCP, Trump is now ahead slightly in every battleground state and the momentum is all towards Ram.
Speaker: 4
55:12
And then the final data point is around early voting in states where they have this early voting and put out the numbers. The Republicans are tracking well ahead of where they were in 2020. Now there’s still a question of, you know, does this mean that Republicans are just shifting their votes to voting earlier and then they’ll do less well on election day?
Speaker: 4
55:32
There’s always that chance, but right now, if you’re a Republican, it’s what you wanna see. And if you’re a Democrat, it’s definitely not what you you wanna see.
Speaker: 0
55:41
Yeah. And the essay that Nate Silver wrote, that was published by the New York Times yesterday sai, it’s a 5050 toss-up. Either candidate could win, but my gut tells me it’s gonna be Trump. He’s kind of indicated that’s where, you know, as as a guy who’s obviously been a big prognosticator sai, the market’s headed. J.
Speaker: 0
55:58
Cal, do you think Sachs is is right on this? Anything you’re thinking
Speaker: 4
56:01
about for meh prediction markets. Prediction markets have moved very, very sharply in favor of Trump. It’s almost 2 thirds, 1 third now in favor of Trump. So there’s been a huge move among betters that Trump is gonna win.
Speaker: 0
56:13
On Poly Market?
Speaker: 4
56:15
Yeah. Poly Market and then Kalshi as well.
Speaker: 0
56:17
Do you think it’s over, JKAL?
Speaker: 2
56:18
I’ll go with Nate. I mean, I think Nate’s probably the best thinker on this who, I think, puts a a lot of effort into it. And if he says it’s 5050 with a slight advantage to Trump, I I think I would go with his gut. But he’s saying don’t trust anybody. I I don’t trust the prediction markets, and I think the prediction markets are closing that gap as we get closer because they are easily manipulated. Polymarket is only offshore.
Speaker: 2
56:44
Right? The US market is not allowed to participate in polymarket, so it’s all foreign investors. Now, of course, Americans could be putting money overseas somehow and and using foreign accounts to to place these bets. I’m I’m guessing if you were a shah and you really wanna make money, that’s what you would do.
Speaker: 2
57:00
So I don’t know what percentage of
Speaker: 0
57:02
it was reported this morning that a French trader has bet $45,000,000 on Trump on Polymarket, that he is the whale. He’s a French national with, quote, extensive trading experience. He’s not, quote, manipulating the market. He just really is trying to build a big position. So he sounds like he’s a pretty active trader that,
Speaker: 2
57:19
ai the
Speaker: 0
57:20
big move. But
Speaker: 2
57:21
It’s a crypto based site, so you you get the benefit of, like, you can track some amount of this on blockchains and then eventually find the person. But because it’s crypto as well, you can also hide yourself pretty well with Tumblrs and other systems. So I I would discount Poly Arya, a bit.
Speaker: 2
57:37
It’s probably not as extreme as it seems, but it does seem like Kamala has not helped herself with the interviews. They haven’t been great. And, you know, it it is a toss-up. And so so Ai, any surprise?
Speaker: 0
57:54
Yeah. Any October surprise still coming? I mean, there have been a few attempts the last couple of days. I mean, it seems like the rhetoric for, like, 20 days.
Speaker: 2
58:00
Hours, there have been some really gnarly ones that we shouldn’t give I don’t think we should give any bryden to, but some Republicans have been coming out talking about, like, a really gnarly one about the Republican ai. And, I mean, it’s not much more gnarly than other things that have been said about Trump already and judgments that Trump has against him already for a $100,000,000, so it’s in that vein.
Speaker: 2
58:22
But I do think that that looks to me like it’s capped, and I think there’s sana be a lot of fake news, maybe even deep fakes that come out, you know, in the last week or 2. So I I think people should not trust anything they see on social media. Be very careful with that information.
Speaker: 0
58:38
I’ll tell you guys ai kind of view is, like, things seem to be getting more inflammatory leading up to the election here. It’s ai we’ve got 12 days left or or whatever it is. And the the rhetoric and the tonality of the stuff that’s being said is getting so nasty on both sides.
Speaker: 0
58:56
And, I just worry more about the reconciliation reconstruction phase that needs happen in America.
Speaker: 3
59:05
On both sides? Is it equal on both sides, Ewing? That’s your observation?
Speaker: 0
59:12
I like, I you know, I think, like, Trump leaning out the window of McDonald’s, and it was I mean, I mean, I laughed pretty hard when he was, like, someone said to him when they interviewed Trump when he was serving French ai. And he said something like, I’ve now worked in McDonald’s 15 minutes longer than Kamala has.
Speaker: 0
59:27
And then they one of the reporters said, well, why do you think she would lie about that? And he leans out the window. He sai, because she’s lying, Kamala. And, you know, it’s a funny joke. That’s his quip. He makes fun of everyone.
Speaker: 0
59:37
But I think the whole thing about making fun of everyone, it’s such a different tone and a different rhetoric than I think what’s gonna be needed. Because imagine if she wins and, you know, he’s painted her as being, you know, a liar and crooked and deep state. I mean, look. I’m not gonna try ai.
Speaker: 4
59:51
Possibly compare that to what the democrats are saying right now, which is that Trump is literally Hitler. They’re ai calling him a fascist. She called him a fascist.
Speaker: 0
59:59
She said it’s democracies on the line. And, obviously, when you say something like that, when you say that the fundamental system of the electoral process is on the line, it implies that if he wins, we’ve ended democracy that will inevitably lead people to feel like we are in a place of civil chaos.
Speaker: 0
01:00:19
And I don’t think that anyone’s gonna feel good coming out of this. How do you guys think we kind of deal with, ai, the election outcome here, one side or the other? I mean, half the country is gonna hate the president and half the country’s gonna hate where we’re where we are and how we sit as a country, and half the country’s gonna think that democracy’s over.
Speaker: 0
01:00:38
I mean, ai half is gonna feel like this is the end. And is it just a temporary thing and everyone reconciled and we all, like, get back to work and the election’s over and whoever wins wins?
Speaker: 4
01:00:48
I think, unfortunately, the mainstream media is responsible for giving roughly half the country a psychosis about Trump because they are pushing out this rhetoric nonstop that he’s a fascist, that he’s Hitler. They keep putting out all these fake stories, and they are basically training people or indoctrinating them that he’s this, like, threat to democracy.
Speaker: 4
01:01:07
I was having dinner last night with someone who’s a democrat who pretty much gets all their information from mainstream media, and she’s, like, terrified of this. It’s just not who Donald Trump is. It’s a it’s ridiculous hyperbole, but if you’re locked in that media ecosystem and that’s all you hear, you really are frightened by this.
Speaker: 4
01:01:23
So I think that the media the media’s irresponsibility, the way that they don’t report honestly and that they gin up these threats has really terrified half the country.
Speaker: 0
01:01:34
Do you think that the Trump Trump is Hitler rhetoric indicates that the democrats feel Well, look. It’s ai a conspiracy theorist.
Speaker: 4
01:01:40
Lying. I mean, let that’s, like, pretty par for the course. What’s so horrible about that? I mean, you could make the argument that she’s lied about a lot of things. As Anderson Cooper interrogated her quite well just yesterday on that town hall, he pointed out that she had said 50 times that Trump’s wall was a stupid idea, and now she appears to be in favor of it.
Speaker: 4
01:01:59
So I think that accusing your opponent of lying is pretty par for the course for a politician. What’s not par for the course is saying that your opponent is literally Hitler and a fascist. That’s just going to a whole different level of rhetoric.
Speaker: 0
01:02:13
Okay. Chamath, do you think we’re in a nasty state and we’re gonna be able to get out of it after the election and
Speaker: 3
01:02:18
I think we’re gonna be fine.
Speaker: 1
01:02:20
Okay.
Speaker: 4
01:02:21
I’m actually pretty optimistic because I actually don’t think it’s gonna be that close. I mean, right now it’s looking like maybe ai too strong a word but a solid victory for for Trump. That’s what the polls are showing, that’s what the prediction markets are showing, that’s what the early voting is showing, and if you look at all the other data points ai now it’s showing Trump winning pretty handily.
Speaker: 4
01:02:40
The other data point that we haven’t talked about is just how these campaigns are acting in the final stretch. If you look at the Trump campaign, it’s pretty much steady as she goes. You look at the Kamala campaign and they’re in this throwing spaghetti against the wall mode.
Speaker: 4
01:02:55
They’re back to ai of the dark Brandon type messaging where the reason to vote for us is Trump’s a fascist. This is very different than their messaging when they made the switcheroo from Biden to Kamala, right? When they first made that switch, they said okay let’s get away from this dark Brandon threat to democracy type meh. It doesn’t seem to be working.
Speaker: 4
01:03:15
Let’s emphasize Kamala Harris as a change agent, as a transformational candidate, as a candidate of joy and positive vibes, and they did get a big bounce in the polls because of that. The problem is that over the last couple of months that sort of bounce in the polls has worn off as Harris has not been able to explain what she would change.
Speaker: 4
01:03:37
She keeps getting asked in all these interviews, what would you do differently than Joe Biden? Anderson Cooper just asked her that yesterday for ai the 19th time and she still does not have an answer to that question.
Speaker: 3
01:03:48
And
Speaker: 4
01:03:48
sai, the problem she has is that this sort of veneer they gave her as this change agent has kinda worn off and she’s seen as a continuation of Biden and the public does not want a continuation of Biden and so now it feels like they’re frantically trying to figure out how to reposition. They’re back to the to the the anti Trump sort of hysterical messaging which didn’t work. It wasn’t working 3 months ago when they made the the switcheroo.
Speaker: 4
01:04:14
So Ai tend to think that if you look at the behavior of this these campaigns, it’s pretty easy to see which one feels confident and and which one is in a panic.
Speaker: 0
01:04:23
Okay. Jay Cal, what if you could go back in time and you were Kamala’s ai when she became the nominee, what would you have advised her to do differently than she has done in in this campaign to date?
Speaker: 1
01:04:35
I would
Speaker: 2
01:04:36
have had a speak primary, and I would have let, democracy play out. That was the big mistake when when the democrat if the democrats lose, I think they’ll look better
Speaker: 0
01:04:43
on what
Speaker: 1
01:04:44
you’re saying.
Speaker: 3
01:04:44
Yeah. 100%.
Speaker: 2
01:04:45
But and and then in terms of thinking about why people believe that Trump is an existential threat to democracy, I encourage everybody who’s a fan of this podcast to go back to episode 16 of the all in podcast. And that’s the episode where we all reacted the week of January 6th, and we all had great consensus amongst us that we thought this was one of the most disgusting, horrific days in the history of the country and that Trump was trying to overthrow the election results and that he was doing so in a nondemocratic fashion.
Speaker: 2
01:05:22
Ai I know some people have re ai it or changed their positions, but I encourage you all to pause this episode and go back and listen to our very thoughtful discussion on episode 16 of the oil and ai because we were scared as well.
Speaker: 3
01:05:35
I think that things happen in a moment, and you have to have enough compassion to say you react in a moment, but then you also have to have the intellect to separate yourself from the things that happen, learn more, and possibly and potentially change your mind. I don’t want to be defined by a thing that I said in a moment, and I won’t do that to other people.
Speaker: 3
01:05:55
In that moment, I thought what happened was really terrible. And then since then, I’ve got to know the person, and I don’t think that he actually incited much of anything. That’s my belief.
Speaker: 2
01:06:06
Yep. And that’s fine. That’s your belief. But I do think there’s another group of people
Speaker: 0
01:06:09
ai are not great with
Speaker: 2
01:06:10
your with your regional
Speaker: 3
01:06:11
assessment. Yeah. Well, I think that those people need to also re underwrite the way I did because I’m not really want to flip for random reasons. But that’s not the point. The point is, I think that if you still believe what you believe then, then you should tell people to listen to what you said.
Speaker: 2
01:06:26
Yeah. They’re a ai of yeah.
Speaker: 3
01:06:28
Okay. But they’re a lot of And
Speaker: 2
01:06:29
listen to what Sachs said and listen to what Freebark said. I thought we had a very productive discussion when it happened. I
Speaker: 3
01:06:33
think people have memory hold it. What you’re trying to say, which I I partially disagree with is those beliefs have changed over time. And I think it’s, it’s more balanced for you to say that that’s a point in time. And if you believe that that point in time still exists, that’s fine for you to say that. But I think that’s the way that you should say it.
Speaker: 3
01:06:52
The other thing that I would like to say about this election, which I find really interesting, is we are in the part of the cycle now where the side that’s losing is going to panic. And I think it’s happened a couple ai, but I would just remind everybody, we have run the AB test.
Speaker: 3
01:07:11
We know what the presidency is gonna look like under Trump, except you get a real vice president, plus RFK, plus Elon Musk, whether you like them or not. But my point is Sai think you need to consider that you’re getting 4 for the price of 1. And if the other side, if Harris wins, you mostly know what the trend will be because you’ve seen the trend under 4 years of Biden.
Speaker: 3
01:07:37
The second thing is Ai think it’s interesting to see that when you get into the home stretch, the losing side tends to turn on itself because they start to play protectionism for their own careers. And there’s a lot of stuff that I think you can consume that starts to show that. And I think that’s just an interesting observation.
Speaker: 3
01:07:59
A lot of the tried and true most reliable media sources that I think were trying to navigate as much as possible for a pro Harris presidency are starting to push back in a way that I find a little surprising. I think the CNN town hall yesterday was one of those moments for me where even people like David Axelrod, a little bit throwing Kamala Harris under the bus.
Speaker: 3
01:08:24
I didn’t expect that at all. So I think it’s just important to observe that these things are happening.
Speaker: 2
01:08:29
I I would agree with that. We’re going to make it through whatever what hold on. Let me just do one thing. To your point, Shah, since, you know, I am challenging you with that episode 16 call out, I do hope that whoever wins, we all support that person to do the best they can for all Meh, and that’s always been my commitment, and I and I did it the last two times.
Speaker: 2
01:08:49
And I we will survive this one. I don’t think we’ll survive 2 or 3 of these cycles if we spend 10,000,000,000,000 each time.
Speaker: 4
01:08:54
Just to add, you know, since, Jake, how you’re referencing an episode that I participated in and said said things. I mean, look, I think that the goal of the mainstream media has been to try and keep us in the heat of that moment
Speaker: 3
01:09:08
for
Speaker: 4
01:09:09
4 years. I mean, if you’ve watched MSNBC for the last 4 years, it’s like j sixes occurring every single day. I mean, this is all that they talk about. But I think, like Jamaa said, we have learned a lot of things since that day. I didn’t know, for example, that Twitter had censored president Trump’s tweets telling all these people to go home, that basically he’s sai to protest peacefully, and then when they rioted, that he actually published tweets to try and tell them to go home.
Speaker: 4
01:09:36
So that was new information and that what that came out, remember at the beginning of the whole primary cycle, Trump did that town hall on CNN with Caitlin Collins where he dramatically pulled the piece of paper out of his pocket with the tweets and started reading them. That was a lot of new information for people, and I think that gave him a different picture.
Speaker: 4
01:09:55
And then I think one other point that I think is important is that imagine if the press had tried to keep us in the heat of the moment of the summer of 2020 riots, the George Floyd Floyd riots, then we’d have a very different perception of which party was in favor of riots because Tim Walz was the governor of Minnesota when those riots occurred.
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01:10:15
He did not wanna send him the National Guard. Trump did. And then Kamala Harris tried to raise money for bail for an organization that was bailing out some of these protesters and rioters out of prison. So if the media was so inclined, they could portray Kamala Harris and Tim Walz as the party of the riots of the summer of 2020.
Speaker: 4
01:10:35
I think at the end of the day, that both those takes are propagandistic and they happened 4 years ago. And it’s certainly a piece of information that voters can take into account, but it’s only one piece of information and there’s a whole lot of other issues and policies in this election.
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01:10:53
And I think at this point, everything that happened 4 years ago is kinda priced into the stock and what voters wanna know about now is what would you do on the issues? What would you do about immigration? What would you do about inflation? What would you do about the economy?
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01:11:07
And when you look at the polling on those issues that voters say matter to them, Trump has a decisive advantage and Kamala Harris cannot explain what she would do differently than Joe Biden.
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01:11:16
David Axelrod, word salad city. That’s what he said last night, which was very shocking that he would say that.
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01:11:22
Totally. That is throwing her under the bus, but it’s also just preserving his own credibility because it’s hard to look
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01:11:28
But this is my point. Anderson Cooper now has to preserve his own credibility. You can only prop up a candidate so long, and then at some point, you have to prioritize your own media career. And I think Anderson Cooper last night had to start to push back.
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01:11:40
That’s what
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01:11:41
it’s like when everyone turned on Biden. Yeah.
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01:11:43
It’s like
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01:11:43
Remember whenever that one night when everyone turned on Biden after the debate?
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01:11:47
All the
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01:11:47
journalists who had been covering Biden for so long that it was obvious in their face the whole ai. They suddenly have to be like, okay. I guess we gotta admit now he’s not really there.
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01:11:57
Yeah. Look.
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01:11:57
And I I ai I think in one important way, Kamala Harris has been set up to fail here because on the one hand, she wants to distance herself from Joe Biden’s record, but on the other hand, she won’t say what she would do differently. So she’s in this kinda, like, never never land, this this limbo.
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01:12:12
Yeah. That’s right.
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01:12:13
But that’s also not her fault. That’s the position the Democratic party put her in and this goes back to what Jay Kow sai. We shoulda run a primary.
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01:12:21
They shoulda run a primary for sure. I think they coulda had a better candidate, but, also, I think to go back to Friberg’s question, this is a little bit of a pre mortem, what should they have done differently? I think you either defend Joe Biden’s record or say what you would do differently. You can’t be in this limbo state.
Speaker: 4
01:12:36
And, you know, Joe Biden’s gotta be in the White House there gritting his teeth, like, wanting to get out on the campaign trail and defending his record, because I think Joe Biden thinks he has a good record. And there are things you could say in favor of that record. I mean, I personally don’t think it’s great, but you could talk about the full employment picture.
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01:12:53
You could talk about the fact that, yes, we had 9% inflation, but now it’s down to 3%. I mean, there are things you could say. I mean, he just signed Equity markets. Equity markets are an all time high. I mean, he signed a lot of legislation that he obviously believed in.
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01:13:06
So the democrats do have a record to run on. It’s not a record that I personally believe in, but it’s certainly one that I think you could make an effort to defend. And I think Biden, if he was the candidate, would be defending that record. And it’s very awkward to have a candidate who was part of this administration, who will not defend that record, who distanced herself from that record, but won’t really say with any detail or conviction what she would do differently.
Speaker: 4
01:13:31
That is just a losing proposition. And I think Anderson Cooper exposed it more than Brett Baer last night because Anderson Cooper had the ai. Brett Baer only had 26 minutes, and Bret Baier was seen as adversarial, whereas Anderson Cooper is fundamentally a friendly interviewer.
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01:13:46
And when she can’t answer those questions for Anderson Cooper, that’s when you know you’re done.
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01:13:50
By the way, we’ve said this now consistently, almost monotonously now for about 2 or 3 months. She has to go into these swing states and answer about 4 or 5 critical questions. And and I would just sai, this is still the problem. So if she wants to try to close this gap in the next 12 days and have a legitimate chance of winning, she I think there’s still 12 days.
Speaker: 2
01:14:19
I mean, it’s a very simple way to do it. Number 1, the border got out of control. We’ve shut it down already, and we’re gonna tighten it even more. Number 2, the stock market’s vatsal record for a reason. Number 3, the employment is at the lowest it’s ever been in our lifetimes.
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01:14:35
This is the as good as it gets, folks. And if you go with the other guy
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01:14:38
Ai, Jake, you’re a better campaign manager. Well, you’re a better campaign manager than the person that’s running the campaign right now. They’re not
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01:14:45
Very straightforward.
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01:14:46
Look. They’re not doing a good job. And I think that Sachs is right. They’re afraid of their own shadow and they’re going to walk into a a meaningful reset of the Democratic party of some of their own. Let me
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01:14:57
let me even finish it. Number 4, this person overturned Roe v Wade
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01:15:01
That’s what they’re doing.
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01:15:01
And his VP candidate has said he wanted a national ban. They walked that back. But if you’re a woman, you shouldn’t trust them. And number 5, obviously, you saw what happened on January 6th. He’ll do it again.
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01:15:11
And You’ve got the job, Chris.
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01:15:12
Sai that over and over. And listen. I’m not Biden. Biden obviously needs to retire. He was a great president. He was a great vice president. We thank him for his service. I’m completely different. I have a different approach to all of this. And Trump is a wild card that this country doesn’t need at this time. The end. And they would win, but I don’t know who’s advising her.
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01:15:30
It’s the same thing with Trump. I think Trump could have just gone right to the middle. And when he was Trump 2.0, he should be up 20 points on her. The fact that he’s not up 20 points or 15 points on Kamala and that this is a dead heat, I think is crazy. Trump’s the easiest candidate to beat.
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01:15:44
Kamala is the easiest candidate to beat. I I wonder who’s running both of these campaigns.
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01:15:48
Well, it’s it’s hard to be up 20 points when the entire mainstream media is against you that is only reporting positive things about the other candidates, only reporting negative things about you, and you have a 3 to 1 money disadvantage. One thing you could say for Kamala Harris is she has been a good fundraiser. There’s plenty of billionaires who are funding her campaign.
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01:16:06
They literally have 3 times more money than the Trump campaign and even in California, which is a safe state for them, you’re seeing comma campaign ads everywhere. That just tells you they’re so flushed with cash that they can afford to spread the money around even in California.
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01:16:20
Sai, look, the reality is that Trump has the entire establishment against him. And I think for him to be ahead in the in the polls, in the prediction markets, and the early voting fairly decisively is an extraordinary achievement. I think he’s probably the only candidate who could have done that.
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01:16:37
In any event and and I do think, Jay Powell, that Kamala has tried to make some of the arguments that you just said, not very crisply, but she’s trying to walk back on the border. The problem is they have no credibility on that because the Democrats for the last 8 years, have fought Trump on the border wall. It’s his signature issue.
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01:16:56
And if you don’t think republicans should be believed on abortion, there’s absolutely no reason to believe democrats on the border. They fought Trump’s wall.
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01:17:04
Yeah. I think that’s fair. I think that’s fair.
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01:17:06
All for scrap metal. She was supposed to be at the border czar, didn’t even visit the border, which shows that she never thought it was important. Now she wants to pretend that she’s Trump on the border. Public’s not buying it.
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01:17:15
To handle the border, she’s so simple. She could just say, what worked then is not gonna work now. We we’ve we’ve we’ve filled up, and we just Trudeau just did a tweet. Hey. We’re taking a pause for 2 years. That’s all she’s sana do. We’re taking a pause for 2 years on the border. We obviously it got out of control. The end. We’ll move on to the next issue.
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01:17:32
Alright. If the Harris campaign is listening, Jake Howe’s advice is out there. You you may come on the pod. You’re always welcome. Everyone that’s running for president is welcome
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01:17:41
on the pod. Hear this rumor that Barstool Ai by
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01:17:45
the way. She’s
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01:17:45
not my candidate.
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01:17:46
Did you guys hear this rumor that Barstool Sports was asked if they would interview her and they turned her down? Is that is this rumor true?
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01:17:54
Apparently. I don’t know.
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01:17:55
Why wouldn’t they take it? No. They would take the interview.
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01:17:58
So Portnoy claims that the comp that the Harris campaign reached out and asked to be on 2 or 3 of their shows, and Bartstool declined having her on, which is pretty unbelievable.
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01:18:09
Well, they just waited way too late. I mean, there’s no question that last month, they radically pivoted their media strategy. She became the candidate roughly 3 months ago. For the 1st 2 months, they didn’t let her do any press interviews. Then they realized that their internals were bad, that they’re behind in the polls.
Speaker: 4
01:18:23
So now they’re having her go out and do a lot of media and ai I said a couple weeks ago, that started to create a doom loop because she is not a great media performer sai her polls started getting even worse. So then they gotta put her out on more media to try and, you know, rebut that.
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01:18:38
Your doom loop was a good call. I’ll I’ll give you Krannert.
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01:18:41
If the Kamala campaign were a start, we’d be saying it’s in a dust spiral right now.
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01:18:46
Okay. Got it. You got your lawn. It’s a dead heat. It’s a dead heat.
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01:18:49
We got it. Let’s go. So we’re gonna wrap up with Starbee’s. What I think is a pretty yeah. Starbee’s, super interesting topic because it’s a real question around traditional shifting to digital. Is that why Starbucks is having challenges? Or is it just maturity? Or is it what happens when a brand that’s successful as a luxury brand gets too big and the kind of, you know, premium experience commoditizes?
Speaker: 0
01:19:14
So as you guys know, we covered the Starbucks CEO Ai Niccol joining a few months ago. This was after the prior CEO had been in the office for just 16 months. And there were a lot of problems that were plaguing, Starbucks. But just this Tuesday, Brian Niccol came on and said that we’re suspending guidance for 2025 after reporting preliminary earnings that showed another drop in sales at Starbucks.
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01:19:41
Same store sales, which is the key metric in the QSR or, or food and beverage retail business, attracts what your revenue is year over year. Same source sales declined 7% year over year. Earnings per share dropped ai, year over year. So Nicole said we’re getting the bad news out of the way.
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01:20:02
Now we’re going to this back to Starbucks plan, focus on experience, improve the throughput experience and quality, make baristas choose Starbucks as a career. And then he went through a whole plan. He put out a 6, 7 minute video on this whole thing. So clearly, customers are frustrated with the Starbucks product, the Starbucks experience, The employees are frustrated working there, and a lot of the system seems to be breaking down.
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01:20:25
I guess I wanted to kinda talk about what is the core ai, and is there a business lesson in all of this about premium brands or about scale and maturity in markets to be learned from the Starbucks story. So I don’t know if any of you guys have gone through this earnings report or looked at the Nicholas
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01:20:41
video because he was I Ai go to Starbucks on regular, and I think this really is just a case of founder versus bean counter. It ai me of Boeing or, you know, even Apple with their inability to produce new products post the the Steve Jobs pipeline of products. And if you has anybody read Pour Your Heart Into It, Schultz’s biography? It’s absolutely fantastic. And he really had an obsession with user experience.
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01:21:06
Like, writing people’s names on the cups was a Starbucks innovation. Remembering people’s names, empowering the green aprons was, like, a big part of this. And then once he was at it and the bean counters came in, and they just got all about efficiency. The a much smaller number of baristas at the store, ordering your drink through the app, and just trying to make these grind it efficiency decisions as opposed to the experience ones.
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01:21:31
And I think the Starbucks experience starts and begins with the baristas, and that’s the main problem. If you’ve gone to a Starbucks over the last couple years, sometimes you go in and there are literally 50 drinks from the like, I’m not kidding. Like, 50 drinks on the pickup counter and then this huge ai if you come in person, and it’s the most impersonal thing, and the the stores are a wreck.
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01:21:54
They’re disgusting. They look like a truck stop. And the whole point of Starbucks was to create this 3rd space, this beautiful place that was welcoming with gorgeous lighting, and the baristas were supposed to make you hang out and enjoy yourself there. And they lost that, and all you have to do is read Schultz’s book and do exactly what he did.
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01:22:12
Now there are a lot of other issues there around the competition for Starbucks employees that I think are super important.
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01:22:19
Do you think that’s really true, Jake Halt? Because, like, Nickel came on and he said we’re going back to the core. Flat whites, espressos, nice nice espressos, delicious coffee. But the reality is, in order for them to have grown revenue over the last 20 years, Starbucks has expanded their menu, as Chamath has pointed out, to becoming a seller of sugar.
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01:22:38
They’ve become a seller of milkshakes and flavored beverages and high sugar cocktails, mocktails that people, you know, run into the store to buy 2, 3 times a day. That’s how they were able to get the pickup, not selling what they started out doing, which was fine Italian roast and espresso.
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01:22:52
It’s now become a very different product and a very different experience. And so can you really go back to the core and not lose all the customers that I would say aren’t looking for a flat white and an espresso. They’re looking for a milkshake in the middle of it.
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01:23:05
I think
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01:23:05
you wanna maintain the core is the key. You don’t wanna give up the core. And the core was having a great in store experience, and I think that is not what you get when you go there. Putting the sugar aside, it is, I think, like going for ice cream for kids. So my kids will pick if they wanna go for ice cream or Starbucks.
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01:23:23
And to your point about the sugar Chamath, it’s basically the same profile. And it’s a great place to get breakfast, I’ll tell you that. You know, the egg bites and the scones.
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01:23:31
Nichols let’s watch Nichols’ clip and then Chamath, you can give us your take on this. This is a 30 second clip from Nichols 6 minutes that he put out on Twitter.
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01:23:40
To succeed, we need to address staffing in our stores, remove bottlenecks, and simplify things for our baristas. We need to refine mobile order and pay sai it doesn’t overwhelm the cafe experience. We’re fundamentally changing our marketing. We’ve been focusing on Starbucks rewards customers rather than talking to all our customers, and we’re changing that quickly.
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01:23:59
We will simplify our overly complex menu, fix our pricing architecture, and ensure that every customer feels Starbucks is worth it every single time they visit. We must reestablish ourselves as the community coffee house.
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01:24:12
By the way, this is one of the things that Nichols did at Taco Bell when he was the CEO there. You guys remember the Taco Bell menu? There was always, like, really interesting hidden things on that menu. He simplified the menu, made it very small, did the same at Chipotle. He takes this approach of finding the best product, simplifying the experience, simplifying the operations, and giving the customers fewer choices that ultimately leads to faster turnaround, better experience.
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01:24:36
But the trade off is you have less variety that people have come to know and love. And at Starbucks, in particular, where there is just so much variety to choose from now, if your favorite beverage got pulled off the menu, are you gonna start to go there less frequently? You know?
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01:24:53
Chamath, I don’t know if you have a take on what’s going on at Starbucks and whether it tells you something about the maturity about one of the most iconic consumer brands in America.
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01:25:02
This business is in trouble. Nick, please show the chart. This is Eli Lilly versus Starbucks. If you look at it over a year, you could look at it over the year to date. You could look at it over 2 years. 5 years. 5 years.
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01:25:17
Do that.
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01:25:18
But what does this show? This shows sugar versus antisugar, and antisugar is winning. Say it differently. GLP ones versus things that cause you to need GLP ones. GLP ones are winning. And so I think this existential issue for Starbucks is about resetting to a much smaller footprint and a different product portfolio that tries to see where the puck is going.
Speaker: 3
01:25:50
Where the puck is going is where a large percentage of the people that probably were buying Starbucks products and were very loyal Starbucks customers will have very different consumption habits as they more pervasively use these GLP ones. And this in a nutshell is not something that Starbucks can fix with their current product mix.
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01:26:15
And so I think that they’re fighting into a headwind, and these other companies are deeply incentivized to get American taste buds to be different. And so, Jason, the things that you talked about are exactly the things that I think start to fall off the menu or just don’t sell as meh.
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01:26:36
Because whatever the population of Americans are that are on GLP ones, let’s say it’s single digits, the real question is what percentage of Starbucks customers are on these things? And I think it’s probably much more than single digits. And this is why I think you see the continuous decline in same store sales.
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01:26:51
And I think if you start to graph the adoption of GLP ones pervasively in America to the drop in same store sales, I think as GLP one adoption goes up, same store sales will continue to go down.
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01:27:04
But it doesn’t argue towards the original business framework that going there and having a cup of coffee and hanging out leisurely with your friends and having a conversation and it being a third space is the core value prop, and maybe the sugary drinks maybe will fall out of fashion?
Speaker: 0
01:27:19
So it may be true, but I think that the the core objective of any corporation is to maximize shareholder value driven by growing profits over time. So growing profits over time requires increasing your your revenue. And I ai there are 3 levers for doing this. Maximize brand, which is to get more customers.
Speaker: 0
01:27:40
And I don’t know if you can get the brand to be any more maximal than Starbucks. Maximize coverage, which is how many products can you get those customers to buy, whether it’s on a daily basis, weekly basis, or monthly basis. Basis. How much of their meals and wallet share are you getting?
Speaker: 0
01:27:55
And I don’t know how many more times you can get people to go back into Starbucks each week than they’ve done with their rewards program, with their digital, with their high throughput tools that they’ve built over the last decade, and so on. And then finally, maximize price. There’s a limit to how much you can charge people. When you put those three together, you got more customers.
Speaker: 0
01:28:10
You’re selling them more stuff at the highest price possible. At some point, you reach a revenue maximum. That has happened also at Apple. I think that Apple has faced a similar dilemma in the last couple of years, which is how do we get more customers? It’s the most recognized brand on Earth.
Speaker: 0
01:28:24
You can only buy so many Apple products now. You know, they tried to launch the Vision Pro. It didn’t go well. Today, they didn’t announce it there. This week, they announced they’re discontinuing production or reducing production on the Vision Pro. And you can only charge so much for these products.
Speaker: 0
01:28:37
And I I would argue that Starbucks is a victim of the same maximization effect, that at some point, you get all the customers, you get them to come in and spend sai buy as many products from you as they can, and you charge them the highest price possible, and then you reach this kind of maximum point on the the business.
Speaker: 0
01:28:52
And I think Starbucks has just reached that point of maturity. So to your point, it doesn’t mean that it’s a bad business at all. It could be a great business, a nicely profitable business, but the growth ahead of it is limited. It cannot keep growing same store sales as it has historically because they’ve maximized all three of those levers.
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01:29:09
So fewer costs might be a way to drive more profits, you know, more efficient operations. I think that’s the natural next state for Nickel to tackle at this company.
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01:29:18
The sad thing for Starbucks is that the only road that they have is to actually double down on sugar. And the reason is because the ARPUs are meaningfully higher than traditional coffee. And so the the economic pressure that shareholders will put on it is to actually stay in the business that they’re in ai as possible, as you say, Freeberg,
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01:29:37
and just strip
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01:29:37
out as much cash as possible for the future. You grow profit by reducing costs and getting more efficient versus Yeah. Trying to
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01:29:40
add more product to get more customers. Which degrades the experience.
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01:29:44
But the structural
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01:29:44
problem is Starbucks should be probably a $20,000,000,000 asset.
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01:29:51
Yeah. And so
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01:29:52
what happens when a company gets to this level of maturity, much like has happened with Apple, is the multiples compress.
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01:29:57
No. The difference is though that Apple has not had the competitive pressure that Starbucks has because Starbucks competes on a level playing field with the Dunkin’ Donuts of the world or the Pete’s Coffees of the world, but they compete in a completely orthogonal plane with GLP ones.
Speaker: 3
01:30:11
And I think that is not something that Apple deals with. So Apple can still be at the point that you described earlier, which is let me just maximize free cash flow generation, which is what they do. And then let me allocate that back to shareholders via buybacks, which is also what they do.
Speaker: 3
01:30:25
So they there could be another decade or so where Apple can continue to run this play with very little impact to them or to the company. Now I’ll say something else about Apple though, which is I actually upgraded my phone. I think this was 3 years in and I finally did it. My gosh.
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01:30:41
This phone is sucks.
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01:30:45
IOS 18 software is janky.
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01:30:48
IOS 18 is just terrible. I’ll show you one example of just ai terrible design where if an if a designer that worked on my team showed me this, I would have fired them. Look at this. Can you see this? Is it possible to understand why you have 2 images for the do not disturb thing? 1 above the other?
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01:31:04
I ai to remember what that is. Yeah.
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01:31:07
No, but it’s sai level of sloppiness and not taking care, which which just shows you that it’s ai, we make so much money. It just doesn’t matter anymore. That’s what I feel like they’re telling me. And then I’m like, well, wait a minute. Why did I just spend $1200 of my hard earned money to upgrade to this thing if if you don’t care?
Speaker: 2
01:31:25
How much was it, Jeff, right?
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01:31:26
I think it was like $1200 for this new phone. The other thing is that the actual upgrade itself, and I’m not exactly sure why because I didn’t take the time to unpack it. It took 4 hours. The actual migration of like ram an old phone to a new phone. And
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01:31:42
and
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01:31:42
I thought, my gosh, this is such monopolistic behavior. Right? So if it takes you an entire day to basically upgrade your phone, at some point, you’re just gonna stay with the platform you’re on and never upgrade, or you’re just gonna stay on the exact same device because it’s just too complicated.
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01:32:01
Imagine going from an Apple to an Android. It’s impossible.
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01:32:04
Ways, both of these businesses are victims of their own success. They reach, like, market market saturation. They reach their natural audience and then some, and they’ve just gotta figure out what to do next, And the adjacencies are hard to find.
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01:32:16
Also, also photos hard adjacencies. Also, photos, you know, they
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01:32:20
do us.
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01:32:20
Terrible. It’s terrible.
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01:32:22
Stop changing the interface, Apple.
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01:32:24
This is basically a camera, and you made it terrible. It was good. Why did you do that?
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01:32:30
I think they’re trying to change things for change sake. One of the things Amazon’s gotten correct and and other services ai eBay and Craigslist is when you have an interface that works and and billions of people rely on it, you have to be very, very subtle in making changes to it.
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01:32:46
And they made a wholesale change to the photos app, and it did not work. It did not work. Garbage.
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01:32:51
How do I get rid of the second silent thing on my thing? How can I just go back to the old thing?
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01:32:58
Totally. That’s when
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01:32:59
you know you failed
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01:33:00
as a product manager when people want the old thing.
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01:33:03
But isn’t this just so lazy?
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01:33:06
Something’s not right.
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01:33:07
Yeah.
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01:33:08
I I know there’s
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01:33:09
a lot
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01:33:09
of Apple people. This is come on, guys. Can you just
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01:33:11
take this picture? What he’s
Speaker: 1
01:33:12
showing, and the control center is massively confusing.
Speaker: 2
01:33:12
It’s like changing where the lights are in your bedroom. Massively confusing. It’s like changing where the lights are in your bedroom and, like Okay. Yeah.
Speaker: 0
01:33:20
Alright. Troubleshooting, part of the all in podcast is over. I really wanna say thanks to Sachs for participating heavily in our Starbucks discussion. Sachs, anything you wanna say on the maturity of Starbucks or other mature tech businesses or value luxury businesses as they get big? Too big too big to keep growing.
Speaker: 0
01:33:39
Anything else?
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01:33:41
I meh,
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01:33:41
I yeah. I’m just not an expert on Starbucks. I mean, I do like their product, but
Speaker: 1
01:33:46
that’s What do
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01:33:46
you get? What’s your order? Tell us your order.
Speaker: 0
01:33:48
Yeah. What’s your order?
Speaker: 4
01:33:48
I just get an Americano with a splash of oat milk.
Speaker: 0
01:33:52
Oh, it’s like my order stats. Oat milk. That’s a great order. What happened to you? You’re yeah. That’s great. Good for you.
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01:33:59
How about I just send you some specialty chemicals that you can just pour down your throat? Some xanthan
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01:34:03
gel oat milk bath?
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01:34:05
Some cargegan. Don’t listen to me.
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01:34:07
And say you put in heavy cream. You’re gonna get kicked out of MAGA.
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01:34:10
This is a commercial. You ordering oat
Speaker: 2
01:34:12
milk and beat MAGA. They don’t have nut milks at Mar a Lago.
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01:34:16
I’m gonna find out in a couple weeks. I’ll let you know.
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01:34:18
Don’t put that stuff in your body, dude.
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01:34:19
I bet they do.
Speaker: 0
01:34:20
You should take that sweater that you just took from Chamath and wear that to Mar a Lago when you go. It’s ai a perfect sweater for your Mar a Lago visit. Ai.
Speaker: 1
01:34:43
I’m more than just
Speaker: 2
01:34:44
What do you want for lunch? I said, what do I want for lunch? Your company. That’s what I told her. Oh, sweetheart.
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01:34:50
That’s what I said.
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01:34:51
She said,
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01:34:52
oh, you’re a boy. She’s like, no. I stopped.
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01:34:53
She’s like
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01:34:54
you said. You speak to me so much more kindly than Timothee.
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01:34:56
Oh, my Oh my
Speaker: 0
01:34:58
god. Alright. This has been another amazing episode of the All in Pod. As a team player, I have been here to pinch it for J. Saloni did not wanna moderate this week, so I stepped in to fill the the shoes.
Speaker: 1
01:35:08
I’ll come
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01:35:08
back next week to a Sana. Salajah.
Speaker: 0
01:35:11
One of this show’s greatest moderators. For your sultan of science, for the rain man, for the chairman dictator, and for the world’s most absentee moderator, Ai sana thank you all.
Speaker: 2
01:35:27
And I’m living
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01:35:28
a great life right now, and too much.
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01:35:30
He’s stealing anything that’s not nailed down.
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01:35:32
I’m the world’s greatest house guest.
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01:35:35
He’s putting together his own gift back.
Speaker: 0
01:35:37
Love you, besties. Love you, boys. Bye bye. Bye bye.
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01:35:40
I’ll be there in a couple of hours, Sai.
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01:35:44
We’ll let your winners ride.
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01:35:47
Rain meh David Saks.
Speaker: 4
01:35:51
And it said, we
Speaker: 8
01:36:14
We should all just get a room and just have one big huge orgy because they’re all just useless. It’s like this, like, sexual tension that they just need to release somehow.
Speaker: 2
01:36:23
Let your the feet. Let your feet. Where did you get murdered? Turkey’s arm back ai.
