July 21 2023
- Sacks and Chamath are neighbors in Italy
- Vivek Ramaswamy!
- Started as biotech investor at a hedge fund
- Did law school
- Then started a company
- Roivant did well - $10B company now, returned $1B to shareholders
- Starting 2020 he started getting a more public profile
- Books - Woke Inc and Capitalist Punishment and Nation of Victims
- Sees a void in young people
- Lack of family and religion
- So sees people gravitating towards causes of race, gender, sexuality, climate
- What is the alternative?
- National identity
- Unapologetically nationalist
- American exceptionalism - that is his platform
- Fiscal responsibility and spending
- Most of national history we have grown 3-4% but now its 1.5%
- Can’t really cut spending without establishing trust first
- Drill, frack, burn coal
- Nuclear energy - double down on this by interestingly shutting down Nuclear Energy Commission
- Paying people to stay at home is an obstacle for growing GDP
- Will only promise stuff he can get done as President instead of promising stuff that you need Congress for
- Immigration
- Merit based immigration
- No hard cap - but adaptable
- US military on southern and northern border
- Part of merit is not just skills but also civic commitment to this country
- Foreign Policy
- Ukraine has become a new religion
- American exceptionalism - is it foisting our values on others like Afghanistan, Iraq, Ukraine, etc?
- While not taking care of our backyard - don’t have to go outside to see the third world
- What to do now
- Korean War style armistice
- No Ukraine into NATO, and keep current LOC frozen in return for exiting military alliance with China
- Will defend Taiwan until we achieve semiconductor independence
- Why is Trump doing so well in the polls?
- Same identity crisis?
- SV Banking crisis
- Believes govt should have stayed out and people take a 6% haircut
- Trump thoughts
- Thinks he was successful
- ISIS not as strong as earlier
- Didn’t start a war
- 30% of the country loses their mind when he becomes President
- Disagree with policies they might otherwise agree with
- Bad judgement vs crime
- Campaign Strategy
- Grassroots campaign is going well
- Not getting big checks
- Department of Education
- Inverse correlation between how much a public school spends and educational outcomes for those schools
- Take the difference, split it, in spending between expensive school (bad) and cheap school (good) and invest it for that kid - they get $250K when they become an adult
- Inverse correlation between how much a public school spends and educational outcomes for those schools
- Gender ideology
- Gay rights vs Trans rights
- Equivalence with Iran’s position on gay rights
- Gay rights vs Trans rights
- Roe v Wade
- States issue
- Defense budget
- Deeply skeptical of military state
- Would pardon Julian Assange
- Would pardon Edward Snowden
- Division within republican party over Ukraine
- Prioritize another country vs domestic problems
- Disconnect between GOP base (attendees to some conference recently wanted 95% non-involvement) that doesn’t want to prioritize it vs leaders who do it
- Covid
- vaxed against covid
- Critical of Anthony Fauci
- Precisely in times of emergency does free speech become more important
- Italy stories
- 2 years ago Jason’s photo was used by people to find where Chamath’s beach club was and reached their to pitch their startup
- Last year Sacks and Chamath met an Australian fan who liked their pod and Chamath said the pod should continue because he likes being famous 🙂
- Debrief
- Trump had a big effect on the republican party
- Nationalist orientation - other countries also went right as a result: Italy, UK, (maybe Spain)
- Vivek is running a smart campaign
- Too smart and articulate vs Trump so might not appeal to enough voters
- If you want to viral you have to lean in on the topics of the day
- Rumor that Vivek is a Trump surrogate
- Positive that private people like Trump, RFK Jr, Vivek are rotating into politics - we should not have career politicians
- Trump had a big effect on the republican party
- Mars pictures
Comments