December 29 2023
- Chamath back as BIPOC - Billionaire-Person of Color
- 2023 Bestie Awards
- Politics
- Biggest Winner
- Chamath was long Nikki Haley and short DeSantis - worked
- Chamath says it was actually Trump - will run away with Republican nomination
- Friedberg
- Said it would be Saudi and MBS
- Still says they are the winners - they are in the middle of all the big powers
- Sacks
- Abortion rights are the biggest winner - they are winning every ballot where they are the referendum
- Jason
- Non-traditional candidates like RFK Jr, Vivek, Dean Phillips
- Had said Trump
- Biggest Loser
- Friedberg
- DEI movement
- DEI support for Hamas defending freedom of speech rules for anti-semitic protests - unmaked anti-semitism hid in oppressor-oppressed ideology
- Lot of folks now distance themselves from DEI
- DEI movement
- Sacks
- Volodymyr Zelenskyy
- Time magazine itself agrees after crowning him person of the year before that
- European leaders turning their backs on him
- Volodymyr Zelenskyy
- Chamath
- Biden but agrees with DEI
- Beginning of the end of acronyms - DEI, ESG - ESG reduced by 15% - which is like $5T - when the money starts to scurry, people’s patience and support withdraws
- Biden but agrees with DEI
- Jason
- American people faced with Biden-Trump rematch
- Friedberg
- Biggest Surprise
- Sacks
- Hamas attack on Israel - just 8 days before Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security advisor had declared middle east as being quieter
- Friedberg
- Hamas - now more mainstream - seems like the pawn that crossed the chessboard and became the queen
- Chamath
- RFK Jr - leading 2024 candidate in terms of favorability
- Jason
- 3rd party candidates
- Gallup data says people want a 3rd party - ~60% support
- The most important thing needed is a good name
- Sacks
- Biggest Winner
- Business
- Biggest Winner
-
Chamath
- Elon Musk
- Rebasing of Twitter had a big impact on Silicon Valley
- SpaceX killing it with Starlink and Starship
- Tesla consolidating
- Elon Musk
-
Sacks
- Magnificent 7
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Almost 80% gain
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Rest of 493 - only 12%
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- Magnificent 7
-
Friedberg
- Microsoft
- Market cap grew by trillion dollars
- Closed Activision
- How Satya dealt with OpenAI issue
- Microsoft
-
Jason
- Uber - got into S&P500, became profitable, resolved lot of regulatory hurdles
- Most successful new startup in the last cycle
- Uber - got into S&P500, became profitable, resolved lot of regulatory hurdles
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- Biggest Loser
- Friedberg
- VCs who deployed most of their capital in 2021
- Sacks
- Disney
- Every aspect of Disney’s business was hit - their movies
- Theme park attendance dropped
- Disney+ subscriptions dropped
- Bog Iger fight with Elon Musk over Twitter advertising didn’t help
- Disney
- Jason
- Disney/WarnerBros
- Chamath
- Go woke community who tried to synthetically prop up social message (Disney, Budweiser, etc)
- Friedberg
- Biggest Surprise
- Sacks
- Fed’s BTFP - bank term funding program - in response to regional banking crisis, SVB, First republic, etc
- Just because of interest rate spikes
- People wrongfully blamed VCs
- Fed stepping in probably saved us from recession but not sure about long term effects
- Jason
- Meta recovery
- Chamath
- Fed forecasts
- Larry Summers quote is interesting that Volcker/Greenspan approach of vagueness is preferable
- Friedberg
- Sam Altman’s ouster and return all in 1 weekend
- Sacks
- Biggest Winner
- Biggest Science Breakthrough
- Sacks
- NASA announces good shots of Uranus
- Chamath
- FDA approved treatment of sickle cell anemia
- Jason
- Brain decoder using fMRI scans
- Chamath got a colonoscopy
- Friedberg
- LLMs’ applicability to various use cases
- Sacks
- Biggest Flash in the Pan
- Chamath
- SBF - wunderkind to adderall addicted grifter
- Sacks
- Effective Altruism
- Friedberg
- Superconducting at room temperature - LK99
- Jason
- George Santos
- Chamath
- Best CEO
- Jason
- Taylor Swift - $4B revenues, $90M goes to any city where her show is, etc
- Chamath
- Satya Nadella - execution
- Sacks
- Jensen Huang - Nvidia - reaping the benefits
- Friedberg
- Sam Altman - pushes the limits, boundaries, recruits the best
- Jason
- Best Investor
- Chamath
- Ken Griffin, Citadel
- They are the kingpin - returned $7B to their investors in 2023, $20B+ since 2020, generate 15%+ returns no correlation with the market
- Ken Griffin, Citadel
- Sacks
- Bill Ackman for timing the bond market
- Friedberg
- Bill Ackman
- Jason
- Arthur Dantchik from SIG with ownership of Tiktok/Bytedance
- Chamath
- Best Turnaround
- Chamath
- Novo/Nordisk with weight loss drugs
- Sacks
- Solana
- Friedberg
- Dara and Uber
- Jason
- Sam Altman
- Chamath
- Worst Company
- Sacks
- Pfizer
- Stock down
- Employees also not sure about leadership
- Pfizer
- Friedberg
- Muyuan
- Chinese pig slaughter company (pigs are as smart as most dogs)
- Muyuan
- Chamath
- FTX and SVB
- One stole customer accounts and the other was run by a bad risk management leadership team that almost crippled an industry
- FTX and SVB
- Jason
- Fox News
- Lawsuits, high profile firing
- Fox News
- Sacks
- Best meme
- Jason
- Boston cop slide
- Sacks
- Elon’s GFY
- Chamath
- I’m a journalism
- We are all citizen journalists now, and all have a responsibility - can’t trust MSM
- I’m a journalism
- Jason
- Best new tech
- Jason
- ChatGPT app
- Sacks
- Starlink for jetsuiteX
- Friedberg
- Open source locally run LLMs
- Jason
- Best trend
- Sacks
- Push back on DEI and return of color blindness, Supreme court banned affirmative action, Abbott and DeSantis banned DEI programs in their public universities
- Friedberg
- Single person efforts using AI and copilot tools
- Jason
- DEI dying, meritocracy rising
- Sacks
- Worst trend
-
Jason
- Anti-semitism
- Trump rehabilitation
- People using freedom of speech to whitewash their past behavior
-
Sacks
-
Metastasizing of national debt
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-
Chamath
- Mental health of young people
- More are dying (physically bad too)
- Fewer of them are marrying
- 36% increase in suicide rate in western
- Mental health of young people
-
Friedberg
- Normalization of spending
- LGBTQ groups marching in support of Hamas which is anti-LGBTG - so the lack of logical thinking in oppressor/oppressed ideology - trained to fit everything even if it makes absolutely no sense
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- Favorite Media
- Jason
- Succession finale
- The Bear Season 2
- Ziwe
- The goop podcast
- red scare podcast
- preet bharara cafe insider
- Chamath
- Taylor Swift - anything she did
- Sacks
- The Duran podcast
- Judge Napolitano
- Col Daniel Davis
- above are quite useful in understanding what’s happening in the rest of the world
- Friedberg
- The Idea Factory
- Bobbi Althoff
- Jason
- Rudy Giuliani Self Immolation Award
- Sacks
- Liz Magill - former president of U Penn
- Chamath
- Ivy league brand and reputations
- Harvard applications down 17% already
- Contributions will drop
- Governments will ratchet down their spending
- They might lose their non-profit status
- Ivy league brand and reputations
- Friedberg
- Ivy league presidents
- Jason
- Rudy Giuliani
- Kanye West maybe
- Sacks
- Final thoughts
- Optimism
- Recession didn’t really happen
- US military situation
- AllIn brand hit new heights
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