Trump's market impact: Bitcoin, M&A, IPOs + transition picks; Polymarket CEO raided by FBI

27:37Hold on a second. Can I ask you a question? Do you think that the regulation is the reason why these SaaS companies have never made a dollar profit? No, no, I'm not talking about SaaS. I'm not talking about SaaS. I'm talking about SaaS. I guess we should split. We should split industrial companies. No, the Fintech market, right? So we were talking about Fintech and some of these assets earlier, some of these equities that have been ripping. It's a very narrow part of the economy, right? Like if you look at brought like on a broad base basis, the tens and tens of trillions of dollars of market cap that exist, I do agree with you that deregulation benefits a bunch of those companies, but it benefits sort of the non -tech businesses more than the tech businesses.

28:17The tech businesses right now are relatively lightly regulated. I would think that it benefits farm of businesses, it benefits ag businesses, it benefits real estate companies, it benefits a whole swap of the economy. But we've started to see that re -rating and maybe we'll see a lot more. So maybe Jason, the more nuanced answer to your question is the kind of emanate that I think you want to see, that I mean let's face it, that we all want to see here because we all have the vested interest, which is really specifically tech emanate. I don't think that any of this deregulation particularly accelerates that, but maybe a more nuanced take on this would be that these other more regulated parts of the economy could do well and catch up to some of the earnings potential or the forward pricing of protect businesses.

29:03But again, now you get into this weird trade where you can buy steady cash flowing businesses that can grow in valuation as fast as a fast -boring but money losing tech business. But then you trade both of those two things off and it has effectively the same yield as a tenure. What do you do? I think there's a lot of backed up inventory where venture capital is boards and founders people who control and make these decisions on M &A if they would sell the company to a larger company. I think there's a lot of exhaustion in the market and that will drive the capitulation on valuation. What do you think about it?

29:46What about your evaluations? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I mean, they'll be here. They'll be here. I'm watching it right now. I mean, you think Warren Buffett's going to take 325 billion of cash in the market. No, no, but I do. But I do. He doesn't even buy his own stock. So I think it's going to pay in terms of a multiple. I think it'll be more like Salesforce or Microsoft or Google or Amazon getting off the sidelines because they've looked at and said, you know, did you say it worth the squeeze? we might as well put our efforts and our capital into buying big hardware and Building new products and services, but if they think hey, I got a chance of pulling this through I'm sitting on all this cash What if I hit another YouTube and Instagram?

30:21You know really great acquisitions that were transformative for those two companies meta would not be where is right now Facebook You know that well trim up if they hadn't gotten Instagram and certainly you know freeberg as an alumni of Google if they didn't get YouTube It would be a completely different picture for that company right now. I think there's a lot of those type of acquisitions. I think there's a lot of those acquisitions that have been sitting there waiting and I'm watching the secondary markets to your question What's the discount gonna be the discount was last year? I kid you not 70 80 90 % off the last round for SAS companies and this year it's 20 or 30 I'm seeing this when I'm getting offers to buy our shares in some private SAS companies some private FinTech companies and then I also think If you're a CEO and you watch Robinhood, Uber, Reddit, DoorDash, and Instacart, those five have actually, after getting a little bit of a ass kicking, when they first went out, they have all rebounded massively.

31:22And for the people who held on to their Reddit shares, Robinhood shares, Uber shares, they have been rewarded massively, massively for having faith through this storm. So I think those two things, the capitulation of all these boards and founders are gonna say, you know what? Let's take the haircut, let's go public, and let's tell our story and see if we can make it work as a public company and then the people who feel one step weaker than that, I think they want to cash their chips and they've been in some of these investments, Jamal. It's your 11, 12, 13, 14 for some of these private companies.

31:53There is capitulation on those boards. People are exhausted. So I'm gonna take the other side of the argument on this one. I'll kind of play along. So I think, and I'll disagree a little bit for a couple different reasons. These big tech companies, the ones that have had media businesses or, because remember there's tech that's tech, right? And Vidya does not have a media business, but there's been a conversation over the last couple of years where we need to break up big tech has been kind of part of the conversation with the Dems and now the Republicans are coming in and they're saying the same thing.

32:25We got to break up big tech. So there, I think are a few of these companies, Google being one of them that are very much handicapped right now with respect to what kind of M &A they can do without dealing with the regulatory Sledgehammer coming down on them. So I don't think that those guys are buyers, Jake, I don't think that Google's in a place right now where they can go out and make a bunch of acquisitions. They're gonna do everything they can to avoid the regulatory sledgehammer that's coming their way. First, it was coming from the dams now it's coming from the new administration. There's a bunch of other companies, you know, that don't really fit that bill like Microsoft probably doesn't fit that bill in video.

32:58Adobe, maybe they'll make some acquisitions, but I don't think it's as simple as well. We'll sell it a low price, we'll buy it a low price. I'm just not sure they really need to do that right now. I completely agree with you. I think that these big tech companies will need to pay a pound of flesh for the de -platforming and the censorship that they did. And our superlates are perfect timing. And if we're going to go to the political angle to bring you in, SACS, what are the vibes? My perception is Trump likes to win. Trump wants to see the economy soar. That is his platform. He's a business guy.

33:36I think he wants to see fluidity. I know JD has been not a fan of like the Googles, etc. So maybe you could help us navigate this. Who's right here? What's the possibility of M &A becoming more vibrant in a Trump administration? Well, there's no question that in general, President Trump wants to have the most vibrant economy we can have. And I think to that end, you're going to see the end of this era of deceleration, of regulatory capture and law fair. I think all those things are over. I think that equities that have been straining or tamp down under the weight of these abuses. You see them ripping now.

34:17For example, Tesla, it's gone from roughly 250 to 320 a share just since the election. and you could call that the law fair discount. I mean, that basically is the discount on Tesla stock because the market was pricing in the risk of retaliation. If the Republicans lost, there's a widespread belief that the Democrats would go after Elon and his company. So you can actually measure the law fair discount based on Tesla stock. And some part of regulation, right? Because there's a lot of regulations around self -driving, rocket ship launches, all those things he's involved and there's a lot of regulation there.

34:49Yeah, there was this crazy thing where they made, some regulator may not put a headset on a seal. Did you see this to test the effect on seals of loud noises, the sonic rooms? The sonic rooms. This poor seal. Do you see this poor seal? I had like a headset on. Actually, I don't do that to freeberg. You put the, don't put it on the screen. Put it in post. I don't want freeberg. Don't put it on the screen. That's freeberg. It's going to, anyway. So they subjected this poor seal to exactly the thing that they were worried with harm seals. And any event, the seal seemed totally fine. it didn't. They told you to make a point.

35:24I got it. Yeah. Anyway, it's really crazy. So yeah, it is crazy. But what about this JD help us navigate? I know JD is the VP and then you have Trump is the CEO. Chimoff pointed out maybe there's a little on the GOP anger resentment residual because of the you know, banning of Trump from YouTube and some of these other platforms. Do you think that makes its way into M &A or not? I guess, Zach's like, let me be specific to J. Cal's question, not all tech companies are the same in that point of view, right? And so like tech M &A generally is a thing, but specifically the companies that have had social media platforms, maybe kind of in a different lens from a regulatory perspective.

36:09Is that fair? Yeah, I mean, look, I think that not everything Lena Condead was bad. In fact, she definitely has some fans among the populist Republicans and some of them who have spoken out in her behalf in various areas have been JD Vance, MacGates as well. She did do some good things. Specifically, she was willing to take on the big tech companies. Companies like Amazon, Apple, Google, frankly, they just had a free ride for the last couple of decades, or they were allowed to do anything. And she came in and said there's a new sheriff in town and she was actually willing to Apply pressure on them to not engage in anti -competitive tactics.

36:49So I think she deserves credit for that I think she did change the conversation. I think that we've talked about on previous pods that perhaps There was not as targeted and surgical an approach was used and as a result of that It did have a chilling effect on M &A and so it hurt the you know the small tech environment And so I think that we need to fix that part of it, but I hope that whoever replaces Lena Khan will continue to apply pressure to Big Tech because they are monopolies and they will have user power if they're allowed to and they need to be controlled. Zach, if you had to handicap the probability of a lawsuit or some kind of attempt to dismantle So Google and Facebook, would those be the two companies at the top of your list and how would you handicap that?

37:45So my view is that Google should be broken up. There's abundant reasons for that. There's at least three monopolies in that company. There's the search business, the advertising business in YouTube. I think they should be busted up. What are the odds that that happens? It's hard to say, but what are the odds that that is pursued in the next administration in some capacity or at least investigated, I'd say high. I'd say Facebook or meta -lesso, I don't see the compelling need to bust them up. But quite frankly, I think the issue that meta is going to face is just there were a lot of abuses in terms of censoring the free speech rights of Americans.

38:26Now I don't think that was all the company's idea. I think a lot of pressure was put on the company by the Biden administration. I think they wanted to do the right thing and just didn't show enough backbone. I think you want to show. But Zuckerberg's been clear that he, he wrote it. And he's bent the knee now. He's like, listen, I'm not going to do it again. Yeah, he published a letter. And maybe it was done to some degree to inoculate himself against the result of this election. But I'd say to his credit, it wasn't clear at all who's going to win the election when he put out that letter. And he basically said that he regretted the fact that Veda had gone along with the censorship request by the Biden administration.

39:04And he specifically referred to that whole Hunter Biden story that got censored in 2020. That was election interference. It was a completely true story by the New York Post. It got censored by Big Tech at the request of these 51 former intelligence officials who were lying through their teeth claiming it was Russian disinformation. So he clearly regrets going along with that. In any event, I think there are better ways of handling the speech issue on social networks than busting up Facebook. But I do think though that Congress should investigate or continue investigating what went wrong there and what exactly is the involvement of the intelligence community and the deep state in the censorship request that we saw exposed by the Twitter files.

39:51Remember, can I bring up something maybe tangential and you can react to this? just speaking of kind of like censorship and then just the media complex that we have. I saw today that from filed like a ten or fifteen billion dollar lawsuit against the broadcast networks. Maybe this is old news, but I may and maybe I just saw the news. I saw our headline go by on X. I don't know. Yeah, I saw it on it as well. I didn't make it up. And then separately with Bobby Kennedy's nomination to HHS, one of the things that he has said that he wants to put an end to is the advertising that Farma does on these broadcast stations if you put these two things together where you deprived these folks of their largest revenue source and at the same time they have to sort of like answer for censorship or manipulating content It does do you think that that changes the landscape of how all these companies behave in the future or how do you think the that plays out?

40:52Yeah, I mean absolutely so all right Let's take each one of those. So on the broadcasters, and we've talked about this before, the big broadcast networks and their affiliates receive free spectrum licenses from the FCC. And they get some of the most valuable spectrum there is through those licenses in exchange for certain requirements that they're broadcasters in the public interest. Namely they have to follow a fairness doctrine, which is supposed to mean that you give equal time to both candidates. Well, in the final weeks of this campaign, we saw some really egregious abuses. NBC brought on Kamala Harris, but not Donald Trump for a very favorable segment on Saturday night live the week before the election.

41:34Separately, you saw 60 minutes deceptively at it in an interview with Kamala Harris where they actually took one of our answers from one question and put it as the answer to another question. I mean, really deceptive. So you have a couple of examples with both CBS and NBC, which were violating the equal time requirement were clearly working up behalf of the Conlay Harris campaign. And when you look at the coverage itself, this election was the most unequal in terms of favorable coverage. It was something like a 60 point difference. Something like Conlay Harris received 80 -something percent, that favorable coverage and Trump received something like 80 ,000 negative coverage.

42:18So there's no way. Who's that according to you? Yeah, there's a report by Brent Pazell's media watch .group, it's been around forever and it's been recording the stuff in every election for the last 30 years. In any event, I think that there's a very strong argument that the broadcasters have not been fair. That's a violation of their license requirements and we should be reevaluating their spectrum, especially because it's not the highest best use of the spectrum anywhere. The great irony of this though, Sacks is that they have already been demolished. I don't know if you saw, but a bunch of the anchors at CNN are not renewing because their advertising is so far off that like Chris Wallace, I think was making eight million a year and nine million a year.

42:58And he just said, I'm going to go do podcasts because they think they low -bulled his offer. And if they will, yes. Well, there's a bunch of that advertising from Pharma, which I think in some of these networks is a third or a half. And that's all networks. That's from Fox to CNN and every MSNBC, everybody combined. If they lose advertising from Pharma, it's over. Like those news networks are going to lose half their revenue overnight. That would be a death blow, Jamal, to your question. Yeah, well, let me get back to that. So just on CNN and MSNBC, you're absolutely right. They're announcing a bunch of layoffs.

43:32Their ratings are destroyed. I think they're down. MSNBC ratings are down like 50 % since the election. What that tells me is that their own audience, but they're since the election. Since the election? Yeah. And what that tells me is that they're captive viewer base who's been tuning in for years to all of this TDS has now realized that they were deceived by MSNBC and they've lost credibility even with their most fervent supporters. So there's no question that CNN, MSNBC, they're hurting. Now, Jake out just to make one small modification. They do not receive, they do not have spectrum and licenses from the FCC, right?

44:07Because they're cable networks. So they're in kind of a different bucket. They don't have to buy by the fairness doctrine that CBS and NBC do, right? But they have different problems. And to your point about pharma, there's absolutely no reason to be allowing pharma advertisements on these TV networks. The fact of the matter is the people who are viewing, those networks can't buy, you can't buy pharmaceuticals without a prescription, right? It's up to doctors to write you the prescription. And this is why most countries, most Western countries, prohibit former advertising on the networks. And I think Bobby Kennedy has a very strong argument that it would serve the public interest not to allow this.

44:50We don't allow advertisements for tobacco, right? So I guess the thing that doesn't make sense to me, Saks, is you're so such a first amendment absolutist in free speech app, absolutist, isn't it? And I'm not saying this is my opinion, but my challenge to you to be is, tell me about freedom of speech and expression in relation to being able to do advertising for these problems. Well, I mean, aren't the consumers smart enough to figure it out? The point of the advertising is, I think it's not at the end of the day to influence consumers because consumers can't buy pharmaceuticals. They have to go to the doctor.

45:29Well, that's what they say in it. Ask your doctor about. The purpose of the advertising is to buy favorable coverage. That's the point. There are many examples of people who've worked in these networks saying that they had a story that was negative about pharma companies. That story got spiked because the pharma companies are the biggest advertisers. In fact, I think there was a story about Fox News and who was the guy who brought your ails? Well, there's been a number of stories. I know what you're talking about. There's been stories about Anderson Cooper. Who's the the guy who does international coverage on the weekends?

46:09GPS is the name of his show. I'm drawing. I can't remember right now. He reads it. Caria. Thank you for reads the car. Yes. I think a bunch of those shows were like literally brought to you by Pfizer, brought to you by these things. And so those shows potentially we just go away. And then there was there was reporting on the number of times they would report on those companies and it showed they didn't. So what do you think, Freeberg, of should pharma companies be allowed to advertise to consumers, to ask their doctors, to ask them about Viagra? What's your take? He's thinking for those of you at home listening.

46:49He's giving a deep thought. Well, he's thinking, Jake, let me just say that I think there is a free speech issue that has to be weighed, okay? So I don't want to be totally dismissive of that. However, I think that the Viagra example is on the like far end of the spectrum of a drug that by, you know, by advertising it, you could actually get consumers to request it from their doctor. I don't think most drugs are like that. And I think my contention would be that the real reason they're paying all this massive advertising is not to influence consumers, but to influence the coverage that they get.

47:23And there is something very corrupt about that. And I think that Bobby Kennedy has a really strong point that if you were to remove that incentive that many people inside the industry have admitted it exists, then you would get much fair coverage of these pharma companies and we would actually get to be a healthier country because you wouldn't allow them to basically manipulate the public debate. So that's the argument. Freeberg, you want to chime in on it or no? I mean, I feel like there's some market correction that takes place here, which we're already seeing, which is the consumers are moving away.

48:01We just talked about moving away from cable news, moving away from legacy media. They don't trust it. The trust is at an all -time low. I don't know if it's necessarily the government's job to determine who advertises what, where, how, and why. I don't like the government having that sort of degree of authority, generally speaking, because it can then lead into the government having overreach and oversight to control entities that maybe are competitive with the government in different ways. I do believe that the beef with big tech is a result of big tech's influence over the population where big government wants to have that degree of influence over the population.

48:41So it's actually a battle between government and private entities over who can influence the population and who has the ability to control the narrative. And I think that the general concept that the government should be determining who advertises, where, what, how, and why is not a great one. And I don't think that consumers are dumb. I think that consumers are showing their proclivity for independent media and independent news sources because they don't trust the influence that's been kind of imparted upon these other channels and these other sources and they're moving away from it. So I don't know if it's as much kind of a regulatory question and big farm I needs to be affected.

49:18I think that the market to some degree does its job. I don't think the consumers are dumb. I will also just kind of counter one of SACs' points. I think that there are drugs like multiple sclerosis is a good example. There was a drug introduced a couple years ago called Ocaravus and it was a new therapy for multiple sclerosis that is extremely effective. It's a It's a really a big step change in biological therapies. And a lot of people that were on MS and have had MS for decades take kind of old school malt old school drugs that maybe aren't that effective. So to create awareness and they're not regularly seeing their doctors, they may not go in and see their doctor every year like they're supposed to.

49:57So the the pharma companies are creating awareness that there's this new modality in this new product that could help them to get them to go into the doctor's office. I don't want to say that these are all evil, trying to control and influence. There are good drugs that come to market. They're beneficial to people and people don't know about them. How also they're supposed to get that word out if they're not able to advertise. So I don't think that it's all negative and all malicious behavior and manipulation of media. People, we all have the resources. We all have the capacity and we are all likely very frequently going to doctors.

50:29Most people don't. And so most people that have chronic disease or have health issues, there has to be a mechanism for making them aware of new options, new alternatives, new products that are coming to market. So I'm not super like putting my foot down saying, pharma company shouldn't be able to advertise, shouldn't be able to buy media out there and put ads up and tell people about stuff that they've discovered or that they've invented that's been regulated, that's been tested, that's been approved, and that works and can help save lives. I think they should have the freedom and ability to do that.

50:57So I think there's a bit of a nuance here to how this gets handled is my point. Yeah, I mean look, I'm not saying that there's no benefit at all to letting pharma companies advertise some products. I think the question you have to ask is why is so much money going from pharma to these news outlets because most of the products, you know, that you generally can't buy them. I'll tell you the reason. The reason is that the farmer companies make so much money off of government funded insurance programs Let me just state that again if we only had private insurance or if consumers had to pay for their drugs and their therapies themselves The cost of drugs would go way down The reason the cost of drugs has gone way up is because so much of the government insurance programs Don't negotiate drug prices and there are all these middlemen and all these people that sit in between that have been regulated through regulatory capture into the system that has allowed an incredible inflation in the cost of drug prices.

51:57Therefore, there is a lot of money to kind of continue the capture of the system. I don't think that it is right, and I think that the free market generally, or having a less regulatory capture market, will allow an appropriate kind of pricing of therapies and appropriate kind of adjustment in the market, which doesn't exist today. So so much money to kind of keep the market the way it is needs to kind of keep flowing. That's my sense of this. I don't think it's about bad drugs need to kind of stay and play as much as it is. This market has been allowed to inflate. And the cost of healthcare and the cost of drugs has inflated in a way that's simply untenable and it doesn't make sense.

52:33And I think that it's because of regulatory capture. And I think that that needs to change. And I'm hopeful that it does. That's the second reason then to get this form of money out of advertising because you're basically explaining it as like a self looking ice cream cone. But again, there's another reason as well. I think that explains the sheer magnitude, which is its influence buying, its influence buying. Yeah, awesome. Which at your point, Saksos, that was what it's about to bring up, you know, they're, it's very subtle. You're not gonna have somebody at NBC where CNN or Fox come down and tell Tucker Carlson or Rachel Maddo or Anderson Cooper, hey, you can't cover the story.

53:11But there is a bunch of self -centrorship that occurs. I believe where people just don't select certain stories to be on the docket and they just Shape the coverage so they might not say something positive or negative about Pfizer or Johnson Johnson wherever it is They'll just avoid that story and because These anchors are getting paid or have been previously paid 10 10 million 25 million a year Do you think they're going to like really go hard at Pfizer or somebody like that? No, they're just not going to I bid inside the machine They just avoid those stories. Okay, let's keep going through the docket here.

53:51I think it's pretty good conversation. I know, by the way, I just wanted to say to the Trump administration, if you want the economy to rip, let M &A rip. But my one caveat is, this is a really simple way to do this. If you're under a trillion dollar valuation, let those companies buy and sell each other because then we could go from a Mag 7 to a Mag 70. That's where I think actually it makes the most sense. If you actually are concerned about the consolidation of power in the top seven, let them sit out acquiring more great companies and let the people under that who are the mid -market cap companies, let them do the buying and selling because then you might have a Mag 8, 9 and 10 show up.

54:28That's not talking my book. It would be better for me, Friedberg, to let the Mag 7 participate because they can pay higher prices. They're not price sensitive. But I do think the mid -market companies buying and selling would make a healthier environment for competition. So you think it, sorry, you think it creates more competition, which will that'll benefit consumers and grow the economy. Well, look at it this way. If somebody wants to buy, let's say wemo gets spun out, somebody wants to buy it. If Amazon can't buy it and Tesla can't buy it and Amazon can't buy it, but they could merge with Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, you know, all those mid -air B &B.

55:05If those companies could consolidate, can you imagine what would happen if Amazon couldn't buy those companies, but you could see Waymo spin out and then partner with DoorDash and partner with Airbnb and you had that as one company. Now you got a $400 billion company that is nipping on the heels that is aggressively competing with Amazon. That's what you want in the market is more competition for the Mag 7. You don't want the magnificent 7 to run away with it. And we could create the eighth, ninth and 10. So just imagine that freeberg. There was another trillion dollar company. I think Tesla just became a trillion dollar company again.

55:40So now that they're up in those ranks, great. Don't let Tesla, don't let Amazon, et cetera, Nvidia buy more companies. Let those, that mergers and acquisitions and that strength happen under the trillion dollar mark. What do you think of that general concept, free bird? Yeah, I generally think competition is good. I generally think free market should be allowed to operate and I've shared my point of view. I think bigger is going to drive more innovation than lots of little. So. Okay, I can Waymo wouldn't exist if not for Google plowing billions and billions and I don't know about you guys I took Waymo around the city yesterday pretty sick like it is legit.

56:15I don't go to the city. Yeah it's pretty legit and I think that's a toxic cesspool And by the way, I will say my other comment is I think San Francisco has gotten 10x better now that I've been working downtown down the last week or two. 10 % better from a toxic cesspool, just means it's a cesspool. I think part of the reason is all of Walgreens has gone. There's no Walgreens left. You can't find the other range of stuff. It's problem solved. There's nowhere to do crime anymore. I can't buy toiletries. I'm trying to have bonds. It doesn't exist. It's a cesspool. How do you do that? You got to ask Jason.

56:50Jason, how do you do that? Get an Amazon package delivered. Yeah, I don't. I'm in Texas. You could do whatever you want here. Jason gets his supplies to Air Drop day in once a month. What are you talking about? I'm bullish on the services good turn around because I think Daniel Lurie getting elected mayor was huge and this doesn't get really as much attention but it's very important. The board shifted. The radicals got voted off the board supervisors. The board of supervisors are less progressive. Daniels in the mayoral office. Good problem. I think the city's already like turning around. I've been super blown away the last couple of weeks I've been downtown.

57:27I'm like, why am I not working downtown every day? It's actually really nice. It feels like San Francisco 20 years ago. Let's see. I'm pretty bullish. Yeah. I mean, safety is the number one thing. If they can stop the overgift, put under control. San Francisco spends one and a half X per capita of what New York City spends. And that's something that Daniel and his team have kind of said they're going to address sort of like their own doge. And there's a team going in there to address this. So I'm really bullish on what's going to happen with the city. It's just such a great place. It seems like the power resides in the supervisors and they seem to have flipped two or three of the really lunatic ones right?

58:01So they got rid of dopey impressed in Who is the other guy? Peskin he was a idiot and they those guys are done. So that's progress. Do you want to talk about the Trump candidates? Check out yeah, let's get to that in a second But before we get to that FBI rated the home of polymarket CEO Shane Copeland He was on the election night stream. He was rated on Wednesday, November 13th, eight days after the election. They say, Polly Market is Bloomberg. Access Polly Market is being investigated for allegedly accepting trades from US based users. Here's the backstory. On 2022, Polly Market paid 1 .4 million to settle a case with the CFTC for offering option contracts without proper designation.

58:47The commodity futures is trading commission also ordered a company to prevent US traders from making bets. They recently said Polymarket that is that they had taken additional measures to block Americans from trading. At the same time, Calci and Robin Hood were able to offer presidential prediction markets because Calci, it seems like they won their lawsuit against the CFTC last month. So that allowed some betting markets to happen. But Polymarket is still banned from the US because of that settlement in 2022. Here's the Polymarket claim. They claim the raid was. obviously political retribution by the outgoing administration against polymarket for providing a market that correctly called the 2024 presidential election and Shane posted on X scourging that the current administration would seek a last -ditch effort to go after companies They deemed to be associated with political opponents a bunch of conspiracy theories flying around Peter Till and Founder fund have made an investment into the company and Nate Silver as an advisor.

59:44I guess I'll just say we're not too big. They're much more accurate than they so far. And the manipulative can't it be if they got everything right? Yeah, I mean, that's literally the point I was about to make. And I'll just end with this and then give it to you, Sachs, for Red Meat.

1:00:04Americans are not allowed to participate in a lot of different markets. And these kind of actions have been taken many, many, many times as we all know, poker, crypto real estate and prediction markets have all had actions like this taken against them and they typically are a side to the office is to or just his house just his house according to the information we have right now they've lost into his house at 6 a .m. and they took his phone by the way shout out to like if you're breaking the law why wouldn't they all that TVD yeah that's a great great speculation and important to note this action came after the election is resolved.

1:00:43So it's obviously FBI knew that doing this beforehand would be seen as political and doing it after I don't know what I'm saying. The decision, no I don't know what you're saying. I'm adding something else, which is they obviously knew to be political sacks. And so they did it after. They knew if they did it before, that would be look like, you know, really bad, that prediction market, that's prediction Trump, a Trump win was rated. So they did it after, what do you think, Sacks? What's going on? Okay, I think it's for a little or not, I guess the question. Don't know what was driving this. It's certainly an extreme action to bust into someone's home at 6 a .m.

1:01:19with the FBI and take your phone. So it's very curious. I think there's three theories that I've heard that I think could explain this and I want to just be very clear that there's no proof on any of this. It's just speculation. Yeah, it's a speculation about going on. Yeah, but by the way, just before I get into it, I think Shane Copeland had one of the funniest tweets He's never seen. New phone. Yeah, new phone who does makes you should show them. I mean, that was like, ballsy. The FBI buss in your house, takes your phone, and that's the person you tweet. I think that means that this is probably not a serious situation, but anyway, go ahead.

1:01:53Well, who knows. But yeah. Or he's confident as I would I would say. Okay. So theory number one is that what the feds are looking for is whether any domestic whales were illegally wagering on the election outcome because theoretically the money is also supposed to be offshore because domestic wagering on the election was illegal. However, a court rule just days before the election that domestic wagering was legal. So that's a theory number one doesn't really make a lot of sense because the FBI would be enforcing a rule or a law that the courts had just overruled to stays before the elections up.

1:02:34But that's theory number one. Theory number two, and this theory was raised by Fortune Magazine, is that the, that polymarket was rife with what's called wash trading, which is a form of market manipulation where shares are bought and sold, often simultaneously, and repeatedly by the same people to create a false impression of volume and activity. This is illegal in the US, and it does occur in crypto markets. So they could have been going after that, But again, it does seem like a very extreme thing to bust into his house. Why don't you just ask Shane for what record should we start with the US government have if it's all offshore in that context?

1:03:12I don't know. I'm just a US based company not possible theories, but Fortune magazine did did raise that theory. But again, if that's what your claim is just subpoena Polymarket during business hours. I don't know why you need to raid the guys home or raid the office That's where the files are. Right, now let me lay out theory number three, okay, which is gonna be a little bit more popular. To put it in the bathroom. Here we go. But get the tip while. If somebody was manipulating these sites, okay, then on whose behalf were they doing it? And what you'd have to say is that they were doing it on behalf of the Kamala campaign, because in the last few days of the election, and there was a weird blip where polymarket and calcium, especially calcium even more than polymarket, all of a sudden flipped to Kamala.

1:04:02And you can see this particularly in Pennsylvania where all of a sudden there was a big flip at the end away from Trump towards Kamala, that turned out to be totally fake. And Trump won Pennsylvania pretty handily. And so you got to wonder, wait a second, was a Kamala supporter maybe trying to push the narrative that there was a last minute surge to Kamala, because that's what the actions seemed to imply. And remember that at the same time, this was happening, there was a big, there was like a media push to create a narrative by her supporters in the media that there was a late break for a Harris by independence.

1:04:40And so you have to kind of wonder was somebody trying to push the prediction markets at the last minute to feed a media narrative that they were trying to create? Look, I have no evidence of this whatsoever. But the action in the betting markets and the narrative they're trying to create in the media do line up. So if somebody was gonna investigate election manipulation, this is what they should look into. Jamoth, you have any thoughts here? No. Zero thoughts. I mean, yeah, you know, my thoughts on an error. I don't see him ever doing anything risky or illegal. So it makes no sense to me. I'm guessing that somebody made him aware, pure speculation of something in the system, and that probably was on his phone, and they probably wanted to get that.

1:05:25And it's probably like a speeding ticket, ticky -tacky thing. And you just have the law still working its way through the system, because they, Sachs, were under in order to not take US, but Kalshi had gotten the law changed with their successful lawsuit, where they had defended their case. So I would say it's all allegedly folks. And so, wait for more information. This was a good idea. All right, Trump is building his team. And it's a long list. We've got, I guess, dozens of names right now. So let's start with the four. Who's your favorite, Jacob? Well, my opinion probably doesn't matter all that much.

1:06:06But let me go with the four that are creating the questions. I'm off. Let's let's create the let's go with the four that are having the most buzz and then I'll let you each Tell me what you think is your one candidate you love The one I yeah, there is one actually I love but let's I'll say that's not who's that I'm curious I'm genuinely curious the fake and Elon doing do is my absolute favorite. Yes, anything else that I am Fascinated by Bobby Kennedy going in and trying to make the country healthier. And the country is the most sick country, I think, of all of the Western countries. And I think our food system has massive problems.

1:06:48So I'm very excited to see what he does inside of the Health and Human Services Department. I think it's a little bit controversial, obviously, but I don't see how it could be any worse than what we currently have. How do you feel about that? Who's your favorite? I guess we can just go with people's favorites. if you want to go that way. The way I interpret his cabinet picks is that he's creating a coalition. So I view it more as like a package deal, Jay Cal. I'm not going to pick out one or two, although I do have my favorites. The person who I think very astutely understands what Trump is trying to do is Charlie Kirk, who's a major influencer on the Republican side.

1:07:27And he says that what Maha, which is Make America Healthy Again, they get RFK, Bobby Kennedy of the HHS, obviously, the Libertarians get Tulsi at DNI. I would add to that that they also get Elon of a vague at Doge. The base, the populist base gets MacAids, they get Hexeth, that DoD, they get Homan, and then the P -Street Projecting Strength Proud, which is kind of a nice name for Neocond, gets Rubio at Secretary of State in Stafon and get the UN. So I think that Trump is basically trying to have his cabinet reflect the diversity of views within the Republican Party. He's not decisively choosing one side over another.

1:08:10What this means is that during his presidency, he's going to get all the views and all the options within the party. Okay. So that's a collective view. That's an interesting way of about that. Let's go point by point through the most controversial ones. Matt Gates is obviously the most controversial at attorney. That's what they are all young. That's another trend. Yeah. And he has been put up as a journey general. He has to be confirmed by the Senate, obviously. He's the House rep from Florida. Sax, how qualified is he for this job on a scale of one to ten? I think that Matt Gaetz would be a breath of fresh air at DOJ.

1:08:43I mean, look, here's the... Why is that? The DOJ has been involved for the last eight or nine years in a completely fabricated effort to portray Donald Trump as an agent of the Russians. It started with the Steel dossier. They then opened an investigation based on the phony piece of opposition research funded by the Hillary campaign. They lied to the Pfizer quark to spy on Donald Trump's campaign. They then worked with the various intelligence services and with the media to create this like hoax that went on for years and years. There's been no accountability for that. Furthermore, in the 2020 election, you also had that effort to essentially cover up the 100 Biden hard drive.

1:09:28That the FBI and DOJ were sitting on that for roughly a year. They created a phony story that it was Russian disinformation when it turned out to be completely authentic. So you can see there's a lot to clean up there. How qualified does the honestly want to 10 with the president? What the president ran on was that the DOJ needed to be de -weaponized, that it had been turned into a partisan political apparatus for the Democrats. I don't think anyone can argue with that at this point. I think the American people clearly bought into that argument. Now, in order to clean it up, you're going to have to bring in a total outsider who's willing to break some eggs and shake things up.

1:10:07Is Matt Gaetz the only person who could do that? No, there are other people who could do it. but Matt Gates is definitely qualified for that role. He was one of the most outspoken critics in Congress of this weaponization of the FBI. He was never fooled by the Roshigade Hoax. Most the establishment was... And anybody who bought into the Roshigade Hoax is not qualified to run the DOJ at this point. Okay, any concerns? Well, there's a bunch of unproven smears and accusations that have been made against him. I'm gonna put it like that. Any other concerns, right? Excuse me? aside from the the investigations and whatever in the smear a bunch of unproven yeah smear and accusations have been made against him and my own view on that is that if there was really something there I think Merrick Garland's DOJ would have acted on it two or three years ago so I personally discount all these smears without there being any evidence whatsoever and I think it's very predictable that we're seeing with both Matt Gays and with policy is that the worst accusations get made without any evidence in the media when the blob or the establishment wants to stop a true populist reformer from cleaning up their backyard.

1:11:17Freeberg, your thoughts on the decades? And that seems to be the most controversial one. And he concerns you, and he keeps the most suited guy for the job. I don't want to comment on the decades, but I'd like to talk about why not? Because I'd like to talk about a broader point of view on it. Okay. So I think there's this kind of thing that happens in biology called evolution. And a lot of people think evolution is this continuous process, but it's not. Evolution is this process by which there is some significant growth for a period of time. And then there is an extinction event or an external force that causes what ultimately becomes what's called punctuated equilibrium.

1:12:01So the whole kind of system resets, and then the healthier, stronger species survive, and they grow and they persist. And if you look at the first chart that I pulled up, this will just show you guys past extinction events, large amounts of biomass over the past half billion years get wiped out when these extinction events occur, and then evolution occurs because the species that can survive the extinction of hand persists in the environment and they grow and that's how evolution kind of actually takes place. Is there an external force that changes what survives and what does it. It's kind of a testing force.

1:12:37If you look at federal spending, then this is a crazy link, but there's federal spending over the last couple of decades. And I would argue that many of the agencies, much of the bureaucracy, many of the jobs created, many of the spending programs, many of the operating models, many of the behaviors, can kind of be viewed as a species or species within this ecosystem that have kind of grown a lot over the last few decades. And I think what Trump's mandate was by the people, and people don't want to hear this, and they don't like it, but his mandate was to be kind of the extinction event. And whatever agencies, whatever operating processes, whatever individuals, whatever bureaucratic systems exist within the federal government that can withstand the scrutiny of the individuals that Trump is going to put in charge of each of these agencies that they can survive and they can come out the other end.

1:13:32There is certainly some degree of strength and resilience and hardiness. This is not about right or wrong. This is going to bring it to exist if they can survive. This is going to bring it, this is going to bring in the most disruptive force that federal agencies have ever seen and the intention with Trump isn't to find and some person to keep running things the way they have been running the path. His mandate from the people who elected him based on the message he put out there is to do the opposite, which is to go in and be as disruptive and damaging and destructive as possible. And whatever comes out the other side will be stronger, will be harder and theoretically will be more resilient.

1:14:10And I think that that's the event that's underway. Now, the people who are getting exactly what they want in Trump's candidacies are the Democrats. They were saying Trump is gonna put a bunch of crazy lunatics in office and he's gonna make them the cabinet and they're gonna end there. And now they're able to kind of clap their hands and say, we told you so, we told you so. And I'm not sure that if they're really getting the message, which is that the intention here isn't to keep things running the way they have been running, but to really fundamentally test the systems. And test the systems with the most challenging oppositional forces the systems have ever been tested by, which is the candidates or the individuals that he's putting in charge of each of these agencies.

1:14:48So I'm not saying it's right or wrong one way or the other, but I'm making an observation that this is going to be kind of an extinction level event that Trump's decisions on who he's putting in place, I think, are going to drive an outcome on the other end. That's going to make the government look very different. And I'm not going to sit around and say this person's good, this person's bad because I don't think the point is to find someone that's quote qualified to do the job. the intention is actually quite different. And the outcome may actually be positive for America, if you fast forward a couple of years, in some cases, and there's some cases where things could get really messed up and people could suffer and jobs will be lost and all sorts of bad things will happen, but we cannot continue the way we have there.

1:15:26With respect to federal spending, with respect to federal spending, bureaucracy and inefficiency in the federal government. And so something has to happen. And if this is the path by which this gets resolved in the limited window that's in front of this particular administration, which is probably two years, maybe four. Maybe this is what has to happen. Shabbat, where do you stand on free birds? Interesting metaphor here that we're sending meteors into each of these departments to blow them up and see if they survive an extinction level event. So you're nodding. Do you think this is interesting framing?

1:16:00Great take. I have nothing to add to freedberg's tape. Got it. Who's your favorite? You asked me in the question. I answered. Who's your favorite? Well, I think let's take Elon and Vivek off the table because that's an obvious one that we've been buying since the beginning. Yeah. And we know and we all support the idea who's not against more efficiency. I mean, you have to be an idiot to be against efficiency. It's like the easiest one to say you love. I think the highest beta pick so far has been Bobby Kennedy. I think the second highest beta pick is Matt Gates explain highest beta pick in this context.

1:16:33Please. I think the third is Tulsi Gabbard. that there is the potential for an enormously positive tour three sigma outcome, but there's also the chance that it can really not work. That was exactly why I pick Bobby Kennedy because he's going to shake it up. Peter Tiel just did this podcast with Barry Weiss and it was fantastic, by the way, highly recommend. Highly recommend. He's awesome. The one of the great things he said is that he was talking about science, but I think the example works here as well, which is that we didn't have enough skepticism and we had too much dogma. He was talking about sort of like the death of science.

1:17:15And I think that that idea applies here as well, which is that the federal bureaucracy has not really been challenged. And Vivek put out a very compelling post on X -Ware. He basically said like, well, when you, on the one hand there's going to be radical transparency but on the other hand there's a lot of case law that we can use to kind of try to really dismantle the government apparatus and they're putting themselves on a shot clock to do it by 2026 for the 250th anniversary so I think I'm really predisposed to this idea that it'll force the government to be very resilient at the end of this process and I think that's a good thing.

1:18:00And it'll probably be very different than what it is on the way in. And I think that that can be very positive. All right. So we got Shamaaf and myself actually giving some specific names that we thought were interesting. I'll go back to you, Saks. Maybe I'll phrase it as to Shamaaf's phrasing, which one do you think has the greatest chance of creating a massive potential change that could be positive, but also has some possibility of a destructive downside. In other words, it could go either way, but man, if it goes the right way, it could be brilliant and amazing and great for all Americans who would be your number one, number two in that regard.

1:18:37Well, you have to identify what the potential downside is. I think the single biggest risk in a second Trump term is that somehow the United States gets into an unnecessary war. A war that we don't need, another forever war. I certainly not what President Trump once he's been abundantly clear on the campaign trail that he wants to avoid wars, he wants to avoid World War III. It's clearly where all of his instincts are. But the fact of matter is we have a very fraught and difficult international situation right now. The Middle East is on fire. We have a proxy war going on with Russia. So there is the chance that things could always spiral out of control.

1:19:13And you need, I think, within the cabinet not just hawkish voices but also dovish voices so that the president has the full range of options at his disposal. And so in that sense, I would say that, you know, Tulsi is being one of the more dovish voices is incredibly critical just to balance out some of the other voices who are more hawkish. And so in that sense, I think, you know, just making sure that the president gets to hear from a widespread review. So I think that that part is very important. So, Tulsi, Tulsi would be your peck for life? Yeah, just because like Tulsi could literally make the difference between whether we get in a necessary forever war or not.

1:19:55I would also just say that with respect to the other pecks, there's obviously a lot of hysteria going on, a lot of hyperbole about the downsides. I don't think it's going to be like a meteor hitting the earth. I don't think it's that destructive. I think that it's more like will some eggs be broken up to make an omelet, right? That's the analogy I would use rather than the meteor. And the thing I would just say is that we all agree the United States is currently on an unsustainable fiscal path. We know that we're spending too much money. We know that the bureaucracy is too big. What's the downside of shaking it up?

1:20:30There's this way more upside than downside in terms of shaking up this bureaucracy. Because the current path is bankruptcy. Exactly. So why do we have to act like that? It's so risky to bring in outsiders and populists and reformers into these agencies. We know there's gonna be huge resistance to them. The biggest risk, frankly, is inertia taking over and the reformers aren't able to do enough and we all do nothing It's not an option. Yeah, and then we go bankrupt. That's the big risk. Why is Tulsi getting attacked? What's the Russian connection? People are saying like I don't know any of the history history here, so tell me.

1:21:08It's obvious. It's because Washington is a very hawkish place. It's basically run by the war machine. There's no money going to Washington to lobby for peace. All the money in Washington is coming from the military industrial complex. So by definition, it's extremely hawkish and it's geared towards war. And Tulsi is some history with Tulsi in Russia. Yeah. Disafish my point. Yeah. Tulsi has been one of the few consistent voices advocating for peace. So of course, the establishment wants to basically get her nomination vetoed. But again, I think you have to see the cabinet as a package deal. I think it's very important to have to see as one voice for peace within a larger cabinet that already has many hawkish voices.

1:21:52Okay. All right, everybody, for your sultan of science from O 'Hallow, David Freiberg, the chairman dictator, Chimoff Paihapati from 8090 and David Sacks from craft ventures. I am Jason Kalankhanis your host here at the All in podcast and this week in startups. We'll see you next time on the All in podcast. Bye. Bye Back at you chief retribution officer Well, let your winners ride

1:22:31We open source it to the fans and they've just gone crazy with it. I'm going to the US. I'm going to the US.

1:22:44Besties are gone. That's my dog. I'm taking it away. It's your driveway. Sit down. Oh, man. My amputation will meet me at once We should all just get a room and just have one big hug or two because they're all just Just like this like sexual tension that we just need to release that out What your heartbeat? What your heartbeat? Your heartbeat What? We need to get merged I'm doing all this!

1:23:17I'm doing all this!