David Friedberg: Hey, everybody, it's Wednesday on This Week in Startups. SPEAKER_01: That's right. Today, we're going to kick it off with a discussion about TikTok and surveillance. Molly and I get into a bit of a debate about the risks and what we should be worrying about. And I have a message for employees of TikTok here in the USA. SPEAKER_04: He does. It's a little bit spicy. And then we're going to talk about labor. And apparently, Amazon is forecasting it will run out of workers in some of the cities it operates. And we're going to talk about reasons and solutions like we do. SPEAKER_06: Yeah, we talked a little bit about our addiction and then lowering our carbon footprints and our consumption footprints and this whole new genre of startups that are doing SPEAKER_09: what is it called? Circularity. Circularity. It's not the singularity. It's a circularity. SPEAKER_10: It's really an interesting concept. It's like an OK Boomer segment with Molly explaining this stuff to me. SPEAKER_12: It's going to be a great show. Stick with us. SPEAKER_15: This Week in Startups is brought to you by Odoo. Odoo is a fully customizable and fully integrated suite of business apps that lets you build and scale your stack as you build and scale your business. Your first app is free forever. And right now, Odoo is offering $1,000 off your first implementation pack at odoo.com slash twist. That's O-D-O-O dot com slash twist. Coda. Coda is the all-in-one doc for teams. If you've got a stack of niche workflow tools, or if you're buried in docs and spreadsheets, Coda is the doc that brings it all together. Startups can get a $1,000 credit at coda.io slash twist. And adquick. If most of your advertising dollars are going to digital ads, it's time to diversify. Out of home advertising like billboards offers low-cost, high-value reach. Adquick makes it easy to plan, buy, and measure all in one place. Visit adquick.com slash twist and mention twist to get $1,000 off your first campaign. SPEAKER_17: Okay, everybody. Apparently we're going to need to talk about TikTok again. SPEAKER_04: Yes, still again. There has been, of course, a bunch of reporting, a bunch of speculation. What do Chinese authorities have access to? What does ByteDance have access to when you're using TikTok? TikTok, of course, claims that all user data on US users is stored in the US. And of course, TikTok continues to expand its influence in the Western world. It's up to 1.6 billion monthly active users, which is a lot. It has cemented itself, I think, as the competition to Facebook, Twitter, even YouTube. YouTube, which is very unlike YouTube, actually created a new product, the Shorts product, to compete with TikTok and keep users on its platform and so on and so forth. Now, let's talk about TikTok's influence in the US. Yeah. And whether it is or is more is as influential or even more influential in American politics than Facebook. Facebook, TikTok, of course, is a Chinese company operating in the US and worldwide. China, as a reminder, basically blocked Google and Facebook. So as Jason has pointed out many times, SPEAKER_23: this is an asynchronous relationship. TikTok operates here. American social networks do not SPEAKER_24: operate in China. Yeah, it's one way. There's no reciprocity here. We are not allowed to have our apps in SPEAKER_04: China. Yep. They are behind the fight, the great firewall. US lawmakers have tried to insist that TikTok has to keep its US data in the US and TikTok has said that it makes every effort to do so. However, there is some recent reporting from BuzzFeed News based on internal company audio from 80 leaked meetings, 80, 80 saying, and it seems that the bulk of these meetings were about how to do this and efforts to do this in the wake of the timing in this article is a little unclear, but it seems to be in the wake of the Trump administration, preparing executive order saying that TikTok would have to be banned. SPEAKER_29: They were like, Oh, crap. Okay, we're gonna we did a little saber rattling. Trump did a little saber rattling, something I agree with them on. And then you remember, the US version said they would SPEAKER_17: move the data to Oracle's cloud or something like that, Microsoft was going to put in a bid to buy it, etc. At the same time, India banned it and banned other Chinese apps because they're smart. And they SPEAKER_10: understand trade. For some crazy reason, we're not letting them in here. But what really stuck out to me here was all of the backdoors. So if you read this story, basically, all of the tools and all of the monitoring and the management systems of tick tock were written by the Chinese parent company. The people in the US sound like bumbling idiots, who have no idea how any of this works and where the data is and who's seeing it. And the people at Oracle and the consulting firms that work with them are kind of saying, Listen, we're just giving you raw hardware, it's up to you to put the software on it, which means they have no insight. And you have to wonder, you know, developers are very principled people. This is 80 meetings. So they're 80 meetings into this process. And if they were doing two meetings a week, this is like a year's worth of meetings or so. Because that's what I would think the cadence would be here. Yeah, some buddy is very concerned about this internally. Enough that they would risk taping all these meetings and leaking them. That to me seems like a major red flag, like major, major red flag, the fact that some principled person who is not going to get any financial gain from doing this and could be in the crosshairs of the Chinese government, which is no joke. And the US and the companies and could be sued for damages, all this kind of stuff. And who knows, it could be one of the consultings at the consulting firms, or it could be Oracle, it could be anybody in these groups, but I have a feeling it's somebody inside of tick tock itself here in the US. SPEAKER_36: I'm going with Facebook spy, if I'm being honest. And here's why. Wow, Facebook spy, how would they get into the meeting? SPEAKER_04: Well, maybe they went to work for Facebook, or maybe, you know, we're planning to, I don't really know. But here's what I do. Here's what I do now. Okay, one. And this does it, although I have defended Buzzfeed reporting, because they have it recently, and they do, and they have done some good SPEAKER_39: reporting. This story, as it unfolded, right, like this story, as it begins, makes it sound like, SPEAKER_04: oh, crap, that all US user data has been flowing freely. And that's just that. And all these tools have a backdoor built into them, the end. Yeah. And then as this, as the reporting unfolds, it becomes clear that these meetings were all about attempting to secure. Yes, US user data, which is a SPEAKER_39: good thing. Yes, that that turned out to be a slightly difficult process. Very, very difficult. SPEAKER_04: That but in the recordings, the vast majority of situations, and I'm reading from the story, which is way down in the middle, quote, in the recordings, the vast majority of situations where China based staff access to US user data were in service of Project Texas's aim to halt this data access, meaning that they were testing. Yeah. In service of making sure that that wasn't happening. Right. So that's like buried way down halfway through. Okay. And all of the most of the recorded meetings focus on tick tock's response to these concerns. I don't know why someone leaked this, I do think that there is some concern about whether tick tock in China, you know, whether this user data is being accessed in China. I also think that the user data that Facebook and Google, and to some extent, Twitter, but much less are harvesting and using in completely non-transparent ways is equally terrible. And it feels to me a little convenient that these stories are all of a sudden starting to appear at the moment when like Meta's growth has been a revenue growth, at least revenue has been flat for however long now, when this is like the stock price has gone down revenue has been SPEAKER_53: okay, they're still throwing revenue has been great, but the stock price is flat. Yeah, and the SPEAKER_17: earnings have well, it's been down. Yeah, they lost five years worth of growth. And the earnings have gotten a lot of headwinds because of the Apple changes. That's fair enough. And they also have SPEAKER_04: been investing so much. Yeah, I'm just not so I'm honestly like, I'm having this really weird feeling where I'm just not sold on the red scare that is tech talk when I know that it benefits companies that are frankly, just as harmful. Okay, from what we can tell so far when it comes to user SPEAKER_59: data. Let me help you become scared. Let me let me pull you back from. Yeah, this space that you've SPEAKER_01: gone to because I understand why you're there. Yeah, this is a dangerous space. Because Facebook has been a bad actor. And I have been super critical of the firm as have you as has anybody who's just objectively looked at their behavior. And so we look at their behavior, they collect too much information. They have been laissez faire with it. They have done horrible things. Cambridge Analytica was at the name of that scandal. I mean, all these different scandals have piled up over the years. So yes, you're correct in not trusting Facebook, but understand the CIA, FBI, SPEAKER_52: Republican Party, etc. As much as they've tried to get their keys to the kingdom, they had to use third party tools to get that information, they got caught with significant blowback to Facebook, congressional hearings or legislation, the EU stomping on them, Apple, then reducing their ability to track their customer base. In other words, their bad behavior resulted in the entire climate of anti tech and specifically anti social media, here in the US and all that regulation. SPEAKER_10: Yeah. Now let's go to China. They have unfettered access to all the state, just like they have DDs data, just like they have Alibaba's data, just like they remove the CEO of Alibaba, just like they delisted. So when you look at what our government is doing, our government is investigating, SPEAKER_52: and holding Facebook and others feet to the fire, as is the EU to an even stronger degree. SPEAKER_09: China is not is doing the opposite. They're taking over the companies, they're downloading the data sets, they're incorporating them into their giant mass surveillance. And you need only look at how they treat their own people. Whether it's the Uyghurs, or the tracking of anybody who might support any kind SPEAKER_52: of dissent in that country, people who sell books that they don't like in Hong Kong, you know, being sent to the mainland to be re educated, which means starved, tortured, raped, and beaten. All of those re education things that are occurring. All of that activity, it stands in stark contrast to what happens to bad behavior here in the US. Should we be stronger? Should we get control of these companies? Sure, there's arguments to be made. Are we doing it retroactively? Of course we are. That's how you know, the justice system works. You're innocent to proven guilty and getting proven guilty takes, you know, years, if not decades in corporate America. It's imperfect the system. But we have an SPEAKER_09: existential risk here. Before we get to the ad, it makes our team so happy to see our partners celebrate big wins. 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And Odoo is offering you $1,000 in credit on your first implementation pack. So go to odoo.com slash twist for $1,000 off. That's odoo.com slash twist. SPEAKER_01: If the Chinese government and there's a New York Times story that dropped today about all the different provinces and we'll get into that and what the granularity at which they are tracking their own citizens, they're tracking what apps are on their phone, they're tracking their faces, they're connecting their faces to the apps are connecting what they wear, they're connecting where they go, SPEAKER_10: all into a database that the police have unfettered access to, and the police and obviously everybody SPEAKER_67: in the government. If they're doing that to their own people, the second they had the chance to do it SPEAKER_10: to their greatest adversary, the United States, they would do it. And all is fair in spying, they will get all of this data from a senator's son or daughter, a senator's husband or wife or cousin, and they will get the compromise. They will compromise anybody at any time to achieve their goals. And that's why we need to immediately ban TikTok from the United States until such time as they reciprocate and Twitter and Facebook are allowed to be in their country, period, full stop. SPEAKER_52: That is my belief. And that is what you should believe too, Molly. SPEAKER_68: Molly, as much as you hate Facebook, you must come around to my way of thinking. SPEAKER_67: This is a really communist country. You cannot give people the benefit of the doubt. SPEAKER_01: These are sadistic maniac actors. You should look at them no differently than Muhammad bin Salim in Saudi Arabia who chopped up journalists. These are the same people. SPEAKER_04: I'm not convinced that Palantir isn't in the same camp. Like I'm just not. SPEAKER_76: I just spit out my shirt. Okay. I can guarantee you Palantir SPEAKER_67: has not dismembered a journalist or put a million people into concentration camps and had them pick SPEAKER_01: cotton in the north of China. Okay. This is a completely different scale. The, the, uh, what do they call that? Um, the whataboutism? Is that the term when you conflate two different things that should not be conflated? This is textbook. Whataboutism, Molly? We have to get past this. It, the long list of things we do wrong here in the United States is in no way comparable to genocide or chopping up a journalist. Palantir could be evil in your mind, but they're not chopping up a journalist. They're not putting a million people in a, in a concentration camp, Molly. Yeah. SPEAKER_36: Okay. I get it. I'm sorry. I'm so upset about this, but no, I mean, I really, every time I talk about human rights, there is a, there is a, um, spectrum here. SPEAKER_82: There is a spectrum. There is a continuum. There's a continuum. That's the word. Thank you. SPEAKER_39: And there is also manipulation of information to achieve certain names, right? Like we will take SPEAKER_04: our eye off the ball. If we're like, tick tock is the great evil. When in fact we have metadata, we have so much of the same information collection, data collection by the United States government, SPEAKER_39: by cell phone providers, by clear view AI, which is embedded in lots of police departments. And frankly, the fact that we don't chop up journalists now, right? Like that all of this is abstract until it's not. And we're allowing all of the same data collection with the assumption that the United States government, our law enforcement are all going to continue to be good actors in the world. And we don't know that that is the case. And the United States has perpetrated some pretty SPEAKER_04: serious human rights abuses too on the border in terms of separating children from their parents. Like I am definitely not trying to downplay the concern of these regimes that are truly evil, SPEAKER_39: but I am saying that any regime can end up there and that we're not, and I'm not going to pretend that somehow what has happening at tick tock and frankly, what these tapes really show from a reporter, by the way, who would like then full disclosure was like it used to work for Facebook is that tick tock internally seems to be trying really hard to shut off this flow of data. That's what these tapes really say. And to make sure that it's not happening and it's unclear whether it's happening, but that they're trying to, to shut it off. So like, I don't want to focus so much SPEAKER_06: on tick tock. Unpack the quote about the Facebook thing. Yeah, we gotta, we gotta pull up that disclosure that I was a little concerned about as well. Like, right? Like you see that in there and SPEAKER_91: you're just like, wait, what? She worked in policy, she worked, did she work at Facebook previously this report? Cause we invited her on the show, by the way she was going to come on and SPEAKER_04: she's welcome to come on. In the part, by the way, where it says that again, the vast majority of situations we're trying to base staff access to us user data were in service of the aim to halt SPEAKER_23: the data access disclosure. In a previous life, I held policy positions at Facebook and Spotify. SPEAKER_94: Got it. Okay. So she's a policy person who's now a journalist. Policy. Yeah. Policy. I got it. And so your thesis here is I'm not disqualifying her at all. I wonder if she still owns her Facebook SPEAKER_04: stock. Right? Like I'm just saying these stories are popping up at the exact time that tick tock represents an existential threat to Facebook and YouTube. And it's like, I just, SPEAKER_07: I don't, there's something, there's something about the, the propaganda part of this. SPEAKER_94: Why would Buzzfeed allow her to do this story? Why wouldn't they assign the story to somebody SPEAKER_67: who didn't work previously on Facebook? Like, I mean, wouldn't they just say to her, listen, it's great that you got the scoop. Yeah, we're gonna have somebody else do it so that your fingerprints Jason Calacanis: aren't on it. I just, I mean, I think very do it and disclose it, but disclose it at the top of the story. How far down is that? How far down is that? Let's see. I mean, let's see. I mean, David Friedberg: I know we're getting into the weeds here, but I do think that that is very pertinent. What paragraph SPEAKER_108: it's in. Somebody just tell me it's the fifth, sixth paragraph. No, it's like way more. Most people read the first two or three paragraphs in these stories. Okay, so let's see. They don't go SPEAKER_23: below the phone. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. I mean, it's like 25. SPEAKER_110: It's like 25. It's like paragraph, paragraph 25. No, really? Oh yeah. That is dark. I mean, SPEAKER_112: I lost one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. I mean, if it's, if it's not in the first three SPEAKER_111: paragraph, it's eight. All right. If it's in the eighth paragraph, it's a complete paragraph. That SPEAKER_17: is so dumb on whoever the editor at BuzzFeed is like, you guys need to have a meeting about this. This is two very stupid decisions. One, she should not be allowed to write the story. Should hand it off. Number two, Molly's correct. It should be up top where you should have put a second journalist on it and then just disclose this in the top. But what a horrible editorial decision, SPEAKER_18: I think. I mean, look, maybe it's really bad, but it's just, SPEAKER_10: Well, it just, the appearance of impropriety is something you have to always avoid in SPEAKER_17: journalism, finance, whatever. You just never want to be in this position. Um, this is why, like, anytime I'm talking about Lyft or DoorDash, you know, I'd say, oh yeah, listen, I still own some shares of Uber. If I'm talking about, you know, Robinhood, I still own some shares of Robinhood, like, you know, specifically, I don't own shares of Palantir. Uh, and I sold my Facebook shares, which I think was an okay, seems like an okay trade now when I sold them in 110, 120 dollar range. I think I had Facebook shares through a company they bought that I was a SPEAKER_120: shareholder in and yeah, I just didn't want to hold Facebook because I felt bad about it. SPEAKER_67: If you're a startup having a disorganized team is going to kill your business, SPEAKER_09: you need everybody to be on the same page. And as an investor, I see this all the time, you must adopt a right first culture, especially in this remote world and use great structure in a beautiful Coda page. One doc to rule them all works right out of the box. It's totally customizable. In Coda, your text and cables, they live together on the same doc, which means all your valuable data, the objectives, the KPIs, the strategies are all in one place. Nothing gets lost and your team is literally on the same page. Some great ways that we use Coda product roadmaps. Absolutely important. Remote onboarding, super important and taking meeting notes and Coda has a ton of templates for almost anything you can imagine. In fact, we put our 100 point checklist on Coda. So just go to thisweekinstartups.com.sc. You can make a copy of this. You can do the checklist yourself with your internal team. You can expand it. You can make it a 200 point checklist. You could make three sub checklists underneath some of the important items. So join the productivity revolution and sign up for Coda. Head to coda.io slash twist to sign up and get $1,000 in startup credits. Huh? How great is that? SPEAKER_01: But anyway, let's go on to the second story here. Because at the same time, this is dropping. Yep. We find out in the New York Times story that the Chinese government is investing massively in SPEAKER_52: surveillance. There is no doubt in my mind that whatever we know is but 10, 20, 30% of what's going on. Yeah, I think you would agree with that premise if we have okay. And if you've ever seen or know SPEAKER_10: about the Stasi or you've seen the movie The Lives of Others highly recommend this would be a weekend SPEAKER_52: movie you will love. Absolutely fantastic. When you see the level authoritarian governments go to spy on their own citizens, because that is the only way to maintain control it, you will have revolutions and rebels and all kinds of stuff will emerge information and squashing things early is SPEAKER_10: sadly the best technique. This New York Times investigation tracked down over 100,000 Chinese governments RFPs. If you don't know what an RFP is, that's a request for proposals, a document that says, Hey, here's what we're looking to buy. So when we did the conference in Miami, we put out an RFP. We're looking for conference producers, I'm sorry, event producers to do three different SPEAKER_01: themed parties. Here's what we're looking for. Here's what we want to pay. Here's how many people are going. This is our budget, whatever it is. And then people can work, you know, you basically send them the RFP. So they don't have to ask you 20 questions, you're giving them the 20 answers. Okay. These documents were directly from the government themselves. This is the government putting out publicly on their websites, what they wanted, because I guess in China, like in the United States, SPEAKER_10: you put these RFPs out publicly. So you everybody gets a chance to bid on them. So theoretically, the government gets the best price. So a group that watches Chinese behavior collect these SPEAKER_52: before they were taken down and got them to the New York Times, I guess. And the requests were stunning. SPEAKER_10: The government wanted camera installations in apartment buildings, hotel lobbies, malls, with facial recognition technology, and the ability to match your social user social media accounts with your phone and with these photos. So an example was all of mainland China's regions use SPEAKER_52: these phone trackers to map citizens activity daily. If we allow tick tock in the United States, I can assure you the government knows where any senator, any FBI agent, CIA agent, law authority, Department of Justice attorney, or any child of a president or vice president or secretary of state where they are. Now, if you know where the child of a secretary of state is, you probably or a Navy SPEAKER_01: seal, let's say, you're going to know where the Navy seal is. And Navy seals are a pretty big asset and hits were put out on Navy seals. I mean, they actually already know that from Strava. SPEAKER_04: If we allow Verizon in the United States to gather metadata on every citizen with absolutely SPEAKER_39: no transparency or rules. Yeah, we do have rules, but freaking trivial to for a Chinese spy to access that information, go to work for that company, right? Like, I'm just saying that I don't want I like SPEAKER_04: as a person who keeps this on my desk as like a Bible, the age of surveillance capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff, like data collection is massively dangerous and terrifying, and is happening in the United States in companies, almost the exact same rate. Absolutely can see. And I hope that we never end up under an authoritarian government. But I don't know that we won't. And frankly, I don't want our entire like, we all are manipulation so far as just like, to get us to buy stuff. SPEAKER_52: Now take as scary as the possibility you describe is Molly. Now imagine it's the reality. SPEAKER_10: Because it is right now the Chinese government has access to all of this TikTok stuff, I guarantee it. Uh, just you know, dollars to donuts 100% they forgot all this. And who knows what else they've hacked. So the question is, do you want them to have this in real time? Yes, of course, they could send SPEAKER_67: spies out to follow somebody or tell somebody they could compromise somebody's phone, they could SPEAKER_04: jailbreak it. For data collection, to be clear, I am not arguing for data collection. Right. Right. I'm arguing against data collection, but I'm also arguing for easy against easy villains. SPEAKER_141: Well, okay. And I'm not even saying China like the, the, I don't think they're an easy villain, SPEAKER_143: I just think they're a villain. Like China may be, we don't know if TikTok is, we know that there's a SPEAKER_144: lot of protectionism built Americans working as I talk are traders. Oh, any American working at TikTok SPEAKER_52: is a goddamn trader. Wow. And they should quit now. I am 100% debt serious. If you work for that SPEAKER_01: company, you are a trader, you know, there's a reason why we're trying to get them to dismantle the SPEAKER_10: data set. And the reason is a reason Trump did that saber rattling. If you work there, I hope the money SPEAKER_01: is amazing for you to give all of our children's data, all of, uh, this control and let's not even get into the algorithm and how it's programming our children and the detrimental effect, giving them the ability to turn some dials and make the algorithm show things that I don't know, maybe talk about things that in America are very divisive. That is already happening on YouTube and Facebook and SPEAKER_149: you know, that happened to my child on YouTube, you know, or I haven't seen it happen to my child SPEAKER_09: on TikTok. Oh, no, it happens on TikTok too. But we're just the question is as bad as that is. Now give the remote control, give those dials give that control to the Chinese government, the Chinese SPEAKER_01: Communist Party. This thing has to be stopped. Now going deeper into the rabbit hole of this New York Times story. 25 out of the 31 provinces have DNA databases of their citizens. Yeah. Quoting the New York Times, DNA, iris scan samples and voice prints are being collected indiscriminately from people with no connection to crime. China is doing massive domestic surveillance on a level not seen in the SPEAKER_10: history of humanity. For incredibly nefarious reasons, we are doing it probably second only to SPEAKER_01: them. And we're doing it for capitalistic reasons. And Europe is pumping the brakes on it. And we're pumping the brakes on it here too, obviously. Some of it is voluntarily and some of it is for competition SPEAKER_10: reasons like Apple versus Facebook. But we really need to get our heads together on this issue. We need to understand that our rival China is very serious rivalry. India has taken a very savvy approach of blocking these apps. We need to 100% block these apps forever. Either spin the company out and make it a standalone company and get the profits from it. Whatever by dance wants to do, they can get their shareholders are released, make it a US company with the US board, you know, SPEAKER_154: data and then sure more data controls for US companies. Absolutely. All of all of that. Yes. SPEAKER_23: And and and I will just not find it. I mean, I'm sorry, I will not find it credible if we ban tech talk and don't reform data collection in the United States. I just won't. I don't think that's SPEAKER_39: credible. I think these two things. I mean, Palantir is doing data collection SPEAKER_04: or DNA collection, rather, like literally letting people upload more. I mean, it's mostly global in SPEAKER_157: nature, but it is happening. Are they doing that really like opting in people opting into it? SPEAKER_23: No, it's allowing. Let's see. It was mostly in SPEAKER_04: like they allow allowed members of the military in Iraq and other countries to upload DNA samples from remote locations to collect fingerprints and DNA evidence. All right. It's not the same. They're not doing it to the same degree. I'm just saying we I don't find it credible to like, SPEAKER_23: say this, this one thing has to go and everything else that the United States companies and our SPEAKER_157: government are doing can remain the same. Oh, I think it's an end. But I think one is SPEAKER_39: 100 times more. But the more we demonize the one, the less we make it an end. No, no, I think it isn't. It offers us an easy out to say we're not as bad as them, which and even if it's true, it does offer us an easy I mean, I think if we describe exactly what they have access to and SPEAKER_10: why it's dangerous, then people immediately go, Okay, what about YouTube and you say, Okay, yes, let's let's let's drill down into what YouTube is doing. Let's drill down into what Facebook is doing. And then, you know, YouTube is Google, Google has a transparency report on all of the government subpoenas it gets, they fight them, and they report them, right? Unless there's like one category they don't report on, which is I think the FISA ones where they're not allowed to report that a FISA has been given because that would tip off the terrorists. But I think that's only for a SPEAKER_29: short period of time. And that's like a very senior level, uh, judge that can do like a FISA thing. And it's like a whole panel. It's like, it's a real rigmarole to do a private, uh, subpoena like that, SPEAKER_119: or tracking. But, uh, anyway, this is really just, and for the people who work at TikTok, shame on you. Shame on you. Like, how could you work for a Chinese company that's doing this? David Friedberg: That went up a notch quickly. Sorry, I think the people have to own their own behavior. That's it. You know, period, full stop. I feel the same way, you know, about, I don't, I'm not saying I don't SPEAKER_167: want to see relations occur between these countries. What is the end game of the of this, of the idea that if you work with the Chinese, you're traitors. Recipro in for this specific company, I'm saying SPEAKER_52: it's reciprocity, uh, and the data. So if this, if this country, but if has a track record of stealing data, if these engineers can't figure out what's even going on with the software, and we know that David Friedberg: they're tracking, our kids have access to their photo albums. I mean, this is like, uh, really SPEAKER_23: existential risk. To be fair, they do not have a proven track record of taking this data. I said SPEAKER_179: that they do the Chinese Thomas party does. Oh, yeah, yeah, they definitely do. Yeah, that is SPEAKER_180: true. I mean, they were upfront about it. Like we're going to do a security, we're doing, SPEAKER_23: so they, they shut DD off. But would you really want Facebook to be operating in China and knowing how much data Facebook has about everybody? Um, like 2 billion people on earth? Like I wouldn't. SPEAKER_01: I know. Oh, well, there would be an argument to be made in the issue of national security in the SPEAKER_10: issue of national security. I have to think that through. Um, there are two things, the spread of democracy and information and people having access free to free information and free expression. It would be pretty hard to stop Twitter and Facebook, um, from people having this sort of freedom. The SPEAKER_52: thing it would cause if the servers and the data was local is we would Facebook and Twitter and Google would have to hand over dissidents to be tortured, raped, murdered, and beaten. I'm sorry. Re-educated. The umbrella known as re-education in China. So this is why Yahoo left, I think, and a lot of people left and why Google didn't enter. But a lot of companies didn't want to. SPEAKER_184: Apple didn't leave. Tesla didn't leave. Like you are, I mean, how far is this going to go? I'm just SPEAKER_39: saying watch what these takes because how far is this going to go? We do have deep, deep business relations. I'm sorry. The NBA. It's the data can be, is arguably a wholly owned entity of China at SPEAKER_10: this point. And so is Hollywood. So like, yeah, building widgets and the manipulation can occur in movies. Yeah. I, I just think that the data and building widgets are two different things. Like SPEAKER_67: an Amazon basics cable or an iPhone or a Tesla is like a different thing than everybody's data and SPEAKER_04: their photo library. Isn't economic control, frankly, more powerful in some ways. I mean, look at the capitulation that we have seen to China from the NBA, from Hollywood, from, SPEAKER_07: and maybe the opposite China or whatever. Yeah. And then the opposite, you know, SPEAKER_42: maybe China, but Apple is not out John Cena. Apple's not out here pissing off China either. SPEAKER_01: Um, they, they've had a pretty contentious relationship at times, like the, um, the treatment of, SPEAKER_10: of workers and the suicide stuff, like Apple kind of held them to a higher standard. So I think that that's the argument people are making in favor of engagement is that, you know, then everybody's kind of got to meet in the middle on their beliefs. And then, you know, there's the compromising nature of, and then there's national security. So all these things are going on at the same time. Economics are national security. Of course they are, but the data of all these individuals, like the, the scale of the data collection is truly, truly terrifying. If I SPEAKER_04: wanted to break a country, I would do it with economics, not data. Um, you probably use SPEAKER_202: every resource you have. So I don't disagree. I mean, I don't think you can have the one without SPEAKER_04: the other. I mean, Russia, maybe arguably broke us with data or propaganda, but they, yeah, they SPEAKER_205: definitely, yeah, they definitely attempted that. Yeah. And we'll see if we withstand it. Um, but also, SPEAKER_29: we broke them with these sanctions, obviously, like their, their economies really got challenges now and going forward with everybody pulling out of it. So, you know, it's, SPEAKER_10: I think in, in a war, everybody will use every option. And I think this is an option we don't want them to have, which is why India said no bueno with you having the product here in our country, period, full stop. And reciprocity is a way of kind of enforcing it without banning it. It's just like, okay, there's always an option here. And so it's your question, like, but reciprocity, it's kind of a principle thing. Hey, what's good for the goose is good for the SPEAKER_29: gander. Uh, and so we should all play by the same rules. Hmm. Hmm. All right. Good time. SPEAKER_210: We'll have to agree to disagree. I'm sorry I got a little spicy. Good time. I love it. Are you kidding? Get spicy. Well, I'm not, I, I don't disagree with any of your points. I'm not mad at you, SPEAKER_215: Matt. Are we cool? No, I'm disappointed in you. I'm very disappointed in you. No, I'm joking. No, I mean, everybody's gonna, this is not, I don't think the, um, I'm disappointed in you is my SPEAKER_01: favorite. I'm just, I'm so disappointed. I think that this is the thing we have to think about as Americans is when is engagement productive and when is, you know, reciprocity and holding the line appropriate for me, if I'm the NBA, I'm thinking great. You know, if people love LeBron James and, SPEAKER_67: you know, they wear, you know, Steph Curry's Jersey or whatever it is. And they, you know, like that's great for building a fabric between the two countries. We both enjoy the same thing. If they love Tom Cruise movies, great. But if an American has to bend the knee, like they asked SPEAKER_39: Daryl Morey to do. When we literally edit Taiwan out of movies or out of posters. Yeah, that's David Friedberg: ridiculous. So that's where you have to like hold the line, I think. And this, I think is a whole line. Or not. You can't hold the line on everything or else it's just going to be SPEAKER_10: some things you have to negotiate something you have to hold the line. I think India has done a pretty good job with it. You know, they're holding the line on the app being there, but I'm sure they do plenty of trade with China as well. Yeah, so that's, I think this is one of those line situations SPEAKER_09: where we absolutely must hold the line. In 2022 digital ads are not what they used to be costs are increasing, attribution is less effective and targeting. Well, it's just more difficult. This means marketers need to diversify their media mix. And you can do that with OOH or out of home advertising. OOH includes stuff like giant billboards and beautiful painted murals. These kind of ads get great reach, higher brand recall and the lowest CPMs of any traditional ad type. But buying OOH is super clunky. There's thousands of vendors, the sale process is opaque, and the data is a mess. But now there's adquick. Adquick.com makes it easy to plan by and measure every kind of outdoor advertising like those giant billboards or painted murals I just mentioned. And with adquick, you'll get robust data sets, fast execution and accurate measurement across every KPI. And adquick is a global player in the ad space. They're active in 19 countries. So go to adquick.com slash twist and mention twist to get $1,000 off your first campaign. How generous is that thanks to our friends at adquick.com slash twist terms and SPEAKER_04: conditions do apply. Speaking of Amazon, but also leaks. Yeah, leaked one of Amazon's leaked memos from 2021. And this is just fascinating said that the company could was actually in danger of running out of people to hire in US warehouses by 2024. The report according to boxes recode warned that Amazon's labor crisis was especially imminent in locales like Phoenix, the Inland Empire region of California and Los Angeles, and that they could literally not have enough people to hire to staff their huge SPEAKER_17: warehouses. Makes absolute sense to me, Americans are doing better than ever. In terms of their ability to spend on this kind of stuff, they become addicted to it. And yeah, I mean, there are people who work SPEAKER_10: at Amazon, and then are going home and buying from Amazon. It's just such a delightful experience to get whenever you want whenever you want. I now have like a new philosophy of stuff, which is like I can just order like when something breaks or whatever, I'm just like, I can just order that and have it here the Chamath Palihapitiya: same day or the next day. It's totally changed my behavior. What same day delivery or next day delivery SPEAKER_10: has done this. The whole concept of two day delivery is like two days. I'm outraged when I'm in Tahoe and it takes two days or three days. I'm like, what I need a new pair of socks. And you're saying I have SPEAKER_122: to wait two days. I need new socks. I got them the same day. I was like, I need new socks for mountain SPEAKER_53: biking. The same day the socks came. I was like, this is getting weird. You know, it is well and it's I guess I mean, it's interesting because on the one hand, it's a labor story like Oh, no, SPEAKER_39: we don't have enough people to hire. But the truth is that what we don't have is enough people to staff a complete sea change in consumer expectation. Right? Yeah, that's like eloquently said. Yes, SPEAKER_04: because if we've changed the entire way that this is not how commerce has ever operated. No. And apparently it's massively labor intensive. Well, they're just are not enough warm bodies. SPEAKER_178: I mean, let's be honest. How many boxes? How many Amazon wears a week are you doing in your household? Like, between five and 10 depending on the week. Right? It's got to be over 10 show up. SPEAKER_17: Yeah, it's got to be 10 for us. You know, we have three kids here. So no. So I mean, it's 10 for us, SPEAKER_10: you know, you just extrapolate that. Yeah, you know, I mean, some weeks that might be three or four, but it's, you know, five to 10. Everything comes by Amazon. Now it's like I said, subscribe and save for your favorite coffee or whatever your shampoo, whatever your jam is, shampoo, all of it, all of SPEAKER_01: it's unsubscribe and save stuff is just constantly coming. It's coming so fast now that I am actually doing the Amazon day so that I get fewer boxes because now the amount of boxes and the act of opening boxes, which used to be a joyful moment in people's lives has now become the thing that's David Friedberg: annoying. We are so entitled that breaking down boxes has become the annoying thing I literally have. Yeah, here it is. I literally have this on my desk. This is like the ceramic. It's a ceramic box opener. Oh, that's fancy. It's awesome. And it's like, again, you can order on Amazon for like SPEAKER_09: six bucks. But this thing, you know why I have this because we get so many goddamn boxes in this David Friedberg: house facility that it fills the recycle box. So now I break down the boxes. So I sit there like I'm working at Walmart or, you know, Trader Joe's, and I'm a clerk. And I spend, you know, one day a week SPEAKER_10: breaking down boxes because there's other people who live in my house who take the boxes and throw them SPEAKER_129: in to the recycle, which means four boxes and it's full. They don't break them down. They don't break David Friedberg: them down. Oh, you can't do that. So I'm the breakdown guy. I'm the breakdown guy. I'm training people. I bought like three, I bought a three pack of these and I put them in strategic location because they'll hang like on a hook. I mean, those are amazing and I should totally get SPEAKER_04: that. And that's a much more humane thing than we have because we have these like karambit things that we call the claw, which are these insane curved knives. Are you nuts? Look at that thing. Oh my God. Jason Calacanis: I went through this little like CS go phase. That looks like a raptor claw. We've got like three of those. They're perfect for opening boxes. That's how many claws a raptor has per hand. There's SPEAKER_255: three. Like, well, listen, you know, like I like my stuff to be multipurpose. So I like to know that SPEAKER_178: I can kill an intruder. Look at this. Look at Molly. Yeah, it is actually that. I think what you should do. SPEAKER_01: You know, we're basically getting to the point where everybody's going to have a miniature raptor, you know, these miniature ponies and miniature bulldogs, miniature whatever dogs. We should just, use DNA sequencing to make mini raptors and then you just take your mini raptor and you throw it into your recycling and it just shreds the boxes for you. And then you feed it. SPEAKER_23: Right. That would be amazing. But could I use that on an intruder? That's my question. Yes, SPEAKER_39: I could. It would be great for intruders. I need a robot raptor and Amazon needs more robots because this is so interesting. Like now that we're kind of breaking this down to its component parts and SPEAKER_04: realizing that the problem is that we've created an economy that there aren't enough humans to staff. This is not a shortage. This is a non exist. This is an existence problem. Not enough labor exists possibly to fuel this economy. And so then what is the question? Is it open the doors and allow SPEAKER_29: immigration again or robots or both? Yeah. This is the problem with immigration is I've talked about this so many times, like people don't even know, um, how many people come into the country by year. And so we you know, it has really dropped. Um, I, I think we admitted just like just over a million in the last couple of years. And it was two or 3 million. Uh, you know, um, but yeah, it's just keeps going down. So yeah, it's pretty crazy. Um, how many people how few people we let in? That's one SPEAKER_01: solution is to let more people in at the other solutions automation, obviously, and they've they have a lot of automation going on there. The last mile obviously is a big one. So drones are going to help that we talked about we live in the future, then pneumatic tubes kind of concept, you know, cities, the tubes, right? Um, and then those little robots that look like R2D2 that will just go five miles an SPEAKER_17: hour to your house, those are going to be helpful autonomy, full autonomous cars and delivery that's all SPEAKER_01: coming. So this does seem like a bridge issue. Anybody who has these jobs is not going to have them SPEAKER_10: in 10 years. So this is a short term pain problem. And here's the solution. Charge more, SPEAKER_23: pay more. It's true because everything we've just said about how we're living in all of this delivery is terrible. It's actually consumerism run amok. It's the reason that the supply chains are so SPEAKER_04: screwed up because we cannot stop buying stuff. And it is an addiction, horrific. It is horrific SPEAKER_10: in terms of carbon emissions. It's terrible for the environment. I literally am on a jihad to stop my own consumption and like literally metal straws, major part of it. Like, SPEAKER_260: um, like I got my little silicone ones. I like them. Yeah, SPEAKER_10: I'm making ice tea. I'm making the chicory coffee cold brew and I'm doing liquid IV instead of buying bottles of, you know, whatever Gatorade or, you know, Gatorade ice I used to buy and now I'd use SPEAKER_260: liquid IV. He's a promo code twist. I'm trying to integrate. Yeah, he's a promo code twist. I'm SPEAKER_39: trying to integrate very like zero waste and less waste strategies into my life. It is a hard SPEAKER_59: transition. And well, here's the thing I was one pump up. I don't know if liquid IV does this, SPEAKER_09: but now this is the, the same, um, addiction. Humans are very addicted. You notice that Molly, like we get addicted to things. Yes. We have like a very weird addiction thing where like we have SPEAKER_10: habits and we get into patterns and they're like repetitive. So I think what's happening is we've gotten into this loop with Amazon where we just keep ordering and ordering and ordering and it releases dopamine. And we just like in this habit, then the reverse habit happens where you are like, okay, I'm going to try to not order stuff. So everything I'm doing now is trying to find the one pan that I will never have to replace again or the boots. I talked about my, my, uh, Danner boots or my Crockett and Jones shoes from London. They're $800 shoes. I've had them SPEAKER_01: for now 10 years. I get them resold every four and I, the leather is so good that when you polish it up, I mean, I'm still wearing the same awesome shoes for almost 10 years now. I'm, I'm in shock and they're still my favorite shoes. I mean, I was going through dress shoes like crazy. When I was buying the cheaper ones in this $800 pair, they they're still rocking it. So now I started looking at the packets that the liquid IV comes in, which is super convenient. I was like, I wonder if they offer like a mason jar glass jar filled with this powder so I can have three of those and just do a scooper. I'm totally fine with doing a scooper. I don't need the single pack. I mean, I do need a single pack when I'm traveling, which is fine. Uh, but I'm just going full on no SPEAKER_119: packaging, please. Um, and we have that company we're working on, which we should have them on. That's in the incubator should have them on to talk about what they're doing at some point. Have SPEAKER_17: they been on the pod yet? We did. Yeah. Oh, you, you interviewed them, right? Yeah, she's been on. Uh, what, what's the state of that company? Are they ready to launch something or SPEAKER_39: are they? I think so. Yeah. They're a pilot in DC. Got it. Yeah. Can't, SPEAKER_23: so I think they're ready to, I just want that to exist so badly. So it is very, yeah, I, I like, SPEAKER_04: firmly believe that consumers will change behavior if they have a cool thing to buy. Tesla has proven that Apple has proven, right? Like we've seen, but beyond meat, impossible burgers, all of those have proven that, but you have to have the thing like to ask any individual to go to the store and buy everything in bulk and put it in glass jars themselves and bring them and do that. It's just not credible, but to offer them that as a service. Hell yeah. We're addicted to that. We will definitely SPEAKER_29: subscribe to that. And then there's the habit. And so how can you make the habit? I'm really getting into habits now. Uh, and you know, you just have to put your, if you can really work this loop in your favor. So like I'm doing that with my schedule where I'm time blocking stuff, I'm trying to get SPEAKER_10: on the treadmill, listen to the stories for today's show while I'm on the treadmill in the morning. You, you see that when I'm going back and forth, just trying to get more into that loop, which I did with skiing this year where I was like, okay, these four days a week, I'm going to ski during this window, move my meaning. If you can get yourself in that loop, I guess there's like all these books about habit that talk about this, where you just schedule it and then just. There's some amount of SPEAKER_23: days, right? It's like 21 days. Yeah. There's something where you do something for 21 days. SPEAKER_01: It creates a habit. Yeah. So anyway, just, I think it's one of the things we have to think about with these companies and getting into a habit. The other thing I'm thinking SPEAKER_67: about is when do I replace my cars? So I replace my cars when I like the new features SPEAKER_291: and I want them. This is my choice. Yeah. It's kind of when somebody put dangles enough out there SPEAKER_01: and I'm like, okay, I've now had the Y for a while, had the X for a while, six, seven years for the X, I think, and then the Y I've had for two or three years. And I'm like, I'm gonna get the new one. I'm gonna get the plaid. I'm gonna do this. And I'm like, ah, yeah, should I do that or not for the SPEAKER_10: environment? Should I try to get to 10 years? Should I try to, and I was at one point in my life, I was like, I'm just never gonna, I'm gonna get a new car every three years and somebody else SPEAKER_29: can drive my three-year-old car with 20,000 miles on it. And, you know, just feel like a luxury I could have now. I'm just like, I don't know that I want that luxury as opposed to the joy, SPEAKER_169: because I'm starting to feel joy by consuming less and getting more value out of things. SPEAKER_04: Isn't that weird? Yeah, me too. No, it's not. I think it's not at all. It's like, that's, that is so profound, because that's values changing. And when values change, behavior changes. And I feel the same way. I'm like, so proud of myself whenever I, like, I'm very into, we were talking about this yesterday in our investment meeting, the circular economy and circularity, the idea of putting stuff into circulation for reuse, I do my rent the runway thing, I'm trying to buy used clothes, used furniture, there's all these SPEAKER_23: resale, like re-commerce is a huge consumer trend. I like the re-commerce. And it's all about SPEAKER_104: changing values. And it's awesome. There's really good out there that people aren't using anymore. SPEAKER_10: It's amazing. I, you know, I, I'm now doing this, I bought this fancy mountain bike for my summer hobby. And, you know, it's a little embarrassing, but I spent $9,000 on an electric mountain bike. SPEAKER_18: Yeah, I literally bought the best one because here's what I thought. I'm like, yeah, that's kind of standard. Well, no, it was shocking to me. For really great bikes. SPEAKER_10: It was shocking to me, but I said to myself, I'm going to get the best one. I looked at the resale SPEAKER_67: value. I can resell this, um, specialized bike for like whatever, call it six or seven K of the nine. So then I said, okay, I can resell it for six. That means it's actually costing me three for the next SPEAKER_129: two years or something like that. If I can do a hundred rides, it's 30 bucks a ride. I go to lunch, SPEAKER_10: I spend 30 bucks. This is for my health and it's more exciting. I go skiing, you know, whatever. And then I just divide the number, the cost by the number of times I use it. And then I start it SPEAKER_01: re reduces my anxiety of like a purchase like this. So I'm actually thinking I'm, I'm factoring consumption in to everything I do, uh, back of the envelope math. That's your jam back at that's kind of my jam. And so you can, you'd be surprised what you can justify. If you just say, Hey, what's the resale value of these shoes? If I re what's the recirculation thing, re commerce and SPEAKER_10: circularity, circularity is circularity is an amazing thing to me. If you just think about Amazon, do you ever buy used stuff on Amazon? I buy used books sometimes. SPEAKER_23: I think I've bought used books a couple of times on Amazon, but reducing my Amazon use is what makes me want to as, as I did the books because they were out of print, I think was the issue, uh, when I did SPEAKER_10: that. Totally. I've done that too. Not a big, okay. Well, anyway, if you have stories, or ideas around these kinds of startups, or you're starting a startup where you find one that's doing this, let us know. Because we would like to invest in them. All right, tomorrow, Lon Harris is back on the show for this week in streaming segment. Cannot believe it. The anticipation of Obi Wan for two years and for a lifetime wondering what happened between episodes three and four has come to an end. And I watched episode six, the finale of Obi Wan. I am so excited for you, Molly to watch it. I'm watching it again tonight with my daughters. I can't wait. SPEAKER_29: And, um, Molly is going to tomorrow also interview the founder and CEO of Capital RX, which is trying to, uh, like Mark Cuban's company, um, trying to reinvent and lower the cost of drugs. SPEAKER_04: Hallelujah. And then, uh, on Friday, we have another recurring guest that you're going to love. An awesome one. Just stay tuned for this praying for exits. If you're not already following praying SPEAKER_42: for exits on Instagram, you should be. Uh, and of course another, okay. Boomer. SPEAKER_10: Yes. Uh, and that's going to be a great interview. I actually had him on. He's, I think we figured out who he is, but we're not going to spoil it. He runs, uh, praying for exits on Instagram, a hilarious account where he kind of takes the piss out of our industry, but in a good way, in an entertaining way, it's not vindictive or anything, but it's brutally candid. And so it's SPEAKER_01: only the second person we've ever had on anonymously. And we're having them on a second time because, uh, I, if you take it from the perspective of it's definitely an insider, maybe has an ax to grind, but it kind of has informed opinions. So if you go in with a, with a low expectation, you find out the person's pretty well informed. I, uh, I cannot wait for you to hear my solo dolo interview, Molly. We're going solo for the SPEAKER_59: summer. So Molly and I can get a little time out and we are, but we're doing six shows a week. Can we get a little time in the mountains? I'll be off praying for an exit, SPEAKER_04: interviewing a founder that's hopefully going to become our next big, so praying for exits. Yeah. SPEAKER_39: And then okay. Boomer from Rachel tomorrow too. Always on Friday. And then if you have topics you SPEAKER_04: want us to cover and you want to be where the pre-show action happens, join the twist community on Twitter at this week in startups.com slash T C for Twitter community. See, we got 1200 members SPEAKER_10: in this community and we're going to start doing, uh, more there. We show up right around three or four o'clock every day to just peek in and say hi to everybody. You got questions for us. I want to do a call in show where people call in for advice and do mentoring. I want to do more mentoring. So Jason Chamath Palihapitiya: mentors. This is different than ask Jason. It's a new concept I want to do with Jason mentor somebody. And here's my theory, my thesis, Molly, I mentor them. And then we check back in with them 30 days later, 60 days later and see if they took the mentor. I don't like that almost SPEAKER_67: like a reality show. Mm hmm. You know where I get inside somebody's head. Give them some most SPEAKER_333: almost like that. Seems like there could be some potential there. Could be. All right. We'll see David Friedberg: you all tomorrow. Oh, by the way, the URL is this weekend startups.com slash T C Twitter Chamath Palihapitiya: community this weekend startups.com slash T C it forward you. Thank you for doing this. Everybody SPEAKER_10: on my team to this Twitter communities got 1200 members. So but don't spam it. Talk about startups. Talk about the show. Stay focused. There's a bunch of mods in there. Thanks to our mods. Bob G surge dog. So many great mods working with us on our if you want to be a mod just show up every day Zen profit at youtube.com slash this weekend youtube.com slash this weekend hit the subscribe hit the bell you get an alert I'm going to also do some random drops I decided I have the YouTube password so I SPEAKER_01: may do some random drops where I just talk to the audience over the weekend if a breaking news story happens so get ready for that too. Yeah, good time. I'm in a creative mode right now. You really are. I know I love it. I have ideas. I have ideas for new shows. I got my creative juices flowing. The summer's doing it to me. He does not take summer off exactly. I don't take any time off because this is SPEAKER_215: not a job for me. This is like talking to you for an hour. I could talk to you for an hour every Saturday and Sunday and not put the cameras on and be fine. It's true. SPEAKER_340: It's true. All right. We'll see you tomorrow. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.