Chamath Palihapitiya Says A Reckoning Is Coming For Big Tech

Joe Weisenthal (0:11)

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots Podcast. I'm Joe Weisenthal.

Tracy Alloway (0:16)

And I'm Tracy Alloway.

Joe Weisenthal (0:17)

So Tracy, I don't know, you're just waking up in Hong Kong, but we had a little bit of market volatility today. Do you see that?

Tracy Alloway (0:25)

You know what, I woke up to an alert on my phone, something, it's never good. Have you ever noticed whenever you get those alerts on your phone, it's never anything good. It's always something bad, but yes, something about stocks falling, yes.

Joe Weisenthal (0:37)

There's never been a good push alert.

That's safe to say, but it is June 11th. We just had this market volatility. Nonetheless, even with the volatility, there is this sense that people have, and maybe it'll change by the time people are listening to this episode, that they sort of, the most intense periods of the crisis, at least, you know, it's not as intense as it was back in early April or late March.

Tracy Alloway (1:02)

Yeah, absolutely, I think that's true. And certainly earlier this week, we did get another alert, which was, so I guess sometimes you do get good alerts, but the alert was the S&P 500 regains all its losses for the year and basically went back to the highs that it was seeing before the coronavirus. So we do have a sense, and I think a lot of people will attribute it to either the Federal Reserve or some of the fiscal stimulus measures by the government that these have combined to at least save the stock market, if not the real economy.

Joe Weisenthal (1:36)

Right, it's still very TBD on all that. One of the things, and you and I have talked about this, Tracy, is that in the middle of a crisis, one of the things that makes crises interesting is that new ideas can emerge. And so often when things are growing, people don't want to rock the boat, but in the middle, the acute phase of a crisis, it always feels as though there's openings for sort of new ideas, new approaches, and a sort of wide-ranging discussion about what the future should look like.

Tracy Alloway (2:02)

Yeah, I think that's right. It's funny how there's nothing like losing money to make everyone reevaluate their capitalist model. But yes, there does seem to be an opportunity and crisis for people to start thinking about deep-seated issues in their respective markets or the way the economy works or even the political system, which is something that we're sort of seeing now.

Joe Weisenthal (2:23)

Yeah, that's exactly right. So today we're going to be talking to a guest who actually got a lot of attention. He had this interview, went totally viral. I think it was back in early April. It had to do with bailouts. He was very opposed to bailouts, but it was a sort of good example of how in the most intense periods, there is this sort of yearning for people to offer different ideas than this sort of standard approach where we just sort of try to put everything back together again.

Tracy Alloway (2:50)

Yeah, and can I just say that this interview was so viral that even I in Hong Kong without access to US cable TV saw clips of it.

Joe Weisenthal (2:59)

Exactly right. So today we're going to be talking to Chamath Palihapitiya. He's the founder and CEO of Social Capital. He's the chairman of Virgin Galactic. I think he owns a stake in the NBA team, the Golden State Warriors. I think this is our second time now we've talked to someone who owns part of an NBA team having to talk to Mark Cuban.

As you mentioned, back in April, he did this interview on CNBC talking about the airline bailouts. They've been very critical of share buybacks, bailouts that in his view prop up the rich while failing to protect everyday people.

Things are a little bit less severe right now than they were back then, but nonetheless, I think there's still a lot of space to be talking about these ideas. So without further ado, Chamath, thank you very much for joining us.

Chamath Palihapitiya (3:43)

Thanks guys, thanks for having me on.

Joe Weisenthal (3:46)

So let's go back. I mean, I remember that interview, it absolutely blew up all over social media.

What was your main message? Like what was the thrust of what you saw we were doing wrong, both in terms of an economy and in terms of a political approach to addressing the crisis that in your view is misguided?

Chamath Palihapitiya (4:08)

Well, I mean, I think that we've probably known for a long time that the tools that we give politicians to help society function properly have never been duller.