E135: Wagner rebels, SCOTUS ends AA, AI M&A, startups gone bad, spacetime warps & more

**David Friedberg** (0:00)
This is gonna be a feisty episode.

**Jason Calacanis** (0:03)
Is it?

**David Friedberg** (0:04)
Two of us are on Greenwich Mean Time, two of us are on Pacific, J Cal still asleep in his head.

**Jason Calacanis** (0:10)
I'm good, actually.

**David Friedberg** (0:11)
You good?

**Jason Calacanis** (0:11)
I'm good.

**David Friedberg** (0:12)
All right, well, great to be back. Welcome to the All Conspiracy Podcast, where we repeat statements and help spin them into tales of struggling against the establishment, the elite and the mainstream media.
We will deliver to you, the people, the revolution, against the powers that be.

**Chamath Palihapitiya** (0:28)
Unless it offends...

**Jason Calacanis** (0:33)
I'm still trying to get my invite for next week.

**David Friedberg** (0:39)
Mums the Word. We'll also enjoy sharing with you fantastic stories of opulence.

**Chamath Palihapitiya** (0:43)
Let's be neutral.

**David Friedberg** (0:45)
Opulence, leisure and benevolent greed. Here we go. Joining me today are my co-hosts, General David Sacks, commander of the 4th Battalion of the Internet Tweet Brigade. General, welcome.
Joining us from a remote location.

**Jason Calacanis** (0:57)
In Moscow.

**David Sacks** (0:58)
Has there been like an establishment takeover of the pod?

**David Friedberg** (1:03)
Yeah.

**David Sacks** (1:04)
Every argument they make against us, you're basically just conceding it's true.

**Jason Calacanis** (1:07)
I know, exactly.

**David Friedberg** (1:08)
From his 12th century Mediterranean castle, Il Duce, Chamath Palihapitiya, welcome Chamath. How is the Mediterranean diet treating you?
Blue. Blue. Blue. And Emperor Nero Calacanis, ruler over podcasts, paid events, entrepreneurial universities and dental SPVs, Emperor. Thank you for letting me sit in your throne today.

**Jason Calacanis** (1:31)
It's good to be here. Thank you.

**Chamath Palihapitiya** (1:32)
Dental SPVs.

**Jason Calacanis** (1:33)
Shout out to my dentists.

**David Sacks** (1:35)
Wait, did you say king of STDs?

**Chamath Palihapitiya** (1:38)
What'd you say?

**Jason Calacanis** (1:39)
SPVs.

**David Friedberg** (1:41)
Dental SPVs, yeah.

**Chamath Palihapitiya** (1:42)
That's the thing with certain STDs where once you are king, you're gonna be king for life.

**Jason Calacanis** (2:06)
thesyndicate.com, yeah, thank you.

**David Friedberg** (2:07)
You've been doing, you said five shows a week lately. Your voice is shot.

**Jason Calacanis** (2:13)
I, my voice is starting to go. So I asked you if you'd moderate and you thankfully said yes.

**David Friedberg** (2:18)
I've got the energy. I missed last week. I enjoyed listening to you guys with BG. Great episode. Sorry, I couldn't join, but let's kick it off.

**David Sacks** (2:26)
That's funny. I still haven't watched the episode that I missed.

**David Friedberg** (2:29)
Not interested, huh?

**Jason Calacanis** (2:30)
He's like, I'm not on the show.

**David Friedberg** (2:31)
I'm not interested.

**David Sacks** (2:32)
If I didn't have time to participate, I don't only have time to watch it.

**David Friedberg** (2:36)
The truth is, Sacks, why don't you admit to everyone that when you're in a show, you probably watch it four or five times.
All right, so let's kick this off. Obviously, you guys recorded right before the Wagner Group attempted coup or potential coup or theorized coup began last week. So Sacks, you kind of sent out a text saying, the show is already stale because you kind of missed that new cycle by publishing right after it started, but you recorded right before. So let's do just a quick recap of what happened with Russia, Ukraine, and particularly its Wagner Group rebellion last Friday, the Wagner Group, which is a Russian paramilitary organization led by Evgeny Prigozhin launched what seemed like an armed insurrection against Russia. Wagner had occupied portions of Rostov-on-Don, a city of over a million people, a regional capital and headquarters of Russia's Southern Military District before setting off towards Moscow and then abruptly stopping, I think about 200 kilometers before reaching Moscow city. At that point, there was supposedly a negotiation. The president of Belarus got involved and Prigozhin decided to step down. Putin said, I'm not going to prosecute or I'm not going to prosecute you for these crimes. He was given immunity. And it was announced that all the members of the Wagner Group were given the option of returning home or joining the Russian military and the Wagner Group was going to be dissolved. Sacks, maybe you can kind of give us your summary of the events that took place.
And then we'll talk a little bit about the interpretation of what we think this means for the conflict in Ukraine.

**David Sacks** (4:20)
Well, you're right that this rebellion took place just after we dropped our last episode. And so everybody both on Twitter and in the comments was dunking on me for my take on last week's episode that the much hyped Ukrainian counteroffensive was not succeeding, that it was in fact failing.