E14: Salesforce acquires Slack, DeepMind's AlphaFold breakthrough, Trust Fund Socialists & more

**Jason Calacanis** (0:00)
Okay, besties are back, besties are back, going around the horn, Rain Man, David Sacks, calling in from an undisclosed location, suffering through two Code 13s in one lifetime. And David Friedberg is here, the Queen of Quinoa, spacking everything in sight, living the life, calling in from a nondescript Ritz-Carlton room, it appears to be. And of course, the dictator himself, Chamath Palihapitiya, cackling like a fool. Welcome back, everybody. This is what you pay for with your subscription to the All-In Podcast, brought to you by Slack.
If you didn't own Slack shares, raise your hand.
It's been an incredible week on a number of levels. We're going to talk this week about Salesforce buying Slack, Trump and Section 230, the Coinbase, the ongoing Coinbase saga. Friedberg found some interesting science that could save humanity. And of course, the trust fund socialists in the New York Times who hate their parents for giving them money.

**Chamath Palihapitiya** (1:15)
Let's start off with the most important thing. What is that shirt under shirt combo you're wearing? I mean, look, it's just you have buttons on buttons.
It's incredible.

**Jason Calacanis** (1:25)
Did I break the layering rule?

**Chamath Palihapitiya** (1:27)
You can't.
If you're going to layer properly, you can have only one layer of buttons. But to have two layers of buttons, that's not how it works.

**David Friedberg** (1:36)
Cal went in and got an almond milk cappuccino. And he's like, I like how that barista dress is. And I'm going to wear that from now on.

**Jason Calacanis** (1:46)
Wait a second. Can I ask a technical question?
Can I have buttons? I can't have buttons on buttons, but can I have buttons and then a zipper up like with the...

**Chamath Palihapitiya** (1:54)
No, you can't do that either.

**David Sacks** (1:56)
Chamath has had a weird aversion to buttons ever since he spent the time in Italy.

**Jason Calacanis** (2:02)
Was he button shamed in Italy?

**Chamath Palihapitiya** (2:04)
I was a little button shamed, but I'm looking at Sacks has buttons on his collars, which just makes no sense.

**Jason Calacanis** (2:10)
Sacks is wearing the same Brooks Brothers shirt that he graduated high school in.
He owns 17% of Brooks Brothers at this point from the number of blazers he's bought there. All right, let's get off to it. We've insulted each other. I don't think Friedberg has taken the brunt of anything yet. Anybody have any chop busting they want to do with Friedberg or is that just sort of built in?

**Chamath Palihapitiya** (2:31)
No, Friedberg took the tablecloth that I used for a picnic in the summertime and made it into a shirt.

**Jason Calacanis** (2:39)
You have to be frugal at this time and also Friedberg cares about the environment.

**Chamath Palihapitiya** (2:46)
He's not going to just let a picnic blanket go to waste. It was a hemp-based tablecloth and so I knew it was going to get taken and stolen.

**David Friedberg** (2:52)
I love how I choose to spend my time with you guys.
It just pays off. Here we go. All right, can we kick this off?

**Jason Calacanis** (2:59)
All right, let's kick it off with our advertisement for Nobody because Chamath will not let me make any money off of this podcast.
And thanks again for the suggestion that we launch a syndicate with No Carry. Now, a bunch of dipshits on Twitter are like, Hey, when is the All-In syndicate starting? I'm like, never. I need to make a living. I need to get my beak wet.

**Chamath Palihapitiya** (3:21)
I'm sorry, but I think an All-In syndicate would be super, super disruptive and cool.

**Jason Calacanis** (3:27)
I'm totally fine with running it as long as we can have the 20% carry, and I'll manage the whole thing. We got four people on the call, we each get 5% carry, but we got to make a living here.
Not everybody's made it, Chamath. Not everybody's got SPACs A through Z, or had all of their Slack shares bought.
I think we'll kick it off with that. Chamath, we saw this week, in fact, just two days ago, Salesforce in a record transaction for a SaaS company, I think it's the highest ever paid for a SaaS company, $27 billion, $27.7 billion for Slack, which has only been public for just over a year, I think. You were, I think, did the Series B in Slack right after they did the pivot at Social Capital. I don't know if that was in Fund One or Two, but Phil Hellmuth keeps talking about it.

**Chamath Palihapitiya** (4:14)
It was the Series B in TinySpec, but it was the Series A in Slack. And there's a really important story, which is that myself and Ray Co, who's my partner at Social Capital, we've worked together now for, my gosh, I think it's probably 15 years, wrote a really great memo justifying the investment in Slack. And it had to do with one thing and one thing only. We ignored the revenue and ARR. I mean, it was fine and nice and good.