E15: "The Besties" All-In's inaugural award show covering the best, worst & most memorable of 2020

**Jason Calacanis** (0:13)
Hey everybody, welcome back. Besties are back for the All-In Podcast. The queen of quinoa, Friedberg is here, the dictator, Chamath, and of course, Rain Man, David Sacks. And it's been a big week here in Silicon Valley with Airbnb, and Wish both going public for over $100 billion combined. Anybody get their beak wet on that one?
Oh, how are you, David?

**David Sacks** (0:44)
I might have gotten my beak wet on a couple of those.

**Jason Calacanis** (0:48)
Oh, a little beak wet, huh? Well, you know what, in celebration of your recent victory with Airbnb and Wish, I will, oh no, I can't zoom in on my merch, but I've got my unofficial wet your beak mug. So for those of you wondering, we have to get a little bit of housekeeping out of the way at first here.
The merch has gone crazy. Have you guys been watching merch on Twitter?

**David Sacks** (1:18)
Of course.

**Jason Calacanis** (1:20)
Anybody got a favorite merch or thoughts?

**Friedberg** (1:23)
I got some of those mugs. I think they arrived today. They look great.

**David Sacks** (1:27)
It's amazing. And the best decision we made was not to let you sell T-shirts, Jason, because you would have milked this for every nickel you could.
And instead, we open sourced it to the fans, and they've just gone crazy with it.

**Jason Calacanis** (1:45)
I know that hurt you.

**David Sacks** (1:47)
I know that hurt you a little bit.

**Jason Calacanis** (1:49)
I mean, the problem I'm having here, no advertising. I'm picking up all the production cost here. I'm sending you guys equipment.
You maniacs lose the equipment every time. You go from one of your estates to another estate. I'm sending equipment to four different places.
Anyway, we've got a special, very special episode for you today. We are doing, drum roll, please. We're going to add some sound effects to this afterwards. We're going to do the bestie awards today. So we're going to go through the biggest winners in politics and business and cultures. And of course, the losers, the flashes in the pan, the best business moves, the stupidest business moves. We've got a lot to get through.
But just in terms of housekeeping, again, the All-In Syndicate is up and running. I think there's 4,000 people who have applied in 10 days.

**David Sacks** (2:35)
Let's just talk about the market cap of Airbnb. Or Wish for that matter.

**Friedberg** (2:41)
What round did you invest in Airbnb?

**David Sacks** (2:43)
Series C.

**Friedberg** (2:44)
Was that the Founders Fund round?

**David Sacks** (2:49)
Thanks.

**Jason Calacanis** (2:49)
Oh, that's so yummy. But to be honest, that was already over a billion dollar valuation, correct?

**David Sacks** (2:54)
Yeah, it was. It was.

**Jason Calacanis** (2:56)
I mean, it's still like 80 or 100X, right?

**Friedberg** (2:58)
It's like a 40X, right?

**David Sacks** (3:00)
It's like a 40X or something like that. So thank you, Brian Chesky. Thank you, Peter Thiel. Peter led that round and Brian was looking to include founders in the round in addition to it being led by Founders Fund.
So Peter introduced me and that's how it happened.

**Jason Calacanis** (3:17)
Wow, fantastic.
I did not get my big wet on that, but I did mention Airbnb on my podcast and I've been trying to get Brian on the podcast for, I don't know, a decade.
And I said, I know you guys want to have him on the pod. I've asked him literally every year for 10 years, but I don't think he likes me. And then he emailed me and said, I listen to the podcast, I like you. I was like, oh, okay, great. Will you come on? He's like, I'll come on. So he's going to come on this year, I think, which would be great for this week in startups.

**David Sacks** (3:45)
Well, I think Brian and the whole team really did a masterful job of navigating through the whole COVID crisis. I mean, everybody forgets how negative the publicity was. People were talking about Airbnb as COVID roadkill back in April. I tweeted a CNBC headline from back in April, wondering whether Airbnb was even going to survive.
And they navigated the crisis. They did have to cut headcount, but they made the company much more profitable.
But they also did great things for both the renters and the host. At the company's expense, they refunded something like $250 million to users who had canceled reservations, but they gave the money to the host to keep them afloat. So they really did a great job navigating this whole crisis.

**Jason Calacanis** (4:40)
It's a pretty great company. But he obviously cares deeply.