E29: Coinbase goes public, direct listings vs. IPOs, portfolio management, unions & more with Bestie Guestie Brad Gerstner

**Jason Calacanis** (0:00)
Any word from The Dictator, or should we just do a?

**Chamath Palihapitiya** (0:02)
I don't know, man. I cannot spend my whole day sitting on Zoom waiting for Chamath.

**Jason Calacanis** (0:07)
Or I could have Brad Gerstner come on and sit in for.

**David Sacks** (0:09)
Isn't he richer than Chamath?

**Chamath Palihapitiya** (0:10)
He is now. The largest SPAC in the world.

**Jason Calacanis** (0:12)
Should we do that? Should I just have Brad come on the pod?

**Chamath Palihapitiya** (0:14)
Oh my God. We have a new SPAC King.

**David Sacks** (0:16)
We have a new SPAC King.

**Chamath Palihapitiya** (0:18)
Start it now. Get him on. Start it.
Chamath comes in later. He's like, what the fuck? We're like, we replaced you with the new SPAC King.

**Brad Gerstner** (0:25)
Oh my God.

**Chamath Palihapitiya** (0:25)
Oh my God. Get him on.

**Brad Gerstner** (0:26)
Is this like a kidnapping and you guys are going to take me out and drop me out behind the railroad cars? What's going on here?

**Chamath Palihapitiya** (0:35)
Good.

**Jason Calacanis** (0:35)
Here we go.

**Chamath Palihapitiya** (0:36)
I'm good.

**David Friedberg** (0:36)
How's the gain?

**Jason Calacanis** (0:38)
Gain is great.

**David Friedberg** (0:41)
In three, two, one.

**Jason Calacanis** (1:00)
Hey everybody. Hey everybody. It's another episode of the All-In Podcast. We took last week off because it was spring break and we all needed a break.
Hope you had a great one too. With us today, of course, the Queen of Quinoa from an undisclosed sunny location, David Friedberg.

**David Friedberg** (1:16)
It looks like Redwood City. Is it Redwood City?

**Jason Calacanis** (1:18)
The Rain Man himself, David Sacks, ready for governorsacks.com. And of course, the King of all Spacks, Brad Gerstner is with us again, the new dictator filling in for Chamath Palihapitiya, the dictator. Oh wait, Chamath Palihapitiya, the dictator is here as well.
And special bestie guestie.

**David Friedberg** (1:37)
Jason, Jason, Jason. It's not when you...

**Jason Calacanis** (1:45)
I don't know what that means, but we're editing that out of the show. That's a bunch of beeps. But welcome Brad sitting in just for a moment here, because Chamath was gonna blow us off.

**Chamath Palihapitiya** (1:57)
He was a no-show. We needed a Spack King.

**David Sacks** (1:59)
Sorry, guys.

**Jason Calacanis** (2:00)
We needed a new Spack King.

**David Friedberg** (2:01)
I apologize.

**David Sacks** (2:01)
New Spack King.

**David Friedberg** (2:02)
Emergency.

**Brad Gerstner** (2:03)
It's just a little flattery for Chamath. The truth of the matter is Chamath is pioneering here. And I think it's been incredible to watch the competition in choice. And as Chamath knows, I participated in a couple of the deals that he's done. And I think we all share the same feeling, which is, there's been a system that is pretty Byzantine, that wasn't serving the founders who we all care deeply about. And so I'm just thrilled, whether it's direct lists, like Roblox did a few weeks ago, that we helped do, or whether it's Chamath and the incredible innovation that he's helping to do.
We're lucky we've invested in building a capital markets business on top of this SPAC, and then worked with Grab to bring a great public company out this week.

**Jason Calacanis** (3:01)
So let's get to the direct listing. Good segue. Clearly, the biggest news of the week is Coinbase, the largest direct listing ever. Bill Gurley, somewhere is smiling, and that's on top of Roblox, which I think was the second biggest.
2020 revenue, 1.2 billion.

**David Friedberg** (3:19)
Sorry, Brad, did Snowflake direct list or that was a traditional idea?

**Brad Gerstner** (3:22)
No, that was a traditional idea.

**Jason Calacanis** (3:24)
I don't know who got their bet weak, their, wet their beaks on this one. Sacks, did you have a little bit?

**David Sacks** (3:30)
I had a little tasty poo.

**Jason Calacanis** (3:32)
Little tasty poo.

**David Friedberg** (3:34)
I had a lot showered upon me.

**Jason Calacanis** (3:38)
Explain, boys.

**David Sacks** (3:39)
Because you're in Rebet, right?

**David Friedberg** (3:41)
I was Mickey's, one of Mickey's largest LPs.

**Jason Calacanis** (3:44)
Who's Mickey, for the audience who doesn't know?

**David Friedberg** (3:45)
Mickey Malca, who runs Rebet Capital, who owns 7% or 10% or 7 or 8% of Coinbase. And what was incredible was I got distributed all of it yesterday. Which, by the way, I think for direct listing, the strategy, to me, makes a lot of sense. I made a mistake in hindsight if I think about my distribution strategy, because myself, Excel and Andreessen, when we did the Slack direct listing, we distributed probably 5, 10% and then we waited and then we trickled it out over time. But by definition, I think the price action on direct listings shows you that you top tick the top price at the moment on the open print. And so, you know, if you're going to sell, you're probably better off selling absolutely right away. And if you look at the price action on direct listings, it's basically been one way direction down from the point of the direct listing.