E43: Innovative venture strategies, Zymergen's implosion, Square acquires AfterPay, future of fintech & more

**Chamath Palihapitiya** (0:00)
He's optimizing the view.

**David Sacks** (0:01)
I'm optimizing for shade, actually. I'm trying to get out of the...

**Jason Calacanis** (0:07)
Oh, fucking Christ, you look like a moron.

**Chamath Palihapitiya** (0:09)
I mean, this dipshit showed up. He showed up to my beach club yesterday, and it was basically like someone had taken a mummy, and then wrapped a mummy inside of a white sheet, and then presented him at this place.

**Jason Calacanis** (0:23)
Oh, he lathered in his SPF 500?

**Chamath Palihapitiya** (0:28)
I said at one point, let's go for a walk, and this asshole had the nerve to grab his cell phone, and a battery pack for the cell phone. I forced him to leave the phone, he felt naked. Then I made him take off his shoes and socks, and then I tried to get him to take a shirt off. We got almost all the way there.

**Jason Calacanis** (0:46)
All right, everybody, here we go.
Rain Man, David Sacks.
Hey, everybody. Hey, everybody. Welcome to everybody's favorite game show. Guess who's not in Italy? With us today, David Sacks wearing sunglasses with the view of an ocean clearly on a nautical vessel. And I am in an old apartment in the center of Florence, and Chamath is at his hideaway somewhere in the countryside. And Friedberg is in front of an abstract piece of art.

**Chamath Palihapitiya** (1:43)
Two people high on crystal meth trying to break into his car in San Francisco.

**David Friedberg** (1:50)
I'm no longer a San Francisco resident. I'm proud and sad to say after 20 years of living in the city, I have relocated still to a nondescript location still in California. But no longer in the city.

**Jason Calacanis** (2:03)
You're in the Bay Area, enough said.

**Chamath Palihapitiya** (2:04)
I'm in the Bay Area.

**Jason Calacanis** (2:05)
So with us again, obviously, Rain Man, The Dictator and back from a week off the Queen of Quinoa. Tell us Queen, you had a big week. You had some nice ink come out, some press about the production board raising some monster round. And you took the week off.
Give us the feedback. What was it like taking a week off from the pod? And now you're getting press and you're becoming a public figure.
What's it been like for you the past week and tell everybody what went down with this new fund?

**David Friedberg** (2:35)
You know, my strategy was to take a week off from the pod and then have the ratings go up. And then I could quietly and nicely exit as a member of the cast. But unfortunately, I've been drawn, as Al Pacino said, just when I thought I was out, I am back in.
So it's I missed you guys. I actually listened to the All-In pod for the first time ever last week. You guys did a great job.

**Chamath Palihapitiya** (2:57)
You mean you've been complaining these other last 41 times without even listening to it?

**David Friedberg** (3:02)
You know, I will say I listened to it while we're on it. But this was actually really interesting because I've never actually listened to it.

**Jason Calacanis** (3:09)
That's big of you. You're actually listening while we're taping.

**David Friedberg** (3:13)
We do it ourselves. I hear the whole freaking thing in real life. So listening to it, I found it really entertaining.
And I think I have a better appreciation. It's less about some of the points and facts we make, which I've been bitching and complaining about the topics. And, you know, where we go with the conversation and stuff. But it's just generally just nice to just hear everyone, you know, kind of shoot the shit.
Anyway, good job.

**David Sacks** (3:35)
So you're saying you're a fan of the All-In pod.

**David Friedberg** (3:38)
I might get a wet your beak mug from one of our fans.

**Chamath Palihapitiya** (3:41)
I have one. I have three.

**David Friedberg** (3:43)
I use it.

**Jason Calacanis** (3:44)
Sacks sent me a whole gift basket from the kid who's paying for college based on our IP.

**David Friedberg** (3:49)
That's all good.
We announced our TBB funding last week too, which I have been running the production board for four years now, a little over four years. It's been my primary vehicle where I've been primarily incubating new businesses and making some investments from the balance sheet.
We've raised several rounds of capital over the last few years. We've never talked about it publicly. We've never done press around it. But as you guys know, the primary reason for going public with it was really just to gain recruit interest in the work that we're doing. So we really want to see great people be made aware of the work we're doing at the production board and at each of our individual businesses so we could start to at least get folks knowledgeable and aware of us. So when we reach out and folks are interested in thinking about what else they might want to do with their careers and their lives, we're hopefully there for them. So it was great. I mean, it's nice to share what we're doing. We also shared five of our businesses that we've incubated, several of which have been stealth up until now.