E56: Constitution DAO, Rittenhouse trial coverage, private sector efficiency vs the government

Jason Calacanis (0:00)

It was very interesting going to Sacks' kid's birthday party.

Friedberg and I were there for about two or three hours. Sacks showed up for the last half hour.

David Friedberg (0:10)

I think I was there for two hours and didn't see Sacks, and then I saw him on my way out the door.

Jason Calacanis (0:14)

But he had some YouTuber there who were pretty cool.

David Sacks (0:16)

Yeah, Papa Jake and Logan, thank you.

Jason Calacanis (0:18)

Papa Jake was great.

David Sacks (0:20)

Yeah. They have seven million followers on YouTube. Eat your heart out, J Cal.

How many times bigger is Papa Jake than you?

Jason Calacanis (0:27)

Business and podcasting on YouTube is a new concept, long form.

And long form is not what the algorithm is designed for. It's obviously designed for short form and people getting to completion. So getting to completion on a 90 minute video.

Chamath Palihapitiya (0:42)

Are we talking about lovemaking again? Sorry.

Jason Calacanis (0:43)

Oh, God. Jesus. When I say completion, it's not...

We need an HR department at All-In.

David Sacks (0:50)

I prefer the short form format for that, too.

Jason Calacanis (0:56)

These are cold open, folks.

Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the All-In Podcast. It's episode 56 We've made it past 55

The show, the band is still together, coming to you every Friday night, far too late, because the Rain Man obsesses over every edit in the podcast. With us again, the All-In Scorsese himself, David Rain Man Sacks, and the Queen of Quinoa, the Sultan of Science, David Friedberg is here. And with a power sweater that cost more...

Chamath Palihapitiya (1:47)

No, turtleneck, turtleneck, turtleneck.

Jason Calacanis (1:48)

Sorry, a power turtleneck that cost more than your mortgage payment this month. The dictator himself, Chamath Palihapitiya. I'm Jake Hal. It was a pretty incredible week. I think we have to pander to the cryptocurrency crowd because that's just making ratings go through the roof here. I am absolutely inspired by what we saw this week with the Constitution Dow forming in about a week and going from one or two million to $46 million raised through a Dow, if you don't know what these decentralized autonomous organizations are. It's basically analogous to a corporate structure, but that's written in code. So you can get a group of people together, typically in a discord. Then you create a smart contract. They collect in a wallet a bunch of ETH or it's typically ETH right now. And then you get some kind of governance written into the Dow where people get voting power. They brought this together to bid on one of 13 copies of the original Constitution of the United States. And it was a very controversial moment last night.

When 80% of the money was raised in the last 48 hours, and there was this crazy auction going back and forth with two representatives of Sotheby's on the phone, it hit $41 million. Everybody thought that the Dow had won, which would have meant that almost 20,000 people who participated in this would then vote on what to do with this $41 million offer. CoinDesk incorrectly reported that the Dow won, and then the Dow announced that they had in fact not. Some other statistics. Their Twitter has 36,000 followers.

The group reported they needed 14 million to participate, 30 million to be competitive, and 40 million to have a great chance of winning. They raised like, I think, six or seven million while they were on the air, you know, and the auction had started.

And the only downside to all of this is that there were huge gas fees. People were spending 30, 40, 50 bucks to donate 200, which was the average size of these.

All right. So here we go. Talking our own book again. Now we got somebody's going to clip this out.

David Friedberg (4:08)

Chamath, what are you going to do with your copy of the Constitution?

Chamath Palihapitiya (4:12)

You know, it's so funny.

David Friedberg (4:13)

Are you going to auction it back to the Dow?

Jason Calacanis (4:15)

Are you going to burn it and make an NFT out of it?

Chamath Palihapitiya (4:17)

So it's funny. I did buy something at these auctions.

David Friedberg (4:24)

Yesterday's?

Chamath Palihapitiya (4:25)

Quite unique. I will not comment on what it was.

Jason Calacanis (4:28)

Was it that turtleneck?

Chamath Palihapitiya (4:38)

No, but I watched these auctions closely, I guess is what I'm trying to say. And I was surprised at the US Constitution for sold so little, you know, for basically like the Magna Carta of the best startup that's ever been created.