In conversation with Reid Hoffman & Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

**Jason Calacanis** (0:00)
Welcome back to the All-In Podcast, the number one business technology and political podcast in the world. I am your host, Jay Cal, Jason Calacanis, and with us today, three of my besties, you got David Friedberg cackling over there. He is your Sultan of Science, previously known as the Queen of Quinoa, but he sold the Quinoa business, made a killing in Quinoa. Also with us, back from Italy, back from Italy, Chamath Palihapitiya, he's at 67% button. And he's not happy about it, but the hair looks great. You still got a little sea salt from the yachting.

**Chamath Palihapitiya** (0:37)
I think I'm going to try to keep my hair long. Let's see what happens.

**Jason Calacanis** (0:41)
Did you bring any of the sea salt back with you from the Mediterranean, put it in a little bottle to spray or no?

**Chamath Palihapitiya** (0:46)
No, but I do have some mineral oil.

**Jason Calacanis** (0:48)
Oh, okay, great. And have you showered in the last week or is it still, you got the Mediterranean glove?

**Chamath Palihapitiya** (0:52)
Every day I've showered since I've gotten back.

**Jason Calacanis** (0:54)
See, that's the problem.

**Chamath Palihapitiya** (0:55)
You were showering in the Mediterranean. What's the seed you use as a natural disinfectant and deodorant?

**David Sacks** (1:01)
Exfoliant.

**Chamath Palihapitiya** (1:02)
Exfoliant also, yeah.

**David Sacks** (1:04)
Look how many buns he's got going.

**Jason Calacanis** (1:05)
I know, it's just tragic. It's always beginning.

**David Sacks** (1:07)
I feel uncomfortable for your neck. I mean, it's like creeping all the way up. Your neck looks like a prisoner.

**Chamath Palihapitiya** (1:30)
I walked here, but I had it totally unbuttoned, and I thought this is completely inappropriate for Menlo Park in August. So I buttoned two buttons.

**Jason Calacanis** (1:37)
Back in business mode, he's in business casual mode. He went from casual to business. Okay, and with us, of course, the Dark Knight himself, yeah, the Rain Man, David Sacks. And we have a Bestie guest for you folks, friend of my other pod, This Week in Startups, Reid Hoffman is here. And you know him as a Venture Capitalist board member at Microsoft. And you were the co-founder or the founder of LinkedIn? I don't know if you had a co-founder.

**Reid Hoffman** (2:03)
Co-founder.

**Jason Calacanis** (2:03)
Co-founder of LinkedIn, now owned by Microsoft. He's got his own podcast, Masters of Scale. And he and David Sacks work together at PayPal. Reid, give a welcome to the program and give us a little story. What is your fondest memory or the most quirky memory? David Sacks and all those weirdos, I'm sorry, I'm not supposed to use the word weird anymore.

**Robert F. Kennedy Jr.** (2:29)
I get banned on X.

**Jason Calacanis** (2:30)
All of those unique personalities at PayPal. Tell us about that moment in time. And do you remember the first time you met David Sacks?

**Reid Hoffman** (2:38)
Yeah, I met David because Peter had known him from Stanford and hired him in. And David very quickly, because he has a strong learning curve as he plays these things, kind of got the instinct of what the game we were playing with PayPal was. And it's part of the reason why I think each of the execs have had kind of key contributions to making PayPal successful and David's was this kind of like...
I mean, it's like maniacal focused on the kind of the cycle of how the product worked on eBay. And like, like there was just a whole bunch of stuff I learned from him. It's part of how I track, you know, kind of, you know, people I respect is what do I learn from them? And that was one of the things that I would say I learned from David at PayPal.

**David Sacks** (3:34)
That's nice.

**Jason Calacanis** (3:35)
David, tell us your first memory of meeting Reid Hoffman. Do you remember where you were? Do you remember the conversation?

**David Sacks** (3:43)
Yeah, I think when we met through Peter, you know, and Reid, I think Reid was on the board of there was Confinity back then and then joined full time.

**Jason Calacanis** (3:51)
What were you like, 28? 27? 29?

**David Sacks** (3:54)
No, I mean, let's see.

**Reid Hoffman** (3:56)
This would have been 2000

**David Sacks** (3:59)
I guess it would have been 27 when I first joined PayPal. 27, 28, I guess something like that. Yeah. 99, so whatever that was. In any event, I mean, I'll just to return the compliment, you know, PayPal had all these existential issues where you had these larger entities trying to kill us. Visa, MasterCard, eBay, who else?