IPOs and SPACs are Back, Mag 7 Showdown, Zuck on Tilt, Apple's Fumble, GENIUS Act passes Senate

**Jason Calacanis** (0:00)
All right, everybody, welcome back to the number one podcast in the world. I'm your host and executive producer for Life is Not a Right Day, Friedberg. Jay Cal, Jason Calacanis.

**David Friedberg** (0:11)
Not at all what you are.

**Jason Calacanis** (0:12)
Make sure you tune in to this week in Startups and apply to Founder University.

**David Friedberg** (0:17)
You're something very different.

**Jason Calacanis** (0:18)
With us again today, the Sultan of Science, David Friedberg. Can I just congratulate you on your fourth baby? If you double that number, you're going to be able to catch up to Chamath and his five plus three illegitimate. How are you doing, Friedberg?
How are you feeling? You're tired and grumpy, aren't you?

**David Friedberg** (0:54)
Easy transition for me. I didn't have to do the work.

**Jason Calacanis** (0:57)
Are you tired and grumpy? And how's Allison? How's the mom?

**David Friedberg** (1:00)
Everyone's wonderful. Thank you for asking.

**Jason Calacanis** (1:02)
And a beautiful boy.

**David Friedberg** (1:03)
Beautiful boy.

**Chamath Palihapitiya** (1:04)
Nothing more crushing?

**David Friedberg** (1:05)
Nothing more amazing than seeing a child.

**Chamath Palihapitiya** (1:08)
How's Shmeckle?

**David Friedberg** (1:10)
Magnificent. Thank you for asking. Thank you for asking that. Yeah. Okay, let's move on. Thank you.

**Jason Calacanis** (1:16)
Thank you for all the keywords. And just we sent over a gift basket Chamath and I, Longhorn, Poconya steaks, a 10-year membership for Poconya.

**Chamath Palihapitiya** (1:27)
Oh, hey, congrats to Olivia Landon, by the way, of Longhill Wagyu. She had twins.

**Jason Calacanis** (1:33)
That means she's going to have more people to work on the ranch and slaughter cattle to send us our Poconya. Congratulations. Shout out.

**Chamath Palihapitiya** (1:39)
Congrats to Olivia Landon.

**Jason Calacanis** (1:40)
It's so funny because we love this. We love these steaks so much. She doubled. We mentioned it on the pod, and you idiots started searching for it, lunatics, and they ordered out all the Kool-Aid steaks. So now Chamath and I are screwed.

**Thomas Laffont** (1:53)
No Kool-Aids left.

**Chamath Palihapitiya** (1:54)
No, they ordered out everything. Everything was sold out. Everything was sold out.

**Jason Calacanis** (1:58)
So now we have to gatekeep with us again, your chairman dictator, Chamath Palihapitiya. He have two votes in our fine organization. How are you doing, Chamath?

**Chamath Palihapitiya** (2:08)
I love voting control.

**Jason Calacanis** (2:10)
I'm doing great. He starts Thomas Laffont with a tie, and then all of the gamesmanship happens between the team of rivals, me and Friedberg, with us again, Thomas Laffont, a gentleman, a scholar, no idea why he's here, a true- I don't know how he wound up on this podcast. What a true gentleman, a true scholar, and host of Easts Meets West, an incredible conference that I attended this week with our bestie, David Sacks, who of course is at the White House and can't join us. But Thomas, what a great event. Thank you for including me.

**Thomas Laffont** (2:47)
No box lunches, by the way. We took your feedback from a couple of years ago, so I hope that we met your standard.

**Jason Calacanis** (2:54)
You did upgrade the food.

**David Friedberg** (2:55)
What were the highlights for you guys at your conference, Thomas?

**Thomas Laffont** (2:58)
I mean, I think for me, obviously, I think a lot of news and AI this week. So I think that was kind of the center piece of most of the panels, pretty much up and down the stack, from SaaS companies trying to transform into AI to obviously the Big Zuck news on scale, and then potentially I saw in the information today, the Nat Friedman news. So it feels like there's a lot going on in the industry, so it should be fun to talk about.

**Jason Calacanis** (3:23)
Yeah, and we're going to talk about it all today. We got a really full docket. Rick Caruso, the mayor who would have saved Los Angeles from the fires, he was there, and you actually hosted at his incredible facility. What a location.

**Thomas Laffont** (3:37)
We talked about the state of LA, which, Jay Cal, it looks like that's where you're at, right?

**Jason Calacanis** (3:43)
Yes, I'm at my LA home, which-

**Thomas Laffont** (3:46)
AKA the compound?

**Jason Calacanis** (3:48)
Yeah, it's available on Airbnb, so I'm here in LA. But yeah, Rick Caruso, what a great speaker.

**Thomas Laffont** (3:54)
Interestingly, Jay Cal, today, a friend just sent me a chart showing the recovery of restaurants post-COVID, and LA is 50 percent behind on the recovery per store location versus the national average.

**Jason Calacanis** (4:09)
What do you attribute that to or what did they attribute it to?