NBA Gambling Scandal, Tesla Trillion Dollar Vote, Billionaire Tax, Amazon Robots, AWS Outage

**David Sacks** (0:00)
Maybe we should have Disgraciad Corner as like a regular feature of the pod.

**Erik Friedberg** (0:03)
Good idea. I like it.

**Chamath Palihapitiya** (0:04)
Disgraciad Corner.

**David Sacks** (0:06)
Each of us can give our Disgraciad of the week.

**Jason Calacanis** (0:08)
Oh yeah, Disgraciad at the end of the show.

**Erik Friedberg** (0:10)
Yeah, I love that. And then we could do a Bestie Award at the end of the year for Disgraciad of the year.

**Jason Calacanis** (0:14)
Sacks, once again this week, I'm giving my Disgraciad to Jason Calacanis. So what is the opinion from the mainstream media?

**David Sacks** (0:21)
I'm gonna try not to give it to you every week, but you made it hard this week. Let me tell you.

**Erik Friedberg** (0:25)
That's right.

**David Sacks** (0:26)
Once again, you're sniping from the relative safety of your Texas ranch.

**Jason Calacanis** (0:31)
Yeah, I know. I got the 50 calibers up. You want to jump on the ranch, get ready for the 50

**David Sacks** (0:36)
I think we're all gonna...

**Jason Calacanis** (0:37)
You're all gonna have the ranches next to me.

**David Sacks** (0:39)
I think we're all gonna have to move.

**Jason Calacanis** (0:41)
If this California wealth tax passes.

**David Sacks** (0:43)
Oh my God.

**Jason Calacanis** (1:02)
What's the story with the California wealth tax? Can somebody explain this to me?

**Erik Friedberg** (1:06)
Okay, so the SEIU, the Service Employees Union, filed a ballot initiative, which means a direct-to-voter vote to amend the California Constitution to introduce a one-time billionaires wealth tax, where billionaires, anyone who has assets over a billion dollars net of their debt, has to pay a one-time tax of five percent of their net worth, including their private stock, including their real estate.

**Jason Calacanis** (1:33)
You said five percent?

**Erik Friedberg** (1:35)
Five percent of their net worth. Not of their income, of their net worth. The entire net worth. One-time payment to the state of California. And then there's an allocation on how that money will be spent. But it's a one-time billionaire tax. Now, it is very likely that this sort of an amendment to the California Constitution is not constitutional and actually cannot be made and will not actually go into enforcement, even if the voters do vote to approve it in both a federal and a state level based on this concept of uniformity, which is that you have to tax everyone equally, except for the case of an excise tax, which is like income or a transaction. You're allowed to tax disproportionately based on the size of the income or the size of the transaction. But if you're going to tax on property, if you're going to tax on an asset, you have to tax everyone uniformly. So it is likely not going to go into effect if it does pass. However, it is very likely the case that the SEIU is simply using this as a baiting mechanism to get people to stand up and denounce it. And then they will be in a position to attack those people and destroy them and use this effectively as a political fodder for this next election cycle. That's what it seems like the true kind of motivation.

**Chamath Palihapitiya** (2:44)
Let me go on the record. I think this law is great.

**Jason Calacanis** (2:49)
It's getting the virtual signaling points. I would just like to say, may I be the first to pay 5%. I'll be in the front of the line. Let me know when to show up. I'll bring my check.

**Chamath Palihapitiya** (2:58)
Who do I sign the check towards?

**Jason Calacanis** (3:01)
Should I bring cash, Gavin? Which is bringing cash to your... Which one of your mansions should I bring the cash to? This is strategically why Chamath. I'm glad I got out of California right before I was about to billionize. That was a smart move on my part.

**David Sacks** (3:17)
Friedberg, what are the odds that this goes into effect? Can you just kind of cap this?

**Erik Friedberg** (3:21)
Yeah, well, we don't know who's going to come out against it, but there's an effort to try and get top Democrat officials in the state of California to say, this is silly. If you do this, people will leave the state, yada, yada. So that's kind of a quiet, underway effort. But I don't know why the citizens of California, the majority of citizens of California would not vote for this. Why? Who wouldn't want to tax the billionaires 5%? Come on, like, let's do it.

**Chamath Palihapitiya** (3:46)
The way that it's written, it says, hey, guys, we're 30 billion in the hole, and there are 200 Californians that control true trillion dollars. We're just going to ask them to pay a one-time fee of 5%. And I don't see how anybody would say, hmm, that doesn't sound unreasonable at the ballot box.