E53: Wealth tax, dealing with inflation as a capital allocator, big tech earnings, Facebook's rebrand, paternity leave & more
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & FriedbergEpisode mentions
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A baby. No. Skin on skin. You guys got to keep the shirt on. Listen to me.
Only the best for my daughter. This is 100% Laura Piana vicuna.
She's going to puke on it any minute.
There is not. You're using Laura piano to wipe her when she vomits?
No, this is the sweater that she's got her face on. But this is the softest material, human, I mean, natural material on earth, really. This is not subject to any supply chain constraints. In fact, when you buy one from Laura piano, they'll fly one right to you.
Let your winners ride, rain man.
David sat.
We open sources to the fans, and.
They'Ve just gone crazy with it. Love you, queen of kin.
Guys, isn't it amazing how people in power cannot take any time off and still remain in power and engaged when you have a baby?
J. Cal, what's the reference?
Okay. Our friend Joe Lonsdale, venture capitalist living in Austin, had a tweet that went viral, but maybe not for the best reasons. He said, in response to a Dan Primrack tweet. Dan works at Axios, who was talking about Joe Rogan criticizing the amount of time Buttigieg was taking on paternity leave. And Joe Lonsdell responded, wow. Great for fathers to spend time with their kids and support moms, but any man in an important position who takes six months of leave for a newborn is a loser. In the old days, men had babies and worked harder to provide for their future. That's the correct masculine response. Well, it was an opinion from 1957. That's either his or he in the way back machine. But Joe's old school Joe is a unique individual, and he just happened to, I think, in this whole not get canceled debate or don't let yourself get canceled debate, the right is now saying, like, I'm just going to tell you how I actually feel. And so Joe told us actually, how he felt.
I don't think he said anything offensive. I think you can have a different opinion than what he said, but I don't think he said it shouldn't exist. He said, if you're in a position of power and you check out for six months, it puts everything that you're doing under a lot of pressure. That's, I think, what he said. And he called those very specific people losers. The context is Joe Rogan called out Pete Buttigieg because Pete Buttigieg had two kids via surrogate and I guess, is taking six months or I don't even know how much time he's taking.
He's had three months, but nobody knows if he's, like, working half.
But Rogan had an issue with it. And then Dan primac basically said, what Rogan doesn't know is at his own company, I. E. Spotify. There's a six month policy, which, by.
The way, Joe Rogan does not work for Spotify. They license his show. So there is no way for Joe Rogan to know the internal policies. He is not an employee.
I mean, Jason, if you want to hang your hat on that little fig leaf. Okay, no, I'm just saying.
I'm not defending Joe, but I'm also saying, how would he know? It's not like he went to HR and was like, hey, what's our paternity? He doesn't work. Fine.
Well, six months is a long time, especially. I mean, that is a long time to take off.
The word loser is a very strong word. Do you think men who take paternity are losers?
No.
Do you think men who take six months of paternity are.
No, I wouldn't necessarily call them a loser. I do think that is a long time for somebody who prioritizes work.
If an entrepreneur took six months of fraternity, would that influence whether or not you invest in his business?
Well, look, if you are the principal of a business and you just disappear for six months, that's not going to work. I mean, let's be realistic.
Unless it does, in which case then you have other problems.
Well, or, look, if you're at the stage that Google is at, or whatever, the founders can disappear and move to islands and private islands and it doesn't.
Matter what they did.
But look, we all know, I mean, that when you're a startup, you face existential decisions daily, weekly or monthly. You can't just disappear for six months. It's not going to work.
You might only have six months of Runway. So if you did take six months of paternity, there would be no company when you came back. In all likelihood.
Let me speak for myself. I couldn't ever take six months. I'll probably take three weeks to a month. And honestly, I agree with David. I really didn't do much of anything. Nat had to do, frankly, all of this by herself. And so I'm there to just be moral support and help where, you know, baby needs a diaper change. I do that. I'll hand feed in a bottle because she's tired of pumping and breastfeeding, but I am so peripherally at the edges trying to help and be relevant and try to give her a break. Here or there, that's my role. And at some point when the kid gets on a schedule, there's even less stuff necessarily for me to do other than again, just be moral and emotional support. Then of course there's bonding and stuff. But to be honest with you, I have found as a parent, the connection.
That I have with my children has.
Gotten meaningfully better as they've gotten older. And maybe that's just a limitation that I have in my need to communicate and how I want to connect with my kids and how I feel. I get feedback back that gives me energy to be a parent. It is much easier for me to find that equation with my twelve year old than it is with my two day old. So that's just me. I'm going to be out for three weeks to a month.
The other thing we're leaving out here is the question of resources. So Joe Lonsdale, according to his podcast, is a billionaire. His podcast title. And so if you're a billionaire and you have unlimited resources at home and 24 hours night nurses, which we all know what those cost, you're talking about 1000 or $2,000 a day to have 24 hours coverage. But that's nothing to a billionaire. So I don't want to make it about class, but if you were two working parents and you didn't have the money to hire somebody, this is actually practically the only thing you can do. Somebody has to be with the kid. And can one spouse be at home? I'm 24 hours alone with the kid all the time.
As you guys know, I'm from Canada. In Canada we have a one year maternity and paternity leave policy. It can kind of go both ways. Basically the family gets it and you can allocate it as and how you.
Need it and pays for their salary.
The government basically guarantees your job. You go on effectively, unemployment insurance after some period of time where you go from 100% of your salary to about, I think it's 50%, somebody will correct me if I get these details wrong. And then you go through the rest of the year. Now, in both cases, my sister, when she had both kids on the way in, she was like, I think I want to take the full year. And by the six month mark, she was losing her mind. And she's a lawyer at a really good research hospital and she does work that's really valuable to her and that she finds really stimulating and she just needed more adult connection. After six months, it was very hard for her to kind of be there.
Yeah, I just think six months for the second parent, that seems like a long time.
I don't think I could take six months off. But I also think if you have resources, there's pockets of time. Even when I did stay home for, I don't know, the first couple of weeks after the kids were born, they're asleep for 3 hours and then you clean the diapers, feed them, they play for an hour or two and then they go back on a nap. It's constantly the stop and start. I mean, that's the thing that's hardest about is the lack of sleep, I.
Think, oh, my God. It feels like it's funny, but I forgot what it's like. But you're reminded quickly. It feels like you're drunk.
Yes.
2 hours, you wake up, you get a ten minute cat nap, you wake up and this is where again I go to. And I'm such a bit player in this play right now at the edges where like Nat's sleeping. I can take care of tally, but I don't know how women do it. It's incredible.
And for those of you listening, Chamatha's got his newborn on his chest and swallowed quite nicely there.
This is why you should subscribe on YouTube and you can see that he's.
Using his new daughter to get the YouTube subscriptions up. This should blow us past 100,000 subs. But how do you feel?
It's so special. I feel so lucky. I feel so, so lucky.
This is going to be the most popular cameo on the pod since dog.
Yeah. I mean, this chick is so deliciously cute. She's so delicious. And I forgot how beautiful the sounds that girls makes versus boys having three boys and two girls. Now I remember the boys, they make kind of interesting noises, but not really, but, my gosh, like little baby girl noises. And you guys, sax has two girls, you have three. Freebird. All girls.
It's.
Girls are incredible.
We're all basically girl dads. Like Kobe.
Oh, so what a blessing. What a blessing. I feel really like.
Any news on your front?
Well, we had a baby the day after Chamath had a baby.
Oh, right. I did see the babies.
Congratulations.
Thank you.
Freeberg, where's your swaddled infant? You're letting chamath win sweepsweek here. What's going on?
His pecunia is on the way.
Are you in the Joe Lawnsdale? You did one day off and then went right back to work.
She's in the place where you drop the kids off to get raised and then you pick them up in a.
You're like, oh, you mean like vulcans? You're like vulcans where you come into a learning pod and come back a year later?
I mean, they sleep most of the day, so she's asleep right now. Actually, Allison just sent me a picture. She's sitting on the rocking chair where.
They'Re outside right now.
Pretty amazing.
I give Lonsdale a lot of courage for saying what he thought. I
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