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Podcast

Fixing the American Dream With Andrew Schulz

All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg

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  • Jason’s Sperm Check
    • Jason Calacanis shares his humiliating experience getting his sperm checked.
    • The room was like a motel, with a small couch and a towel, making him question the clinic’s budget. Transcript: Jason Calacanis But the first time we had the first kid wife says hey we’re ovulate i’m ovulating i said put me in the game boom first shot half court logo pregnant wow then she says i want to wait before I have the next one it’s a little traumatic to have a kid and she waits six years then we try for a year nothing for one year so now i’m like oh man we waited too long it’s a lot of pressure you Talk about this in the special it’s like for women this is anxiety producing so she’s like you got to go get checked out and this is when the most humiliating day of my life occurred i don’t Know andy what it was like when you went but uh they found all these grifters can they can they identify grifters through the microscope no no no i walk in and the thing opens and there’s Three women at the counter at the reception and they’re like hey jason calicanis you’re here to give a you know i’m like yeah i am and then they walk you to a room oh that’s the spookiest Thing yeah they walk you to a room and then they open it up and it’s like some nightmare scenario where there’s a motel eight room and there’s a couch that’s about three feet wide and there’s A towel on it. Chamath Palihapitiya And there’s a towel on it. And that sofa is not clothed for a reason. No. Andrew Schulz It needs to be cleanable. Chamath Palihapitiya In fact, it looks very much like the hotel you’re in, Schultz. Jason Calacanis I don’t know what’s going on with the Netflix budget. Why do you think I’m staying there? Maybe they could put you in the Four Seasons or the Peninsula. It’s so brutal. So you did this, right? You had to go? Chamath Palihapitiya The grainy television with the porn. Oh, you’re lucky you got the TV. I had no porn. I went to the phone. I went to the phone. Yeah, I had no porn. I had nothing. Andrew Schulz I didn’t even have any service in there, which was another thing that was annoying. So what did you do? You Rolodexed it? No, Spank Bank. You had to go to the Spank Bank. That’s what I’m talking about, the Rolodex. You rolled through all the memories. Think about the memories, man, of my wife and only my wife. Nobody else. That’s what I was thinking about. Jason Calacanis All those great moments with your wife. All those great moments. Maybe there was accidentally one or two that got left in from when you were on the road. Andrew Schulz It’s possible some absolute whores would jump into the dreams that I had with my wife. That might be possible. I would never want them to be there. No, that was the director’s cut. There’s nothing I could do. (Time 0:06:59)
  • Newsom’s Podcast Strategy
    • Andrew Schulz believes Gavin Newsom’s podcast demonstrates political bravery.
    • Schulz argues that Newsom addresses real issues and provides valuable information, unlike typical political rhetoric. Transcript: Andrew Schulz This is so I think that this is like this is a great idea, despite what you think about his politics. He a plastic bag in the wind yes but it is a great demonstration of like how americans admire bravery or courage and we don’t like i think that’s what the democrats kind of displayed in The last election i want to get too political about this like no it’s your opinion one man’s opinion it’s more just like i i responded culturally i don’t give a fuck about the tribalism And politics but i’ll just be honest with you so having him have like charlie kirk right there who’s like a professional arguer that he is whatever you know how like some people are autistic For dinosaurs he’s that for arguing right and to like sit across from him to even address the French laundry. I was like, OK, this is actually the right thing to do. So as as as easy as is for us to sit here and go, OK, this guy just wants to be president. Like, this is a dumb thing. Like, blah, blah, blah. It’s actually what the Democrats should be doing. So I think we need to reward. I think we need to reward behavior. We want more conversation. We want conversation with people, especially that you may disagree with. And the second podcast he put out, I thought was the most impactful. There was one piece that was incredibly impactful. He’s talking to some guy. I don’t know who he was. Some guy who grew up in San Francisco. He’s like a fisherman. Yeah, Mike Savage. Michael Savage. He was talking about the taxes and like he’s paying all this money in taxes in california and what does he get from it and then newsom said that like yeah rich people are going to pay more But your actual like functional tax rate if you’re middle class would be more if you lived in florida because of the other stuff you get taxed on this is the type of information that you Guys might be privy to, but the average person doesn’t. They hop on an internet trend. Jason Calacanis So you’re saying he’s being human and addressing real issues instead of culture war issues and just talking like Kamala. I think he’s going culture war. Andrew Schulz That’s culture war. But he’s actually putting out valuable information that defends the positions he may have taken in government that the average person doesn’t really know. (Time 0:09:37)
  • Tariff Negotiations
    • Andrew Schulz uses a car buying analogy to explain public tariff negotiations.
    • He suggests that negotiating publicly removes leverage, as initial offers are scrutinized, hindering effective bargaining. Transcript: Andrew Schulz Yes we gotta stay on track can i tell you guys something about uh tariffs from a layman yeah yeah please you guys are acutely aware of maybe how these things affect markets and yada, yada, Yada. And most people don’t have any fucking clue. So the average person, right? I look at this and I’m like, man, it kind of sucks that you got to like negotiate your like your bid for a car that you’re going to buy publicly. Right. So this is my assumption. And maybe I’m like a little bit more optimistic than most about the administration. But if I go to buy a car and the car is listed at 100K and I go offer the guy 80, right? I don’t want everybody around me yelling out loud. How can you insult him by offering him 80? This is an insult. And then I can’t go to them and I go, I’m actually trying to settle at 90. I’m just saying 80. So he comes down a little bit. But the unfortunate thing when you litigate these things in front of the entire world is that they look at that first measure, there’s 200% tax and Trump can’t balk at it. He can’t go, yo, I’m just fucking, I’m just playing around with that number. I actually just getting them to come down 20% or 10% getting them to come down. Anything is a win. He can’t say that because he loses all his leverage. So he’s got to sit here and then get criticized by, I don’t know if it’s half the country. I don’t know who really ends up caring about what these tariffs do. Obviously, there are repercussions in the market. I got a buddy of mine building a hotel out in Joshua Tree, and he’s like, I don’t even know if I can get brought into the country from Canada. So it does affect people in real time. But it’s impossible to do these negotiations with any leverage if you have the people within your own country questioning your ability to negotiate in real time. That is what the layman would think. David Friedberg Well, I do think you’re right in the sense that in the early days, when Trump was talking about tariffs, initially, everyone was like, Oh, my God, he’s going to use tariffs, he’s unpredictable. And then the narrative became he’s using it as a negotiating tactic. The problem is just like in poker, once everyone knows that there’s this kind of action, it’s exploitable. And so this is now kind of an exploitable mode of negotiation where everyone now assumes he’s just trying to negotiate. So no one actually takes him seriously. The question now is the response going to be that he’s going to be serious about it, or is he actually exploitable? And you saw what China’s response was. I kind of view China as like AI. Like stuff goes into China, the AI processes it, and it comes back out. China is like obviously the way they’re kind of structured. You have very little psychosocial bias like you do with other democratic governments. It’s very systematic. It’s systematically processed. Every piece of data is systematically processed every action is systematically processed and so i think when you look at how the chinese ambassador responded to trump on twitter a Few weeks ago where they’re like you want war we’ll give you war this is a hot war or cold war whatever you want we’ve never seen that from an ambassador to the united states president before Done on twitter like this let alone the chinese ambassador So I think it says a lot about how the Chinese AI is processing the Trump negotiating tactic or the Trump positioning statements On tariffs, which indicates that there may be now, I mean, we can talk about what game theory optimal play might be in this kind of poker game, what’s going to come next. But there’s a real assessment that they’ve made on how far he is willing to take it. They’ve got a conclusive statement, and they believe that this is the fastest way to kind of win their negotiating position. But it says a lot about where this is all going. Everyone now understands or views this as an exploitable moment, which unfortunately means that tariffs may not work or they’re actually going to have to stick, which can be really Ugly. Yeah, it could be painful. (Time 0:19:35)
  • Stock Market Apathy
    • Chamath Palihapitiya claims most Americans aren’t invested in the stock market and don’t care about it.
    • He argues that this indifference stems from asset holders disproportionately benefiting, leaving others behind. Transcript: Chamath Palihapitiya Do you think America would be okay with this idea of taxing outsiders and then relying on it versus income tax paid by its own citizens? Andrew Schulz I think that the second half is really all that would matter. I think that people are thinking, I think the majority of people are thinking about the next week. So if you say that I don’t have to pay taxes, like, and I think this is what Republicans are doing way better than Democrats right now is like Democrats don’t have build the wall. They don’t have slogans. They don’t have things that immediately tap into like core emotional feeling, regardless if you’re going to do it or not. We want Greenland. Okay, that’s cool. Democrats need eggs or a dollar. Democrats need things that echo their sentiments and how they want to take care of people and provide for the disenfranchise, but it has to be done in a way where it’s digestible. You can chew on it. If you want to make housing more affordable, then you say, yeah, we’re seizing public land. We’re building 10,000 units. You have to tap into what Americans need, which is a feeling of not just comfort. Every American thinks they’re going to be a millionaire. That’s what this country drives off of, right? It’s every poor American- That hope, that hope, yeah. And the second they stop thinking they will be- Or they can be. Or they can be, it falls apart. And then healthcare ceo gets shot and people celebrate they’re they’re celebrating because they no longer feel the hope that they could be in that position yeah they feel so disenfranchised They they and this is what like i’m telling you like the you guys of the world need to pay close attention to because there’s going to be no empathy if anything bad happens oh the stock market Is down no amer are invested in the stock market. (Time 0:30:28)
  • Trump’s Communication Mastery
    • Jason Calacanis believes Trump connects with people through policies like no tax on tips.
    • This resonates with lower-income earners and acknowledges those in the gray market, demonstrating Trump’s communication skills. Transcript: Jason Calacanis And you, Chamath, Trump is a master at connecting with people and listening to them. I thought one of the greatest things he did during this last election is when he said no tax on tips. When he said no tax on tips, he was going right for Nevada. He was going right for that swing state, you know, to get those folks who live off tips. But what he was also doing is saying, I know that there’s a bunch of y’all that sometimes get cash tips you put it in your pocket it’s the gray market I get it you know I run a whole you know I got caddies who get a hundi from you know whatever taking somebody out on the course we’re just going to make it official you don’t get taxed on tips because we know that you’re you know You’re the bottom third of the country in terms of your economic power those kind of statements really do connect with people Trump has just mastered this. This party is, Trump is the Democratic Party that we grew up with. Andrew Schulz It’s kind of crazy. (Time 0:34:10)
  • Social Security Investment Strategy
    • David Friedberg explains how investing Social Security funds in the S&P 500 could have yielded $15 trillion.
    • This would create the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund, granting all Americans ownership in American enterprise. Transcript: David Friedberg Did an analysis. I wasn’t sure if I should put it out, but I’ll tell you guys the numbers. The US Social Security program is meant to be kind of the retirement program for folks that don’t have access to private retirement accounts. Okay. And this program was set up in the 1930s after the Great Depression. And there’s a trust fund, the OASDI, which is the fund that they invest the capital. So every year, we all put money in with our social security taxes out of our paychecks goes in there. And it gets invested, you know, what it gets invested in? It gets invested in one thing, US treasuries, which have averaged about 4.8% return since the beginning of the program per year. Meanwhile- What if you put it into the market? Meanwhile, the S&P has been averaging 11%. So here’s the math. If in 1971, which was the year that we went off the gold standard in the United States, if we invested the Social Security Trust Fund in the S&P, the balance of the Social Security Trust Fund today would be $15 trillion. That would be roughly one third of the value of the total S&P 500, which would be jointly owned by all Americans who took their capital. Now, here’s what’s fucked up. What’s fucked up is that the middle class people who had access to private retirement accounts benefited by buying the S&P 500, and the wealthy were able to access it. So all of the equity value that accrued from American enterprise and the prosperity of the American system accrued to the people that had access to the private accounts. Meanwhile, the people that only had access to the public accounts got stuck owning treasuries. Today, the Social Security Trust Fund has $2.7 trillion balance. And based on the outflows and inflows, it’s going to go bankrupt in 2032. That means Social Security is either going to get cut, or the Fed’s going to print a ton of money to keep Social Security benefits. Jason Calacanis Retirement age goes up a little bit. Yeah, it’s a lot of levers. Yeah. David Friedberg Wow. So I did the math. If you assume that the S&P 500 continues to grow at 10.5% a year, on average, there’s ups and downs. And sure, there could be basically drawdowns and all these other sorts of things. But here’s an important point. We could put about $500 billion in the trust fund today, and it will not go bankrupt again. And it will continue to grow every year. And then all Americans have participation in American enterprise. And importantly, this becomes the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund ever. You don’t need a separate sovereign wealth fund. We already have one. We have it. It’s called the Social Security Trust Fund. And what we’ve done is we’ve totally mismanaged it. And I went back to try and understand why this is the case. Why have we only ever bought treasuries? Early on, the U.S. Needed someone to loan money. So they basically forced the citizens to loan the government money in the form of treasuries. But today, the Social Security Trust Fund owns only less than 10%, about 8% of the total treasury bonds outstanding. The rest are owned by the Fed and foreign investors and private investors and others that want to own it. So why are we forcing all the American citizens to participate? Yeah, we’re propping it up for no reason. And we’re discouraging access. So basically we’ve created, through the social security system, we’ve created the deep inequity we see in this country. If instead we had allowed the social security system to invest in the S&P 500, to buy American enterprises, to fund American businesses, then every American would be wealthy and that Middle class that uniquely participated by basically arbitraging the market where they forced the treasury bond yields on the poor and they got to take access to the equity yields Would have not happened. Yeah, they had 401ks, right? They had built a device for them. They had a device. They brought IRAs and they were able to participate with brokerage accounts and buying in the market. But what we can do right now is we can fix it. And here’s an important point. People will then argue, oh, well, what if there’s a down year, two down years in a row? You know what? We’re already going to be printing money to make up the hole in social security. We’re not going to let social security go bankrupt. We’re not going to let it dry out. So we’re already going to print money to make the social security hole. So if that’s the case, we can create a backstop for social security. We’re going to have to do it either way, but we might as well take on the bank. (Time 0:41:21)
  • Affordable Housing Initiative
    • Jason Calacanis proposes building five new cities with affordable housing for those below a certain income level.
    • This addresses the housing crisis and renews hope in the American Dream, resembling a modern Manhattan Project. Transcript: Jason Calacanis If I run for president, you know what my position is going to be, Schultz? What’s that? I’m going to build five cities with 3 million homes in each. And you can only buy them if you make under X amount per year. It’s not going to be like the projects or like, you know, subsidized housing in New York. It’ll be Stuyvesant Town. It’s not going to be Stuyvesant Town, okay? Oh, okay. It’s going like nice house it’s pretty good if you can get it yeah stuyvesant town’s not bad but not like projects i’m talking about like proper homes like bill we are the most innovative Country society ever created i mean since the greeks they were pretty great too but we could build five new cities why the can’t we build five new cities with three million homes in it Let’s do some like manhattan project for housing and then health care how the hell do we not have like good healthcare for everybody in this country? We’re the richest country in the world, greatest economy, whatever. We should be able to solve those problems. And that’s why people don’t feel like they’re part of this is because basic housing, basic healthcare and your retirement. (Time 0:51:56)
  • Schulz’s Comedy Journey
    • Andrew Schulz started his comedy career 18 years ago, living with his parents and managing restaurants.
    • He saved money from a bar venture to pursue comedy, eventually finding success despite initial financial struggles. Transcript: Jason Calacanis When did you start in comedy? Andrew Schulz I was I think it’s almost been like 18 years or something like that. So you started in your early 20s in New York, going to the Funny Bone or what? Chamath Palihapitiya I have a question, actually. How did you get into it? How do you pay for your life before you make it? Is it that you have a normal day job? Andrew Schulz I lived with my parents for a very long time. My parents lived in the East Village, so I was walking distance from multiple comedy clubs. It was, you know, incredibly, uh, I mean, I worked like with my parents for a little bit. Then I managed restaurants and I like just managed them. You managed restaurants in Manhattan. Yeah, I did. I started in Santa Barbara when I was going to college. That’s where I did my first comedy gig. And then I managed a restaurant in brooklyn and um oh really not very good would i know it was called biscuit barbecue it was in park slope brooklyn and then um and then i started to make A little money in stand-up it was like enough to like buy a moon’s falafel i like had like a five you had falafel money i had i had a five to ten dollar a day budget and i like i could eat cereal For And then I just, and I saved some money because I was going to school. When I was going to school, I was working at that restaurant and I saved some money. And I had a little pipe dream of opening up a bar with a friend of mine in New York. And then I was like, you know what? I’m just going to spend this money trying to be a comedian. And I hope by the time I get rid of the money, I’m making money at comedy. And it came down to like $700 in my bank account. I was like renting out the room where I slept in and I would sleep in a closet in my apartment. And it just, and it worked out. It just worked out. I started making a couple of money, do a couple of gigs, start touring, got on a TV show. Chamath Palihapitiya And then it kind of worked out. Was there a moment that where, because when you, when, cancel culture was alive and well, that’s when I first encountered you. It was initially on TikTok, actually. Sure. And you were on fire because you were saying stuff nobody else was saying. And I thought, how does he even dare to pull this shit off? And so was there a moment that where you broke or you tipped or not? Andrew Schulz So you kind of like, it’s interesting, you kind of break and then you go away. Like, so I, so I broke on like some MTV shows and I was, you know, doing all these things on MTV at my own shows and all that kind of stuff. And then I kind of, you know, the MTV thing kind of dried up and then I kind of went away, but I was luckily doing this podcast with Charlemagne and the podcast was very popular and that was Like providing for me. And then I was doing some shows on the road and, you know, people would come out from the podcast, but, um, and then I really couldn’t get any traction in standup world. (Time 1:11:53)
  • Leveraging YouTube for Comedians
    • Andrew Schulz advises comedians to leverage YouTube to build an audience and bypass traditional networks.
    • This creates a new marketplace and forces streaming services to compete, granting comedians more autonomy. Transcript: Andrew Schulz And then it just, I think in America, we reward bravery. Yeah. You just signed a Netflix deal, right? David Friedberg I mean, you did the show. Yeah. We’re actually doing the show in Austin tonight where we’re going to talk with some folks about this general concept where you start out as kind of an independent, say whatever you want, You’re totally free. It’s your own platform. It’s your own voice. Yeah. And then you go sign a deal with another platform. Like, are you now, you know, do you find it hard to trade the money for whatever might come along with that? Andrew Schulz There’s restrictions. There’s two ways to look at it, right’s like there’s one like i think that i don’t want to give myself too much credit here there’s but like i think that what we did is created another marketplace For comedy that the streaming networks had to now compete with yeah so they were losing comics to youtube because it was more advantageous to put your comedy up on youtube and build a Following and then go sell tickets on the road whereas before the only way you could like really make a big chunk of money on your comedy is if you’ve got one of these fancy specials. Now people are like, I don’t even want to do this special because if I put it on YouTube, I can tour for years and really build a fan base. So to have this autonomy, the Netflix thing is interesting because like Netflix is the second biggest, I guess, streaming service on the planet. It’s like YouTube and Netflix. So if I already have this huge imprint on YouTube, it would only be smart for me to now tap into the second biggest and see if there’s some people there that aren’t consuming my content On YouTube. (Time 1:16:24)
  • Declining Institutional Trust
    • Andrew Schulz observes a decline in institutional trust and a rise in conspiracy theories due to lack of transparency.
    • He suggests that brutal honesty and open communication can restore public confidence. Transcript: Chamath Palihapitiya What we talked a lot about it, but I just want you to be maybe like put a point on it. Where are we? Where’s America? What the hell is going on? Andrew Schulz Like what’s happened? What’s happening? Chamath Palihapitiya However you feel that question, like what the hell is going on? Andrew Schulz All time low confidence in institutions, low confidence in information. There’s an obsession with conspiracy because there’s, I mean, that’s twofold. One, like it’s the easiest way for dumb people to feel smart. Like when you know something no one else knows and you get to share with people, like there’s that like dopamine hit where like, I bet you didn’t know this happened, you know? But those thrive in times where there’s not real transparency. So I think everybody’s looking for answers and nothing is exactly how it seems. And the only way to reinstill that confidence is I think like brutal transparency. Like you got to just be like really honest with the people. (Time 1:22:31)