Learning not to trust the All-In podcast

There was the opendoor ipo, there was Jason Calacanis "sharpening the knives" ahead of the Twitter acquisition, there was what David Sacks did to Zenefits, and there's more. People are going to keep trusting these guys, simply because they have a hard-on for charismatic people with a lot of money, an extremely short memory, and refusal to believe that they will be the next ones to be scammed.

It's frustratingly impressive how grifters are able to maintain a grift even after it's made evident that they are grifting...

One of the effects of a successful grift is that contrary facts don’t matter — in fact contrary facts just reinforce the grift by strengthening the us against them dynamic.

David Sacks*

I find these guys are pretty insightful when discussing tech and VC news. The politics talk is awful. Chamath is a lightweight who doesn't know anything about how our government works but speaks confidently -- I remember one time he was talking about how raising the debt ceiling will allow the President to spend more money. Sacks is a partisan hack who will spin everything as a positive for Trump and MAGA politics. That's after he was a hack for Desantis.

I find that I listen to them mainly for the tech and VC discussion as you said. The politics conversations are very drowning and I am gladly looking forward to not having to hear as much of this given the election is over.

Chamath is a fraud. He dumped an unbelievable number of SPACs retail that imploded.[0] The fact that he's part of the All-In crew speaks volumes.

[0]: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/chamath-palihapitiya-crumblin...

"Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them.

"In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know."

– Michael Crichton (1942-2008)

> these guys are pretty insightful when discussing tech and VC news

They seem insightful. They’re generally behind the curve and remind of Stratfor.

If anything, All In is better connected on politics. But that may be my Gell-Mann amnesia at play because I know the finance side of tech very well, and they’re not only frequently but paradoxically consistently wrong on it in ways that one sees institutional-versus-retail flows profit off.

thanks, fixed!

I didn't know about any of these incidents, but I could never listen to the podcast because they all sounded like a bunch of douchebags to me.

Maybe sometimes there's an evolutionary advantage in prejudice?

It's fascinating that Michael Crichton would have a quote like that when he's been guilty of falling into the same trap himself. It really shows how difficult it is for the human mind to have perspective on itself.

Likewise for VC/tech. I started listening for those topics and in those days that used to be almost entire show then they slowly started pivot to politics & social commentary which I dont care much for (from them). they are a bunch of centi/billionaire and should stick to that lane but I feel now they have become the podcast arm of RW. I have to say I find myself skipping lots of portions now, its almost not worth it but I still do it to catch up on the dog-whistle to other closeted republican tech/VC/leadership but then WSJ does that better than them.

some observations, IDK if others have noticed: - chamath always speaks last as if he is some kind of village elder, I think it allows him to present a better pov than he actually has - sacks is good at logic/debating and It seems they use that to push a RW pov without sounding like they are endorsing it by presenting a weak/half baked opposition to it.

overall I find hard to take them seriously outside of core tech/VC stuff. the science guy is okay but meh.

Do you think that of the four of them, Friedberg has a best grasp of the finance side of things? I would think he would be since he was apparently formerly involved in IB, PE, then corp dev when he was younger.

Sounds like it is. When somebody is confidently wrong in an area you're familiar with, and confidently speaking about areas you're not, isn't that an instant epistemic red flag?

I have an imprecise and somewhat tongue in cheek measure of a leader’s quality that suggests it is inversely proportional to the frequency with which they appear in the news. I seem to remember from his last term that Trump is at least a daily fixture even within the British media. I think I’m just going to spend even less time consuming mainstream media.

David *Sucks

We are all blind to ourselves.

I feel like I should get that tattooed on my hand, next to one saying, "It's not about you."

they perform insightfullness

Interestingly, I agreed with the idea that they are better when discussing tech and VC (after all that's their day job). Do you have any examples of where they have been significantly off on tech finance?

People have short memories, but the last time Trump was in office you had to hear about him all the time. (Of course the real concerning trend is that every recent R administration ends in an economic collapse.)

The fact that it's named after Murray Gell-Man, a Nobel prize winning physicist should tell you something. Intelligence doesn't save you from it.

> sacks is good at logic/debating and It seems they use that to push a RW pov without sounding like they are endorsing it by presenting a weak/half baked opposition to it.

This is a really great point I completely hadn’t considered.

100%. I read the article and the moment author mentioned Chamath, I realized it must be some bs he peddled. It is surprising to me how many HN readers in this thread don't know how big a scammer Chamath is.

"Every accusation is a confession", in other words

> It's fascinating that Michael Crichton would have a quote like that when he's been guilty of falling into the same trap himself.

For example?

Michael Crichton’s State of Fear is a prominent example of climate science denial wrapped in a techno-thriller narrative. In the book, he portrays mainstream climate science as alarmist and driven by political motives rather than factual evidence. Crichton uses the plot to imply that climate change fears are exaggerated, fueled by a coalition of media, scientists, and activists with hidden agendas. Despite claiming to be based on scientific data, the book misrepresents studies, cherry-picks data, and cites outlier opinions to undermine the overwhelming consensus on human-caused climate change. The novel’s presentation has been criticized for promoting misinformation and distorting the complexities of climate science to fit a skeptical narrative.

that actually makes sense that he'd write that book if he's going around talking about gell-mann in interviews

Thanks. I read the book and feel he’ll be proven largely correct. Won’t relitigate here but I very much appreciate your reply.

It was one of his worst books but not due to his evaluation of the science world. Just way too heavy-handed. He usually had a far lighter touch.

There's a corollary to the Gell-man Effect which I will dub the Crichton Effect. If somebody is a compelling enough prose stylist then it is easy to be duped into believing that they know more about the topic of their fictional works than they really do. Crichton was a crank, but he knew how to craft a narrative.

> People are going to keep trusting these guys, simply because they have a hard-on for charismatic people with a lot of money, an extremely short memory, and refusal to believe that they will be the next ones to be scammed.

What a perfect week for people to read this line and go "well that doesn't mean me, nah!"

This thread is literally CHALKED FULL of people being like "but I like the vibes despite the obvious signs of charlatanism".

That isn't actually an example of the Gell-Mann Amnesia, as he described, but just an example of the cherry picking of data and selective interpretation. The Gell-Mann Amnesia, as he described it, refers to how people will not read a source with skepticism when they are not familiar with it's subject matter, even when they have read an inaccurate article from the same source about subject matter that they are familiar with enough to spot the inaccuracies.

Former Zenefits employee, present for both Parker + Sacks eras. I'm with you, and I'd like to add additional color to David Sacks time as CEO.

David Sacks was uninspiring and aloof. As Zenefits CEO, he worked remote from his office at Craft Ventures. When he rarely appeared on-site, he was escorted around by handlers. On top of everything Zenefits was going through, it didn't help morale having an absentee leader. In retrospect, the guy lacks charm and charisma, so in a way it was a blessing not having him around.

Before the major 2017 layoffs, Sacks held an all-hands announcing a new CEO had been found. His impending departure was explained by repeating that he never intended to be CEO, and only took on the role because he felt obligated. What is more, he admitted he was upset over his long working hours, saying he had been sacrificing time to be at home with his family for quite some time. He even shared that his newborn didn't recognize him or his face, to illustrate how long he had been away. Home for him was roughly 3 miles away. Remarkably pathetic.

Couple points in retrospect:

1. Back in 2016, Sacks created "The Offer", an agreement where Zenefits paid a severance to employees to quit voluntarily. About 10% did. It was clear later that Sacks wasn't all-in as CEO or previously COO. Perhaps he should have taken "The Offer" himself?

2. Remote work vs RTO. Given productivity data on remote work, combined with his personal story about his newborn, you'd think Sacks would be an advocate of remote work. Yet he's hardline RTO. He also gets memmed on by other pod hosts who tease him with questions, like if he can remember his kids' names.

Hacker News: a website where the founders fight the founders, the investors argue with investors, and engineers look on in complete and abject contempt, wondering who gave all these morons money and how they can get their cut.

Palmer actually addressed Calacanis really well here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vjIx3S09gQ