The Stablecoin Future, Milei's Memecoin, DOGE for the DoD, Grok 3, Why Stripe Stays Private
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Who are the guests on this episode?
All right, everybody, welcome back to the number one podcast in the world. I am your host, Jason Calacanis. And with me again, a couple of my besties, David Friedberg. You know him as our Sultan of Science. Lots to get into today, Sultan, huh? How you doing? I'm keeping busy. Thank you. Keeping busy. Jamath and I on Valentine's Day. We had a little trio. We were on MKUltra's podcast, and it hit number four. All-in podcast, of course, number one. Chamath, reflections on our Megyn Kelly, our triumphant Megyn Kelly Valentine's spectacular. It was fine. It was good. Okay. Wow, thanks. You're such a great performer, giving me so much to work with, Chamath, as always. But it was a great, great pod.
Shout out to our friend and friend of the pod, Megyn Kelly. And awesome. We've got an incredible duo. For the first time, we've invited a duo to join us in the Red Throne. David Sachs' seat. He's busy saving the country, but we're really excited. The Coulson brothers are with us. Thank you for having us. You guys want to hear a great lost porn story?
John has one for you.
The last time we met, Chamath, was 18 years ago when we were working on our prior startup, Octomatic, with Harge and Kul Tagar. You were how old? They were 17, 18, 19. It was one of these San Francisco setups where it was like a two-bedroom apartment. There was a few of us living there, I think maybe six people working out of there. A normal number. Exactly. Normal numbers to load up a two-bedroom apartment with. And then, Chamath, you came and visited. This is what's so brutal about this, okay?
I could have invested a dollar. One single dollar. And I would have made a billion dollars. I remember meeting these guys. And I was with Alan Morgan, who was my boss at the time. I was a junior principal at Mayfield. Shout out, Alan. And I think we tried to, guys, I don't know if you remember Patrick or John, I think we tried to invest in the business or it didn't happen or then you ended up shutting it down. But right away, you spun back up and started Stripe. And I just watched from the sidelines the whole way. It is such a... First of all, it's an amazing place for Silicon Valley where you can see these people just keep pushing the boundaries up and up and up, number one. Number two, the thing that is such a learning for me is like, why didn't I just pick up the phone and call them at any point in the last 17 years? What am I thinking? It's so brutal.
Let your winners ride. Rain Man, David Sackets.
Oh my God.
It's so brutal. Two things. One, first, you probably don't remember this, but I remember that meeting that we offered you, do you want something to drink? We did not have a broad selection. I think we had water or milk in the fridge. And you asked for a glass of water. And so I went over to the sink and I realized that we hadn't really been on top of the washing up. So I had to sort of gingerly wash a glass for you. to get your glass of water, which I can't remember if you touched it over the course of that meeting. But then secondly, when we started out with Stripe, the fintech sector basically didn't exist. I mean, the word hardly existed. Didn't exist, yeah. Yeah, people just didn't think that... I mean, teenagers weren't actually teenagers at the time, but people in their early 20s, college kids, taking on PayPal or the incumbents or regulated financial services or whatever, people just didn't think it was a good idea. So I don't know. You certainly were...
The vast majority of investors we spoke with in the first year or two of Stripe turned us down. So you were not anomalous.
John, tell us what that meeting was like. And to just take you back to the moment, here's a picture. Stop. Stop. Here's a picture. No striking. Here's a picture of pre- Nine-figure Chamath. Oh, my God. And this is when he shopped at Macy's. Does that, maybe that jogs some memories, John. When that guy walked in with his khakis and that light pink Brooks Brothers shirt, what did you think?
I don't know. I think you can go back and find historical photos of anyone and use them, too. Like, if that's the worst historical photo you have, that's pretty lightweight stuff.
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Chapters
3 chaptersSpeakers
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