Chamath’s monologue on moving past China and the coronavirus origin question and thoughts on the end of globalization was the longest monologue this week. Here’s the full speech:
I agree with Friedberg and David Sachs in parts. There’s nothing to do. I think we have to move on. I think it’s important to get to the bottom of it. It’ll maybe help eliminate some of the politicizing of science that we’ve seen as a result of this thing. But ultimately, what’s done is done. Instead, what I think we have to learn from it is you can’t elect hotheads and people who are unpredictable and unreliable to basically be our truth tellers and fact tellers. And if anybody but Donald Trump was the President of the United States in that moment, we probably could have had a chance of getting to the bottom of it when it counted. And whether you support him or not, it doesn’t matter. The style made it impossible for anybody to really listen. That, to me, is the most important takeaway of that moment, which is he does have a responsibility above everybody else’s. The second thing is, I think this is the most important macro investing theme that I’ve seen in my lifetime, which is that globalization, as we know it, is over. And what Sacksy-poo just said is what I really believe, which is that you have to onshore and you have to move to a place where you value resiliency over just-in-time. And if you look at the businesses that need to get built in order to enable resiliency, you will see trillions of dollars of opportunity. And I really really believe in that. That’s very exciting to me. Instead of being anti China, which I don’t think is productive, I think it’s better to be pro America and say, hey, let’s just figure out how to build this up ourselves. Now, here’s the problem, though. When the rubber meets the road, the biggest impediment to onshoring jobs into the United States are the same people on the left who actually claim that there is no upward mobility. And here’s why. When you go and you want to basically balkanize supply chains, you are introducing inefficiency you’re also introducing some puts and takes in areas that today have been like third rail issues. For example, the people on the left believe in climate change more than anybody else. But when you explain to them that in order to eliminate hydrocarbons, you actually have to mine critical minerals and metals out of the ground, they’re the same people that say, no way while you can’t have one without the other. And you actually have to have a rational conversation and realize, like, listen, we’re gonna have to do this. And so, for example, like Biden this past week somewhat capitulated for environmental interest and said, you know what? Yes, climate change is critical, but we’re gonna try to get them from everywhere else but America. It’s not gonna work. So that’s kind of where I’m a little frustrated. But those are my two takeaways. Number one is let’s just get past China and let’s just focus on the United States. And number two is globalization as we know it is done. And we need to focus on resilience.
