E140: LK-99, Sclerotic establishments, Fitch downgrades US debt, Trump indicted... again

At the time of the episode, LK-99 was nowhere near proven: no lab had replicated room-temperature superconductivity, and one Chinese group reportedly made 8,000 samples before finding one zero-resistance sample around 170 K. Simulations suggested copper might need to occupy one exact lead site, making manufacturing precision the central bottleneck.

Even if LK-99 failed, the modeling opened a potentially useful materials-search path: teams found crystal structures theoretically compatible with superconductivity, and one modeled gold as potentially better than copper. Friedberg’s durable bet was therefore on a broader design space for superconductors, not necessarily LK-99 itself.

Friedberg’s sharpest criticism of academia was incentive design: grants reward novel positive results, while replication, falsification and failed experiments are harder to fund. The panel linked that bias to incremental research and cited Future Ventures’ 15-year fund as one attempt to stretch beyond the standard 10-year VC horizon.

Calacanis said one of his best venture tactics is backing founders whose previous companies failed—if they can explain exactly why and how the next attempt will differ. He cited Travis Kalanick’s path from Scour to Red Swoosh to Uber, treating learned failure as more informative than a spotless record.

Treasury then expected roughly $1.86 trillion of net market borrowing across July–December 2023, just as Fitch cut the U.S. long-term rating from AAA to AA+. Friedberg feared a debt spiral; Sacks warned higher yields could crowd out risk capital; Chamath argued the dollar still lacked a credible reserve alternative. (U.S. Department of the Treasury)

The fiscal problem was politically boxed in: a Data for Progress poll found 82% of likely voters opposed reducing future Social Security benefits for Americans under 50. Friedberg’s point was that even if entitlement cuts improve long-term finances, voter resistance makes a bipartisan deal exceptionally hard. (Data For Progress)

Sacks called Trump’s post-2020 conduct “indefensible” but argued the January 6 case turned on difficult intent questions, while viewing the classified-documents case as legally stronger. The August 2023 indictment charged four counts; the panel’s dispute was whether condemnation of Trump’s conduct translated cleanly into criminal liability. (justice.gov)