E36: New FTC Chair, breaking up big tech, government silent spying, Jon Stewart, wildfires & more

David Sacks said PayPal survived early pressure from eBay, Visa and Mastercard partly by threatening antitrust action, which changed his own free-market instincts. PayPal fed information to the FTC and DOJ when eBay tried to dislodge it, and Sacks said the same threat helped preserve access to card networks.

The episode’s sharpest institutional point was that cloud storage lets investigators get records from providers while gag orders can stop targets from knowing or contesting it. The discussion tied this to 2018 DOJ demands involving Apple, McGahn, Schiff and Swalwell; Microsoft later argued such secrecy orders had become routine. (The Official Microsoft Blog)

Chamath Palihapitiya argued that Big Tech weakens startup formation partly by paying elite technical talent enough not to leave. He said specialized AI researchers could earn $5–10 million a year, making the “bird in the hand” rational even when the alternative was founding a company.

Google’s purchase of ITA Software was the clearest concrete example of platform power: it bought the flight-search engine supplying many online travel agencies, then put flight results directly into Google Search. The panel’s split was useful—this could squeeze intermediaries while still producing a faster, simpler consumer product.

Friedberg’s wildfire section was strongest when he moved from politics to mechanics: dry fuel, wind and heat drive fire risk, while controlled burns and clearing can reduce available fuel. He estimated 2020 California fires emitted about 1.5 times the carbon from the state’s cars, then corrected his 2021 burn-rate statistic to roughly the historical average.

Jason Calacanis said Austin felt like an earlier San Francisco and that he was “50% of the way” toward relocating, while also looking at Miami beach houses. Sacks reminded him he had once persuaded him to move to San Francisco; Calacanis added that Sacks and Naval had also pushed him toward venture capital.