E40: A Bestie gets COVID, Delta breakthrough, Billionaire Space Race & more

David Sacks contracted COVID after a covered-outdoor dinner where the apparent source and every attendee were Pfizer-vaccinated. Two tests stayed negative before symptoms appeared five days after exposure; his illness remained mild, but another diner and his 11-year-old daughter also became sick.

The breakthrough case changed Sacks’s position on vaccine requirements: he still opposed government-compelled injections but now backed mandates by employers, workplaces and schools. He explicitly said teachers, bus drivers and pilots could reasonably be fired for refusing because an unvaccinated person could impose risk on others.

David Friedberg said a pharmaceutical executive’s Israeli data showed breakthrough infections concentrated among people vaccinated earliest, while a virologist told him antibodies were declining but memory B cells persisted. He therefore expected boosters soon, framing waning protection against infection—not immune-memory failure—as the more important issue.

Friedberg’s main economic fear was voluntary retreat, not hospital overload: vaccinated people hearing about breakthroughs could again avoid travel, restaurants and offices. Sacks illustrated the split himself—he planned to resume normal life, yet advised his elderly parents, one immunocompromised, to mask, avoid public places and cancel travel.

Private-space investment had moved from roughly $300–400 million annually in 2011–14 to almost $10 billion in 2020, Friedberg said, but the commercial destination remained unclear. Government launch services already worked; tourism was unproven, imaging revenues had disappointed, mining was remote, and communications looked most economically concrete.

Chamath Palihapitiya disclosed unusually direct access across the space sector: he had backed Virgin Galactic, seeded Swarm with Sacks doing its Series A, and led Relativity Space’s Series A. He said Relativity’s 3D-printed rockets could cut rocket costs roughly tenfold and eventually let crews manufacture return hardware on Mars.

Palihapitiya said Virgin Galactic expected to begin commercial operations within two or three quarters after analyzing Branson’s passenger flight. He was confident enough in his access to say he could probably arrange for all four podcast hosts to fly together if they bought tickets.

The panel closed with a stark number from the meme-stock fight: Melvin Capital was said to be down 46% after losing about $5 billion. The remark reduced the GameStop-era battle to its clearest financial consequence—an elite hedge fund absorbing a multibillion-dollar loss against retail traders.