Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Jason
Speaker 1: Kelly on Bloomberg Radio. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week,
Speaker 1: and I have to say this is one of the
Speaker 1: conversations I've been looking forward to all week. And we've
Speaker 1: talked to some big names, and fewer bigger in the
Speaker 1: world of venture capital, in the world of techn Silicon
Speaker 1: Valley than Joe Lonsdale. He's a partner now at eight
Speaker 1: v C, a co founder of Palenteer joins us on
Speaker 1: the phone from Palo Alto, California. Joe, it's really nice
Speaker 1: to have you here with Carolin myself. Thanks Jason for
Speaker 1: having me on. All Right, so you're there in the
Speaker 1: hotbed of innovation and you look at things from all angles.
Speaker 1: I gotta start by asking you, how did we get here?
Speaker 1: What went wrong that we miss judged this or or
Speaker 1: just sort of misplayed it as it were? You know,
Speaker 1: these these these these these things are hard. I'm inspired
Speaker 1: by a lot of them, seeing coming out of the
Speaker 1: entpreneurs of the business world. I'm I'm someone disheartened by
Speaker 1: seeing how our government works. One of my friends, Bob
Speaker 1: Nelson told the end of January, so there's a sixty
Speaker 1: chances of the pandemic. And he's a great bio investor.
Speaker 1: He talks people in China and here, and so the
Speaker 1: the experts really knew this was coming. Late January, started February,
Speaker 1: and you know, I've been trying to look at the
Speaker 1: government pandemic response. There's about eighteen plans we've made over
Speaker 1: the last twenty years. There's hundreds of pages of unreadable PDF.
Speaker 1: It's clear our federal government as a giant pledgeocracy that
Speaker 1: doesn't really know how to function with these sorts of plans. Okay,
Speaker 1: so that's fair enough. Um so what needs to change? Well,
Speaker 1: you know, I think number one, you need you need
Speaker 1: competent leaders who have already gained these things ahead of time.
Speaker 1: I think there's there's plans, and there's actually practicing ahead
Speaker 1: of time and doing doing gamification and really following up
Speaker 1: and what you learn. And so no matter what five
Speaker 1: year plans, pen your plans you make, I think they
Speaker 1: should actually run some simulations. Now, unfortunately this is a
Speaker 1: world simulation, We're gonna learn a lot. There should be
Speaker 1: one group in charge. There should be accountability. You know,
Speaker 1: the FDA is not set up to make decisions quickly.
Speaker 1: We need a special group at the FDA that has
Speaker 1: to make decisions much more put clear, I mean, they're
Speaker 1: still test sitting at home on shelves right now, hundreds
Speaker 1: of thousands of testing, these labs for at home testing,
Speaker 1: and it's it drives me crazy how slow these things
Speaker 1: are going. And to be fair, I mean, there were
Speaker 1: administrations on both sides of the aisle that some would say,
Speaker 1: you know that we've ignored this kind of situation. I
Speaker 1: think part of the problem, though, Joe, is we don't
Speaker 1: do a lot of long term planning, certainly not um
Speaker 1: in this government. Well, it's it's it's it's fascinating. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think Congress passed the Pandemic and All Hazzard's Preparedness
Speaker 1: and Advancing Innovation Act nineteen six months ago. There was
Speaker 1: a Pandemic Act six months ago that was passed. They're
Speaker 1: they're literally hundreds of pages of planning sitting in pds
Speaker 1: and bureaucracies with acronyms that I don't know how to
Speaker 1: play the opposite sup game in Washington, d C. But
Speaker 1: there's hundreds of these acronyms. And so so it's funny
Speaker 1: because some people are doing the planning, but it's clears
Speaker 1: not tied to leadership and accountability in terms of how
Speaker 1: you actually got these things done. You know, Joe, one
Speaker 1: of the things that's been interesting to us, I think
Speaker 1: watching all of this, and you've had a front row seat,
Speaker 1: I believe they're in California to this, is, you know,
Speaker 1: governor is really stepping to the four you know, you
Speaker 1: think about Gavin Newsom, you think about Mario Cuomo, you
Speaker 1: think about some other governors who who have really stepped
Speaker 1: in pretty aggressively here, taken the bull by the horns,
Speaker 1: however you want to describe it. What do you make
Speaker 1: of that sort of this being handled at the state level.
Speaker 1: Is that what needed to happen? Is that what should
Speaker 1: happen going forward? What's the sort of federal versus state
Speaker 1: versus local approach here? Well, that's a that's a great question.
Speaker 1: You do have different situations on the ground locally. I
Speaker 1: think federalism is one of the great things about how
Speaker 1: our country works. And you have had governors stuff up.
Speaker 1: You know, what I was really impressed by is the
Speaker 1: big technology companies here in Silicon Valley. A lot of
Speaker 1: them stepped up even a week two weeks ahead of
Speaker 1: the governor have people working from home. My firm only
Speaker 1: works only work from home. So we've learned that from
Speaker 1: some of the bigger firms where the people they're figured
Speaker 1: out ahead of time, and that that that was really
Speaker 1: often to see. So let's talk about Silicon Valley. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, we often look to you guys for innovation,
Speaker 1: and rightly so across all sorts of aspects of technology
Speaker 1: and life and et cetera. Uh, what have you seen
Speaker 1: on the ground Take a steeper in there? Sure, Well,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm really proud of a lot of what
Speaker 1: I'm seeing, or you're seeing the kind of classic innovation
Speaker 1: entreprenial energy really stuff up you have. You know, one
Speaker 1: of the things I was most inspired by is an
Speaker 1: engineer bloom Energy figured out with his team how to
Speaker 1: fix these ventilators that were broken were since to Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: They're supposed to take a month to fix for the manufacturer.
Speaker 1: They fix them in days, but the governor sent them
Speaker 1: back over. And you've seen a lot of things like
Speaker 1: that where people are working hard to get supplies. My
Speaker 1: you know, my team and a bunch of my friends
Speaker 1: started Operation maths dot org, which has brought over a million, sorry,
Speaker 1: over a billion masks into the country in the last month,
Speaker 1: partnering with FEMA and with logistics groups all over the world.
Speaker 1: So you see a lot of people step up and
Speaker 1: use their networks, use their innovation to really help out here.
Speaker 1: And why are they able to do that? I mean why,
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess I'm taking you into sort of
Speaker 1: the ethos of Silicon Valley here, But you know, why
Speaker 1: does it happen there in a way or at a
Speaker 1: velocity maybe that it doesn't happen elsewhere. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: most people what they do for a living is what
Speaker 1: they do for a in Silicon Valley. What you do
Speaker 1: for living is we build new companies, We create new organizations.
Speaker 1: We we reach out to people all over the world
Speaker 1: to get feedback and help. Every time we're creating something new,
Speaker 1: My team launches two to three new companies a year.
Speaker 1: So that these guys who are used to watching companies,
Speaker 1: they've gone on the phone with their logistics contacts in
Speaker 1: China and Mexico, in Brazil with people who run these companies.
Speaker 1: They've gone the phone with our friends who are very
Speaker 1: wealthy and successful over there and know who the manufacturers are,
Speaker 1: and we started making phone calls, started sourcing things, and
Speaker 1: and and you know, there's these global networks exist that
Speaker 1: are tied to the heart of Silicon Valley, to the
Speaker 1: entrepreneurial part of our country where we're able to get
Speaker 1: things done quickly. So what what access has you know,
Speaker 1: either you and your company or other members of Silicon
Speaker 1: Valley really had to the administration and helping to deal
Speaker 1: with this virus. You know, they've they've they've reached out
Speaker 1: on what I wouldn't say they have very good connections
Speaker 1: Silicon Valley. I'm friends with a lot of the cool
Speaker 1: see people. There are a lot of my friends who
Speaker 1: are on the boards of Stanford Hospital, UCSF Hospital UM
Speaker 1: as you guess, the very skeptical of the Trump's administration.
Speaker 1: I've been able to put some of them together and
Speaker 1: they had some really good conversations. As much as they're
Speaker 1: still skeptical of the administration, that a lot of them
Speaker 1: have really appreciated working with the people in the White
Speaker 1: House to coordinate various supplies or to help with technology.
Speaker 1: Right now, I think we're still trying to solve a
Speaker 1: lot of problems at the White House right now about
Speaker 1: how people are going to get back to work, and
Speaker 1: you know, there's there's a role for us to play
Speaker 1: out here, and Joe, what are the interesting elements of all?
Speaker 1: This is something that's not new at all. You know,
Speaker 1: it goes back to the last century, which is the
Speaker 1: Defense Production Act and sort of being invoked not being invoked.
Speaker 1: It feels like there's misunderstanding even in the administration about
Speaker 1: what it should do, what it can do. What's your
Speaker 1: read on that, and how that interaction should take place
Speaker 1: between the government and private industry. You know, I think
Speaker 1: if it gets to a point where the industry is
Speaker 1: not cooperating for some reason, it makes sense to invoke it.
Speaker 1: I think the best way to work with people, just
Speaker 1: from what I found out over the years, the way
Speaker 1: authority really works well is you is you is you
Speaker 1: inspire them and you give them the goals and you
Speaker 1: make sure they're a hunter per cent a line and
Speaker 1: if they are, uh, you don't really need force. If anything,
Speaker 1: force gets in the way at that point. So I
Speaker 1: think the mistakes though that was made. They should have
Speaker 1: had very clear intensive They should have said the government's
Speaker 1: willing to pay this much for working ventilator, this much
Speaker 1: per mask and coordinated and just and just start getting
Speaker 1: people to be confident to invest in building these four
Speaker 1: or five six weeks ago, because when you put out
Speaker 1: the call to everyone, there's a lot of people bottom
Speaker 1: up who will do things. I think it's a mistake
Speaker 1: to only work with the big companies, which has really
Speaker 1: been what they've been doing is mostly focusing on those
Speaker 1: film productive companies, right, But it's about leadership and being
Speaker 1: very clear about what's going on, um to create, to
Speaker 1: be able to create programs so that everybody understands what's
Speaker 1: going on. We're going to come back and talk with
Speaker 1: somewhere with Joe Lonsdale, he's partnered at eight VC, co
Speaker 1: founder of Palanteer, on the phone from Oakland, California, so
Speaker 1: we'll continue that in just a moment. Jason, Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: really interesting to hear all those perspectives and you know,
Speaker 1: really going down to level understanding kind of how Silicon
Speaker 1: Valley works in a lot of ways. I think we
Speaker 1: know it intuitively, but hearing him explain it so specifically
Speaker 1: about picking up the phone and calling and also moving
Speaker 1: with that sense of urgency that I feel like obviously
Speaker 1: we certainly need right now and was missing at the beginning,
Speaker 1: also understanding you know where this started, and still with
Speaker 1: us Joe Lonsdale, partner at eight VC, co founder of
Speaker 1: Palanteer and a number of other companies. We're going to
Speaker 1: get into some of that as we continue our conversation.
Speaker 1: He's joining us on the phone from Palo Alto right
Speaker 1: smack in the middle of Silicon Valley. Joe, great to
Speaker 1: have you still with us. So I gotta ask you.
Speaker 1: You have started a bunch of companies, you invest in
Speaker 1: companies you mentioned in the earlier part of the conversation,
Speaker 1: you know, standing up two to three companies a year.
Speaker 1: This is a time obviously have a lot of uncertainty,
Speaker 1: but it's got to be at least in part, a
Speaker 1: time of opportunity to think about what's next. What are
Speaker 1: you thinking about now? You know, there's there's a lot
Speaker 1: of areas that we're working on that happened to overlap
Speaker 1: with this. The one I'm most excited about is, you know,
Speaker 1: there's a renaissance and biology going on out here in
Speaker 1: Silicon Valley, and we happened to start a company last
Speaker 1: year with some technology out of Cornell and Northwestern University
Speaker 1: that helps produce antibodies really quickly, and there's technology lets
Speaker 1: you do it in a self free way. And you've
Speaker 1: probably heard people who recovered from COVID nineteen. There's antibodies
Speaker 1: in their blood that would cure other people, and we
Speaker 1: can actually use blood from those people to cure people.
Speaker 1: There's not enough of it around, but what you can do,
Speaker 1: and you can take using antibodies and produce them and
Speaker 1: scale them up. So this company is partnering with other
Speaker 1: antibody companies, were trying to rush the therapeutic to market,
Speaker 1: hoping he tested in the next month or two. So
Speaker 1: that's a really cool example of something going on on here.
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe you can contribute. Yeah, that's actually something we've
Speaker 1: been talking about a lot this week. There's a team
Speaker 1: up at Columbia University working on this um. There's several
Speaker 1: groups and thinking that this is a key step in
Speaker 1: kind of getting the virus under control. I do feel
Speaker 1: like biotech in particular, this whole world of medicine. There's
Speaker 1: just so much we talk about disruption, we throw around
Speaker 1: the world casually, but there is so much still in
Speaker 1: medicine and science Joe that has yet to be figured out.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a real bright spot in our civilization
Speaker 1: because you know, there's always big break through's Jennifer down
Speaker 1: out here at Berkeley helps over Christopher. You know, just
Speaker 1: eight years ago, all these things that used to be
Speaker 1: really slow and six months of work in a lab
Speaker 1: you can now do in a day and tests and learn,
Speaker 1: so the the pace of learning is so fast, and
Speaker 1: I really hope a lot of this is going to
Speaker 1: be applied to what's going on right now. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of promising cures, a lot of promising vaccines. You
Speaker 1: know that this is what we really need to help here.
Speaker 1: And Joe, you know, it brings me to something that
Speaker 1: we've talked with a bunch of those aforementioned researchers about,
Speaker 1: including down Johns Hopkins as well, this notion that because
Speaker 1: of the sense of urgency, maybe folks are maybe a
Speaker 1: little more willing to let their guard down, collaborate a
Speaker 1: little bit more. Are you seeing that or is that
Speaker 1: a little Bollyanna I should be to think definitely. Maybe
Speaker 1: about three weeks ago now, I put something up on
Speaker 1: Twitter about how this company could help Pardner with other
Speaker 1: companies for antibio therapeutics and said, here's the help we need,
Speaker 1: and I must have gotten a hundred and twenty notes
Speaker 1: from people mostly in Silicon Valley saying I have the
Speaker 1: best expert on this. I have the best expert on that,
Speaker 1: and it's just been really awesome to see people get
Speaker 1: together and collaborate, and it's it's made it go a
Speaker 1: lot faster than it ever would have. So it's so,
Speaker 1: you know, I definitely think then spirative America as we
Speaker 1: all get together and we work on problems together, mom
Speaker 1: we need to. So does it slow down though after
Speaker 1: we get on the other side. I asked that because
Speaker 1: I mentioned that team up at Colombia who back during Stars.
Speaker 1: They said they needed like about a twenty million dollars,
Speaker 1: not a lot of money in terms of research money,
Speaker 1: and they could have figured out how to deal with
Speaker 1: that virus, but they said after it was dealt with,
Speaker 1: after the kind of the hysteria calmed down, nobody was
Speaker 1: interested in committing money to it. Does that happen when
Speaker 1: we get on the other side of this, or has
Speaker 1: something dramatically changed because of the extent of this virus?
Speaker 1: I mean, I hope, I'd hope that this changes. You
Speaker 1: know that it's a great question that you can go
Speaker 1: back to the pandemic plans. We were talking about. The
Speaker 1: government had a bunch of ventilators they're supposed to produce,
Speaker 1: and the way the contracting was done is they just
Speaker 1: never got them done it. You can blame the company,
Speaker 1: you can blame the government, but really what it was
Speaker 1: is a lack of focused, lack of competent people who
Speaker 1: cared enough to follow up. I don't think you're gonna
Speaker 1: see that this time around. I think people are going
Speaker 1: to really care to be on top of this for
Speaker 1: next time, you know, Joe. One of the questions we've
Speaker 1: been asking all of our big, big guests this week
Speaker 1: across our network, across the entire Bloomberg News empire is
Speaker 1: what changes on the other side of this in the world,
Speaker 1: Like literally, just think as big as you possibly can.
Speaker 1: Maybe that's being underappreciated here. It is literally something I
Speaker 1: know you you've got to be thinking about. What do
Speaker 1: you make of that? You know? The thing? The thing
Speaker 1: the thing a lot about is how the nature of
Speaker 1: works in hiring changes. I think a lot of people
Speaker 1: are being forced to use these tools that have been
Speaker 1: created to work from home for the first time, and
Speaker 1: they're realizing that works. I think I think this is
Speaker 1: embarrassed commercial real estate. That's the obvious one. The other one,
Speaker 1: know that I'm a little curious about, is does this
Speaker 1: change how we hire around the world. Unfortunately, it probably
Speaker 1: pushes outsourcing a lot more for certain types of jobs
Speaker 1: in the US as well, because you can hire someone
Speaker 1: just as well who doesn't have to necessarily live in
Speaker 1: your town. So in some ways it's positive for the
Speaker 1: world more dynamic economy. In other ways, it could be
Speaker 1: another pressure on the middle class, which is which I'm
Speaker 1: a little bit worried about well, and I do wonder
Speaker 1: about that if we can go a little bit deeper
Speaker 1: on that, because we we are also sort of seeing
Speaker 1: inequality of the which we knew existed, maybe even more
Speaker 1: starkly than than we did before. Do do you think
Speaker 1: this causes action on that or does it further exacerbate
Speaker 1: before it gets better? You know, I agree that we're
Speaker 1: definitely seeing in equality of of how people are are
Speaker 1: being able to whether it is or not. To me,
Speaker 1: the biggest causes of inequality is really sailing here in
Speaker 1: the Bay Area. It's cost of living, whether or not
Speaker 1: you want to say it's education, healthcare, or just even
Speaker 1: rents and to live around here in these high growth areas.
Speaker 1: I really hope it gets us to focus on cost
Speaker 1: of living and you make your obvious reforms to fix
Speaker 1: these things, to allow more building in the Bay Area
Speaker 1: and in other areas like this, to really figure it out,
Speaker 1: and healthcare and education. So I would hope this is
Speaker 1: focus on those issues. These are issues that are all
Speaker 1: long overdo and being tackles. Hopefully there's positive some ways
Speaker 1: to go after them. So I got to ask you
Speaker 1: just to wrap up here, Um, Joe, how does our
Speaker 1: world change as a result of the coronavirus pandemic out?
Speaker 1: You know, my my biggest hope is that is that
Speaker 1: a year from now, we've confronted it and we're ready
Speaker 1: for anything like this next time, and we're we're addressing
Speaker 1: some of these issues around costs of living, We're addressing
Speaker 1: some of these some of these issues around around you know,
Speaker 1: people dying from the flu in general, and viruses in general,
Speaker 1: and open areas, which I think we're all gonna be
Speaker 1: going after right now. So hopefully hopefully brings our society
Speaker 1: closer together, gets us to recognize some of what the
Speaker 1: great people can do in the technology innovation world to
Speaker 1: help and lets us solve challenges. That would be the
Speaker 1: optimistic take. And can I ask you wait thirty seconds,
Speaker 1: what what will be different? Well, you know, I think
Speaker 1: it's gonna be I think I think there's gonna be
Speaker 1: some industries that are really gonna struggle for a long time.
Speaker 1: I think people realize they don't need to be on
Speaker 1: planes all the time. I think people realize that they
Speaker 1: don't need to rent out. You know, as many of
Speaker 1: these Smig Crush and John commercial real estate areas, Um,
Speaker 1: it could mean construction and other industries are gonna are
Speaker 1: gonna have a little bit of a tougher time for
Speaker 1: the next five or ten years. Um. So it's there's
Speaker 1: definitely gonna be big, big changes in the economy. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: we really appreciate your time here on a Friday afternoon,
Speaker 1: chilled on sale, partner at a VC, co founder of Palentteer,
Speaker 1: and a number of other companies you have heard of
Speaker 1: and used watch this space because these are the folks
Speaker 1: who you really want to keep an eye on as
Speaker 1: things evolved and the fast twitch of Silicon Valley. It
Speaker 1: is coming to the four here for sure, uh Carol,
Speaker 1: And you know well and also hearing him talk about
Speaker 1: the antibodi's thing, having heard it, you know, from a
Speaker 1: couple of doctors. Uh, that is really really interesting to me.
Speaker 1: And you do wonder if that's the accelerant that we need,
Speaker 1: and especially if we continue to get viruses of this
Speaker 1: magnitude um, this is a way to deal with them
Speaker 1: going forward,