Smash Notes

Recode Decode, hosted by Kara Swisher

Jason Calacanis: TikTok should be banned, Tim Cook doesn't have enough "chutzpah," and Uber will be fine

Inside CEO and This Week in Startups host Jason Calacanis talks with Kara Swisher about the future of Uber after its troubled IPO, why one of the tech giants should buy Tesla, and Jeff Bezos' Achilles heel: His lack of generosity. Calacanis, who was an early investor in Uber, also talks about his objections to the current state of tech journalism and…

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  1. Is Uber Deemed to Fail

    at 4:39 · Transcript

    If you give great founders with vision a lot of runaway, they are going to take it.

    Jason Calacanis, an early investor into Uber, explains that massive amount of private money enabled Uber to grow rapidly in the early days, ignoring some of the realities at the expense of getting to scale.

    Once they IPO'ed, the company had to switch from focus on massive growth, to focus on profitability. It was a big shift, and it will take time to transition.

    However, as long as they can differentiate, and people love their product, they will figure out how to adjust their margins to give public markets what they need.

  2. Is Bike Sharing the Future of Mobility

    at 11:36 · Transcript

    Jason thinks that micro mobility is the future but it does not stand on its own, bikes and scooters are going to become a free/low cost offering from bigger players like Uber, and that's it.

  3. What's the Next Breakthrough for SpaceX

    at 18:25 · Transcript

    Jason Calacanis says that lower orbit satellites have the potential to connect another 1-2 billion people to the internet, which would be huge for SpaceX future.

  4. Does Jeff Bezos Have a Blind Spot

    at 31:55 · Transcript

    Jason thinks Bezos continuous to grind people for optimization in situations when he does not need to.

    Instead of being generous to low-wage employees, he overworks them. Instead of helping out a struggling city, he strings them along, and then still puts Amazon HQ2 in a city that does not need any more support.

    If you are the richest man in the world, it might be a good time to stop grinding and to start giving, like the Gates family did when they were at the top of the list.

  5. What Is the Solution to Growing Wealth Inequality

    at 36:03 · Transcript

    According to Jason Calacanis, Capitalism and entrepreneurship is the best system to run humanity, but people are starting to hate it right now.

    The solution to that is for people who have benefited the most from this system to start behaving better to people who have the least. Stop grinding people on the margins and be generous where it matters.

  6. What's Wrong With Journalism in 2020

    at 38:26 · Transcript

    According to Jason Calacanis, inability to make good money from facts and unbiased reporting has driven journalists to pick sides and to focus on click-bait headlines.

  7. Is Michael Bloomberg the Right Choice for a Democratic President

    at 47:23 · Transcript

    If it comes down to Bernie Sanders vs Trump, it would be a very hard choice for a lot of people in Silicon Valley to vote for Bernie, and Bloomberg could be the solution to it.

  8. How Do You Make Private School Affordable

    at 58:48 · Transcript

    Childcare is exhausting and to better as a society, we need to enable everyone to access great education, even if they cannot afford it.

    Dexter Learning is a self-paced school out of Texas that aiming to get private school education affordable enough to the top-70% of people.

  9. Did Kara Swisher Tell Her Kids Not to Do Their Homework?

    at 1:00:22 · Transcript

    On Recode Decode, talking with Jason Calacanis, Kara Swisher said her children's school already dislikes her because of homework. She tells the kids not to do it. The workplace does not care about those assignments. It cares about teamwork, so she tells them to skip what she called the stupid homework. The same conversation argues that the school day is too rigid for parents who cannot pay for child care, and that a parent should be able to leave a child in a good classroom from early morning until evening. Her point on the assignments was narrower: if the job will never ask, do not give up the evening.

  10. How Do We Make the American Dream More Real

    at 1:03:42 · Transcript

    Soon everyone would be able to invest in private companies before IPO, enabling your everyday normal people to benefit from the crazy growth potential of companies like Uber and Airbnb.

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