Beep boop - this is a robot. A new show has been posted to TWiT…
What are your thoughts about today’s show? We’d love to hear from you!
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I really like Jason C as a guest.
I like my chill 9-5 government job way of life a lot more and I don’t want it to go away.
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Great show.
Regarding the dystopian recording of situations and accidents, instead of helping, the German emergency services have had enough. They are calling for multiple thousand Euro fines and 6 month driving bans for people who slow down and try and film an accident.
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Such a great episode. Everyone’s input was interesting. I really appreciate Mr Laporte owning up to the privilege he has had in his life as a child and adult. You’d be surprised how often privilege is not acknowledged where I’m from.
I also enjoyed how Mr Calcanis (sp) wasn’t cool with his friend recording their private conversation with an AI device. For whatever reason, some people think it’s ok to do that. Did these people record their phone calls before these devices were available? I also thought some jurisdictions had a two-party acknowledgement rule or something like that. 
As usual, I wish y’all nothing but love and continued success. ((hugs))
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I had a feeling, about a decade ago that Jason Calacanis went in a direction that didn’t appeal to me and I lost touch with what he had been doing - I first saw him on TWiT and then followed a couple of his podcasts for a while, but they just seemed less and less in touch with reality, at least reality outside of the USA and definitely outside of Silicon Valley. I think it was mainly his focus on big deals, angel investors etc. which have very little to do with the daily reality of life.
It has been refreshing to see him again on a couple of TWiT episodes this year, at least on TWiT, he has calmed down and is actually talking sense again, something I really like about him in the early days (2009-2015). I was also impressed with his respect towards Padre, actually taking the time to pause in his answer to ask whether he preferred the title of Father or Padre. (Trivia 101: here in Germany he would be called Pater)
It was great to hear Padre again, and I was surprised about his former attitude to public health services. Having grown up and lived in countries that have public health services, I can’t comprehend the “stupidity” of the USA system, where the rule seems to be you pay horrendous fees each month, but as soon as you are sick and need that insurance, you are no longer covered.
“Oh, you paid for 40 years into your health insurance, but now you have cancer and can’t work to continue your coverage? Good luck buddy, you aren’t welcome here any more!”
Over here, you pay into the system when you are healthy, so that it is there if you become ill.
Can’t work for 6 weeks after breaking a leg? No problem, we’ve got you covered.
You need an ambulance to take you to hospital? No problem, we’ve got you covered.
You need an operation? No problem, we’ve got you covered.
You have to stay 2 weeks in hospital to recover? No problem, we’ve got you covered.
You need pain killers, anti-coagulants and physio after the operation? No problem, we’ve got you covered.
Even better, because the funds are limited (the insurance in Germany is run by non-profits, some years there is a surplus, some years they don’t make a profit, in the late teens, they made so much profit, each member got a several hundred Euro rebate), they invest a lot into preventitive medicine, to make sure you don’t get sick in the first place.
Also the amount paid every month is based on your income, the more you earn the more you pay (around 8.5% of gross at the moment). Your medical history is irrelevant, only your ability to pay for the insurance matters.
I paid in for decades, then I had a couple of injuries and also some age related issues, one of which came as I was unemployed and was looking for a new job. It didn’t matter, I was still fully covered, even for those 3-4 months where I was looking for a new job and had to have an operation. Then I got a new job and started paying into the insurance again.
It also pays you, if you are ill. The employer has to pay sick leave for the first 6 weeks of any single illness, after that the insurance takes over and pays around 60% of your salary. But, if you say, break a leg and are away from work for 6 weeks, then break an arm after that, that is a new illness, so the employer’s sick pay is reset to day 1.
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I have a hard time giving credibility to Jason Calacanis, particularly due to his support of his friend Elon Musk. But I also find it interesting that the people who are saying that we have to change how we work, become more self-sufficient/reliant/whatever are the ones forcing the change and not the recipients of the change.
Frankly, it seems like the people who want to change the direction of things are not the ones who will bear the consequences of the change. Jason is very glib at presenting his view, but at the end of the day - he still champions some of the very people who abuse our privacy for monetary gain, who treat their less-than-10000x-engineers like they are disposable, who behave like absolutely horrible human beings.
This is a conscience issue for me, and I have yet to see a tech investor/bro/VC have any issues with conscience when it comes to their products. It seems fine to move fast and break things when it’s someone else’s stuff that gets broken.
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Well said. This is a huge problem with Silicon Valley that gets overlooked a lot, often because the person doing the overlooking is actually perpetrating it, or wants to stay buddies with the people who are.
Also, if I have a friend who is throwing Nazi salutes in public in 2025, I don’t stay friends with them. Period.
But maybe that’s a personality failing on my part.
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I was at a party a few years back, and a woman I know was lamenting trying to figure out how to pay to get her kids to the doctor for whatever reason. Along the lines of “Well, my kid can have dance lessons or get this illness treated.”
I commented on how messed up it was that here in the US, far too many families have to make that calculus daily. Often it’s “Do I feed my kid or take them to the doctor?”, rather than a non-essential item.
This woman, who I’ve literally known since we were in grade school, just looked at me like I had just said I was going to set myself on fire and wrestle a lion. I don’t remember the exact response, but it was along the lines of “I don’t understand what you’re saying. This is what you have to do when you’re a parent.”
At no point was there any calculus that maybe a for-profit health system is an inhuman disaster.
Most Americans are brought up to believe that all taxes are tyranny, that America itself can do no wrong, and they live in sheer terror that someone less well-off might be getting something for “free” (there’s a racial component there that you should be able figure out pretty easily.)
And that, friend, is why the US health care system is such a disaster. It’s literally “This is the American way of doing things, so it’s perfect and everything else is wrong. It’s my patriotic duty to die because the stockholders need to realize as much value as possible.”
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We have family members with six-figure medical debt. I worry about it continuously. They seem less bothered, think it’s normal, I guess.
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You would need to have around 3,800 operations here in order to run up that sort of debt.
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Ya make some good points, sir. ((nods))
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(tips hat to Mr. Pruitt) Thank you sir.
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