At a Christmas celebration this month for his All-In podcast, David Sacks took to the stage sporting a Russian-style fur hat and was ceremoniously gifted a Vladimir Putin calendar and a field of caviar.
The Silicon Valley investor was riffing on his appointment final week as Donald Trump’s artificial intelligence and crypto “tsar”, whereas poking enjoyable at critics who say his overseas coverage attitudes align with these of the Russian chief.
The efficiency was basic Sacks, based on numerous individuals who know him: controversial, theatrical — and offensive to those that take him actually however irreverent and witty to those that don’t.
Born in South Africa in 1972, Sacks made his title as a part of the “PayPal mafia”, the group of founders and early workers on the funds firm that features Elon Musk and buyers Peter Thiel, Keith Rabois and Reid Hoffman.
He has since launched numerous firms, a enterprise capital agency, the All-In podcast — on which he and three co-hosts focus on tech and politics — and located time to provide the satirical movie, Thanks for Smoking. He has made private investments in Uber, Airbnb and his previous colleagues’ firms together with Palantir, based by Thiel, and Musk’s SpaceX.
Thiel recruited Sacks to the start-up that turned PayPal in 1999. A 12 months later the corporate merged with Musk’s X.com. In 2002 eBay determined to purchase it.
“PayPal and its product have been faster, nimbler and higher for customers” than eBay’s personal money-transfer capabilities, stated one early investor within the funds group. “That was because of David.”
With the 2 firms struggling to agree on a value, eBay had been planning to launch a rival product to wipe out its rival. Then Sacks stepped in with a bit of company theatre.
The night time earlier than the inaugural “eBay Stay” consumer convention, “we threw an enormous celebration . . . the place we invited eBay’s prime sellers and gave them PayPal T-shirts”, stated Vince Sollitto, whom Sacks recruited at PayPal having labored with him within the workplace of Republican congressman Christopher Cox in California.
“A procession of individuals carrying PayPal T-shirts turned up,” added Sallitto, saying eBay realised “in the event that they killed us they might be killing their greatest prospects . . . We credit score that stunt with forcing their hand. Ebay referred to as David and stated: ‘We must always speak’.”
A deal was performed at a $1.5bn price ticket. Flush from the sale, Sacks in 2006 based his first firm, a family tree start-up. Whereas it didn’t take off, an inside messaging device he had developed for it was spun out in 2008 as Yammer, which was bought to Microsoft 4 years later for $1.2bn, making Sacks his fortune.
The identical month he turned 40, celebrating with a Marie Antoinette-themed celebration for a number of hundred visitors at a Los Angeles mansion. “Charlie Sheen gave the ‘roast’ and Snoop Dogg carried out. It was a extremely enjoyable occasion,” based on Sollitto.
In 2017, Sacks launched his enterprise capital agency Craft Ventures. The group has invested in a number of Musk firms, together with xAI and X, previously Twitter. When Musk took Twitter personal in 2022, he requested Sacks to return in and assist with the transition.
The pair are actually set to work collectively once more, with Musk tasked by Trump with operating the newly shaped Division of Authorities Effectivity. Musk’s exact remit, like that of Sacks, is obscure.
Sacks will work to offer a clearer authorized framework for crypto and AI, each of which he has invested in, alongside launching his personal AI-powered start-up, Glue, this 12 months. He has expressed help for open-source AI initiatives, the place underlying code is publicly accessible, railed towards censorship by AI firms and argued that they and different high-tech start-ups ought to play a central function in boosting US competitiveness and nationwide safety.
It isn’t clear how a lot direct energy Sacks can have over these considerations. His new place is “an advisory function . . . which doesn’t require David to depart Craft”, based on the agency.
Sacks additionally has a detailed relationship with vice-president-elect JD Vance, based on folks with information of their relationship. They added that Vance, who labored for Thiel earlier in his profession, helped forge the hyperlink between Sacks and Trump.
However Sacks has additionally repeatedly clashed with rivals on-line and even his co-hosts and self-styled “besties” on his podcast over a few of his extra contentious opinions.
He has additionally been concerned in some on-line spats, together with this 12 months with Paul Graham, the high-profile founding father of start-up incubator Y Combinator, who advised in a since-deleted submit throughout an change on X that Sacks could also be “essentially the most evil individual in Silicon Valley”. In line with Sacks, he and Graham have by no means met.
The feuds have made Sacks a bête noire for individuals who disagree together with his politics and infrequently caustic fashion.
“He believes the Ukraine conflict was precipitated by the west. He’s dogmatic, positive of his opinions,” stated one acquaintance who has soured on Sacks. “He’s so boastful . . . so missing in empathy for others.”
Sriram Krishnan, a former companion at enterprise agency Andreessen Horowitz who labored with Sacks on the Twitter transition, is extra sympathetic. “David varieties views from first-principles logic,” he stated. “He doesn’t care if which means he’s disagreeing with a tribe of individuals.”
In public, Sacks will be concurrently thought-about and provocative. A couple of months after Russia’s full-blown invasion of Ukraine, he argued for a peaceable decision even when that meant acquiescing to a few of Putin’s calls for, in a bit headlined: “Neocons and the Woke Left Are Becoming a member of Fingers and Main Us to Woke Warfare III”.
Sacks’s popularity for belligerence was a priority for Joseph Nelson when he was contemplating who to take funding from for his pc imaginative and prescient start-up Roboflow, a selection he described as “a one-way door in an organization’s historical past”. However after chatting with Sacks, he was received over.
“The individual David is on the pod or on Twitter is kind of totally different to the individual he’s within the boardroom . . . You’d be shocked at how a lot he listens, how pragmatic he’s,” Nelson stated.
Sacks’s politics are sometimes in comparison with these of Thiel, who has turn into an mental beacon for libertarian-leaning expertise staff within the Valley and past.
The pair met at Stanford College within the Nineties, and Sacks joined the Stanford Overview, a conservative paper Thiel had established. In 1995, they co-wrote “The Range Delusion”, a critique of the college’s efforts to advertise multiculturalism on the expense — because the authors noticed it — of different priorities.
Sacks and Thiel “have been intellectually very shut”, stated the early PayPal investor. “The libertarian philosophy they’ve espoused was born of that period.”
Thiel was one of many earliest and most distinguished tech buyers to return out in help of Trump in 2016. Sacks joined later however simply as fulsomely, internet hosting a $300,000-a-head fundraiser for the president-elect in June this 12 months. A month later he was invited to speak on the Republican Nationwide Conference.
Sollitto insists Sacks is his personal man somewhat than a Thiel acolyte. “I feel they’re colleagues and friends,” he stated. “David doesn’t want a guiding mild: he’s very shiny, very prescient.”
One distinguished Silicon Valley investor who has clashed with Sacks on politics nonetheless celebrated his elevation to the function of Trump’s tsar. “We’ve disagreed publicly however he’s actually good and having actually good folks in authorities is sweet,” they stated.
The error made by critics was to deal with Sacks’ fashion, somewhat than his substance, the investor added. As a substitute they need to take Sacks severely however not actually, an strategy Thiel advised in 2016 that the media take with Trump.
“Insiders are likely to consider you need to be critical to be taken severely,” they stated. “However you need to be good at storytelling, you need to have charisma. Its really easy for boring bureaucrats to criticise whereas creating nothing.”
