Trump’s First Week: Inauguration Recap, Executive Actions, TikTok, Stargate + Sacks is Back!

(0:00) The Besties intro Thomas Laffont! (6:22) Behind the scenes: Inauguration Weekend recap! (15:58) Biggest takeaways from DC during the Inauguration (31:38) Trump Executive Action breakdown (33:39) TikTok's grace period extended, valuing the business, US new equity strategy? (57:01) Jan 6th pardons, birthright citizenship (1:09:49) Stargate: $500B AI investment, is Masa the GOAT?, bull case for OpenAI (1:23:41) How electricity production capacity plays into the global AI race (1:36:20) Netflix's stock rise correlates with some alarming societal trends (1:47:40) BREAKING: AI/Crypto Czar David Sacks joins to discuss the President's three new EOs Follow the besties: https://x.com/chamath https://x.com/Jason https://x.com/DavidSacks https://x.com/friedberg Follow Thomas Laffont: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomas-laffont-02430914 Follow on X: https://x.com/theallinpod Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theallinpod Follow on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@theallinpod Follow on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/allinpod Intro Music Credit: https://rb.gy/tppkzl https://x.com/yung_spielburg Intro Video Credit: https://x.com/TheZachEffect Referenced in the show: https://x.com/dontcallmeraylo/status/1882444994264629402 https://x.com/craigkellyXXX/status/1882170281722339700 https://www.wdsu.com/article/donald-trump-executive-orders-inauguration-parade/63486993 https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/21/us/trump-birthright-citizenship.html https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-14 https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed74.asp https://x.com/OpenAI/status/1881830103858172059 https://x.com/sama/status/1882106524090482701 https://x.com/GavinSBaker/status/1882081746877063677 https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1881923570458304780 https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1882303826214162580 https://x.com/satyanadella/status/1882340818289307954 https://x.com/GregKamradt/status/1881762305152872654 https://x.com/chamath/status/1881773205498876255 https://x.com/documentingbtc/status/1882530869010989287 https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/strengthening-american-leadership-in-digital-financial-technology https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/removing-barriers-to-american-leadership-in-artificial-intelligence https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/presidents-council-of-advisors-on-science-and-technology https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/489251-in-this-age-in-this-country-public-sentiment-is-everything https://x.com/SpeakerJohnson/status/1882083118032846868

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Trump’s First Week: Inauguration Recap, Executive Actions, TikTok, Stargate + Sacks is Back! Podcast Episode Description

(0:00) The Besties intro Thomas Laffont!

(6:22) Behind the scenes: Inauguration Weekend recap!

(15:58) Biggest takeaways from DC during the Inauguration

(31:38) Trump Executive Action breakdown

(33:39) TikTok’s grace period extended, valuing the business, US new equity strategy?

(57:01) Jan 6th pardons, birthright citizenship

(1:09:49) Stargate: $500B AI investment, is Masa the GOAT?, bull case for OpenAI

(1:23:41) How electricity production capacity plays into the global AI race

(1:36:20) Netflix’s stock rise correlates with some alarming societal trends

(1:47:40) BREAKING: AI/Crypto Czar David Sacks joins to discuss the President’s three new EOs

Follow the besties:

https://x.com/chamath

https://x.com/Jason

https://x.com/DavidSacks

https://x.com/friedberg

Follow Thomas Laffont:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomas-laffont-02430914

Follow on X:

https://x.com/theallinpod

Follow on Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/theallinpod

Follow on TikTok:

@theallinpod

Follow on LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/company/allinpod

Intro Music Credit:

https://rb.gy/tppkzl

https://x.com/yung_spielburg

Intro Video Credit:

https://x.com/TheZachEffect

Referenced in the show:

https://x.com/dontcallmeraylo/status/1882444994264629402

https://x.com/craigkellyXXX/status/1882170281722339700

https://www.wdsu.com/article/donald-trump-executive-orders-inauguration-parade/63486993

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/21/us/trump-birthright-citizenship.html

https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-14

https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed74.asp

https://x.com/OpenAI/status/1881830103858172059

https://x.com/sama/status/1882106524090482701

https://x.com/GavinSBaker/status/1882081746877063677

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1881923570458304780

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1882303826214162580

https://x.com/satyanadella/status/1882340818289307954

https://x.com/GregKamradt/status/1881762305152872654

https://x.com/chamath/status/1881773205498876255

https://x.com/documentingbtc/status/1882530869010989287

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/strengthening-american-leadership-in-digital-financial-technology

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/removing-barriers-to-american-leadership-in-artificial-intelligence

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/presidents-council-of-advisors-on-science-and-technology

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/489251-in-this-age-in-this-country-public-sentiment-is-everything

https://x.com/SpeakerJohnson/status/1882083118032846868
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Trump’s First Week: Inauguration Recap, Executive Actions, TikTok, Stargate + Sacks is Back! Podcast Episode Top Keywords

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Trump’s First Week: Inauguration Recap, Executive Actions, TikTok, Stargate + Sacks is Back! Podcast Episode Summary

In this episode of the podcast, the hosts and guests engage in a lively discussion covering a range of topics, including business, finance, technology, and science. The episode features notable guest Thomas Saloni, an investor known for his involvement in successful companies. The conversation touches on the dynamics between public market investors and venture investors, highlighting the tribal nature of venture investing and the flexibility of public market investors to support multiple companies simultaneously.

A significant portion of the discussion revolves around recent executive orders on cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence (AI) issued by the president. The hosts discuss the implications of these orders, particularly the rescinding of a previous burdensome regulation, and the new directive to establish the U.S. as a global leader in AI. This reflects a recurring theme of the podcast: analyzing and critiquing government policies and their impact on technology and business sectors.

The episode also includes personal insights and advice from the hosts, emphasizing the importance of maintaining a balanced lifestyle through sleep hygiene, diet, exercise, and meditation. This advice is presented as a way to counteract negative trends and improve personal well-being.

Overall, the podcast maintains its reputation for candid discussions, offering listeners a mix of industry insights, personal advice, and critical analysis of current events. The hosts aim to provide an uncensored platform where they can identify key players in various sectors and discuss their roles as either heroes or villains in the unfolding narratives.

This summary was created automatically by Speak. Want to transcribe, analyze and summarize yourself? Sign up for Speak!

Trump’s First Week: Inauguration Recap, Executive Actions, TikTok, Stargate + Sacks is Back! Podcast Episode Transcript (Unedited)

Speaker: 0
00:00

So we had a dinner where me and Friedberg and Jay Kal were invited to have dinner with the folks from and their and their other top podcast

Speaker: 1
00:07

It was an off the record dinner. Let’s talk all about it. There was an interesting moment, which even Friedberg had to recognize, which was we went around and said, hey. What what podcasts are you listening to? Which ones are your favorites? We went out in the room and I gotta tell you, you know what your podcaster’s favorite podcast is? Bingo. All in podcast.

Speaker: 1
00:24

Well, the funniest thing is my wife thinks I’m bull all the

Speaker: 0
00:27

time I say this is a Mine too. Pretty reasonably successful and well, shah doesn’t believe it. She thinks we’re all bull

Speaker: 2
00:32

Why do you think I waited to make my world podcast premiere for All in? All the ankle biters called and I said, no.

Speaker: 3
00:38

I’m just gonna wait.

Speaker: 2
00:39

Hold on. I’m gonna wait to the besties call.

Speaker: 0
00:43

Can we just sai, Nick, you gotta

Speaker: 1
00:44

be the hoe.

Speaker: 0
00:45

When the podcast called, you’re like, nope. Can’t do it. No. Nope. Sorry.

Speaker: 1
00:49

I’m waiting for the real deal.

Speaker: 2
00:51

I don’t need JV.

Speaker: 1
01:10

Ai, everybody. Welcome back to the number one business, finance, technology, science podcast in the world. This is the place where we call balls and strikes, where we tell the truth, where there is zero censorship. Every week, we tell you about the truth behind the most important stories.

Speaker: 1
01:29

We point out who the heroes are and who the villains are, who are the delightful ones, and who are the discretia With me again on this week’s program Discrescia. The cackling chairman dictator. My god, Jamal Polyharp. Tia, how you doing? How was your victory lap? How was your victory lap?

Speaker: 0
01:48

Really, really, really fun.

Speaker: 1
01:50

You look like you were in your afterglow, and I have to say, Nat was looking pretty good. Whew. We have some pictures. Don’t worry. We’re gonna go through behind

Speaker: 0
01:59

the scenes, citizen. That’s our sunset.

Speaker: 1
02:01

Came through for Amore. The Amore collection from Armani coming this fall.

Speaker: 0
02:06

By the way, I mean, Armani Couture is, like, firing on all cylinders. The the other the other one, which you’ll see is a great picture of this incredible jacket, Luisa Beckeria. Two shout outs, Armani and Luisa Beckeria.

Speaker: 1
02:18

You know, I was just thinking that Armani really has been making it happen.

Speaker: 0
02:21

Now that we’ve talked about that, we’ll talk about my wardrobe when the time comes.

Speaker: 1
02:24

Could they just get

Speaker: 0
02:25

through the rest of the intro? Alright. Alright. Alright.

Speaker: 1
02:26

And, of course, here he is, your sultan of science, David Friedberg.

Speaker: 3
02:34

Move along, J. Cal. Let’s go.

Speaker: 0
02:36

Let’s go.

Speaker: 1
02:36

He’s had a wonderful he’s very bitter today.

Speaker: 0
02:39

He’s got a

Speaker: 1
02:40

lot of anger. He is the barista of bitterness today. He’s serving up bitterness all day long, and he had a great time at the, maybe he’s a little upset about the, Lex Bryden ai we’re in right now. I think that could be part of it. And we have a special guest here. Thomas Lafont is the cofounder of Kotu Management.

Speaker: 1
03:00

They got a 50 Billy under management, public, private, yada yada. Before that, he worked at Creative Arya Agency for 7 years after he he went to college. So he does have the college degree. He signed Captain America, which is Freebird’s favorite Avenger.

Speaker: 0
03:19

Chris Evans.

Speaker: 1
03:19

Chris

Speaker: 0
03:20

Evans. Chris Evans.

Speaker: 1
03:21

And, has Still a

Speaker: 2
03:22

CIA client, by the way.

Speaker: 1
03:24

Yes. And then you’re still in touch with him.

Speaker: 2
03:27

I am not.

Speaker: 1
03:28

You’re not.

Speaker: 2
03:28

But I I’ve watched with wonder at, what he’s achieved after I left being his agent. It’s been incredible. Great career.

Speaker: 1
03:36

Now now behind you, we see this incredible, incredible the one you’re missing

Speaker: 0
03:41

the one part, which is that Thomas was one of the highest rated speakers that we had at the all in summit.

Speaker: 3
03:46

Yeah.

Speaker: 1
03:47

That’s true, actually. He did really great.

Speaker: 0
03:49

Really crushed it. Crushed it. Crushed it.

Speaker: 1
03:50

Of course.

Speaker: 2
03:51

And I think I’m I’m in the 7th bestie position and and hoping potentially after the podcast to at least move up by 1.

Speaker: 1
03:57

Okay. Excellent. Let’s see what happens here. Now, what what’s this view behind you?

Speaker: 2
04:01

This is, Los Angeles.

Speaker: 3
04:03

I’ll put you ahead of J Cal, Thomas. So you’re wow. You’re up the spot.

Speaker: 1
04:07

Oh my god. He really is serving up the

Speaker: 2
04:09

bitterness today.

Speaker: 1
04:12

Sai bad. Why? He’s so bad. You know why

Speaker: 0
04:14

you know why he’s mad? Because I’ll tell you why. Because he okay. What are you saying? This is for the audience. Jason is complaining all week in the group chat that he has influenza a. He’s sending pictures of him getting IVs. And so Friberg, the conscientious guy and cofounder of the pod that he is, sai, I will moderate. And then he invests his time. Okay?

Speaker: 0
04:39

He’s got he’s got a lot of things going on. He’s got He does.

Speaker: 3
04:42

Potatoes. Kids plus strawberry.

Speaker: 0
04:44

He’s running a company.

Speaker: 1
04:45

Strawberries.

Speaker: 0
04:46

He prepares, and then you wake up after a dose of Tamiflu and decide, no. I’m ready to moderate.

Speaker: 3
04:53

Of course.

Speaker: 0
04:53

And You can’t just do that because it’s not nice.

Speaker: 1
04:56

Alright. Put hey. Madam producer, can you come on the horn for a second here?

Speaker: 4
05:02

Are we really gonna do this?

Speaker: 0
05:03

Yes. We are.

Speaker: 1
05:04

We’re gonna do it. We’re doing it, madam. This is so stupid. This is so stupid. Papa booie. Did I tell you to get Friedberg involved?

Speaker: 4
05:13

No. No. I did it myself.

Speaker: 1
05:15

Okay. You went rogue.

Speaker: 4
05:16

Can I say why?

Speaker: 1
05:18

You can go rogue. I’m fine.

Speaker: 4
05:19

I said, hey, Jason. How are you feeling? You sai, horrible. I have the flu. I’m getting an IV tomorrow morning. To me, that was, like, oh, okay. There’s, like, a 50% chance he misses the show. So I reached out to Friberg. I said, hey, Jason’s really sick with the flu. Maybe you should just prepare yourself to moderate tomorrow.

Speaker: 1
05:35

Okay. Now, when did I find out about this? Wondering if I

Speaker: 0
05:38

think that was a smart decision, but you sai arya a small bitter man. And so what you did was you wanted

Speaker: 1
05:44

to just blow yeah.

Speaker: 0
05:45

You wanted to blow up Freeburg’s preparation.

Speaker: 1
05:47

Ai found out about this this morning. I found out about this like an hour ago.

Speaker: 0
05:50

How are you feeling?

Speaker: 1
05:52

I feel 80% of a normal J Cow, which is a 110% of any other moderator. Get yourself Andrew Ross Sorkin. Oh, I’m sorry. He’s genuflecting at Davos to a bunch of mids.

Speaker: 0
06:04

Well, we’re gonna get Lexus, so we’re gonna get Lexus.

Speaker: 1
06:08

Oh, that’d be great. Hello. I am Lexus Friedman. Welcome to the number one podcast in the world. Today on the program, we have Thomas Saloni, investor in such great companies as alright. Listen. Enough shenanigans. We had so much fun. We tore DC apart.

Speaker: 0
06:25

Lester, actually, just Thomas, did you watch any of it on TV? Did you think about going? It was really ai, there were so many tech people in Washington this weekend.

Speaker: 2
06:36

I saw the livestream. I talked to Sachs last night to get get the download. And, you know, my takeaway just from watching, especially the executive orders, was, you know, democracy in action. Democracy is self correct. Yeah. And dictatorships double down. And to watch in real time a country of our scale and a democracy, you know, decide to make a change, I think that’s why we’ve been great for, you know, 250 plus years and will remain great.

Speaker: 2
07:05

So it was fun to watch. I I’m really curious to see what your takeaway was.

Speaker: 0
07:09

Okay. Well, let’s just we’ll just go behind the scenes. First of all, it’s hard to see that this was me dressed up for Vatsal ball. I really brought the heat. This is, by the way, Luca Rubenacci is the tailor here.

Speaker: 2
07:21

It’s hard to see Is that a blue?

Speaker: 0
07:23

Blue coat? No. So this is what I’m saying. I think the picture is very hard to see, but it’s a very refined green paisley.

Speaker: 1
07:30

Oh. Mhmm.

Speaker: 0
07:31

Subtle. Hard to bring it out. Now Ai will say this was the most popular shirt over the entire weekend. This is just a simple Saloni tuxedo shirt. There sai 200 versions of it. I felt bad when I saw because normally Ai don’t like to wear things that other people are wearing.

Speaker: 1
07:48

Correct. Yeah. What did Michael Sailor think of this? When you saw Michael Sailor at the at the You know, I met

Speaker: 0
07:53

I met Michael’s CFO, wonderfully nice guy. So this is us at the this is us at the crypto ball.

Speaker: 3
07:59

I went I went for white tuxedo on the first night. I’ve never had 3 tuxedos before, but

Speaker: 1
08:03

they were

Speaker: 0
08:04

David looked David looked really great. I really love the look

Speaker: 1
08:06

of ai. Yeah.

Speaker: 0
08:07

And Sachs had this incredible tux, which was more crypto themed. It sort of looked like the opening scene from The Matrix.

Speaker: 1
08:14

Sai

Speaker: 0
08:14

there was, like, this cool print there. You can see my green in there a little bit, Thomas, in this one.

Speaker: 2
08:18

Yep. Yeah. Got it.

Speaker: 0
08:20

There’s Sky and New Money Sunny, the president of Grok.

Speaker: 1
08:24

Sandeep Madra, x.com/sundeep.

Speaker: 0
08:27

You’re the besties. You’re the besties.

Speaker: 1
08:28

I was I was let’s be honest, guys. Even in all your bitterness, Friberg, you felt the love at this moment when we were all back together. Did you not?

Speaker: 3
08:36

Well, in about 5 minutes before this, when the 3 of us took a a video a photo, it was great. Yeah.

Speaker: 1
08:41

Yeah. Okay. Great. So that’s that one. He’s so entertaining. Here’s Do you want meh to let you moderate? You can moderate if you sana. If you’re that part of your

Speaker: 3
08:48

life great job, Jayco. There’s no keeping the front crack. We’re 18 minutes into this and we’re doing fashion still.

Speaker: 0
08:53

Video doing Sai, Diego Burdekin, the co founder of Cloud Kitchens.

Speaker: 1
08:57

Oh, so handsome that, Diego. Who

Speaker: 3
08:59

in fact did he get involved?

Speaker: 1
09:00

For a second? That’s it.

Speaker: 3
09:00

This was the Crypto ball.

Speaker: 0
09:01

Yeah. This was the Crypto ball. This was ai this was Saks’ event. It was incredible.

Speaker: 1
09:06

It was a large number of people there. I was shocked at the number of people at

Speaker: 0
09:11

the crypto ball. It was it was huge. Next, I love them. Here’s a litter.

Speaker: 1
09:15

Poker afterwards. Behind the scenes.

Speaker: 2
09:17

With Pink Diego.

Speaker: 0
09:19

TK, Travis Ai, the cofounder of the founder of Uber.

Speaker: 2
09:22

Oh, look. That’s the founder of Uber. Who who’s got the biggest stack.

Speaker: 1
09:26

Look. It’s the founder of Uber next to the 3rd investor in Uber, and the founder of CloudKitchens next to the investor in here.

Speaker: 3
09:34

This is at

Speaker: 0
09:35

Peter Thiel’s house. This is Katie Shah and Kyle Saloni, my wife and your boss ai. This is at Peter’s house. Peter had this Peter Thiel had this person going around taking pictures

Speaker: 2
09:47

where he

Speaker: 1
09:47

got this Not not complaining for you. Yeah. Good ai. There. K. You put on.

Speaker: 0
09:52

Oh, this was great. Also, Peter Thiel’s house.

Speaker: 1
09:54

Yeah. That was great. I have to say show Chamath, putting aside

Speaker: 3
09:59

Jason likes being a Republican nominee.

Speaker: 0
10:01

Here’s a here’s a here’s a dinner that we had. There’s Lex Friedman, Julius Genachowski, who’s the former chairman of the FCC.

Speaker: 1
10:08

Little known. The Brad Gurst former, former roommate of Obama.

Speaker: 2
10:12

That’s ai a

Speaker: 3
10:13

following this dinner, all those streets were blocked off, and there was no way to get around. There. Look. You see the And it was, like, it was, like, 10 degrees Fahrenheit. So we walk out.

Speaker: 1
10:22

Yes. It’s turned.

Speaker: 3
10:23

It was ai you were gonna die after 2 seconds out there.

Speaker: 0
10:26

It was so cold. It was so cold.

Speaker: 1
10:27

And me and Ai are walking

Speaker: 3
10:28

to ai and, like, get our car. And after walking for, like, half a mile, we’re like, dude, there’s no way out of this downtown area. And Vinny was shaking. He’s like, I’m gonna die. I’m gonna die. I’m gonna die. He turns around. He goes running back to the restaurant, jumps in, and basically, like, huddles down in the restaurant. And then after about 10 minutes, there’s no way out.

Speaker: 3
10:46

He’s ai, you know, it’s sort of like you’re in a military zone. He’s like, I’m gonna go for it. I He runs out, jumps on a scooter, and he disappeared into the distance, and I swore I would never see Vinny again. I’m like, that’s it.

Speaker: 0
10:55

I think it’s very smart that Lex wears the same outfit, the black suit with the white shirt with the black tie. I really like the the consistency of it, actually. It looks really

Speaker: 1
11:05

This is it was incredible.

Speaker: 3
11:06

There’s

Speaker: 1
11:06

He was getting stopped.

Speaker: 0
11:07

Here’s here’s Armani. 2 minutes. It was unbelievable. Here’s the jacket. This is Luisa Beckerilla, and then here’s the box ram Armani. Thank you ai the

Speaker: 1
11:15

other box. Boxing. Woah. Ai waw.

Speaker: 0
11:19

Meh, look. There’s a little side boob there with Matt. I didn’t notice that. Meh. That’s sai this is I’m wearing Tom Ford.

Speaker: 1
11:27

Shout out Tom Ford.

Speaker: 0
11:28

Shout out to you.

Speaker: 1
11:29

Perfect mouthful.

Speaker: 0
11:31

Oh, huge shout out to 2 guys that I had really wanted to meet in person. I finally got the chance to meet. This is at Zuck’s party. This is Bryden Carr who’s the incoming chairman of the FCC. Actually this picture was taken right after he had gotten confirmed. So this was his 1st day as the chairman.

Speaker: 0
11:48

And then this is a guy who I’ve been following for a couple of years, Jared Isaacman, who is now gonna run NASA. He’s the founder and CEO of Shift4 Payments. But both of these guys are pretty epic. You should follow them on Twitter.

Speaker: 3
12:00

He did a spacewalk. The first civilian spacewalk.

Speaker: 0
12:02

He did. He’s he’s he’s really, really

Speaker: 3
12:04

Brendan was really nice. I met him at Peter’s, event, and he told me he’s a big fan of the pod. He listened

Speaker: 0
12:09

to the show everywhere. Amazing. I mean, by the way, if you wanna see, like, some really amazing tweets, he had some real bangers. He’s a very smart guy.

Speaker: 1
12:17

He’s, being a I’ve had Bryden on This Week in Startups sai couple tyler. He’s the guy who fought for Starlink

Speaker: 0
12:26

That’s right.

Speaker: 1
12:26

Over wasting 5, 10, $20,000 per home to install broadband. I mean, this guy’s a hero, and he and he did that when he was in office under Biden and all that crazy corruption and grift.

Speaker: 0
12:41

This is a picture of Mike Johnson and his wife. This is a crazy story. So there was a g 7 summit in Italy, and Mike and his wife was seated beside my father-in-law, Nat’s dad, at a dinner. They got to know each other. He, as a proud grandpa, showed Mike and his wife pictures of Matt and myself and our kids.

Speaker: 0
13:03

And how we actually met in this moment was his wife was like, oh my god. I recognize you. You’re Sergio’s son-in-law. You’re Sergio’s daughter.

Speaker: 1
13:10

It’s amazing. And then we shah a cool conversation.

Speaker: 0
13:14

So that was cool. And then this is Bill Pulte who is nominated to run FHFA, which for folks that know will be in control of the conservatorship of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and really great ai. Also a co investor with me and Mr. Beast, Nat.

Speaker: 1
13:33

Oh, you’re an investor in Mr. Beast. There you go.

Speaker: 0
13:35

This is mister I did the series a.

Speaker: 1
13:37

I’ve seen the first ai, I think you’ve said it

Speaker: 0
13:39

ram the heart. This thing. So this is where J. Cal is at his peak. Go ahead, Nick. Just play the video. I already even know what this is.

Speaker: 1
13:44

Oh my god.

Speaker: 0
13:45

Go ahead. What what is that? What what did you order? Alright.

Speaker: 1
13:48

I’ve given it some thought, and I’m gonna order the $95

Speaker: 3
13:53

Dover Sole. The

Speaker: 1
14:00

tips included in ai. I mean That’s okay. We have the cheese. Having such a great ai, tearing it up. I did order the $95 Dover Shoppe.

Speaker: 0
14:11

This is, oh, sorry. Oh, that’s that’s me and Bobby Kennedy, but this is, this is walking into the capitol for the inauguration. Oh, wow. So you basically you have to get off. All these buses were taking us in because of the security, and then you walk underneath and underground to get into them.

Speaker: 0
14:27

And this is it, Bobby. And the guy right there, Cali means another great Meh, make America healthy again.

Speaker: 1
14:33

Alright. Here’s a couple of my picks. This is meh with somebody who’s gonna be in the administration. I’m not big on politics, but

Speaker: 0
14:41

Chelsea Gabbard

Speaker: 1
14:42

is so Chelsea Gabbard.

Speaker: 0
14:43

She was strong. She went she came to our party.

Speaker: 1
14:45

I like her.

Speaker: 0
14:46

This is the picture of our party. She is incredible.

Speaker: 1
14:49

Well, she came up to me and she you know, you can always tell who the real fan is and she came

Speaker: 0
14:53

up. I love Jessica.

Speaker: 1
14:54

I just wanna tell Jake how Ai am a huge fan of the pod. I love what you do. I love the, you know, balance you bring to the program. She really ai new details about the podcast. And so I wanted to get a picture with her. So as a joke, I said to her, do you wanna take a selfie? I said, I’m okay with the selfie. She goes, I was gonna ask.

Speaker: 1
15:11

I was like, no. I’m preemptively asking. We took it together.

Speaker: 0
15:13

We were just funny. Star. She is such a star.

Speaker: 1
15:15

I think she’s gonna be great.

Speaker: 0
15:16

I like her a lot. She’s such

Speaker: 5
15:19

a star.

Speaker: 1
15:19

Oh, well, yeah. This is Hello. I am Lex Friedman. Today, with love and peace in my heart, I am interviewing dictator Idi Amin who has eaten half his enemies. We will share love, kindness, and a fatty liver. Enjoy. So, yeah, that was us just tearing it up after the YouTube party where we hung out with Sundar and, Neil from YouTube. They’ve been very good to us.

Speaker: 1
15:46

And then here’s one more, I guess.

Speaker: 0
15:47

Sai guess there’s one more. Golfer, Bryson DeChambeau.

Speaker: 1
15:50

Oh, there’s me and the, Presidente, Twitter, and, yeah, this is the podcast crew at the free press party.

Speaker: 3
15:58

Okay. Let’s talk about key takeaways. Chamath, what is your big takeaway from the weekend?

Speaker: 0
16:03

I think my biggest takeaway is that if you look in the past, there was a very tight coordination, I guess I would say, between private industry and the private sector and the public sector, meaning the president and then people who were in charge of managing huge vatsal swaths of resources in America. And somewhere along the way, that became either unfashionable and uncool, particularly under Democrats.

Speaker: 0
16:37

And what I saw was a very broad based embrace of business people because I think that the president understands how important it is to make sure that economically, America is just firing on all cylinders. The one thing to remember, like, for example, in the inauguration I know that you saw the picture and it was basically ai Meta, Google, Apple, Amazon, Tesla ai of CEOs, etcetera, founders.

Speaker: 0
17:04

Arnott was there. Mukesh Ambani was there. So it’s just business people from the entire world were there. And so I think what it says is Meh gonna basically turn a totally new page. We’re not gonna ostracize people. We’re not gonna play favorites. That’s the other thing.

Speaker: 0
17:21

You know, Elon was there right at the beginning, but if you saw all the CEOs of the, you know, major companies were there, it’s not like he excluded Zuck because of his past issues or anything.

Speaker: 3
17:32

Or Sam Altman.

Speaker: 0
17:33

Or Sam Altman. That was the biggest thing for notable one, yeah, to exclude. Yeah. That that the president doesn’t play favorites, that this is ai team America ai thing, and it was a projection of tremendous power to the rest of the world. This is what Meh about. I loved every minute of it.

Speaker: 0
17:51

And I think that this is exactly how the American government should be working, which is hand in hand with private industry to basically set the pace for the rest of the world.

Speaker: 1
18:00

Thomas, did you have a takeaway after the weekend?

Speaker: 2
18:03

I did. I’m curious what you guys thought, but to me, what was notable from Scott Bessent, the new treasury secretary, he was asked in one of the exchanges about the green energy race with Ai. And he reframed the debate, I thought, incredibly well where he said, we’re not in a green energy race with China. We’re in an energy race with China.

Speaker: 3
18:25

That’s right.

Speaker: 2
18:26

Ai? And he made the point that China is adding a 100 coal plants. It’s adding nuclear. And to me, it was kind of just

Speaker: 3
18:33

137 gigawatt hydro facility, which

Speaker: 2
18:36

is Exactly.

Speaker: 3
18:37

Unbelievable.

Speaker: 2
18:39

And it was such a good framing of the debate because I think, Chamath, to your point, it’s about reframing the right issues. Right? And I think that just that little piece of dialogue to me is exemplified, you know, and was a really important takeaway, and I think more of what we’ll see over the next coming year.

Speaker: 1
18:54

Freyberg, did you have a takeaway coming out of this?

Speaker: 3
18:56

There was just so much. It was so impressive to be there. I definitely echo the sentiment about seeing the strength of America represented between the entrepreneurial engine that has driven this country for 250 years and the government that’s meant to serve the people working together to try and take America forward.

Speaker: 3
19:16

It was just really inspiring. The one thing that was the biggest kind of observation for me, which was a bit of a disappointment, unfortunately, is I feel like Doge and cost cutting is gonna be a lot harder to realize than folks assume. Nearly everyone I met with who works in government or is entering government had this, if not disdain for Doge, a concern that it doesn’t really align interests with the political objectives of politicians, that they need to get more stuff for their constituents in order to get reelected, and that they’re not gonna vote programs away.

Speaker: 3
19:56

They’re not gonna vote themselves out of a job, which is effectively what they would do if they cut programs. In fact, I was watching Brooke Rollins’ secretary ag confirmation hearing this morning, and Mitch O’Connell was given the opportunity to ask her questions. You know what his question was?

Speaker: 0
20:12

Mhmm. He

Speaker: 3
20:13

sai, in the last farm bill, I was able to get $60,000,000 to build an ag research lab at the University of Kentucky, and it hasn’t started being built yet. It’s been 4 years. What are you gonna do about that? This is literally the intention of so many of these conversations if you sit and watch.

Speaker: 3
20:28

And then I ai a similar conversation with a senator from Minnesota who, you know, I I I won’t get into all the the statements, but every single conversation you hear and we even talked with Ted Cruz about this. It’s all

Speaker: 1
20:41

about great, by the way. I love Ted Cruz.

Speaker: 3
20:43

It’s all about

Speaker: 0
20:44

Ted Cruz is excellent.

Speaker: 3
20:45

It’s all about what can I get for my constituents? How do I get more jobs, and how do I get more money? And, ultimately, that incentive is what gets people elected, and I don’t think it’s gonna change. And so that was the biggest kind of shock for me. I thought that there was a moment of the importance of cost cutting, the importance of deficit reduction, the importance of debt reduction.

Speaker: 3
21:04

And I was just a little saddened to kinda see that that there’s no stop in the train. So that was my takeaway. It’s a little bit bitter. I hope I’m wrong. I really do hope those is effective, and I really do hope that policymakers start to recognize the importance.

Speaker: 3
21:18

By the way, Ray Dalio has a new book coming out. We’ll talk more about his book once it’s released publicly, but it speaks very clearly to the challenge the United States is now facing with respect to spending. So I know I’ve talked about this. I know we all felt like there was a big reprieve with this election, but for meh, it was a little bit bitter.

Speaker: 3
21:33

So we can

Speaker: 1
21:34

kinda go ai. Can I say

Speaker: 0
21:34

a little bit on that first topic? That Yep. I I just sana double down on that because one of the things that some folks said, and I guess it makes sense now that you think about it, but when you look at the confirmation hearings, there are certain folks for whom the resource allocation is relatively modest inside of America.

Speaker: 0
21:52

They tend to just do much better in general. And if you saw Marco Rubio’s confirmation process, there was, you know, it was like 99 to 0. Ai? And to your point, what what they say is that folks that actually allocate the internal spending in the United States gets a lot more scrutiny because there’s all of this horse trading because they want some of this money to get allocated into their specific area.

Speaker: 0
22:17

It is gonna be a very complicated thing. The the one thing though that changed, I don’t know if you saw, but Doge was meant to be outside the auspices of the government, and it wasn’t actually a government department. And it it’ll be interesting to understand when it’s explained, but in the 11th hour, the EO that established those established it actually as a governmental agency.

Speaker: 1
22:40

Yeah. We’re gonna get into that in just a moment. And, you know, to build on your point there, Dave, senator Sanders, had a tweet today. Nick, I just sent it to you. Already the discussion of, like, who should take the brunt of these cuts is starting to happen, and he’s pointing out, you know, as he should and, you know, hey.

Speaker: 1
22:58

What’s gonna happen with the VA? And you’re you’re putting a freeze on hiring people. We have to make sure our vets are taken care of. We have a shortage of doctors, a shortage of of nurses. But we do have people, you know, responding to him saying, hey.

Speaker: 1
23:10

How are we gonna pay for all this? So even if it’s gonna be hard to do, it’s gonna take courage because you’re gonna be faced with situations like this where, ai anybody wanna see VA’s budget cut? And these veterans who are coming back, they should get all the services in the world. And these hard discussions are now happening. And it’s not taboo.

Speaker: 1
23:29

So the Overton window’s wide open now to discuss even the budget of the VM. And where is the money gonna come from? So I think we’re actually gonna make progress on it. The this was like a sacred cow, and now we’re we’re talking about it. To the to Bernie Sanders’ point, I don’t know if you saw there was a note on there, Nick, community notes pointed out that Trump put that none of the cuts should impact vets.

Speaker: 1
23:52

And so I thought that was, a a good use of community notes there.

Speaker: 0
23:56

The one comment I’ll say about Bernie Sanders is when Russ Vought, who is the nominee to run OMB, went through his confirmation yesterday. Sanders asked a similar question around Medicare and Medicaid. And what was interesting is Russ tried to actually answer the question and give the details around where they can be waste, fraud, and abuse.

Speaker: 0
24:20

Sanders really didn’t wanna hear it. He just wanted a sound ai. So I think these confirmation processes are Performative? They’re hugely performative. Yes.

Speaker: 0
24:32

I do think that and this applies, I think, to both sides Democrats as well when when they are eventually in power. I think that when you’re given a very clear mandate as a president, I think you should be able to get to pick your team. Because it’s clear that the American people have voted an agenda. It’s not like he hid that agenda.

Speaker: 0
24:51

And so the people that then wanna implement that agenda should be put on the field.

Speaker: 1
24:55

It seems like Yeah. The point of these should be if somebody could get compromised or there was something really gnarly in their background, like but otherwise, yeah, let people build their team and then they have to own their results.

Speaker: 0
25:06

Tell us about your feelings and takeaways about the weekend.

Speaker: 1
25:09

Well, you know, it’s obviously mixed. I was a never Trumper, and, now Ram rooting for him wholeheartedly to do great work.

Speaker: 2
25:17

Beyond for me.

Speaker: 0
25:18

You kinda like him. Come on. You do kinda like him.

Speaker: 1
25:20

Ai mean, anybody Just been just met anybody who’s interacted with Trump Ai him.

Speaker: 0
25:25

Your diatribe, just say it. Just say you like him.

Speaker: 1
25:28

There are aspects I like about the platform. I like probably 80% of the platform.

Speaker: 0
25:31

Sana say it. And I won’t tell

Speaker: 1
25:33

you today the 20% I don’t like. I’m always gonna call Boston Ai. No. No. No. I’m not gonna ai

Speaker: 0
25:36

away. You kind of like him. Just say you kinda like him.

Speaker: 1
25:39

You do like him. I like 80% of his platform this time ai?

Speaker: 0
25:42

No. Him. Him as a person.

Speaker: 1
25:44

You ai, I there’s things I really don’t like, and I’ll talk about him today, but let’s put it ai. The the personal thing doesn’t matter. What matters is what he does for the American people

Speaker: 0
25:53

because of your country. I know you can’t say it, but they’re deep down inside your life. Jake has to be there.

Speaker: 1
25:59

Until

Speaker: 0
26:00

You had a ai of fun.

Speaker: 1
26:00

Jake Howe

Speaker: 0
26:03

brings the heat to a party. Republicans are fun.

Speaker: 1
26:05

I I will say Republicans are fun. Fashion was off the hook.

Speaker: 0
26:09

Off the hook.

Speaker: 1
26:10

Lot of great fashion, and it was a great party.

Speaker: 0
26:12

America beautiful again. My gosh. I mean, listen. Sai No more jogging pants sana and Ai Fox. Get rid of it. Burn it to the ground.

Speaker: 1
26:21

What I’ll say my takeaway was, you know, as somebody who had concerns and, you know, I’m just I’m not gonna make the show about meh. But the important thing for me is, who is Trump going to lead with this time around? Is it gonna be the people from the sort of 1.0 movement or the 2.0 movement?

Speaker: 1
26:39

There was not a 1.0 person

Speaker: 2
26:42

or

Speaker: 1
26:42

to be

Speaker: 0
26:43

couldn’t be found. Couldn’t be found.

Speaker: 1
26:44

And so to like, on the margin 1 or 2, and they were not the focus. And who you put in the front row speaks volumes. Who do you put in the front row? Sundar, Elon, Zuck, Lauren Sanchez. He’s got his priorities straight here.

Speaker: 0
27:03

It’s Lauren

Speaker: 1
27:03

Sanchez’s profile. The priorities were very clear as to what’s important for this administration. And I’m fully behind all of his priorities, both of those priorities. All those priorities seem incredibly important to me. You’re such a troll. I

Speaker: 3
27:20

mean, I don’t

Speaker: 1
27:20

wanna troll too meh. But that’s the big takeaway for me. And if that is, you know, indicative of where he wants to go with this, which is business first, we’re proud of our leaders, we’re proud of innovation, I think he’s sticking to it. Did you see him on at Davos today? He did a a I mean, this guy’s got, you know, just crazy energy.

Speaker: 0
27:40

Who ram I?

Speaker: 1
27:41

Trump zoomed into Davos and just dunked on them for 45 minutes. He did? Yes. And he just destroyed everybody at their dying conference in their irrelevance as they genuflected begging him to come next year.

Speaker: 2
28:00

Did you see the photo of the half empty conference room to Yes.

Speaker: 1
28:04

You

Speaker: 2
28:04

know? Most of the events were were just empty chairs.

Speaker: 5
28:08

It’s crazy.

Speaker: 1
28:08

It’s irrelevant. I mean, these people are irrelevant now. Thomas, do you

Speaker: 0
28:12

guys remember when Davos used to be a really big deal? Is it debt?

Speaker: 2
28:16

Ai think it’s worse, Chamath. I think it’s a counter indicator now.

Speaker: 3
28:19

It is. And there was a good conversation yesterday. Graham Allison, who spoke at our summit, was on this panel, and they basically sai, we lost. They won. Dot like, our group here at Davos lost. It’s over. Yeah. And they’re no longer, to your point, on the right side of history.

Speaker: 3
28:36

They said we had a point of view on the future. We believe we were going in the right direction, and everyone told us in this last couple months that we were wrong.

Speaker: 0
28:44

The gentleman, by the way, that spoke after Graham Harrison

Speaker: 3
28:46

watch it.

Speaker: 0
28:47

Was is also very

Speaker: 1
28:48

this is incredible.

Speaker: 6
28:49

This is the greatest comeback in political history of a politician. And then, therefore, he thinks he can do anything.

Speaker: 3
28:56

We need to also factor in not only who’s won, which is Trump, but who’s lost, which is to say us. And then he has a whole the guy has a whole long monologue on why they lost and what they lost, which I think is pretty relevant. That that, you know, kind of elite, if you will, has been replaced with a populist vote and a populist leader.

Speaker: 1
29:16

Alright. Let’s get to our, docket today. And, ai wanna give a special shout out. We did our inauguration ai, and it was awesome and fun. Special thanks to Air Call, Arya, and HIMSS. Thomas, if you’ve ever got an issue with weight or, you know, other issues that men have, you can go to HIMSS and use the code all in to get something.

Speaker: 1
29:40

HIMSS.com/allin. I want you to write that down, Ai. Okay? In case you ever have any any issues, that’s what I’m talking about.

Speaker: 2
29:46

Think I haven’t already?

Speaker: 3
29:47

I well, it’s anything’s possible.

Speaker: 1
29:49

Like, I mean, I maybe we could talk. I mean, are you on the chews or the pills? Which ai? Anyway, talk about it offline. But that’s a full head of hair.

Speaker: 0
29:57

It is a really incredible head of hair. Thank you.

Speaker: 2
30:00

All natural, baby.

Speaker: 1
30:01

It’s great.

Speaker: 0
30:01

It’s great. What product do you put in? Yeah. Do you put product?

Speaker: 1
30:04

Sea salt or you got promise? What are you doing?

Speaker: 2
30:07

All in one. All in one Pro. Yeah. Shampoo plus conditioner. One bottle. Easy.

Speaker: 1
30:12

No. But you

Speaker: 0
30:12

don’t you don’t use any product afterwards?

Speaker: 1
30:15

None. Jesus Christ. Do you blow yourself or do you have it blown? It’s a question.

Speaker: 2
30:20

Both, but in this case, it’s, you know, like Cuba Gooding and Jerry Maguire. I air dry, baby.

Speaker: 1
30:25

Oh, air dry. Gotcha. So when you’re driving to that Santa Monica office, you just put the top down on whatever convertible living that full lifestyle. Okay.

Speaker: 0
30:34

Yeah. This is where I I do have to admit, unfortunately, after the after you appeared on the summit, I had all these women. They were like, oh my god. Thomas Lafont is so good looking. And I was like, no, he’s not. Because I’m very competitive in 0 sum when other men around me get but you were the smash hit.

Speaker: 0
30:50

And then I figured out it must be the hair and also the glasses. I mean, the glasses were a huge hit. It looked very Clark Kent ish. Are they

Speaker: 1
30:56

are they real glasses or you just wear the clear ones to get the actual intelligence points. Yeah.

Speaker: 2
31:01

Only time I’ve ever been stopped in the street in my life, in the Presidio. A very nice lady, tapped me in the shoulder and said, I loved your all in talk. It’s never happened before. So that says more about all in than me, but the reach is increasing.

Speaker: 1
31:16

It’s a ai tool.

Speaker: 3
31:17

Shout out to Akash Singh who joined us on the, live chat.

Speaker: 1
31:20

Oh, yes. Akash was hilarious. Thank you to Akash filling in our DEI department. We lost Chamath, and they sent Akash. So he did great.

Speaker: 0
31:30

Get him back to Guessos. Absolutely.

Speaker: 3
31:32

Yeah. There’s a moderator slot open, so he’s gonna sana Yeah. Absolutely.

Speaker: 1
31:36

If you know anybody who knows science alright. In our first topic, president Trump smashed the record for day 1 executive orders. 26 in all, beating the prior record of 9 by Uncle Joe Biden. And no other president signed more than one EO in day 1 since the federal register started tracking this in 1937. Let’s go through them.

Speaker: 1
32:00

If you wanna comment on when, we’ll stop and pause or we can just run through them, gentlemen. Doge officially was established and, people are making note of the Doge SWAT team. Doge will assign an agency head to each federal agency. The agency head will build a 4 person team. This will include an engineer, an HR specialist, and an attorney.

Speaker: 1
32:21

It was separately announced that Vivek was leaving Doge to run for governor of Ohio. Fascinating. Interesting. I don’t know if everybody’s got a take there. They suspended the TikTok ban for 75 days.

Speaker: 1
32:34

There’s a lot more to get into this, so we’re gonna break that down

Speaker: 3
32:37

a little later this show. TikTok.

Speaker: 1
32:38

Yeah. Okay. We’ll go right to that in a minute. The January 6 pardons, they pardoned 1500 January 6 participants, including some that savagely beat cops. Very controversial. We’ll get back to that in a moment. Ending birthright citizenship. This is a controversial one that, is being fought legally.

Speaker: 1
32:56

Those born in the US to illegal immigrants would no longer be considered citizens if this holds up. The birthright citizenship is codified in the 14th meh, and 22 state attorney generals have already sued over this executive order, so it might be a performative one. Energy, unleashing American energy. We’re gonna dump into that 1 jump into that one for sure.

Speaker: 1
33:18

And then federal employees, a hiring freeze, and a full return to office, and the hiring freeze doesn’t apply to military, immigration enforcement, or public safety, and then a regulatory freeze on regulations. Gentlemen, where do we wanna start? Jan 6, TikTok, Doge? TikTok. Thomas, you’re our guest. Where do you wanna start?

Speaker: 2
33:37

I’m happy to chat about TikTok.

Speaker: 1
33:39

Okay. As we mentioned earlier, Trump extended TikTok’s grace period by 75 days. Trump said he wants to get a deal done. He also said at a press conference that he’d like the US to own 50% of TikTok and that it could be a $1,000,000,000,000 asset. That’s unique and interesting.

Speaker: 1
33:56

He was also positive about the idea of Elon possibly buying it or maybe Larry Ellison or anybody. So he wants to make a deal. What are your thoughts, Thomas, on what should happen with TikTok and what will happen?

Speaker: 2
34:13

I don’t know what will happen, but I do think it’d be interesting, to share you guys. We were in we are investors in TikTok.

Speaker: 1
34:21

Okay.

Speaker: 2
34:22

We invested back. It was obviously just a Chinese company and investing in China was very different back then. But what resonated to me when I met the founder and he just had a very simple idea, which is his view was ai I have a piece of content and it’s a great piece of content, how can I have it be shared?

Speaker: 2
34:40

And his view was that if you share it on Instagram, the only way people see it is if you had a, you know, a lot of followers. And so he just had a really simple idea and he said, what if I take every piece of content that’s uploaded into the system and I show it to at least one other user?

Speaker: 2
34:55

So no matter what that content is, at least one person will see it even if you have no followers. And then based on whether that person views it or how long, I might show it to another user. And then a 3rd and a 4th. And it was such a revolutionary idea and it really resonated with me at the time. And it just goes to show how we’re in an idea business.

Speaker: 2
35:15

And when you have a truly revolutionary idea, it can get really big. And so the, the whole Genesis of Tik TOK came from that really simple concept of your content will be shown. And if people like it, it will be shown to a lot of people. So, obviously I mean, if you look at TikTok in the US, we can just kind of very back of the envelope, look at the math. Right?

Speaker: 2
35:36

So if we look at DAUs, mother blue or meh as we love to know, the Facebook hat roughly, right, has about 200,000,000 DAUs in the US.

Speaker: 1
35:49

Active users for folks who don’t know the terminology?

Speaker: 2
35:52

Yeah. Correct. Right. So if you look at Facebook, Flitz, Instagram, you’ll see it’s about 200,000,000 DAUs, and you can look at the time spent. What’s interesting about TikTok’s time spent is the DAUs are about half of combined Meh and Insta, so we get about a 100,000,000 DAUs in the US, but the time spent on the platform is the equivalent of Facebook plus Instagram.

Speaker: 2
36:16

So obviously, incredible, not just scale in terms of DAUs, but also on time spent. So if we think about, okay, well, what what would that mean the business is worth? So if we look at meh today, the market cap is roughly 1 and a half trillion. I think Internet investors generally assume about roughly half the market cap is US.

Speaker: 2
36:37

So if we take the 1 and a half trillion, maybe that’s 750,000,000,000 Right now we know that the time speak is equivalent, but the DAUs are half. So maybe we cut the 750 in half. Right? That would tell you that the max value would you know, if you monetize the way Meh does and ran it the way Zuck does might be 375,000,000,000 for the US asset alone.

Speaker: 2
37:00

I think from that point, you know, you ai start to apply a couple discounts. Right? One is, if that’s my kind of long term value, what kind of return would an investor want potentially to get to that 375? You know, is it 50%? So maybe you cut that by 50%. And then I think the devil would be in the details. What are exactly are you getting? Are you just getting users?

Speaker: 2
37:23

Are you getting the algorithm? Are you getting data? Ai? So maybe you also sana apply kind of a more kind of severe discount to that, but I think you put it all together, you know, is a 100,000,000,000 a reasonable scenario? You ai, I think the math proves it. And then could it be a $1,000,000,000,000 asset the way Trump has mentioned?

Speaker: 2
37:44

I mean, in a world where Facebook’s 1 and a half, right, and the penetration of TikTok in the US is 50% of what Meta is, I don’t think it’s unrealistic. So let’s see what happens. I don’t, have any particular insight on what will happen, but what I do know is that it’s an incredibly valuable franchise.

Speaker: 1
38:03

So let me ask you the the obvious question. People are looking at this and saying, Wait. You’re gonna take 50% of your shares. And in this case, we actually have somebody who has shares. So are you comfortable with the government seizing 50% of your shares, I ai, is one way to frame it?

Speaker: 2
38:22

Well, I don’t know. I mean, first of all, there’s there’s kinda no deal, so it’s a little bit hard. I can tell you that

Speaker: 1
38:27

when we you proposed. So if in that scenario, would you yeah.

Speaker: 2
38:31

We never attributed much value to the, you know, the TikTok US asset in the sense of our our analysis was always based on the value of the Chinese business, specifically because it’s just hard to know what the, you know, the TikTok asset meh China would be worth. Right? Is it worth 0 because it’s so compromised regulatorily? Is it worth a lot more? It’s just very, very difficult to know.

Speaker: 2
38:55

So we always took a very ai of conservative view of really looking at kind of the Chinese and, you know, some of the other assets as the core value of ByteDance, the holding company. Ultimately, what TikTok happens I mean, it’s the classic when you try and sell a company, what’s the value where it depends? Is there 1 bidder or 5 bidders? Right?

Speaker: 2
39:15

Is the government the only bidder for that asset? In that case, it kind of will indicate a value of x, or are there other companies that potentially could be an acceptable bidder to both sides?

Speaker: 1
39:27

Well, the Trump deal though is he’s saying the government, the United States government, the citizens of America would get half of the company. So that would be the equivalent of you giving half your shares. The US company. Yeah. So what do you think of this proposal? Because this seems, like, unique in all the world.

Speaker: 1
39:45

So if in order to have it spin out and maintain half your shares, would you be willing to give all of us, the government, the citizens of the United States, half your shares?

Speaker: 2
39:55

Well, I mean, if you think about it, what what what did we learn

Speaker: 1
39:57

a couple

Speaker: 2
39:57

of ai ago? Yeah. We learned that it might just get shut down and be worth 0. Ai? So in one sense, anything that’s greater than 0 by definition is kind of better. Right? I think ultimately it will kind of come down to, does the government sana be the only bidder for the asset or would the comfortable would the government be comfortable with either Elon owning it and merging it to x or Microsoft owning it?

Speaker: 2
40:23

Or

Speaker: 0
40:24

Got it.

Speaker: 2
40:24

You know, what ai? So Freiberg.

Speaker: 3
40:26

Well, Thomas, let me ask you a question. Can you just tell the audience a little bit about because you guys have been involved as investors in China for a long time. I would love for you to share behind the scenes what has gone on with respect to being an investor in China in technology over the last couple of years.

Speaker: 3
40:45

What has changed and why and what goes on today? You guys made a fantastic investment in ByteDance, which is the parent company of TikTok. You’ve made other incredible investments in China. Are you still investing in China? If not, walk us through what happened and ai.

Speaker: 2
41:01

I think if you look, David, most of our virtually all of our investments in China were Chinese companies catering to the Chinese market.

Speaker: 3
41:10

Right.

Speaker: 2
41:10

Right? And there was a massive trend of a very significant economy that was adopting technology. Right? And so we can think about whether that be smartphones, companies like, you know, Huawei, whether it was companies like Meituan that were doing food delivery or Tencent that were doing gaming.

Speaker: 2
41:29

And so, you know, all our approach was basically based on these companies. And ai the way, a lot of them were public, which is what people don’t remember. Chamath, you may remember, but Tencent at one point was a public company listed in Hong Kong. The market cap was 200,000,000.

Speaker: 0
41:45

Yeah. I do remember.

Speaker: 2
41:46

So Wow. What was interesting about it, Dave, is a lot of that played out. Baidu was an early IPO. Right? So a lot of that trend of Chinese companies catering to the Chinese market really kind of played out across public and private markets for over 20 years.

Speaker: 5
42:02

Yep.

Speaker: 2
42:03

I think to meh, what significantly changed over the past 5 years is technology really became a matter of national security. And I don’t think that when we were early investors in Meituan, right, that we necessarily viewed that as a national security threat as an example. Ai.

Speaker: 2
42:22

And I think as you know, companies got bigger, as AI kinda came to be, it became pretty obvious that there were national security implications. And, you know, our view as investors is we don’t set the rules of the road. We rely on government and regulators to do so. It was pretty clear, I think, to obvious that the regulatory regimes were changing in both countries.

Speaker: 2
42:43

And so for us as investors, you know, we were just, well, we’re just gonna follow what what the rules are and what the governments are. So my only kind of regret through this whole thing is and I don’t know any, you know, if you guys had kind of some exposure to this, but the quality of the entrepreneurs that came out of that era was unbelievable.

Speaker: 1
43:04

Yeah. It’s a strong cohort. Yeah.

Speaker: 2
43:06

Absolutely. When you think about the the founder of Meituan Wang Shah and just how brilliant he was and what he’s done with that franchise and not just doing food delivery, but also the software operating system for restaurants. Right? It’s truly incredible. Saloni Meh from Tencent. Right? It it was such an incredible group of entrepreneurs. They were a lot of fun to be around.

Speaker: 2
43:27

They were excited and passionate about bringing technology to their country. And, you know, I Is it over? Yeah. Hard to know. I mean, if you look at the capital markets, I mean, you can see we’ve not seen a tremendous amount of innovation, right, or or new companies kinda coming out.

Speaker: 2
43:44

So I think the key question is, you know, is it a pendulum and, you know, does the Chinese regulatory regime kinda move one way and then it kinda moves another way, or is it ai fixed in this state?

Speaker: 3
43:55

Is it your Reid, is it correct to say that the CCP wanted to stop this extraordinary wealth creation by a subset of individuals in the country that this was kind of becoming too much of a capitalist enterprising system and challenged some of the foundations of the CCP? Is that what was going on and why this all got throttled back?

Speaker: 3
44:18

I mean, is there or is there something something else, some other kind of, you know, security bryden?

Speaker: 2
44:25

Know, Dave, because as an investor, it’s, you know, it’s not a regulatory regime that you have any interaction with. Right? You’re really talking to the entrepreneurs and you’re kind of reflecting off of their energy and their business ideas. Right? So we would meet businesses and we would meet founders.

Speaker: 2
44:40

And if if the idea was kind of interesting to us, we would kind of fund it. Right?

Speaker: 1
44:44

So it’s a black box in some ways, you know, in terms of a market to invest in. You only have a limited amount of information. And after Jack I mean, you gotta think. After Jack Ma kinda disappeared for a couple of years, if you’re an entrepreneur and you wanna, like

Speaker: 0
44:59

The message was sent.

Speaker: 1
45:01

The message was sana, message received, and then you start thinking about Chamath, you know, what Trump just did and what Xi Jinping just did. You put those two things together. Trump put all of our top guys, top dogs on stage. Here they are.

Speaker: 0
45:15

It’s the exact opposite of China. The message is very clear. And it’s what Thomas said. Like, technology is a national security imperative, and so we’re going to embrace these guys. We’re not gonna play favorites. We’re not going to pick 1 and not the other. We’re not gonna have summits and have, you know, the founder of an entire category not be invited. That’s just, it’s honestly, it’s patently stupid and immature.

Speaker: 0
45:37

And that’s what the Biden administration did. Picked favorites. Yeah. And that is dumb based on the implication and importance of technology. I just wanna go back to the TikTok thing. I wanna make 3 points. One is from the past.

Speaker: 0
45:51

I’ll give you my sense of the TikTok thing and I’m gonna make a prediction for the future. In 1984, the way that LVMH began was through a deal that Bernard Arnault architected. There was a business owned by the French cotton king, Marcel Boussac. And inside of that empire was Christian Dior.

Speaker: 0
46:15

Long story short, his empire was crumbling and Arnault did a deal where he bought that dying business essentially from the French government for 1 franc. Fast forward now, 40 years of very hard work and tremendous execution, that’s a $350,000,000,000 public company. Now imagine back then in 1984, if the French government actually had done a deal where they said we’ll sell it to you for 50% of whatever you build.

Speaker: 0
46:46

Take it for a dollar, but we’re gonna own 50% of the upside. And, you know, they would have an extra $175,000,000,000 today. I think that that’s very important in terms of what is possible today. I like Thomas’s math. I believe it. I do think it’s about a $100,000,000,000 asset.

Speaker: 0
47:05

But at the end of the day, the president was very clear that it is completely and entirely worthless without his permit. And he wants to own 50% of this asset. Now, if you’re a buyer of something, you’re not gonna pay a $100,000,000,000 if you control whether it can exist or not.

Speaker: 0
47:24

You’re basically going to pay today’s equivalent of 1 ram, which would be $1. Now I’m not saying that it is gonna be a dollar, but if the United States treasury wants to hold 50% of an asset that could be worth a 100,000,000,000 or 500,000,000,000 or, you know, maybe a trillion, it would make sense for the United States treasury and the United States people to own that at effectively 0.

Speaker: 0
47:48

So I think that the incentive is there, and I think he has essentially said that he is going to do the best deal in his interests, which is the United States interests, which I suspect means a price that is as low as possible approaching $1.

Speaker: 1
48:06

And ultimately, won’t this be Ai government’s decision? Because they could always say, you know what?

Speaker: 0
48:12

Let it die. Maybe. But my my point is it may not be a dollar, maybe it could be 25,000,000,000, maybe it could be 10,000,000,000. But my point is I find it very hard to see how it gets to the actual value that it is today. So then I think, let me just make a prediction for the future.

Speaker: 0
48:27

There’s a question that this raises, which is, does it make sense for the American government to be a little bit smarter going forward about how it allocates incentives and resources? The American government is still the largest single land owner in America. We give concessions to private companies to drill, to build things.

Speaker: 0
48:49

And it just turns out that if you apply this example more broadly, wouldn’t it make sense where when you create incredible economic incentives and upside for private investors and investment, for some portion of that gain to go back to the American people, is that a bad thing?

Speaker: 0
49:06

I don’t think so. For example, if you said we’re going to accelerate permitting for all these data centers, we’re going to make any form of energy, which was the opposite of what the Biden EO said on his way out the door. He had all these conditions. But if the president, president Trump’s EO on data center says ai kind of energy, but we wanna own a 5% royalty and we’ll allow you to put it on federal lands or 10% or 15%.

Speaker: 0
49:30

Would it really change the underwriting that Blackstone and all these other companies will do? I don’t think so. Would it enrich America? I think so. Would it make it easier for people to feel like they’re participating in all of these incredible gains? I also think so.

Speaker: 0
49:46

So my prediction is that this becomes more of a template for the future. It’ll be less about permitting. It’ll be more about creating incentives and allocating those incentives for a share of the upside. And I think that there is a really strong economic argument for America to do that.

Speaker: 1
50:07

Know, Chamath to build on that, people don’t remember, but Tesla got $465,000,000 from the Department of Energy. That was called the ATVM program, which was the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing. That was a very visionary program at the time.

Speaker: 0
50:21

Visionary, but it took no equity.

Speaker: 1
50:24

But it didn’t take equity. That was dumb. So dumb. They should have gotten some portion of equity, some portion of a loan. Tesla did so well, thanks to Elon

Speaker: 0
50:35

and Jean Tarver. Sai think the president paid it back early. They paid

Speaker: 1
50:38

it back early. That’s how well they did. If they had owned 10% of Tesla, but 10%

Speaker: 0
50:44

Yeah. I think the president has has has sniffed this out ai the way. This and and you may not think that these are related, but when he said that he’s considering eliminating federal income tax and funding this thing from tariffs, and he just had a press conference today where he’s inviting every single company to come and make things in the United States because he will create economic incentives to make it here cheaper.

Speaker: 0
51:05

But if you make it abroad and bring it in here, he’s sana charge money and a tariff. All of this are part and parcel of Ai think this broader economic realization and unlike 2,008, ai, 10 when we were allocating money or 2020 and 21 and 22 where we were just sending money out the door with frankly, no consequence and no accounting.

Speaker: 0
51:28

This time around, I think he’s got some incredibly sharp business people. This is ai the way, the upside of having folks that have actually been successful in the real world working inside of government is they’re gonna help him get to this realization. And I think it’s a really good one.

Speaker: 1
51:43

I don’t think Tim Tim Waltz Ai would put

Speaker: 2
51:45

back to you, Chamath, on that would be, I just think it’s a dangerous game for the government to start picking winners. You know, I wouldn’t for example, if it owns 50% of a TikTok, does does it disadvantage a meh as an example? Right? And I do wonder is the value capturing mechanism for the government taxes essentially. Right?

Speaker: 2
52:05

So the the the way you capture the the right the portion of the value creation of these companies is through a tax system. And I do think we just have to be careful of the government all of a sudden picking different companies to win. You know, I do think having a good set of incentives, a level playing field, let the competitive dynamics of different companies fight each other and then capture the value through taxes.

Speaker: 0
52:27

I think you’re right. And I think that that part is absolutely fundamental, but I think there is a way to architect this. For example, you have these RFPs that by design have to be published in the open source and available for anybody to bid on. My only point is just to say that when there is an ultimate winner, why not have a small stake in the upside?

Speaker: 0
52:49

Look at the amount of money that the DOE gives in grants. I’ll give you an example. You know, one of these companies that I helped start a few years ago to make advanced battery materials, we got a $150,000,000 grant. I’m very appreciative of that grant. But if they also asked for 5 or 10% of the equity, I would have still said yes.

Speaker: 1
53:07

Of course, you would have. Yeah. It’s a great deal. And why not give a little upside to the taxpayers? I agree with that.

Speaker: 2
53:12

By the way, a parallel to that would be Speak. Right? If you think about wireless, right, kinda got built. The government auctioned off Spectrum and then allowed public, you know, private companies to kinda come and bid on it and you know? So there there’s a lot of different interesting mechanisms you can bring to that.

Speaker: 1
53:28

Yeah. Freeberg, which EO would you like to go to next?

Speaker: 3
53:31

Well, I’ll just wrap on the TikTok. Sure. I do worry a lot about the precedent being set here with respect to foreign government actions on US companies in their in their local countries. Imagine the CCP tells Tesla they have to sell their Chinese operations and give 50% of the Chinese operations to the Chinese government because of their concerns about security where Tesla is now able to track Chinese citizens driving around and where they are.

Speaker: 3
54:05

And you can see very quickly how this whole kind of overall, I think, presentation of the security risk that we face with TikTok, and therefore, we will shut it down or own it, creates, I think, a counter that could really hurt American companies. You could see this going to Google, to Apple, to Tesla, even food manufacturing companies that have operations overseas where local governments say, hey.

Speaker: 3
54:30

We need to for local security purposes, we need to take ownership of your business. I think one of the things that’s really benefited Americans in global trade is our ability to sell and export our technology, our goods, and our services around the world through open trade.

Speaker: 3
54:46

And I do think that we’ve used this kind of TikTok security thing to say this is a rationale for us doing this as a one off, but it also opens up a lot of other people to say this is a one off. And so I’m just generally very wary about this whole TikTok situation, opening up a can of worms.

Speaker: 1
55:00

You’re a 100% right. And, by the way, the CCP sai done it already. They did it to Apple. And if you follow what happened when they introduced Ai iCloud, I don’t know if you remember GCBD GCBD is the Chinese state owned data company, the cloud provider there. And they just told Apple, we get all the data.

Speaker: 1
55:21

And they just had to roll over, and all citizens in China who use an iPhone, in order to use an iPhone in China, your data is owned by the government, period. Full stop. And Apple had no choice but to do that. So Well, look. When we talk about if you wanna play in a certain market, you gotta play by the rules.

Speaker: 0
55:37

The thing the thing to keep in mind here is I hear all of these kind of, like, theoretical qualms about how it’s unfair, but this stuff happens all the time. Yeah. And it’s just that we don’t benefit from it. So Jason brought up an excellent example with Tesla. The other example, just to remind you guys, is during the pandemic, the federal reserve stepped in and started buying commercial corporate bonds.

Speaker: 0
55:57

They own a ton of like Ford bonds so that these things wouldn’t default. There’s all kinds of action all the time where the federal government is involved in private companies. My point is if you’re going to be involved, have some legacy ownership on the back end of it, so that in case this stuff really works, that it’s broadly value creating for more Meh.

Speaker: 0
56:19

I think it would create a way to deescalate the sensation that a few people are winning and everybody else is just kinda staying still.

Speaker: 3
56:29

We should talk about Stargate and the AI project because I do think it tees off on one of the the

Speaker: 0
56:35

the other kind of big ai the Jan 6 though.

Speaker: 3
56:37

Okay. But it does Okay. Tee off of one of the other ai key things that I heard a lot about in DC, and I know Thomas is passionate about ai I am, which is energy, electricity, capacity build out in the United States because it’s critical. Like, building AI infrastructure means that we need to build energy infrastructure.

Speaker: 1
56:54

Alright. And

Speaker: 3
56:55

so anyway,

Speaker: 1
56:56

let’s Yeah. We’ll go we’ll go right to that after we wrap up these, we wrap up these executive orders. And I too want to talk about January 6th, just to give people the update here. JD Vance had said that the people who committed violence on January 6th, quote, obviously shouldn’t be pardoned.

Speaker: 1
57:11

And this is a parade of people who are on the Republican side who are coming out against how president Trump handled this. I think you you all know where I would fall on this side of it. What what are your thoughts

Speaker: 0
57:25

on this? Where do you where do you fall on him?

Speaker: 1
57:27

You know, I come from a family of cops, and I feel like he’s betrayed the blue on this one. And, you know, if there are people who I think he should have taken his time with this. It is possible that some people had sentences that were too long. The justice system, you know, is imperfect in our country and the pardon power is theirs. I think, specifically, to do a very granular job of looking at each case.

Speaker: 1
57:50

Right? And so I think we have to look at pardon power generally after what we saw the Biden family do, and now we see Trump doing this. So I think the the pardon power is not being used as it’s intended. It’s being used politically now by both parties. So I’m trying to call balls and strikes here.

Speaker: 1
58:08

But, you know, as somebody who’s in law enforcement, a family that’s in law enforcement, and my chosen career was to be a cop and an FBI agent. And, you know, just looking at it, it’s just heartbreaking to see people beat cops and then be treated as heroes, treated as heroes.

Speaker: 1
58:22

And some of these people are very dark people. You know? The the the oath keepers and some of these people are extremely ai, And they’re coming out now after this has all been said and saying that they’re gonna double down. They’re gonna buy more guns and that they’re gonna get their retribution.

Speaker: 1
58:35

And so I think you have to be really careful with violent people that you give them, you know, this coronation and that they were justified because they’ll go do more violent things. And so I understand he made this promise to people. I think he should have been very granular in doing this.

Speaker: 1
58:53

I totally understand there could be people who got sentences that were too long, and I would would have liked to see him do this thoughtfully. This was not done thoughtfully. I have a certain amount of goodwill towards the new president, and this has lowered it.

Speaker: 0
59:05

I knew that this would be really important to you, so I took a few minutes to try to collect my thoughts. I’ve been kind of walking myself through it since yesterday. This is not an explanation other than to you, Jason, my friend about how I think we got here. Okay. So I just wanted to take a few minutes to explain that to you.

Speaker: 0
59:27

I think that before you can look at January 6th, I think you gotta go back to what happened during the COVID lockdowns and what we started to see in a bunch of these liberal cities. Talking about BLM ai. The BLM riots, the Antifa riots, what happened in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, the lawlessness that you see in places like New York, the decarceration movement.

Speaker: 0
59:57

And I think that what started to happen was a sensation that for the same weight, there were different measures. So for example, if you start to look at some of the deportations that are happening now, it’s really quite shocking. I sent Nick a clip of them. Nick, you can just maybe show the first few seconds.

Speaker: 0
01:00:24

But you are talking about some incredibly, incredibly violent offenders that were just walking randomly down the street as soon

Speaker: 1
01:00:30

as possible.

Speaker: 6
01:00:31

I’m not going back to Haiti.

Speaker: 3
01:00:32

One of those threats is this illegal alien from Haiti. Ai says he’s a gang member with 17 criminal convictions in recent years.

Speaker: 6
01:00:41

So you feel me? Yo, Biden forever, bro. Thank Obama for everything that he said for me, bro.

Speaker: 0
01:00:46

There’s more after this. But there was, like, a rapist that they picked up in Boston. There’s a person that was charged with assault. So there was this sensation, Jason, that was building up for a long time that all of a sudden the law was being applied in very odd ways where depending on what you did, you would get adjudicated in totally different ways based on your political affiliation or your leaning or based on the desire of a district prosecutor to go after one thing or another.

Speaker: 0
01:01:16

Let me just pause. So that’s that’s sort of like the thing that was sort of building and cascading. I do agree with you that I think January 6th is kind of like a stain. I I think there’s nothing to be proud of there. But I think what we found out since January 6th is somewhat important.

Speaker: 0
01:01:32

I think the first thing we found out was that there was a bunch of these folks whose convictions were very speculative. I think the Supreme Court already ruled that in June of last year, it was like a 63 vote that said at least 350 of these convictions should probably just be thrown out.

Speaker: 0
01:01:47

So there was one body that was that. Then there was a whole bunch of them where, to your point, you took a misdemeanour, you trumped it up to a felony, you had all kinds of, you know, things where procedural motions were denied for the defense, approved for prosecution, and you had sentences that didn’t match the crime.

Speaker: 0
01:02:07

And then you have a president who frankly was the subject of lawfare himself. So I think that what would have been better was a more methodical approach to this. I agree with you. But I do think that what’s happening here is essentially a moment where we can close this entire chapter and we can get back to a focus on observing the law and adjudicating it equally for everybody.

Speaker: 0
01:02:30

And I think that that’s probably the best way that we can all deal with this because I think that there was a bunch of pardons that were a 100% obvious. And then there was a bunch that were just, you know, had to be done because the court was perverted in how they dealt with some of these folks.

Speaker: 0
01:02:48

Then there was a small number, and I don’t know the exact number to be fair, Jason, where these folks did some really bad stuff. Now it’s also mixed in with this thing where there was a bunch of informants, then there was a bunch of folks that were paid.

Speaker: 1
01:02:59

The informant stuff that we compete. Have to wait for that to come out because that’s in conspiracy corner for now.

Speaker: 0
01:03:06

Yeah. It is. I just went and I collected that as a way to try to explain to you

Speaker: 1
01:03:09

how I appreciate you understanding my passion on it and and what I ai bring it

Speaker: 0
01:03:13

out of that. I think it’s sort of like

Speaker: 1
01:03:14

I’m well aware of it, yeah.

Speaker: 0
01:03:16

I think we gotta put a pin in this and sai, both sides should now have enough experience to sai, we’re gonna apply the law equally to everybody going forward from this moment out. Let’s just go forward and not look back. I think that’s the best thing that we can all do.

Speaker: 1
01:03:31

Let’s hope. I’ll just leave you with this. The the Proud Boy leader, Enrique Tario, this is his quote on getting out. I’m happy the president’s focusing not on retribution and focusing on success, but I will tell you that I’m not going to play by those rules. They need to pay for what they did.

Speaker: 1
01:03:47

These are some seriously bad hombres, the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, and so don’t be surprised if they do something worse.

Speaker: 0
01:03:55

I also wanna talk about the citizenship thing, and I just want to just provide a little color for people. I’m sure that there’s a lot of folks that are listening who have people that work for them that, you know, maybe The

Speaker: 1
01:04:08

birthright thing. If you came here illegally and had a child, you get to be a citizen, just to be clear.

Speaker: 0
01:04:14

This is going to the Supreme Court. And just to put a little bit of tyler on it, in the 14th Meh, there’s this very important part that says birthright citizenship is ai to people who are subject to the jurisdiction of America. And for a long time, that phrase was not really considered in how the Supreme Court administered the 14th Amendment.

Speaker: 0
01:04:35

I think what this EO did and the lawsuits that happened almost instantaneously as a result will now send this back to the Supreme Court very quickly. Yeah. And people will opine on what that means. So if it means nothing, it means that if you are here, however you’re here, and you have a child, they’re gonna be a citizen of America.

Speaker: 0
01:04:56

If that qualifier is now part of the administration and the interpretation of the 14th Amendment, I think what President Trump has written is what will happen which is if you are here illegally, it doesn’t apply. If you are here under a visa that necessarily means you’re still subject to the jurisdiction of somebody else, it may not apply.

Speaker: 0
01:05:18

But I think the Supreme Court is gonna get to decide this in pretty short order.

Speaker: 1
01:05:21

Okay. Couple more issues I wanna get to on the docket. Sorry.

Speaker: 3
01:05:24

Let me just make a quick comment on the,

Speaker: 1
01:05:26

Oh, sure, Dave. Go ahead.

Speaker: 3
01:05:28

The, January 6th. Ai I I just generally don’t like this power of pardon.

Speaker: 1
01:05:35

Agreed.

Speaker: 3
01:05:35

We saw what Biden did. He gave I mean, how many thousands, Nick? You could pull the number up, but 8,000. 8,000 pardons. And I feel like the original intention of the power of pardon, which is in the constitution, was meant to kind of protect the union, the civility in the union at times of, you know, we need to kind of come back together and realign ourselves.

Speaker: 3
01:06:03

And it has been so far abused beyond that original intention. It’s almost ai feels like an extraordinary injustice. It almost gives the president the ability to rewrite the law that many of the kind of actions from the executive branch can simply supersede the actions of the judicial branch, which is really meant to protect and execute the laws of the nation.

Speaker: 3
01:06:26

And, I think it’s gone too far. It feels like there’s a necessary amendment to address this, that these presidents can come out and preemptively pardon people for things that might be found in the future because they’re close with them. It has nothing to do with the original intention.

Speaker: 3
01:06:42

If you go back to the arguments for the pardon being in the constitution, you can see that Alexander Hamilton wrote deeply about it in federalist paper number 74. And in that paper, he talked a lot about and emphasized that the justice system, which is designed to be fair, may occasionally result in overly harsh or unjust outcomes.

Speaker: 3
01:07:02

And the pardon allows for acts of mercy to correct these situations. There a lot of these sorts of actions that we saw happen with, with Biden do not fit the bill for that definition. I will tell you there’s a quote from Federalist Paper 74 from Hamilton. It goes as follows.

Speaker: 3
01:07:20

In seasons of insurrection or rebellion, there are often critical moments when a well timed offer of pardon to the insurgents or rebels may restore the tranquility of the Commonwealth. So to counter my point, Hamilton’s argument is that when the nation is divided, the act of the pardon may actually help bring the nation back together as may have been the case with respect to the January 6th.

Speaker: 3
01:07:44

But it may not necessarily be about Or Nixon. Justice or Nixon. And it may not necessarily be about justice, but it’s much more about restoring tranquility of the union and allowing the nation to move forward. Even though it may not seem just, it may be the right thing for the nation. So I’m not trying to defend the action or defend the pardon.

Speaker: 3
01:08:02

I really don’t like the act of pardoning as a kind of tool that’s being used in a 100 different ways, and it certainly seems like it requires change. So

Speaker: 1
01:08:09

Yeah. And just, programming note here, research note, 65 100 people of those 8,000 seem to be convicted of marijuana possession, possession, or just should needed it. And they were pardoned

Speaker: 3
01:08:22

in Then then then the law should have been changed, and the courts should have overturned all of those convictions. It does not necessarily need to fall, and it shouldn’t fall on the executive branch to take that action. The rules in need to do their job and the legislators need to do their job.

Speaker: 1
01:08:36

I don’t disagree, but I think there is some compassion in the pardon concept for how long do they have to wait

Speaker: 0
01:08:44

for that. Yeah.

Speaker: 1
01:08:45

Ai mean, how long do you have to wait for that? You know? And then, like, the people who were, you know, convicted of selling dime bags or having an ounce of weed on them were black and brown, and then all my white friends who started weed companies are now taking them public in Canada.

Speaker: 1
01:08:58

So shout out Trudeau. Alright. Let’s keep moving here. I think we we we’ve we did some good job here on the reconciliation on the pod. Where do we wanna go next? Stargate project? Stargate.

Speaker: 3
01:09:08

Stargate. Stargate. Stargate. Stargate and energy.

Speaker: 1
01:09:10

Yeah. Stargate Energy. Stargate. Okay. So here we go. And I’m gonna go to to our guest here, Thomas. Thomas, anything on January 6th for controversial topics like smoking weed that you wanna jump in on there? No? Okay. Great. Sure. L your LPs just breathe. Hey.

Speaker: 1
01:09:27

You’re coming on the all in podcast.

Speaker: 0
01:09:29

When his LPs, they’ll get they’re gonna be so happy. But then when when they hear the j sai, they’re just gonna be clenched waiting for They’re gonna be clip

Speaker: 1
01:09:36

and ai to end.

Speaker: 2
01:09:38

Oh, wait. Hold on. My mic went out. Oh, never mind. I missed it.

Speaker: 1
01:09:41

Okay. Alright.

Speaker: 2
01:09:42

That was well said. Honestly, I don’t have anything to add you guys Okay. You guys summed it up

Speaker: 1
01:09:46

for us. Anything on Lauren Sanchez’s, outfit. Okay. Let’s continue. Another big story from week 1. We we are literally not even 3 or 4 days into this. It’s gonna be a crazy 4 years. According to OpenAI’s press release, the Stargate project is a new company which intends to invest 500,000,000,000 over the next 4 years, building new AI infrastructure for OpenAI in the United States.

Speaker: 1
01:10:13

Freebird, we gotta find out what’s going on here with the Stargate movie and TV series if they got IP permission to do this. SoftBank and OpenAI are the

Speaker: 3
01:10:22

lead question, Jacob.

Speaker: 1
01:10:23

I I mean, I’m just thinking out loud, and we have to talk about where this ranks on your list of great sci fi

Speaker: 3
01:10:30

and most actors. Top 40 top 40 sci fi.

Speaker: 0
01:10:32

Okay.

Speaker: 1
01:10:32

Definitely. Ai up there with Yeah. The Star Trek original series and the next generation. SoftBank and OpenAI are the lead partners with Oracle and MJX also participating. Oracle, NVIDIA, and OpenAI will build and operate the infrastructure Ai is sort of involved, although we’ll see about that. Masha Yoshi sana was at the announcement.

Speaker: 1
01:10:51

He’s gonna be the chairman. However, Gavin Baker and Elon both called cap on x, saying they don’t actually have the money. Gavin did some back of the envelope math. And, of course, as always, Sam and Elon have been spicy in the replies. Sam is hurt. Elon is dunking. It’s it’s just their relationship is so fluid.

Speaker: 1
01:11:12

Microsoft CEO Sana Nadella jumped into my thread with Elon saying he was good for the 80 bill, and then he was ready to build other products and services, and that was what was important. What do you think here, Thomas? Is this, are you an investor in OpenAI, I guess? Let’s get that out there.

Speaker: 1
01:11:31

Or in ai, just so we know where you’re coming from here if you’re talking your book. But, is

Speaker: 2
01:11:37

I am an investor in OpenAI. And Okay. Okay. So there’s 3 points I wanna make here.

Speaker: 1
01:11:42

Go.

Speaker: 2
01:11:42

Point number 1, going back to the origins of the of this podcast and, you know, sitting, watching both public market investors and and venture investors. Yeah. One notable difference is, you know, I think venture investors tend to be very tribal. So if you’re in one tribe, you are by definition, not in another.

Speaker: 2
01:12:00

And, you know, I think there’s a lot of kinda domain specific reasons for that. You know, for me as my legacy sai a public market investor, I’m very comfortable being both, you know, pro OpenAI and Pro Tesla and Pro X. And so I just kinda caveat that kind of, you know, as a first point. My second point is, can we do a slight detour on MASA for 1 minute?

Speaker: 2
01:12:22

And I’m curious to get you guys’ opinion, but Yeah. Is MASA the GOAT? Because when I started in the growth business, I met with your emailner and he said, Thomas, you get in the hall of fame if you can have one deal that gives you a $1,000,000,000 return. Ai e, you know, whatever you invest plus what you take out is a $1,000,000,000 or more.

Speaker: 2
01:12:40

And he actually kept a tracker in his mind of who had made those deals and what share he had and etcetera. So let’s go to Masa for 1 minute. Masa is the $100,000,000,000 club.

Speaker: 0
01:12:51

Yeah.

Speaker: 2
01:12:52

Okay. And not only that, he’s actually done it twice. He did it the first time with SoftBank and Alibaba, which at its peak was a $200,000,000,000 win, and I think he ultimately netted, like, 80 +1000000000 out of it. So that’s one. He did it again with Arya that he bought for 30 and now is sitting on a gain of a 100, I think, 35,000,000,000.

Speaker: 2
01:13:12

And he could have done it a third time with Nvidia if he hadn’t sold. I mean, guys

Speaker: 0
01:13:19

There’s nobody like him. There’s nobody Incredible. Incredible. You’re a 100% right. You gotta give the man his flowers. He is

Speaker: 2
01:13:26

So I’ll tell you what, Chamath. I am never betting against Masa ever because you gotta give the man credit for what he’s done. And so now let’s go to kind of OpenAI. You guys mentioned we we do own some OpenAI. I am bullish on OpenAI, which I guess is now a, counter against the grain kind of view.

Speaker: 2
01:13:46

But guys, my point of view on OpenAI sana the reason I’m so bullish is really kind of chat GPT. And I do think when OpenAI gets you know, we do con it does have different businesses. Right? It’s got the model business. It has the API business, and then it has the chat GPT business. Right?

Speaker: 2
01:14:01

And if you look at the downloads, maybe Nick bring up the charts, but it is really interesting to watch the market share of ChatGPT versus Google, Ai, and Grok. This is both in the US and international. It really is a dominant kind of franchise. Right? It is maintaining 80% plus market share. You know, J.

Speaker: 2
01:14:22

Cal, if this was ai sharing, right, we would say, wow. This this company is the winner. Right? So to me, I think that the quality of the Chat GPT ai, right, I think they disclosed 300,000,000 weekly actives, over a 1000000 enterprise users. It has become a core part of my own workflow. You know, I have it on my phone. I have it on my desktop. I use it all the time.

Speaker: 2
01:14:48

I can’t even quantify the value that it brings. It’s so important for what it does for me. So and I do think that it just keeps getting smarter. Every query that I ask, it learns more about me. It learns more about our system.

Speaker: 2
01:15:02

So I do think the chat GPT franchise inside of OpenAI is one of the great, most successful, fastest growing ai of stories. So that’s kind of the underpinning of my kind of OpenAI thesis. You know, on Stargate specifically, look, I think the real question to me isn’t whether they have the 500,000,000,000. Right? Because we know that the 500,000,000,000 could come from equity.

Speaker: 2
01:15:26

It could come from Sana. If you look at Gavin’s tweet, by the way, he does caveat it. Right? Saying that assumes that Masa doesn’t wanna sell Arya and SoftBank. Right?

Speaker: 2
01:15:36

So I’m not sure if I

Speaker: 0
01:15:37

could up and use debt.

Speaker: 2
01:15:39

Correct. So you have debt. I I think to me the real question, guys, is do we ultimately believe that you can get an ROI on that 500,000,000,000? Because if you can, there will be people that will sana fund it. Right? You can do a data center by data center. You can do it actually at the GPU level. Right? So the financing is there. To me, the the 500,000,000,000 doesn’t scare me if I’m an absolute number.

Speaker: 2
01:16:05

I think the question we, you know, really have to ask ourselves is, do we believe that the market is big enough, that the opportunity is big enough, that investors can get a return on the 500,000,000,000?

Speaker: 1
01:16:16

I think I think you So to me, that’s

Speaker: 2
01:16:17

the real question.

Speaker: 1
01:16:18

Sai think you framed it perfectly. And since you bring up bryden sharing and the 80% there, I, you know, I I really think that’s an important thing to to take a moment to, to settle on because in that case, you didn’t have Uber being challenged by Google, Microsoft, and Elon Musk, you know, at the same time in a digital product as opposed to a real world product.

Speaker: 1
01:16:43

And so, you know, when I use Gemini or XAI and ChatChi Patel, and I use them all daily and Claude, the difference the difference between the products right now is really narrow. And I think, you know, if the equivalent would be somebody who had a 100,000,000 cars on the road already competing against Uber, which, you know, doesn’t exist or didn’t exist at the time.

Speaker: 1
01:17:07

So that that, I think, is the the way I look at this as a slightly different type of race. I do believe the chat GPT franchise has some is worth something, but I think enterprise folks, when I talk to them, want the open source product most of all. So, anyway, I think it’s still anybody’s, I think it’s anybody’s game right now. And I don’t know how you get a return on 500,000,000,000 invested in this.

Speaker: 1
01:17:30

That that’s the other thing. And I don’t know if that’s the real number, Freebird. What do you think?

Speaker: 3
01:17:36

I don’t know.

Speaker: 1
01:17:37

Yeah. Ai in this is out here in some crazy ai.

Speaker: 2
01:17:41

The way these things happen right is you don’t you don’t fund it all equity upfront. Right? I think these things get funded facility by facility, data center by data center across 4 years. Right? And to Chamath’s point, it’s not just equity. It’s, you know, site level debt and etcetera. Right? It’s a complex capital structure to these things.

Speaker: 2
01:17:59

But look, we live also in a world, right, where I was just kind of looking at this chart, the kind of cloud CapEx chart. Right? And we know that in vatsal, 2025 CapEx for the top ai players in the US is sana be 312,000,000,000. Right? So that’s this year, that’s in 1 year.

Speaker: 2
01:18:19

So we can also kind of frame this and saying, hey. Does that number make any sense versus what others are spending? It’s at least kind of in the order of magnitude. Right? When you think about it’s over 4 years.

Speaker: 2
01:18:29

By the way, another really interesting ai of corollary on this point is the US Internet companies spend 20 x what the Chinese companies spend on CapEx. Really interesting as we think about our competitiveness. Right? Dave, to your point, it’s not just power. It’s also kind of compute.

Speaker: 2
01:18:46

I mean, pretty powerful that you’re spending 20 x what your competitor is on these kind of advanced technologies.

Speaker: 1
01:18:54

Chamath, how do you how do you how do you look

Speaker: 0
01:18:55

at this? I think that value and money are correlated in some industries ai real estate or heavy industry, but I don’t think that it’s very correlated in tech. And I tried to say this in my tweet. I don’t know, Nick, can you find this tweet where I was just talking about the deep seek model?

Speaker: 0
01:19:15

So what did we see last week? We saw a model that got released by the Chinese under, by the way, a totally, you know, open source MIT license that you can run on a laptop. And it turned out to be as good as OpenAI’s Ai one model. So a couple of versions old. But the point is that this model cost 1,000,000 of dollars and was able to compete with a model that took 1,000,000,000 of dollars to train.

Speaker: 0
01:19:41

So my takeaway from that was that these costs are falling really precipitously. So that’s sort of my one observation is spending more money doesn’t necessarily get you further along if the goal is progress. And I think that that’s very true in what we’re learning about AI because we’re learning as we go along.

Speaker: 0
01:20:01

So then I think it just brings up this question of what is the point of saying all these grandiose numbers? And this is where, if you look at a different industry, like if you, if an oil company came into the oval and said they were about to spend 500,000,000,000, you kind of know that it’s real because you know what these things cost and you know what the entire infrastructure will be.

Speaker: 0
01:20:24

And you know, it’s

Speaker: 1
01:20:24

all directly related.

Speaker: 2
01:20:26

So we know, we know what goes on.

Speaker: 0
01:20:27

Yeah. So the deeper the oil is in the ground and the harder the rock is that you gotta breakthrough to get there, the more you have to spend. So those numbers become very grounded in reality. If you were a rocket company and you wanted to build a rocket and send it to Mars, you can also be very detailed in what the costs are.

Speaker: 0
01:20:43

And you can assume some amount of reductions of scale. If somebody said you’d have to spend 500,000,000,000. The thing is that when in this world, it seems that there are these advances that are happening that allow you to do things cheaper and cheaper almost overnight by spending 1, 1,000th of what you spent even 6 months ago.

Speaker: 0
01:21:02

I think the spending money part, to be sana, is more of a gimmick than it is a technical commitment. So I guess if they wanna spend the money go ahead, but it doesn’t actually tie to whether they’re going to be able to make custom vaccines, whether they’re gonna cure cancer.

Speaker: 0
01:21:15

So I kind of thought that these things were just joint. And so my takeaway was entirely different. It was not a commentary on Masa or Larry or Sam. I think all of those 3 companies are frankly very good. It was more a comment that you have to be very careful to protect the president’s legacy if I were them to make sure that the things that get announced are actually further down the technical spectrum and are actually going to be real because if they achieve these things, but it costs you a $1,000,000,000 and you only hire 50 people, there’s gonna be a little bit of egg on the face.

Speaker: 0
01:21:55

And so that was sort of my own takeaway. I think that the things were decoupled. It just seemed more marketing and sizzle and kind of hastily put together.

Speaker: 1
01:22:04

It was definitely, yeah, put together with this. You know what

Speaker: 0
01:22:06

I mean? Like Yeah. You got

Speaker: 1
01:22:07

that sense, but I think it’ll be

Speaker: 0
01:22:09

great if if OpenAI builds in another incredible model, whatever comes after 03, 04, ai, but it’s not clear that you have to spend 500,000,000,000 to do it.

Speaker: 1
01:22:18

You know, I think people are playing to what Trump likes, which is a big number and which is his influence on growing the number. So there was specific details where Masa said, you know, you I I told you a 100,000,000,000. You challenged me to get 2. I came back with 5. Right?

Speaker: 1
01:22:34

And so this is the sort of Trump ethos is, hey. We’re gonna swing for the fences. In a way, you know, you could be critical of it and be like, well, Trump’s a BS artist or whatever. Or if you’re from Silicon Valley, you could say, ai, listen. He’s moonshotting it. He’s gonna just shoot for the stars and get the moon.

Speaker: 1
01:22:50

So if these guys wind up spending 50,000,000,000 or a 100,000,000,000, it makes us more competitive, more power

Speaker: 0
01:22:55

to it. Question I had was, you know, was did Elon have any insight that this was happening? Probably not ram from the reaction on

Speaker: 1
01:23:05

on Max.

Speaker: 0
01:23:05

I’m I

Speaker: 1
01:23:06

bet he did. You know, I think you’re I I have no insight either, but I do think if you were gonna be critical of Trump that he was putting his thumb on the scale for any one company or individual, this shows that he’s not. It’s an open platform. The the Trump administration’s an open platform. Highest bidder gets to come to the White House.

Speaker: 1
01:23:26

Whoever spends the most, whoever buys the most military, you know, ai the most ammunitions from us, you’re gonna get your time in the White House. It’s, this is a capitalist country. Equal opportunity. Equal opportunity. Anybody can make a bet.

Speaker: 3
01:23:40

The obvious the obvious consequence of this data center and chip infrastructure effort, which is obviously gonna happen with or without government involvement, is an increase in electricity demand. Thomas, I know you’ve got some slides. Do you wanna pull those up and and show them?

Speaker: 3
01:23:59

Because I think they’re something I’ve talked a lot about on the show, which is the difference in, electricity production capacity in the US versus China historically and then prospectively going forward. Ultimately, as I’ve talked about in the past, right, the US today is paying roughly, you know, call it 1 and a half to 3 x, the price per kilowatt hour for electricity in the United States over what China’s paying.

Speaker: 3
01:24:24

We have, I believe, half of the electricity production capacity of China. They’re adding more. The cost to add is is 1 tenth of what our cost to add is. Call it 1 tenth to 1 half our cost to add per new, gigawatt of production capacity. Everything is in the wrong direction.

Speaker: 3
01:24:41

And ultimately, if AI and automation are the critical factors for economic growth going forward, and electricity is the critical input to that, we are hugely disadvantaged and aren’t gonna catch up. It seems like you’ve pulled this analysis together, which kind of indicates the same if you think it makes sense to walk through this now.

Speaker: 2
01:25:00

Yeah. Yeah. I’d be happy to. I mean, Dave, you’re a 100% right. If you think of the GPU as the atomic unit of the future, right, and and the key competitive advantage and and the key kind of, ingredient, you can’t power a GPU without a data center and you can’t use a data center without power.

Speaker: 2
01:25:21

So I do think at the end of the day, it really comes down to the grid and it comes down to power. So I think that’s kind of constraint number 1. I others you know, the other thing, Dave, that I think is really important is in an inflationary era, you do not sana increase or have this industry be perceived to be increasing electricity prices for the consumer.

Speaker: 2
01:25:43

Right? So somehow we need to add capacity. We need to make it so the consumer ai doesn’t go, bonkers by having their bills go higher. And, we can, Nick, run through a couple of the slides, but the data shows exactly ai your point, Dave. Right?

Speaker: 2
01:25:59

Which is we basically did not invest for a very long period of time, right, in our bryden, and China did. And if you keep going, we can ai of run through these a couple of times, but that wasn’t always the case. You know? During kind of like the post World War 2 boom era, during the information age, you know, we did invest and we did a lot of it.

Speaker: 2
01:26:23

And then suddenly in 2000, we just kinda stopped.

Speaker: 3
01:26:26

And this is globalization, you’re saying, is why we stopped.

Speaker: 2
01:26:29

Exactly. Ai. We start to outsource transportation

Speaker: 1
01:26:32

of that that we didn’t have ai. We we didn’t have factories, so we didn’t need as much power. What’s the reason we didn’t invest or we didn’t need to?

Speaker: 2
01:26:39

I think we just outsourced a lot of our hardcore manufacturing. You know, the

Speaker: 3
01:26:43

the industrial the US Industrial West. Yeah.

Speaker: 1
01:26:45

Correct. That’s the that’s the offshore. Equals no need for additional electricity. Now the new factories arya h one hundred factories.

Speaker: 2
01:26:53

Meh need that. Exactly. Yeah. Or AI factories. Right? AI factories. And, and by the way, the way to think about it is almost like a subscription business on a net ad basis. Right? Yeah. So this this makes it even more stark. Right? Because this is ai of net additions, and it just ai of speaks for itself. Right?

Speaker: 3
01:27:11

And just just read the numbers out so the audience that’s listening can can get a sense here.

Speaker: 2
01:27:15

Yeah. I mean, you can sai, I mean, since 1985, right, the delta roughly between China and the US is almost what’s the quick math? Like, it’s almost 7 x. Right?

Speaker: 3
01:27:27

In 2000, the US and China were both roughly a 1000 terawatt hours. Today, the US is 1600 terawatt hours, and China is 9,000 terawatt hours. Yeah. And this is just an extraordinary, ramp up relative to

Speaker: 0
01:27:41

On the on the AI side, the there was a Biden EO last week. I spoke about this on Tucker because it happened the day I went on Tyler, but the EO basically said we will allow the permitting of power plants on federal lands to power these AI data centers, which started off like a very intelligent EO.

Speaker: 0
01:28:04

But right in the saloni paragraph arya to talk about DEI and all this other stuff and how you had to have a certain percentage of it from certain sources. But just today, it looked like president Trump overturned it. And now it’s full steam ahead. If you have it permitted, then it’s all about just get the power however you need the power, which I think is the smart decision.

Speaker: 0
01:28:22

Back to your earlier point, ai, we are we are in a race here.

Speaker: 1
01:28:25

In your analysis, Thomas, can we do this without nuclear? No. Can we catch up without nuclear? Okay.

Speaker: 2
01:28:30

In fact, we can’t, and

Speaker: 3
01:28:31

Ai we buy uranium?

Speaker: 2
01:28:33

I think you can speak to that better. One of the really interesting parts, I mean, you can see, by the way, just the the percentage of nuclear, it kinda needs to go higher. I don’t know if you guys have been following this stock in the public arya, guys, called Constellation Energy.

Speaker: 3
01:28:52

Oh, yeah.

Speaker: 2
01:28:54

It’s a really interesting idea. What’s interesting of, what Amazon and Microsoft is they’re actually signing deals directly with these companies, right, to do what’s called back behind the meter, right, types of deals sai they have direct energy access. To your point, Shamath, on the Biden administration, at the end of last year, a deal got announced publicly announced that federal agencies were also contracting directly now with CEG to power some of their, facilities.

Speaker: 2
01:29:28

And even though the in total, the number was small, we took it and I think the market took it as a clear indication, right, that the government, even under Biden, was acknowledging that nuclear is the best path forward. So, you know, we expect and we think just the trend generally towards nuclear energy is gonna continue. It’s been proven in China. It’s been proven in Europe.

Speaker: 2
01:29:52

I think it will show to be a key part of the AI kinda arms race, you know, over the next 10, 20 years. Yeah. This is to me ai of the story in one ai. Right? Which is if you look at basically the nuclear capacity in the US, it’s basically been flat for 25 plus years. Right?

Speaker: 1
01:30:13

Ridiculous. And sai, ai.

Speaker: 2
01:30:15

And so when Scott Besson was asked, are we in a, in a, you know, green energy arms race with Ai, he was thinking about chart number on the ai, right, which basically shows how much nuclear China has added, right, over that time period. And so I think it’s it’s pretty clear what the answer is. I think China is leading the way in that measure, and I think we need to follow.

Speaker: 3
01:30:41

Yeah. Well And I think what’s really important to note is over that same period of time, Thomas, we’re in a different era on nuclear than we were when we had 3 Ai Island and, you know, prior to that Chernobyl. We have new, meh 4 technologies that are meltdown proof, that have a totally different architecture where there isn’t a setup where you have runaway heat and ultimately a collapse of the, the reactor and a release of radioactive material, which is what happened at Chernobyl.

Speaker: 3
01:31:14

These new systems, which we highlighted on the show a couple of months ago, like ai pebble bed reactor that’s been in production making electricity in China, are incredible new technology architectures. And they’re here. And they’re running. And China’s rolling out dozens or 100 of these, and the United States is rolling out 0. And that needs to change.

Speaker: 3
01:31:34

And I think we only have a couple of months to get the engine stood up that will allow us to make the material, that will allow us to make the production technology needed to actually deploy these stations to try and have a shot at catching up. And if we don’t, we’re gonna be hugely disadvantaged on an energy cost basis. We’re gonna be hugely disadvantaged on an ability to actually deploy AI technology competitively. That’s key.

Speaker: 2
01:31:57

And ai the way, we you also can look at France. Right? My my home country, not known as a technology leader, but 70% of its energy, of its electricity comes from nuclear.

Speaker: 0
01:32:07

But France held the line. Right? When Europe tried to really deprecate its use of nuclear, Germany did, but France held the line.

Speaker: 2
01:32:14

Yeah. It’s too important, Chamath. You know, it’s 70% plus. So I I think it’s, there’s examples. It’s doable. And I think now with AI, it’s a matter of national security.

Speaker: 0
01:32:23

National security.

Speaker: 1
01:32:25

And we gotta get it done. Yeah.

Speaker: 2
01:32:26

I’ll tell you. Dovetail into fabs, right, which is obviously another key component, which is a short term for semiconductor manufacturing facilities, right, which is another, in my opinion, key strategic area that we need to to ramp up in the US.

Speaker: 1
01:32:42

The thing that I noticed about that chart is the trend line. I mean, look at how fast they’re building these. And this is where, you know, I don’t know what government incentive we need to create or what red tape has to be moved here. But if we can’t build, you know, multifamily housing in some states, like, this nuclear is gonna really need to we’re gonna have to figure out a way to change that trend line, Friberg.

Speaker: 1
01:33:09

Yeah? I mean, what what would it take to to build these nuclear power plants at an accelerated rate?

Speaker: 3
01:33:14

I will tell you that there is a lot of capital, and I’ve we mentioned this last ai, a lot of intellectual capital in the United States that’s eager, hungry, and ready to get moving on build out. The only thing that’s challenged and the only thing that’s holding it back is regulatory challenges, regulatory roadblocks.

Speaker: 3
01:33:31

And if those get removed through emergency action, I I view this to be more of a national security threat frankly than the border. I think we need to get energy increased in this country in an accelerated way for the United States to even be in a position to be able to challenge China with respect to manufacturing and AI in the decades ahead.

Speaker: 3
01:33:51

And the United States needs to consider this an emergency. Emergency declarations may be needed to drop the regulatory roadblocks that are keeping the proliferation of, electricity production in the United States at bay. I think it’s time for that sort of action. So I think that’s the only thing that’s getting in the way.

Speaker: 1
01:34:08

So we have the tech. We have the physics. We have the will. We have the talent. We have a blocker, and the blocker is regulation. And that regulatory blocker needs to have leadership in government to remove it. Am I summarizing correctly here?

Speaker: 3
01:34:24

That’s right. And, look, you have an energy czar that I think is very aligned with that intention in in Doug Burgum. Obviously, we have this big AI arms race that’s underway. We have an automation and manufacturing demand, which will massively increase energy demand in this country.

Speaker: 3
01:34:38

And we have, I think, a deregulatory administration. The the stars are aligned, and I think that this is a moment where this could happen.

Speaker: 1
01:34:47

Chamath or Thomas, what’s the downside to removing the regulation and going for it and building this extra capacity? Can can we define all the possible downside?

Speaker: 0
01:34:58

Yeah. The downside is the the amount of time it takes to adequately build these things properly. The thing that China has had, as it sai Thomas’s chart shows, is decades of practice in building things safely and quickly. We can build things, but we haven’t had the practice to build them either safely or quickly because we haven’t built any. So that’s a complicated thing to just acknowledge.

Speaker: 1
01:35:22

That’s sai valid concern. If there is any resistance resistance to this, Thomas, what would be on the top of that list? Just theoretically, how could anybody want to block this? What would be the resistance?

Speaker: 2
01:35:35

One other element, ai, I think you know that we are blocking the ability of China to get access to the latest GPUs. Right? And the whole point is we don’t want them to use to develop systems that could be used against us. But if China if one day China has 10 x our power capacity, it won’t even matter. Right?

Speaker: 2
01:35:52

Because they’ll just have so many more, whether they’re not quite the same advanced GPUs or not. They’ll just have so many more of them. Their industrial AI capacity will be so much larger that even if we have the best h one hundreds and the latest technology that Jensen and others can provide, it won’t matter.

Speaker: 2
01:36:10

So in order to make our strategy effective, we need to be able to to build this power base.

Speaker: 1
01:36:17

I think it’s a very astute point. Hey, Chamath. I don’t know if you’ve been watching Netflix, but I am a shareholder, and I am delighted. I don’t know what’s going on over there, but they seem to get a be getting their subs right. And that discratia of a fight seems to have somehow driven the stock price up, and there’s some strategy that’s working over there.

Speaker: 1
01:36:37

Maybe you could just riff on it for a moment.

Speaker: 0
01:36:40

I have the opposite take. Okay. Yeah. I mean, it’s obviously a very good company. I think it’s been incredibly performant, but I think it has like a little bit of a dark commentary on American society and productivity. So I asked Nick to just put up these three charts. I’ll show you the first one.

Speaker: 0
01:37:02

So this is the Netflix stock price from 2010 to 2020 and it’s only gotten up since 2024. Okay. The only reason I did it at 2020 was because the the other data. I went to the CDC and I said, well, show me the percentage of people, Meh, taking SSRIs over that same period. For depression, absolutely. Depression, anxiety, etcetera.

Speaker: 0
01:37:26

And what you see that it’s also gone up. And then the last chart, I went to the US Bureau of Labour Statistics and I said, what has happened to the labour participation rate over the same period? So I’m not blaming Netflix, but I think that this is a bit of a commentary on sort of what’s happening in society.

Speaker: 0
01:37:45

It’s a little bit of a leading indicator where as the company does better and better, the reality is that that company wins by being a sync for people’s time. It’s where you go to Netflix and chill. It’s a phrase that, that we all understand. But the dark underbelly of it is that there’s just a lot of people that are a little bit more dejected.

Speaker: 0
01:38:08

There’s a lot of people that just opt out and just don’t decide to work. I think you could graph the fertility rate and it’s gone down ratably as well. So it’s, it’s all of this soup that is about people living in a life that, that unfortunately just doesn’t exist. So, I mean, it’s a well run business and I wish them all the best at some level, but at some other level, I think it’s a commentary that as this company does better and better, there are more and more people that are that are living a shell of what their life could be.

Speaker: 1
01:38:43

So cause and correlation aside

Speaker: 0
01:38:45

So obviously correlated. This is not vatsal. You know?

Speaker: 1
01:38:49

Netflix is not causing depression, but

Speaker: 0
01:38:51

It’s just the it’s just the thing. And then there’s other things that obviously you can put on this plate. Sure. But that was my reaction is I Ai just think that the more time people are sort of detaching and and plugging out, the more that you’re gonna see these companies that provide ways of distracting yourself do well.

Speaker: 0
01:39:14

I’m not sure that society benefits.

Speaker: 1
01:39:16

What do you think, Thomas? Opioids for the masses or just the golden era of television?

Speaker: 2
01:39:22

What I’m curious, Chamath, is, you know, how much of it is a substitutive effect, right, away from kind of traditional media? Right? I mean, I I’ve ai looked at it different ways that at least the the way it’s measured, you know, time spent watching television has not really increased over 20 years.

Speaker: 2
01:39:40

To me, it’s more a reflection of I could overlay the stock chart of, you know, Fox and Comcast and, you know, CBS and just have all of those have imploded. I think people have been kind of substituting right away. I I think the the question then that you have to ask is, is there a reason that maybe the Netflix product is fundamentally more unsafe or detrimental to someone’s health than the prior broadcast?

Speaker: 2
01:40:08

Well You know?

Speaker: 0
01:40:09

The one thing that I would say is, and this is not a Netflix commentary, but a general commentary, which is online products versus linear products have the power and the benefit of this algorithmic targeting and personalization. And I think that what Netflix has successfully figured out and a bunch of other products have successfully figured out is that you can ai tune to what people think they want.

Speaker: 0
01:40:34

But what people think they want is not necessarily what they need. I think when you had linear television, you kind of had to take what was given. You didn’t love Cheers, but you watched Cheers. You didn’t love St. Elsewhere, but you watched it.

Speaker: 0
01:40:48

Now it’s that you can go into a place where the thing really feeds you and it gives you a very visceral feedback loop and you can stay there binge watching something for an entire weekend. And what didn’t I think the question is what didn’t you do? Yes. Necessarily didn’t work out, necessarily didn’t eat well, necessarily Speak time with friends.

Speaker: 0
01:41:11

And by the way, the cards last week. Ai not saying that I don’t do it. I’ve done it as well. Like our group chat, one of the interesting things when Jason, like, he he’s very good about television and stuff. He sai, this series is amazing.

Speaker: 0
01:41:22

Our other friend, Rob Goldberg does the same thing. It’s hard for me to not start to start it and then not end it.

Speaker: 1
01:41:28

Mhmm. It’s addicting.

Speaker: 0
01:41:29

Yeah. But I have to really check myself because then for those 2 days, I’ll be tempted to not leave my bedroom. Ai my meh kids are like, where is my father? And so I I I think it’s it it happens to all of us. Yeah. It’s just a thing vatsal, again, I’m not trying to pick on Netflix. I’m just trying to say societally.

Speaker: 0
01:41:48

I think we want people that are vigorous and engaged in the real world. And, you know, there needs to be a balance.

Speaker: 1
01:41:57

Yeah. I, wholeheartedly agree. And I think you have to schedule these things. You have to make it a permanent part of your ai, playing poker on a certain night of the week, doing certain things on the weekend with your kids, having certain rituals. You know, the the the real damage to our kids is not that the screens are damaging them. It’s that it’s replacing ai.

Speaker: 1
01:42:15

I think what you we were alluding to there, Thomas. This this anxious generation as Jonathan Haidt, and we we had a great interview with him, myself and Freyberg in the all in interview series. That is what’s happening. Kids are substituting whether it’s TikTok or Netflix or YouTube time for time with their friends, time doing physical activities.

Speaker: 1
01:42:35

So you really just have to limit the screen time so that there’s other things and the boredom can emerge. And we will be having a talk in the coming years about dopamine. It is something that these algorithms have gotten really good at doing, which is firing your dopamine. Every time you swipe that TikTok, every time you get to the cliffhanger in a series or, you know, a mister beast video, not singling anybody out.

Speaker: 1
01:42:58

He’s just a master of it as well. They’re just all really good at giving you that hook, that amazing moment. And musicians are doing this now too with the hooks, and then the hooks go on TikTok. The dopamine addiction, when you get burnt out late at ai, getting those dopamine hits, the next day, you feel depressed.

Speaker: 1
01:43:16

Then you go to a doctor, and the doctor said, oh, we have, you know, depression. So here’s your Wellbutrin or here’s your what whatever the I don’t know what the the the the things are of the moment. I’ll just tell you what I focus on and what I focus on with my family. Sleep hygiene, diet, exercise, meditation.

Speaker: 1
01:43:35

Do these four things, and you will reverse these trends. You don’t need it. I listen. I don’t wanna tell you what

Speaker: 0
01:43:41

to do. Is hard for kids, but I get the first three.

Speaker: 1
01:43:44

You know what? Try it. Get the and ai. I’m not talking on booking. By the way, you know what’s crazy? Map.

Speaker: 0
01:43:48

It has When I was growing up for kids. When I was growing up, I grew up Buddhist. My father would make us sit there at 9 o’clock every ai. And my sisters and I would have to say this Buddhist prayer, and then he would make us close our eyes for 15 minutes. And he sai, meditate.

Speaker: 0
01:44:05

And I was like, I don’t know what meditation is, but I was forced to just keep my eyes shut. And I would just daydream. But I speak that there was like some reasonably grounding value in that. So I get what you’re saying. I just have such a negative connotation from it.

Speaker: 0
01:44:18

I’ve never been able to come back to it because of that experience. But I would just daydream. And by the way, what I daydreamed was getting out of that house. That’s like, gotta be

Speaker: 3
01:44:26

Sai you

Speaker: 1
01:44:26

got a vision. Yeah. It

Speaker: 0
01:44:27

was like came

Speaker: 1
01:44:28

to you.

Speaker: 0
01:44:28

I I gotta manifest some success here because this sucks.

Speaker: 1
01:44:31

Hey, Thomas. Thanks for coming on the show. Great first appearance here as a bestie. We’d love to have you back unless

Speaker: 0
01:44:37

the king returns at some point. You’re the best. You should come back, and you should also come back to the all in summit.

Speaker: 1
01:44:45

Come back, Neil.

Speaker: 2
01:44:45

Ram both. And I know we saw some some great topics like Hock Tan and others that I wanna get to someday. So

Speaker: 0
01:44:51

Well, that actually, when you come back, which we will do at some point in the next few months, I would love for us to double click into Hock Tan. So what for folks that are listening

Speaker: 1
01:44:59

Wait. What

Speaker: 0
01:45:00

We were going back and forth. Hoktan is the CEO of Broadcom. And the reason when he when Thomas brought this up, hey, ai, let’s double click into Broadcom and the CEO. The reason why I was excited is that it is the only $1,000,000,000,000 company that nobody talks about. Everybody knows NVIDIA.

Speaker: 0
01:45:19

Everybody knows Amazon, Meh, but Broadcom is a $1,120,000,000,000 business, and it started basically through a whole series of roll ups. Anyways, we’ll double click into this with you because I think

Speaker: 1
01:45:32

it’s No. This is not the Broadcom we’re all thinking of from the telecom era, is it?

Speaker: 2
01:45:36

It is.

Speaker: 0
01:45:36

Yeah. Henry Samuoli. Yeah. Correct. The

Speaker: 1
01:45:38

same ai still around.

Speaker: 2
01:45:40

I will leave you guys with a with a teaser to tease the next episode when we talk about it, and I’ll tell you the story that when Hawk bought Broadcom, Jay Kalt, to your point, Broadcom is the pride of Orange County founded by Henry Nicholas and Henry Samueli, kind of legends in semiconductors, a legendary name. So ai meant a lot to them that the combined company of Vago was buying Broadcom, keep the name Broadcom.

Speaker: 2
01:46:05

And so Hawk being who he is, you know, got a little bit of a price discount to name the company Broadcom. To him, that was a great deal. That’s who Hawk is. He’s a great businessman. But what is the ticker of this particular company? AVGO. And so I said, Hawk, why is the ticker still AVGO?

Speaker: 2
01:46:22

And you know what he said to meh? Turn to me. He said, Thomas, they forgot to negotiate for the ticker.

Speaker: 1
01:46:27

Oh, never forget the ticker. Interesting. I mean,

Speaker: 0
01:46:32

when when he started, it was what was the market cap?

Speaker: 2
01:46:35

3,500,000,000, Chamath. It was an not only was it an orphan because it was a oh my gosh. Look at this chart. It was a spinout of a spinout of HP. It was a double orphan,

Speaker: 0
01:46:48

300x. Look at this.

Speaker: 3
01:46:50

Yeah. My only reason thing is in in the last 5 years, the market cap’s grown by 8 x. NVIDIA’s grown by 20 x, but, you know, Intel over the last 5 years is, what, down 70%. So, you know, I think there’s a big divergence. Thomas, do you think this is a function of well, I don’t know if it’s directionally investing in the right things, or is it about, like, making long term investments and thinking down the road?

Speaker: 3
01:47:18

I mean, obviously, the compounding and He’s an

Speaker: 0
01:47:20

m and a master. This is a this is less about there was a product that won and more of a portfolio approach and a portfolio construction.

Speaker: 3
01:47:27

Ai did he buy well ahead of the the curve? Did he buy over the horizon, Thomas? Like, you know,

Speaker: 2
01:47:31

is that where

Speaker: 3
01:47:32

Intel really missed?

Speaker: 2
01:47:34

I think Intel really missed. It’s a complete abdication of corporate governance at the board level and the CEO level.

Speaker: 1
01:47:40

Hey, guys. Breaking news story coming across my feed. I don’t know if you can pull this up, Nick, but there’s a video trending on the Internet. Apparently, an executive order has just gone across the president’s desk, and it was delivered by none other than

Speaker: 0
01:47:54

a gentleman that.

Speaker: 1
01:47:55

David Sachs. I now there’s a name. I haven’t heard

Speaker: 5
01:47:57

in a long time. Ai, EO.

Speaker: 4
01:47:59

We’re gonna be forming a internal working group to make, crypto to

Speaker: 5
01:48:02

make America the world capital in crypto under your leadership.

Speaker: 6
01:48:05

Which is really going up.

Speaker: 5
01:48:07

Right? Absolutely.

Speaker: 1
01:48:10

Here we go. Woah. Look at this. What? He’s using a Sharpie there to sign these executive orders? Oh, Sachs gets to keep the pen. There it is. An executive order. I love how he holds them up. It’s so great. I wonder if Sachs gets to keep that.

Speaker: 6
01:48:29

It might not be accepted, but

Speaker: 4
01:48:30

we’re gonna make a lot of money for the country. But And so is David.

Speaker: 1
01:48:38

Oh, your reaction, Jaman.

Speaker: 0
01:48:40

Ai think this is great.

Speaker: 1
01:48:43

So we’re gonna make crypto great again.

Speaker: 0
01:48:45

I’ll be a little bit more specific. So I think that there are a handful of ideas that if we can implement them correctly, are really revolutionary. I think that it’s good to have a stockpile of crypto. I have less of an opinion on that. I think a set of stable coin rails that makes payments instantaneous and costless is an enormous acceleration to GDP.

Speaker: 0
01:49:13

It would cut fraud, and I think that David’s gonna go and figure that out.

Speaker: 1
01:49:21

And he’s gonna have stable coins specifically?

Speaker: 0
01:49:23

Stable coins. I mean, I I talked about this at the beginning of the year as my sort of Sure. One of my predictions, but I do think that the United States stable coin rails will be hugely disruptive and value added. He’s gonna have help from the head of the Sai and head of treasury to do it. I just think it’s great.

Speaker: 0
01:49:41

And I think Sacks is already off to a a hugely fast start.

Speaker: 1
01:49:44

The entire country knows that we need to win the AI race. The the numbers are the numbers. You put up a chart like that, Thomas, and there’s only one way for us to win, and that’s to build new more nuclear power plants. And so I think he’s just gotta hammer this through. And let’s see who tries to stop it.

Speaker: 1
01:50:01

I don’t know if AOC or Elizabeth Warren, Pocahontas, Bernie Sanders, who wants to jump in front of this Trump train right now, but I think you’ll get slaughtered. If only there was somebody who could comment on this executive order. That’s what I need. You know, Chamath, if I had the bat phone, if I could call somebody, you know, phone a friend

Speaker: 0
01:50:20

Who would you call?

Speaker: 1
01:50:21

Ai don’t know. You know? I had my saxipoo was always on speed ai. We used to hang in between. We have these great battles here on the pod, then we go play chess together. We go have some drinks at the battery. But, you know, that was a different era. And, you know, I don’t got my boy anymore. He’s busy. Oh, do we got everybody?

Speaker: 1
01:50:40

Thanks for tuning in to the All In podcast. I’m your host, Jason Calacanis. We will see you next time. Bye.

Speaker: 0
01:50:47

I’m sorry.

Speaker: 1
01:50:47

What? There he is. There he is. There he is. He’s back.

Speaker: 2
01:50:52

Back to reclaim his seat. It’s yours.

Speaker: 1
01:50:55

We miss you, buddy. You look so handsome. I’m gonna cry.

Speaker: 5
01:50:58

Come on.

Speaker: 1
01:50:59

61 days without my bestie. We miss

Speaker: 3
01:51:02

you, buddy. You just in the Oval Office?

Speaker: 5
01:51:04

I was just in the Oval Office.

Speaker: 1
01:51:06

First time in the Oval Office? Let me ask you a question. Was that your first time in the Oval?

Speaker: 5
01:51:12

Well, technically, it was my saloni. But

Speaker: 0
01:51:16

How was it, Sucks? How’s it been so far?

Speaker: 5
01:51:18

It’s pretty incredible. Yeah. It’s really been pretty incredible.

Speaker: 1
01:51:21

Well, tell us what are the vibes, and what’s it like to go in to the Oval Office and to have that executive order ai? Take us. Tell us what the moment was ai, and then tell us what’s in the executive order.

Speaker: 5
01:51:35

Well, we actually we did 3 executive orders today. So we did 1 on crypto, 1 on AI, and then 1 on PCAST, which is the president’s council of ai for science and technology. The one on crypto, I guess, we can start there. The main thing it does is it forms an internal working group with the goal of making the US the world leader in crypto. So it’s not one specific action.

Speaker: 5
01:51:57

It’s basically authorizing and creating a working group with the goal of achieving that objective. Right? And the members of this working group are gonna be, there’s me, there’s the head of the SEC, the secretary of the treasury, and all the agencies and departments that have an interest in crypto.

Speaker: 5
01:52:15

So we formed this working group. I’m actually chairing it or I will be. And again, the goal here is to identify and make recommendations that the departments would then take back and they could execute. And just, again, with the goal of making America the world capital of crypto as the president said at Davos today.

Speaker: 0
01:52:36

And then the other 2, Sachs?

Speaker: 5
01:52:37

Yeah. So that’s crypto. Next one’s AI. So the the number one thing that that EO does is rescind the the Biden EO, which we talked about on this podcast, I don’t know how many episodes ago. But remember, it was this 100 page monstrosity of burdensome regulation. And the president had promised on the campaign trail to repeal that, and he did. So it got rescinded.

Speaker: 5
01:53:00

Actually, there was a master EO on Monday that contained dozens of Biden era EOs that got mass rescinded. This one provided a little bit more detail on it. Basically sai that that EO wasn’t necessarily burdensome. It said that we wanna be the world leader in AI. In fact, it uses the word dominate.

Speaker: 5
01:53:20

Meh wanna we wanna basically have global dominance in AI. And similar to what we’re doing on the crypto side, it directs the creation of a AI action plan. And that study will be led by 3 people, the national security ai, who is Mike Waltz, the director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, who will be Michael Krapzios as soon as he’s sana it confirmed, and then the 3rd person is me.

Speaker: 5
01:53:43

So the 3 of us are gonna work together on this AI action plan. And the idea is to figure out what is it that the industry actually needs to make us number 1 globally in AI. So it’s putting a little bit more substance behind, like, what this what this R role means.

Speaker: 1
01:53:57

And the last one is to build a a science council. I don’t know if everybody’s familiar with that. So maybe you could just describe what that is generally for the audience.

Speaker: 5
01:54:05

Well, PCAST has been around for a long time. I mean, I think it’s been around for decades. And the the goal of PCAST is to assemble a group of top science and technology ai to provide the president with advice. So this was already announced, but basically, me and Michael Krasios, who I mentioned before is gonna be the director of OSTP, we’re gonna be co chairing that.

Speaker: 5
01:54:27

And this is an EO that provides the authorizing language to set that up. And then it provides some direction around what PCAST is gonna do. I think some of the language that Freeberg may like is just it talks about the the need to return to kinda truth telling in science and kinda getting away from from woke science.

Speaker: 5
01:54:46

The AI order discusses this as well. We don’t want AI models to be ideologically biased, have an agenda. I don’t know if it uses the word woke AI, but that’s basically what it’s talking about. We want AI models to be as politically unbiased as possible.

Speaker: 0
01:54:59

But But if

Speaker: 1
01:54:59

you need a recommendation for somebody for the council, I know somebody who is extremely well versed on science. He’s got a broad array of science knowledge. Hear. Hear. Yeah. I have an idea. Then we could have 2 besties in the in and around the White House. Hey. Well, you know, thanks for including us in in so many speak of the weekend, and the audience really wants to know, what are the chances we we get, Sachs back on the pod now and again in 2020 ai.

Speaker: 1
01:55:27

And we do appreciate Forward area right now. Right. The sacrifice you’re making. We’re doing it right now, but audience, is, you know, not gonna just accept this little drop in here. They wanna know what’s the long term plan for David Sachs and the pod.

Speaker: 3
01:55:40

And what’s happened, like, with media overall in the administration now that confirmation hearings are underway, Sacks, and closing out? Does that mean folks are gonna be able to get back on social and things that they were kind of restricted by over the last couple of weeks?

Speaker: 5
01:55:54

Sure. But I I think that, you know, if you’re working for the White House, there kinda needs to be a reason for you to be out there because you don’t wanna be making news that you’re not supposed to. So in the case here today, the president ai these executive orders on crypto and AI, and they want me explaining them.

Speaker: 5
01:56:12

So it makes sense for me to go out there. I’ve got a appearance on Fox Business in about an hour to talk about the EOs as well. So that might come out before this podcast comes out, but you guys are the first ones I’m actually talking to. But so there’s a reason for me to come out and do it, and I think that there probably will need to be a good reason for me to come on the pod, but I’m gonna try and come on the pod every chance I get.

Speaker: 1
01:56:36

Alright. Well, this is our appeal to DJT to let you come on and just chew the fat, and and and maybe there’s some upside to it for him.

Speaker: 0
01:56:43

Do you

Speaker: 3
01:56:43

miss being on the pod, Sacks?

Speaker: 5
01:56:45

Oh. Yeah. Sure. Of course.

Speaker: 1
01:56:47

We miss you so much. It’s Uh-huh.

Speaker: 5
01:56:51

Look. I’ll be back. Don’t worry. Vatsal some point.

Speaker: 1
01:56:54

Are you a little emotional right now, Saxx?

Speaker: 0
01:56:58

What are your favorite memories from the inauguration weekend?

Speaker: 5
01:57:02

Well, the inauguration ceremony itself was really pretty spectacular. You you were there in the capital, Chamath. Yeah. It’s funny. Jack and I kinda took our seats in the rotunda, like kind of in the back in the peanut gallery, and I thought that’s where I was gonna be sitting.

Speaker: 5
01:57:15

And then somebody comes up to me and says, mister Sachs, we have a seat for you up up front. And so they put me on the day of You

Speaker: 0
01:57:22

were with the big boys. Yeah.

Speaker: 5
01:57:23

It was, ai, the secretary of state, the secretary of treasury, and then me. You know? And then we were just we were behind the the Trump family. You may not see me because those Trump kids are pretty tall, but, the whole family is very tall, so I kinda disappeared a little bit.

Speaker: 5
01:57:39

But in any event, they put me on the dais, which was really pretty crazy. I wasn’t quite

Speaker: 1
01:57:43

sure that realize that. Yeah.

Speaker: 5
01:57:45

It was a huge honor.

Speaker: 0
01:57:46

There was a shot where David and Jacqueline were in the front. They looked amazing, and they were kind of looking around to for where to sit. And I was like, this can’t be right because there he must have had, like, a name. So it’s good that it all got sorted out, but it what was the vantage point from your side? Basically, you’re looking out.

Speaker: 5
01:58:04

Yeah. I I mean, I was looking out and, you know, I could see the faces of the Democrats as the president came out, you know, president Biden and Kamala Harris. They didn’t look too happy.

Speaker: 1
01:58:15

No. I would I wish they had a fixed camera

Speaker: 0
01:58:17

on them the whole

Speaker: 1
01:58:18

time. I wanted to see the reaction shot side by side.

Speaker: 5
01:58:21

I see some of the reaction shots. You

Speaker: 0
01:58:23

know? Oof.

Speaker: 3
01:58:23

Oof. Hey, Sacks. Just just

Speaker: 5
01:58:24

I mean, that was really unique to have, I I mean, I thought that that speech was really incredible because well, first of all, it was completely consistent with everything the president had said during the campaign. And so you really felt like he he has a mandate here because this is everything he said during the campaign.

Speaker: 5
01:58:43

It ai me a lot of there’s that famous quote by by Abraham Lincoln that public sentiment is everything. With it, you can accomplish anything. Without it, you can’t do anything. And it really felt like that inauguration speech was full of substance, but it was substance that the president had delivered on the campaign trail.

Speaker: 5
01:59:00

And so when he won this victory where he’d only won the presidency, he won the popular vote, he won 7 out of 7 swing states, he won the house, he won the sana, it really feels like he has a mandate, and I think he reiterated that mandate in his speech. And then, of course, just the the cherry on top is just that, you know, the losers just have to sit there and and listen to it.

Speaker: 1
01:59:24

Well, kudos to them for coming out and keeping the tradition. Yeah.

Speaker: 5
01:59:28

Well yeah. And and when he’s talking about the corrupt establishment that tried to put him in prison through this lawfare, I mean, he’s talking about some of those people who are sitting behind him. I just thought it was Yeah. Remarkable. A remarkable moment.

Speaker: 3
01:59:39

Crazy visual. Do you wanna take us back, Sachs, on how you because you haven’t talked about this publicly, but how did you end up, I guess, getting the offer for the role, deciding to take the role? Anything you wanna share anecdotally on on the the path to get here?

Speaker: 5
01:59:52

I don’t know that there’s that much to report. You know? I was helping with the transition, and I got offered the the role and decided to do it. So, I mean, look, it’s not something I was expecting or planning as you guys know. I didn’t even know there was gonna be such a role, but when they they decided to create it and they offered it to meh, and so I decided to do it.

Speaker: 5
02:00:10

You know, just one thing I should clarify just to make clear is there’s still some things I can’t do yet in the role because there’s a whole government ethics process that you have to go through. And I’m in the midst of that process. So we’ve signed these EOs. It’s given me certain responsibilities and authorized me to do certain things.

Speaker: 5
02:00:27

And that process is sana begin as soon as I complete this, I guess you’d call it onboarding. So just to be clear about that, there’s things I can do. There’s things I can’t do. I can kinda be in listening mode. I can’t be necessarily shaping policy yet.

Speaker: 5
02:00:41

So that’s all gonna be worked through over the next couple of weeks.

Speaker: 2
02:00:44

Ai. Sachs, I gotta ask. First time in the oval. What’s going through your mind?

Speaker: 0
02:00:50

Yeah. Great question.

Speaker: 5
02:00:51

My head was on a swivel, you know, one of those moments. You’re like, you can’t really believe that you’re you’re there. It does feel a little bit like you’re on a movie set. I mean, it’s so famous obviously to be in the office.

Speaker: 1
02:01:01

Is it bigger in person or

Speaker: 0
02:01:03

is it smaller in person? How what is it?

Speaker: 5
02:01:05

I thought it seemed about the right size. I know that’s that one of the things people say about it is that it’s smaller than you expect. I didn’t feel like it was smaller, but it also didn’t feel bigger. It felt felt like, you know, the Oval Office that you’ve always seen. The other people who are in there who’ve been in there the staffers who’ve been in there a 100 or a 1000 times, it’s obviously, it wears off, and it’s, like, just where they do their work.

Speaker: 5
02:01:23

But, yeah, I’ve gotta admit the first time you go in there, you’re pretty pretty awestruck. There was a post that JD Vance of now the vice president had where he actually, do you guys see this? Mike Johnson?

Speaker: 0
02:01:35

I saw the video. Yeah.

Speaker: 1
02:01:35

With Mike Johnson. Crazy. He’s walking in, and he’s in shock.

Speaker: 5
02:01:39

Because he had never been in there. I guess, you know, I guess he became a senator a few years ago. And, we’ve had a democrat president, so he never had the Yep.

Speaker: 1
02:01:46

Here’s the video. Ram.

Speaker: 5
02:01:47

And he said that he was honored and humbled to be there. I mean, that’s the way I felt as well. Those comments by the vice president resonated with me. I think probably every American would feel this way the first time you’re in the oval office. It is pretty incredible.

Speaker: 0
02:02:02

You want me to repeat the words that the president said about you? There’s nobody like this guy. They said, how did you get David Sachs? How did you do that? He’s doing it for the country more than anything else. We appreciate it, David. Thank you very much.

Speaker: 5
02:02:16

He’s been he’s been really nice to me. That’s really incredible. He’s been just incredible to me. And he he gave me the the the pen from the from the signing, which is pretty cool.

Speaker: 0
02:02:26

Wait. Can we see

Speaker: 1
02:02:26

the pen?

Speaker: 0
02:02:26

Can we see the pen? What is the brand of the pen?

Speaker: 5
02:02:28

Well, it’s it’s not branded. Basically, it says the White House on one side, and it’s got his signature Yeah. On another. And so look. I wasn’t

Speaker: 2
02:02:36

expecting any the case.

Speaker: 0
02:02:37

Is it like a Sharpie? What is that? Is it a shah?

Speaker: 5
02:02:40

It is it is a Sharpie. The permanent You’ve you’ve seen him sign. Right? Yeah. Yeah. So it’s what you know, I assume it’s what what he ai. But so he gave me the pen, which is pretty incredible.

Speaker: 0
02:02:49

Have you guys seen that there’s all these ASMR videos of the president signing where you can just hear

Speaker: 1
02:02:54

I’ve seen the

Speaker: 0
02:02:55

pen, the pen. No. The pen on the paper that makes yeah. The exactly. There’s, like, all these ASMRs of that.

Speaker: 1
02:03:02

Well, Friberg wants to know if you could assign his new Tesla. He wants you to sign it with that pen. He wants you to autograph it. So when you get back to the valley, you can you can start doing autographs with that all around.

Speaker: 5
02:03:15

Oh, no. I think, I think only the president’s allowed to use this pen.

Speaker: 1
02:03:19

Only the president’s allowed to use. Okay. Well, put it in put it put it somewhere safe. Okay? Don’t lose the pen. Gotta put it in a glass box or something. And, Sai, there’s thousands of commenters who are just begging for you to come back. Do you have a message to your allegiance of commenters?

Speaker: 5
02:03:35

Well, I I thank them, and I’m back right now. I know maybe it’s not enough, but

Speaker: 1
02:03:40

Soak it in.

Speaker: 5
02:03:40

It would help if you guys could just do a better job on the pods. They weren’t complaining all

Speaker: 1
02:03:45

the time. We’ll do the best we can without you. Alright. Get back to work. Get back to work. Because come on. This taxpayer you’re on the taxpayer clock here. Go go back to work here and save America. Make America great again. Listen, we wish you great success. We miss you greatly, and, we thank you for the service to the country.

Speaker: 1
02:04:03

We wish you, all all, all the best as you go, handle 2 of the most important issues for our country, AI, and help advise our president, on cryptocurrency as

Speaker: 0
02:04:14

well. Love you, Saksen. And pCast.

Speaker: 3
02:04:15

And pCast.

Speaker: 1
02:04:16

And pCast. Yes. Of course. Ram

Speaker: 3
02:04:17

pCast as well.

Speaker: 0
02:04:18

Boys, love you very, very much. David, love you. Ai, see you on Tuesday.

Speaker: 1
02:04:23

Yes. And, Thomas, thanks for coming in. See you, guys.

Speaker: 2
02:04:26

Thanks for

Speaker: 1
02:04:26

the opportunity.

Speaker: 3
02:04:27

Thomas, thank

Speaker: 0
02:04:27

you very much for the great all in the podcast.

Speaker: 3
02:04:29

Thank you, Thomas. Bye bye. Chris. Love

Speaker: 0
02:04:31

you, boys.

Speaker: 2
02:04:31

Hope you guys

Speaker: 0
02:04:32

have a good one.

Speaker: 5
02:04:34

We’ll let your winners ride.

Speaker: 1
02:04:36

Rain meh David Sacks.

Speaker: 5
02:04:41

And it said, we open sourced it to the fans, and they’ve just gone crazy with it.

Speaker: 1
02:04:45

Love you, West Heidi. Queen of kin wah. Besties are all. That

Speaker: 2
02:04:56

is my dog taking it out of your driveway sex. Oh,

Speaker: 3
02:05:02

man. Ai

Speaker: 0
02:05:04

We should all just get

Speaker: 1
02:05:05

a room and just have one big

Speaker: 0
02:05:06

huge orgy because they’re all just useless. It’s like this, like, sexual tension that they just need to release them out.

Speaker: 1
02:05:12

Let your back feet. Let your

Speaker: 5
02:05:15

feet. Feet.

Speaker: 1
02:05:17

Sweat. We need to get Mercies

Speaker: 0
02:05:18

Arc back.

Speaker: 1
02:05:19

I’m doing all in. I’m doing all in.

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