I'm applauding the innovation. I'm I'm

I'm jumping on board the crypto train

and I hope I hope the incumbents aren't

able to strangle this thing in

Washington.

Hey man, great to see you. Good to see

you, Brad. What an incredible weekend of

college sports. You know, I have to

bring this up. I mean Okay. Texas had

that big upset of number six Oklahoma.

You had to be pretty stoked about that.

It was a good game. It was fun.

>> People that haven't been to a neutral

site game, so like Florida does with

Georgia, Texas OU, they meet every year

in the middle of the Texas Fair. So the

stadium's got several hundred thousand

people outside of it. Oh my god. And

when you get inside right on the 50, on

both 50s, you know, all one team on the

other and all the other fans on the

other. So it's loud and it goes back and

forth and it's unlike an experience you

get where there's a home team and the

crowd's all just rooting for one team.

Oh, that's cool. Well, my Hoosiers, my

Indiana Hoosiers Bill upset the number

three Ducks. Going to six and oh.

>> I have a lot of duck fans in my in my

friend group, so I'm going to

I'm going to refrain from celebrating

with you, but

>> I I have to say I used to celebrating

Hoosier basketball, but rarely Hoosier

football, but Kurt Zegner's done an

unbelievable job turning that program

around. My 90-year-old mother was

watching that game and sending me

play-by-play. So congrats to congrats to

the Hoosiers. Well, as long as we're

calling out college football teams and

then we can move on.

UCLA starts the season 0 and 4, then

upsets upsets Penn State at home with

almost no fans there and wins big again

this week and apparently there was a

coaching change after the 0 and 4. So

this could be the biggest turnaround in

history of college football.

Go Bruins. Pretty incredible. So there's

so much happening in the world today.

We're going to unpack a few of those

things. We're going to follow up on some

of the issues Bill that I raised in the

Jensen pod. You know, the latest AI

announcements, all this bubble talk,

circularity of revenues, quality of

revenues, AI regulation. But we're also

going to do something today and cover

something we don't often talk about on

the pod and that's like life and career.

Bill, you have a huge book coming out.

Running down a dream, how to thrive in a

career you actually love. I'm so excited

for this book. So we're also going to

talk a little bit about that today.

And and in the context of that, you

know, we're coming up on the two-year

anniversary of this pod. I can't believe

it. Time has flown by, but our you know,

when you and I talked about about doing

this, we said our mission really we want

to talk about markets, investing,

capitalism and companies, but really

through the eye of the investment

analyst. You and I more than anything

else I think are analysts. We try to

find the biggest problems,

opportunities, challenges in the world,

study them deeply. You know, we compare

notes non-stop. Occasionally as an

analyst that leads you to a big

investment idea. Sometimes it leads you

to a podcast, maybe writing an article,

teaching a class, for you writing this

book. And sometimes even a major policy

initiative like the Invest America Act

that actually became law. I think you

would agree with me the response over

the last two years has been amazing,

more than either you or I expected. But

you know, that also creates its own

pressure of its own to show up, to

deliver those unique insights and this

takes a bunch of time. Yeah.

>> So given that and I don't want to bury

the lead here, you have some huge

upcoming projects you want to work on.

And you're going to step back from the

co-hosting the pod. I'll still talk you

in on occasion, maybe to be in a guest,

but you're freeing up time to work on

your big passions like this book and

going deeper into these topics that

people have heard you talk about here,

US-China relations, talking about

regulatory capture, the dysfunctional

state of US healthcare.

And for those interested, the pod's

mission remains the same. I'm going to

keep the same name. We're going to keep

chopping it up with analysts I respect,

sometimes with Bill and covering topics

that matter. You know, like last week's

pod with Jensen Huang or upcoming pods I

have with Sam Altman or Sacha.

This is a moment of I think really

unique consequence. We both recognize

that. We're grateful to have the

opportunity to open source these

conversations that are truly shaping the

future.

And I know I speak for you. We do it for

the love of the game. Like this keeps us

sharp. It keeps us on edge.

You know, and it's a privilege really to

get on here and chop it up and share

something back with the tech ecosystem

that gives us you know, has given us so

much. So Bill, you know, you have

anything you want to say? It's a good

two-year run.

>> Yeah, first of all, just thanks to you,

Brad. Like this has been great going

back and forth. I had two primary

initiatives coming into it. One, as you

mentioned, was to stay sharp and the

other one was to share and give back and

I've been writing my thoughts on on the

tech industry since I was a sell-side

analyst, so

coming up on 30 years and always enjoyed

thinking out loud. I think it makes us

better as analysts and helps us to

understand. But but I also like to share

with people and there's no question in

my mind that this got bigger than I ever

anticipated it would. I've been chased

down in international cities recently. I

was I started talking with someone. They

had no idea what I looked like, but the

minute they heard my voice, they're

like, "Oh, you're the guy from the

podcast." So

um

it has been popular and I I know there

are going to be people that are upset

with me and that I can only say, you

know, I'm sorry and I apologize that I'm

not going to be doing it anymore. I came

across this quote that was really

inspiring to me. It said, "Life begins

where your comfort zone ends." And there

were a number of people that helped push

me to write the book. It's taken up

quite a bit of time in the last eight

years. It's been a very long project.

We'll talk about it more later, but I'm

feeling a calling to go work on or at

least attempt to work on some of these

bigger issues. So I want to create a

platform for that. I want to create room

for it and and move a bit away from the

space that I do know quite well and love

quite a bit, but pushing myself, you

know, outside of my own comfort zone and

hopefully, you know, having an impact on

things that really matter. You and I

talked about this throughout the entire

time I was working on Invest America. I

certainly encourage you and push you to

to do this. I think you have an enormous

amount to contribute. And listen, when I

you know, you and I chop it up together

every day. I know where you stand on a

lot of these issues. I'll bring those

opinions to bear for our audience and

you know, I certainly know that you'll

have the burning need to come on as a

guest on occasion and and share some of

those views. But but in the spirit of

analysis, let's let's just dive in. This

AI money bubble Bill and this Jensen

pod. Let's start by talking about that.

You know, we've had a just a flurry of

announcements including another

announcement this morning between Open

AI and Broadcom where Open AI is going

to be building their own inference

accelerator amounting to well over a

trillion dollars of incremental CapEx.

That's above and beyond what we already

knew was going to get built out. I know

that you have concerns about the level

of CapEx, the absolute level and I know

that you also have meaningful concerns

about how it's being financed. Why don't

you walk us through your major concerns?

I think anybody that's been a student of

financial history has

you know, studied different types of

activities that that historically, let's

just say historically have created red

flags. And the reason that, you know,

any AI you talk to would know what you

mean if you said circular revenues is

because someone has used it in the past

in a way that that wasn't good. And you

know, I had an exercise which I tweeted,

we can put in the show notes, people can

find, but I just described, you know,

there's not one thing. There's like six

different transactions that have

happened now that I would say are

non-normal. And I just described those

things to ChatGPT and asked it for its

analysis both as an accountant and as a

financial investor. And the AI itself,

you know, would would find its way

toward company names like Enron and

WorldCom and those kind of things merely

by describing the type of transaction.

And so I think that suggests if we

believe in intelligent AI, that that's

just what historically has been come the

best practice and way to think about

these things. And I've I've told you

before, I think you you have highlighted

that some of the multiples are actually

not that high and I think this is part

of the reason because there are red

flags that people are looking at. If you

peel that back a little bit more, you

know, one of the things that you and I

have talked about, the very nature, you

know, of round-tripping or circular

revenues, you know, I think there's this

continuum. On one end of the trans on

one end of the continuum is a true sham

transaction. There's no underlying

demand for the product. I send you a

billion dollars, you send me the billion

dollars back. Right? That's clearly a

sham transaction because there's no

underlying demand. On the other end, I

have massive demand for my product. You

have plenty of places you can go get

capital and we just happen to have a an

investment relationship in addition to

that and I'm buying your product. And

those things happen all over the place

in our economy and you know, maybe

something to pay attention to, but it's

certainly not even close to being

illegal and it frankly doesn't even

cause me a lot of concerns about the

quality of revenue. And then we have

things in the middle, right? And these

things in the middle where you can ask a

question like, "Would this much of

revenue or product had been purchased

but for this investment?" Right? And I

think that at a minimum calls the

revenue, the quality of those revenues

into question. So, when you look at

that, do you discriminate between the

types of transactions that have been

announced? I mean, you raised this

question first 18 months ago about the

credit transactions that were occurring

with a hyperscaler. So, maybe just

unpack a few of the different types of

transactions. Yeah, and look, I think it

started at the very beginning. And and I

think that's one of the things that's

causing this is it's become part of the

competitive landscape and the

competitive dynamic. So, yeah, I think

there are many boards and many CFOs who

have been put in a position where they

say, "Well, if we don't do it, everyone

else is doing it. You might fall

behind." But it But it started with the

original, from my perspective, with the

original Microsoft OpenAI deal, where

credits go in as a in-kind investment,

and then those credits are used back

against, you know, Azure and and

Microsoft cloud services. And in the in

that case, you know, and I said it back

then, I'll say it again now, that's a

revenue That's a cashless transaction.

Like, there's no cash, but it becomes an

income statement uh revenue item for

Microsoft. And I don't think that's

ideal from an economic standpoint. And

that practice is now, I think, happened

at Amazon and happened at Google. I

think they've made investments in other

AI startups with the same kind of thing.

And at the very least, it drives usage

of their product versus someone else.

Um and in the worst case, you know, it

creates revenue that might not have

existed had it had it not been for that

deal, or at least not on those terms. Uh

but anyway, it started there. It's

become quite competitive now. There's an

interesting podcast on Plain Simple,

which I I don't Plain English, which is

a a uh

in the Bill Simmons family, with Paul

Kad Kadrosky. And he He makes the

argument that part of the reason these

transactions are taking place I think I

think this is a credible argument he

makes is because some of these players

have already put so much CapEx, so much

debt on themselves that they don't want

to take the next step. And so, in that

case, you know, you have reached some

level where the company's saying, "Oops,

you know, I feel uncomfortable going

further than this." The transaction that

comes to my mind when I think of that is

there was one where Microsoft

I mean, Meta agreed to pay for the

failure of debt on a facility where they

don't own the debt, you know? And to me,

that's classic off-balance sheet

financing. If they own the risk of it,

just because they don't own the paper,

you know, it I don't see the difference,

really. But this is Like I said, this is

happening in a in a lot of different

places.

You know, one of the things that you

know, again, I've I've talked about a

little bit on All-In and other places.

If I look at the Nvidia deal as an

example, Bill, Nvidia has the

opportunity to invest, though not the

obligation to invest. OpenAI has the

opportunity to use their chips, though

not the obligation to use their chips,

as evidenced by the fact they just

announced their own chip this morning,

and they just cut up a huge deal with

AMD. And, you know, in the case of

Nvidia, you're not talking about a

highly levered business. It's a company

that's going to generate $450 billion of

free cash and is taking a small fraction

of that over the next 3 years and

investing in companies that it it it

thinks are good returning investments. I

mean, Google and Google Capital have

been doing this for, you know, for

years, etc. So, again, I think in those

cases, you can say for certain that

maybe uh you know, more of their product

is being consumed than would have

otherwise been consumed, right? Uh you

know, we saw this announcement last week

where they're investing in this xAI with

respect to their new round. Most of

these companies that they're investing

in, I think, have the economic

wherewithal to raise the capital in

other places. Elon could certainly raise

it in other places. OpenAI was well

oversubscribed, so they could have

raised it in other places. But here's

what I think people should be on the

lookout for. Okay, so where would I have

more concern?

Okay? Now, imagine there's a a a chip

that there's only one customer for. So,

there's not a lot of demand for the

chip.

And that that chip manufacturer gives a

customer $10 billion, and that customer

turns around and buys that chip,

right? So, there's no other potential

customers, and that the the the buyer

would not have had a the ability to buy

it but for that capital. That to me

raises big red flags. And I do think in

this overall ecosystem, the reason I'm

happy you're bringing it up, I think one

of the things we need to do to keep the

wall of worry there, to keep the

excesses from emerging, is to call them

out. I'm not concerned as a shareholder

in Nvidia with what I'm seeing Nvidia do

today. I like how they're deploying

their cash on their balance sheet. But I

do think that as you go further and

further out the risk curve, right?

Further and further to these startup neo

clouds or further and further to startup

chips, you know, etc., where people, to

your point, are a little bit more

desperate for capital, don't have the

balance sheets, don't have the market

leadership position, I would not be

surprised at all in this moment to see

more of those yellow flags emerge.

There's a couple things, you know, that

I would say in response. One, there's a

reason we know about a lot of these

things, and that's because some auditor

somewhere made them disclose them. Like,

they felt that it was

um

abnormal enough to require disclosure.

Second, I heard I listened to you and

and the All-In team talk about this

issue. I I do think investment is

riskier or more risk-seeking than

customer loans, which it was compared

to. And Cisco got in trouble just with

the customer loans, cuz they were giving

loans to startups who really didn't have

the wherewithal to pay them back. But

when That's really the issue for me,

though, when you switch from a loan to

an equity, you no longer have to pay it

back. So, in some ways, it's uh it's

easier on the purchaser than if you had

a loan themselves. But But here's my

Here's my bottom line.

I think what this does, this this

overall situation, is first of all, I

think it's driven by competition at this

point. And like the first the first step

into the gray zone was way back at the

beginning. And so, now I think we're

we're fairly pregnant with it. So, I

think it's a competitive dynamic. I

think it increases the chance that we go

over the top, that that we end up

over-provisioning. And I I kind of felt

like that was unavoidable anyway. But

now I think it's higher. And But I think

it maybe pushes out when we find out

that happens, because you've you've just

created more virtual leverage on the

whole system, and you might be hiding

some of the signs that would tell you

things are slowing down. I'll give you a

great example. One of the more peculiar

of all the deals is, and this was

disclosed in a CoreWeave filing, was

Nvidia has promised to buy any of

CoreWeave's

service availability that they can't

sell to anyone else. That is very

unusual. That's not the same as making

an investment. That could easily help

CoreWeave with their debtors in in

getting more debt financing. But it also

means, as a investor, we we don't know

what's going on with real demand for

CoreWeave, because we probably won't be

told if they start moving into the world

where they're

offloading to Nvidia or not. And if

you'd have said to me, "What would you

look for to see if we've, you know, kind

of reached a point where things are

slowing a little bit?" You'd say, "Well,

let's look at one of the pure plays."

Um And so, now that's money. I could see

how it it could be, but I I would expect

that every analyst on every CoreWeave

call for the next, you know, eight

quarters, maybe thanks to you you just

raising the flag, is going to be asking

the question, right? Do you see any

slowing? Do are you having to send any

of your uh of your demand to Nvidia, you

know, as a result of this? I mean, one

of the things I like about this as well,

right? These are public companies, both

CoreWeave and Nvidia. It is a disclosed

transaction. It's not like this stuff's

occurring in the dark of night. People

can ask the questions of this you know,

this with regard to demand. And I will

tell you,

there is the the amount of money that is

being spent to track every single part

of this supply chain, from Taiwan to the

United States. I mean, look at Dylan

Patel's business at SemiAnalysis. The

thing has exploded. The amount of money

people are spending just to stay on top

of this. And the second they see

something that smacks of any, you know,

leakage in demand, boom, docs fall and

and and and warnings go up. So, I think

it's a good point. But I think Let me

transition, because I do want to talk

about this question of demand. So, on

the one hand, there's this question

about quality of revenues. On the other

question is, are we overbuilding? So,

let's show this chart again. This is

basically the $3 trillion of build-out

expected over the next 5 years. This is

the CapEx chart that we've shown here

before. To put that in perspective,

Bill,

that's about 60 gigs, right? Because we

we now are normalizing everything's to

gigawatts of data center. So, that's

about 60 gigs. It's not all incremental.

A lot of that is is is replacement or

upgrade. Keep that in mind. The second

is this chart of Nvidia revenues. This

is the Nvidia sell-side forecast, okay?

Forecast this year is for about 200

billion in revenues, growing to about

350 billion in revenues over the next 5

years.

So, this year that means that they're

selling about four to five gigs worth of

compute. And again, most of that's

incremental, but it's not all

incremental.

And that would grow to nine gigs of

compute, nine, in 2029-2030.

So, that's 350 or 400 billion. That's

the NVIDIA consensus revenue forecast,

right? And I asked Jensen on the pod

about this, and I said, "What is the

chance that we get into a glut over the

course of, you know, the next four or

five years?" And we'll play the you

know, the piece, but he basically said

there's zero chance over the next two to

three years because all the build-out

will go to the biggest hyperscalers with

the biggest balance sheets in the world,

and they're building it to to run their

core businesses. We haven't even got

into the full

amount with respect to these new

generative AI workloads. So, what is the

percentage probability that you think

we'll have a glut, we'll run into a glut

in the next three or four or five years?

Until we

fully

convert

all

general purpose computing to accelerated

computing and AI. Until we do that.

>> Yes.

I think the chances are extremely low.

Okay. So, here's a question I have for

you. Did you hear anything in the last

couple of weeks that caused you to

believe that we're on the verge of some

bubble bursting or we're greatly

overbuilding or or anything else? Or is

it just the flags are up and now it's a

wait and see?

Yeah, sure. It's funny, they had Howard

Marks on CNBC this morning. I'm a huge

Howard Marks fan, and they asked him

this question, and he he said, "Look,

multiples are too low to for this to be

you can't be on bubble watch if the

multiples aren't high enough." And

you've been making this point for a long

time. And I would say like you'd have to

be a fool not to notice that these

numbers you're talking about are so

remarkably unprecedented from anything

we've ever seen before. They are

massive. You know, I I've talked about,

you know, to see the Mac 7 go from

being massive cash producers to where

they're

many of them are taking the majority of

their free cash flow and the CapEx. It's

it's it's totally new, and clearly

everyone believes that this wave is

maybe bigger than the previous waves

we've seen that have led to so much

value creation. So, all that's

happening. I like to believe that it's

okay to recognize that the market's

great and still think that these

transactions shouldn't happen this

way. And I'm I'm able to keep both those

things in my head at the same time. I I

I think I I think it's a super fair

point. By the way, you just mentioned

it, so we'll include this chart. This is

Mag 5 CapEx as a percentage of their

operating free cash flow bill. And if

you look at it in 2025,

so that's this year, they'll spend about

66%

of their operating cash flow on CapEx.

Yep.

>> Right? And if you look at the the the

consensus forecast for their CapEx

relative to their operating cash flow,

this is the peak. Around 66%, and it has

it going down to about 45 or 50%. Now,

embedded in there is they're going to

keep growing their operating free cash

flow at 15 to 20% a year, right? So,

there's still room for them to to grow

with that coming down. But I think that

is another thing to keep your eye on.

How much are they spending? And by the

way, just give you an order of

magnitude, Bill, in 2023, their total

CapEx was 156 billion.

And this year, it's 379 billion.

Right? So, radical step up in in your

point's a good one. And just remember a

couple years ago in 2022,

when Meta stepped up their CapEx

spending on Reality Labs,

the stock got obliterated because people

said, "What the hell are you doing? This

is all about free cash flow per share

per share." Including myself, and I was

saying, you know,

let's get fit here. Let's drive more

free cash flow out of the business. You

know, so much so that the CFO sent me a

hat that says free cash flow, right? So,

they got real about free cash flow, but

there's a difference between investing

that free cash flow in data centers and

AI than there was in Reality Labs. As an

investor, let me just tell you my own

perspective. The reason Meta's stock's

doing great, notwithstanding going back

to high levels of CapEx spend, is

because now the investors understand it

and believe in it. We're seeing the

benefits, right, in the earnings of the

business. They're growing the earnings

of the business. They don't have to hire

a lot of new employees, and so it's it's

fundamentally different than the CapEx

that was going into Reality Labs, where

investors were saying,

"Hold on a second, we're going to spend

100 plus billion dollars over the next

five years. We don't even know what

we're building."

Right? We don't know what it'll be worth

at the end of the day. So, I think for

now, at least, there's enough belief in

the the byproduct of generative AI

because people are using ChatGPT,

they're seeing the utility in the

enterprise that they're going you know,

that they're willing to tolerate these

companies giving over half of their free

cash flow to these build-outs.

I do think another dynamic is the race

condition created by the competitive

dynamic. And it appears from where I

sit, and you don't need to comment cuz

you're an investor and and maybe have

more information than I do. Probably

have more information than I do. But it

appears to me that OpenAI, um through

all these partnerships and

announcements, is trying to create

escape velocity, you know? And that

could be against the model providers, it

could be against a hosting provider,

depending on how you think the market

plays out. Um it could could be on the

consumer side, it could be on the API

side. But it it it creates an

interesting stress test for anyone else

in the ecosystem to say, "Are you going

to lay chase?" Because of all the

numbers you laid out there, they're

they're gargantuan. And it it'll be

interesting. That's my opinion. It just

feels like they're they're daring people

to to follow them, and and I suspect a

bunch don't. I mean, it may work. Well,

it's you've seen this before, I know.

We've talked about many times on here.

This was in Lyft. Um ultimately, I think

a couple things to remember. These these

announcements are frameworks. It it

allows people to begin working, but

they're not etched in stone. These are

not contractual obligations. You know,

everybody's got to deliver their parts.

If the demand comes in lower, then these

people are not going you know, leave

>> Oracle wouldn't have to be contractual

for it to be RPO. Yeah, you know, I you

may know more

>> Well, for sure

I shouldn't say that they're all right

frameworks, but I know, for example,

like in the case of AMD, they're going

to have to deliver a workable chip, or

you're not going to build six gigs'

worth. Yeah.

>> Right? Uh in the case of this Broadcom

announcement, obviously, they have to

build a workable chip. So, I think your

speculation, and again, it makes sense

to me. If you said, "What are the

advantages of getting out there and

locking up all of these deals?" Right? I

I can't imagine it it it doesn't help a

lot with recruiting. All the best

researchers in the world want to work at

the place that has the most compute, and

so you want to lock up the compute. I I

I have to imagine it helps with the

supply chain, because, you know, now

you're you're locking up that supply.

So, I think your speculation is a pretty

big one, a pretty good one. But at the

end of the day, if you add up all these

deals, I tried to do this, and we may be

we may be off by a bit, and I'd

encourage people who have a better

estimate to let me know. But if you add

them all up, it looks like to me OpenAI

would be on the hook for like 150

billion of CapEx in 2030.

Okay? And so, like, the question is,

Bill, what how much revenue do they need

in 2030 to justify 100, you know, 150

billion in CapEx? Well, I think you

would need at least 150 billion of

revenue.

Right? And, you know, like, at a

minimum. We just talked about Meta and

these companies spending 66% on CapEx.

But if they had 150 billion of revenue,

then the question is, is it plausible

they could have 150 billion dollars of

revenue in 2030? And I would argue as an

investor that it's it's more than more

than plausible that they could have 150

billion of revenue. But I think it makes

it very, very difficult for anybody else

other than the hyperscalers. Obviously,

Google's going to be there.

Obviously, Meta's going to be there.

Obviously, Amazon, you know, can be

there. But it makes it very, very

difficult for anybody else in the

ecosystem, right? Who believes this is a

game of of scale compute competes. So, I

think your point's a good one.

All right.

>> maybe shift a little bit, you know, to

an area of passion for both you and I,

which is this AI regulation. We've

talked on the pod many times about the

concerning patchwork of these emerging

state regulations that, under the guise

of doing good, and maybe they're even

well-intentioned, cause a hell of a lot

more confusion at best, and at worst,

they set back our leading frontier labs,

you know, and and really hamper us in

the race to to stay in the in the lead

in global AI. Well, it's gone from more

theoretical to now more more more

problematic. I tweeted over the weekend

in particular about this Colorado AI

Act, which is now passed into law,

signed into law. It defines something

called algorithmic discrimination

by outlining these 12 protected classes.

Of course, age, color, religion, but

also limited proficiency in English

language, reproductive health. And

basically said if the algo provides

info,

right? If the chatbot provides

information that's used to discriminate,

then there's liability back at the

frontier model level,

right? And just this morning, Gavin

Newsom signed SB 243, which mandates

safety protocols for AI chatbot

companions, and gives any consumer a

private right of action to sue these

companies for any emotional harm that

comes out of a chatbot. I mean, I

you not. You can't make this stuff up.

And you said recently that China is so

competitive with the United States

because it's run by engineers and

America's run by lawyers, and that's the

greatest risk we have. Talk to us about

the need for federal preemption and you

know, again, just let's dive back into

your concern about these two laws that

were just passed.

As an aside, I just consumed Jonathan

Haidt's book Anxious Generation where he

talks about what he believes is some

social harms caused by some of the apps

on the internet ecosystem. And I do

think a lot of the passion for writing

some of these states' laws comes from

that place. Like there are local

congressmen that that feel like they

should have been out in front of social

media more, and so they want to get a

jump on this. And and and I I think some

of that comes from there. You run this

massive risk of of trying to regulate a

brand new technology

at a state-by-state level. And you know,

you could ask yourself, you know, and

and and by the way, I

I've said this a lot about policy. The

intent of the policy is different from

what happens once the policy is

implemented. And so people can come in

with great intentions, and this goes

back to my speech at All-in on

regulatory capture, and you can end up

with the exact opposite outcome of what

you intended because you just don't know

enough about the way you write the

regulation. Right now, a lot of people

believe we're in this global competition

to to see, you know, whose

tech stack for AI is used on a global

basis. And

if we implement 50 different state rules

that these companies have to jump

through, and companies that are that are

competitors that are competing in the

broader world don't have any of them,

there is zero chance that's not going to

create mud and slow down the US players.

There's just zero chance. And

I'm certain the people that are writing

these laws don't understand that there

might be some global, you know,

consequence of what they're doing. But

but it's bad. I mean, I can remember

when Obama was excited about removing

some of the state-by-state requirements

on like hair stylists and whatnot

because it makes it such that they can't

move between states. And it's kind of

ridiculous that they would have

different laws and different licenses.

This is like

if that's a problem, this is really a

problem. And so I, you know, from a

global competitiveness standpoint, I

would certainly hope that that they're

able to federalize this and preempt it.

I don't know if it's there's too much,

you know, water under the bridge or not.

I don't know enough about what it takes

in Congress to make that happen. But I

think this is bad for

I think it's bad for the US. it's bad

for innovation broadly. It's going to

make it harder for startups to do things

just because they're going to have to

worry about all this stuff. Yeah, it's

it's it's way worse for little tech,

right? Because smaller companies don't

have phalanxes of lawyers. They can, you

know, go out and comply. You know, I

think the other thing is listen, we

already have the Civil Rights Act, we

have the Fair Housing Act, we have the

American with Disabilities Act. Of

course, we don't want discrimination.

But this just seems like broad

overreach. It's no like I don't even

know how you comply or enforce. And so

it just ends up bogging down the entire

system in uncertainty and litigation.

And again, it's important to say this

isn't even about whether or not AI

should be regulated.

It's just a question of who should

regulate it. And what we're saying is

that, you know, there is ample

opportunity

for this administration and Congress to

get together and write legislation to

the extent it needs to be written,

right? To provide a national These are

inherently interstate technologies.

There's no way to keep it in a single

state. And so write a piece of national

legislation that allows us to continue

moving forward very quickly, but all the

at the same time addresses any of these

concerns. I frankly think we need a we

need a moratorium on all state laws.

Postpone all state laws until the

federal government has time to act. And

if states are going to pass these laws,

Bill, then I wonder whether or not

OpenAI or some other company should

consider blocking the citizens of those

states until it's resolved at the

national level. Somebody needs to get

the attention of these states that they

can't do this on a state-by-state level.

It's bad for the companies, it's bad for

the country. But hopefully we'll get

action out of Congress soon. I think

there's good momentum. We almost had it

passed as part of the I think the big

beautiful bill.

And so I think there's a lot of movement

afoot in order to do it. I wanted to

highlight it because I think it's it's

one of the high priority issues facing

the new Congress. All this AI all the

time stuff, Bill, and you you pinged me

and you said, "Hey, I want to talk about

stablecoin, right?" We have this

parallel development in the world. So I

think if we have three major trends in

the world,

AI is clearly the largest supercycle

going on. The reindustrialization of

America is massive. All these critical

supply chains. And I would say the third

one is kind of the digitization and

tokenization of finance. It's going on

as a result of the administration

basically turning

>> And you have to fill out pages and pages

of crap. Sometimes get a verbal. And it

and it and it and it's, you know, we are

so behind. I am going to go out on a

limb and say I hope someone, whoever

agitated this to happen in the Trump

administration, is someone who is kind

of caught in a regulatory capture

position getting lobbied by somebody. I

I think if the Trump administration

studied this, they shouldn't be critical

of PIX. They should be envious of it. We

should have done this a long time ago

with FedNow. But we may be on the verge

of stablecoin just being able to do this

anyway. And the rails have tons of

transaction on them as you've talked

about. We have this interesting

situation where Coinbase and Circle have

done this deal where Coinbase will allow

you to earn 4% on your stablecoin

balance. Which, you know, to to get that

kind of return at another bank,

even a neo bank, you have to have your

direct deposit go there. Here, whether

it's 10 bucks or or a million bucks, you

know, you put it in stablecoin with

Coinbase and you start earning 4% daily.

And on top of that, and this gets back

to the PIX thing,

you can transact immediately out of that

account. So you don't have to like move

it from your savings to your checking to

get it to do ACH. Like you can send

stablecoin immediately in microseconds,

and it'll cost you a few pennies. It is

The rails are there. They're ready. And

it's working. And I think the UI is a

little difficult, but there's no reason

why that won't get better and faster.

And so I look up, you know, and I I'm

just I wonder what the team at Meta like

they might just be kicking themselves.

Like with all the money they spent on

that coin, everything they wanted to do

on WhatsApp, like they should be running

back at it. Like I don't know

>> Well, I think so maybe they should, you

know, remember the guy who did the the

Libra network, David Marcus, has started

the lightning network now. It's a

startup. Maybe maybe Meta should go buy

you know, should go buy lightning and

bring David back in house because

you know, all the things they talked

about all the things they talked about

are now what's happening, Bill. And let

me tell you one I think you're onto

something big here, but one of the

challenges we still have I think first

anybody who looks at our current system

right, knows that it's dreadfully behind

the rest of the world. Right? And we

know it's the result of regulatory

capture by not only our issuers, but the

banks and everybody else who who likes

that who benefit from the status quo.

But if you look at Visa and MasterCard

today, I think that they're doing

something like 50,000 transactions per

second. And I checked with our good

buddy Vinnie Lingham. And he said, you

know, on on both Solana and ETH today,

they're still under 4,000 transactions

per second. So they're trying to come up

with these solutions to actually make

the rails have the functional throughput

and efficient settlement required to

really become a consumer product. But I

think you nailed the other one that you

know, Patrick Collison had a tweet on

this that I replied to, which is you

know, when Genius Act was passed, there

was massive lobbying by the banks to

prevent the crypto companies from paying

interest on stable coins.

So the settlement was that they could

pay rewards, not interest. Okay? And um

but what the way in which it's

manifested itself because Coinbase is

not the issuer, Circle is the issuer and

they did this deal. So Coinbase is

promoting it as though it was interest.

So from a consumer perspective, a reward

and interest if it's 4% is

indistinguishable. No doubt. Right? So I

put my money

>> and obviously Brian's been out on Brian

Armstrong of Coinbase has been out on X

like

arguing his side of the argument. So

he's clearly he's either getting

opposition or expecting opposition on

the regulatory front. And when I see,

you know, whether you know, whether it's

Visa or Nasdaq or any of these people

kind of run at the tokenization I always

worry like cuz if you look at the

history of like the debit card versus

the credit card, it was supposed to be

disruptive. It was supposed to be an

alternative that would change things,

but they just they just run at it and

strangle it and mix it up a little bit

and then it's not as disruptive as it

was. That's their go-to move. But you

know, when I read this thing on PIX

again, like I'm going to read this out

loud

as part of its aggressive economic and

political campaign against Brazil is

investigating PIX accusing the payment

system of unfairly utter undercutting US

financial and technology companies like

Visa and Apple.

I mean

that's the most absurd thing I've ever

heard. Undercutting Visa? Like do do

they realize they have Visa MasterCard

have like the top two operating incomes

in the history of American business?

Like like there's there's no one that

needs less protection than these guys.

If anything, there should be an

investigation

>> dinner at the White House?

>> cabal? I don't know. I I just like it's

a it's so bizarre to me. I'm so thrilled

to to see this kind of disruption. I

think that it's super interesting what's

possible. I suspect all the big guys

should be paying attention to this.

Apple, Google, Amazon anybody that might

have payment on their rails I'll go out

on a limb, Bill. You're going to see the

you're going to see the hyperscalers.

You're going to see Amazon and Meta and

these guys back involved in the stable

business. At the end of the day, we know

money is a network effects business. And

the challenge of Circle and some of

these stables from a consumer

perspective is

universal

Visa and MasterCard are universal.

So you got to get to all the merchants.

Well, who has all the merchants? Amazon

and Meta.

Right? And so I think they're in a great

position to partner with or do some of

these things themselves. Clearly they

have the instinct to do it. That's why

they did Libra in the first place. It's

also amazing for innovation. And and one

of the reasons why I think those bigger

companies should run at this is if you

look at the history of the PIX like

alternatives I mentioned in the UK and

China and India the startups that do

financial innovation scale up way more

aggressively successfully on those rails

that are cheaper and faster. And it if

if anything the having

more rigid, high friction, high

transaction cost rails makes it harder

for a startup to think about, you know,

using one of those technologies. And so

the success of WeChat Pay and Alipay,

which I as I described for my China chip

are universal. They're only way people

pay in China happened because of that

government instant pay product, not not

in spite of it. And and the same thing I

talked to the CEO of Nubank. He said PIX

was huge for his business. So it's

probably bad for a laggard bank, but for

a bank that embraces it, it just becomes

a better feature. And I think the same

thing about Coinbase and what they're

doing here. So I'm applauding the

innovation. I'm I'm I'm jumping on board

the crypto train and I hope I hope the

incumbents aren't able to strangle this

thing in Washington. Here, here. Here,

here.

As we move towards the end and and talk

about my book and what I'm going to do

next, I do want to share with you that

that both my book and and the the next

project are outside of what I've I've

spent my career doing. And and as I

mentioned, you know, that that's kind of

moving outside my comfort zone, but it's

also, you know, trying to have an impact

and give back in areas

that that I don't know as well, but but

with a hope towards having an impact.

I've said this to you before, but I I've

been just

inspired, frankly, to go do this based

on your success with Invest America.

When you first told me about it you

know, I had doubts that you could get it

done, real doubts. And

I've watched other people in your shoes

try and do these types of things over

decades and be unsuccessful. So you made

it look easy. I know it's just getting

started, um but I wanted you to know how

much that inspired what I'm going to go

do. And and could you give us an update

on where things are? Well, that means a

lot, Bill. Maybe to talk about it first

is just a reminder. You know, we I think

you and I agree, we kind of have this

battle for the soul of America when it

comes to capitalism right now. Right?

And that that's fundamentally because

too many people feel left out and left

behind. 60% of people will never own

assets that compound. Mondami's winning

the mayoral race in New York City. And

you know, they're doing it by being

anti-capitalist.

But if you look at these two charts,

I've shown them many times before it

just shows you that free market

capitalism is the most productive force

in the history of the world. Right? This

first chart just shows that GDP on a

global basis went parabolic at the exact

same time that capitalism was really

introduced and started taking off. And

you know, remind reminder like GDP is

important because it's that surplus for

humanity

with a fixed amount of labor and capital

that then leads to better schools and

better hospitals and and and drugs that

save lives and all the things that make

our lives better. And you can look at

this chart that shows the results. Fewer

mothers die in childbirth. The average

age you know, of life is extended. The

quality of life is higher. Literacy

rates are higher. Bill Gates extols upon

this in his in his annual letters. So

it's not just an investment account.

This is really a much much bigger battle

over where we want the country to go.

And I was very concerned as you know, a

few years ago that we were headed down

this path. Right? And the path is that

you can't have so many people left out

and left behind. So I think the answer

to socialism, which has not worked for

Europe, right? It Europe's in a disaster

relative to where they were 30 years ago

on a on on a global competitive basis.

And China, as you well noted, have

pulled themselves out of poverty by

leveraging capitalism, right? So the

answer to this drift into socialism is

more capitalism.

And the Invest America accounts, now

known as the Trump accounts right, are

more capitalism. They make every child a

capitalist from birth, a private owner

gives them a thousand bucks in a 401k

like account that they own and control

their family has on their phone. And so

I think that's a game changer, you know,

but you're right. We just got it passed.

So what where are we now? The Treasury

Secretary, Scott Bessent, has to

implement this. And by the way, this is

one of the largest consumer launches in

the history of government. So at the

start today, there are 65 million kids

in the country qualified for an Invest

America account. Every kid under the age

of 18.

And every kid under the age of two will

automatically get a thousand bucks in

their account. Right? So you'll probably

hear a launch starting in maybe early

December. We'll the launch the website.

People can sign up for this. Remember

the accounts have to be funded and

established by our 250th birthday, July

4, 2026. That's only nine months from

now. And I can tell you I've been blown

away by the secretary, Secretary

Bessent, the assistant secretary, Luke

Pettit, and the team at Treasury working

with the White House. They're attacking

this the way I would attack I would

expect a a Silicon Valley startup to

attack the problem. They've gotten a

great a great group of technologists.

Joe Gebbia helping to design the front

end of this, of course, from Airbnb. So

you know, we're we're on the verge now

of some major announcements, the the

start where people can start signing up

their kids. You know, and then the goal

is once we launch this, all these kids

will have these accounts. they'll be

able to roll them over into their

favorite, you know, bank, whether it's

Schwab or Fidelity or JP Morgan or what

have you. And starting on July 4th of

next year, Bill, as close to automatic

account creation as possible. So, you

have a child, the child's born, they get

a social security number, and they get

an account seeded with a thousand bucks.

From a kid's perspective, it's going to

look like I own a little bit of

Microsoft, and I own a little bit of

United Healthcare and Nvidia and

whatever. We're going to be able to

teach us, in fact, you know, your buddy

Tim, who's teaching financial literacy,

you know, we now have 30 states require

financial literacy requirements. We're

going to have this embedded in the

schools. Every kid's going to have this

on their phone. So, at any rate, it's

going incredibly well. I give I give

them a very high score, but we got to

get it done.

So,

let's talk about your book. Well, I've

been a huge fan of

of the speech you made on this, but I

love the title, Running Down a Dream.

What's the thrust of the book? I

remember

you know, kind of that lecture, but what

really compelled you to write it?

So, I was years ago, and this this is

probably going back 10 years. I was

reading a lot of biographies, and I

noticed certain patterns among people

with extraordinary careers. And as VCs,

we see a lot of patterns in businesses

and pattern recognition, and I just saw

patterns with people. And in the back of

my mind, I always wanted to do this

presentation. I I I kind of kept notes

on it like I would a unwritten Above the

Crowd blog post. And I had an

opportunity, I got invited, had an

opportunity to give the presentation to

the MBA class at the University of

Texas, and so I, you know, I worked on

it and put it together, made it nice,

and gave that presentation. They ended

up putting that on YouTube, and many

people have come to me and said that

it's changed their lives, encouraged

them to do different things. Certain

people in the in the in the media

industry noticed David Senra, who's got

the new podcast where he interviewed

Daniel Ek and Mike Cole. He's a big fan

of the presentation, talks about it a

lot in on his podcast. James Clear, who

wrote Atomic Habits, maybe one of the

best self-help personal development

writers out there. He retweeted it and

put a transcript on his own website. And

then a few people who are influential in

my life started prodding me, "Hey, you

should turn that into a book." And so,

eventually I got convinced. We talked to

publishers, they were interested, and so

I started working on this. Now, it took

a long time. And the the thing I would

say about it is that I hope that that

time equates to quality. Like, I was out

there really wanting to make it great.

And so, the book has an interesting kind

of novel architecture. We combine what I

call profiles, so stories of success

with principles, tools of success. So,

they alternate. So, you get a a story

maybe about someone you didn't know, and

how they started at the very bottom and

became successful, and then the types of

things they did. I mean, I do I do think

that the principles, these tools that

are in the book, are things people can

use. And I really wanted to be great.

It's done. I still need to record the

audio version. All the podcast fans of

ours tell me I have to do it. It has to

be my voice. So, I'm going to do it. I

hope people love it. I I hope it changes

their lives for the better. And what I

really want to encourage is people to

take a chance and and do what they

really love.

I think it's such an important topic.

You know, one of the things parents are

asking me so much these days is, you

know, what what what should my kids do?

Particularly give There's a lot of

anxiety in the world.

Right today about future careers. And

so, maybe just talk a little bit about

why this is so important now, because I

think the timing is really profound

here.

So, in in the introduction chapter, we

unpack a lot of this. And I don't think

anyone would be surprised when I read

some of this, but but Gallup Poll does a

career engagement study. They've been

doing it for a long time. I think in the

2023 when only 23% of people said they

were thriving or engaged at work, and

59% were unsatisfied. And that's just a

big universal survey. Everyone seems

aware that we've kind of moved to this

gauntlet that we've put our kids in as

they approach college and go through

college. In The Coddling of the American

Mind, Haidt and Lukianoff called it a

resume arms race. And

we've really taught them to be grinders,

but Angela Duckworth highlights that if

you have persistence but not passion,

you eventually recognize you're in a

grind. And and and and when you come out

of that, you're in a really tough spot.

And so, we've got people We've got these

kids on this runway. We We're telling

them like they have to pick a a major

even in their applications. So, they're

17. What do you want to do with your

life? What do you want to do? And And

they they really don't know. And one

thing we stumbled upon doing research on

the book, I was working with a

researcher. We did this survey and asked

people, if you could start your career

over again, would you do things

differently? And in that survey, 70% of

people said yes. And we did it again

with Wharton just to make sure we had,

you know, a true academic survey going

on, and they did a lot more people, and

that number was still six in 10. Six in

10 said if they could start a career

over, they'd do it again. And

there's a there's a great book. I read a

lot of books in writing my book, but

there's a great book called The Power of

Regret by Daniel Pink. He's He's a

well-known author, but he he has this

thing he calls boldness regrets. And he

said, "One of the most robust findings

in the academic research and on my own

is that over time we are much more

likely to regret the chances we didn't

take than the chances we did."

He says again, the surface domain,

whether the risk involved are education

or work or love lives, doesn't matter

much. What haunts us is the inaction

itself. And so, I think that I think

that ties really nicely with this idea

that if people could start over, they'd

do something they'd do something

different. There's a great video that

that Pink references that we can put in

the show notes where Bezos is asked

about the decision to leave D.E. Shaw

and

and start Amazon. And he said he used a

regret minimization framework. He said

only a nerd could do that, but he said

um

that he imagined himself being 80, and

would he care that he left D.E. Shaw

maybe for winning a bonus, you know, or

would he or would he care more that he

didn't take this chance, this kind of

instinctive chance that he felt like he

had to take. And he immediately after

thinking about it in in that way wanted

to go do it. And so,

>> Hey Hey Bill I have Bezos's regret

minimization

framework taped to my computer monitor.

There you go. I didn't even know that.

>> literally taped to my monitor. Yeah.

Powerful.

Yeah. So, so that's that's that's what

this is about. That's what this book is

about. That's who it's for. And I want

more people to take a flyer and go do

what they love. You know, we have a

phrase I use in the book, life is a use

it or lose it proposition. Totally.

One shot deal, man. Well, how do you

plan to promote it? It comes out in

February, late February. And so, I'm

just getting started in that process. If

people have ideas they want to share

with me, please reach out and let me

know.

>> I'll host I'll host a book launch event,

Bill. Okay. We We've got We've got a lot

of fun stuff planned, but but but uh but

um I need to record the audio book. I I

know that's going to take a a lot of

time. I'm excited. There's a handful of

people that have read it, maybe maybe 50

in the publisher and whatnot, and nearly

every one of them tells me that they

immediately thought of three or four

people they want to give it to. And so,

I hope there's kind of a viral component

to it because people have that reaction.

But, you know, if you're feeling stuck

in your career, I you should read it. If

you're a teenager or young adult who

feels overwhelmed by people telling you

What do you want to major in? Where do

you want to go? What are you going to do

with your Like, I think this book

won't put more pressure on them. I think

it'll actually relax them and give them

a framework that feels like a lot more

personal to themselves and like they're

a lot more in control. If you're a

parent that wants to help a child on

that journey, I think parents sometimes

overly push kids into the lawyer doctor

banker framework. I'm not sure that's

healthy, especially in this AI world

where those jobs may be under risk as

well. And then maybe if you're, you

know, an administrator or someone in the

type of role that guide people in career

decisions, hopefully you'll like it as

well. But, we'll put the pre-order link

in the in in the show notes. I will put

it on my X feed. Please go out and

pre-order the book. I think it'll help

it be reach more people and and be

successful. Well, I think it's

it's going to be hugely impactful. And

it's the type of stuff of consequence.

I'm I'm I'm just, you know, I'm thrilled

that you're doing it. I'm thrilled that

you're taking the time to do it. I know

that's not the only thing that you're

you're thinking about. You have these

other, you know, big topics that you're

thinking about as well, Bill. We've

talked about them here, and I'm sure we

will continue to. Regulatory capture, US

healthcare, nuclear, et cetera. What are

you thinking about

with respect to those things? So, I'm

You going to write a book on every one

of them? No, I That's well, I could, but

it's not it's not my goal. My My goal is

to just go spend more times on these

really big problems and see if I can be

helpful in any way. I've spent a career

kind of breaking down and analyzing

different situations. I mean, two two of

my favorite podcasts we've done, and and

I hear I hear about this from the

community as well,

the one we did at Diablo Canyon, and

then

the one about around my China trip. And

those types of of work are very

rewarding for me, but they also were

learning expeditions. You know, I went

out and put in more hours for those

episodes than others.

>> Right. And the the nuclear one in

particular, you know, one of the things

people ask me, why would I want to go do

this? You know, we were a small part of

a movement to kind of change the mindset

on nuclear energy. And there were there

were people that put a lot more effort

into us. I'm not trying to take credit

for it. But, you know, the fact that

Steve Pinker was out there, Elon, you

know, our stuff like eventually

happened. Like overnight, it seemingly

overnight, we went from a very negative

mindset towards nuclear energy to

recognizing that it's very clean energy

and something that that can really help

save the planet. And so, that type of

meme flip, if I could go achieve more of

those in these other areas, I would

consider it a win. So, that's what's

motivating me. I'm really looking

forward to it. I'm kind of fired up and

nervous at the same time. But but that's

what that's what I'm thinking about.

There'll be more to come on that in

terms of what the actual platform looks

like. I'm still working on it. But for

now, I'm going to I'm going to sprint

into February to make sure the book does

well. I couldn't be more stoked for you.

This has been a total blast. You and I

have been chopping it up for, you know,

for a couple of decades, but doing this

last 2 years together, pounding out

these has been a lot of fun for me. I'm

sure we'll continue to chop it up every

day. And, you know, I'm sure that you'll

find some topic that you can't live

without exploring on

>> Can't resist talking about. Exactly. So,

so we'll we'll we'll get you back on.

But I'm going to give you the last word,

Bill. It's awesome awesome to hear about

all of this, and I'm super excited for

the book. Well, I would I would just,

you know, end the way I started, Brett.

Thanks to you. It's been fun working

together on this and and and doing it

every week. It does force you to stay

fresh. You have to read everything you

possibly can, which I'm sure is super

helpful to you as an investor. And then,

thanks to thanks to all our listeners.

Like

I'm

I'm sure some of them are feel going to

feel like I'm letting them down, and I I

feel the weight of that. Um but

hopefully they'll recognize that I'm

going to go try and put put my work

effort to good to good causes.

As a reminder to everybody, just our

opinions, not investment advice.