All right, welcome to the show

everybody. Number one podcast in the

world and uh man going to be really

exciting come September, September 7th

Days at 9th, the All-In Summit in its

fourth year this week. Um doing

Freedberg's job for him because he's

been a little bit busy. Lockdown

is in uh looks like Jason, what are you

in? Why are you doing this? Cut. Nick

beep.

Every year you pre-announce a bunch of

people who don't show up. It's literally

you literally pick people who don't. I

got Elon to come three out of three

years. I have gotten a couple of

trillion dollars in market cap for your

freeberg. Um and more to come. Don't

worry about it. Don't worry about it.

This year is going to be better than

ever. Better than ever.

Allin.com/summit.

And

lots of exciting news around the tequila

boys. Freeird. Did you see MSN covered

me sending a case of the tequila to

Bezos? I didn't see that.

What do we do now?

[Music]

Let your winners ride.

[Music]

We open source it to the fans and

they've just gone crazy with it.

We've uh been crushed with orders.

Apologies if we're taking a little bit

of time with customer support. Uh, but

you can go to tequila.allin.com.

Deliveries begin in late summer, right

around the time I think of the uh,

summit. Greenberg and I were in Las

Vegas this past weekend. It was a blast

as always. We had a really good time. We

had 20 of our besties or so with us. No,

great. Great time. It was great. Good

time. I wish I could have been there,

but I was on the Snake River doing a

little invite. I was in What were you

talking about? I was getting lobbyed

like cancel your family trip whitewater

rafting to come to Vegas. I was like

yeah I don't remember inviting you free

bird. Do you remember?

Trust me people when you go to Vegas you

want Jal. Jayl was a good time in Vegas

but I didn't

got a lot of invites but I Nick pull up

the picture. I was on the Snake River

there. I was doing my white water

rafting trip and so if you're ever

interested in um doing a fun trip with

your family you can do these two three

night occasions. Yeah. No, I'm not. You

camp on the side. You eat mid food.

Yeah. You don't shower for three days

and you four days. But yeah, there's the

view from the Snake River. It was

absolutely stunning.

And uh yeah, we Is that where is Snake

River? Is that also where like Snake

River Farms comes from? You know, the

high quality meat? Yes, I'm sure it is.

Uh Idaho

border. Yeah, Idaho border. So that is

Yeah, that's that's where Snake River

Farms is. Not as good as Long Hill Wagu,

but you know. Yeah. I mean, listen,

these are that's like two elite steak

producers. Get the Koulette, aka the

pana. All right, listen. The uh BBB has

passed the Senate. Let's get into this

docket, but there was a bit of drama in

the House after an allnight session and

over 24 hours of deliberation. Senate

passed the big beautiful bill on

Tuesday.

Friend of the pod JD Vance cast the

tiebreaking vote after a 50/50 deadlock.

Three Republicans voted no and uh Trump

won over Senator Ron Johnson. On this

very podcast, he said he would be a no

unless more spending was cut. There were

significant changes to the bill. We'll

get into that in a minute. And so, it's

got to pass the House again before Trump

can sign into law. Lots of drama. Trump

set the deadline for July 4th, which is

Friday when you're listening to this.

And it will, in all likelihood, get

there. According to Poly Market, there

is a 96% chance the bill will pass by

Thursday and a 97% chance it'll pass by

Friday, July 4th, Independence Day, the

day we publish. So, it looks like it's

pretty much a lock. Some uh big changes

in the Senate. Biggest change, the

10-year AI regulation moratorium, which

we're going to talk about for states was

removed. Ted Cruz tried to negotiate

cutting it to 5 years. Suggestion I made

10 years was a little bit too long for

folks, but that didn't work. According

to an NGO called National Conference of

State Legislatores, over a thousand

bills related to AI have been filed by

state lawmakers in 2025. So expect a lot

of state-by-state AI regulation. I think

this is a good place to stop. We don't

have Saxs here to talk about AI

regulation, but he talked about it the

last time. Fraberg, your thoughts on

states. You know, we talked about state

rights here in relation to abortion,

guns, gun regulations, cannabis, many

different, you know, debates over who

should get to decide for the country.

Where do you stand on this one? Should

states have a voice in how AI is

deployed in their, you know, borders,

uh, within their borders, or should the

federal government take this, and if so,

for how many years? Because that seemed

to be a sticking point.

Look, I I'm a big believer in the

construct of our federated republic in

the United States where states can

operate with as much kind of discretion

as they choose to with the laws that

they pass and how they intend to govern.

There are however things that affect

more than the state. We have interstate

commerce. We have international

commerce. We have the open internet. And

we have a lot of other systems at play

here that extend beyond the boundaries

of a state. And the way that AI tools

and AI systems and AI services and AI

related jobs are being deployed and

activated. I do think it's critical that

we treat AI regulation at a national

level, at a federal level. To date,

there have been, I believe, 70 state

laws or statutes passed thus far in the

United States with, I think, over a

thousand having been proposed to date,

if the numbers are right. And having a

patchwork of regulations on, for

example, model development or telling

software companies what software they

can deploy would make it practically

impossible for internet service

providers like a Google or an OpenAI to

service customers across state

boundaries

in a way that is actually going to meet

the needs of the customer. This is a

huge detriment to consumers and a huge

detriment to the job market if we end up

creating a patchwork of regulations on

AI this early. One of the things that I

would point out is that much of the

early legislation like for example what

we saw in California, if you read that

legislation that did not get signed by

Gavin Newsome in California, there was a

definition on model parameters being a a

boundary condition for whether or not

something would go through a regulatory

review process. That was such a naive

assertion that early in the phase of AI

technology development. And think about

the implication was okay well everything

is LLMs but there's other models like

vision action models that are going to

be used in robotics models that might be

used in predicting and driving physical

systems like in

self-driving cars for example. So the

way that the regulation gets written

will often be done in a naive context in

a limited fashion by regulators that

don't fully understand the breadth of

the technology that's coming our way.

And I do think that it needs to be kind

of leveled up and allowed to operate at

a federal level. So I think it is

absolutely critical not just for

technology companies, not just for the

industry, but for the opportunity for

job creation, for improving the economy,

for driving GDP and productivity growth

that we get something passed that forces

AI regulation to be done at a federal

level. Even though I generally agree

that states should be able to

self-govern, this just has too much of a

interstate and global interaction. That

was the biggest disappointment for me in

the negotiation that's gone on with this

bill is that of all the things that I

thought were going to be passed that I

thought were maybe not ideal, getting

this AI federal preeemption in that bill

was probably the best thing, the top of

the list for me in terms of critically

important for the US economy. Yeah,

Chimat, your thoughts here? Obviously,

abortion is like an interesting one to

look at because that went to the states

in furtherance of Freeberg's,

you know, position here. You have just

many different rules and regulations

between Texas, Oklahoma, whatever it is.

Everybody's got a different view. It's

chaotic and we don't have a singular

point of view on it. Therefore, women in

one state have very different rules than

in another state. So, where did you fall

on this one? Federal legislation or is

it just going to take more time to

figure this out? I mean, that that's

another I guess angle here. Yeah, this

is nothing like abortion. Okay. Abortion

is an individual issue between a woman,

her doctor, her partner,

her god.

And so

a state being able to have rules

and then allowing that woman to choose

which state she can go to is quite

reasonable because I think that it

acknowledges that there's no

oneizefits-all.

So that is clearly a state issue.

But the reality is that AI is of

national security importance.

It is the tip of the spear of our

ability to have technological supremacy.

That is how we have economic supremacy.

And so not governing it at the federal

level, I think, is a mistake. And it

makes as much sense for states to

legislate AI as it would make sense for

states

to have competitive

armies. It doesn't make sense. There are

certain things that are just so

fundamentally primary to American

supremacy and safety and security that

it needs to be regulated at the federal

level and I think AI needs to be at the

top of that list. So I was disappointed

that we weren't able to see the forest

from the trees here. Now I'm sensitive

to part of the reasons why

many of the states have very specific

issues around child safety that they

mentioned in Tennessee. There was a lot

about copyright ownership related to

musicians and their content. I get all

of that. Those are legitimate things

that need to get ironed out, but I think

that it could have been done in a

federal framework. Not having it, I

think the risk is that if you have 50

different sets of regulation, and it

won't even just be 50, as Freebick said,

it's going to be, you know, all kinds of

pet organizations that pop up in all of

these states. What happens? I think what

it does is it slows down startups and

smaller companies who won't have the

economic heft to fight these regulations

or to work with them or to figure it out

and it'll advantage a handful of

incumbents. And the problem with that is

that our incumbents aren't yet mature

and this industry is still developing.

So I think this is um this is one of the

unfortunate parts of what is otherwise a

a pretty reasonable bill.

Well, you uh can look at gambling, I

guess, and cannabis legislation. These

are things that Americans largely want

to do, and they are fighting their way

state by state. And at some point, we

may have a federal regulation about

online gambling, right? Uh right now,

it's a patchwork. Same thing with

cannabis, psychedelics, all a patchwork

of different states. Why do you lump

together things that are about

individual rights with AI, which I I

don't think is I don't think is about

that. People might look at the rights of

rights holders, cars, these AI things

are going to hit people on an individual

level. So I I think when you bring this

up this topic, there are people who feel

this is an individual sovereignty issue,

right? But you know there are other

issues of individual sovereignty like

the ability to take drugs and there's

still federal mandates that come through

the FDA. You know, you're not allowed to

short circuit or circumvent that

framework at a state-by-st state level.

Yeah, that that actually is at the core

of the cannabis debate is would they

enforce the federal laws on cannabis and

they haven't, right? So that was I'm

talking about more as it relates to AI.

Sure. You know,

because AI means everything. I think

that's what makes this issue very

difficult. AI is going to affect

everything, right? So probably the

people who want to slow this down and

have the states do it are saying let the

states have their say on these granular

issues. I'm not saying this is my

position, but I think that's what I'm

reading into their position. Hey, this

is going to affect different states in

different ways. Let them figure it out.

Take some time and then we'll build

towards a a framework nationally, which

I think is what happened with the

internet in section 230 as well.

Although I don't know the entire history

of it, we did come up with an idea that

hey, the federal government makes it

common carrier to, you know, anybody can

post anything on a website and then, you

know, you can request to take it down.

That was federal legislation. those

things could have been held also on a

individual basis and then what would

have happened for the internet you would

have to have AOL or Geocities have a

different patchwork like you're saying

in regulations. So I'm guessing the

states probably do want to have a say on

self-driving that one specifically and I

don't know if they're wrong. What do you

think on self-driving? Should it be

federal? I mean that's like an

interesting lens to look at it through.

I don't know the details well enough. It

seems to me that self-driving touches

both the states and the federal. Sure.

Federal highways and local roads. Yeah.

So, but just from first principles, you

know, there's self-driving cars now in

Palo Alto going up to the city from

Whimo, you got Austin, you got three

different providers. Should this should

the city, the state have a say in that?

Kind of feels like they should. Yeah.

Sure. Yeah. So, I mean, I think that I

don't I don't think a city has any idea

how to regulate a model. No, that's

where it's obvious. The other side like

how would they ever even know? And

another piece that's in flux and has

been changing is energy policy, solar,

EV credits, and uh maybe even

disincentives,

the $7,500 credit for buying cars, and

then also a carbon credits and a fee of

$250 for everybody who owns an EV every

year. Freeberg, maybe you could talk a

little bit about this part of the debate

because we've been spending and hitting

incredible goals as a country in getting

more renewables, more energy online, but

that comes at a cost, right? And so that

is a big part of the debate here. And

that obviously is something that impacts

Elon, and we'll get to him in a moment,

but that impacts Elon and Trump's

relationship in a major way.

The old school motivation and incentive

for what people would call green energy

or green tech was to decarbonize

electricity production and develop and

deploy at scale these new technologies

at the time like wind and solar as an

alternative to carbon based technologies

that put carbon dioxide in the

atmosphere like oil and coal and gas.

So, the IRA, the Inflation Reduction

Act, created tremendous government

incentives for building solar and wind

farms to create electricity in the

United States.

This proposal that's been going back and

forth in this bill and some of the

debate that's triggered many folks

online to denounce the bill takes away

those incentives, takes away those

credits, takes away the EV tax credit

starting in September, as an example.

Why can't they do these in digestible

chunks? It should be no more than 300

pages per bill, no more than x number of

issues and break. Good conversation to

have. Good conversation to have another

time, but we should talk to people on

Congress. But there's a very specific

reason why because of the uh the log jam

that happens with the filibuster. So, it

makes it impossible to get things done

in that traditional context. So what's

happened in the last couple years is you

end up with these massive massive mega

bills where they jam everything into one

bill that they can pass with 50 votes

and then 51 votes they make these last

minute changes and then it all gets dark

there's there's no rigorous debate

there's no transparency into what's

going on and why and so the second

argument away from the green stuff is

the more modern stuff which I've made

and I know Chimath agrees with me on

this which is we have to increase

electricity production in this country

the current plan has been to move from 1

to two terowatts by 2040. Meanwhile,

China's moving from 3 to 8. And China is

adding an entire United States and

electricity production capacity every 18

months right now. They are so far ahead

of us. And ultimately, electricity

production is what drops the price for

things and increases jobs, increases

GDP, increases your ability to make

stuff. And so the more electricity

production comes online, the more we

will be able to be sufficient in an AI

point. Now the secretary of energy uh

secretary Wright gave an interview and

he said we have more than enough

capacity with uh gas, oil and coal and

nuclear. And so his argument at this

point is that we don't need to subsidize

solar and wind where the government pays

for these programs and private equity

investors can make money on them. This

is a big part of the argument he's

making. I'm not making it. But he's

saying this will drive traditional

energy investments in traditional

systems that we can scale up quickly to

meet our energy production goals. Now, I

will say from my point of view, I'm not

a huge fan of being dependent on

government subsidized energy at all. So,

if the government is having to play a

role in funding stuff, there's something

really questionable in terms of our

sustainability on that energy production

source over time. Will it actually be

able to make more of it? Because what

you want is not just to make a bunch of

energy in the next six years or 12

years. You want to make sure that you've

got an engine for creating new energy

production on a continuous basis. So we

climb nonlinearly the energy production

curve. That's what we need to do. And I

hope that one of the key outputs of

this, which a lot of people are really

unhappy about the the loss of the demand

for solar and wind because of the loss

of the government uh programs here. But

what I'm hopeful for is it creates a

natural market force for nuclear and

that we actually see a better

proliferation in nuclear which Secretary

Wright has said and President Trump

signed these EOS a couple weeks ago to

reduce the regulatory burden on nuclear

and increase the ability for nuclear to

proliferate much more quickly than has

been the case historically. So I while a

lot of people are saying hey this is

going to take away all this energy

production capacity that's coming online

in the next few years or supposed to.

The counterargument is we're going to

create a natural market force because

the energy demand will still be there.

So someone's going to show up and say,

"Hey, I want to make electricity because

there's so much demand for it." And

maybe they say, "Hey, let's try this new

nuclear dereg system and see if we can

get it to work." And so I don't know,

the jury is absolutely out. We have not

seen this energy proliferation begin in

this country. But I do think one of the

potential benefits of removing those

clean energy tax credits is that we

actually see natural market forces drive

demand for a more naturally sustainable,

scalable energy production source. Your

thoughts? I announced this a few weeks

ago, but I dipped my toe into real

estate. I've never done real estate

before, but just outside of Phoenix,

we're building a 1 gawatt data center.

That's a $25 billion total investment

cycle of which we'll be into it for 2 or

3 billion of equity when it's probably

all said and done.

What I can tell you is the reason why

you can underwrite that deal or why I

was able to underwrite the deal was

it's located downstream of a nuclear

reactor and so there's effectively

infinite energy that we can tap but we

still need gas and a bunch of other

things. The problem is that, you know,

if we put in an order right now, we

can't get an A gas turbine

viable and turned on until 2030. It's

not a technology issue. It's purely a

supply chain issue. So, I think what our

energy policy needs to make sure we

contemplate is that many of the things

that we are debating are no longer

issues of production, but they're issues

of supply, transmission, and

distribution. And as long as we can make

sure that

we

allow energy to be made wherever and

whenever possible and then stored

however possible will be on the forward

foot. The big risk is that if we

don't have that ability and then all of

a sudden we have these incredible

achievements in technology in robotics

and we don't have the electricity to

power them. That's the big risk. As long

as we can fix that, I still worry that

with nuclear, the issue won't be the

federal regulations. I think that it's

good that the president cleaned it up.

The real problem is going to be the

local and state regulators and how

quickly they're willing to turn these

on. And the reality is that, you know,

these are 10-year projects. And so even

if you say go from today, the earliest

these things can be turned on really in

2032, 2033. That's far too late. And

that's a lot of risk too, Chimath,

because what if you get blocked at the

last minute? This is where solar and

other projects, you know, we're big as

well. I'll tell you a story. In 2020,

right before the pandemic,

I I don't even know if I should say the

name of the company, but I almost went

after a coal company to buy it. And I

had been obsessed with this company for

a year. And it was cheap. It fell on

hard times. It was like a billion two, a

billion three. And my team went up in

arms. They were like, "Oh my god, it's

so dirty. you can't own a coal company

and it was such a huge miss on my part.

I should have just bought the bloody

thing. Then we went into co then you

know everything went upside down and lo

and behold that company's like

quintupled since then. So I'm a fan of

all forms of energy production. I think

the marginal cost of energy has to go to

zero which means that any single way you

can get your hands on electricity

production

is a winning trade over the next 20

years in the United States. This is I

was trying to wrap my head around people

saying, "Oh, we shouldn't buy all these

solar panels out of China because China

is making them so cheaply and our trade

imbalance, etc." And I was like, "Well,

wait a second. What's more important?

The trade imbalance and giving China

some money for solar panels. We're

getting more solar panels to Arizona,

you know, to Utah." Look, let's take the

subsidies off the table. Ultimately, you

don't want any of these markets

subsidized. The reality is it is faster

and more efficient to put solar panels

up and start generating electricity.

It's just that it's like 17 months from

start to finish. 17 months. So that's

probably in my opinion the single most

valuable underwriting feature of solar

which is you put a dollar in, you can

start generating revenue in 17 months

from that dollar going in. That's very

different than when you're putting a

dollar in and you're not going to see it

back for a decade plus. That's scary.

And so you need to generate a rate of

return that justifies a 10 or 15 year

investment cycle.

And that's hard to do because there's a

lot of volatility in the world and

things can go, you know, down as well as

up. So I don't know. My my perspective

is get rid of all the subsidies at this

point. Create a clean slate, but don't

do anything to hinder the production of

electricity because we need literally as

much of it as we can get our hands on.

And then we need to find a way of

storing it in a safe way and then we're

off to the races. And the battery

technology freeberg is just keeps making

great incremental process pro progress

in terms of cost you know just going

down what 15%. Jason I have a question

for you. Yeah. How many days a year do

you think California

is in an energy deficit? How many days a

year is California in an energy deficit?

Doesn't have enough energy. It would be

during the summer months. You know where

electricity prices go crazy where they

have to find all kinds of ways of

generating massive amounts of base load.

How many like a third of the time 100?

Five. That's it. Wow. So we've really

made progress. We you know in California

our grid is on average about between 45

and 50% utilized. This is for PG& I

don't know what it's like for SoCal

Edison. Yeah. Down south. The point I'm

trying to make is that in normal market

conditions for residential, we have

tremendous amounts of power and for most

needs, we have tremendous supply.

So things can be pretty good. The

problem is all of the stuff downstream

from the making of it. And if we don't

clean that up, we're going to create

these artificial constraints that will

come back to bite us when we really need

the power to do something very exciting.

Yeah. All right. Uh, let's move on to

Elon and Trump's relationship. Everybody

wants to hear our take on what's going

on between Elon and Trump in relation to

this bill. We took a pass on it last

time, uh, but we'll take a swing at it

now. Uh, obviously there's been a bit of

back and forth between, uh, two of our

friends, friends of the show, both Elon

and uh, Trump are Are you friends with

Trump, Jacob? Well, I'm I'm speaking on

behalf of the show. Um, I have never met

Trump in person, but I did interview him

on behalf of me and sex. But on behalf

of the show, listen, you guys are all

team Trump

and sex. Yeah. Well, you're team Trump,

too. Elon has I'm not I'm not I've never

met the guy. You've never met in the

White House. You took pictures in the

White House. Never met the guy. Never

met him. Never met in person. Okay.

Spent time in the White House, but

didn't meet him. Okay, no problem. Yeah.

Anyway, Elon has come out hard against

this bill. He tweeted, "It is obvious

with the insane spending of this bill,

which increases the debt ceiling by a

record $5 trillion, that we live in a

one party country, the Porky Pig Party.

Time for a new political party that

actually cares about the people." This

escalated a bit, but this isn't as bad

as the first time around. When um asked

if he would deport Elon, Trump said, "I

don't know. We'll have to take a look."

And said he might stick Doge on Elon

since he gets a lot of subsidies.

Freeberg, we skipped talking about it

because it was uh I think a bit chaotic

last time, but this time I think maybe

we'll chime in a bit. Things aren't as

hot right now and the bill is going to

get through. So, let's take a swing at

it. What are your thoughts, Freeberg, on

the kfluffle, the Donny Brook, the

bruhaha between Elon and President

Trump? There's a lot of people that are

making accurate declarations that

federal spending needs to be reduced,

the deficit needs to be shrunk. we are

in a debt death spiral and they are

absolutely correct. So I don't think

that Elon is off the reservation when he

makes those comments and he's talked

about this continuously and he dedicated

months of his life to operating Doge and

trying to bring to light some of the

extraordinary operating inefficiencies

in the federal government that should be

addressed. And I think you know we'll

see what happens. jury still out. For

those actions to get permanent, they I

believe need to mandate them in a

appropriations bill. And the White House

has publicly declared that they are

going to move forward with an

appropriations bill to try and cement

some of the Doge actions. So I'm

hopeful, but I think Elon's right with

respect to the spending. I will provide

the voice I have heard publicly stated

from the alternative view from the White

House, which is this is not the bill to

do that because it mostly focuses on

these mandatory spending programs and

they are addressing cost savings to some

degree in these mandatory spending

programs while keeping the tax rates

where they are or reducing tax rates in

some cases which the expectation is will

stimulate GDP growth. So the White House

view is also a view that you could look

at and say economically I could see a

path here that does make sense. You're

reducing spending only on mandatory

programs. You're going to come back with

an appropriations bill to address

discretionary spending. And then the

final kind of action that the White

House might take which we've heard about

separately is empoundment that at the

end of the fiscal year they may come

back and say all the money that we saved

by not spending it we can actually

recover through empoundment. And the CBO

has not accounted for tariff revenue.

And just looking at the recent deal done

with Vietnam, Vietnam's about $130

billion a year of uh imports to the

United States. And they did a deal that

they announced two days ago with a 20%

tariff on Vietnam, which you know, if

Vietnam's import volume does not

increase, is about 26 billion a year of

incremental revenue for the federal

government. So there's an argument that

Bessant and Lutnik and others are making

that you guys have failed to recognize

that we've got a few other things we

have up our sleeve that we're going to

do. We're going to do empoundment. We're

going to do this appropriations bill.

We've got more revenue coming in. Net

net, we will get the deficit down to

where we need to be. In fact, Scott

Besson was on TV saying over and over,

"We're going to get the deficit below 3%

of GDP," which is the key target here.

But the immediate reaction to this bill,

I think that Elon is having is the same

that I've had and it is the same that

Senator Johnson had and is the same that

many others have had, which is what the

f are we doing? We are in a fiscal

emergency in this country and we're not

addressing it. So, I think both points

of view can be valid and both sides can

have a good kind of argument for why the

bill should be passed and why the bill

shouldn't be passed. The White House has

declared that this is the only way

they're going to get some of the

programs done that they believe they

need to get done for national security

like the ICE border stuff. And these are

things that they believe they need to

get done. But a lot of folks are looking

at the numbers and saying this just

isn't enough and you're now increasing

the deficit by cutting taxes. One of the

things the CBO does not do though is

they don't have a strong model and

there's a ton of economic debate on this

point which is how did tax cuts

stimulate GDP growth and job creation

and income growth for people with jobs.

The one argument is when you cut taxes

more dollars flow into the economy more

jobs are created. More businesses are

created but GDP grows. Income for other

people grows. The alternative argument

is it's a tax cut for the rich. What are

you doing? they're going to put that

money in their pocket. It's only going

to benefit themselves. So that's I think

a key crux in the argument that you'll

never get to a resolution on. The one

side will use that one argument and the

other side will use the other argument.

So look, I mean with respect to Elon and

Trump, I will say one thing very

importantly. I don't think MAGA can

exist successfully without the tech

alignment. I don't think tech can exist

without MAGA because of the government

alignment and the importance of the

government allowing these new

technologies like AI to come to market

and to proliferate. I don't think that

these two can exist in isolation and in

conflict with one another. Elon is the

deacto king of tech. He is the person

that is saying look if I'm in conflict

with Trump tech is in conflict with

Trump or that at least that is the

perception on the MAGA side. And I think

that that is very risky for both sides

to allow a conflict to kind of endure.

And I do think that both sides have

heads that are going to be cooler that

will prevail here. And I do think that

these two are going to recognize the

importance of being codependent, if you

will in being able to progress their

respective agendas. Chimath, your

thoughts on the Kurfluffle

seem to be winding down and maybe

reaching some sort of endgame. It feels

like we're in some sort of an endgame

here. And if there is one, what is it?

I mean, I think it's just important to

recognize that on the one side you have

the most powerful person in the world

and on the other side you have the most

important powerful entrepreneur and

richest man in the world. And when you

have people that are that accomplished,

it's not as if you're going to get along

100% of the time. So I think a lot of

the breathlessness around all of this

stuff is overblown. I think the reality

is that when push comes to shove, I

think that they agree on more things

than they probably disagree.

And I think when everybody realizes that

the alternative is essentially

some insane form of socialism and

redistribution,

I think the alliance will hold

and that they'll find some common

ground. Jason, what do you think? Well,

I think you're right. These two

individuals are used to speaking their

mind and they're both really good at

social media and then there's no better

media cycle than covering the two of

them battling it out and trading barbs.

But I think what Elon did this cycle was

really interesting. He started a

preference stack

for Trump and that cascade, preference

cascade, preference stack, however you

want to phrase it, you know, I think

played a large role, if not the role in

getting Trump elected. People can debate

that. I don't know that you can

perfectly know what that $250 million

and all that effort he put in, you know,

what that did in terms of Trump's

chances. Trump probably would have won

anyway versus Kamla, but maybe not.

Putting that aside, the platform Elon

has refined during this political cycle

is one that resonates and I think it's a

really good idea for him to maybe if

he's going to be involved in politics,

pull that string and just crisply define

it. And I was thinking about it over the

last couple days and I think it hits

into four basic groups. Balance budget

and government efficiency. That's kind

of one. fiscal responsibility,

sustainable energy, which obviously he's

been passionate about, and he's the

leader in solar, batteries, EVs, and

then manufacturing in the United States,

which he also is the leader in, and

pronatalism, and just, you know, the uh

the population crisis. He he really

cares about those four issues. So what I

think he should do is take that America

pack and instead of making it like just

pro MAGA, he should just clearly define

what it is that he believes. Small set

of issues and then he should go and back

the people who are running to to be in

Congress and senators and just say,

"Hey, here is what I would like you to

be in favor of." And do what Norquist

did with his no new taxes pledge. Do

some sort of pledge like that. I don't

know if it needs to be a new party, but

just really crisply define what matters

to him. If he's going to be involved in

politics, then get people to agree on

it. And if he wants to give them

donations, as is his right, as is his

pack's right, to raise money, he could

represent, I think, a very world

positive view. Sustainable energy, just

incredible execution, and a really

efficient government. He should

technical excellence, technical

excellence, excellence at large. And

America, just go for it. and and and it

doesn't have to be personal against

Trump. One of the big problems with

Trump is he he has a bunch of sick

offense around him and the more you kind

of appease him and just blindly follow

him, I think the closer you the

perception is that's the closer you get

to him. I don't know that that's true. I

think he likes debating stuff. So, I

think he should embrace the people who

debate it with him and then those people

should just crisply say, "Here's what I

stand for and I'm putting my money

behind it. I hope we're in alignment,

but I'm going to stay in my lane and I'm

going to prioritize what matters to me.

And Elon's priorities are exceptionally

sharp and well-defined, and he should

pursue them. Yeah. Jury's out on where

this ends up and the broader picture.

You guys will get annoyed because I've

talked about Ray Dalio so much, but I

think he's done an amazing job in the

last 5 years basically explaining

everything we've seen from global

conflict to the internal conflict, the

rise of socialism in the US and the

relationship to the debt and deficit

cycle. He just posted on Twitter

yesterday that he went to DC to discuss

the budget deficit with senior people on

both sides of the aisle. and he said,

"It's clear to me that we are unlikely

to change the debt trajectory we're on

and avoid the painful consequences." And

he talked a lot about this concept of

absolutist politics. And this is the

same reaction I've had every time I've

gone to DC and we've met with members of

Congress. And if you guys remember from

the beginning, I said Doge isn't going

to be it. As much as Elon can identify

and resolve to a better way of operating

the federal government's agencies, you

cannot change the spending without a

change in statute from Congress. You

have to get Congress to act. And every

time I met with members of Congress,

their incentive is to keep the money

flowing to their districts. That's what

they focus on. And every year their

districts want more in different

contexts, in different forms, through

different programs. And that's what

their job is. Their job is to go to DC

to represent their state's interest or

their local district's interests and say

we need to make sure that we're taken

care of as the money flows. And as a

result, everything keeps getting bigger

and bigger and spiraling away. At the

end of the day, the way we economically

save America, if we even have a shot

without money printing, which a lot of

people like Bology and Dalio and others

are now indicating is what's going to

happen is we're going to end up

inflating away or printing away all of

the debt that we've taken on, is to get

to a 33, which Bessant has highlighted

is also his goal. 3% federal deficit to

GDP, 3% GDP growth, and 3% inflation.

And just to give you a sense of where

those numbers sit today, the current

estimate is 6% deficit to GDP, 2.4%

inflation. So we've actually got a

little bit of room to run on inflation.

And GDP growth this year of 1.4%.

So will the tax cuts in this bill

increase GDP growth? Will AI increase

GDP growth? The jury is out. Will the

tariff revenue reduce the deficit more

than the CPO is estimating? And the

increased GDP growth reduce the deficit?

The jury is still out. And what will

happen with inflation? And if the Fed

cuts rates, you're going to see

inflation climb a little bit more. Maybe

the tariffs effect on inflation will

still come through. Some folks have said

that hasn't hit yet, but it will come

later this year. Will we exceed 3%.

Inflation TBD. So, the jury is still

very much out on whether these actions

that are being taken, which Bessant has

declared is going to get us to that 333

number. But then a lot of folks who are

looking at this with a cold stare with

like no political influence with no

political

intention not representing a party not

representing an administration like Ray

Dalio are saying what the there is no

way we're going to get there. Bology I

think you know pointed out in his tweet

his point is actually a very good point

which is our debt is not just the

federal debt but there's other debt that

we're not even accounting for. consumer

debt. I've said this in the past.

There's there's actually corporate debt.

Yeah. The business debt, consumer debt.

There's also state and local debt. And

then the one key number that we never

talk about is the unaccounted for

liabilities in public pension funds,

which is on the order of trillions of

dollars more. So when you add all of

this up, someone's going to pay the

bills on all that debt or we're going to

have to inflate away that debt by

printing money. And at some point, the

trains left the station. A lot of people

are saying, "We're done. there's no way

out of this. So, you know, the Elon

Trump battle is like an interesting kind

of side kurfuffle, but it's not really

the big story here. The big story is the

trains left the station. You know, I

think if we're if we look at this as the

first year that tech really got actively

involved in politics. Obviously, Peter

Teal has been at this for a little bit

longer in his support of JD Vance, the

vice president. I'm looking at this as

like maybe this is year one that Gen X

is truly engaged in making a difference

in Washington and setting an agenda.

That agenda, you know, has 25 years

ahead of it if everybody remains this

engaged, whether it's people like Sachs

or TL or Elon or countless other people.

You know, what is JD Vance's position on

this when he runs for president in four

years? What will these other individuals

Dean Phillips who've had on the program

if he decides to run? I think this is,

you know, we're maybe 5% into the impact

this could be having and already

Adam and Freeberg, I always give you a

lot of credit for this. Two years ago

when you said you started bringing this

up incessantly on the program and to the

point at which it was during it was

during co I started doing this. Yeah. It

was three years ago and um you know like

Yeah. I mean you're to your you're

admitting you've been annoying for three

or four years. I think actually it's

it's the it's the sand that might make

the uh pearl and the oyster. We need to

address this. It's become a top issue of

our time. That's actually success. The

fact that this issue is now the issue of

our time, our budget, our fiscal

responsibility, austerity, that's

actually a really good thing. And yeah,

maybe it doesn't get manifested in this

bill, but maybe it will get manifested

in JD Vance's, you know, presidential

run or Dean Phillips or the both of them

will be discussing it in three and a

half years or three years when they're

on the presidential trail. So that could

be actually the early sign of success

for this. I'm an optimist.

Good luck.

Cap that it's over. Yeah. I mean, we sit

here and we parked on this topic dozens

of times. We keep talking about, oh, we

need to do this, we need to do that. But

at at the end of the day, when the bills

get passed, when Congress takes action,

you get to see where their head's really

at. And I do think that this bill has

indicated that the administration has a

set of incentives, which is they want to

get the actions done that they promised

they would on the campaign trail, and

then Congress has a lot of incentives to

keep the money flowing. And I think

we've seen that in this negotiation to

get this bill done. And I'm not faulting

anyone for it. Congress is looking out

for the interests of the people that

they represent and the White House is

looking out for the people that voted

for them and they said this is what

we're going to do and we have a mandate

and now they're getting it done. And

that's just the way it is. But this is

the key part of the whole storyline

which is at some point once the spending

levels get too high and the country the

individuals and the businesses become

too dependent on that spending y which

is effectively what happens at the end

of every empire. You can't back out. you

can't stop spending and everyone just

votes themselves the dollars. So, it's a

it's a scary moment and I've said it

before, I do think that the GDP growth

is the one path that's left to resolve

this. I don't think we're going to just

cut spending. And so, we need to kind of

be really thoughtful about making sure

we don't hamper GDP growth, particularly

as it relates to AI, which is going to

unlock a lot of new industry, a lot of

new growth, a lot of new opportunity for

jobs. And uh this is why I worry a lot

about this patchwork of regulation in

states making it really difficult for AI

to you only need five more people like

Rand Paul and Tillis right if you get a

couple more of those chimoth this could

be a completely different discussion if

you want to pivot to the next topic I

mean one way to look at this is how the

dollar is trading so the US dollar is

now down 11% this year and that's

against every single major currency here

it is so the dollar was down over 10%

through the first half of 2025. This is

the worst start in over 50 years. Uh

take a look at this chart and you can

see it. It's kind of shocking. Keep in

mind the dollar jumped 7% after Trump

was elected. It kind of peaked in mid

January. So if you take the pre-election

dollar index number 103, it's down 6%

since then. Not record-breaking, but

significant. And obviously economists

are saying tariffs

and global trade are a big piece of

this. And as we just discussed and we'll

keep discussing the US debt load at $37

trillion.

It's more expensive for Americans to

travel abroad and it's less attractive

maybe to invest in the US. Let me just

follow up on the point I just made. But

this is where where the the you know the

what do they say? The chicken comes to

roost. Chickens come home to roost.

Yeah. The chickens have come home to the

rubber meets the road. Yeah. This is

where you start to see the inflationary

effects of the spending and the

spiraling debt is things get more

expensive and your earning power doesn't

increase commensurate with the higher

expenses. So, so what will happen is

you'll see here the US today imports

four to5 trillion a year. So that's 4

to5 trillion that US consumers and

businesses are buying from abroad and

then we import into the US and use those

products and services. So the cost of

all that just went up by 11%. as the

dollar declined in value against the

average of all these currencies. And

that's outside of increase in prices

that may arise because of the tariff

effect where folks may say, "Hey, let's

charge more for tariffs." Whether it's

the cost of tariffs or the cost of the

debt, the dollars that you have to spend

now just went up by 11% to buy the same

thing. And if that compounds and that

continues and your earnings are not

growing and your assets are not growing

commensurate with that, that's where

dollar devaluation happens and where

asset devaluation, income devaluation,

and that's where again we open up the

door to a thing like socialism where

people are like it's now twice as

expensive to buy my groceries. It's

twice as expensive to pay my rent and

I'm not making any more money. Man, I

need a solution. We got to get together

and get the government to make

everything free. And that's why I'm so

convinced that there's a rise in

socialism in this country. Because in

this sort of an inflationary environment

like we're seeing so far this year, you

don't see it in the dollar inflation

numbers. You see it in the dollar

currency numbers. You're going to say,

"Man, I I need an alternative." That's

why the paradox to that is free stuff is

not free. It means increased spending,

which means you're stalling the plane

even more. So, exactly. Any thoughts

here on the dollar? I think the dollar

has devalued 50% in the last 35 or 40

years. So,

I think it's somewhat useful to look at

any single couple of months in time. But

this has been a one-way trade for a very

long time.

And it's probably important to

understand why that is. And I think it

generally has to do with the fact that

the United States finances a lot of

growth and that has been the right

decision.

So unless you see a complete collapse in

the currency, I suspect that this decay

continues to happen. So the question is,

is it a bad thing? And the answer is it

depends because if asset prices increase

faster than the dollar devalues, you're

still ahead. You may not be ahead as

much, but you're still ahead. And if you

look at asset prices in the United

States relative to asset prices any

place else in the world, it is the

flight to quality, which is to say that

it is the thing that everybody wants to

own. And you see that in the equity

markets, you see it in real estate, you

see it in hard assets. So, I don't know.

I think that it's part of the fact that

until we run surpluses and or completely

eliminate the debt, there will always be

a reason to be somewhat short the

dollar. But the reality is that a lot of

people still want to own these assets

more than they want to own any other

asset. And those assets are dollar

denominated. And so as long as that

continues to hold

in the push and pull, it'll be a slow

bleed, but it's probably manageable.

And that's just sort of like the

mathematical trend of it all. So I don't

know, unless there's some like

cataclysmic collapse in asset prices, I

think that this is just a thing that you

have to deal with. It's sort of like the

carry of it all. And it happens. There's

all kinds of other trades where you sort

of pay a carry, and that's okay. Is

there a relationship you can explain to

the audience between the stock market

ripping and the dollar devaluing? Well,

I think the reality is that, you know,

if you think about a country that all of

a sudden has to pay

a tariff. So, let's take the Vietnamese

example that Freeberg said. Let's just

say that they had to prepay one year of

it just to make the math simple so you

can understand. They have to come up

with 23 odd billion dollars I think is

what Freeberg the number that you said

or something like that. So yeah, like 26

billion on 130. Yeah. How do you do

that? Well, the first thing that you're

going to do is you're going to sell

dollar denominated assets that you

already own and you're going to generate

those US dollars and then you're going

to send it to the United States

Treasury. So you may be selling bonds.

So you would think, okay, well that's

not really good for asset prices. Okay.

But then what you quickly realize is

that all of that is far outweighed by

the fact that all the rest of the stuff

that you own, whether it's gold

denominated or whether it's in local

currency denominated, you want to

actually go and buy these dollars

because you want assets that are safe in

turbulence and volatility. And so would

you rather belong the Vietnamese dong or

the Vietnamese equity markets? To a

degree, yes. But if you have obligations

that the Vietnamese government needs to

fund, their central bank is probably

deciding that they need to be long US

bonds and fixed income. And other people

who hold assets in that country are

probably going to be, you know, on a

weighted basis adding exposure to the

United States while all of this stuff is

happening. Why? Because you're seeing

the balance sheet of of America

burgeoning and growing. 23 billion from

Vietnam, tens of billions over here,

tens of billions over there. It all adds

up. So again, I I think that this is

like a very complicated multivariate

problem, but the net takeaway is that

the dollar devaluation is not something

that's new. It is a phenomenon that has

existed through market cycles for 50

plus years. It's a decay that has

happened and will continue to happen. So

I think the way that I think about it is

there's a drag, but can the drag be

overcome by the increase in asset values

of the hard assets that are dollar

denominated? And the answer is yes and

meaningfully so. And so as long as

that's the case, I think you're going to

continue to have a bid for equities. If

all of a sudden the MAG7 decided to

delist and not be American companies and

all of a sudden showed up in the CAC 50

in France, yeah, we'd be in big trouble.

But I don't think that's going to

happen. And so as long as you know

there's American ingenuity and American

supremacy, again, which goes back to the

other thing, which is we can't kill

these golden geese, nor should we kill

the emerging and growing golden goose,

which is AI. And as long as those things

are the same, there will be a constant

bid for American assets. And that will

keep the enterprise of America going for

far longer than most people would guess.

up to a point, but pull up pull up this

chart that I said. This is the Yeah, I

think that this is why Buffett sort of

speaks about this in these extremely

long arcs that you're always ultimately

going to be on the wrong side of the

trade betting against the United States.

And it's probably important to then say,

well, what would a boundary condition

be? I don't think the boundary condition

is the dollar. I actually don't think

the boundary condition is the debt. I

think the boundary condition is if

something were to happen with the

quality of the human capital inside of

the United States and its inability to

innovate, then we're probably in

trouble. But even that story will take

50 to 100 years to play out. I just

think for most of our lifetimes,

this is a safe trade because it's a

winning trade.

Free. Well, I mean, it's winning if you

can put up with the currency dropping

11% in six months. And if you pull up

this chart and and I get it, Jimoth, I I

agree. But I mean, look, businesses are

booming in India. Businesses are booming

in China. Businesses are booming in

other countries now in the way that

businesses used to boom strictly in the

US. There are other markets that seem to

be having their day. And you can see

this number, which I think is a really

striking number. In the last 10 years,

US treasuries held by foreign holders

has declined from 34%. This is a good%.

I mean, it's good in one context. You're

But my point is people, foreign

countries and foreign businesses and

foreign investors aren't holding US

treasuries as much as nothing bad.

There's nothing bad about this chart.

This is only a good thing. This chart

shows that people don't want to hold US

treasuries. No, this chart shows that

foreign governments and central banks

have less and less influence on the

direction of American fiscal and

monetary policy. Better. That's better.

So, who's going to buy our debt?

It turns out that when you're the

largest economy and you're growing,

there's a lot of internal people that

that will do it,

right? So, I mean, that's a key point

here, which is means that the debt's

going to get more expensive if there's a

smaller market. That's not necessarily

true either. Okay. Well, one thing's

true is that we're investing a lot of

money and there's a lot of dry powder.

the amount of money being invested into

data centers and AI and the amount of

cash that's moving into investment

specifically in our borders that has to

be accreative, right? Yeah. The amount

of cash in money market funds probably

exceeds the sum total of all of the

equity markets around the world. That's

insane. Well, and it's like and now

people are talking about building 10,

20, 30 billion worth of data centers

and, you know, nuclear power plants

again. So, there's something going on

here with American exceptionalism.

Speaking of American exceptionalism,

Harvard is uh still battling it out with

Trump and their $50 billion endowment is

uh being questioned

and it actually relates in many ways to

what we're seeing in private companies

tech and VC. It's going to take a little

bit of a securous route to get there.

Since Trump has been inaugurated,

Harvard borrowed 1.2 billion due to

uncertainty around their federal

funding. Remember, Trump administration

canceled over $2 billion worth of

research grants to Harvard. Earlier this

week, the administration formally

accused Harvard of tolerating

anti-semitism on campus. The White House

said it will file a civil rights lawsuit

via the DOJ ASAP unless Harvard comes

into compliance and does a deal with

Trump. Here's what they're looking for.

Trump White House cancelling DEI

initiatives, third party oversight of

admissions, mandatory actions to combat

anti-semitism. Harvard has declined to

do a deal so far. And uh you right might

remember House Representative Elise

Stefonic. She asked the FCC two weeks

ago to investigate Harvard's financial

disclosures. So she got into the

disclosures when they set up that $1

whatever billion dollar line of uh

credit and loan. They did a bond deal. I

think they issued like $750 million of

bonds. Yeah. So those 750 million bond

offering on April 9th was sent out and 6

days later they sent out a supplemental

disclosure with more information about

the White House civil rights

investigation which he claims Jason dire

financial picture Harvard's cooked and I

think this is really good for America

explain it turns out and there's been a

lot of people that's posted about this

on X but there continues to be rampant

Title 9 violations with respect to

admissions I think creme

Nick, you can probably find it. I think

he published one that Colia was

continuing to discriminate against Asian

students. Harvard's original case was

against Asian students. There was a

bunch of woke stuff at other Ivy League

schools like UPEN. There's all this

rampant anti-semitism. It all needs to

get fixed. And so I think that if you

get a deal done, Harvard will have to

capitulate. I think President Trump

holds all the leverage in all the cards

and there's nothing mathematically that

Harvard can do. They can stall for

probably another year and a half, but at

some point they will not have the budget

to sustain themselves and they're going

to get into a huge world of hurt. What

they will have to do in order to finance

their budget in probably 18 months is

start to actively sell their private

equity portfolio which by the way from

2019 to this year almost doubled from 20

to 40%. So an insane asset allocation

frankly an asset misallocation at the

top of the market to the most illquid

asset class. And when people sniff this

out, what they're going to do is Harvard

was able to sell a billion dollars

recently of private equity stuff in

managers that they didn't want to

support anymore at a 7% discount.

There is no smart money on the street

that's going to look at any private

equity portfolio from Harvard without

asking for 20 25 30 35 40% discount

because your back will be totally

against the wall. And if you don't ask

for that, you're just a bad businessman.

So, if you put all of these things

together, they're going to need to

reestablish federal funding. But in

order to do it, I think the president's

been very, very clear. And for whatever

reason, they've refused to want to

address these issues. But the Ivy

League, there's just something

fundamentally broken. Well, and

Freeberg,

the Wall Street Journal, reported on

Wednesday that Harvard would face a

billion dollar budget shortfall every

year if Trump followed through on his

funding cuts and tax hikes. He was also

uh saber rattling that he would get rid

of their nonprofit status or maybe

change how the endowments worked. A lot

of uh tools I think that he could deploy

here and uh excise tax by the way in the

BBB that taxes foundation assets. I

don't know what the final language was

but there is a there was a version that

I saw where excise tax on foundations

was upwards of 8% a year. I don't know

if that was the final version, but

that's an enormous amount. Let's just

say it's half that. Let's just say it's

4%. But if you're paying 4% tax on your

endowment every year, it all of a sudden

starts to add up, that's like, you know,

for Harvard, like 2.5 extra billion

dollars a year that they have to pay.

And uh Freeberg reportedly Harvard is at

the table and in discussions with the

White House after a couple of months of

defiance. What's your take on this? Is

this an important priority for America

and for the Trump administration? Is it

a sideshow? What are your thoughts on

the larger ramifications of this? Let me

just suspend the brand and history and

legacy of Harvard for a second. Sure.

And just talk about these

call them prestigious higher education

institutions. What are the two primary

functions of these institutions? The

first is to educate students and the

second is to conduct research or to

create facilities for research. Remember

these institutions do not direct

research. They recruit and enable

researchers who apply for grants to get

funding to do their research and then

they educate kids. I think the internet

was the first leg on the stool to break

higher education.

The internet democratized access to

information and knowledge. You can watch

MIT graduate courses. All of the core

kind of educational content that is

delivered in prestigious

higher education institutions has been

largely democratized and is broadly

available for free on the internet.

That's an incredible transition that's

happened for humanity, for society, for

the world. AI is the next leg of the

stool to break. And I think that AI may

actually break education. It may break

higher education and then eventually it

may make its way all the way down to

childhood. In terms of rethinking from

first principles, how do we educate? How

is an individual getting educated and

what are the other benefits they get

from an educational system besides just

core domain knowledge? There's also

socialization and experience with

project-based work. But I think that AI

fundamentally rewrites the ability for

an individual to get a good quality

education. And we could see kids in

Africa and kids in South Asia getting

the equivalent of a Harvard graduate

school degree at a cost of zero through

personalized tutoring enabled through AI

and the ubiquitous access to knowledge

and information. So that core function

of the university I think is broken and

they're now starting to reconcile what

that actually means for the long-term

viability of all of these higher

educational institutions in the United

States. The research function I think is

also being rewritten around the world in

Europe and in China and in Asia. There

are independent research institutions

that get research funding that can show

up and say, "Hey, this institution is

just being used to run research. It

doesn't necessarily need to be within an

educational framework. It can be an

independent research institution that

focuses on either a topic or a domain.

So, I do think we're going to see more

and more independent research funding

happening with the grants that come out

from the federal government, from

nonprofits, from endowments and

foundations that fund research. So, I

think that there's a real reckoning

underway. It's almost like these guys

have created a monopoly. They've

accumulated this capital which allows

them to build these great buildings,

attract these great researchers, and

then get the research funding to fund

those researchers and then use that to

raise more capital in their endowment

and build the next building and keep

this thing growing. And I think that

that's breaking. I have one question for

you. I like where you're going with

this, but there's one hole that I would

like you to address, which is I don't

think any of that is nearly as valuable

to most of the kids applying or the

parents forcing the kids to apply as it

is brand and then the cycle that

employers put back. So that how do you

fix that loop?

Yeah. Well, I get it. like you can

YouTube your way to something and you

can AI your way to something but at the

end of the day Goldman Sachs loves to

recruit from Harvard and that's a really

big deal because that's a wonderful

company. I think the Teal Fellows

program has highlighted that you don't

get exceptional performance by

exclusively going to people that have

higher education degrees from

prestigious institutions. The Teal

Fellows program, which for those who

don't know, offered significant funding

uh to kids that are coming out of high

school, 18-y olds. And I think the Teal

Fellows, Jason, you probably know better

than I do what they've created, right?

Like, yeah, a lot of startups and No,

but like amazing startups like But how

do you deal with 500 million kids

graduating a year globally with no with

no brand differentiation? I think that's

an important question. So, how did Teal

Fellows do it? And how do you hire

Chimoth? You just did a program for 8090

to to find people, right? Yeah. Well,

yeah. I mean, we we did a coding

challenge.

I guess I I guess what I'm saying is

though that Well, so what's the

alternative to that coding challenge? I

mean, yeah. No, no. The best way to

determine Fredber to answer your

question, the best way to determine if a

person can do a job if you don't want to

outsource it to a a logo like Harvard or

Stanford, which are have worked in the

past, is to watch them do the job. That

is the number one day to do it. And the

way to do that is to hire them for

projects and or do internships. And that

means you have to invest in what's

called professional development. And

that slows companies down. So the hack

is to just pick a logo. But I for

example in our venture firm created a

training program for associates and we

invested in that and we hire three at a

time and two of them make it on

typically sometimes just one who hit our

notes and the other ones move on. Uh and

so I I think you have to invest in your

own professional development in your

organization and the organizations that

do that then succeed and have a massive

competitive advantage because they have

their own training program and way to

evaluate talent. That's one way. Doing a

a codathon and scoring people is another

way. Having an AI interviewer is another

way. So you can interview 10,000 kids

instead of interview the 50 that you

chose out of Harvard because Harvard is

your first filter. So the real question,

Chimath, is like what are the mechanisms

by which employers are going to create

new filtering systems? And I think that

there's a lot that we just we just kind

of went through three examples, but I

don't know if the brand holds over time.

Well, here's the thing that what you're

saying doesn't address. There are just a

lot of kids that aren't ready to bloom

when they're 18 or 19 or 20 or 21.

And I'm not sure that, you know, I'll

just take myself as an example. I was a

marginal performer in university,

but I had co-op. I did well in co-op

jobs. Those co-op jobs were because

these employers only wanted to recruit

from the University of Wateroo. Now, if

I had to compete with 50,000 kids, I'm

pretty sure I would not have gotten it

cuz I was a bit of a layout. But then,

you know, when I got into the

professional working world after a

couple of years, everything just kind of

clicked. So I think the the problem that

we'll have is in the absence of brand

it's just going to be very difficult to

differentiate oneself and filter people

and I think that what Jason says becomes

the huge problem which is then the

burden of professional development for

all these young kids is extremely heavy.

So I think that the idea of all of this

tooling is good and it's necessary but I

think it's insufficient. there's

something else that we need because I

think that being able to differentiate

yourself in a coding challenge is not

the future either. It's for a very very

narrow class of person. Look, project

based work, social adjustment there

there there are clearly other really

important skills and development cycles

that are needed for people. It's not

just dumping knowledge into your brain.

This isn't like the matrix where you can

just turn on the knowledge and and gain

it. And so I do agree. I think that

there are other systems by which that

will happen and those systems will will

will output filters. I'm just not sure

it's the same system that we've used for

the last 250 years. It's not I think

that's the the really interesting part

of the discussion we've got to Freeberg

is that we had an incredible system of a

series of layered I you know iconography

that indicated hey you get 10 people

from this group 100 from this group and

you slot them in and hey your company's

going to operate and then parents don't

have to worry the students don't have to

worry nor do the companies in this new

world the companies have an opportunity

by creating professional development and

you know what the people who couldn't

get into Harvard because they didn't

have the connections, they weren't

legacy or they didn't have the

wherewithal to pay for SAT tutors or

whatever that it took to hack

your way in and have a legacy family

member or whatever racist policies they

had and didn't let Asian people in

because they didn't have the right

personalities. All that nonsense goes

away and that actually benefits their

grades were their grades were too good.

Right. Exactly. Their performance was

too high. In all fairness, you did

wrong. It's like the dumb It's like the

dumbest thing I've ever heard. But

here's the good news, anybody can build

a project in the world and refine their

skills right now based on all the

information that's on the internet. And

you and I, Chimath, are part of that

group of people. We made our own luck.

We made our own projects. We had some

level of grit and and autonomy and

self-reliance to do that. Uh and I you

know the feedback I got from our

previous discussion about this is

everybody talking about how poor people

as a group can never ever strive and

never build anything. The truth is it's

the easiest it's ever been to build a

company to build a project and to be

independent as a creator of a product or

service in the world. It's the easiest

it's ever been. It requires the least

capital and the least amount of time.

So, we're selling a narrative to people

that they're helpless when in fact they

are super super empowered. The only

thing you can't do is put yourself into

$200,000 in debt because you'll never

get out of it. Mhm.

I actually think this is a huge

beautiful opportunity to reset the

system. But it it's not going to be like

going to, you know, a supermarket and

picking the brands you want and then

filling positions. You're going to have

to be self-reliant for all the students

out there. And that's what Peter Teal

got right. You got to give a shout out

to Peter Teal here. I think Freeberg he

when he did the teal fellowship the way

they picked people was their they had a

mission to accomplish something in the

world and they were making progress

towards it. That's actually the criteria

they used. Did you have enough inner

resolve to actually pick a mission and

did you actually do anything to steer

yourself towards it? And when you make

it a competitive, you know, sort of

program like that, they just picked the

people who picked the most interesting

missions and had made the most progress.

But there's definitely going to be a

hole left in society if these degrees do

not correlate with performance and

reality. All right. On Tuesday,

Grammarly, I'm a huge fan of that

product, acquired Superhuman. Uh that's

that amazing superfast AI email tool

from Raul of which I was the first

investor in. Uh superhuman had raised

114 million was valued at $825 million

during peak zerp according to Reuters.

Superhum has annual revenue of $35

million and Grammarly seems to be

building a little bit of a suite of AI

workplace tools. They bought KOD was not

an investor in but I am a huge fan of

that product as well. It's similar to

notion, another product I'm a huge fan

of. They bought KOD back in December.

And then on top of that, Figma filed

their S1 Q1 revenues, 228 million.

Remember, they were going to get bought

by Adobe before before it got stopped.

And uh they have 13 million monthly

active users, a billion and a half in

cash, no debt, and uh turns out CEO

Dylan Field has 75% voting power. So

he's in founder mode. Very nice. And

also a teal fellow. really interesting

cat. I've had him on uh my other pod.

Figma is going to try to raise 1.5

billion in their IPO. That would match

Coreweave. That was the biggest tech IPO

of the year so far. And we are on a

heater. Circle went public that was up

7x uh from its IPO peak. And Chime went

public slightly higher than its IPO

price. You had E Toro. Uh Hinge Health

also went public. Wealthfront which I

was an angel investor in. They just

filed to go public. Yum yum. and uh

bunch of M&A transactions. We talked

about Door Dash made two purchases. Sam

Alman bought two companies at OpenAI

and uh tons of M&A happening at the same

time. According to Poly Market, 52%

chance of a rate cut in September, 46%

chance of no change. So, we're

definitely not getting an increase

according to the sharp money. And I

think Pal said he would have cut if

there weren't the tariff,

you know, curveball thrown into the

system, which is, I think, what most of

us thought. And Chimath, you talked

about all this sideline cash sitting

there in money market accounts. Markets

at an all-time high. Uber blew past 88,

so I should be retired right now. What

are your thoughts on M&A IPOs? Feels

like, man, we've got a

really frisky hot market right now. Does

it make you nervous or does it feel like

this is where we should have been all

along and that Biden maybe was putting a

headwind against all this? Yeah. So,

here's the crux of the issue. I think

this is the intersection of a lot of

really interesting things happening

right now. You have Meta giving

individual human beings 300 to$500

million packages like their NBA first

team allstars.

Open AAI, their revenue numbers just

leaked. They're forecasting 13 billion

in 25 2025, spiking to 125 billion in

2029. You have Anthropic,

their revenue by 2027 is

forecasted to be about 35 billion. So

what does all of this tell you?

To be honest, it's telling me that

the state of software is a little

unclear.

Meaning,

I actually believe the open AI and

anthropic numbers. I understand why

Facebook is now spending as if there's

an existential risk. And I think the

existential risk is that these models

could be so foundational to how social

experiences and work are done that it

starts to absorb a lot of other stuff.

So the question is how do other tools

fit into a workflow when these things

become so central to how people both

enjoy their free time as well as spend

their productive time. And I think when

you look at that,

you look at Figma, what I would say is

on the surface in the absence of these

AI businesses, I would say, man, what a

gang busters business. Growing by 40

something% a year at this scale. They're

adjusted. I think operating margins are

18%. I don't like adjusted because it's

adjusted for stockbased comp. I don't

know what it is when you add that back