[Music]

former F1 driver champion in 2016. He's

getting into the venture business.

Please welcome Nico. They started the

season with 20 drivers and they would

end the season with only 18 of them

left. Wow. What was the craziest [ __ ]

you've ever been involved in? Well, my

my rival was my teammates. So,

unfortunately, it really becomes like an

enemy in a way. What were your first few

deals? 11 laps, for example. Holy [ __ ]

Good for you.

This used to be an extremely dangerous

sport. You had people dying every year

in these tiny little cars with no roll

cages, etc. But over time, it's become

incredibly safe. The number of people

dying went from, you know, a couple

dozen a year in the ' 50s, '60s, '7s,

and now it's gotten incredibly safe. How

scary is it to drive in those cars? And

how do you get over that fear of death?

First of all, hello everybody. That's a

pretty That's a pretty intense start to

the to the conversation. I just show

Good job interviewing Jacob. World team

world best. I I I got to get right to

it. It's like set the mood. How are you

still alive?

How are you? Why haven't you died yet,

Nico? I looked at that car. Justify

yourself. Why is there no canopy on it?

Why are your head exposed? It's so crazy

what you're doing or what you did. So,

no, you're absolutely right. And I know

um better than most people also because

my father actually was a Formula 1

racer. Yeah. And he was racing champion.

And a champion. I didn't want to say but

yes, he was also a world champion. But

you you were sorry I asked you

backstage. You're one of only two

fatherson world champions of all time.

That's true. Pretty incredible. Which is

very special. So I mean your dad's out

there racing. You're at home with mom I

assume. This has got to be terrifying to

watch your dad do this. So at in his day

they started the season with 20 drivers

and they would end the season with only

18 of them left. So it was a 10% chance

more or less that you wouldn't make it

through the season which is just that's

crazy. Wow. I mean what then if you do

an 8-year career like what are your

odds? Like that's not looking very good.

So there to your point. Yeah. Yeah. It

was a death every 100,000 miles. Now

it's a death every 67 million miles. I

was very lucky because by the time I

came in they had carbon fiber chassis.

Um they had roll they have a roll hoop

now you know and this this protection

this halo around your head which

recently saved a couple of lives in the

last 5 years cuz Maxappen who's now the

the the four-time world champion at the

moment. He landed on Lewis Hamilton's

head in Italy with the full car and it

was this halo that saved Lewis

Hamilton's life. So, we're very very

lucky how the sport has progressed um

with the safety. How did you start

drive? How old were you? Because um I

didn't realize yesterday I go into the

suite that we have and they say this kid

is 18 years old as a driver. I had no

idea that kids that young were driving.

How old were you when you started and at

what point did you start to become

competitive? So, it's a bit like with

with every sport that you have to start

very very young. I started I was six,

started go-karting I was six and then

racing 10 years old. Now they start

racing at year at when they're 8 years

old. So Antonelli, who was on pole

position yesterday, the 18year-old, uh

he started racing he was eight. He was

in my go-karting team when he was 12. So

I know him very very well and he is a

generational talent, but it's very early

for him cuz he's only 18. And he he took

over the car of the greatest of all

time. Lewis Hamilton left Ferrari, left

Mercedes to go to Ferrari. and Antonelli

took this car from Lewis Hamilton. That

is insane pressure. Answer this question

if you could. You said generation. I'll

try I'll try my best. So if we had to

design some kind of a model you could

you define the

features that he had when he was six,

seven or eight years old that could have

predicted how good it was? Like is it

the Metaclorian? Like so is it the Well,

Anakin Skywalker was really good. I

don't know.

Nico specialist on Star Wars lore and

anyway the metacloran to find the do you

think that you could design something

where people kids could come and take

some kind of test you look at your

reflexes or your you know your eye

twitch speed or the way your brain works

and is there a pattern do you think that

is genetically

predisposes some people to just be

exceptional? So we've not come to that

point yet that we actually go through

such tests. But I think there are a

couple of things that would that would

kind of satisfy that and one is your

speed of processing because in a race

car you're going at 220 mph and you have

so many inputs flying at you and not

only visual also sensual. Yeah.

Everything and also sound um with the

engine and everything and you have to

process that so rapidly. How did you

train for that? Um I even had a uh a

computer program which I developed just

for myself actually where I would have

all these different inputs. So uh audio,

touch, tactile had like a thing around

here um and and even then visual on the

computer and I would be catching these

inputs like and trying to break my

record and the faster I would go the

faster the program would go. Um so I was

trying to develop these kind of things

that to train my brain to move faster

and react. reaction time is the key

skill set of a driver. It's one of the

ones. Is it also being courageous and

like something with your amydala where

like you don't have fear? There's that

certainly. Yeah. Although I would say

that I am actually someone who's quite

fearful. Um and but when you're in it,

you kind of also get used to things.

Yeah. And you start to feel quite safe

in the car nowadays. Um because I'm not

a crazy adrenaline junkie unlike most

other drivers actually out there like

someone you find that they are

adrenaline junkies. Yeah like someone

like first tappen is fearless like

completely um or even Hamilton you know

they're proper quite nutcases. Um so the

paths are a little different for

everyone. Yeah, there's different

characters to the personality type.

There is a then of course there's hand

eye coordination. So to your point,

Chamath, for young kids, probably

there's a high chance that you put a

tennis racket in their hand, they'll

also be pretty good, very very quickly.

And it's a similar set of skills. Can we

shift and talk a little bit about the

business of Formula 1. I mean, we were

talking backstage before the show a

little bit and you shared some of the

anecdotes about some of the valuations

and what's happened over the last

decade, decade and a half. maybe you

can, you know, just kind of paint a

picture for us on how this has evolved

as kind of a business and where things

sit today, where they're where they're

headed and what's driven that. Yeah. So,

um I'm a venture capitalist myself and

that's why I'm very interested in the

business side of uh of sport and F1 has

gone through such an incredible

inflection and there's a couple of

factors that have come into play. They

brought in budget caps for the teams. So

the teams were spending just on sha on

their car development like north of 200

million a year and now it's like limited

to 130 million a year just for the

chassis itself not excluding engine

drivers and top personnel. $130 million

on how many cars is that like for a well

there's 10 teams. Yeah. No, but is the

13 cars? Two race cars per year. Per

year. But that's just the chassis. You

then have the engine which is another 70

million. You then have the top driver

who takes 50 million a year or 100. No,

100. No, that was the verse stopen rumor

to go. Yeah. Plus marketing plus plus

you get to maybe 70 80. Yeah. So

fielding a team is how much? Fielding a

team is around uh you get close to 300

million. Wow. Yeah. But you're saying

that the budget cap allowed everything

to kind of So the budget cap brought in

this cap for developing the chassis to

130. Um then suddenly Netflix also came

in and Netflix has just made the sport

so much more popular. It's

unbelievable. Really changed the land.

Just in the US you've gone from in a

couple last couple of like six years 20

million fans to like 50 million fans.

It's more than doubled only in the US

alone. What do you think Netflix did?

Right. So Netflix the owners of F1 are

Liberty. Yeah. Which is a US right. It's

a US-based uh company and they did very

well. They opened up social media. The

new generation of drivers are really

social media savvy and are are like the

fan base is 40% women in America. How

many women here today are F1 fans?

Loads. There we go. Okay. Not too bad.

Um,

are all the drivers as good-looking as

you or No. No. I don't want to go into

that kind of Don't be to yourself in

Miami. So, the audience blew up. The

audience is has blown up. And you asked

me what did they get right?

So, what did they get right? The Netflix

show, for those of you who have seen it,

it's like a reality TV show. It's not

just a sports documentary like, hey,

this guy won here, but they go, they

managed to capture these personas behind

the scenes and you really get to see the

human beings behind the sport and that's

very special. and they tried to

replicate it in other sports like I

think golf and tennis and it didn't work

out as well because I think they got a

little bit lucky also that here quite a

few characters allowed them and

completely opened up and allowed Netflix

to capture the real intense

behind-the-scenes moment and it's just

fascinating to follow. Yeah. Um, so

that's what we're before if you come in

as an outsider, I had this experience

like what team are you, you know, who

you support like I'm not really sure,

but once you get to know the

personalities, you have a vested

interest, you have a history, there's

something that you can contextualize.

Let me just end on the on the business

part. Yes. Um, so teams like 10 years

ago, F1 teams were like worth $150

million. Yeah. And they would lose 50

million a year. And now the top teams go

for five to six billion dollars 10 years

later. It's like eye watering. It's

incredible. Each other on the when

you're driving the race, you try to like

Yeah. bump into each other, you know.

100%. It's part of the game. Yeah. You

have to unfortunately. Explain cuz I'm a

neoight. I don't understand it. And I I

see like once in a while these NASCAR

guys pull over, they get out, they throw

their helmets at each other, you know,

they get really upset. They seem like

but they seem like hillbillies. You guys

seem like a bunch of Europeans

and like you guys seem like you're

fancy, like a little more elegant. What

What do you guys do? Do you guys like

spray with Cleico on each other or

something? Like how do you guys mess

with each other? Nico didn't watch. So

the the word we had one guy pushed it

was first stop and pushed the other guy

and he got like one week of community

service. So uh that was a that was as

far as it went. That's as far as the

physical but when you're in the car.

Yeah. It's fierce. It's fierce. So take

us through like what was the craziest

you've ever been involved in

altercationwise? Well, my my rival was

my teammate. My rival was Louis Lewis

Hamilton at the time. We were both

racing for Mercedes. Any Lewis Hamilton

fans here today? A little bit. Okay.

Send me here. Good. Actually, Nico, can

you talk about that in that period? He's

so dominant, but the car is so dominant

and then you win. What is it like where

you're teammates with your biggest

competitor? Like what is that dynamic

like? That psychological dynamic? It's

Are you friends? Are you guys friends or

So with Lewis Hamilton, we were actually

best friends when we were 14 years old.

We grew up racing together in the same

team. Best friends, but when you get to

F1, it's just so intense and so much is

at stake. And if it's just the two of

you racing for race wins every single

time, it you can't stand him. You hate

him. Yeah. It goes into hating. Yeah.

Hate. I can see the content. Do you talk

during the week or you don't even really

interact? No, you don't interact much.

So, unfortunately, it really becomes an

like an enemy in a way, you know, and

internally in your own team. Yeah. It's

a horrible dynamic cuz also even your

the rest of the team then need to start

to be neutral. They can't take any

sides. So, even when you win, it's not

like everybody's like leaning in with

you. It's really a tough situation. So

it's like two people in the same project

who can't stand each other. Freedberg

yet they keep but you keep working

together. How much of that um fed your

decision to retire literally days after

you won the That was a little I think

that caught some people off guard. Can

you just tell us what happened? I was in

my prime and I won that championship

which for me was my dream come true and

it was extremely intense. Thank you. It

was extremely Thanks, Mom. I got one I

got one clap from my mom sitting in the

very big fan.

Way to go, mom.

Um, yeah, it was extremely intense and

for me it just felt like the right

moment to I had a young daughter at

home. She was one year old. Family um

just felt like the right moment. I was

in one piece to your comment it being

dangerous and I just decided rationally

you know I never wanted to exit on the

way down. That's something I definitely

wanted to avoid. I wanted to exit at the

top and that was my moment and and I

decided to pull the trigger. Has there

been a good ROI for the car companies

that that have invested in F1 in that

all this money that they spend other

than the notoriety? Are they inventing

things that we all use and see and

interact with day-to-day in our own

daily driving experience or not really?

So, you probably will be driving an AMG

at some point. I had an AMG at one

point. There you go. Um, and there is

tech from the F1 team in there now.

Okay. From the for the hybrid from

Mercedes. Yes.

Hybrid and yeah, every every car car

company will be benefiting. But the

return on investment is also in terms of

marketing. Mercedes there's a calculated

return on investment which is 2 billion

for their brand annually and they don't

actually invest money anymore because

the team is profitable now and highly

profitable like these teams make 200

$300 million in profit every year. So

they now have $6 billion valuations. Is

have we kind of peaked from your point

of view? Is the market and the valuation

curve still being climbed? There's still

a lot of uh there's still a lot of

upside at the moment because this growth

has just happened in the last 5 years.

Yeah. And there's still I mean even

America there's still loads of growth

potential. More races. There's

licensing. The sport hasn't really even

tapped into that yet. Do you think

there's something about sports that are

kind of more tuned to the way our brains

now operate in a social media world,

like a fast-paced world? Like, you know,

golf became Liv. I mean, Liv really kind

of changed the the face of golf. There's

now baseball's obviously dead. I mean,

MLB has been on the decline for years in

the United States. Not saying anything

negative about baseball. I'm just saying

that the viewership is going down. No,

no, no, no. You're you're But there's

also these conversations about

basketball, the NBA. I'll tell you this

crazy anecdote. I I was a co-owner of

the Warriors. I sold two years ago. A

friend of mine, friend of ours is in the

market for a sports team and he went to

Europe to look at a bunch of soccer

teams and then we were all having dinner

and his bankers produced this study that

showed exactly this problem which is

young people their attention span is

shrinking. As it shrinks there are

certain sports they just cannot watch

anymore. And it's totally correlated the

negative viewership in baseball, the

increase in the use of clips. So people

are willing to watch baseball clips.

They will not watch a baseball game to

save their life. People will watch

basketball clips. They won't watch

basketball. The NBA's moving to clips.

Yeah. And so it's this weird

construction, but in some ways F1 is

very set up for this already naturally,

right? Do people don't really watch the

whole sport as much as they want to

watch clips. I'm guessing

it's not

that hour. How long is this race on

sight? It's not that long. It's never

been and it's not that long. I mean

that's the thing about but you guys also

have a lot of a lot of data telemetry

like you can feed that kind of anxious

mind and there's no breaks it just goes

I'm not I'm not sure if you have a point

there unfortunately but um but pretty

diplomat I was just trying to move the

conversation no what I can say is that

our sport has like the highest

engagement rates across all sports even

comparing to NBA and everything um but

why is that I think there's just a huge

hype at the moment and maybe yes maybe

okay Maybe a little bit. It is

fast-pacing. There's there's incredible

action scenes like thrilling action.

There's huge crashes. Did you not want

to get in the business given your

knowledge and your experience? You

didn't want to be in the because you you

now have transitioned into venture

capital. How did you make that decision

versus working in the business of

Formula 1? Oh, great question. Um

because um yeah, that's a good qu. So,

in Formula 1, what jobs would have been

left for me now after driving would be

for example running a team. But running

a team is 24/7. Like you need full

commitment. You need to move to the UK.

All the teams are in the UK. It's a full

life dedication. And I've been I've done

that. Been there, done that. Now I want

more freedom in my life to define my my

calendar and everything and be at home

more. And so that job for example would

not be a possibility and not something I

want to do. And then beyond that, yeah,

you can be a driver manager, but even

there you need full commitment. So tell

tell us about this transition then to

tech and investing and venture and what

was that journey and what attracted you

to that? I was always inspired by people

like Elon Musk who obviously you talking

about uh before and those achievements

that you have this idea and then you

achieve something which has impacts like

millions of lives. I just found that

fascinating. Um so I I always just

wanted to pursue that path. So I started

investing as an angel investor and now a

second. Oh take it easy. Angel

investing.

What are you doing after the show? Did

you ever read the book Angel? It's a

phenomenal book in 12 languages. Yeah,

I'll sign a copy book called Angel. It's

84 pages long. What were your first few

deals? Uh 11 Labs, for example. Um Oh,

good for you. Yeah, that's uh that's

gone really well. Um how did you find

that? Yeah. How did that How did that

come about? I mean, I'm really putting

an effort into this community as well.

I'm spending a lot of time in in Silicon

Valley meeting everybody and and also

connecting to the European corporate

landscape. So I'm bringing customers,

revenues, connecting, building bridges

cuz there's a unique angle that I can

bring, you know, thanks to my sports

past. So I've just built my way into it

and built a reputation and then and then

you start getting the opportunities.

What themes, Nico, have you invested in

that today you would not invest knowing

what you know today? Not the ones that

are Yeah, that's um the the flying

taxis, the vitals, for example. Um yeah,

Germany was leading the way on those.

You have Joby, for example, Joby

Aviation, which is probably currently

best positioned in the US. Um but

Germany was leading the way with two two

horses in the race and and both of them

have run into trouble. One is bankrupt,

one was both bankrupt, I think. Um, so

that's something that then in hindsight

you of course if you had uh read the

book, you would have known hardware is

hard, right? I would have avoided that.

You should have gotten that chapter. Get

a highlighter out. Hardware is hard.

Hardware is even harder now with the

tariffs. I'm hearing now like I have a

um I invested also in a cyber escooter

here in New York called Infinite Machine

and now with the tariffs because the

supply chain is so concentrated on in in

China um it's it's just it's a complete

mess. Yeah. Nico, what about the

political landscape in Europe? There was

a pretty important election in Germany.

It seemed to kind of go down the middle.

What goes of Europe? What's happening in

Europe? The investability of Europe, the

ability to do business in Europe. What

do European industrial businesses do?

There's a ton of skill. There's a ton of

cash. When you talk to those folks, what

do you tell them? I know you're very,

very bearish on Europe. You wouldn't put

a dollar there, but uh is that correct?

Well, no, for sweaters and wine, he puts

much more than a dollar. That's true.

It's pretty prolific. It's a really good

question. I actually think industrials

chargers, right? Yes. Industrials, I

would industrials, I think there's

tremendous skill. Yeah. outside of

industrials I think it's hard. Yeah. So

we have the we have the problems with

regulatory frameworks being way too

cumbersome. Um we have the geographic

fragmentation in Europe which is very

different to the US. Um politically it's

it's really I mean quite in a bad place

at the moment and so yeah I understand

but at the same time as you said talent

density is insane. The universities are

some of the best in the world. So that's

where our hope is in the next generation

that's coming now. Stick to the Nordics.

And the Nordics are very powerful. Yes.

But

Spotify a little bit. There's a lot of

hope still. Yeah. Hey, what's your daily

driver? Daily driver is a Porsche. A

Porsche. And then when you're with your

with your with your daughter, I don't

know how old she is, but you ever like

pull some tricks and like does she like,

"Hey, Dad." No. She shouts, "Drive

slowly, daddy." Really? I'm not I'm not

allowed to drive fast with her. No.

terrified, which is fine. Which is fine.

You you don't want her to get into the

family business. No, no, no. What? Okay.

What are some investments that you're

really excited by? Beyond uh 11 Labs, um

there would be Applied Intuition,

another one. Oh, great business where

I'm uh where I'm in. That's a really

really interesting company. It's a

company that supplies software primarily

to all the legacy car manufacturers that

have not managed this transition to

being software first like Tesla has

shown the way. Um and this It's like

scale AI for automotive in some ways,

right? For part of the business. Yeah.

Nico, you're going to fit right in. Have

you learned to play poker yet? I'm a

good poker player. You're a good poker

player. We'll see you on Thursday.

Excuse me. Hold on, Nico. Now you

dec. Thanks for coming out. Thanks to

our new bestie, Nico Rosberg, for

joining us in Miami for F1. And thanks

to you, the audience, for tuning in. If

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Let your winners ride.

Rainman said, "We open sourced it to the

fans and they've just gone crazy with

it." Queen of

[Music]

Besties are gone.

That is my dog taking a notice in your

driveway.

Oh man, my habitasher will meet me up.

We should all just get a room and just

have one big huge orgy cuz they're all

just useless. It's like this like sexual

tension that we just need to release

somehow.

Wet your feet. Be your feet. What? We

need to get Mercury's

[Music]

back. I'm going all in.