Freeberg's channeling Tim Walls over

there.

I know. Wow, he's as exciting as Tim

Walls. Got your flannel on. Do you know

what a venture capitalist is, Freeberg?

Oh, he's shilling Supergut.

Well, as of last week when Jay decided

to turn all in into a commercial, I was

actually going to do a Supergut

background. We're launching Supergut

nationwide in Target this week. Any

Target in the United States, you can go

into it and pick up Supergut. You can

buy

the GLP-1 booster.

You can buy

the prebiotic shake. I have that,

actually. Is that the chocolate? Or do

you have the mocha?

I mean, I like the mocha.

chocolate. Okay. Mocha's good, too. All

right, let's get started.

support, Jay. I appreciate it.

of course, of course. We're cutting all

this out. No way. This is why I do this.

Next time plug a company I have a stake

in.

Also, all in election night livestream

is coming

November 5th. You can watch live. Sachs

will be hosting.

that. We're doing it. You're hosting it.

Your team said you're doing it. And so,

you'll either get to see Are you not

going to Mar-a-Lago, Sachs?

Well, if things continue to look good

for Trump, I I might head to Mar-a-Lago.

Yeah. Okay, so you're a maybe. Don't

commit, Sachs. You're a maybe. If you go

to Mar-a-Lago, you're excused. I can

livestream from Mar-a-Lago. Well, that

would be amazing. That would be amazing.

I'll go to Mar-a-Lago. That'd be fun.

Yeah, if it looks good, I'll go.

So, maybe that's um I'll just go. I'll

just go. I'll just go. Of course I'm

invited. I talked to Jared. I mean, if

things look as good as they do right

now, then I might I think I'm going to

have to go to Mar-a-Lago.

should all be in Mar-a-Lago. It's going

to be a unique experience.

god, can you imagine being in Mar-a-Lago

and he loses?

Oh my god. That's why I don't want to go

unless this thing is in the bag.

It's got to be too big to rig. If it's

too big to rig, I'm going to moral off.

big to rig.

Do you guys think Polymarket is like Why

do you think it's different from the

polls? Are we talking about this today?

Polymarket's showing like 60 40 or 65 35

now, right? Yeah, because they're

measuring different things. I've

explained this before. Polymarket is

people betting on the outcome. So, 58%

think Trump's going to win. Whereas the

polls in a particular state show the

percentage of how each person's going to

vote. Mhm. So, if for sure you knew the

election was 51 49, the betting markets

would swing to 100 0.

you this. So, Nate Silver's model, which

takes the poll from each state and

builds in a

kind of a a Monte Carlo of, you know,

super poll, like a super model for the

whole country, why is his estimate 50/50

right now, while the Polymarket is

betting at 60/40? It's possible he's

laggy in his estimates.

Got it.

betting markets. The betting markets

seem to

uh go based on momentum. So, it like

it indicates the swing in momentum. And

then the polls are usually

going to How do you think they're going

to change after the interviews the last

couple days? Trump on Bloomberg and

Kamala on Fox. Do you think this is

going to change anything? I don't think

so.

I think it's all baked in now.

Mhm. Well, Trump over the past few weeks

seems to have had a surge owing to the

fact that Kamala's interviews generally

don't go well. So, I think she started

off a little behind, started doing

interviews to catch up, and now she's a

lot behind. I don't think the Bret Baier

interview is going to help her.

Well, let me ask you this. I So, my my

observation as, I don't know, I'm not

like a super political person or

um whatever uh party-oriented person, I

looked at the uh a lot of the media on

both sides, and it seems like everyone

on the left says Kamala did an amazing

job on Fox. She defended herself. She

showed her skills and her competency.

And then everyone on the right's like,

she embarrassed herself. She fell apart.

And then the same thing happened with

the Trump interview on Bloomberg. People

are like on the left, they say, "Look at

how he couldn't handle the interviewer

and he fell apart and all his lies were

exposed." And everyone on the right is

like, "Look at him, he got a standing

ovation." It's almost like everyone's

just kind of like self-asserting

their their beliefs that they already

hold when they judge these people on

these interview shows at this point. Is

it Is it already baked at this point?

Like is anyone actually going to change

their view

based on these interviews happening?

Well, the question is what appeals to

that small sliver of independents. Yeah.

The question I would ask back to you is

if the Bret Baier interview was going so

well for Kamala, why was her staff

on the sidelines waving to try and end

the interview? That apparently they had

like four people you know, waving and

trying to cut the interview off.

said Who said that was the case? He did.

Bret Baier said it. So Yeah. It was like

in Rocky IV

when Apollo Creed's corner is like

yelling, "Throw in the damn towel! Throw

in the damn towel!" They couldn't wait

to get her off the stage after 26

minutes. I just think that if it was

going that great

Allegedly. Allegedly. Yeah. I don't

think Bret Baier is going to lie about

that. I think

know why he would lie about that. That

makes sense.

they get her off the stage after 26

minutes if it was going so great? I'm

not saying it went as horrible as some

of the partisans on the other side are

saying, but I don't think it would went

that great. Do you give her any credit

for going into the lion's den like she

did?

Well, I I think that she went She did

the interview precisely to get the

talking point that she does adversarial

interviews because that talking point

was earning them. And so you saw like

all of her fans in the media were

saying, "Well, see, she can walk into

the lion's den."

But again, she did the shortest

interview possible. I don't think she

answered the questions directly.

I think she filibustered a lot. She

deflected a lot.

Uh I don't think she was particularly

persuasive. I don't think she convinced

anybody. So I think that what you saw

there was somebody who just wanted to

get it over with as quickly as possible

to check the box on okay, does

adversarial interviews. Trump on the

other hand, he he actually likes doing

these things. The Bloomberg interview

there, right?

Well, no, he's crisp in his answers.

Come on. It's all anecdotes.

He can do he can do the weave, he can do

the anecdotes, but he's also very good

at coming back on the interviewer when

they get adversarial.

And the audience was with him. They gave

him a standing ovation. He went for 64

minutes compared to her 26. I just think

there's no comparison. I think Trump is

someone who relishes

walking into the lion's den and doing

those interviews. I think Harris did it

because she felt like she had to.

What do you think What do you think,

Chamath? You see it or not? You have any

opinion? I watched the whole interview.

It was clear in in the interview he

mentioned the fact that he was being

waved off and then he said it after the

fact as well. That's not alleged. I

think that that did happen. I would say

two things.

I thought that she was

composed

and she maintained her cool.

So, I think from a stylistic

perspective, I thought that she did

well.

From a substance perspective, it was

pretty lacking because if you actually

listen to the answers, there there was

just a ton of non-answers. And

they were to very basic questions that I

think

a lot of people, even if you're not a

swing voter, I think

would probably want to know the answer

to, meaning

did she have any regrets about what's

happened in the last three and a half

years?

Did she have any regrets about what

she's done on the border?

Has she not noticed that Biden was

wavering before he was hot swap?

I think that

you could have predicted that these

questions were going to come.

So, I think I was surprised that there

wasn't a crisp answer that they had

practiced for that.

The second thing I'll say is then David

is right. Everybody then gets very

tribal in how they interpret it. I think

I saw one tweet from Elon about how all

of the newspapers characterized her

interview with Bret Baier as {quote}

testy, and it was sort of like that was

the way that the mainstream media framed

it. I suspect if somebody looked at how

Trump's interview with Bloomberg was

analyzed, it probably had some similar

verbiage that was repeated there as

well. So, I think you are right, Jason,

that the mainstream media can't be

trusted to tell the truth. I would just

encourage people to watch it. I think

like I said,

stylistically, I think she did well and

remained composed. Substantively, I

think it was nonexistent.

Yeah, it would have been nice to have

another debate between these two.

She still can't really explain how she's

different than Joe Biden other than the

fact that he's a white male and she's a

woman of color. So, beyond the sort of

the superficial differences, she can't

explain on a policy level what she would

do differently. She's had so many

opportunities to say that. They asked

her on The View, they asked her on

Stephen Colbert, Bret Baier asked her in

his way, and she still can't explain

what she would do differently. And I

think that is the fundamental problem

she has in her campaign is voters still

don't know who she is or what she would

do.

Yeah. What did you think of J.D. Vance

saying he wouldn't have certified the

election? They seem to be going after

him on that over and over again.

Sachs, you're the only person talking

about that. No, no. Literally every

interview, they've been chasing him down

the hall asking him. Is that I'm not the

only person? I may have started it, but

what did you think of him saying he

wouldn't have certified That is kind of

like when he's in a combative reporting

moment, that is the question he gets a

lot. That's not That's not the interview

I saw. I saw him the interview he just

did with Martha Raddatz was she was

saying that Trump was exaggerating

I asked you, Sachs, was I asked you,

Sachs, about him saying he wouldn't

certify January

You're the only one who's fixated on it.

No one No one No one No one

No one who has persuadable, who doesn't

have TDS, cares about that topic

anymore.

What do you think Freeberg about him

saying he wouldn't certify January 6th

is a concern?

It's not what they're asking, JD. If you

want to talk about interviews that JD

Vance has done, talk about the one

that's actually going viral right now.

And that was the interview he did with

Martha Raddatz, where she starts saying

that, you know, we've only had a few of

these apartment buildings taken over by

foreign gangs. And he's like,

"Do you realize what you're saying?"

You know, there's no comeback from that.

He destroyed her. It was very compelling

what he did.

And every interview he does is like

that. Yeah.

I mean, she was basically saying that

she spoke to what was it, the city

manager, and she's like, "He said only a

handful of buildings have been taken

over."

And JD Vance was like, "What do you

mean?" Like, "Yeah, only one too many of

buildings." Like, isn't that anything

more than zero like too much? Or

anything more than one is obviously a

problem. Like, it was just such an

obvious

rebuttal to the the narrative that

they're kind of over exaggerating a

particular issue. I have no data on

this, but he was very compelling in that

uh response. I thought it was pretty

strong. But, I will say like generally

neither candidate

seems to be introducing a new message or

seems to be introducing new content.

They're just kind of standing up,

you know, kind of repeating things that

they've said, showing that they can

handle and manage different kind of

combative reporting tactics, and that's

kind of what's going on. And everyone

seems to have made up their mind. I

don't I see a lot of people on both

sides say,

again, this side This person did great.

My person did great against this

combative reporter. And the other person

did poorly against their combative

reporter. And everyone's kind of biased

in their view. I I just feels like this

election's baked, and we should just go

to the polls and be done. Yeah. What did

you think Freeberg though? But but

there's there's no October surprise

coming out, right, Sax? Chamath, Jake

Hall, right?

Yeah, anything can happen. But, there

hasn't been anything, right? Like,

that's kind of

a shocking moment yet this month, right?

But, Freeberg, the question I was going

to ask you is, since you're not like

hosting Trump

you know, fundraisers.

Do you think What did you think when

J.D. Vance said he didn't think that

Trump lost the 2020 election? Does that

concern you at all?

Um

there's no there's no way to answer this

um

with with the kind of clean framing I

think you're looking for. What what I

saw from J.D. is that he wants the

reporter and the people that he's

talking to and I hear this from him

Yeah. to zoom out a little bit

and recognize that there are significant

control and uh control systems and

biases that he believes and others

believe are strongly affecting the

election process and as a result the

election outcome. And I think that that

message isn't uh is lost because people

want him to say Trump lost the election,

you're not admitting it, you're bad.

But those people also aren't hearing the

point that he's making which is that

there are biases. Mhm.

heard these biases by the way with

Democrats in prior elections as well

where they highlighted that they

believed that there were biases with

respect to misinformation being

amplified on social media. And then the

next election cycle they were able to

step in and influence what was being

changed on those social media platforms

and so there's this big kind of war

media war going on

Yeah. That's why I understand.

media platforms and I think that that's

what both sides are highlighting is

their big concern and now there's this

other big concern about is there

appropriate voter verification that the

people who are voting and it's a it's a

it's a question to ask that shouldn't be

dismissed. It is a good question to ask.

As as a as a person who doesn't have a

like a a strong bias for a political

party here I feel like I want to hear

answers to those questions. Like what

you know, what is the structure of how

the the way that most people are getting

their media today which is through

social media platforms, what is the

mechanism for censorship, what is the

mechanism for filtering for moderation

and be public and transparent about it?

And then separately, what are the

mechanisms for

for deciding who gets to vote and how

they get to vote? And I think those are

both really good things to ask. I would

just like to take a step back and say

that that was one of the most incredible

answers I've ever heard.

Freeberg.

Unfortunately, it may not land for the

reductive masses, but it was

exceptionally powerful and thoughtful.

Thank you.

Yeah, I'm here for you, Chamath.

I'm here for you. Well, I I

the I mean, independent of who wins, we

need to get this

rules of elections really tight starting

next year, I think. Make it a

federal holiday.

Require people to have ID. That doesn't

seem like such a big deal. I don't know.

Sachs, what else should happen?

Federal holiday, make it

you've got Biden's DOJ is literally

suing the state of Virginia, which is

required

by Virginia law to clean the voter rolls

of illegal immigrants, and they've been

doing that, and Biden's DOJ has sued to

stop that.

In California, like you said, we now

have a new law signed by Gavin Newsom to

make it illegal to ask for voter ID.

So, Democrats seem to be undermining the

integrity of elections, not fortifying

it. So, when you ask, you know, why do

Republicans distrust elections? Maybe

that has something to do with the way

that Democrats are acting.

But I agree with you. I think that

cleaning up the voter rolls,

having a minimum standard

for voter verification

is something that I think should be

done. The going of the Constitution the

states basically run their own

elections, but it doesn't make sense to

me

that in a one-party machine politics

state, where basically one party

controls the state, that they could set

up a system that effectively entrenches

their power forever

in federal elections. It just seems to

me that the federal government has a

compelling interest that must be

constitutional in ensuring

a minimum standard of honesty in federal

elections. So, I think it would be great

to do something about this next year. I

think that if you want people to stop

questioning elections or engaging in

election denial, you need to make the

elections above reproach. So, let's do

that.

So, anyway, Heritage Foundation, which

is obviously right leaning,

has a bunch of election fraud cases

they've been documenting and they

basically cannot come up with like um

actual evidence that this is

changing any election results, but we

should make it above reproach. I agree.

All right, our boy Elon had a a big

week. Tesla unveiled two new concepts at

its We Robot event, and Elon Elon caught

a 23-story rocket, the Starship. Here's

the robo-taxi and the robo-bus. Both of

them look really awesome.

And uh he caught

one of the

the I think this is the fifth Starship

or the fourth launch. Fifth. The fifth,

right? And then Look at this. It's so

incredible. It's like chopsticks

catching a 23-story building.

are with Elon and his politics, just to

appreciate, and we can talk about why

this is so important in a segment.

But technically, the achievement of this

like skyscraper falling out of the sky

and perfectly aligning itself to go into

that chopstick catching device,

it is an absolute marvel of human

ingenuity. I mean, to and the work and

the effort that people put into this

over,

you know, several decades, it's just

such an incredible feat. Look at this

thing. I don't know if you guys were as

emotionally moved by this as I was. I

thought it was incredible. It was

incredible. I think I probably watched

this a hundred times. Totally. From

every angle. Every angle. And so, the

reason this is so important is because

these things cost a lot of money and

when they land here, you can clean them

up and I guess his goal is to have them

take off again after he fills them with

propellant

an hour later for you, Burke. So, on a

science basis,

this is extraordinary what uh you know,

if this works and you can start Let me

be more specific. You don't want it to

have

feet.

Mhm.

A, it's heavy.

And then B, you have to lift them up in

a way that just complicates the entire

refueling and cycle time process. So, by

catching it, you put it right back into

place and just go again. Unbelievable.

All right, you just catch it and go

again. I can kind of walk through these

numbers. So,

obviously the big objective over time is

how cheap can you get it to put material

into space.

We need a lot of material to go into

space if we're going to do things in

space,

particularly if we're going to go build

a colony on Mars.

And so, this shows you over time the

cost per kilogram, which is the key

metric in this industry, to launch

material

into lower Earth orbit. And you can see

here how SpaceX has dramatically reduced

the cost. I remember when the small sat

era began

in the 2010s, do you guys remember all

these startups that were starting to

build like little small sats and put

them up to do imaging and comms and

stuff?

When this took off,

it was about 10,000 bucks a kilogram to

put a small sat into space or to put

material into space. And then SpaceX has

dropped the cost to the point that it's

now close to a thousand dollars a

kilogram, so a 10x reduction in cost in

just the last decade or so. And that's

why SpaceX just dominates the the launch

market. But Elon's always said that a

thousand dollars a kilogram is too high,

but his objective has been to get the

cost down to 10 bucks a kilogram. Cuz at

10 bucks a kilogram, you could launch

what some people estimate is needed to

get to Mars, which is about half a

million tons of material and people to

set up a colony on Mars.

And it actually becomes feasible to get,

you know, half a million tons of

material at at 10 bucks a kilogram. So,

if you look at

this new Starship and Starship heavy

booster, it's about 150 to 200 ton

payload.

The booster holds, you know, 3,400 tons

of propellant.

And uh the cost of that propellant is

pretty low, you know, it's uh

it's only about a million dollars in

fuel. So, then if you can get the cost

of the booster and the Starship down

enough and you can reuse it enough

and you amortize the cost of making that

device over the the lifetime of of the

device, the cost per launch comes down

and that's what brings the cost per

kilogram down. So, the booster, there's

a group called Payload and they do

estimates on this, so I won't speak out

of turn in terms of like having inside

knowledge, but the Payload has estimated

that Starship and the booster cost about

90 million bucks today and they think

that they have a path to getting it down

to 35 million. So, if you can reuse that

thing 10 times,

that's a 3.5 million dollar cost per

launch

plus a million for fuel, you could

easily see and this thing can launch 200

tons. That's how you start to get to 10

bucks a kilogram

over the next couple of years. But, it

was critical to be able to reuse that

heavy booster and that's what Elon just

demonstrated is we can actually catch

that heavy booster, refuel it and launch

it an hour later and if you can do that

over and over again, you're spending 10

bucks a kilogram to put material into

space. You can get fuel into space and

then get those Starships to fly off to

Mars and deliver all this material

including setting up a base that would

allow you to actually make more fuel on

Mars cuz everything we need to make fuel

is on Mars. So, it's the beginning of

the next series of really important

milestones that'll hopefully get

humanity on to Mars. It was just so

amazing to see it come together. The

economics are legit. I mean, this is

like a 1,000 x reduction in cost. It's

incredible. Yeah, it's going to be

amazing and they're going to do some I

guess new stuff with Starlink some even

lower Earth orbit satellites that go

even faster

and have less latency. So that's going

to be super exciting. Starlink's

apparently I mean I know everyone here

is a shareholder in SpaceX but

Starlink's running at 4 million subs

right now. That's like a 100 bucks a

month 4 million subs

and if you do the math I mean how many

people

have ISPs that are slower than Starlink?

Right? How many people have cell phone

car providers that they're paying

roughly the same amount that aren't as

good as Starlink. If we can get

satellite to phone and you can get

Starlink more broadly available. This

could be a 100 million subscriber

business. I mean this could be

one of the biggest businesses on the on

the on the earth. Like it's just crazy.

Subscription business in the history of

humanity. I think the largest ones right

now are like Netflix, you know, 250

Disney Plus 150 Verizon 100 million. So

yeah, it's could be hundreds of millions

of subscribers. It could even be

the first 500 million subscriber product

in the world. We could look back one day

and be like why did we run all this

copper wire everywhere?

Like well, we don't need it. Yeah,

obviously. For sure. Crazy. Especially

if you can get to like crazy that we

were like ever I mean the whole nutty

thing about this past week it's like we

could look back one day and be like why

did we ever drive cars and why did we

ever have copper wire laid all over the

earth to like move internet signals

around? You know, this this efficiency

gain that's going to be realized over

the next decade is and just like

incredible. Just incredible. Chamath any

thoughts on the Robo Van or the

Cybercab the Model 2 I guess some people

are calling it but it's you know, the

Cybercab specifically not calling it

number two and it doesn't have a

steering wheel or pedals.

I would have bought two of those

immediately if it had a steering wheel

and pedals. I want to drive it. Yeah, it

looks like the hybrid of like a Model Y

and the Cybertruck. So I kind of really

love the aesthetics of it. So beautiful.

Yeah, How do it? My my my reaction was

actually

I don't know. Just seeing

these releases now over 10 or 15 years

plus of

knowing him, nothing

It's it's I guess it's like not that

surprising. It may be It's It's weird to

say like I just expect him and his teams

to figure it out. Like they're just all

so good. It's And the thing to remember,

it's not just him that's incredible, but

he attracts a kind of

technical and operational wunderkind

people. For sure. And that's just That's

just a really special thing. So, I had

that I had that reaction, which was I

was really

proud and happy for them. For the team,

yeah, for sure. For the team and for

him. These guys are like incredibly

fearless. Fail bigly, right? Yeah. If

you're going to fail, fail bigly. Yeah.

And then the other thing that I thought

was crazy was how many people were

trying to dunk on him this weekend.

And that surprised me. Caught me off

guard because I think that they were

personalizing

a lot of anxiety that they are feeling

through these companies' successes,

which didn't make much sense to me.

Well, in fairness, he did hurt some

people's feelings with posting of memes.

So,

yeah.

I mean, it's It makes no sense. Like the

guy's like going to save 30,000 road

deaths a year in the United States with

self-driving and people are losing their

minds over memes or who he's voting for

for president. I don't think you have to

worry about that.

You can just look at the products. They

speak for themselves.

Anything um

Sacks, any response on the on the Tesla

front? Any thoughts on the

the bus or Optimus? I mean, they're both

very exciting products. I don't think

I've got a lot to add. Yeah. I love the

bus, Freeberg. I think that thing could

become like mobile homes or, you know,

ADUs.

And you can just send them Can you Can

we buy them or no? Well, no, not right

now, but I think that might be you know,

that that's going to be a big question.

in one.

I need it for all my kids. Yeah. Well,

see, if this was a platform like the

Mercedes Sprinter vans have become that

you see a lot in Europe, then you could

buy an empty one of these. It's got

enough battery life to last a month.

And then let's say you had your in-laws

over and there was one that was set up

as like a one-bedroom. You could click

on Airbnb or you know, Tesla B&B, press

a button and the thing could drive to

your driveway. You could rent it for a

week and then it could leave. Or let's

say a thousand people or 10,000 people

were displaced because of a hurricane,

Freeburg. You could send a hundred

thousand of these to the parking lots at

Walmart, which typically does a good job

in in feeding people and getting them

supplies after hurricanes. Since those

are so ubiquitous, you could put a

hundred of these in every parking lot

and have a place for people who are

fleeing natural disasters to stay. So, I

thought that was like the most

compelling product of the whole thing

for me was the possibility of a sled,

like a skiff that you could do anything

you want with.

Would be really exciting for society.

So, I'm congratulations to the team.

And it's it's going to take a while, but

I I I could see them having that robo

taxi

I think congrats to Amit. He just got

promoted. I saw that. Yeah, he's in

charge of all AI.

I think he's in charge of all

manufacturing and sales in North America

now. Oh, okay. Well, there it is. Yeah,

shout out to Amit Afshar. Yeah.

I mean, listen.

Guys, I have I have big news. I just

bought my first Tesla.

Oh, you did? Did you go with a plaid

Model S? Model S plaid, yeah. Yeah,

that's

I uh test drove it for 2 weeks and

sold itself.

Yeah, and are you using the FSD? I use

FSD every day.

FSD and it was like really impressive,

so. Super impressive.

I I've tried Tesla a couple times over

the years and I never really never

really worked for me. The quality just

didn't feel like what I like given what

I had before the car wise.

You were an Audi guy, right?

But Audi guy, yeah. Always loved Audis.

And so I was

Yeah. That's Yeah. That's like anyway.

It's uh it's a big milestone. I really

I thought the FSD was the selling And

then the speed on the Plaid is is just

insane. It's better than my RS7, like

I um with all of my Teslas, I put it in

chill mode because when it's in that

Plaid mode or whatever, like coffee goes

flying

I love it. I get on

but if you have passengers, the kids in

the backseat would get

like literally nauseous because it's too

fast. You got to be You got to be

careful with the passengers there. It's

so fast.

awesome.

It's awesome.

All right. Well, there you have it.

Robo taxi story we didn't get to it last

week. We almost put the show back a day

or two just to do it. In other news,

Uber is exploring a bid to purchase

Expedia. Breaking news, this was

dispelled as we got here on the show.

They said this was like very preliminary

third-party talks and that there's no

serious talks going on about this.

Financial Times reported

that advisors

were trying to look at if a deal

structure would be possible between Uber

and Expedia. Expedia's got a $20 billion

market cap. They popped 8% on the news

obviously. Uber on the other hand

trading at a $170 billion market cap or

so. That dropped 3%.

If you didn't know, Dara was the CEO of

Expedia from 2005 to 2017. He's still on

the board.

And it looks like this was a trial

balloon.

You know, Uber's two biggest businesses

rides and Uber Eats, but they also do

freight and train bookings. Dara's been

pretty clear he wants to create a

super app like you have in China or some

other markets. Expedia's got a lot of

cool products.

hotels.com, Orbitz, Travelocity, or

Uh and I think the most interesting one

Friedberg and I were talking about this

is VRBO, vacation rental by owner. It

was like Airbnb before Airbnb existed.

And if you look at this chart since the

RL left the Dara effect,

Expedia has gone exactly sideways. The

revenue has grown modestly. What do you

think of this deal?

Chamath, I'll just go right to you with

this one since you like to Stupid.

Stupid, okay. There you have it, folks.

Reason number one, it's stupid and

reason number two, it's stupid. I mean,

this is a $20 billion market cap

business. You probably have to pay

a control premium of 50%. So, the

question is

if you were going to spend $30 today in

the public markets, what would you spend

it on?

And I think the most important lens that

you have to use to answer that question

is

what reinforces a moat that I have

while also being inoculated from the

risks of AI.

And I cannot think of

a more fragile business model than the

UI layer

on top of widely available data.

So, the problem that Expedia has is the

same that Booking and a bunch of these

other folks have, which is that the

principal heartbeat of the company,

flight information and other things,

are licensed to them by third parties.

And so, what they are is a UI and a

front door.

I think it's way too early in the

evolution of AI to know that that's

safe. And in fact, I think a more

reasonable assumption is that those

things are pretty fragile.

And part of what may explain the

doldrums of the stock is that I think

people are anticipating a world where,

for example, I don't know if you saw

about Perplexity

launch something this week. It's just in

test mode.

They whitelisted me into it, but it's

basically a checkout concept. So, you

tell Perplexity what you would like it

to buy and then it will go and complete

the transaction for you.

So,

in the example of flight bookings, you

could go directly to United

because A, Perplexity will just show you

all of the flights. They'll show you the

exact prices.

And then it'll go and execute that for

you with your payment method.

In a world that looks like that, where

these companies have the money to pay

for the data feeds,

the existing V1.0 generation UIs, I

think, are in trouble. So,

it would just be a very bad capital

allocation decision. Now, that's okay to

get things wrong,

but not for $30 billion wrong. You can

probably do it for

a couple hundred million dollars wrong,

or maybe even a billion dollars wrong,

cuz you can absorb that as a 150 or 60

billion-dollar company, but 30 billion

is too big of a price to pay for that

kind of risk. I would agree with you,

and there's other things they could buy

like WeRide or Pony.ai and a bunch of

these AI companies that are doing

self-driving, so why not double down on

that? Freeberg, the one thing you and I

talked about was kind of VRBO, which is

a very cool marketplace, and that feels

directly in the Uber kill zone. What do

you think about them just maybe carving

out and buying VRBO and having an Airbnb

uh competitor?

they just buy Waymo? Why don't they just

go to Google and give them $30 billion

of Uber stock and just carve in Waymo?

Isn't that a better idea?

that's what's going to happen. I've been

hearing rumblings of that, so.

So, I think that Dara knows Expedia

better than anyone. He ran the business

for what, a decade or or so? Yep. And

so, he knows how that business operates.

And so, if he's looking at this thing

and the stock price has been flat

roughly since he left in 2017,

if you look at the underlying financial

performance, you could kind of start to

construct a rationale for buying Expedia

this cheap, and it would be very

accretive to Uber even if there are

these big strategic risks on the

horizon.

So, just to give you some numbers on it

all, Uber has got about 150 million

monthly active users.

Expedia has about 45-50 million

customers a year that use the service

and pay for stuff.

So, there's a real opportunity to think

about the Uber customer base that's

installed as being almost an opportunity

to market to them Expedia services and

cross-sell.

So, Expedia on an annualized basis

is spending about 8 billion a year in

sales and marketing and about 720

million a year in G&A costs.

So, and they're running about 3 billion

EBITDA right now.

Run rate. So, if you cut about half the

G&A in an acquisition cuz you don't need

all the people that overlap with Uber's

people,

you know, and you cut about 30% of the

sales and marketing dollars because you

can cross-sell into the Uber install

base,

you could see a scenario where you could

increase Expedia's EBITDA by 75 to 100%

maybe getting it as high as $6 billion.

And while Expedia's market cap trades at

220 billion, and this is off of, you

know, obviously the recent news that

they might get acquired. If you kind of

assume a 40-50% price premium to the

last 90-day average of the stock price,

which is kind of typical or common for

deal like this,

they're probably paying 26 billion for

the company.

And they got about 4 billion in net

cash, so you're kind of paying about 22

billion enterprise value

to buy Expedia. So, 22 billion of

enterprise value, and if you can bump

the EBITDA up to 6 billion a year,

that's a pretty low multiple. I mean,

you could kind of see yourself

rationalizing this just from a financial

basis that you're paying four times

EBITDA to buy this thing. Mhm. And Dara

knows this thing, and he would have

great command over what needs to be done

over there, and he would have a great

sense of

what to change and what's gone wrong.

Mhm. And there's a lot of interesting

assets inside of Expedia. VRBO's a great

one that's been under monetized and

underutilized. I don't know if you've

used the UX on VRBO versus Airbnb.

There's obviously some influence Dara

could have with people that he knows

well that could go in and fix that that

interface and make it a better service.

And even as AI starts to step in and

hotels maybe integrate better with

agents and so on, and they show up in a

more ubiquitous way, there's other

things that Expedia does like build

vacation packages and travel packages

that are high-margin products that they

sell

that are a little bit different than

what you're used to with a just booking

a flight. Booking flights makes no money

for anyone. But vacation packages is

where all the money's at. And so

theoretically Expedia could be smarter

about how they build vacation packages

and personalize them for families, and

that's where they can make real margin,

like 20 30% margin. So I could see a

story where this all starts to click for

the board at Uber saying, "Maybe it

makes sense. Dara knows what he's

talking about. We could buy this thing

for four times, you know, pro forma

EBITDA. This could be hugely accre-

accretive for us."

So I think that's why this is happening,

why this conversation maybe happening.

That That's just me trying to understand

I think it's a good steal, man. You

know, what the rationale might be. Could

you just go back and explain how would

they drive up EBITDA so much?

So they're spending about 8

billion a year run rate on sales and

marketing at Expedia right now.

And Uber's got 150 million active

installed users that are using this the

Uber services every month. So the idea

would be customers, yeah. Actually

paying customers.

So if Uber could cross-sell some number

of Expedia services to their installed

base at Uber, which they could test and,

you know, do a little experiment and see

if it works,

they may be able to reduce the marketing

dollars that Expedia is spending to

acquire customers through other

third-party sources like Google and Bing

and other places. So there's a rationale

That's where I think the logic breaks

down. I don't think Uber customers want

to be cross-sold

on booking a hotel. See, this is where I

think like MBA thinking is very

different than product thinking. Like an

MBA looking at this would say, "Well,

you know, Expedia and Uber are both in

the travel business. Their apps both

involve booking trips, so we can we can

cross sell Expedia from Uber and then

cut Expedia's marketing budget. I think

that's how an MBA would sort of hand

wave over it. I think the way like a

product manager would look at this is to

say, what does the user want to do?

And I know that when I use the Uber app,

I just want to basically make a couple

of clicks, set my destination, get my

car, and then move on. And there was a

there was a product initiative a few

years back at Uber where they tried to

capture the user's attention during the

ride and they you know they added like

this

Yeah, they had that whole ad thing. That

ads

Yeah, that was like making a ton of

money.

And

what it was like it was like an

entertainment stream or something inside

the app. No, but they dialed it way back

because I don't see it anymore. It was

just clutter. Would you trust Dara's

judgment on this Sacks? Like if Dara

were to think about what the Uber user

would want and he could rationalize some

percentage of them

they could cross sell Expedia services

into. I mean ultimately I think it's

it's his decision, right? Like Well, I

mean what you're describing is basically

a private equity play. Like Dara's going

to come in

as like a private equity buyer

effectively and he knows the business

and will run it to reduce cost, maybe

boost some revenue. And maybe there is

justification for that, but if you're

trying to justify it based on cross

selling, I don't think users of the Uber

app want to be cross sold when they book

a taxi, okay? They just want to be able

to affect their transaction as

efficiently as possible. And just to

finish the point I was making on that

whole entertainment stream that they

had, they dialed that product way back

cuz it got in the way. You'd be you know

in the Uber app trying to figure out how

to change your destination or something

and all of a sudden you're being shown

like some entertainment product. It's

not what users wanted. Um and it was

always kind of a

a bananas idea to think that just

because the user books an Uber that you

own their attention during that ride

because during that ride you're really

competing with every app on the iPhone,

right? I mean

And that's the problem is you want to

get in and out of the Uber app. It's

about transacting efficiently.

What about not the moment when you're

when you're riding in an Uber, but the

moment when you say as an Uber user,

"Hey, I need to book travel. I got to go

on a vacation to Austin this weekend."

going to think to go on my Uber app for

that. The only time I open

But what if they put that feature in

there? What if they had a tab that said

book your travel here? You know when I

open the Uber app? When I want to hail a

taxi. That's where It's like I'm ready

to go.

There are a large number of people who

maybe don't have a, you know, an

assistant to book their hotels in

advance and like that would be most

people, Jay K.O.

I would not think to go into Uber to do

that. It would just be clutter. Well,

no, but the They already have a

hotels.com partnership and then the Uber

One membership's been growing pretty

nicely and the advertising's doing a

billion dollars a year and that is just

a money-printing machine because you

know that this person's in an Uber

Black. You know that they're going to

the Four Seasons. Like these users who

are, you know, They have a real ad

business at Uber.

Yeah, yeah. The more Uber tries to

promote some unrelated product, and what

I mean by unrelated is it doesn't help

you get to where you're going that

moment, it's cluttering the app.

What about Uber Eats, Axe? Yeah. Uber

Eats working pretty well? It's working

great, yeah. And the cross-promotion's

working. That is highly related to It's

basically booking a car to pick up some

food. Yeah. It's still the taxi

business, basically. I think the hotels

integration is good, you there's

something here. We have gone through a

cycle where apps and attention were

highly consolidated with a few. Now the

pendulum has swung the other way and

apps are very

narrow features that are really well

described. Okay, so that's sort of where

we are. That's why we have the billions

and billions of apps in the App Store.

The question is does the pendulum swing

back to these super apps? And I think

the big question is not whether it

swings back to the super apps, but

whether there's a new substrate that

puts itself between the user and all of

these services so that they become data

oriented services.

And this is where the question is, if

you rely on an agent or you rely on

a beef tub version of search, whether

that's chat GPT or Gemini or whatever,

why would you care where all of this

stuff was done? You're not going to

care.

And this is I think the big mistake in

this thinking is that

that real estate is actually much more

fragile than I think we all think it is.

And I think a much better way to think

about this is in the future, none of

this UI real estate is actually worth

anything.

The question is, do you have a data

asset that's valuable or do you do a

service that's valuable? Because

agentically

there'll be all of these unemotional

bots and workflows doing this work for

you.

So, I think Sachs is right in the sense

that whether it's there or not, it won't

matter. Could Could he run it like a

private equity business where now Uber

corporation owns two services?

Sure.

But you're probably just better off

for these agents to go and cannibalize

all of search because you'll be able to

just get a data feed for what Expedia

has to create Expedia for a few million

dollars or tens of millions of dollars.

You don't need to pay 20 or 30 billion

dollars for this. Yeah, I I the thing

that I've talked to Dara about is when

they said he told me when they do

something that's adjacent to what

they're already doing, it explodes in

terms of engagement. So, like they're

doing like teens and rental cars

and then package delivery and every time

they do one of those adjacencies,

it just takes off with the membership

and to your point, Friedberg, they have

those 150 customers who have their

credit cards in there and man, it just

it's explosive. So, that's what I think

they're doing.

is an adjacency to ordering food. I

think hotels would be. I don't think

flights would be cuz I think the flights

work really well with the existing apps,

but things where you have proprietary

inventory like VRBO or hotels, I think

those would be very powerful and those

have 20, 30% commissions which are in

line with the commissions

that Uber's already getting. And the

commissions on things like flights is

very small, like a couple of dollars.

So, I think for hotels and VRBO would be

brilliant. For the other stuff, I'm not

so sure, to your point.

Chamath Well, just to finish my my

thought.

Yeah, yes. Was that you'll notice that

Uber Eats is a separate app from Uber,

right? I mean, I know you can get to the

Eats part within Uber, but they created

a separate app for a reason. It's

because whether you're using Uber Eats

or Uber, the goal is immediate

gratification. I want to get to where

I'm going. I don't book it 6 hours in

advance. I call it right now. And the

most important thing to me is wait time.

This is why Uber is beating Lyft is wait

time. Hold on, the wait time is lower.

Same thing with food. I'm not thinking

about booking my dinner right now. I'm

not going to do it in advance. If you

browse through the restaurants, the most

important piece of data they show you,

in addition to the rating, is the number

of minutes it takes for it to get to

you. So, those apps are all about

immediate gratification.

And that's why you don't want other

things getting in the way of them.

Now, I guess the claim is somehow you're

going to be able to cross-sell

the booking of a vacation

or a hotel that you have to think about

days or weeks in advance.

It's just a completely different state

of mind. I just don't think that there's

much opportunity to cross-sell that.

Yeah, but what about the brand What

about the technical jargon? I don't

think the attach rate is going to be

high.

What about the brand value, Sach? So,

cuz you know those people are going to

another app to book their flight and

their hotel. What if that other app was

called Uber Travel? There might be some

value in that. I can see that.

Yeah.

If I think that would be the rationale

where I could see the Expedia brand

Yeah, so maybe maybe what you could do

is take VRBO, rebranded as Uber

Hotel or Uber

Travel, whatever you want to call it.

Exactly. Exactly. then maybe you could

push people to download that app. Well,

the thing I you know, I would the

counter I give to this

You could quantify that the value of the

installs, right? So Yeah, exactly. I

mean, well, you could quantify because

Expedia is spending on it every year

right now. I use the Bonvoy app to book

hotels. I use United to book my flights

and I use Uber to do my rides and

obviously for eats. When you are using

it, there's a tab up top and the UI is

quite nice in Uber where it's rides and

eats right next to each other. I could

see a third one like hotels or travel

being right there and all of a sudden

yum yum, you just get all that inventory

right in there and I frequently will

book my hotel

and I'll book my ride for the next day

in advance on Uber and I do those things

and then when I get to my hotel, I'm

ordering food to my room. So I think

this actually could work really well as

a third tab in the app for travel.

Mhm. And you could actually cuz when you

use eats in the Uber app, it's its own

tab and it's the exact same experience.

I I believe in super apps. Um and they

just launched a bus that's like a bus

service in New York for 18 bucks to go

to JFK. That's really awesome. I think

we're a little bit disconnected cuz we

don't book our own travel. But okay,

let's keep moving here.

Down the docket. All right, this

uh big tech investing in nuclear power

is off to the races, Chamath. Amazon

just announced a $500 million investment

in three nuclear power projects. All of

these are focused on SMRs.

Those are the small modular reactors.

Amazon is working with Dominion Energy

to develop a small modular nuclear

reactor near an existing nuclear power

plant in Virginia. In total, Amazon

plans to invest 35 billion in

Virginia-based data centers by 2040

and they want to power these by SMRs.

And this is a big trend. Google is

purchasing energy directly from Kairos

Power, another company building SMRs.

Microsoft, as you heard, was reviving

one of the Three Mile Island nuclear

power plants. So, this is kind of

interesting, Chamath. We went from

nuclear not being on the table,

everybody being against it, the Germans

shutting down their reactors

post-Fukushima,

and now big tech is the customer for

these with AI, and they're putting down

very large deposits and payments to

build them in America, and I haven't

heard any opposition.

Maybe you could just speak to your

Chamath what we've seen here in terms of

opposition to these versus the

opportunity, and everybody is writing

checks. Yeah. Well, they're not writing

checks. So, this is what I don't want to

be a Debbie Downer here, but these

press releases need to have an asterisk

on them. So, in the hierarchy of deals,

right, just to unpack this for a second,

there are deals where you give me X and

I give you money.

That's not what this is.

Then, if you degrade that kind of deal

structure,

in a lot of heavy industry, you have

deals that are called take or pay, which

is there is something that's working,

and you need to basically take this, or

you need to give me the monetary

equivalent of what I'm selling you.

That's not what this is.

What this is is sort of this conditional

obligation where the beginning of the

deal starts with a very important

statement, which is if it works,

and if these approvals happen, and

there's a whole bunch of nested ifs,

then payments can happen.

So, while these are important deals

because they show that there are

potential buyers

at the finish line,

what it doesn't do is solve the two

things that you need

to get to the finish line, which is

the actual risk capital to finish

building these things and technically

de-risk them,

and then the regulatory approval that

you need to make sure that they're

allowed.

So, I think that these deals are good. I

think it's a great signaling,

but I think it's important to understand

the nuances of these things. These are

not

things where there's money really

trading hands. And until that you see

that where

irrespective of what happens, the

balance sheet is investing from an

Amazon or a Google, where there's corp

dev folks writing hundred million dollar

or billion dollar checks into these

companies,

it's not yet quite there. This is more

of the step before, which is sort of can

you create some marketing and and some

buzziness to hopefully induce somebody

to then rip in billions of dollars of

risk equity capital.

Freeberg, your thoughts on SMRs and

these customers showing up, and then I

guess you could comment on the nature of

the deal structure here, because some of

them are,

you know, contingent on the nuclear

power plant turning on. Some of them do

have deposits, as my understanding.

We'll look that up and fact check it.

There could be a range of deals here.

Yeah, I don't know the nature of the

deals. I did I think talk about this a

year ago. It's It was also like one my

prediction for the year was to buy the

uranium stocks,

predicated on

what I think is a really important

point,

which is as GDP per capita grows, energy

consumption per capita grows. And if you

looked at the projections of GDP per

capita in industrialized nations,

there was no way There is no way

to meet the energy demand, and this was

even pre all this crazy AI buildout,

which is probably part of the GDP

growth,

but there is no way to meet the energy

demand without nuclear.

Uh there is not enough

solar, geothermal, or wind buildout

potential that's happening that the

stopgap measure is going to have to be,

and probably the right long-term

solution, is to have a significant

amount of base load come from nuclear.

And so, what's the fastest way to do

that nuclear build out? Well, in China,

they have the regulatory authority and

the mandate stated they're going to

build 300 GW with 300 facilities or

whatever the number is.

And that's what they're doing. Very

large facilities that make a gigawatt of

power each.

In the US, it seems that because of the

regulatory structure here and the way

that utilities are regulated and the way

that the states have authority on the

environmental laws and all the other

things,

that it might be the fastest path

to solving this energy gap problem is

SMRs.

And that's why we And these things

produce tens of megawatts. So, again, a

gigawatt is a thousand megawatts.

And, you know, we need to kind of

probably grow our energy production in

the United States by several terawatts

over the next

decade or two. So, this SMR may be the

fastest path. Now, that could change,

meaning we could end up seeing much

larger facilities get built out

if there's regulatory change in the US

and there's more availability. But,

fundamentally, we are going to need to

use uranium

to make electricity

to meet the demand of the growing the

GDP that it seems we're going to to be

growing at. I think this is just such a

necessity. It's great to see the SMRs

getting some attention. I just don't

know if they're actually going to get

turned on, how long it's going to take,

and

you know, I I don't know what this

election cycle's going to bring in terms

of regulatory change. I think we talked

about it with several of the candidates

when we were doing the interviews.

Sacks, if we are able to

get a bunch of these SMRs built here in

the United States,

maybe if Europe follows suit, what would

this do on a geopolitical basis into our

relationship with the Middle East, our

energy independence, and of course the

AI race to

you know, general intelligence. I'll let

you take it whichever direction you want

to go.

Well, I don't think we're going to

because I don't think anyone wants a

nuclear power plant in their backyard.

It's really simple. I mean, no matter

what the benefits are for AI or for

America's global competitiveness, I just

don't think your typical community wants

a nuclear power plant in their backyard

and I don't think it matters that much

if it's a small modular one, either. So,

you think they'll get blocked by local

communities? Yeah, and probably for good

reason. I mean, I don't want a nuclear

power plant in my backyard. Do you?

I feel like this has suddenly become a

little bit of a luxury belief where

liberal elites are always talking about

how we need to have nuclear power now,

but they know they're not going to have

a nuclear power plant in their backyard.

So, it's easy for for all of us to

genuflect about what a great idea this

is, but let's face it. It's these things

are going to be built probably

in poorer or working-class communities

and inevitably there's going to be some

accident. I mean, you can tell me how

safe they are till you're blue in the

face. I don't believe it. You know,

planes aren't supposed to fall out of

the sky, either, and it does happen.

And, you know, they're going to set up a

a power one of these power plants

somewhere

and

you know, it's probably going to have a

DEI program and something's going to

happen. I mean, something's going to

happen.

And then the the fallout is is literally

going to fall out on on the people in

that poor community.

So, I don't think this is going to

happen. This show really had a diversity

of views, doesn't it? It's like Look,

this is a perfect example of liberal

business elites demanding something

that isn't going to affect them. It's

not going to affect them. Your take on a

non-binary

trans lesbian with purple hair putting

putting a small nuclear reactor

200 miles outside of Austin, Texas. Go.

Put your tinfoil hat on for me.

do you want it to your ranch, dude, Cal?

I I

I think there's plenty of land

outside of the triangle here in Texas

where there is no density and you could

put one and it'd have no problem with

there being one 100 miles, 200 miles

Who's going to work there? Who's going

to service it? I mean, literally you

would have to It doesn't take that many

people to to service these. So, yeah.

If something goes wrong. I think there's

plenty of space in the United States to

put these and maybe Friedberg you could

talk

and educate us

on the safety here. Do you believe what

Sachs is saying that it's going to have

a meltdown and he doesn't believe it?

point of view, to be honest, is

the point of view that will be held by a

large number of people just like they

have been with a lot of other Is it the

right point of view, though? Tell us

from a science perspective.

Well, no, no, I don't I don't think it

is. I think that the same argument would

have been made around we shouldn't have

airplanes at all because they can fall

from the sky. We should keep everyone on

the ground where they're safe. Why would

you want to get on an airplane? Why

would you want to have airplanes flying

over your home? We should all ban

airplanes flying over our home. They

could crash in our home. It's the same

sort of argument. And the reason I'm not

going to argue the point is cuz I I cuz

of the point I made earlier, which is

that it ultimately becomes an economic

necessity. That for us to meet all of

the demands of AI, all of the demands of

industry, we want to re-industrialize

the United States, etc. etc. We need to

increase electricity production capacity

on the continent. And there is no way to

generate enough electricity on this

continent fast enough

using other means than there would be if

we just got these these systems set up.

So, I think they will go forward out of

necessity.

out of necessity.

That's your take.

I think globally this is the case and

we're seeing it in China. Now, where the

where did the US end

The Chinese don't have to worry about a

NIMBY problem. The CCP

have to says this is what we're going to

do. Yeah, that's right. And and here

And we may we may end

They are the Chinese the NIMBY. My

Yeah, and we may be the we may end up

being the Luddite state and we'll end up

just saying, you know what, we're not

going to adopt new technology including

things like gene editing and cell cell

therapies and I'll go through the list

of new technologies you could make the

argument that there's a low probability

of a high risk event, but the fact is

that the progress that it enables is

worth so much more than the risk that we

would be taking on. There's a simpler

solution to all of this without having

to go and create these reactors which is

I don't think that we have a very good

grasp of the material science broadly

speaking. I don't think we really

understand how to build next generation

materials. I don't think our specialty

chemicals capabilities are all that

strong. The way that they're going to be

over the next 5 or 10 years just with

better compute. So I think that there's

going to be a lot of interim steps

that increase the generally available

energy density without going to nuclear.

I think there's going to be a lot of

businesses to do that. That'll be much

safer, easier to regulate, easier to

test,

easier to underwrite and I think the

government will get behind those. So I'm

not as negative as you are on the only

solution being nuclear. The countries

and the businesses that have a lower

cost of electricity and a more abundant

source of electricity will end up

winning as the economy continues to

progress towards a much more kind of

digital state and an automated state

over the next decades. So if we're going

to be slower, we're going to suffer the

consequences of that as a country. So

we'll see how it plays out. I just think

that economic incentives will ultimately

drive hopefully a change.

Would a possible solution be to give an

economic incentive to the people who

would be in the surrounding areas?

Obviously these things could be 50 or

100 miles from

you know, anybody's homes, but even the

people who work there or people who

might have

I don't know, some homes that were near

it. Could you give them

no taxes etc. etc. Essentially give them

incentives to allow this to go through.

Free burger in your mind? Do you think

that kind of incentive would work?

Taxes or some kind of payoff or subsidy?

I'm not sure. I haven't thought much

about like what what the incentives or

subsidies would be. I think that

to

them an incentive cuz no one's going to

want to live within 200 mi of one of

these things.

What would be the number for Three Mile

Island?

that people people have a very deep

fear

of, you know, what is deemed to be

cataclysmic technology. I do think a lot

of this is rooted in the evolution of

the atomic age where we basically have

these nuclear warheads mounted to

missiles that can travel at 20 times the

speed of sound

and land on your city and wipe out your

city. I mean, that that is also nuclear

technology and people conflate the two

as being similar. And even Three Mile

Island, there were, you know, no deaths.

It was a shocking, scary thing for

people, but statistically speaking and

historically speaking and technically

speaking, it's a lot more complicated to

explain to people what happened and why

and why now is different and no one has

the time for that. No one wants to hear

that They want to hear a very simple,

"Do you really want a nuclear power

plant in your backyard?" No way. "What

about you?" No way. All right, let's

let's vote to stop it. And they're

right.

I mean, you compare you compare it to

commercial airlines, but commercial

airlines, that's a technology that's

been around for what, like 100 years?

Sax, do you have any data on the safety

record of nuclear technology? Cuz I'm

not sure you do. I think my point is

like you're just making a statement out

of fear.

data. Where's the data? Yeah, let's do

it. Let's do it right now. I mean, I I

think this is an important discussion.

I'd like to actually

my point about commercial airlines is

we've had that technology for over 100

years. It was honed and refined over

many decades and

commercial airlines now have become very

safe and reliable.

This is going on 100 years of use,

right? You know that.

There've been incidents every decade or

two and that is why

That's not true. You're You're saying

something that's not true. The reason

nuclear has been discredited is because

of Three Mile Island and Fukushima

been First of all, it's not been

discredited. It's

It's

No, it's

It's social fear-mongering like you were

doing right now with no data and no

facts to try and make it a political

issue that drives everyone to one side,

shut their minds down and not listen to

the actual facts and data. And this

fear-mongering is what keeps us from

being competitive, it what keeps us from

having progress. You talk a lot about

people talking about Elon.

listen. I I'm

I'm just saying I don't want one near

me. Now, if they're Hold on a second.

I'm not saying you can't do

deaths at Chernobyl.

I'm not against doing it somewhere

where the community is in favor of doing

it. So, if you can find a place that

wants to do this, I would not stop it,

just to be clear. I'm just saying I

don't want one near me.

get to facts. Yeah, we got to Jake Jake

I'll just give me a second. Yeah, yeah.

I don't think you're going to find many

takers,

even among poor communities. It's a

great

adversarial point. Let's go to the

facts.

nuclear power reactors operating in 32

countries around the world. Since the

time that we first had nuclear reactors,

which has now been almost a century,

there have been three incidents,

Chernobyl, Fukushima, and Three Mile

Island. At Three Mile Island, there were

zero deaths. At Fukushima, there was one

death, and at Chernobyl, there were 46

deaths. The fallout from those events

has been that we shut down energy

production, we shut down nuclear reactor

technology, and we fear-mongered our way

into losing the most abundant,

available, low-cost form of energy.

Do those deaths actually include the

second and third-order effects of all

this radiation?

there were 15 people who got thyroid

cancer, 35 operators and first

responders who got radiation sickness,

and then the background radiation

effects, there's a lot of kind of noise

around this, but it's not a significant

number as you may otherwise think. Same

with Fukushima. Why is it that whole

region is still uninhabited then? They

had a radiation event, there's

radioactive material that has covered

that area that will be radioactive for a

long period of time. Now, to understand

what happened there and why that won't

happen again requires talking about the

difference in the technology between Gen

1, Gen 2, Gen 3, and Gen 4 systems. A

lot of what's being rolled out now are

these Gen 3 nuclear reactors, and the

Gen 4 systems, which we highlighted a

little while ago, do not have a meltdown

possibility. Right? We we talked about

this, the one that went online in China

in December. Those new systems, the Gen

4 reactors, cannot melt down. You cannot

have an incident like you did with the

Gen 1 and Gen 2 systems. And the Gen 3

systems are abundantly safe. China is

building hundreds of them. It is a It is

a totally like understandable science.

If we want to spend the time looking at

the data and understanding the

engineering and the material science

work and all the effort that's gone in,

billions of dollars over decades. The

biggest stumbling block and the biggest

wall has been the fact that people have

this fear-mongering activity that they

tell people dis dismiss it. It's too

scary. We don't want it in our backyard.

Let's move on to the next opportunity.

That's what's killed it. And if you just

put these things 50 miles away, the

radiation, even in the meltdowns, didn't

go past those, was my understanding. So,

we

even if you want to just the easiest

steel man in the

systems don't melt down. You don't have

that possibility. And the SMRs have I am

in the 100% agreement. They don't even

work. These SMRs, they don't work. They

may be a new. How can you say for sure

what the safety record's going to be?

Oh, that's Just to be clear, SMRs don't

work yet. We have theoretical ways in

which we can profile and model that they

work, but we don't have a functional one

that people can look at and inspect. As

part of that, we haven't been able to

test how they fail.

Those are also theoretical. So, I think

let's put SMRs off and let's just be

very accurate. We don't have a

functioning working version of one

because they don't work yet. Maybe

they'll work in the future. Let's hope

that they do. What you're talking about,

Freebird, is a is a step before that,

which is the Gen 3 reactor, which has a

different safety

are SMRs operating in China, Russia, and

India today. And there's about 65 being

built at this moment. Right? So, and

that's outside the US. So, that's why

the US is is a is kind of observing and

trying to catch up and adopt these

technologies that are being used by call

it economic competitors and economic

partners around the world, it's

important for economic prosperity in the

US for us to have a degree of

competitiveness in electricity prices.

If China races towards 5 cents per

kilowatt hour for electricity, and we're

sitting here 20 cents a kilowatt hour

for electricity, what's that going to do

to our economic competitiveness?

are at 5 cents in the generation.

And you're saying solar, right? We can

fix that tomorrow. We already We already

rely on a nuclear reactor that works,

and to Sax's point, it just happens to

be millions of miles away, so it can

if it goes, we all going to go anyways.

Yeah, the scalability of of solar in

terms of getting us to a terawatt of

production capacity is the the limiting

block, Chamath, that in order to get to

a terawatt of

production

science problems. I don't think that's

you don't need to run ahead of China.

that other countries are taking the

early adopter risk with this technology.

be This is decades in the making, Sax.

That's going to be But if they're if

China runs away with this and they have

so many of these running and then