Dueling Presidential interviews, SpaceX’s big catch, Robotaxis, Uber buying Expedia?, Nuclear NIMBY

00:00:00.000 | - Freeberg's channeling Tim Walz over there.

00:00:01.880 | - I know, wow, he's as exciting as Tim Walz.

00:00:04.320 | - Got your flannel on.

00:00:05.760 | Do you know what a venture capitalist is, Freeberg?

00:00:07.480 | - Oh, he's shilling SuperGut.

00:00:09.560 | - Well, as of last week,

00:00:10.920 | when J-Cal decided to turn All In into a commercial,

00:00:13.720 | I was actually gonna do a SuperGut background.

00:00:16.560 | We're launching SuperGut nationwide in Target this week.

00:00:19.600 | Any Target in the United States,

00:00:21.160 | you can go into and pick up SuperGut.

00:00:23.080 | You can buy the GLP-1 booster.

00:00:26.560 | You can buy the prebiotic shake.

00:00:29.360 | I have that, actually.

00:00:30.200 | Is that the chocolate?

00:00:31.160 | Or do you have the mocha? - Is it the chocolate?

00:00:32.760 | - I mean, I like the mocha. - This one's chocolate.

00:00:34.000 | - Okay, mocha's good, too.

00:00:35.520 | All right, let's get started.

00:00:36.360 | - Well, thanks for the support, J-Cal.

00:00:37.560 | I appreciate it. - Of course, of course, of course.

00:00:39.440 | - We're cutting all this out.

00:00:41.000 | - No way, this is why I do this.

00:00:43.040 | - Next time, plug a company, I have a stake in.

00:00:45.500 | (upbeat music)

00:00:48.080 | ♪ We won't let your winners ride ♪

00:00:50.960 | ♪ Rain Man, David Sachs ♪

00:00:53.400 | ♪ I'm going all in ♪

00:00:55.360 | ♪ And instead, we open-sourced it to the fans ♪

00:00:57.520 | ♪ And they've just gone crazy with it ♪

00:00:59.160 | ♪ Love you, S-I-C-E, Queen of Kinwam ♪

00:01:01.480 | ♪ I'm going all in ♪

00:01:03.400 | - Also, all-in election night livestream

00:01:05.720 | is coming November 5th.

00:01:08.000 | You can watch live.

00:01:08.920 | Sachs will be hosting. - Oh, we're doing that?

00:01:10.680 | - We're doing it.

00:01:11.520 | You're hosting it.

00:01:12.340 | Your team said you're doing it.

00:01:13.680 | And so, you'll either get to see Sachs--

00:01:15.800 | - Are you not going to Mar-a-Lago, Sachs?

00:01:17.840 | - Well, if things continue to look good for Trump,

00:01:21.200 | I might go to Mar-a-Lago, I might.

00:01:24.220 | - Yeah.

00:01:25.060 | - Okay, so you're maybe, let's not commit Sachs.

00:01:26.840 | You're maybe, if you go to Mar-a-Lago, you're excused.

00:01:28.840 | - I could livestream from Mar-a-Lago.

00:01:30.480 | - Oh, that would be amazing.

00:01:31.880 | Absolutely amazing.

00:01:32.720 | - I'll go to Mar-a-Lago, that'd be fun.

00:01:34.080 | Yeah, if it looks good, I'll go.

00:01:35.960 | - So maybe that's--

00:01:36.800 | - Just go, Jason, just go.

00:01:38.880 | - Of course I'm invited.

00:01:39.820 | I talked to Jared.

00:01:40.660 | - If things look as good as they do right now,

00:01:42.560 | then I think I'm gonna have to go to Mar-a-Lago.

00:01:44.400 | - I think we should all be in Mar-a-Lago.

00:01:45.960 | - That's gonna be a unique experience.

00:01:47.640 | - Oh my God, can you imagine being in Mar-a-Lago

00:01:49.840 | and he loses?

00:01:51.320 | Oh my God.

00:01:52.320 | - That's why I don't want to go.

00:01:53.160 | - That would be dark, yeah.

00:01:53.980 | - Unless this thing is in the bag.

00:01:55.400 | It's gotta be too big to rig.

00:01:56.800 | If it's too big to rig, I'm going to Mar-a-Lago.

00:01:58.560 | - Too big to rig.

00:01:59.400 | - Do you guys think Polly Market is like,

00:02:03.400 | why do you think it's different from the polls?

00:02:05.600 | Are we talking about this today?

00:02:06.920 | Polly Market's showing like 60, 40, or 65, 35 now, right?

00:02:11.920 | - Yeah, because they're measuring different things.

00:02:13.280 | I've explained this before.

00:02:14.360 | Polly Market is people betting on the outcome.

00:02:16.960 | So 58% think Trump's gonna win.

00:02:19.320 | Whereas the polls in a particular state

00:02:22.240 | show the percentage of how each person's gonna vote.

00:02:26.440 | So if for sure you knew the election was 51, 49,

00:02:30.620 | the betting markets would swing to 100, zero.

00:02:32.280 | - But let me ask you this.

00:02:33.120 | So Nate Silver's model,

00:02:34.720 | which takes the poll from each state

00:02:37.060 | and builds in a kind of a Monte Carlo of super poll,

00:02:41.160 | like a super model for the whole country.

00:02:44.320 | Why is his estimate 50, 50 right now

00:02:47.480 | while the Polly Market is betting at 60, 40?

00:02:50.400 | - It's possible he's laggy in his estimates.

00:02:53.640 | - Got it.

00:02:55.360 | - On the betting markets.

00:02:56.180 | The betting markets seem to go based on momentum.

00:02:59.920 | So it like, it indicates the swing and momentum.

00:03:03.240 | And then the polls obviously take a week or two.

00:03:04.640 | - How do you think they're gonna change

00:03:05.640 | after the interviews the last couple of days?

00:03:07.440 | Trump on Bloomberg and Kamala on Fox.

00:03:10.120 | Do you think those are gonna change anything?

00:03:11.680 | - I don't think so.

00:03:13.200 | - I think it's all baked in now.

00:03:15.400 | - Well, Trump over the past few weeks

00:03:16.720 | seems to have had a surge

00:03:18.480 | owing to the fact that Kamala's interviews

00:03:20.680 | generally don't go well.

00:03:22.120 | So I think she started off a little behind,

00:03:24.060 | started doing interviews to catch up,

00:03:25.660 | and now she's a lot behind.

00:03:27.720 | I don't think the Barrett interview is gonna help her.

00:03:30.400 | - Well, let me ask you this.

00:03:31.560 | So my observation as, I don't know,

00:03:34.040 | I'm not like a super political person

00:03:35.600 | or whatever, a party oriented person.

00:03:38.000 | I looked at the, a lot of the media on both sides,

00:03:41.460 | and it seems like everyone on the left

00:03:43.120 | says Kamala did an amazing job on Fox.

00:03:45.520 | She defended herself.

00:03:46.400 | She showed her skills and her competency.

00:03:48.400 | And then everyone on the right's like,

00:03:49.420 | she embarrassed herself, she fell apart.

00:03:51.200 | And then the same thing happened

00:03:52.200 | with the Trump interview on Bloomberg.

00:03:53.520 | People are like, on the left, they say,

00:03:55.440 | look at how he couldn't handle the interviewer,

00:03:57.320 | and he fell apart and all his lies were exposed.

00:03:59.460 | And everyone on the right's like,

00:04:00.300 | look at him, he got a standing ovation.

00:04:02.080 | It's almost like everyone's just kind of like

00:04:03.960 | self-asserting their beliefs that they already hold

00:04:07.280 | when they judge these people on these interview shows

00:04:09.740 | at this point.

00:04:10.580 | Is it already baked at this point?

00:04:12.120 | Like, is anyone actually going to change their view

00:04:14.520 | based on these interviews happening?

00:04:15.720 | - Well, the question is what appeals

00:04:17.600 | to that small sliver of independence?

00:04:20.440 | - Yeah.

00:04:21.280 | - The question I would ask back to you is,

00:04:23.840 | if the Brett Baier interview was going so well for Kamala,

00:04:27.000 | why was her staff on the sidelines waving

00:04:30.560 | to try and end the interview?

00:04:31.840 | They apparently had like four people, you know,

00:04:34.040 | waving and trying to cut the interview off.

00:04:35.880 | - Who said that was the case?

00:04:37.480 | - He did.

00:04:38.300 | - Brett Baier said it.

00:04:39.140 | So it was like in "Rocky IV"

00:04:41.640 | when Apollo Creed's corner is like yelling,

00:04:45.000 | "Throw in the damn towel, throw in the damn towel."

00:04:47.400 | They couldn't wait to get her off the stage

00:04:49.280 | after 26 minutes.

00:04:50.600 | I just think that if it was going that great-

00:04:52.520 | - Allegedly, allegedly.

00:04:53.360 | - Yeah.

00:04:54.180 | I don't think Brett Baier's gonna lie about that.

00:04:55.560 | - I don't know why he would lie about that.

00:04:56.760 | That makes sense.

00:04:57.600 | - Why would they get her off the stage after 26 minutes

00:04:59.640 | if it was going so great?

00:05:00.840 | I'm not saying it went as horrible

00:05:02.560 | as some of the partisans on the other side are saying,

00:05:05.200 | but I don't think it went that great.

00:05:06.840 | - Do you give her any credit for going into the lion's den

00:05:08.880 | like she did?

00:05:09.720 | - Well, I think that she went,

00:05:11.360 | she did the interview precisely to get the talking point

00:05:14.560 | that she does adversarial interviews

00:05:16.360 | because that talking point was hurting them.

00:05:18.320 | And so you saw like all of her fans in the media

00:05:20.560 | were saying, "Well, see, she can walk into the lion's den."

00:05:23.760 | But again, she did the shortest interview possible.

00:05:26.680 | I don't think she answered the questions directly.

00:05:29.880 | I think she filibustered a lot.

00:05:31.300 | She deflected a lot.

00:05:32.960 | I don't think she was particularly persuasive.

00:05:34.960 | I don't think she convinced anybody.

00:05:37.360 | So I think that what you saw there was somebody

00:05:40.560 | who just wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible

00:05:43.680 | to check the box on, okay, does adversarial interviews.

00:05:47.720 | Trump, on the other hand,

00:05:49.240 | he actually likes doing these things.

00:05:51.400 | The Bloomberg interview--

00:05:52.240 | - There's no filibustering there, right?

00:05:53.920 | (laughs)

00:05:55.120 | - No, he's crisp in his answers.

00:05:55.960 | - It's all filibustered, come on, it's all anecdotes.

00:05:59.120 | - He can do the weave, he can do the anecdotes,

00:06:01.760 | but he's also very good at coming back on the interviewer

00:06:06.000 | when they get adversarial.

00:06:07.760 | And the audience was with him,

00:06:09.240 | they gave him a standing ovation.

00:06:10.320 | He went for 64 minutes compared to her 26.

00:06:13.840 | I just think there's no comparison.

00:06:15.160 | I think Trump is someone who relishes

00:06:18.240 | walking into the lion's den and doing those interviews.

00:06:20.800 | I think Harris did it because she felt like she had to.

00:06:22.480 | - What do you think, Zach?

00:06:23.320 | What do you think, Jamal?

00:06:24.140 | Do you see it or no?

00:06:24.980 | Do you have any opinion?

00:06:25.820 | - I watched the whole interview.

00:06:27.840 | It was clear in the interview,

00:06:30.480 | he mentioned the fact that he was being waved off

00:06:33.400 | and then he said it after the fact as well.

00:06:35.120 | That's not alleged, I think that that did happen.

00:06:37.400 | I would say two things.

00:06:40.400 | I thought that she was composed

00:06:43.000 | and she maintained her cool.

00:06:46.520 | So I think from a stylistic perspective,

00:06:49.520 | I thought that she did well.

00:06:51.400 | From a substance perspective, it was pretty lacking

00:06:55.420 | because if you actually listened to the answers,

00:06:57.640 | there was just a ton of non-answers.

00:07:00.520 | And they were two very basic questions

00:07:04.280 | that I think a lot of people,

00:07:07.040 | even if you're not a swing voter,

00:07:08.560 | I think would probably want to know the answer to.

00:07:12.160 | Meaning, did she have any regrets

00:07:15.120 | about what's happened in the last three and a half years?

00:07:18.160 | Did she have any regrets

00:07:19.320 | about what she's done on the border?

00:07:21.120 | Has she not noticed that Biden was wavering

00:07:26.200 | before he was hot swapped?

00:07:28.400 | I think that you could have predicted

00:07:30.640 | that these questions were going to come.

00:07:33.080 | So I think I was surprised that there wasn't a crisp answer

00:07:36.440 | that they had practiced for that.

00:07:38.080 | The second thing I'll say is then David is right.

00:07:41.900 | Everybody then gets very tribal in how they interpret it.

00:07:44.600 | I think I saw one tweet from Elon

00:07:46.480 | about how all of the newspapers characterized

00:07:49.360 | her interview with Brett Baier as quote-unquote testy.

00:07:52.360 | And it was sort of like that was the way

00:07:55.160 | that the mainstream media framed it.

00:07:57.120 | I suspect if somebody looked at how Trump's interview

00:07:59.840 | with Bloomberg was analyzed,

00:08:03.200 | it probably had some similar verbiage

00:08:05.240 | that was repeated there as well.

00:08:07.040 | So I think you are right, Jason,

00:08:08.520 | that the mainstream media can't be trusted to tell the truth.

00:08:11.040 | I would just encourage people to watch it.

00:08:12.440 | I think, like I said, stylistically,

00:08:14.760 | I think she did well and remained composed substantively.

00:08:17.280 | I think it was non-existent.

00:08:19.400 | - Yeah, it would have been nice to have another debate

00:08:21.040 | between these two.

00:08:22.800 | - She still can't really explain how she's different

00:08:25.440 | than Joe Biden, other than the fact that he's a white male

00:08:28.560 | and she's a woman of color.

00:08:29.640 | So beyond just sort of the superficial differences,

00:08:32.760 | she can't explain on a policy level

00:08:34.840 | what she would do differently.

00:08:36.160 | She's had so many opportunities to say that.

00:08:38.040 | They asked her on "The View,"

00:08:38.960 | they asked her on Stephen Colbert,

00:08:40.680 | Brett Baier asked her in his way,

00:08:42.620 | and she still can't explain what she would do differently.

00:08:45.240 | And I think that is the fundamental problem

00:08:46.880 | she has in her campaign is voters still don't know

00:08:49.740 | who she is or what she would do.

00:08:52.600 | - Yeah, what did you think of J.D. Vance saying

00:08:54.800 | he wouldn't have certified the election?

00:08:56.880 | They seem to be going after him on that over and over again.

00:08:59.740 | Saxon.

00:09:01.800 | - You're the only person talking about that.

00:09:03.600 | - No, no, literally every interview,

00:09:05.040 | they've been chasing him down the hall asking him.

00:09:06.520 | He's like, "I'm not the only person.

00:09:07.520 | "I may have started it."

00:09:08.360 | But what'd you think of him saying

00:09:09.480 | he wouldn't have certified?

00:09:10.320 | - That is kinda like when he's in a combative

00:09:12.800 | reporting moment, that is the question he gets a lot.

00:09:16.160 | - That's not the interview I saw.

00:09:17.840 | When I saw the interview he just did with Martha Raddatz,

00:09:21.080 | she was saying that Trump was exaggerating.

00:09:23.880 | - No, no, the question I asked you, Sax, was,

00:09:25.680 | I asked you, Sax, about him saying

00:09:27.160 | he wouldn't certify January 6th.

00:09:28.000 | - You're fixated on that whole thing.

00:09:28.840 | You're the only one who's fixated on it.

00:09:29.660 | - No, I'm just curious.

00:09:30.500 | I, well, me and the other journalists.

00:09:31.340 | What do you think, Freeberg?

00:09:32.480 | - No one who is persuadable, who doesn't have TDS,

00:09:35.000 | cares about that topic anymore.

00:09:37.000 | - What do you think, Freeberg, about him saying

00:09:38.960 | he wouldn't certify January 6th?

00:09:40.600 | - It's not what they're asking, J.D.

00:09:42.360 | If you wanna talk about interviews

00:09:43.920 | that J.D. Vance has done, talk about the one

00:09:46.360 | that's actually going viral right now.

00:09:48.360 | And that was the interview he did with Martha Raddatz,

00:09:50.640 | where she starts saying that, you know,

00:09:52.080 | we've only had a few of these apartment buildings

00:09:53.880 | taken over by foreign gangs.

00:09:55.680 | And he's like, do you realize what you're saying?

00:09:59.040 | You know, there's no comeback from that.

00:10:00.720 | He destroyed her.

00:10:01.560 | - It was very compelling, what he did.

00:10:04.160 | - And every interview he does is like that.

00:10:06.680 | - Yeah, I mean, she was basically saying

00:10:09.640 | that she spoke to, what was it, the city manager,

00:10:12.480 | and she's like, he said only a handful of buildings

00:10:14.600 | have been taken over, and J.D. Vance was like,

00:10:16.940 | what do you mean?

00:10:17.780 | Like, only a handful of buildings?

00:10:19.640 | Like, isn't that anything more than zero, like too much?

00:10:22.900 | Or anything more than one is obviously a problem?

00:10:24.960 | Like, it was just such an obvious rebuttal to the narrative

00:10:29.960 | that they're kind of over-exaggerating a particular issue.

00:10:32.760 | I have no data on this,

00:10:33.920 | but he was very compelling in that response.

00:10:36.680 | I thought it was pretty strong.

00:10:37.680 | But I will say, like, generally,

00:10:38.800 | neither candidate seems to be introducing a new message

00:10:43.240 | or seems to be introducing new content.

00:10:45.820 | They're just kind of standing up,

00:10:48.440 | you know, kind of repeating things that they've said,

00:10:50.520 | showing that they can handle and manage

00:10:52.240 | different kind of combative reporting tactics,

00:10:54.720 | and that's kind of what's going on.

00:10:56.240 | And everyone seems to have made up their mind.

00:10:58.000 | I see a lot of people on both sides say,

00:11:00.720 | again, this side, this person did great,

00:11:03.320 | my person did great against this combative reporter,

00:11:05.720 | and the other person did poorly

00:11:06.800 | against their combative reporter,

00:11:07.940 | and everyone's kind of biased in their view.

00:11:10.320 | It just feels like this election's baked

00:11:11.920 | and we should just go to the polls and be done.

00:11:13.720 | - Yeah, what did you think, Freyberg, though?

00:11:15.400 | 'Cause there's no October surprise coming out, right, Saxe?

00:11:18.080 | Chamath, Jake, Jake Allen? - Oh, so three weeks.

00:11:20.420 | - Yeah, anything can happen.

00:11:21.340 | - But there hasn't been anything, right?

00:11:22.540 | Like, that's kind of a shocking moment yet this month, right?

00:11:26.780 | - But, Freyberg, the question I was gonna ask you is,

00:11:28.620 | since you're not, like, hosting Trump, you know, fundraisers,

00:11:33.360 | do you think, what did you think when J.D. Vance said

00:11:37.140 | he didn't think that Trump lost the 2020 election?

00:11:39.540 | Does that concern you at all?

00:11:40.940 | - Um, there's no way to answer this

00:11:45.940 | with the kind of clean framing I think you're looking for.

00:11:52.360 | What I saw from J.D. is that he wants the reporter

00:11:55.780 | and the people that he's talking to,

00:11:57.160 | and I hear this from him, to zoom out a little bit

00:12:00.640 | and recognize that there are significant control

00:12:04.640 | and control systems and biases that he believes

00:12:08.200 | and others believe are strongly affecting

00:12:10.840 | the election process and as a result, the election outcome.

00:12:14.400 | And I think that that message is lost

00:12:17.640 | because people want him to say Trump lost the election,

00:12:20.840 | you're not admitting it, you're bad.

00:12:23.280 | But those people also aren't hearing the point

00:12:25.480 | that he's making, which is that there are biases.

00:12:28.720 | And we heard these biases, by the way,

00:12:30.880 | with Democrats in prior elections as well,

00:12:34.040 | where they highlighted that they believed

00:12:35.920 | that there were biases with respect to misinformation

00:12:38.180 | being amplified on social media.

00:12:40.200 | And then the next election cycle,

00:12:41.680 | they were able to step in and influence

00:12:43.440 | what was being changed on those social media platforms.

00:12:46.360 | And so there's this big kind of war, media war going on.

00:12:49.900 | - Yeah, that's what I was questioning.

00:12:50.740 | - Through social media platforms.

00:12:51.600 | And I think that that's what both sides are highlighting,

00:12:54.620 | is their big concern.

00:12:56.160 | And now there's this other big concern

00:12:58.300 | about is there appropriate voter verification

00:13:01.760 | that the people who are voting,

00:13:03.120 | and it's a question to ask that shouldn't be dismissed.

00:13:06.400 | It is a good question to ask.

00:13:07.720 | - Yeah, it's a great question.

00:13:08.760 | - As a person who doesn't have a strong bias

00:13:11.680 | for a political party here,

00:13:13.600 | I feel like I wanna hear answers to those questions.

00:13:16.160 | Like, what is the structure of how the way

00:13:20.040 | that most people are getting their media today,

00:13:21.440 | which is through social media platforms,

00:13:23.440 | what is the mechanism for censorship?

00:13:25.320 | What is the mechanism for filtering, for moderation,

00:13:28.320 | and be public and transparent about it?

00:13:29.720 | And then separately, what are the mechanisms

00:13:31.840 | for deciding who gets to vote and how they get to vote?

00:13:35.500 | And I think those are both really good things to ask.

00:13:37.120 | - I would just like to take a step back

00:13:39.200 | and say that that was one of the most incredible answers

00:13:41.920 | I've ever heard, Freeberg.

00:13:44.100 | Unfortunately, it may not land for the reductive masses,

00:13:50.160 | but it was exceptionally powerful and thoughtful.

00:13:53.680 | Thank you.

00:13:54.960 | - Yeah, I think that- - That's what I'm here for,

00:13:55.960 | Chamath, I'm here for you.

00:13:57.360 | - Well, I mean, independent of who wins,

00:14:00.400 | we need to get this rules of elections really tight

00:14:04.600 | starting next year, I think.

00:14:06.040 | Make it a federal holiday, require people to have ID,

00:14:11.040 | that doesn't seem like such a big deal.

00:14:12.840 | I don't know, Sax, what else should happen?

00:14:15.000 | Federal holiday, make it- - Well, right now,

00:14:16.560 | you've got Biden's DOJ is literally suing

00:14:19.520 | the state of Virginia, which is required by Virginia law

00:14:24.000 | to clean the voter rolls of illegal immigrants,

00:14:26.560 | and they've been doing that,

00:14:28.120 | and Biden's DOJ has sued to stop that.

00:14:30.800 | In California, like you said,

00:14:32.280 | we now have a new law signed by Gavin Newsom

00:14:34.660 | to make it illegal to ask for voter ID.

00:14:37.580 | So Democrats seem to be undermining

00:14:39.640 | the integrity of elections, not fortifying it.

00:14:42.640 | So when you ask, why do Republicans distrust elections,

00:14:46.600 | maybe it has something to do

00:14:47.760 | with the way that Democrats are acting.

00:14:50.120 | But I agree with you, I think that cleaning up

00:14:52.600 | the voter rolls, having a minimum standard

00:14:56.560 | for voter verification is something

00:15:01.560 | that I think should be done.

00:15:03.320 | According to the Constitution,

00:15:04.540 | the states basically run their own elections,

00:15:06.360 | but it doesn't make sense to me

00:15:08.420 | that in a one-party machine politics state,

00:15:11.780 | where basically one party controls the state,

00:15:14.620 | that they could set up a system

00:15:16.440 | that effectively entrenches their power forever

00:15:19.300 | in federal elections.

00:15:20.860 | It just seems to me that the federal government

00:15:23.020 | has a compelling interest that must be constitutional

00:15:27.420 | in ensuring a minimum standard of honesty

00:15:30.700 | in federal elections.

00:15:32.380 | So I think it would be great

00:15:33.300 | to do something about this next year.

00:15:34.920 | I think that if you want people to stop questioning elections

00:15:38.400 | or engaging in election denial,

00:15:41.000 | you need to make the elections above reproach.

00:15:43.600 | So let's do that.

00:15:44.440 | - So anyway, Heritage Foundation,

00:15:46.160 | which is obviously right-leaning,

00:15:49.080 | has a bunch of election fraud cases

00:15:52.160 | they've been documenting and they basically

00:15:54.840 | cannot come up with actual evidence

00:15:58.760 | that this is changing any election results,

00:16:03.080 | but we should make it above reproach, I agree.

00:16:06.220 | All right, our boy Elon had a big week.

00:16:08.220 | Tesla unveiled two new concepts at its WeRobot event,

00:16:11.500 | and Elon caught a 23-story rocket, the Starship.

00:16:16.500 | Here's the RoboTaxi and the RoboBus.

00:16:19.140 | Both of them look really awesome.

00:16:21.740 | And he caught one of the,

00:16:24.460 | I think this is the fifth Starship or the fourth launch?

00:16:28.220 | - Fifth.

00:16:29.060 | - The fifth, right?

00:16:29.900 | - So (beep) incredible.

00:16:30.860 | - Look at this.

00:16:32.120 | - It's so incredible. - Unbelievable.

00:16:33.180 | It's like chopsticks catching

00:16:34.860 | a 23-story building. - Forget about

00:16:35.700 | whatever your (beep) issues are

00:16:37.120 | with Elon and his politics.

00:16:38.980 | Just to appreciate, and we can talk about

00:16:40.940 | why this is so important in this segment,

00:16:44.020 | but technically, the achievement of this skyscraper

00:16:47.220 | falling out of the sky and perfectly aligning itself

00:16:49.660 | to go into that chopstick-catching device,

00:16:53.260 | it is an absolute marvel of human ingenuity.

00:16:56.880 | I mean, and the work and the effort

00:16:58.720 | that people put into this over several decades,

00:17:01.600 | it's just such an incredible feat.

00:17:03.020 | Look at this thing.

00:17:04.060 | I don't know if you guys were as emotionally moved

00:17:05.500 | by this as I was.

00:17:06.340 | I thought it was incredible. - It was incredible.

00:17:07.580 | I think I probably watched this 100 times.

00:17:09.540 | - Totally, from every angle.

00:17:11.060 | - Every angle.

00:17:12.180 | - And so the reason this is so important

00:17:14.620 | is because these things cost a lot of money,

00:17:18.260 | and when they land here, you can clean them up,

00:17:20.800 | and I guess his goal is to have them take off again

00:17:23.460 | after he fills them with propellant

00:17:25.420 | an hour later, Friedberg.

00:17:26.920 | So on a science basis, this is extraordinary.

00:17:30.300 | What, you know, if this works,

00:17:32.020 | and you can start lifting these rockets--

00:17:33.580 | - To be more specific, you don't want it to have feet.

00:17:36.920 | A, it's heavy, and then B, you have to lift them up

00:17:41.920 | in a way that just complicates the entire refueling

00:17:44.500 | and cycle time process.

00:17:45.860 | So by catching it, you put it right back into place

00:17:48.240 | and just go again.

00:17:49.220 | - Unbelievable. - Unbelievable.

00:17:50.060 | - Right, you just catch it and go again.

00:17:51.660 | - I can kind of walk through these numbers.

00:17:53.980 | So obviously the big objective over time

00:17:57.860 | is how cheap can you get it to put material into space?

00:18:02.860 | We need a lot of material to go into space

00:18:05.940 | if we're gonna do things in space,

00:18:08.020 | particularly if we're gonna go build a colony on Mars.

00:18:11.360 | And so this shows you over time the cost per kilogram,

00:18:14.780 | which is the key metric in this industry,

00:18:16.620 | to launch material into low Earth orbit.

00:18:20.900 | And you can see here how SpaceX

00:18:23.340 | has dramatically reduced the cost.

00:18:25.000 | I remember when the small sat era began in the 2010s.

00:18:29.140 | Do you guys remember all these startups

00:18:30.340 | that were starting to build little small sats

00:18:32.020 | and put 'em up to do imaging and comms and stuff?

00:18:35.340 | When this took off, it was about 10,000 bucks a kilogram

00:18:39.580 | to put a small sat into space or to put material into space.

00:18:43.340 | And then SpaceX has dropped the cost to the point

00:18:45.660 | that it's now close to $1,000 a kilogram,

00:18:48.500 | so a 10X reduction in cost in just the last decade or so.

00:18:52.060 | And that's why SpaceX just dominates the launch market.

00:18:55.080 | But Elon's always said that $1,000 a kilogram is too high.

00:18:59.540 | But his objective has been to get the cost down

00:19:01.580 | to 10 bucks a kilogram.

00:19:03.180 | 'Cause at 10 bucks a kilogram,

00:19:05.040 | you could launch what some people estimate is needed

00:19:07.420 | to get to Mars, which is about half a million tons

00:19:10.560 | of material and people to set up a colony on Mars.

00:19:14.180 | And it actually becomes feasible

00:19:16.940 | to get half a million tons of material

00:19:19.380 | at 10 bucks a kilogram.

00:19:20.980 | So if you look at this new Starship

00:19:24.740 | and Starship Heavy booster,

00:19:25.940 | it's about 150, 200 ton payload.

00:19:28.860 | The booster holds 3,400 tons of propellant.

00:19:33.740 | And the cost of that propellant is pretty low.

00:19:36.920 | You know, it's only about a million dollars in fuel.

00:19:41.540 | So then if you can get the cost of the booster

00:19:43.820 | and the Starship down enough,

00:19:45.780 | and you can reuse it enough,

00:19:47.740 | and you amortize the cost of making that device

00:19:50.200 | over the lifetime of the device,

00:19:52.540 | the cost per launch comes down.

00:19:54.040 | And that's what brings the cost per kilogram down.

00:19:55.660 | So the booster, there's a group called Payload,

00:19:57.860 | and they do estimates on this.

00:19:58.900 | So I won't speak out of turn

00:19:59.940 | in terms of like having inside knowledge.

00:20:01.960 | But the Payload has estimated that Starship

00:20:05.620 | and the booster cost about 90 million bucks today.

00:20:08.520 | And they think that they have a path

00:20:09.900 | to getting it down to 35 million.

00:20:11.380 | So if you can reuse that thing 10 times,

00:20:14.040 | that's a $3.5 million cost per launch,

00:20:17.180 | plus a million for fuel.

00:20:18.280 | You could easily see, and this thing can launch 200 tons.

00:20:21.100 | That's how you start to get to 10 bucks a kilogram

00:20:23.740 | over the next couple of years.

00:20:25.460 | But it was critical to be able to reuse that heavy booster.

00:20:28.240 | And that's what Elon just demonstrated.

00:20:29.780 | It's we can actually catch that heavy booster,

00:20:32.660 | refuel it, and launch it an hour later.

00:20:34.900 | And if you can do that over and over again,

00:20:36.720 | you're spending 10 bucks a kilogram

00:20:38.300 | to put material into space.

00:20:39.980 | You can get fuel into space

00:20:41.340 | and then get those Starships to fly off to Mars

00:20:43.780 | and deliver all this material,

00:20:45.960 | including setting up a base

00:20:47.620 | that would allow you to actually make more fuel on Mars,

00:20:49.920 | 'cause everything we need to make fuel is on Mars.

00:20:51.940 | So it's the beginning of the next series

00:20:55.200 | of really important milestones

00:20:56.800 | that'll hopefully get humanity onto Mars.

00:20:59.180 | It was just so amazing to see it come together.

00:21:01.340 | The economics are legit.

00:21:02.700 | I mean, this is like a thousand X reduction in cost.

00:21:05.380 | It's incredible.

00:21:06.480 | - Yeah, it's gonna be amazing.

00:21:08.060 | And they're gonna do some, I guess, new stuff with Starlink,

00:21:11.300 | some even lower Earth orbit satellites that go even faster

00:21:14.860 | and have less latency.

00:21:16.140 | So that's gonna be super exciting.

00:21:18.140 | - Starlink's apparently, I mean,

00:21:19.380 | I know everyone here is a shareholder in SpaceX,

00:21:21.580 | but Starlink's running at 4 million subs right now.

00:21:24.420 | That's like a hundred bucks a month, 4 million subs.

00:21:27.580 | And if you do the math, I mean,

00:21:29.020 | how many people have ISPs that are slower than Starlink?

00:21:33.540 | Right, how many people have cell phone providers

00:21:35.460 | that they're paying roughly the same amount

00:21:37.180 | that aren't as good as Starlink?

00:21:38.340 | If we can get satellite to phone

00:21:41.260 | and you can get Starlink more broadly available,

00:21:43.980 | this could be a hundred million subscriber business.

00:21:45.900 | I mean, this could be- - Absolutely.

00:21:47.220 | - One of the biggest businesses on the Earth.

00:21:49.860 | - It could be the largest subscription business

00:21:52.020 | in the history of humanity.

00:21:53.660 | I think the largest ones right now are like Netflix,

00:21:56.300 | you know, 250, Disney Plus, 150, Verizon, 100 million.

00:22:01.300 | So yeah, it could be hundreds of millions of subscribers.

00:22:04.340 | It could even be- - It's crazy.

00:22:05.180 | - It could be the first- - And we'll look back

00:22:06.300 | on 500 million subscriber product in the middle.

00:22:08.220 | - We could look back one day and be like,

00:22:09.380 | "Why did we run all this copper wire everywhere?"

00:22:11.540 | - Yeah, like- - We don't need it.

00:22:13.380 | - Yeah, obviously. - It's like crazy.

00:22:15.580 | - Especially if it can get to phones.

00:22:16.420 | - It would be like crazy that we were like ever,

00:22:18.100 | I mean, the whole nutty thing about this past week,

00:22:20.100 | it's like we could look back one day and be like,

00:22:21.260 | "Why did we ever drive cars?

00:22:22.380 | And why do we ever have copper wire laid all over the Earth

00:22:24.580 | to like move internet signals around?"

00:22:26.620 | You know, this efficiency gain that's gonna be realized

00:22:29.420 | over the next decade is just incredible.

00:22:32.940 | Just incredible.

00:22:33.780 | Rob, any thoughts on the Robovan or the CyberCab,

00:22:38.780 | the Model 2, I guess some people are calling it,

00:22:41.580 | but it's, you know, the CyberCab specifically,

00:22:43.820 | not calling it number two

00:22:46.220 | and doesn't have a steering wheel or pedals.

00:22:49.060 | I would have bought two of those immediately

00:22:50.740 | if it had a steering wheel and pedals.

00:22:51.580 | - So beautiful. - I wanna drive it.

00:22:52.620 | Yeah, it looks like the hybrid of like a Model Y

00:22:55.820 | and the Cybertruck.

00:22:56.700 | So I kinda really love the aesthetics of it.

00:22:58.820 | - So beautiful. - Yeah, you like it?

00:23:00.940 | My reaction was actually, I don't know,

00:23:05.940 | just seeing these releases now over 10 or 15 years

00:23:11.260 | plus of knowing him, nothing,

00:23:14.820 | it's, I guess it's like not that surprising.

00:23:18.620 | I mean, it's weird to say,

00:23:20.060 | like I just expect him and his teams to figure it out.

00:23:23.180 | Like, they're just all so good.

00:23:24.900 | It's, and the thing to remember,

00:23:26.060 | it's not just him that's incredible,

00:23:28.380 | but he attracts a kind of technical

00:23:32.580 | and operational wonderkind people.

00:23:35.700 | - For sure. - And that's just,

00:23:37.020 | that's just a really special thing.

00:23:38.460 | So I had that reaction,

00:23:40.260 | which was I was really proud and happy for them.

00:23:45.260 | - For the team, yeah, for sure.

00:23:46.580 | - For the team and for him.

00:23:48.500 | These guys are like incredibly fearless.

00:23:50.420 | Failed bigly, right?

00:23:52.100 | - Yeah, big time. - If you're gonna fail,

00:23:53.220 | fail bigly. - Yeah.

00:23:54.540 | - And then the other thing that I thought was crazy

00:23:58.100 | was how many people were trying to dunk on him this weekend.

00:24:01.980 | - Yeah, it's weird. - And that surprised me,

00:24:04.900 | caught me off guard,

00:24:06.100 | because I think that they were personalizing

00:24:08.460 | a lot of anxiety that they are feeling

00:24:12.980 | through these companies' successes,

00:24:14.740 | which didn't make much sense to me.

00:24:16.260 | - Well, in fairness, he did hurt some people's feelings

00:24:18.420 | with posting of memes.

00:24:19.780 | So, yeah, I mean, it's, it makes no sense.

00:24:23.020 | Like the guy's like gonna save 30,000 road deaths a year

00:24:26.820 | in the United States with self-driving

00:24:28.940 | and people are losing their minds over a couple of memes

00:24:31.420 | or who he's voting for for president.

00:24:32.900 | I don't think you have to worry about that.

00:24:35.380 | You can just look at the products.

00:24:36.620 | They speak for themselves.

00:24:38.460 | Anything, Sax, any response on the Tesla front?

00:24:42.580 | Any thoughts on the bus or Optimus?

00:24:45.900 | - I mean, they're both very exciting products.

00:24:47.940 | I don't think I've got a lot to add.

00:24:49.740 | - Yeah, I love the bus, Friedberg.

00:24:51.580 | I think that thing could become like mobile homes are,

00:24:54.580 | you know, ADUs and you could just send them to-

00:24:59.060 | - Can we buy them or no?

00:25:00.940 | - Well, no, not right now, but I think that might be,

00:25:04.980 | you know, that's gonna be a big question.

00:25:05.820 | - Your mom's gonna put all her kids in one.

00:25:08.220 | - I need it for all my kids.

00:25:09.900 | - Yeah.

00:25:10.740 | - Well, see, if this was a platform

00:25:12.020 | like the Mercedes Sprinter vans have become

00:25:14.340 | that you see a lot in Europe,

00:25:15.620 | then you could buy an empty one of these.

00:25:18.180 | It's got enough battery life to last a month.

00:25:21.540 | And then let's say you had your in-laws over

00:25:23.700 | and there was one that was set up as like a one bedroom,

00:25:26.220 | you could click on Airbnb or, you know, Tesla B&B,

00:25:30.420 | press a button and the thing could drive to your driveway.

00:25:32.660 | You could rent it for a week and then it could leave.

00:25:34.820 | Or let's say 1,000 people or 10,000 people were displaced

00:25:37.940 | because of a hurricane, Friedberg.

00:25:39.780 | You could send 100,000 of these

00:25:41.620 | to the parking lots at Walmart,

00:25:43.100 | which typically does a good job in feeding people

00:25:45.220 | and getting them supplies after hurricanes,

00:25:47.420 | since those are so ubiquitous.

00:25:48.420 | You could put 100 of these in every parking lot

00:25:50.780 | and have a place for people

00:25:52.540 | who are fleeing natural disasters to stay.

00:25:54.780 | So I thought that was like the most compelling product

00:25:57.180 | of the whole thing for me was the possibility of a sled,

00:26:00.620 | like a skiff that you could do anything you want with

00:26:03.220 | would be really exciting for society.

00:26:05.980 | So congratulations to the team.

00:26:07.620 | And it's gonna take a while,

00:26:09.780 | but I could see them having that robo-taxi.

00:26:13.340 | - I think congrats to Amit, he just got promoted.

00:26:16.380 | - I saw that, you know, he's in charge of all AI.

00:26:18.940 | I think he's in charge of all manufacturing

00:26:21.340 | and sales in North America.

00:26:23.540 | - Oh, okay.

00:26:24.380 | Well, there it is.

00:26:25.220 | - So shout out to Amit Afshar, yeah.

00:26:27.820 | - I mean, listen- - Guys, I have big news.

00:26:30.260 | I just bought my first Tesla.

00:26:32.540 | - Oh, you did?

00:26:33.380 | Did you go with a Plaid Model S?

00:26:35.540 | - Model S Plaid, yeah.

00:26:37.060 | I test drove it for two weeks and sold itself.

00:26:41.580 | - And are you using the FSD?

00:26:43.540 | I use FSD every day.

00:26:44.740 | - I use FSD and it was like really impressive, so.

00:26:47.060 | - Super impressive.

00:26:47.900 | I've tried Tesla a couple of times over the years

00:26:49.860 | and I never really, never really worked for me.

00:26:51.940 | The quality just didn't feel like what I,

00:26:54.300 | like given what I had before, the car-wise.

00:26:56.340 | - You were an Audi guy, right?

00:26:57.340 | - But Audi guy, yeah, always loved Audis.

00:26:59.180 | - Audi guys are neat guys.

00:27:00.740 | - That's, you know, it's a big milestone.

00:27:04.540 | I really, I thought the FSD was the selling.

00:27:07.140 | And then the speed on the Plaid, it's just insane.

00:27:09.300 | It's better than my RS7, like, it's incredible.

00:27:11.900 | - With all of my Teslas, I put it in show mode

00:27:14.020 | because when it's in that Plaid mode or whatever,

00:27:16.300 | like coffee goes fine. - It's my favorite.

00:27:17.780 | I love it, I get on the-

00:27:18.620 | - But if you have passengers,

00:27:19.740 | the kids in the back seat would hit,

00:27:21.420 | like literally nauseous because it's too fast.

00:27:23.700 | You gotta be careful with the passengers there.

00:27:26.140 | It's so fast. - It was awesome.

00:27:28.460 | Awesome.

00:27:29.580 | - All right, well, there you have it.

00:27:31.580 | Robo Taxi Star, we didn't get to it last week.

00:27:33.420 | We almost put the show back a day or two just to do it.

00:27:36.340 | In other news, Uber is exploring a bid

00:27:38.660 | to purchase Expedia, breaking news.

00:27:41.180 | This was dispelled as we got here on the show.

00:27:44.540 | They said this was like very preliminary third-party talks

00:27:47.260 | and that there's no serious talks going on about this.

00:27:49.260 | Financial Times reported that advisors

00:27:53.580 | were trying to look at if a deal structure

00:27:55.340 | would be possible between Uber and Expedia.

00:27:57.980 | Expedia's got a $20 billion market cap.

00:28:00.300 | They popped 8% on the news, obviously.

00:28:02.180 | Uber, on the other hand,

00:28:03.220 | trading at $170 billion market cap or so.

00:28:05.420 | That dropped 3%.

00:28:08.100 | If you didn't know, Dara was the CEO of Expedia

00:28:10.540 | from 2005 to 2017.

00:28:12.500 | He's still on the board.

00:28:14.420 | And it looks like this was a trial balloon.

00:28:17.820 | You know, Uber's two biggest businesses,

00:28:20.420 | rides and Uber Eats,

00:28:21.620 | but they also do freight and train bookings.

00:28:23.900 | Dara's been pretty clear.

00:28:25.060 | He wants to create a super app

00:28:29.220 | like you have in China or some other markets.

00:28:32.260 | Expedia's got a lot of cool products.

00:28:34.460 | Hotels.com, Orbitz, Travelocity, Ork.

00:28:37.820 | And I think the most interesting one,

00:28:39.340 | Freeberg, you and I were talking about,

00:28:40.460 | this is VRBO, vacation rental by owner.

00:28:43.100 | It was like Airbnb before Airbnb existed.

00:28:46.980 | And if you look at this chart,

00:28:49.180 | since Dara left, the Dara effect,

00:28:51.860 | Expedia has gone exactly sideways.

00:28:54.700 | The revenue has grown modestly.

00:28:56.100 | What do you think of this deal, Chamath?

00:29:00.380 | I'll just go right to you with this one,

00:29:01.980 | since you like to...

00:29:03.220 | - Stupid.

00:29:04.140 | - Stupid, okay.

00:29:05.460 | There you have it, folks.

00:29:07.260 | Reason number one, it's stupid.

00:29:09.300 | And reason number two, it's stupid.

00:29:11.140 | I mean, this is a $20 billion market cap business.

00:29:13.420 | You probably have to pay a control premium of 50%.

00:29:17.500 | So the question is,

00:29:19.260 | if you were going to spend $30 billion today

00:29:22.060 | in the public markets, what would you spend it on?

00:29:25.500 | And I think the most important lens

00:29:27.420 | that you have to use to answer that question is,

00:29:30.620 | what reinforces a moat that I have

00:29:33.420 | while also being inoculated from the risks of AI?

00:29:37.860 | And I cannot think of a more fragile business model

00:29:42.860 | than the UI layer on top of widely available data.

00:29:48.100 | So the problem that Expedia has is the same

00:29:51.980 | that Booking and a bunch of these other folks have,

00:29:54.660 | which is that the principal heartbeat of the company,

00:29:57.340 | flight information and other things,

00:29:59.740 | are licensed to them by third parties.

00:30:02.060 | And so what they are is a UI and a front door.

00:30:06.020 | I think it's way too early in the evolution of AI

00:30:08.300 | to know that that's safe.

00:30:09.460 | And in fact, I think a more reasonable assumption

00:30:12.060 | is that those things are pretty fragile.

00:30:14.700 | And part of what may explain the doldrums of the stock

00:30:17.940 | is that I think people are anticipating a world where,

00:30:20.300 | for example, I don't know if you saw,

00:30:21.460 | but Perplexity launched something this week.

00:30:24.460 | It's just in test mode.

00:30:26.340 | They whitelisted me into it,

00:30:27.620 | but it's basically a checkout concept.

00:30:31.300 | So you tell Perplexity what you would like it to buy,

00:30:35.140 | and then it will go and complete the transaction for you.

00:30:38.180 | So in the example of flight bookings,

00:30:41.060 | you could go directly to United

00:30:43.260 | because A, Perplexity will just show you all of the flights.

00:30:46.980 | They'll show you the exact prices.

00:30:49.180 | And then it'll go and execute that for you

00:30:50.940 | with your payment method.

00:30:52.780 | In a world that looks like that,

00:30:54.940 | where these companies have the money

00:30:57.700 | to pay for the data feeds,

00:30:59.640 | the existing V1.0 generation UIs, I think, are in trouble.

00:31:05.060 | So it would just be a very bad capital allocation decision.

00:31:08.940 | Now, that's okay to get things wrong,

00:31:11.700 | but not for $30 billion wrong.

00:31:13.540 | You can probably do it for a couple hundred million dollars

00:31:16.380 | wrong, or maybe even a billion dollars wrong,

00:31:18.260 | 'cause you can absorb that

00:31:19.620 | as a 150 or $60 billion company,

00:31:22.380 | but 30 billion is too big of a price to pay

00:31:24.480 | for that kind of risk.

00:31:25.760 | - I would agree with you,

00:31:26.600 | and there's other things they could buy,

00:31:27.940 | like WeRide or Pony AI and a bunch of these AI companies

00:31:32.020 | that are doing self-driving,

00:31:33.020 | so why not double down on that?

00:31:35.020 | Freeberg, the one thing you and I talked about

00:31:36.740 | was kind of VRBO, which is a very cool marketplace,

00:31:40.020 | and that feels directly in the Uber kill zone.

00:31:43.700 | What do you think about them just maybe carving out

00:31:45.460 | and buying VRBO and having an Airbnb contemporary?

00:31:48.940 | - Wait, why don't they just buy Waymo?

00:31:50.140 | Why don't they just go to Google

00:31:51.240 | and give them $30 billion of Uber stock

00:31:53.340 | and just carve in Waymo?

00:31:54.860 | Isn't that a better idea?

00:31:55.700 | - I think that's what's gonna happen.

00:31:57.220 | I've been hearing rumblings of that, so.

00:31:59.740 | - So I think that Dara knows Expedia better than anyone.

00:32:03.620 | He ran the business for, what, a decade or so?

00:32:07.380 | - Yep.

00:32:08.220 | - And so he knows how that business operates.

00:32:10.760 | And so if he's looking at this thing,

00:32:13.420 | and the stock price has been flat, roughly,

00:32:15.540 | since he left in 2017,

00:32:18.520 | if you look at the underlying financial performance,

00:32:20.980 | you could kind of start to construct a rationale

00:32:23.180 | for buying Expedia this cheap,

00:32:25.420 | and it would be very accretive to Uber,

00:32:27.620 | even if there are these big strategic risks on the horizon.

00:32:31.860 | So just to give you some numbers on it all,

00:32:34.300 | Uber's got about 150 million monthly active users.

00:32:38.260 | Expedia has about 45, 50 million customers a year

00:32:43.100 | that use the service and pay for stuff.

00:32:45.860 | So there's a real opportunity to think about

00:32:49.300 | the Uber customer base that's installed

00:32:52.940 | as being almost an opportunity to market to them

00:32:56.060 | Expedia services and cross-sell.

00:32:58.500 | So Expedia, on an annualized basis,

00:33:01.300 | is spending about eight billion a year

00:33:03.420 | in sales and marketing,

00:33:04.780 | and about 720 million a year in G&A costs.

00:33:08.660 | And they're running about three billion EBITDA right now,

00:33:12.580 | run rate.

00:33:13.460 | So if you cut about half the G&A in an acquisition,

00:33:16.260 | 'cause you don't need all the people

00:33:17.340 | that overlap with Uber's people,

00:33:19.060 | and you cut about 30% of the sales and marketing dollars

00:33:22.660 | because you can cross-sell into the Uber install base,

00:33:25.980 | you could see a scenario

00:33:27.460 | where you could increase Expedia's EBITDA

00:33:30.860 | by 75 to 100%, maybe getting it as high as $6 billion.

00:33:35.020 | And while Expedia's market cap trades at 20 billion,

00:33:37.700 | this is off of obviously the recent news

00:33:40.100 | that they might get acquired.

00:33:41.580 | If you kind of assume a 40, 50% price premium

00:33:44.140 | to the last 90-day average of the stock price,

00:33:46.020 | which is kind of typical or common for a deal like this,

00:33:48.980 | they're probably paying 26 billion for the company.

00:33:51.940 | And they got about four billion in net cash.

00:33:53.620 | So you're kind of paying about 22 billion enterprise value

00:33:57.420 | to buy Expedia.

00:33:58.940 | So 22 billion of enterprise value,

00:34:01.100 | and if you can bump the EBITDA up to six billion a year,

00:34:05.140 | that's a pretty low multiple.

00:34:06.580 | I mean, you could kind of see yourself rationalizing this

00:34:09.180 | just from a financial basis

00:34:10.420 | that you're paying four times EBITDA to buy this thing.

00:34:13.180 | And Dara knows this thing,

00:34:14.420 | and he would have great command

00:34:15.860 | over what needs to be done over there,

00:34:17.900 | and he would have a great sense of what to change

00:34:21.500 | and what's gone wrong.

00:34:23.220 | And there's a lot of interesting assets inside of Expedia.

00:34:25.740 | VRBO is a great one that's been under-monetized

00:34:28.020 | and underutilized.

00:34:28.860 | I don't know if you've used the UX on VRBO versus Airbnb.

00:34:31.940 | There's obviously some influence Dara could have

00:34:33.780 | with people that he knows well

00:34:35.620 | that could go in and fix that interface

00:34:37.580 | and make it a better service.

00:34:39.380 | And even as AI starts to step in

00:34:41.540 | and hotels maybe integrate better with agents and so on,

00:34:44.740 | and they show up in a more ubiquitous way,

00:34:46.380 | there's other things that Expedia does

00:34:47.940 | like build vacation packages and travel packages

00:34:50.180 | that are high margin products that they sell

00:34:52.740 | that are a little bit different than what you're used to

00:34:54.620 | with just booking a flight.

00:34:56.060 | Booking flights makes no money for anyone,

00:34:58.260 | but vacation packages is where all the money's at.

00:35:00.940 | And so theoretically, Expedia could be smarter

00:35:03.420 | about how they build vacation packages

00:35:05.260 | and personalize them for families,

00:35:07.220 | and that's where they can make real margin,

00:35:08.780 | like 20, 30% margin.

00:35:10.540 | So I could see a story where this all starts to click

00:35:13.220 | for the board at Uber saying, "Maybe it makes sense.

00:35:15.300 | "Dara knows what he's talking about.

00:35:16.500 | "We could buy this thing for four times pro forma EBITDA.

00:35:19.940 | "This could be hugely accretive for us."

00:35:22.580 | So I think that's why this is happening,

00:35:23.980 | why this conversation may be happening.

00:35:25.460 | That's just me trying to understand--

00:35:26.660 | - I think it's a good steal, Nate.

00:35:27.500 | - You know, what the rationale might be.

00:35:28.860 | - Can you just go back and explain

00:35:30.740 | how would they drive up EBITDA so much?

00:35:32.780 | - So they're spending about 8 billion a year run rate

00:35:36.500 | on sales and marketing at Expedia right now,

00:35:38.900 | and Uber's got 150 million active installed users

00:35:42.140 | that are using the Uber services every month.

00:35:44.380 | - Customers. - So the idea would be--

00:35:45.220 | - Actually-- - Customers, yeah.

00:35:46.060 | - Yeah, beyond users. - Actually paying customers.

00:35:47.900 | So if Uber could cross-sell some number of Expedia services

00:35:52.180 | to their installed base at Uber,

00:35:53.860 | which they could test and do a little experiment

00:35:56.140 | and see if it works,

00:35:57.740 | they may be able to reduce the marketing dollars

00:35:59.740 | that Expedia is spending to acquire customers

00:36:01.660 | through other third-party sources

00:36:03.060 | like Google and Bing and other places.

00:36:06.020 | So there's a rationale--

00:36:07.700 | - That's where I think the logic breaks down.

00:36:09.420 | I don't think Uber customers wanna be cross-sold

00:36:12.820 | on booking a hotel.

00:36:14.220 | See, this is where I think MBA thinking

00:36:16.180 | is very different than product thinking.

00:36:18.140 | Like an MBA looking at this would say,

00:36:20.340 | "Well, Expedia and Uber are both in the travel business.

00:36:25.340 | Their apps both involve booking trips,

00:36:27.500 | so we can cross-sell Expedia from Uber

00:36:31.860 | and then cut Expedia's marketing budget."

00:36:35.020 | I think that's how an MBA would sort of hand-wave over it.

00:36:38.500 | I think the way like a product manager would look at this

00:36:40.460 | is to say, "What does the user wanna do?"

00:36:43.140 | And I know that when I use the Uber app,

00:36:45.020 | I just wanna basically make a couple of clicks,

00:36:47.580 | set my destination, get my car,

00:36:49.580 | and then move on.

00:36:51.140 | And there was a product initiative a few years back at Uber

00:36:54.540 | where they tried to capture the user's attention

00:36:57.500 | during the ride.

00:36:58.900 | And they, you know, they added--

00:37:00.140 | - That's right.

00:37:00.980 | Yeah, they had that whole ad thing.

00:37:01.820 | That ad's making a ton of money.

00:37:04.420 | It's actually printing money for them.

00:37:06.020 | - It was like an entertainment stream

00:37:07.660 | or something inside the app.

00:37:09.540 | No, but they dialed it way back

00:37:11.060 | because I don't see it anymore.

00:37:12.580 | It was just clutter.

00:37:13.700 | - Would you trust Dara's judgment on this, Sax?

00:37:15.820 | Like if Dara were to think about

00:37:18.180 | what the Uber user would want

00:37:19.620 | and he could rationalize some percentage of them,

00:37:22.100 | they could cross-sell Expedia services into.

00:37:24.380 | I mean, ultimately, I think it's his decision, right?

00:37:27.140 | Like if he believes-- - Well, I mean,

00:37:27.980 | what you're describing is basically a private equity play.

00:37:30.820 | Like Dara's gonna come in

00:37:32.980 | as like a private equity buyer effectively

00:37:35.580 | and he knows the business

00:37:37.300 | and will run it to reduce costs, maybe boost some revenue.

00:37:39.900 | And maybe there is a justification for that.

00:37:41.420 | But if you're trying to justify it based on cross-selling,

00:37:44.900 | I don't think users of the Uber app wanna be cross-sold

00:37:47.660 | when they book a taxi, okay?

00:37:49.940 | They just wanna be able to affect their transaction

00:37:52.540 | as efficiently as possible.

00:37:54.300 | And just to finish the point I was making

00:37:56.020 | on that whole entertainment stream that they had,

00:37:58.340 | they dialed that product way back

00:37:59.900 | 'cause it got in the way.

00:38:01.180 | You'd be in the Uber app trying to figure out

00:38:03.340 | how to change your destination or something

00:38:05.220 | and all of a sudden you're being shown

00:38:07.140 | like some entertainment product.

00:38:08.660 | It's not what users wanted.

00:38:10.180 | And it was always kind of a banana's idea

00:38:15.020 | to think that just because the user books an Uber

00:38:20.020 | that you own their attention during that ride

00:38:22.620 | because during that ride,

00:38:24.100 | you're really competing with every app on the iPhone, right?

00:38:27.260 | I mean, and that's the problem

00:38:28.900 | is you wanna get in and out of the Uber app.

00:38:31.020 | It's about transacting efficiently.

00:38:32.380 | - What about not the moment when you're riding in an Uber,

00:38:35.820 | but the moment when you say as an Uber user,

00:38:38.460 | hey, I need to book travel.

00:38:39.780 | I gotta go on a vacation to Austin this weekend.

00:38:41.300 | - I'm never gonna think to go on my Uber app for that.

00:38:43.500 | The only time I open--

00:38:44.620 | - But what if they put that feature in there?

00:38:45.940 | What if they had a tab that said book your travel here?

00:38:47.860 | - You know, when I open the Uber app,

00:38:49.620 | when I wanna hail a taxi, that's what,

00:38:51.620 | it's like I'm ready to go.

00:38:53.140 | - There are a large number of people

00:38:54.340 | who maybe don't have an assistant

00:38:57.100 | to book their hotels in advance.

00:38:59.100 | And like--

00:38:59.940 | - That would be most people, J.Kell.

00:39:02.060 | - I would not think to go into Uber to do that.

00:39:04.340 | It would just be clutter.

00:39:05.300 | - Well, no, but they already have a hotels.com partnership.

00:39:08.420 | And then the Uber One membership's

00:39:09.900 | been growing pretty nicely.

00:39:10.900 | And the advertising is doing a billion dollars a year.

00:39:13.020 | And that is just a money printing machine

00:39:14.900 | because you know that this person's in an Uber black,

00:39:17.780 | you know that they're going to the Four Seasons,

00:39:19.580 | like these users who are, you know.

00:39:22.460 | - They have a real ad business at Uber.

00:39:23.980 | - Yeah, yeah.

00:39:24.820 | - The more Uber tries to promote some unrelated product,

00:39:29.060 | and what I mean by unrelated is it doesn't help you

00:39:31.140 | get to where you're going at that moment,

00:39:33.540 | it's clutter in the app.

00:39:34.780 | - What about Uber Eats, Zacks?

00:39:36.220 | - Yeah.

00:39:37.060 | - Uber Eats is working pretty well.

00:39:37.900 | - It's working great, yeah.

00:39:38.740 | I know the cross promotion's working.

00:39:40.300 | - That is highly related to,

00:39:41.900 | it's basically booking a car to pick up some food.

00:39:43.980 | - Yeah.

00:39:44.940 | - It's still the taxi business, basically.

00:39:46.780 | - I think the hotels integration is good.

00:39:49.700 | - I think there's something here.

00:39:50.820 | We have gone through a cycle where apps and attention

00:39:54.660 | were highly consolidated with a few.

00:39:56.820 | Now the pendulum has swung the other way,

00:39:58.900 | and apps are very narrow features

00:40:02.780 | that are really well described.

00:40:04.580 | Okay, so that's sort of where we are.

00:40:05.860 | That's why we have the billions and billions of apps

00:40:08.620 | in the app store.

00:40:10.420 | The question is, does the pendulum swing back

00:40:12.340 | to these super apps?

00:40:13.700 | And I think the big question is not whether it swings back

00:40:16.140 | to the super apps, but whether there's a new substrate

00:40:19.180 | that puts itself between the user and all of these services

00:40:23.180 | so that they become data oriented services.

00:40:26.140 | And this is where the question is,

00:40:27.580 | if you rely on an agent,

00:40:29.980 | or you rely on a beefed up version of search,

00:40:34.060 | whether that's ChatGPT or Gemini or whatever,

00:40:37.780 | why would you care where all of this stuff was done?

00:40:41.540 | You're not gonna care.

00:40:43.020 | And this is, I think, the big mistake in this thinking

00:40:45.820 | is that that real estate is actually much more fragile

00:40:49.900 | than I think we all think it is.

00:40:52.500 | And I think a much better way to think about this

00:40:54.500 | is in the future, none of this UI real estate

00:40:57.140 | is actually worth anything.

00:40:59.140 | The question is, do you have a data asset that's valuable,

00:41:01.660 | or do you do a service that's valuable?

00:41:03.700 | Because agentically, there'll be all of these

00:41:06.460 | unemotional bots and workflows doing this work for you.

00:41:10.420 | So I think Saks is right in the sense that

00:41:12.740 | whether it's there or not, it won't matter.

00:41:15.220 | Could he run it like a private equity business

00:41:17.660 | where now Uber Corporation owns two services?

00:41:21.340 | Sure, but you're probably just better off

00:41:24.900 | for these agents to go and cannibalize all of search

00:41:28.140 | because you'll be able to just get a data feed

00:41:30.220 | for what Expedia has to create Expedia

00:41:32.780 | for a few million dollars or tens of millions of dollars.

00:41:35.420 | You don't need to pay 20 or $30 billion for this.

00:41:38.540 | - Yeah, the thing that I've talked to Dara about

00:41:41.540 | is when they said, he told me when they do something

00:41:43.780 | that's adjacent to what they're already doing,

00:41:45.740 | it explodes in terms of engagement.

00:41:47.860 | So like they're doing like teens and rental cars

00:41:51.740 | and then package delivery.

00:41:53.020 | And every time they do one of those adjacencies,

00:41:55.660 | it just takes off with the membership.

00:41:57.460 | And to your point, Freeberg,

00:41:59.580 | they have those 150 customers

00:42:01.740 | who have their credit cards in there

00:42:03.380 | and man, it's just, it's explosive.

00:42:05.260 | So that's what I think they're doing.

00:42:06.100 | - I don't think booking a vacation

00:42:07.340 | is an adjacency to ordering food.

00:42:09.660 | - I think hotels would be, I don't think flights would be

00:42:12.500 | 'cause I think the flights work really well

00:42:14.500 | with the existing apps,

00:42:15.340 | but things where you have proprietary inventory

00:42:17.340 | like VRBO or hotels, I think those would be very powerful.

00:42:20.860 | And those have 20, 30% commissions,

00:42:22.740 | which are in line with the commissions

00:42:25.460 | that Uber's already getting.

00:42:27.700 | And the commissions on things like flights is very small,

00:42:30.420 | like a couple of dollars.

00:42:31.460 | So I think for hotels and VRBO would be brilliant.

00:42:33.860 | For the other stuff, I'm not so sure.

00:42:35.300 | To your point, Chamath.

00:42:37.260 | - Well, just to finish, my thought was that

00:42:41.020 | you'll notice that Uber Eats is a separate app from Uber.

00:42:44.380 | I mean, I know you can get to the Eats part within Uber,

00:42:46.460 | but they created a separate app for a reason.

00:42:49.020 | It's because whether you're using Uber Eats or Uber,

00:42:51.540 | the goal is immediate gratification.

00:42:53.380 | I wanna get to where I'm going.

00:42:54.580 | I don't book it six hours in advance.

00:42:57.020 | I call it right now.

00:42:58.740 | And the most important thing to me is wait time.

00:43:00.660 | This is why Uber is beating Lyft,

00:43:02.340 | is the wait time is lower.

00:43:04.820 | Same thing with food.

00:43:05.660 | I'm not thinking about booking my dinner right now.

00:43:07.860 | I'm not gonna do it in advance.

00:43:09.300 | If you browse through the restaurants,

00:43:10.660 | the most important piece of data they show you,

00:43:13.180 | in addition to the rating,

00:43:14.260 | is the number of minutes it takes for it to get to you.

00:43:17.420 | So those apps are all about immediate gratification.

00:43:20.660 | And that's why you don't want other things

00:43:22.540 | getting in the way of them.

00:43:24.540 | Now, I guess the claim is somehow

00:43:26.620 | you're gonna be able to cross-sell

00:43:28.380 | the booking of a vacation or a hotel

00:43:31.180 | that you have to think about days or weeks in advance.

00:43:33.780 | This is a completely different state of mind.

00:43:35.460 | I just don't think that there's

00:43:37.580 | much opportunity to cross-sell that.

00:43:39.780 | Or to use the technical jargon,

00:43:41.980 | I don't think the attach rate is gonna be high.

00:43:45.340 | - What about the brand value, Sat?

00:43:47.180 | 'Cause you know those people are going to another app

00:43:49.500 | to book their flight and their hotel.

00:43:51.380 | What if that other app was called Uber Travel?

00:43:53.700 | - There might be some value in that.

00:43:54.860 | I can see that.

00:43:56.700 | I think that would be the rationale

00:43:58.300 | where I could see the Expedia brand.

00:43:59.860 | - Yeah, so maybe what you could do is take VRBO,

00:44:02.900 | rebrand it as Uber Hotel or Uber Travel,

00:44:07.020 | whatever you want to call it.

00:44:07.860 | - Exactly, exactly.

00:44:08.700 | - And then maybe you could push people to download that app.

00:44:12.420 | - Well, the thing I would, the counter I would give to this--

00:44:15.420 | - You could quantify the value of the installs, right?

00:44:18.380 | - Yeah, exactly.

00:44:19.380 | I mean, well, you could quantify

00:44:20.460 | 'cause Expedia's spending on it every year right now.

00:44:22.300 | - I use the BombVoy app to book hotels.

00:44:24.460 | I use United to book my flights.

00:44:26.100 | And I use Uber to do my rides and obviously for eats.

00:44:29.300 | When you are using it, there's a tab up top.

00:44:32.020 | In the UI, it's quite nice in Uber

00:44:33.900 | where it's rides and eats right next to each other.

00:44:35.700 | I could see a third one,

00:44:36.700 | like hotels or travel being right there.

00:44:39.380 | And all of a sudden, yum, yum,

00:44:41.460 | you just get all that inventory right in there.

00:44:43.540 | And I frequently will book my hotel

00:44:46.880 | and I'll book my ride for the next day in advance on Uber.

00:44:50.580 | And I do those things.

00:44:51.420 | And then when I get to my hotel,

00:44:52.900 | I'm ordering food to my room.

00:44:55.140 | So I think this actually could work really well

00:44:57.440 | as a third tab in the app for travel.

00:45:00.020 | And you could actually,

00:45:01.260 | 'cause when you use eats in the Uber app,

00:45:03.580 | it's its own tab and it's the exact same experience.

00:45:06.300 | I believe in super apps.

00:45:08.020 | And they just launched a bus

00:45:09.260 | that's like a bus service in New York for 18 bucks

00:45:11.820 | to go to JFK.

00:45:12.660 | That's really awesome.

00:45:13.480 | I think we're a little bit disconnected

00:45:14.660 | 'cause we don't book our own travel.

00:45:16.300 | But okay, let's keep moving here.

00:45:18.180 | Down the docket.

00:45:19.780 | All right, this big tech investing in nuclear power

00:45:23.700 | is off to the races, Chema.

00:45:25.700 | Amazon just announced a $500 million investment

00:45:28.020 | in three nuclear power projects.

00:45:30.700 | All of these are focused on SMRs.

00:45:33.880 | Those are the small modular reactors.

00:45:36.740 | Amazon is working with Dominion Energy

00:45:39.140 | to develop a small modular nuclear reactor

00:45:42.060 | near an existing nuclear power plant in Virginia.

00:45:44.580 | In total, Amazon plans to invest 35 billion

00:45:48.100 | in Virginia based data centers by 2040.

00:45:51.340 | And they wanna power these by SMRs.

00:45:54.140 | And this is a big trend.

00:45:55.140 | Google is purchasing energy directly from Kairos Power,

00:46:00.140 | another company building SMRs.

00:46:02.100 | Microsoft, as you heard,

00:46:03.780 | was reviving one of the Three Mile Island

00:46:06.220 | nuclear power plants.

00:46:07.840 | So this is kind of interesting, Chema.

00:46:09.700 | We went from nuclear not being on the table,

00:46:12.900 | everybody being against it,

00:46:14.060 | the Germans shutting down their reactors post-Fukushima.

00:46:18.740 | And now big tech is the customer for these with AI,

00:46:22.340 | and they're putting down very large deposits and payments

00:46:26.180 | to build them in America.

00:46:27.100 | And I haven't heard any opposition.

00:46:29.980 | Maybe you could just speak to it, Chema.

00:46:31.660 | What we've seen here in terms of opposition to these

00:46:34.180 | versus the opportunity, and everybody's writing checks.

00:46:38.220 | - Well, they're not writing checks.

00:46:39.620 | So this is what, I don't wanna be a Debbie Downer here,

00:46:41.700 | but these press releases need to have an asterisk on them.

00:46:46.980 | So in the hierarchy of deals, right,

00:46:48.940 | just to unpack this for a second,

00:46:50.860 | there are deals where you give me X and I give you money.

00:46:53.920 | That's not what this is.

00:46:56.780 | Then if you degrade that kind of deal structure,

00:47:00.000 | in a lot of heavy industry,

00:47:02.020 | you have deals that are called take or pay,

00:47:04.060 | which is there is something that's working

00:47:06.260 | and you need to basically take this

00:47:08.460 | or you need to give me the monetary equivalent

00:47:10.660 | of what I'm selling you.

00:47:12.660 | That's not what this is.

00:47:15.060 | What this is is sort of this conditional obligation

00:47:18.020 | where the beginning of the deal starts

00:47:19.540 | with a very important statement,

00:47:21.260 | which is if it works and if these approvals happen,

00:47:25.940 | and there's a whole bunch of nested ifs,

00:47:29.060 | then payments can happen.

00:47:31.100 | So while these are important deals

00:47:33.020 | because they show that there are potential buyers

00:47:36.900 | at the finish line,

00:47:38.020 | what it doesn't do is solve the two things

00:47:41.780 | that you need to get to the finish line,

00:47:44.860 | which is the actual risk capital

00:47:47.980 | to finish building these things and technically de-risk them,

00:47:51.780 | and then the regulatory approval that you need

00:47:54.180 | to make sure that they're allowed.

00:47:56.260 | So I think that these deals are good.

00:47:57.900 | I think it's a great signaling,

00:47:59.900 | but I think it's important to understand

00:48:01.560 | the nuances of these things.

00:48:02.980 | These are not things where there's money

00:48:06.700 | really trading hands.

00:48:08.100 | And until that you see that,

00:48:10.140 | where irrespective of what happens,

00:48:12.580 | the balance sheet is investing from an Amazon or a Google,

00:48:16.580 | where there's corp dev folks writing $100 million

00:48:20.020 | or billion dollar checks into these companies.

00:48:22.400 | It's not yet quite there.

00:48:24.620 | This is more the step before,

00:48:26.380 | which is sort of, can you create some marketing

00:48:29.500 | and some buzziness to hopefully induce somebody

00:48:33.220 | to then rip in billions of dollars of risk equity capital.

00:48:36.640 | - Freeberg, your thoughts on SMRs

00:48:39.820 | and these customers showing up,

00:48:41.900 | and then I guess you could comment on the nature

00:48:43.900 | of the deal structure here,

00:48:45.940 | because some of them are contingent

00:48:49.560 | on the nuclear power plant turning on.

00:48:51.460 | Some of them do have deposits, is my understanding.

00:48:53.420 | We'll look that up and fact check it.

00:48:55.300 | There could be a range of deals here.

00:48:57.600 | - Yeah, I don't know the nature of the deals.

00:49:00.180 | I did, I think, talk about this a year ago.

00:49:03.740 | It was also like my prediction for the year

00:49:05.700 | was to buy the uranium stocks,

00:49:08.000 | predicated on what I think is a really important point,

00:49:12.580 | which is as GDP per capita grows,

00:49:15.780 | energy consumption per capita grows,

00:49:18.020 | and if you looked at the projections

00:49:20.180 | of GDP per capita in industrialized nations,

00:49:24.340 | there was no way, there is no way,

00:49:27.120 | to meet the energy demand,

00:49:29.180 | and this was even pre all this crazy AI build out,

00:49:31.900 | which is probably part of the GDP growth,

00:49:34.220 | but there is no way to meet the energy demand

00:49:37.620 | without nuclear.

00:49:39.560 | There is not enough solar, geothermal,

00:49:44.360 | or wind build out potential that's happening

00:49:47.620 | that the stop gap measure is going to have to be,

00:49:50.260 | and probably the right long term solution,

00:49:52.640 | is to have a significant amount of base load

00:49:54.720 | come from nuclear,

00:49:56.200 | and so what's the fastest way to do that nuclear build out?

00:49:59.440 | Well, in China, they have the regulatory authority

00:50:01.720 | and the mandate stated they're gonna build 300 gigawatts

00:50:05.200 | with 300 facilities or whatever the number is,

00:50:07.800 | and that's what they're doing,

00:50:08.640 | very large facilities that make a gigawatt of power each.

00:50:12.120 | In the US, it seems that because

00:50:13.920 | of the regulatory structure here,

00:50:15.640 | and the way that utilities are regulated,

00:50:17.440 | and the way that the states have authority

00:50:19.520 | on the environmental laws and all the other things,

00:50:22.280 | that it might be the fastest path

00:50:24.460 | to solving this energy gap problem is SMRs,

00:50:28.040 | and these things produce tens of megawatts,

00:50:31.280 | so again, a gigawatt is 1,000 megawatts,

00:50:34.220 | and we need to kind of probably grow

00:50:37.840 | our energy production in the United States

00:50:40.320 | by several terawatts over the next decade or two,

00:50:45.200 | so this SMR may be the fastest path.

00:50:48.020 | Now, that could change,

00:50:49.480 | meaning we could end up seeing

00:50:50.560 | much larger facilities get built out

00:50:52.600 | if there's regulatory change in the US,

00:50:55.600 | and there's more availability,

00:50:56.540 | but fundamentally, we are going to need to use uranium

00:51:01.320 | to make electricity to meet the demand

00:51:04.740 | of growing the GDP that it seems

00:51:07.140 | we're going to be growing in.

00:51:08.600 | I think this is just such a necessity.

00:51:10.660 | It's great to see the SMRs getting some attention.

00:51:13.220 | I just don't know if they're actually gonna get turned on,

00:51:15.020 | how long it's gonna take,

00:51:15.980 | and I don't know what this election cycle's gonna bring

00:51:19.060 | in terms of regulatory change.

00:51:20.220 | I think we talked about it with several of the candidates

00:51:21.900 | when we were doing the interviews.

00:51:23.060 | - Sax, if we are able to get a bunch of these SMRs

00:51:27.300 | built here in the United States,

00:51:29.900 | maybe if Europe follows suit,

00:51:32.080 | what would this do on a geopolitical basis

00:51:34.600 | into our relationship with the Middle East,

00:51:37.240 | our energy independence,

00:51:39.400 | and, of course, the AI race to general intelligence?

00:51:44.400 | I'll let you take it, whichever direction you wanna go.

00:51:47.360 | - Well, I don't think we're going to

00:51:49.640 | because I don't think anyone wants a nuclear power plant

00:51:51.840 | in their backyard.

00:51:52.680 | It's really simple.

00:51:53.760 | I mean, no matter what the benefits are for AI

00:51:56.800 | or for America's global competitiveness,

00:51:59.800 | I just don't think your typical community

00:52:01.560 | wants a nuclear power plant in their backyard,

00:52:03.560 | and I don't think it matters that much

00:52:04.940 | if it's a small, modular one either.

00:52:06.760 | - So you think they'll get blocked by local communities?

00:52:09.240 | - Yeah, and probably for good reason.

00:52:11.160 | I mean, I don't want a nuclear power plant in my backyard.

00:52:13.880 | Do you?

00:52:15.280 | I feel like this has suddenly become

00:52:17.000 | a little bit of a luxury belief

00:52:18.840 | where liberal elites are always talking about

00:52:21.360 | how we need to have nuclear power now,

00:52:23.600 | but there you know they're not gonna have

00:52:25.120 | a nuclear power plant in their backyard,

00:52:27.280 | so it's easy for all of us to genuflect

00:52:30.000 | about what a great idea this is,

00:52:31.320 | but let's face it, these things are gonna be built

00:52:34.360 | probably in poor or working class communities,

00:52:39.000 | and inevitably there's gonna be some accident.

00:52:41.560 | I mean, you can tell me how safe they are

00:52:42.720 | to your blue in the face.

00:52:43.780 | I don't believe it.

00:52:45.120 | You know, planes aren't supposed to

00:52:47.000 | fall out of the sky either, and it does happen,

00:52:49.600 | and you know, they're gonna set up

00:52:52.080 | one of these power plants somewhere,

00:52:54.040 | and you know, it's probably gonna have a DEI program,

00:52:57.600 | and something's gonna happen.

00:52:58.840 | I mean, something's gonna happen,

00:53:01.260 | and then the fallout is literally gonna fall out

00:53:05.400 | on the people in that poor community,

00:53:07.640 | so I don't think this is gonna happen.

00:53:09.480 | - This show really has a diversity of views, doesn't it?

00:53:11.720 | - Yeah.

00:53:12.840 | Look, this is a perfect example of liberal business elites

00:53:16.920 | demanding something that isn't gonna affect them.

00:53:20.320 | It's not gonna affect them.

00:53:21.480 | - Your take on a non-binary trans lesbian

00:53:25.960 | with purple hair-- - No comment.

00:53:27.040 | Whatever you're saying, no comment.

00:53:28.700 | - Putting a small nuclear reactor

00:53:32.880 | 200 miles outside of Austin, Texas, go.

00:53:35.340 | Put your tinfoil hat on, Freeburg.

00:53:37.400 | - Yeah, how close do you want it to your ranch, Cal?

00:53:39.960 | - I mean, I think there's plenty of land

00:53:44.020 | outside of the triangle here in Texas

00:53:47.640 | where there is no density, and you could put one,

00:53:49.920 | and I'd have no problem with there being one

00:53:51.360 | 100 miles, 200 miles-- - Who's gonna work there?

00:53:53.440 | Who's gonna service it?

00:53:54.800 | - I mean, literally, you would have to,

00:53:57.360 | it doesn't take that many people to service these, so yeah.

00:54:00.960 | - Until something goes wrong.

00:54:01.800 | - I think there's plenty of space in the United States

00:54:03.480 | to put these, and maybe, Freeburg, you could talk

00:54:06.480 | and educate us on the safety here.

00:54:09.680 | Do you believe what Sax is saying,

00:54:11.640 | that it's going to have a meltdown,

00:54:13.480 | and he doesn't believe it? - I think Sax's point of view,

00:54:16.200 | to be honest, is the point of view

00:54:19.520 | that will be held by a large number of people

00:54:22.040 | just like they have been with a lot of other--

00:54:25.000 | - Is it the right point of view, though?

00:54:26.720 | Tell us from a science perspective.

00:54:27.800 | - Well, no, no, I don't think it is.

00:54:29.600 | I think that the same argument would have been made

00:54:31.480 | around we shouldn't have airplanes at all

00:54:34.180 | because they can fall from the sky.

00:54:35.520 | We should keep everyone on the ground where they're safe.

00:54:37.640 | Why would you wanna get on an airplane?

00:54:39.120 | Why would you wanna have airplanes flying over your home?

00:54:40.960 | We should all ban airplanes flying over our home.

00:54:42.680 | They could crash in our home.

00:54:43.920 | It's the same sort of argument,

00:54:45.240 | and the reason I'm not gonna argue the point

00:54:46.920 | is 'cause of the point I made earlier,

00:54:49.720 | which is that it ultimately becomes an economic necessity

00:54:52.680 | that for us to meet all of the demands of AI,

00:54:55.920 | all of the demands of industry,

00:54:57.240 | we wanna reindustrialize the United States,

00:54:59.400 | et cetera, et cetera, we need to increase

00:55:00.920 | electricity production capacity on the continent,

00:55:04.140 | and there is no way to generate enough electricity

00:55:06.800 | on this continent fast enough using other means

00:55:10.380 | than there would be if we just got these systems set up.

00:55:12.800 | - So you believe that we'll go through out of necessity?

00:55:16.320 | That's your take.

00:55:17.160 | - I think globally, this is the case,

00:55:18.240 | and we're seeing it in China.

00:55:19.120 | Now, whether the US ends up becoming a Luddite--

00:55:20.800 | - China doesn't have to worry about a NIMBY problem.

00:55:22.800 | The CCP just says, "This is what we're gonna do."

00:55:25.140 | - Yeah, that's right, and we may end up being the--

00:55:28.000 | - China is the M in NIMBY, bye.

00:55:29.880 | - Yeah, and we may end up being the Luddite state,

00:55:32.740 | and we'll end up just saying, "You know what?

00:55:33.920 | "We're not gonna adopt new technology,

00:55:35.500 | "including things like gene editing and cell therapies,"

00:55:39.480 | and I'll go through the list of new technologies,

00:55:41.600 | Seth, you could make the argument

00:55:43.400 | that there's a low probability of a high-risk event,

00:55:46.080 | but the fact is that the progress that it enables

00:55:49.000 | is worth so much more than the risk

00:55:51.080 | that we would be taking on.

00:55:52.480 | - There's a simpler solution to all of this

00:55:54.120 | without having to go and create these reactors,

00:55:57.040 | which is, I don't think that we have a very good grasp

00:55:59.500 | of the material science, broadly speaking.

00:56:01.960 | I don't think we really understand

00:56:03.440 | how to build next-generation materials.

00:56:05.520 | I don't think our specialty chemicals capabilities

00:56:07.800 | are all that strong.

00:56:09.440 | The way that they're going to be

00:56:10.480 | over the next five or 10 years is just with better compute,

00:56:12.940 | so I think that there's gonna be a lot of interim steps

00:56:15.760 | that increase the generally available energy density

00:56:18.320 | without going to nuclear.

00:56:19.960 | I think there's gonna be a lot of businesses to do that.

00:56:22.040 | That'll be much safer, easier to regulate,

00:56:24.860 | easier to test, easier to underwrite,

00:56:27.800 | and I think the government will get behind those,

00:56:29.480 | so I'm not as negative as you are

00:56:31.200 | on the only solution being nuclear.

00:56:32.920 | - The countries and the businesses

00:56:35.880 | that have a lower cost of electricity

00:56:38.360 | and a more abundant source of electricity

00:56:40.360 | will end up winning as the economy continues to progress

00:56:43.400 | towards a much more kind of digital state

00:56:45.280 | and an automated state over the next decades.

00:56:47.840 | So if we're gonna be slower,

00:56:49.640 | we're gonna suffer the consequences of that as a country,

00:56:52.060 | so we'll see how it plays out.

00:56:53.160 | I just think that economic incentives

00:56:54.760 | will ultimately drive, hopefully, a change.

00:56:56.440 | - Would a possible solution be to give an economic incentive

00:57:00.920 | to the people who would be in the surrounding areas?

00:57:03.680 | Obviously, these things could be 50 or 100 miles

00:57:05.860 | from anybody's homes, but even the people who work there

00:57:09.440 | or people who might have, I don't know,

00:57:13.120 | some homes that were near it,

00:57:14.520 | could you give them no taxes, et cetera,

00:57:17.800 | essentially give them incentives

00:57:19.160 | to allow this to go through a free bargain, in your mind?

00:57:21.320 | Do you think that kind of incentive would work?

00:57:23.400 | Taxes or some kind of payoff or subsidy?

00:57:28.160 | - I'm not sure.

00:57:29.000 | I haven't thought much about what the incentives

00:57:32.040 | or subsidies would be.

00:57:32.880 | I think that-- - Yeah, you're gonna have

00:57:33.700 | to give them an incentive, 'cause no one's gonna wanna live

00:57:35.560 | within 200 miles of one of these things.

00:57:37.360 | - What would be the number-- - I think taxes, right.

00:57:38.880 | I think that people have a very deep fear

00:57:43.280 | of what is deemed to be cataclysmic technology.

00:57:46.840 | I do think a lot of this was rooted

00:57:48.120 | in the evolution of the atomic age,

00:57:49.360 | where we basically have these nuclear warheads

00:57:51.080 | mounted to missiles that can travel

00:57:52.640 | at 20 times the speed of sound

00:57:54.840 | and land on your city and wipe out your city.

00:57:57.440 | I mean, that is also nuclear technology,

00:58:00.020 | and people conflate the two as being similar.

00:58:02.520 | And even Three Mile Island, there were no deaths.

00:58:05.120 | It was a shocking, scary thing for people,

00:58:07.520 | but statistically speaking and historically speaking

00:58:10.640 | and technically speaking, it's a lot more complicated

00:58:13.120 | to explain to people what happened and why

00:58:15.080 | and why now it's different.

00:58:16.460 | And no one has the time for that.

00:58:17.720 | No one wants to hear that (beep).

00:58:19.160 | They wanna hear a very simple,

00:58:20.240 | do you really want a nuclear power plant in your backyard?

00:58:22.480 | No way.

00:58:23.480 | What about you?

00:58:24.320 | No way.

00:58:25.140 | All right, let's vote to stop it.

00:58:26.720 | - And they're right.

00:58:27.680 | I mean, you compare it to commercial airlines,

00:58:32.280 | but commercial airlines, that's a technology

00:58:34.460 | that's been around for what, like 100 years?

00:58:36.160 | - Chex, do you have any data on the safety record

00:58:38.040 | of nuclear technology?

00:58:39.120 | 'Cause I'm not sure you do.

00:58:40.040 | I think my point is you're just making a statement

00:58:41.920 | out of fear. - Let's see the data.

00:58:43.080 | Where's the data?

00:58:44.120 | - Yeah, let's do it.

00:58:45.080 | Let's do it right now.

00:58:45.920 | I mean, I think this is an important discussion.

00:58:47.560 | I'd like to actually--

00:58:48.400 | - My point about commercial airlines

00:58:50.120 | is we've had that technology for over 100 years.

00:58:52.280 | It was honed and refined over many decades

00:58:55.120 | and commercial airlines now have become--

00:58:58.200 | - Chex, this is going on almost 100,

00:59:00.040 | this is going on 100 years of use, right?

00:59:02.240 | You know that.

00:59:03.080 | - There've been incidents every decade or two

00:59:05.320 | and that is why-- - That's not true.

00:59:06.720 | That's not true.

00:59:07.560 | You're saying something that's not true.

00:59:09.280 | - The reason nuclear has been discredited

00:59:10.840 | is because of Three Mile Island

00:59:12.600 | and Fukushima and-- - First of all,

00:59:14.040 | it's not been discredited. - Chernobyl.

00:59:15.760 | I mean, these names live in infamy.

00:59:18.480 | - It's social fear-mongering like you are doing right now

00:59:21.120 | with no data and no facts

00:59:22.720 | to try and make it a political issue

00:59:24.480 | that drives everyone to one side,

00:59:26.240 | shut their minds down,

00:59:27.280 | and not listen to the actual facts and data.

00:59:29.640 | And this fear-mongering is what keeps us

00:59:31.640 | from being competitive,

00:59:32.880 | what keeps us from having progress.

00:59:34.720 | You talk a lot about people talking shit about Elon.

00:59:37.080 | - Listen, listen, I'm just saying I don't want one near me.

00:59:40.720 | Now, if they're-- - Okay.

00:59:41.680 | - Hold on a second.

00:59:42.520 | I'm not saying you can't-- - Let me get,

00:59:43.360 | there were 46 deaths at Chernobyl.

00:59:44.600 | - I'm not against doing it somewhere

00:59:46.760 | where the community is in favor of doing it.

00:59:49.160 | So if you can find a place that wants to do this,

00:59:52.000 | I would not stop it, just to be clear.

00:59:54.040 | I'm just saying I don't want one near me.

00:59:55.720 | - Let's get to facts.

00:59:56.560 | Yeah, we got you. - Jake, just give me a second.

00:59:58.280 | - Yeah, yeah.

00:59:59.120 | - I don't think you're gonna find many takers,

01:00:01.200 | even among poor communities.

01:00:02.680 | - It's a great adversarial point.

01:00:04.960 | Let's go to the facts. - There's 440

01:00:06.800 | nuclear power reactors operating in 32 countries

01:00:09.960 | around the world.

01:00:11.080 | Since the time that we first had nuclear reactors,

01:00:13.120 | which has now been almost a century,

01:00:14.600 | there have been three incidents,

01:00:16.400 | Chernobyl, Fukushima, and Three Mile Island.

01:00:18.640 | At Three Mile Island, there were zero deaths.

01:00:20.680 | At Fukushima, there was one death,

01:00:22.200 | and at Chernobyl, there were 46 deaths.

01:00:24.480 | The fallout from those events has been

01:00:27.480 | that we shut down energy production,

01:00:29.480 | we shut down nuclear reactor technology,

01:00:31.600 | and we fear-mongered our way

01:00:33.240 | into losing the most abundant, available--

01:00:36.200 | - Can I just ask a question? - Low-cost source of energy.

01:00:37.720 | - Yeah. - Do those deaths

01:00:38.600 | actually include the second and third-order effects

01:00:41.080 | of all this radiation? - At Chernobyl,

01:00:42.240 | there were 15 people who got thyroid cancer,

01:00:44.280 | 35 operators and first responders who got radiation sickness,

01:00:48.320 | and then the background radiation effects,

01:00:50.240 | there's a lot of kind of noise around this,

01:00:52.480 | but it's not a significant number

01:00:53.800 | as you may otherwise think.

01:00:55.360 | Same with Fukushima.

01:00:56.600 | - Why is it that whole region is still uninhabited, then?

01:00:59.120 | - They had a radiation event.

01:01:00.560 | There's radioactive material that has covered that area

01:01:03.360 | that will be radioactive for a long period of time.

01:01:05.800 | Now, to understand what happened there

01:01:08.120 | and why that won't happen again

01:01:09.600 | requires talking about the difference in the technology

01:01:11.720 | between Gen 1, Gen 2, Gen 3, and Gen 4 systems.

01:01:15.040 | A lot of what's being rolled out now

01:01:16.400 | are these Gen 3 nuclear reactors,

01:01:18.360 | and the Gen 4 systems,

01:01:19.640 | which we highlighted a little while ago,

01:01:21.520 | do not have a meltdown possibility, right?

01:01:23.640 | We talked about this,

01:01:24.800 | the one that went online in China in December.

01:01:27.120 | Those new systems, the Gen 4 reactors, cannot melt down.

01:01:30.560 | You cannot have an incident like you did

01:01:32.320 | with the Gen 1 and Gen 2 systems.

01:01:34.160 | And the Gen 3 systems are abundantly safe.

01:01:36.400 | China is building hundreds of them.

01:01:39.040 | It is a totally understandable science.

01:01:42.160 | If we want to spend the time looking at the data

01:01:43.960 | and understanding the engineering

01:01:45.280 | and the material science work

01:01:46.680 | and all the effort that's gone in,

01:01:48.320 | billions of dollars over decades,

01:01:50.160 | the biggest stumbling block and the biggest wall

01:01:52.920 | has been the fact that people

01:01:54.240 | have this fear-mongering activity

01:01:56.320 | that they tell people, "Just dismiss it.

01:01:58.640 | "It's too scary.

01:01:59.880 | "We don't want it in our backyard.

01:02:01.200 | "Let's move on to the next opportunity."

01:02:03.360 | That's what's killed it.

01:02:04.480 | - And if you just put these things 50 miles away,

01:02:07.440 | the radiation, even in the meltdowns,

01:02:09.480 | didn't go past those, is my understanding.

01:02:12.400 | So, even if you want to,

01:02:15.000 | just the easiest steel man-

01:02:16.400 | - The new systems don't melt down.

01:02:17.680 | You don't have that possibility.

01:02:18.840 | And the SMRs, I am 100% agreeing with you.

01:02:20.680 | - The new systems don't even work.

01:02:22.160 | These SMRs, they don't work.

01:02:23.840 | - If they're so new, how can you say for sure

01:02:25.960 | what the safety record's gonna be?

01:02:27.480 | - Oh, that's, just to be clear, SMRs don't work yet.

01:02:31.000 | We have theoretical ways in which we can profile

01:02:33.640 | and model that they work,

01:02:35.200 | but we don't have a functional one

01:02:36.840 | that people can look at and inspect.

01:02:39.240 | As part of that, we haven't been able to test how they fail.

01:02:42.800 | Those are also theoretical.

01:02:44.440 | So, I think, let's put SMRs off

01:02:46.400 | and let's just be very accurate.

01:02:47.680 | We don't have a functioning, working version of one

01:02:50.600 | because they don't work yet.

01:02:51.800 | Maybe they'll work in the future.

01:02:53.520 | Let's hope that they do.

01:02:54.600 | - There's about six- - What you're talking

01:02:55.440 | about, Freeberg, is a step before that,

01:02:57.560 | which is the Gen 3 reactor,

01:02:59.600 | which has a different safety- - There are SMRs

01:03:01.400 | operating in China, Russia, and India today,

01:03:04.200 | and there's about 65 being built at this moment, right?

01:03:07.200 | And that's outside the U.S.

01:03:08.560 | So, that's why the U.S. is kind of observing

01:03:10.920 | and trying to catch up and adopt these technologies

01:03:12.880 | that are being used by, call it, economic competitors

01:03:16.040 | and economic partners around the world.

01:03:17.880 | It's important for economic prosperity in the U.S.

01:03:21.480 | for us to have a degree of competitiveness

01:03:23.120 | in electricity prices.

01:03:24.440 | If China races towards 5 cents per kilowatt hour

01:03:27.160 | for electricity, and we're sitting here

01:03:29.120 | at 20 cents a kilowatt hour for electricity,

01:03:31.200 | what's that gonna do to our economic competitiveness?

01:03:33.120 | - We are at 5 cents in the generation.

01:03:35.080 | - And you're saying solar, right?

01:03:37.320 | - We can fix that tomorrow.

01:03:38.640 | We already rely on a nuclear reactor that works,

01:03:41.280 | and to Sax's point, it just happens to be

01:03:43.000 | millions of miles away, so if it goes,

01:03:45.920 | we're all gonna go anyways.

01:03:47.480 | - Yeah, the scalability of solar,

01:03:49.360 | in terms of getting us to a terawatt of production capacity,

01:03:51.720 | is the limiting block to mop that,

01:03:53.480 | in order to get to a terawatt of additional-

01:03:54.560 | - I think that's a material science problem.

01:03:56.440 | I don't think that's, you don't need to run as long-

01:03:58.080 | - Yeah, maybe it's not such a bad thing

01:03:59.120 | that other countries are taking the early adopter risk

01:04:01.400 | with this technology. - Well, I was about to say,

01:04:02.240 | that would be, that's gonna be the forcing-

01:04:03.720 | - This is decades in the making, Sax.

01:04:05.080 | - Yeah, that's gonna be, but if they're,

01:04:06.920 | if China runs away with this,

01:04:08.880 | and they have so many of these running,

01:04:10.880 | and then they're able to power AI

01:04:13.000 | and solve problems we're not,

01:04:14.680 | we're gonna have to get our act together

01:04:15.960 | and start standing these up,

01:04:17.680 | and they just have to be 50- - I don't think power

01:04:18.520 | is the limiting- - Every Navy submarine

01:04:20.320 | has got a nuclear reactor on board.

01:04:21.560 | That's how we get power. - And we have so much space

01:04:23.120 | in this country, these things could be 100, 200 miles away.

01:04:26.680 | - But I don't think energy- - From anybody.

01:04:27.520 | - Is a limiting factor in our ability to innovate.

01:04:30.120 | I don't think it is today.

01:04:32.360 | - In these data centers?

01:04:33.640 | Certainly, it is with these- - It's not the limiting factor

01:04:35.200 | in our ability to innovate.

01:04:36.160 | It's not the limiting factor in, like, for example-

01:04:39.320 | - We're asking us to charge up every car,

01:04:41.200 | every night with electricity, with a battery,

01:04:42.880 | rather than using gasoline. - Let me just make my point.

01:04:44.760 | So we just saw OpenAI launch Strawberry.

01:04:47.720 | Is the reason why Microsoft, or Google,

01:04:52.080 | or Meta not responded with their own version

01:04:56.440 | an energy problem?

01:04:57.760 | No, we're still rate-limited by innovation

01:05:00.760 | and just raw intellectual horsepower and capability.

01:05:04.160 | Meanwhile, we are trying to solve the energy problem,

01:05:07.360 | and people are taking different approaches.

01:05:10.920 | There's storage that's coming online very aggressively.

01:05:14.440 | The solar capability itself is ramping up aggressively.

01:05:18.040 | We're also forcing these utilities

01:05:19.920 | to actually be deconstructed

01:05:21.360 | so that there's more efficiency in the energy markets.

01:05:23.800 | All of this, if you unpack why it costs 20 cents

01:05:26.400 | a kilowatt hour, it's not because of a generation problem.

01:05:29.920 | It is not.

01:05:31.320 | It's graft, it's corruption, it's old legacy infrastructure.

01:05:35.600 | All of it can be replaced in a much simpler and safer way.

01:05:38.560 | So I think by the time that you are rate-limited by energy,

01:05:42.640 | you'll have a plethora of solutions.

01:05:44.040 | My issues with the SMRs is the ones that are promising

01:05:48.160 | these next-gen whiz-bang performance characteristics,

01:05:51.840 | they're all theoretical freebrew.

01:05:53.360 | So even when you say there are SMRs working abroad,

01:05:55.680 | there's no next-generation reactors working abroad.

01:05:58.440 | They don't work.

01:06:00.000 | Where is an example of these modern,

01:06:02.200 | next-generation reactors actually working?

01:06:05.400 | Where?

01:06:06.240 | - Well, we talked about the Gen 4 one

01:06:07.840 | that went live in China.

01:06:09.240 | There's several SMRs in several countries

01:06:11.320 | that are active producing power.

01:06:13.040 | - You can call it a small modular reactor.

01:06:14.920 | What I'm talking about, these next-gen materials,

01:06:16.640 | the things that Kairos and these other guys

01:06:18.240 | are trying to do.

01:06:19.080 | Where is a functioning, working version?

01:06:20.400 | - Here, I'll show you.

01:06:21.240 | They have 'em.

01:06:22.080 | I mean, like, we have one in India, we have one in China.

01:06:25.000 | I'll show you the, I'll send you the links to 'em here.

01:06:27.480 | There's about 50 of 'em

01:06:28.560 | that India's actively building right now.

01:06:30.600 | And they're competitive with Kairos, right?

01:06:33.760 | They all have kind of common design concepts,

01:06:35.640 | but they're different companies.

01:06:37.680 | Anyway, I'm just saying, like,

01:06:38.600 | they're getting rolled out. - What would be the harm,

01:06:40.360 | and just, Freeberg, maybe you can educate us in,

01:06:42.840 | the distance it could be from a city.

01:06:45.600 | Reasonably, in terms of building a grid

01:06:47.880 | to move the energy from,

01:06:50.200 | could it be 200 miles from a major city?

01:06:52.960 | 300, 100?

01:06:54.640 | What's the distance? - Hey, put it wherever you want.

01:06:56.160 | You can put power production wherever you want.

01:06:57.800 | - But it has to travel, right? - Just move it through copper.

01:06:59.080 | As long as you got the copper to move it, right?

01:07:00.680 | You move the electrons.

01:07:02.360 | - Yeah, I'm just trying to think reasonably move it

01:07:04.400 | is, I guess, what I was getting at.

01:07:05.880 | But okay, well, there you have it, folks.

01:07:07.880 | A good debate here

01:07:08.720 | on the All In podcast. - A good debate.

01:07:10.280 | A good debate. - I think it's a good debate.

01:07:11.120 | - I still love you all.

01:07:12.360 | - We'll lay copper from some country that has an SMR

01:07:16.800 | all the way to- - That's right.

01:07:18.240 | - All the way to- - You know, it's funny

01:07:19.080 | you said that. - Washington State.

01:07:20.520 | - I was just thinking like if Canada and Mexico have,

01:07:23.560 | you know, economic incentive to do this,

01:07:25.360 | or they're more bold,

01:07:26.840 | maybe they build them in their countries,

01:07:29.160 | and then they'll be selling it to the United States, right?

01:07:32.040 | They'll take the, I mean, if you're Kairos,

01:07:34.040 | and you can't put this in the United States,

01:07:36.360 | but you could put it in Mexico,

01:07:37.920 | and then come up with a, you know,

01:07:39.360 | a way to get it past Trump's border wall.

01:07:41.520 | You may be able to put it into the United States,

01:07:43.640 | but we won't know until we know it works.

01:07:45.760 | Just, I'm sorry, I keep going back to this

01:07:49.440 | tricky little issue of it doesn't work.

01:07:52.040 | - Well, I mean, I think, Freeberg, I'm with you,

01:07:53.360 | in that even with the disasters that have happened,

01:07:56.480 | those are with Gen 1 and Gen 2 reactors.

01:07:58.880 | There hasn't been one in a long time,

01:08:00.080 | and the fallout from them- - Yeah, and that,

01:08:01.240 | I believe- - Haven't been-

01:08:02.080 | - I believe those things- - Significant.

01:08:02.920 | - If we could spin those up right now,

01:08:04.200 | these Gen 2, Gen 3 reactors, do them all day long.

01:08:06.400 | I think that they're very safe.

01:08:07.480 | They're very reliable. - No, the 3 and 4.

01:08:08.520 | The 3's are- - You want one

01:08:09.360 | in your backyard?

01:08:10.200 | - The 3's are going to be fine- - I would be fine

01:08:11.520 | with one being 100 miles from my backyard, no problem.

01:08:13.680 | - 100. - It's four

01:08:14.520 | that's producing- - 100.

01:08:15.360 | - China's producing a gigawatt of power.

01:08:17.280 | - Would you want one 10 miles outside Austin?

01:08:20.240 | - I don't think you should put it 10 miles

01:08:21.440 | outside of any city.

01:08:22.280 | I know that they're doing that in India.

01:08:23.680 | They're doing that in China.

01:08:24.760 | I would think, if you look up the footprint of Fukushima,

01:08:29.160 | I mean, that was a complete disaster.

01:08:30.520 | They put that below sea level.

01:08:32.160 | They told them not to put it there,

01:08:33.800 | and they put it near a bunch of people

01:08:35.320 | who were living within miles of it,

01:08:38.280 | single digit miles of it.

01:08:39.680 | There's no reason for this to be

01:08:41.720 | any closer than 50 or 100 miles,

01:08:43.520 | and I would be totally fine with it being 50 to 100 miles

01:08:46.240 | from where I'm on my ranch right now.

01:08:48.160 | Absolutely no problem with that.

01:08:50.080 | - I think this is a classic luxury belief,

01:08:52.440 | where it's easy for you to espouse this

01:08:54.880 | for everybody else for the nation,

01:08:57.440 | because you know the downsides aren't going to fall on you.

01:09:00.120 | - No, but 50 miles or 100 miles could be any way

01:09:02.440 | from where we use them, and everyone would be safe.

01:09:04.840 | Would you be comfortable with putting them in the desert?

01:09:07.080 | - Yeah, but in that case,

01:09:08.240 | there won't be any- - Okay, then we're done.

01:09:09.840 | - That's how we're running wind and geothermal today.

01:09:11.720 | We're putting these sites in random places, and solar,

01:09:15.120 | and then we're running cable,

01:09:16.240 | and we're producing power and delivering it to-

01:09:18.080 | - And they're doing that with solar

01:09:18.920 | just because they don't want it to be an eyesore, right?

01:09:20.840 | That's why we're doing that with solar,

01:09:22.240 | is we don't want people to look at a giant solar thing.

01:09:25.440 | - Like I said, I'm not against doing it.

01:09:27.200 | If you can find a community that's willing to do it,

01:09:29.400 | and if you put it where there's no humans,

01:09:30.920 | then yeah, that's gonna work.

01:09:32.400 | - So there we go. - That's what you have to do.

01:09:33.240 | - We've resolved our issue.

01:09:34.360 | We got the compromise here.

01:09:35.680 | - I just don't know how feasible that is.

01:09:37.120 | - Solving world problems, yes.

01:09:38.360 | - Are you still gonna need humans

01:09:39.360 | to work at this place? - I'm gonna get my guitar,

01:09:40.680 | and we're gonna sing "Kumbaya" SMR.

01:09:43.240 | - Humans to work at this place.

01:09:44.760 | - You better get some robot employees.

01:09:46.920 | - I can't wait for you guys

01:09:47.920 | to lay millions of miles of copper cabling now

01:09:50.400 | as a solution to truck all this energy.

01:09:51.240 | - I'm fine laying pipe, Chamath.

01:09:52.160 | I'll lay that pipe.

01:09:53.320 | - Genius.

01:09:54.160 | - You need me to lay pipe, I'll do it, Chamath.

01:09:55.760 | - Genius. - No ditty.

01:09:56.600 | - Sax, do you wanna go visit a nuclear power plant?

01:09:58.760 | - Let's do it. - No, zero interest.

01:09:59.600 | - Let's go. - Yeah, we'll go.

01:10:01.360 | - How's that gonna improve your life?

01:10:02.200 | - Any progress, Sax is not interested in any progress, okay?

01:10:05.040 | If we can go back to the '50s, that's what he wants.

01:10:07.360 | Let's get some coal. - You're like

01:10:08.200 | virtue signaling.

01:10:09.520 | - I'm virtue signaling 'cause I'm pro-nuclear?

01:10:12.000 | - Yes, it's a luxury belief.

01:10:13.800 | You're promoting something where--

01:10:14.640 | - Nuclear power is a luxury belief.

01:10:16.960 | You heard it here first.

01:10:18.360 | - 'Cause they're gonna put these things in poor communities.

01:10:20.360 | And so it's never gonna affect your life.

01:10:21.200 | - No, they're not.

01:10:22.020 | They're gonna put it in '50s.

01:10:22.860 | - They're putting it next to data centers, Sax.

01:10:23.680 | - Everything is not identity politics.

01:10:25.600 | - In like Oregon, like.

01:10:26.880 | - It's easy for you to say, oh, I support nuclear.

01:10:29.160 | Look how progressive I am.

01:10:30.440 | Look how smart I am.

01:10:31.800 | You haven't internalized the downsides.

01:10:34.200 | - I just want--

01:10:35.020 | - Shoot the bund in electricity, Sax.

01:10:35.860 | That's what I want. - Is everything

01:10:36.680 | identity politics for you, Sax?

01:10:38.320 | Everything you see

01:10:39.160 | through the lens of poor-- - No, this is not

01:10:39.980 | identity politics. - And rich, everything.

01:10:42.760 | - I'm defending the poor. - The DM.

01:10:43.920 | - You're gonna put these things in poor communities.

01:10:46.300 | - You're genuflecting, Sax.

01:10:47.840 | Looking out for the poor.

01:10:48.680 | Look at you, Mr. Robin Hood over here.

01:10:51.640 | - I'm defending the right of communities

01:10:53.160 | to say no to this.

01:10:54.560 | - You are my favorite. - To your science experiment.

01:10:56.320 | - You're my favorite, Efficen.

01:10:57.640 | - I'm defending the right of local communities

01:10:59.360 | to say no to your science experiment, okay?

01:11:01.320 | That's what it comes down to.

01:11:02.320 | - Freeberg, Freeberg is trying to put this.

01:11:06.320 | - Episode 200.

01:11:07.480 | I love it.

01:11:08.320 | - Wow, off the rails. - The sums up

01:11:09.320 | the 200 shows.

01:11:10.320 | - Sax, let me ask you a serious question.

01:11:12.620 | (laughing)

01:11:14.960 | - It's not serious when you start like that.

01:11:17.520 | - If Trump loses, what's the next four years

01:11:20.940 | of this pod gonna be like?

01:11:22.960 | What are we gonna do here? - He's not coming back.

01:11:24.280 | - We lose.

01:11:25.520 | - He's moving to New Zealand.

01:11:26.640 | There's gonna be lawfare all over the place.

01:11:28.720 | - Absolutely, they're gonna come for you.

01:11:30.280 | - Do you really think so, David?

01:11:31.480 | - Yeah, I do.

01:11:32.300 | I mean, look, I'm definitely not the top of the list.

01:11:36.040 | Elon's at the top of the list, right?

01:11:37.760 | So he has no choice but to go all in.

01:11:40.760 | They're already doing lawfare against him.

01:11:43.000 | - It's ridiculous, man. - But I think the point

01:11:44.320 | is just that if they're not defeated,

01:11:47.340 | they're gonna keep doing it

01:11:48.360 | because there's no downside for it.

01:11:50.200 | - I will comment on the California Coastal Commission

01:11:54.440 | ruling that was based on Elon's political tweets,

01:11:57.540 | which is why they stopped additional launches

01:11:59.480 | out of Vandenberg.

01:12:00.720 | First of all, how the California Coastal Commission

01:12:03.360 | has authority over Vandenberg and the operations

01:12:07.880 | just seems to me like there's something wrong.

01:12:09.960 | The Coastal Commission was set up with the Coastal Act

01:12:12.000 | in 1976 in California as a way to give the beaches

01:12:15.900 | back to the people and the public

01:12:17.360 | and create a commission to regulate building

01:12:19.420 | along the beaches.

01:12:20.260 | It has since grown into, effectively,

01:12:22.680 | a much larger entity with much more authority,

01:12:27.080 | which potentially, after the Chevron ruling

01:12:29.600 | in the Supreme Court, may get peeled back

01:12:32.400 | and may get dialed down.

01:12:33.520 | We'll see what happens.

01:12:34.520 | But as of now, they have the ability

01:12:35.840 | to block launches out of Vandenberg,

01:12:38.040 | which they did, and in their decision,

01:12:40.160 | they said it was because of Elon's political tweets.

01:12:42.480 | Again, starting at the beginning of the show

01:12:44.440 | about the success that they had

01:12:46.120 | with the Starship this week, it's incredible.

01:12:48.240 | It deserves to be recognized on the merits

01:12:50.200 | of what they accomplished.

01:12:51.480 | But to bring in his political tweets

01:12:53.080 | to make a decision about the progress of SpaceX

01:12:55.280 | and allow public space to be used

01:12:58.080 | to further that cause and further that activity

01:13:00.880 | seems to me abhorrent, and it's ridiculous,

01:13:03.400 | and it's exactly what's wrong with the bureaucratic morass

01:13:06.520 | that a lot of these institutions have grown into.

01:13:09.520 | - And this was a split vote, six, four.

01:13:11.280 | - Do you think they're gonna be pro or con SMRs?

01:13:15.440 | - Exactly, yeah.

01:13:18.000 | - No, I'm serious.

01:13:18.840 | Do you think they're gonna be con for sure?

01:13:20.500 | - They're con. - The Coastal Commission?

01:13:22.000 | - What the Coastal Commission does is they--

01:13:24.280 | - They block everything.

01:13:25.160 | - They block everything, and they do pictures

01:13:27.520 | of the entire coastline.

01:13:28.400 | If you build a shed on your beachfront property,

01:13:32.040 | they will know it, and they come to you,

01:13:34.080 | and they're like, "No sheds.

01:13:35.160 | "You cannot build any structures on the beach."

01:13:37.620 | They're just really, really hardcore.

01:13:39.760 | - It's a values decision that the state of California

01:13:41.880 | made in 1976.

01:13:43.200 | The state of California, the citizens voted

01:13:45.720 | and said, "We wanna preserve the coastline,"

01:13:48.240 | and I think that that's a reasonable value

01:13:50.280 | for them to assume and vote for,

01:13:51.940 | and it was a majority vote,

01:13:53.460 | and so they established the Coastal Commission.

01:13:55.420 | But how the Coastal Commission extended

01:13:57.660 | into having authority over Vandenberg and launches

01:13:59.860 | from there for SpaceX, to me,

01:14:01.940 | is part of this kind of administrative growth.

01:14:04.580 | We see all these administrative bureaucracies get started

01:14:07.100 | that have a very simple objective,

01:14:08.420 | preserve the California coastline,

01:14:10.180 | but now they have authority to determine

01:14:12.300 | whether or not launches can happen

01:14:13.740 | and therefore space-- - And this is one person

01:14:15.900 | at the Coastal Commission referenced his tweets,

01:14:19.780 | and the vote was 6-4 to increase these.

01:14:22.380 | So who is this one person? - No, but she did it

01:14:24.420 | in an official context,

01:14:25.620 | which I think she was like retweeting it.

01:14:27.060 | There was like a tweet from her.

01:14:28.300 | - Yeah, this is what I don't understand.

01:14:29.620 | - She was taking credit for it.

01:14:30.740 | I mean, in a way, she does a favor.

01:14:31.880 | - She's proud of it. - She's proud of it.

01:14:33.660 | She said the quiet part out loud.

01:14:35.460 | So in a way, she does a favor,

01:14:37.500 | which is she acknowledged that all of this lawfare

01:14:40.340 | against SpaceX and Elon is political.

01:14:43.140 | She basically pleaded guilty to it.

01:14:44.840 | Look, she's proud of it 'cause she doesn't think

01:14:46.620 | there's anything wrong with it.

01:14:47.860 | She thinks this is her job is as a bureaucrat,

01:14:50.180 | she's supposed to punish people who tweet things

01:14:52.940 | that you're not supposed to say.

01:14:53.980 | That basically is what it comes down to.

01:14:56.180 | And I mean, this is the truth about lawfare.

01:14:58.700 | They're using the agencies of the federal government

01:15:01.060 | to exact reprisals against their political opponents.

01:15:05.840 | And if there's not a punishment for that,

01:15:08.100 | it's gonna keep going.

01:15:09.900 | - And they've filed a, Elon's filed a lawsuit,

01:15:13.940 | and it's a 6-4 decision.

01:15:15.340 | So I think there's-- - By the way,

01:15:16.660 | the Biden-Harris administration could stop that.

01:15:18.740 | They could say no more lawfare, but they don't do that

01:15:21.300 | because the tone was set from the top.

01:15:23.900 | - And Trump is saying he's gonna be a dictator

01:15:26.140 | and he's gonna do a bunch of lawfare when he gets in there.

01:15:27.980 | So both of these sides gotta settle it down.

01:15:30.360 | That's exactly what he said.

01:15:31.740 | This has been another amazing-- - No, that's another risk quote.

01:15:34.060 | - Okay. - Jay Kyle,

01:15:34.900 | you can't wrap a show like that.

01:15:35.860 | That's just not cool.

01:15:36.680 | - I'm just trying to wrap up so we can move on.

01:15:38.180 | - Well, then don't make a sly comment.

01:15:39.940 | Like, just do something else.

01:15:41.000 | Talk about something else besides Trump at the end.

01:15:42.660 | Like, you know. - I'm just giving my opinion.

01:15:44.300 | I'm not allowed to give my opinion on the show.

01:15:45.540 | - What are you grateful for right now in your life?

01:15:48.060 | - I'm grateful for you doing all the work on the events

01:15:51.340 | and making them spectacular.

01:15:52.940 | - I'm really excited for "Sax Live" for Mar-a-Lago.

01:15:56.220 | - Oh, God. - Oh, God.

01:15:57.060 | - I will totally go to Mar-a-Lago for election night.

01:15:59.060 | Can we get a booth there?

01:16:00.380 | That would be hilarious. - You keep saying it.

01:16:02.220 | It's not clear you would be invited.

01:16:04.140 | - Yeah, exactly. - Of course I'm invited.

01:16:05.700 | - Trump loves me.

01:16:06.540 | Jared Kushner loves me. - I don't know if you remember,

01:16:07.380 | but neither you nor I-- - I'm friends with everybody.

01:16:09.260 | - Neither you nor I gave the hundreds of thousands

01:16:11.140 | of dollars per ticket to go to dinner

01:16:12.540 | with Trump, so. - Oh, please.

01:16:14.180 | - Trump loves me. - He invited us.

01:16:15.540 | - He enjoyed his time. - He's very selective.

01:16:16.860 | It's for friends.

01:16:18.220 | (Jared laughing)

01:16:19.060 | It's a mouthy get-in, it's a mouthy get-in, fine.

01:16:21.620 | - I mean, okay, I'll do it remote, it's fine.

01:16:23.380 | I'll do it, we can do it remote, it's fine.

01:16:24.740 | You don't want Jake out there?

01:16:25.900 | It's fine, you can go with me.

01:16:27.500 | - Wait, when is the election?

01:16:28.340 | - I don't wanna be at a party I'm not invited to.

01:16:30.540 | That's for sure, I'll throw my own.

01:16:31.380 | - It's in two weeks and three days, four days?

01:16:33.500 | - Yeah, coming up. - November 5th.

01:16:34.700 | - I can't, please let it be three days.

01:16:36.420 | - It's like just waiting every day for it to drop,

01:16:38.060 | whatever it's gonna be. - I just hope whoever wins

01:16:39.700 | wins significantly, so we don't--

01:16:42.300 | - Significantly, agreed. - Yeah, please, win by--

01:16:44.540 | - Totally. - 30 electoral votes.

01:16:46.580 | - No Supreme Court decision. - Please.

01:16:49.900 | - Right now, the only candidate

01:16:51.460 | who looks like he could get a landslide is Trump.

01:16:55.340 | Otherwise, it's gonna be very close.

01:16:56.620 | So you're rooting for Trump if you want a landslide.

01:16:59.020 | - I mean, I'm going to reveal my vote

01:17:02.020 | on the election special.

01:17:03.260 | I will have my vote. - That's really hard

01:17:04.300 | to figure out, I'm sure the audience

01:17:05.700 | will be held in great suspense by that.

01:17:08.620 | (both laughing)

01:17:11.380 | - Did you guys vote yet, did you guys vote yet?

01:17:13.300 | - I got my ballot on my-- - I got my ballot

01:17:15.340 | on my desk here, yeah, I'm ready to go.

01:17:17.060 | I'm ready to go.

01:17:18.620 | All right, everybody, this has been

01:17:20.020 | another wonderful episode. - Love you, boys.

01:17:22.140 | - Oh, meetups, there are 200 episode meetups happening.

01:17:25.020 | Thank you to all the fans who got together,

01:17:27.740 | take pictures and share 'em on social

01:17:29.300 | and @mentionus, allin.com/meetups.

01:17:31.620 | Every couple episodes, fans get together around the world

01:17:34.500 | and talk about their favorite bestie,

01:17:37.940 | and that's typically Freebird.

01:17:39.580 | And we'll see you next time, bye-bye.

01:17:42.580 | - Love you, boys. - Bye-bye.

01:17:43.780 | ♪ I'm going all in ♪

01:17:45.740 | ♪ We'll let your winners ride ♪

01:17:48.460 | ♪ Rain Man, David Saks ♪

01:17:50.460 | ♪ I'm going all in ♪

01:17:52.820 | ♪ And instead we open source it to the fans ♪

01:17:55.060 | ♪ And they've just gone crazy with it ♪

01:17:56.900 | ♪ Love you, Eskimo Queen of Kinhwa ♪

01:17:59.100 | ♪ I'm going all in ♪

01:18:01.940 | ♪ We'll let your winners ride ♪

01:18:05.940 | ♪ Besties are gone ♪

01:18:08.700 | - That's my dog taking a notice in your driveway.

01:18:10.700 | (laughing)

01:18:12.940 | - We should all just get a room

01:18:17.340 | and just have one big huge orgy

01:18:18.940 | 'cause they're all just useless.

01:18:20.180 | It's like this sexual tension

01:18:21.660 | that they just need to release somehow.

01:18:24.300 | ♪ Wet your feet ♪

01:18:26.180 | ♪ Wet your feet ♪

01:18:28.220 | ♪ Wet your feet ♪

01:18:30.460 | ♪ Besties are gone ♪

01:18:31.300 | ♪ I'm going all in ♪

01:18:36.300 | ♪ I'm going all in ♪

01:18:41.860 | you

01:18:42.360 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

Dueling Presidential interviews, SpaceX’s big catch, Robotaxis, Uber buying Expedia?, Nuclear NIMBY

Chapters