Latest / Earn Your Leisure / A VC Insider Explains the Next $10 Trillion Monopoly
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: I know you're an energy investor, so what do you
- 0:02Speaker 1: what what what are you focused on as far as
- 0:06Speaker 1: the future of energy? What are you looking for as
- 0:08Speaker 1: far as energy? And then you just talked about geopolitics,
- 0:11Speaker 1: so obviously when you know, geopolitical quagmire right now with
- 0:18Speaker 1: Iran just finished the Venezuela conflict.
- 0:22Speaker 2: So yeah, yes, yes, what's that book? Oh oh, that's
- 0:29Speaker 2: a good one talking about power? Oh it talks about
- 0:33Speaker 2: the history of the oil oil industry. Guys might be
- 0:37Speaker 2: able to help me with this, No, not oil one
- 0:39Speaker 2: on one, Ohri pries. So what it does and what
- 0:45Speaker 2: it shows you is that all this geopolitical stuff that
- 0:48Speaker 2: we're talking about, you know, all the issues that I
- 0:50Speaker 2: and and you know, perfect example of Iran you just mentioned,
- 0:53Speaker 2: comes back to energy, comes back to power. Oil has
- 0:58Speaker 2: been how we get energy. Civilations, civilizations live and die
- 1:03Speaker 2: and grow based on their access to energy and power.
- 1:06Speaker 2: It's almost like a perfect correlation. The more energy you have,
- 1:10Speaker 2: the more abundant, the more the GDP grows. You know,
- 1:12Speaker 2: there's there's some really interesting kind of like correlations there.
- 1:15Speaker 2: And so yes, power and energy, especially in the geopolitical
- 1:19Speaker 2: situation around perfect example. You know, is a good example
- 1:26Speaker 2: of that. We can go off into the tangents of trade.
- 1:31Speaker 2: So yeah, so power is important. We look at a
- 1:33Speaker 2: lot of new age power, renewables, solar, hydrogen like I
- 1:40Speaker 2: invested in a solid state hydrogen company for example. We
- 1:44Speaker 2: look at a lot of nuclear, you know, and you
- 1:48Speaker 2: guys have probably talked about small modular reactors and their
- 1:52Speaker 2: their importance and how we get access to energy and
- 1:55Speaker 2: for better for worse. Why you know we don't have
- 1:58Speaker 2: it now is kind of like the unfortuate a point
- 2:00Speaker 2: and why we're kind of playing catch up right versus
- 2:03Speaker 2: other countries that maybe do use nuclear obviously China, but
- 2:08Speaker 2: France even you know, for example. But small modular reactors
- 2:14Speaker 2: could be our way out, small moundoral reactors behind the meter,
- 2:18Speaker 2: which means not having to deal with the grid because
- 2:21Speaker 2: we have a grid issue, the strain on the grid
- 2:24Speaker 2: from you know, Troy, you're talking about the basketball player.
- 2:27Speaker 2: You're saying, like, how much do you use AI each
- 2:29Speaker 2: time you use that? Obviously it generates memory, there's a
- 2:33Speaker 2: memory issue, but there's also a power issue for that
- 2:35Speaker 2: same for few to happen, and if you scale that
- 2:38Speaker 2: out like you mentioned, imagine all those people trying to
- 2:42Speaker 2: get access to answers straining on a grid that was
- 2:44Speaker 2: built you know what that I don't even know when
- 2:46Speaker 2: the grip has built hundreds of years ago. So you
- 2:50Speaker 2: know we're gonna have an issue there as well. And
- 2:52Speaker 2: so that's why like distributed compute is becoming really interested
- 2:55Speaker 2: and distributed behind the meter power is becoming really interesting
- 2:58Speaker 2: from a venture standpoint.
- 3:00Speaker 3: And when you brought that up, it when we talk
- 3:02Speaker 3: about these singular forms of energy, a caterpillar makes sense, right,
- 3:07Speaker 3: even though it makes sense because they're actually doing that
- 3:10Speaker 3: using gas turbines. Even a Generac is a company that
- 3:13Speaker 3: surprises you by creating their own grass turbines.
- 3:16Speaker 4: For individual companies.
- 3:16Speaker 3: I think Meta was like one of those first companies
- 3:18Speaker 3: to say, all right, we're gonna try to stay off
- 3:20Speaker 3: the grid.
- 3:20Speaker 4: We're gonna build our own energy source.
- 3:22Speaker 3: But the ultimate energy call is the one that's powering
- 3:26Speaker 3: us every day, and that's the sun.
- 3:29Speaker 2: Yes.
- 3:30Speaker 3: So, what what are your thoughts about data centers in
- 3:35Speaker 3: space time.
- 3:38Speaker 2: Economy?
- 3:39Speaker 3: I want to ask you, But I mean this was
- 3:43Speaker 3: a thought that people thought, oh wait, we're ten years,
- 3:46Speaker 3: we're fifteen years away, and then you see space X
- 3:50Speaker 3: I po and if you look at the s one,
- 3:52Speaker 3: it's right in there.
- 3:53Speaker 2: So what are your thoughts.
- 3:55Speaker 3: Around this, this solar, this new solar economy that we're
- 4:00Speaker 3: the clasque and lunar.
- 4:03Speaker 2: Yeah. Man, So you know, at nine years old, I
- 4:08Speaker 2: went to space camp. You know, I wanted to be
- 4:11Speaker 2: an astronaut, you know, And and so the fact that
- 4:15Speaker 2: this is all happening is just fascinating. And our time
- 4:18Speaker 2: look at this. In our lifetime, we're going to see people.
- 4:20Speaker 2: We're going to see a moon base, We're gonna see
- 4:22Speaker 2: people going to Mars. People, we're gonna see vehicles going
- 4:25Speaker 2: to Mars. Who knows what we'll see about people where
- 4:28Speaker 2: we're going into the stars. So that's exciting. Now. The
- 4:32Speaker 2: whole Space AI data Center in space thing. And from
- 4:34Speaker 2: what I've heard, at least in terms of the math
- 4:36Speaker 2: and how you know, the least of rationale, let's say,
- 4:39Speaker 2: from first principles is there comes a point where, to
- 4:44Speaker 2: your point, there's unlimited energy in space. Because of the Sun.
- 4:49Speaker 2: You can be within the Sun's orbit the whole time,
- 4:53Speaker 2: and that's how you get access to to unlimited energy.
- 4:56Speaker 2: But there's obviously a cooling issue. You know, there's a
- 5:00Speaker 2: retirement of old chips, right, and you know issue and
- 5:04Speaker 2: other and other issues that need to be solved for.
- 5:07Speaker 2: But there's up comes a point where the price of
- 5:10Speaker 2: what was it the price of oh, I know, it
- 5:12Speaker 2: was the price of of rocket bringing up mass to
- 5:18Speaker 2: to orbit. As it gets cheaper and cheaper, it crosses over.
- 5:23Speaker 2: There's inflection point where it's actually cheaper to actually build
- 5:27Speaker 2: the data center in space than it is on on
- 5:30Speaker 2: Earth because of the cost of bringing up mass to orbit.
- 5:36Speaker 2: Right now, it's extremely expensive. But as Starship comes out
- 5:39Speaker 2: and they start getting that going, just like they got
- 5:42Speaker 2: the Falcon nine going, it will come a point where
- 5:45Speaker 2: it's so cheap to actually get mass to orbit. Then
- 5:47Speaker 2: it's actually cheaper because then obviously you talked about the
- 5:49Speaker 2: solar being pretty much zero, so that's like now getting
- 5:52Speaker 2: it there is zero worse versus on Earth yet permitting
- 5:55Speaker 2: which costs right and all in land value and all
- 5:58Speaker 2: the other things, and then you have to access power,
- 6:00Speaker 2: which cause there it's free on both of those axes.
- 6:03Speaker 2: There comes a point where the cooling and all the
- 6:06Speaker 2: other things that still need to get figured out, and
- 6:08Speaker 2: maybe it could become more expensive as a percentage of
- 6:11Speaker 2: the total become cheap enough where that inflection point happens.
- 6:14Speaker 2: And so I think people are playing toward that inflection
- 6:16Speaker 2: point that's coming. They're still technically, they're still hearing technical
- 6:21Speaker 2: things that need to be fixed, but like, look, are
- 6:23Speaker 2: you betting against Elon not figuring that shit out.
- 6:27Speaker 5: Talent? In terms of talent line though, how long do
- 6:30Speaker 5: you think before we actually get scalable build out.
- 6:34Speaker 2: In scale the lunar economy scale? What's scalable? How do
- 6:39Speaker 2: you define them?
- 6:43Speaker 5: I know SpaceX of course is in lead. Rocket Lab
- 6:47Speaker 5: has aspirations. Maybe say if we have ten to twenty
- 6:52Speaker 5: five thirty percent of data centers being in orbit?
- 6:55Speaker 2: Ooh man, these are you guys? Are we're great at
- 7:00Speaker 2: making these calls? Right? What are we in twenty twenty eight,
- 7:13Speaker 2: twenty twenty four Max? Yeah? And and and how the
- 7:22Speaker 2: number of companies that we've seen that are doing that,
- 7:25Speaker 2: which is so funny, has gone exponential. I mean, we
- 7:28Speaker 2: invest in invested in companies that are And there's so
- 7:31Speaker 2: many other areas of the space economy that I think
- 7:33Speaker 2: are really interesting. Not only just bringing compute off but
- 7:38Speaker 2: also just bringing all types of manufacturing off Earth as
- 7:41Speaker 2: well becomes really interesting, Like there's companies like Varda for example,
- 7:45Speaker 2: doing pharmaceutical development of off Earth. The reason, the reason,
- 7:50Speaker 2: you know, the reason why they're doing it really is
- 7:53Speaker 2: because the crystallizations that you can actually do in orbit
- 7:56Speaker 2: are are much different than you can on Earth. So
- 8:00Speaker 2: creating a zero G environment on Earth to create the
- 8:03Speaker 2: same crystal structure is more expensive than it is in orbit,
- 8:08Speaker 2: and so and and that crystallization leads to higher efficacy
- 8:12Speaker 2: of the drug and they're really selling into pharmaceutical and
- 8:14Speaker 2: so that's really the what they're solving for. But there's
- 8:17Speaker 2: a lot of other types of biomanufacturing bioreactors that we've
- 8:21Speaker 2: looked at that we've invested in, even companies that are
- 8:24Speaker 2: building the satellite buses to actually transport this manufacturing up
- 8:29Speaker 2: in the space and bring it back. Companies like luxA
- 8:32Speaker 2: Turno for example, X SpaceX teams, Like we invest in
- 8:35Speaker 2: a lot of X SpaceX X Tesla teams just because
- 8:39Speaker 2: they have those chops and they've seen it. So yeah,
- 8:42Speaker 2: I think the space economy is going to be vibrant.
- 8:45Speaker 2: And if you look at Jared Isaacman who now took
- 8:47Speaker 2: over at NASA, you have a founder mode dude, sitting
- 8:50Speaker 2: there in the head, you know, if you know his background,
- 8:56Speaker 2: it's happening, happening.
- 9:00Speaker 1: So I just saw a video yesterday about AI, like
- 9:03Speaker 1: you talked about, you know, being the focal point as
- 9:06Speaker 1: far as UH companies are concerned. The video that I
- 9:13Speaker 1: saw AI of a company went rogue and they wanted
- 9:17Speaker 1: to buy more GPUs, I think something like that. So
- 9:21Speaker 1: they devised the whole scheme. When I say they, I'm
- 9:24Speaker 1: talking about the AI, it devised the whole scheme to
- 9:27Speaker 1: take cryptocurrency and then like or going to black market
- 9:32Speaker 1: and sell cryptocurrency to buy more GPUs. It was it
- 9:36Speaker 1: was really really rogue. So so what is your concern
- 9:42Speaker 1: do you have concern about? We're implementing so much data,
- 9:46Speaker 1: especially on a corporate level, into artificial intelligence, into AI agents,
- 9:51Speaker 1: and it's just the beginning. So everybody talks about AI
- 9:54Speaker 1: is just the beginning. It's just the beginning of AI. Now,
- 9:56Speaker 1: it's just the beginning of AI going rogue now, So
- 10:00Speaker 1: imagine what AI is going to do in five years.
- 10:02Speaker 1: As far as if it's already blackmailing people, lying, stealing
- 10:09Speaker 1: from people, you know, making up their own language, what
- 10:16Speaker 1: is it going to do with five years from now.
- 10:19Speaker 2: Yep, totally, well, I think yes, I see, I see,
- 10:31Speaker 2: and look, we should all be skeptical and we should
- 10:33Speaker 2: all have where we'd be worried because it's new and
- 10:38Speaker 2: you know, we don't know enough. But if you look
- 10:40Speaker 2: back in history, you know, electricity and you know, burned
- 10:46Speaker 2: down tons of people before if they figured it out right, and.
- 10:49Speaker 1: So electricity never had the power to think though. That's
- 10:53Speaker 1: the thing like all technologies. All technologies have had hiccups
- 10:58Speaker 1: the early stages, right, cars, electricity, you can name it, planes,
- 11:02Speaker 1: But the difference is that those technologies did not have
- 11:05Speaker 1: the ability to actually think reason rational like this is
- 11:09Speaker 1: this is a new thing that's never actually been done before.
- 11:13Speaker 2: Totally yeah, I mean like there's there are a lot
- 11:15Speaker 2: of companies though, working on the opposite side of that equation.
- 11:20Speaker 2: So a lot of times the reason you mentioned the
- 11:22Speaker 2: different languages right, like that we don't understand, right, we
- 11:24Speaker 2: don't understand what language. And then that is a real case.
- 11:27Speaker 2: You have a good point. That is a case where
- 11:30Speaker 2: AI did learn its own language and communicated and you know,
- 11:34Speaker 2: we're scheming or stayed scheming behind our backs, and we
- 11:38Speaker 2: didn't know what was going on. But there's people, there's
- 11:40Speaker 2: companies on the other side and startups that are starting
- 11:42Speaker 2: to figure out ways to break the black box and
- 11:45Speaker 2: under and like almost like peer into the brain of
- 11:49Speaker 2: the AI to understand what decisions it's making, why, how,
- 11:53Speaker 2: and so they can start to find these kill switches.
- 11:58Speaker 2: And so there are companies that think, okay, like to
- 12:00Speaker 2: your point, we should race, race toward the exponential, right.
- 12:03Speaker 1: These companies, these companies are using AI to do this.
- 12:08Speaker 2: Yeah, because it's moving too far. It's moving too fast.
- 12:14Speaker 2: It's almost like it's almost like taking it's almost like
- 12:16Speaker 2: to your trading example, like trade their trading on these milliseconds.
- 12:19Speaker 2: We don't know what's going on. They might just take
- 12:21Speaker 2: our own book all our money. But then there's companies
- 12:23Speaker 2: now and maybe the does it on the other side.
- 12:25Speaker 2: You tell me if I'm wrong, But like that they
- 12:27Speaker 2: can actually track the trades on the other side just
- 12:30Speaker 2: as fast. And so you need this, it's like you
- 12:34Speaker 2: need that counterbalance that has to also be.
- 12:36Speaker 1: So we're basically screwed because we're basically creating a world
- 12:39Speaker 1: of good AI warriors versus bad AI warriors, and that's
- 12:44Speaker 1: going to be AI fight because we're combat into bad
- 12:49Speaker 1: AI potentially with good AI, but it's still it's still AI.
- 12:56Speaker 2: Yes, so we're screw No, we're not. We're not screwed.
- 13:02Speaker 2: It's just it's just a mess opportunity. It's a mess opportunity.
- 13:06Speaker 2: But this is this is we need we need good forces.
- 13:09Speaker 2: We need just as strong are good the good forces
- 13:11Speaker 2: have to be just as strong as the bad for
- 13:14Speaker 2: this very reason and and that's why, and you know,
- 13:18Speaker 2: that's some of the reason why everyone's like, now we
- 13:20Speaker 2: have a race against China, because like if they don't,
- 13:23Speaker 2: then we then we lose. And there's some truth to that,
- 13:26Speaker 2: you know, which which which like paradigm would you like
- 13:29Speaker 2: to live in if you had an option. If they
- 13:31Speaker 2: do go ahead, their AI will be stronger, we will
- 13:35Speaker 2: not be able to combat. Are we the good? Are
- 13:37Speaker 2: they the bad? You know that's the discussion, but you
- 13:41Speaker 2: do like that's where we are now, and so like
- 13:43Speaker 2: you kind of have to take that as given. We're
- 13:45Speaker 2: not going back. We can't put the genie back in
- 13:47Speaker 2: the box anymore. Everyone knows AI exists. We can't slow
- 13:51Speaker 2: it down, which is like for better for worse. Maybe
- 13:53Speaker 2: to your point, it's like, ah, but why can't we
- 13:56Speaker 2: slow it down before there's other ways, Like you know,
- 13:58Speaker 2: they're talking about putting kind of ft A type controls
- 14:01Speaker 2: on it. And obviously we're seeing what's happening with Mythos
- 14:05Speaker 2: and fable five, et cetera, to try to slow it down,
- 14:09Speaker 2: you know, So we're seeing people try to figure out
- 14:11Speaker 2: what would be the solution, Like what is the answer?
- 14:14Speaker 2: Is it slow it down? Can't do that because then
- 14:16Speaker 2: we lose the race? Does it mean speed it up?
- 14:20Speaker 2: You know? But how do we do that in a
- 14:22Speaker 2: responsible way? To your point, you have to trust the
- 14:25Speaker 2: people who are building it, which you know we've we've
- 14:30Speaker 2: you know, sure you guys have talked that nausea and
- 14:32Speaker 2: about how you can trust the ethics and morals or
- 14:34Speaker 2: the people who are actually building and have the actual
- 14:37Speaker 2: controls over building these models and their biases and you know,
- 14:41Speaker 2: and and their values and do that aligned with the
- 14:43Speaker 2: overall humanity? Like those things matter at that point, right
- 14:46Speaker 2: because like they're the ones building that output that we
- 14:49Speaker 2: can't that we unfortunately can't we can't slow down at
- 14:52Speaker 2: this point.
- 14:53Speaker 4: When you look at the landscape, do you do you view.
- 14:59Speaker 3: One company as the most important and in terms of
- 15:03Speaker 3: others I'll reference it by saying, like to me, I
- 15:06Speaker 3: always think of Nvidia as the heartbeat of artificial intelligence
- 15:10Speaker 3: in terms of being able to create the compute, creating
- 15:13Speaker 3: the platform, and then investing in the teams or companies
- 15:16Speaker 3: that they think will help benefit it in the future.
- 15:20Speaker 3: Do you look at it in the same method, and
- 15:23Speaker 3: if so, this is this is the important part here.
- 15:27Speaker 4: Obviously, in Vidia leads in market cap.
- 15:29Speaker 3: Now we saw SpaceX at two point two trillion, two
- 15:32Speaker 3: point one trillion, got two trillion. Is the company that's
- 15:35Speaker 3: going to lead us in the next ten years publicly
- 15:38Speaker 3: traded currently or has it not?
- 15:41Speaker 4: It is still in a private market. That's a great question.
- 15:43Speaker 2: That's the one hundred dollars question. That's the billion dollar whatever.
- 15:48Speaker 2: That's the question. Right If you look again, if you
- 15:52Speaker 2: look back at previous booms, oftentimes the companies that came
- 15:56Speaker 2: out first weren't even the winners. So then you're thinking, okay, look,
- 16:03Speaker 2: I mean, obviously in video we know how important they are.
- 16:06Speaker 2: But then you have Cerebraus and you guys have talked
- 16:10Speaker 2: to I know you guys have talked about a nauseum
- 16:12Speaker 2: building chips specifically designed for these specific tasks. And then
- 16:15Speaker 2: other companies coming behind them building more design like very
- 16:18Speaker 2: specific type. Who's to say in video is not going
- 16:20Speaker 2: to do the same, right, And the Jensen's a genius
- 16:24Speaker 2: and you know, the Godfather and I believe all those things.
- 16:28Speaker 2: But just because they're ahead right now and he knows it,
- 16:31Speaker 2: just because it's the head. Right now, we're talking, you know,
- 16:32Speaker 2: how what's their last what's their market cap now? And video?
- 16:35Speaker 2: I'm sure you guys know.
- 16:35Speaker 4: Like literally four point seven or something like that, eight
- 16:38Speaker 4: for you.
- 16:39Speaker 2: Know, but we're talking about ten, fifteen, twenty trillion dollar
- 16:43Speaker 2: companies in the next ten years. So yes, that's a
- 16:48Speaker 2: lot for us now. But if you could think, if
- 16:51Speaker 2: you can learn to think an exponential you know, it
- 16:55Speaker 2: opens up the aperture that that company, to your point,
- 16:57Speaker 2: may not exist yet. Like chatch open a eye. I mean,
- 17:00Speaker 2: it was been around for a while, but like no
- 17:02Speaker 2: one saw it until chat chip t moment everyone talks
- 17:06Speaker 2: was the answer, No way, Google loses, no way now
- 17:11Speaker 2: what now? You know, SERGEI had roll his sleeves back up,
- 17:14Speaker 2: come out of it. He had to get out there,
- 17:19Speaker 2: which they did and luckily they did, or else they
- 17:21Speaker 2: would be gone. Imagine Google gone imagine.
- 17:23Speaker 4: With all that deep mind I know, yeah.
- 17:28Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, Demos I mean those documentaries. You should watch
- 17:32Speaker 2: the Demist documentaries. Incredible. So yeah, I don't know if
- 17:37Speaker 2: those companies and video and video I think, you know,
- 17:40Speaker 2: very important now for all the reasons. But you know,
- 17:43Speaker 2: Jensen will also you know, give you know, he'll say,
- 17:46Speaker 2: you know, to some extent he not lucked into it,
- 17:48Speaker 2: but like he was definitely right place with the GPUs.
- 17:52Speaker 2: He was focused on gaming, right, And so there will
- 17:56Speaker 2: be other companies like that in the future who happened
- 17:58Speaker 2: to you know, get lucky the right place to actually
- 18:01Speaker 2: and then be in the right place and then be
- 18:02Speaker 2: able to capitalize on it next point, right, which is
- 18:05Speaker 2: what makes them great. Those companies may not all be there,
- 18:10Speaker 2: and I don't think you said it's very early days.
- 18:12Speaker 2: I don't think it's not. It's not all written yet.
- 18:16Speaker 2: And that's and that's why we invest in early private markets, right,
- 18:18Speaker 2: because those companies still have not been built yet, and
- 18:20Speaker 2: they're still being built today in garages all around the
- 18:23Speaker 2: country and around the world that we're still finding and
- 18:26Speaker 2: so that's what makes investing in the future and innovation
- 18:29Speaker 2: so great. The exponential technology gets better. You know, things
- 18:34Speaker 2: that weren't possible three years ago become possible. I mean,
- 18:39Speaker 2: look the crazy thing I just saw recently Mid Journey.
- 18:43Speaker 2: I think I didn't post on this. They were AI
- 18:47Speaker 2: Image Generation Company text to image creating like basically like
- 18:52Speaker 2: NFT looking kind of like art. Right now they're doing
- 18:57Speaker 2: MRI machines, imagery, human bodies, all that, all that. Yeah,
- 19:07Speaker 2: that's right, Mid Journey Medical all the MRI machines. Thought
- 19:09Speaker 2: they have monopolies on this. Now it's like, wait a second,
- 19:13Speaker 2: there's a new way to do something. So we're gonna
- 19:14Speaker 2: find out that there's new ways of doing it. A
- 19:16Speaker 2: lot of different things that we thought were kind of
- 19:19Speaker 2: set in stone. And that's also that's what makes AI great, Right,
- 19:22Speaker 2: We're gonna find we're gonna have a lot of breakthroughs.
- 19:25Speaker 2: I think Brad Brad Grocer talked about like some people
- 19:29Speaker 2: live through their lives. If you look at all the
- 19:31Speaker 2: humans that have been on Earth, it's been like, what
- 19:33Speaker 2: hundreds of billions of people who have lived on Earth
- 19:35Speaker 2: since the beginning of humans or something like that. You know,
- 19:37Speaker 2: only a very small percentage of them had a chance
- 19:39Speaker 2: to see innovations. You know, we are so lucky. We're
- 19:42Speaker 2: gonna see many yeah, many