The Exchanges

Q The new thing is hardware and software, and what did you, what did you learn building in 2024 and 20 25 that you didn't know maybe before then?

A The main thing was actually just the craft, the craft of pixel by pixel designing a software product and launching it. I guess the main thing I took away that was a learning was that I really enjoyed building products and that I wanted to build something even harder and something even more real. And I think like a lot of us, I'm inspired by Elon and, you know, all the incredible work he's done. So I don't want to build things that are easy. I want to build things that are hard and interesting. And I want to take on more technical risk and less market risk. This is the classic VC learning, right? Which is you want to build something that if people Get it. If you can deliver it, you know, people will want it. And it's just hard to build as opposed to you build it and you don't know if they want it. So that's a learning.

AI assessment note: “the main thing I took away that was a learning was that I really enjoyed”

Q I mean, come on. Well, you don't believe that self-driving is coming? Hold on a second. Saks, you don't believe that millions...

A But hold on. Those driver jobs weren't even there 10 years ago. Uber came along and created all these driver jobs. That's true. Fair enough. I just created all these driver jobs. So what technology does, yes, technology destroys jobs, but it replaces them with opportunities that are even better. And then either you can go capture that opportunity yourself, or an entrepreneur will come along and create something that allows you to capture those opportunities. AI is a productivity tool. It increases the productivity of a worker. It allows them to do more creative work and less repetitive work. As such, it makes them more valuable. Yes, there is some retraining involved, But not a lot. These are natural language computers. You can talk to them and play in English, and they talk back to you and play in English. But I think David is absolutely right. I think we will see job creation by AI that will be as fast or faster than job destruction. You saw this even with the internet, like YouTube came along. Look at all these YouTube streamers and influencers. That didn't used to be a job. New jobs, really opportunities, because job is the wrong word. Job implies someone else has to give it to me as sort of like they're handed out. It's a zero sum game. Forget all that. It's opportunities. After COVID, look at how many people are making money by working from home in mysterious little ways …

AI assessment note: “Those driver jobs weren't even there 10 years ago. Uber came along and created all these”

Q But we're going to also see static team size at places like Google. They're just not hiring because they're just having the existing bloated employee base learn the tools. But I don't know if you're seeing this, the number of startups able to get a product to market with two or three people and get to a million in revenue is booming. What are you seeing in the startup landscape?

A Definitely what you're saying in that there's leverage, but at the same time, I think the more interesting part is that new startups are enabled that could not exist otherwise. My last startup, AirChat, could not have existed without AI because we needed a transcription translation. Even the current thing I'm working on, it's not an AI company, but it cannot exist without AI. It is relying on AI. Even at AngelList, we're significantly adopting AI. Like everywhere you turn, it's more opportunity, more opportunity, more opportunity. And people like to go on Uh, Twitter or the artist formerly known as Twitter. And, and, and basically they like to exaggerate like, oh my God, we've hit AGI. Oh my God, I just replaced my, all my mid-level engineers. Oh my God, I've stopped hiring. To me, that's like moronic. The, the, the two valid ones are the one man entrepreneur shows where there's like one guy or one gal and they're like scaling up like crazy things to AI. Or there are people who are embracing AI and being like, I need to hire and I need to hire anyone who can even spell AI. Like anyone who's even used AI, just come on in, come on in. Again, I would say the easiest way to see that AI is not taking jobs or creating opportunities is go brush up on your AI, learn a little bit, watch a few videos, use the AI, tinker with it, and then go reapply for that job that rejected you and watc…

AI assessment note: “the two valid ones are the one man entrepreneur shows where there's like one guy”

Q of job destruction? Which I know you've been tracking self-driving pretty acutely. We both have an interest there. I think over the years, you know, what's the solution here if we're gonna see A bunch of job displacement, which will happen for certain jobs. We all, we all kind of know that. Should we shut the border and not let the next Naval, Chamath, Sachs, and Friedberg into the country?

A Well, let me, let me declare my biases up front. I'm a first generation immigrant. I moved here when I was nine years old, rather than my parents did, and then I naturalized citizen. So obviously, I'm in favor of some level of immigration. That said, I'm assimilated. I consider myself an American first and foremost. I bleed red, white, and blue. I believe in the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. First and second and fourth and all the proper amendments. I get up there every July fourth and I deliberately defend the second amendment on Twitter, at which point half my followers go bananas. You know, cause you're, cause I'm not supposed to. I'm supposed to be a good immigrant, right? And, and carry the usual set of coherent leftist policies, globalist policies. So I think that legal high skill immigration with room and time for assimilation makes sense. You want to have a brain drain on the best and brightest coming to the freest country in the world to build technology and to help civilization move forward. And, you know, as Chamath was saying, economic power and military power is downstream of technology. In fact, even culture is downstream of technology. Look at what the birth control pill did, for example, to culture, or what the automobile did to culture. Or what radio and television did to culture and then the internet. So technology drives everything. And if you look at …

AI assessment note: “legal high skill immigration with room and time for assimilation makes sense”

Q Yeah, Polymarket had it, and the media, the media was like, no way, he's getting confirmed, this is not gonna happen, but Polymarket knows. It's so interesting, huh?

A Well, I saw a very insightful tweet, and I forget who, Wrote it. So I'm sorry. I can't give credit, but the guy basically said, look, Trump has a narrow majority in the house and the Senate and he can get everything he wants as long as the Republicans stay in line. So all the pressure and all the anger that all the mega movement is doing against the left is pointless. It's all about keeping the right wing in line. So it's all the people saying to the senators, Hey, I'm going to primary use Nicole Shanahan saying, I'm going to primary you. It's Scott Pressler saying, I'm moving to your district. That's the stuff that's moving the needle and causing the confirmations to go through. That's how you get Kash Patel. That's how you get Tulsi Gabbard at D&I. That's how you get RFQ.

AI assessment note: “That's the stuff that's moving the needle and causing the confirmations to go through.”

Q How do you, how do you manage that in your mind?

A I think whatever age you're at, whatever part you're at in life, you're still always struggling with your own habits. I think all of us, for example, still eat food and feel guilty or want to eat something that we shouldn't be eating, and we're still always evolving our diets, and kids are the same. So my oldest has already, he passed on the ice cream last time, and he said, I want to eat healthier because finally I managed to get through to him and persuade him that he should be healthier. My younger kids will eat it, but they'll eat a limited amount. My middle kid will sometimes eat some and not others. Ah, ok, so you're not, so if they say something, you'll enable it,

AI assessment note: “I think whatever age you're at, whatever part you're at in life, you're still always struggling”