Assertion Supported
Pentagon pays Google 47 cents annually for Gemini deployment
“They were the first of the big frontier AI companies to say, we want to work at Department of Defense. They were easy to work with on the contract. We're paying 47 cents For the whole year for all of this. So they're like taking, taking a loss to make sure tha…”
Opinion
Emil Michael: Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky could not have built Uber
“And now I would argue that Brian Chesky could not have built Uber.”
What-if
Uber would be worth $600 billion today without leadership disruption, says Michael
“Six hundred million? Five X. Yeah, six hundred billion. We would have been Instacart. We would have had a payment system because we'd have so much share of wallet. There was so much more we would have done.”
Opinion
Michael: Uber beat Lyft by 20x despite Lyft launching ridesharing first
“What's the difference between Lyft and Uber? We started at the same time. Lyft is worth six billion dollars today. That's a 20 x difference. The single difference was leadership and ambition, right? The only thing you could attribute it to, because they starte…”
Assertion Supported
The Pentagon issued an RFI for space-based missile interceptors
“We just did a RFI for space-based interceptors, which is how do you put something in space that could take something down in space.”
Assertion Partly supported
Palantir, Anduril, and SpaceX sued the government for initial major contracts
“And one of the examples I use Palantir and Roland, SpaceX, all had to sue the government for their first big contract, because the primes were sophisticated at selling, sophisticated at protecting their interests.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Michael: US military has caught up and surpassed China in many areas
“I think we're already caught up in so many areas and surpass them, but they've made a lot of ground.”
Assertion Partly supported
Pentagon deployed Google Gemini to four million personnel in two months
“Which is why in two months of owning, being the chief AI, having the chief AI office run in my world, which was a new move, we were able to launch gen AI, which is Google's Gemini for four million, every, every employee, military and civilian in the department…”
Opinion
Michael: US must scale affordable hypersonics to deter China
“So we know how to build our own, But we have to do it more cheaply. We have to do it at scale. We have to do it, and it's a deterrent effect, right? It's just like we had nuclear missiles, and the Russians did, or Soviets did. If China, the China has them, we …”
Assertion Supported
Palantir and SpaceX sued the US government for first defense contracts
“Palantir and Roland, SpaceX, all had to sue the government for the first big contract, because the primes were sophisticated at selling, sophisticated protecting their interests.”
Disclosure
Pentagon Office of Strategic Capital has 200 billion dollars in loan capacity
“So what that does is it gives government loans to companies that can scale a technology that already exists. So we'll take a minute. It's for the defense industrial base. Half of it, half of two hundred billion dollars. So a hundred billion dollars is to make …”
Opinion
Michael: Elite university students fear speaking and lack critical thinking skills
“What you know it is now is a place where people are walking around with fear to not say what they think. They're not challenging their ideas. That means they're not coming out as fully formed adults with the ability to critically think through problems and sol…”
Insight
Emil Michael: Nation-Building Cannot Modernize Unwilling Countries
“You could, there is no way you could take a country that doesn't want to move into the 21st century Into the 21st century, no matter how many schools you bought.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Michael: 99% of Uber Alumni Call It Their Best Career Experience
“99% of the people who went through Uber say it was the best experience of their life. What you read about is that one percent, and I think people are really longing for that culture again in business.”
Assertion Supported
Emil Michael: Uber has paid roughly $100B to drivers over time
“Uber over time has probably paid a hundred billion dollars to drivers. A hundred billion dollars.”
Disclosure
Office of Strategic Capital has $200B for defense and critical minerals
“Half of it, half of two hundred billion dollars. So a hundred billion dollars is to make sure that we have solid rocket motors, brushless motors, batteries, all of the components that go into our weapon systems. The other half of it's for critical minerals, an…”
Disclosure
The Pentagon will not spend $100B building in-house frontier AI models
“For these frontier AI companies, for example, I'm not gonna try to build our own model here and spend a hundred billion dollars. Why would I? Why wouldn't I work with the best minds in industry, have them make something that, for our use case, that builds on w…”
Disclosure
Pentagon Is Deploying Frontier AI Integrated With Intelligence to Warfighters
“I'm not only taking the frontier models and just making them available. I'm doing it across classification levels. I'm combining some of the most, you know, important data that the United States has from an intelligence standpoint, we're deploying it to warfig…”
Disclosure
Emil Michael: Pentagon is deploying AI across corporate, intelligence, and warfighting tiers
“So the Google win was just getting everyone the basic access to AI so they could get familiar using it and understanding it. Then we're going to do it. Then I would say that's a corporate use case, right? Like any big organization. Then we're going to do the s…”
Disclosure
Pentagon will not spend $100B building custom frontier AI models
“For these frontier AI companies, for example, I'm not gonna try to build our own model here and spend a hundred billion dollars. Why wouldn't I work with the best minds in industry, have them make something that, for our use case, that builds on what they've a…”
Disclosure
Pentagon is deploying frontier AI models across classification levels for warfighters
“I'm not only taking the frontier models and just making them available. I'm doing it across classification levels. I'm combining some of the most, you know, important data that the United States has from an intelligence standpoint, we're deploying it to war fi…”
Opinion
Emil Michael: Uncontrolled immigration prevents successfully integrating new arrivals into society
“A country is not a country without a border, right? And not being able to control comes in means, means you can't serve those who come in very well. And if the idea is we have a melting pot so that everyone who comes in here, we take care of, they're entitled …”
Opinion
Michael: Ben Sasse successfully depoliticized University of Florida
“University of Florida where Ben Sasse He's done a really good job sort of taking the politics out of school and letting people speak and debate and come out critical thinkers.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Michael: Steve Ballmer Agreed in Two Hours to Buy Tellme for $760M
“Within two hours, we had a handshake on a deal for 707 hundred sixty million dollars. His corp dev guys were going nuts, because he was making deals on his own.”
Emil Michael