The Exchanges

Q chain's gonna blow up. It's actually something that's taken, you know, we were in a 12 year bull market. So this spans multiple presidencies. Um, and you know, it's kind of a difficult issue to read politically. The fed is involved. So how does, how do voters look at this issue, um, when it comes to relief and how are they gonna actually act, uh, based off of their conclusions?

A I don't think voters really look, I think voters know, uh, as little as all of us do, including the policymakers. So I don't think anybody's really looking for a quote unquote solution. Um, I would dispute for it based on, from what I've seen, the stimulus was the major cause of inflation, but I think that's probably another conversation. I will accept the, it's a multifaceted question and the result of which I know politically is good for the GOP. Can we just put it there? Like, uh, in terms of the, in terms of the actual explanation, look, I mean, personally, I think what They're probably going to do is, and this is actually gets to the cynical nature of politics, which is that they could crash the economy by, you know, doing the debt ceiling, uh, not funding the government, doing everything they possibly could. And that aggregate chaos would still result to their benefit because Joe Biden and the president almost always gets the blame. Uh, there were a lot of, you know, it's interesting to do a replay of 2012. And some of the tea party shutdowns during the Obama administration, there was confidence by Obama and others that the voters would blame the shutdown on the, on the Republicans. And in the near term, they weren't necessarily wrong, but the amount of chaos that that resulted in still led to a lack of institutional trust and, and, uh, just a general vibe of things not b…

AI assessment note: “aggregate chaos would still result to their benefit because Joe Biden and the president almost always gets the blame”

Q China who for the Chinese companies for a long time have not been able to build the best models all of a sudden jump in, They have a model that reasons about as well as the best that the U S can offer, uh, is open source and is cheaper to run. So what are the geopolitical implications of that? And are we starting to already see it play out?

A Oh, absolutely. And as you could already see from, uh, David Sachs, who we were just talking about, he had initially had a response there from the white house. Uh, this caused like global market reaction already. JD Vance is in France giving speeches about AI. I really do believe this will be, you know, the, in the way that the Clinton presidency is largely remembered for its transition to the internet. I think that in the long term, we may view the Trump years at the second administration as the AI presidency in terms of the way that our economy and our life and all of that were transformed. And in that, I think there's a lot going on here. And, um, first and foremost is an interesting Clash within technology itself. So this will be a huge fight going forward around export control. So a lot of people were passing around, uh, after the deep seek revelation, but that Alexander Wang clip where he was like, look, they obviously have more Nvidia H 100 than they can admit because they're going around export controls. And then I was not even aware of this, how 20% or whatever of Nvidia revenue is in Singapore. I'm like, yeah, I'm sure Singapore leaves a lot of chips. It's like, oh, fascinating, right? It's obviously leakage in terms of, uh, export control to China. It makes sense, too, why NVIDIA was pushing back so hard in the later days of the Biden administration against tightened…

AI assessment note: “this caused like global market reaction already. JD Vance is in France giving speeches”

Q Now I want to ask, does this change if, you know, if, and when the Republicans take the house?

A It's possible, but not really. So Kevin McCarthy has said that Kevin McCarthy has said that he won't pass any more aid to Ukraine. In my opinion, he will absolutely fall to the blob and will 100% do that. Mitch McConnell said that that's not true. I want to be clear that everything I'm saying is an absolute minority position in Washington, and then my view has absolutely zero power in the US political system. So let me just absolutely put that on the table, including in the establishment. So that's 100% clear. Now, On Ukraine and Ukraine itself. Like I said, the numbers say that people are like, we've done enough, um, in terms of the money, uh, bipartisan split. Republicans are much more likely to say that we've given actually too much to Ukraine Democrats. It's actually polarizing right along cultural lines, but by and large, I'm not even saying cut off Ukraine. What I'm saying is acknowledge that we are 100% in the driver's seat. John Kirby, the U S national security advisor, spokesperson, the Biden administration continues to say, Ukraine first. Only Zelensky gets to decide when we negotiate. And my pushback against what you're saying, Marshall, is how do you know that you're going to have the ability to tell Ukraine to stop? At that point, things on the battlefield move very quickly. They're offensive. The majority of the land that they took back happened in 48 hours. That'…

AI assessment note: “It's possible, but not really. So Kevin McCarthy has said that he won't”

Q Let's hit metaverse before we leave. Um, Zuckerberg seems intent to build this metaverse, even if it turns Facebook into a company whose valuation is less than its annual revenue. I mean, I'm being a little facetious here, but Facebook's been absolutely hammered due to its commitment to this metaverse idea. You guys can answer quickly. Do you think that this metaverse thing is going to happen?

A I struggle with this one. You know why? All recent history tells us you should never bet against suck. Um, like he was right about Instagram. He was right about mobile. He was right about the newsfeed. Like he was right against every single big call in the history of Facebook. That said, I don't get this one. Um, like the world is just not signing up to attend virtual conferences. They're just not. I haven't used an Oculus yet. See, this is where I'm just torn. I'm like, man, I don't know. I shouldn't bet against the guy. I'm like, should I buy one? But I'm like, I don't need one. I actually, there's literally nothing that I could do with it that I want or need to do. And then like, there's something about that key has not yet been switched with the technology. I don't know. I'm curious. What do you think, Alex? I mean, you might know more than I do.

AI assessment note: “I struggle with this one. You know why? All recent history tells us”

Q Do you have any thoughts on the answer to your question?

A I don't think it's that difficult. There's a bipartisan consensus. That's it. It's one of the few areas of there's genuine bipartisan consensus, which you have to give the Trump administration credit. They set the rhetorical grounds for that and effectively won the intellectual battle. And there were a lot of people in Washington who worked very, very hard in order to bring that type of legislation and initiative to the fore on a bipartisan basis. There are people who all work behind the scenes, Republican and Democratic administrations. To me, it actually just proves the fact that if you can win the Quote, argument with the establishment, then you're fine. These set policy. But if you're on the other side, uh, then I think it's a crap shoot.

AI assessment note: “I don't think it's that difficult. There's a bipartisan consensus.”

Q So where, how do you think this goes for Elon?

A I, I really don't know. I'll, I'll be honest, I didn't even think we would ever get here. I, already where we are is crazy. Uh, I really did not think that Trump would ever allow someone like Elon to upstage him. I guess my only theory of it is that Trump is both mesmerized and amazed by Elon's ability to attract the same level of detraction and media capture that he does, and that this is all a bunch of stuff that Trump wants anyways, so he would rather, Elon absorbed that. Elon, I think Trump also, no, I've covered Trump for a long time. I've observed him a lot, and I've, you know, and, and the thing is, and even my own interactions with him, I feel like the thing he cares the most about is attention. And so, Elon is a lot like Trump in that he is a magnet of attention, a driver of conversation. I think Trump has really come to appreciate Elon's ability to shape narratives in exactly whichever direction That he wants. But, I mean, it's objectively true that he is flying very close to the sun, and there's a lot of risk for Elon, politically, because, you know, Project twenty-twenty-five is a good example. Project twenty-twenty-five, if we're all being honest, basically had the blessing of the Trump administration, and a lot of people were going into Trump, and, uh, it was the, it was the plan, let's, okay, again, we can, the election's over, we can all admit it, it's obviously…

AI assessment note: “it's objectively true that he is flying very close to the sun”