Chamath Palihapitiya

It’s not the worst idea.

Here are two very important charts about the current AI boom. Chart 1: Distribution Matters Open AI is still the clear leader but, interestingly, they are loosing percentage share as the market grows. This is normal for a category leader but it’s curious who they are losing share to. It’s not really to other startups but incumbents with existing, massive distribution. This means that Google has a huge runway ahead of itself as their models and services become better. It also means that when/if Meta gets their act together, they will be able to gain share quickly. Lastly, it likely means that xAI will need to license Grok aggressively OR acq…

Huh? Starbucks is a retail sugar company. If he is serious, here is what it would mean to be “all in on AI”: A) all drinks made by robots by 2030 (Optimus or Figure) B) deprecating legacy Software Industrial Complex licenses (SBUX is probably paying billions per year in software licenses) C) all corporate software rebuilt using a modern SDLC (corollary to B, rebuild everything to be custom, easy to maintain and migrate) D) add Starlink to every location, give away Wifi, cut prices by 25% and grow E) RIF 50% headcount if A-D don’t work

What I Read This Week... 1) On Monday, JPMorgan Chase announced a sweeping plan to deploy $1.5 trillion in financing over the next decade toward what it calls “security and resiliency”. The categories are a blend of industrial strategy, national defense, and infrastructure modernization. “It has become painfully clear that the United States has allowed itself to become too reliant on unreliable sources of critical minerals, products and manufacturing – all of which are essential for our national security… It also needs to remove obstacles that stand in the way: excessive regulations, bureaucratic delay, partisan gridlock, and an education…

I have been an investor in @PalmettoEnergy for many years now. They are the fastest growing residential energy company in America. Their offer is simple: get off the treadmill of rising utility rates in your area, become more resilient and upgrade your infrastructure to best-gen equipment and save 15% or more while doing it. https://t.co/6fCYZ7KqzJ

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Useful new service if you have a history of breast cancer or are a woman over 40 and haven't had a mammogram in the past year...

Marc is showing the way. More cops on the street enforcing the law is a good thing. It lets law abiding folks go about their lives in peace and security.

Wow

Watch the interview…buy the book! I bought it and am excited to read it. Well done @andrewrsorkin 🥂

Google was about to lose a vote by the Indianapolis City council and withdrew a proposal for a $1B data center. Microsoft pulled a similar project in Wisconsin based on community pushback. Are these isolated incidents or the beginning of a trend? If the data below is accurate, then we should expect that more local communities will pushback to stop data center buildouts in their region if it spikes electricity prices so much. A solution, however, is for these hyperscalers to use their robust free cashflow to go into local areas and pay for solar+storage or pay for the electricity for every resident. Either way, the hyperscalers should tak…

.@OrlandoBravoTB is one of the goats. He’s singularly focused on DPI and has built ThomaBravo into an incredible platform. He also has an inspiring story from growing up in Puerto Rico to climbing the top of the PE mountain. Worth a watch.

You may want to buy this book before you pay for your college tuition.

Great 1:1 fireside chat. @Benioff @DavidSacks https://t.co/SeyOrwVeK8

QT is over. Now what? Probably rate cuts. Yet again, Powell is behind the 8-ball. The number of self-inflicted wounds by the Fed is piling up.

I wonder if those that use Claude Code or the umpteen app-crappers that wrap Anthropic realize they are funding their own demise? Only the biggest and well funded companies (like Anthropic) will be able to afford the operational complexity of meeting 50 different sets of state AI regulations. This should be left to the Federal Government.

Oldie but a goodie. I did this almost five years ago…as the stock approaches $100, this was definitively one of the few SPAC deals of that era that worked! No crying in the casino!

What will Arabella and Soros fund now??

An observation about TradFi vs Crypto. Whales in TradFi would put big trades on and *hope* their directional bias would leak and then become the market expectation. In DeFi, whales put big trades on and their actions are immediately syndicated and amplified automatically on social media causing their directional bias to become the market expectation.

To be very clear, Trump did not kill solar. In fact the best run solar businesses are thriving post BBB. What Trump did, precisely, is kill a bunch of Biden-era subsidies that were being taken advantage of by many companies to pervert a free market from well functioning to dysfunctional. Without subsidies the worst run companies in solar are rapidly going out of business. It’s now possible to compare coal, oil, natural gas and solar on a mostly like-for-like basis. This is leading to more overall capital and more investment, not less in energy production. It will mean that some projects, however, no longer make sense and will be stopped. S…

Don’t take it from me. It’s harder to ignore, though, when coming from an energy goat…

I think it’s the difference between inherited vs evolved differentiation. People can excuse people who were born “different”. “They can jump, they can sing, I cannot.” Being the rationalization. It’s much harder, however, for people to confront someone who was born the same as them but committed to work, development and risk taking and then succeeded. These are non-immutable traits and are available for everyone to express. Those that do and are rewarded, however, tend to alienate the umpteen masses that can’t get out of their own way.

What I Read This Week... 1) China Tightens Control over Minerals and Money On October 9th, China added five heavy rare earths to its export-control list and requires licensing for processing equipment that will go into effect on December 1st. The move is framed as a safeguard to national security with some space carved out for applications in humanitarian aid. Anything else that is dual use with even 0.1% value in their rare earths will need to submit relevant documents for approval. China is consolidating control upstream of every semiconductor fab, AI data center, robotics company, defense contractor, and EV manufacturer around the worl…

One general and one specific takeaway from this about politics, elections and leaders: Candidates win elections on hope for the future. As such, it has largely been (and likely will remain) true that popularity is maximal once elected and then wanes. It’s true in the UK and many other nations going back 40+ years absent some exogenous event. Kier Starmer, specifically, is performing so horribly that he may go down as the Neville Chamberlain of our era - running a government defined by catastrophic misjudgment on every level. That is quite something.

The corollary to this is that “experts” are mostly insecure windbags who care more about gatekeeping their knowledge than actually solving problems. Jared was way more likely to solve the ME conflict than the gaggle of “experts” who tried before him simply by being open minded, flexible and rooted in history without being captured by it.

They are definitely going to try…but a 100% China tariff by POTUS is a very smart response. With 20%+ youth unemployment in China, the tariff attacks at the heart of a fragile Chinese economy.

The simple solution for hyperscalers is as follows: Option A: agree to a higher rate base with the utility so that you can guarantee people in the local geography won’t see increased electricity rates. Option B: agree to pay for resi solar + storage for local citizens so they won’t see increased electricity rates. Either way, if the hyperscalers don’t use their gobs of free cashflow to cushion the inflation of electricity rates, you should expect to see a lot more pushback.

True. China is formidable, but so is America. We need to have complete internal resiliency. The critical capabilities to support our society must not be gated by another country and their priorities.

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Everything is market.