New SEC Chair, Bitcoin, xAI Supercomputer, UnitedHealth CEO murder, with Gavin Baker & Joe Lonsdale

Joe Lonsdale expresses concern that MicroStrategy's unusual leverage structure poses real risks that retail investors are glossing over, calling it scary how blithely people are throwing money at it.

“I think the risks around how he's accessing this is actually very unusual and does scare me a bit, and people need to do their research and they shouldn't just like throw money without studying it. It does scare me a little bit how”▶ Listen · 43:28 ⚑

Gavin Baker warns that MicroStrategy's leveraged Bitcoin strategy is unsustainable at scale because the underlying business generates only ~$400M revenue, insufficient to service debt if Bitcoin loses its luster as collateral.

“his interest expense on his convertible notes is $75 million off the top of my head... the underlying business that pays the interest expense on the debt only does $400 million a year in revenue... unless debt investors have absolute”▶ Listen · 41:32 ⚑

Gavin Baker cites Meta as one of the clearest demonstrations of positive ROI on AI investment, with return on invested capital going vertical since they ramped GPU CapEx.

“Meta and Google have shown the best ROIs on AI.”▶ Listen · 1:05:24 ⚑

Gavin Baker argues that xAI's Colossus build effectively saved NVIDIA from a tough period when Blackwell was delayed, triggering a rush to buy H100s, and that upcoming Blackwell chips represent an entirely new architecture that extends NVIDIA's advantage.

“you can argue that Elon doing that in a lot of ways kind of saved NVIDIA from a tough 6-month period when Blackwell was delayed, because everyone who was waiting for Blackwell... rushed out and bought a lot of hoppers to try and do it”▶ Listen · 53:53 ⚑

Gavin Baker argues that xAI's Colossus supercomputer — the first 100,000-GPU coherent cluster — is a landmark technical achievement that positions Grok 3 to surpass OpenAI as the state-of-the-art model if scaling laws hold.

“Grok 3 is in trading now on this giant Colossus supercomputer, the biggest in the world, 100,000 GPUs... Grok 3 is a big card and will resolve this question of whether or not we're hitting a wall... if scaling laws hold, Grok 3 should be a”▶ Listen · 54:30 ⚑

Gavin Baker cites Alphabet alongside Meta as showing the best measurable ROI from AI investment, with return on invested capital rising as GPU CapEx ramped.

“ROIC, ROI has gone vertical since they ramped their CapEx on GPUs... Meta and Google have shown the best ROIs on AI.”▶ Listen · 1:04:31 ⚑

Gavin Baker argues OpenAI's competitive lead is at risk because its largest training cluster is still smaller than xAI's Colossus and significant talent has departed, suggesting Grok 3 could take the frontier lead.

“the best information I have is the largest cluster Microsoft has after panicking is still smaller than xAI's cluster in Memphis... I do think a lot of talent has left OpenAI. I thought it was a really shocking statement from Mira Murati”▶ Listen · 1:00:43 ⚑

Joe Lonsdale implies a more favorable regulatory environment under Paul Atkins at the SEC will benefit Coinbase, contrasting the prior Gensler era's adversarial approach where good actors like Coinbase were given no path forward.

“I think both Coinbase with Brian and the Winklevoss twins have put something out. They won't even hire anyone who worked with Gary on any of this stuff... Paul sees all that and there's no way he's going to allow that.”▶ Listen · 21:13 ⚑

Joe Lonsdale highlights Addepar crossing $7 trillion in assets on platform as evidence of strong business momentum.

“Adipar just crossed $7 trillion, reported on it this month. It's a good real company too.”▶ Listen · 3:37 ⚑