00:00The big news of the week, it's inescapable, is a SpaceX IPO listing tomorrow.
00:04You're obviously very intimately familiar with it, having owned XAI, which got sold to SpaceX.
00:09What does it just mean to have this behemoth coming to market tomorrow?
00:13Look, we are all excited.
00:15You know, I think right now, most of us in venture and in tech have been waiting for some watershed
00:21moment IPO to hopefully get the markets back open.
00:24Looks like that is upon us.
00:26And just generally speaking, I've been so excited about space tech for about five, six, seven years now.
00:32And that to me is, I think, this feels like a milestone moment.
00:36This was an investment thesis that was unthinkable a decade ago for most investors.
00:42And I think now people are coming to grips with the fact that space technology is really here.
00:47What would have been science fiction to us maybe 10 years ago is now science fact.
00:51And I think we're only going to see an acceleration of that.
00:53OK, but is it all a fact when we start talking about, like, a $29 trillion TAM and 10 million
00:58people on Mars?
01:00I mean, you own space companies yourself.
01:01Is this the way you need to think or is it a little bit of a fantasy?
01:05I, oh, it's so, these numbers are big.
01:10The projections, the ambitions are big.
01:13I do think, though, when we think about what we are capable of as a species, space has been something
01:21that has mystified us, excited us for a very long time, especially in modern history and modern technology.
01:26This was a frontier we really believed for a long time.
01:29I know I did growing up.
01:30It was only a place for governments to build and innovate.
01:32NASA, putting a man on the moon, all that stuff was never something the private sector could do.
01:37But what we're seeing now here is undeniable.
01:40The private sector has been able to accomplish a lot, and I think it's only going to accelerate.
01:43And I do think the overall market is potentially that big.
01:47I think when we're talking about human ambition, there is no limit to that.
01:50When we talk about the opportunities in space as low-Earth orbit alone just becomes more accessible, we're unlocking pharmaceuticals,
01:59we're unlocking biotech that's going to help us here back at home.
02:02And that's the stuff that gets me fired up as an investor.
02:04That's what gets me fired up as an American.
02:06I want to see that innovation come and help us live better lives here on planet Earth.
02:10So is having SpaceX as a public company, is that a good thing for your space investments because it shows
02:16there's a pathway for public markets?
02:17Or is it a bad thing because so much money is going to get funneled into this IPO that maybe
02:22it leaves less room for some of the other space companies?
02:25Well, the good news is where I like to invest is still so early.
02:28Very few of these companies, companies like Stoke or Astroforge, are thinking about going public quite yet.
02:35They're still thinking about building and shipping and launching.
02:37I do think you're going to have undeniably a whole fleet of newly minted millionaires, multimillionaires, as well as investors.
02:44So not just the early employees, but also the investors who believe in space tech, who are now going to
02:50have capital to put into the sort of next wave.
02:53And I think we've seen that play out in tech before, and this will be no exception.
02:56And I do think that all continues to accelerate all of us in building the space economy that we're hoping
03:01for.
03:02Building a space economy, though, it is something that certainly takes time.
03:06And I just wonder if there is room for disappointment.
03:08I mean, I don't mean to harp on sort of the crazy numbers of it all, but is there a
03:13fear that it gets too overhyped?
03:15A SpaceX IPO is just too large, and there's some disappointment, and it sets the project back to humanity, what
03:21you're talking about.
03:22It sets it back in some time.
03:23I do think it is important to have this temperate expectation.
03:27I think, on the one hand, folks have to balance, one, what I think is a very important, almost unbridled
03:33ambition for human progress, which is, I think, a very important and noble and great quest.
03:38And at the same time, the realistic expectations.
03:41Everyone should obviously do their diligence, do their own underwriting, all that important stuff before making any kind of stock
03:46decision.
03:47Thank you for the legal disclaimer.
03:49Compliance is happy with me.
03:50But at the end of the day, I do think what we're talking about here is creating very real value.
03:57I know even you think about anecdotally, the difference a person has once they've taken a United flight with Starlink.
04:04Like, there is a very, very different feeling about how you interact with technology when you've experienced just a little
04:10fraction of what the space economy can do.
04:12And I do think as we start to unlock pharmaceuticals and biotech that could really only be done in zero
04:17-G, we're talking about, again, saving lives, improving quality of life, things that I know provide a real economic value,
04:24but at the same time help us live that Star Trek future I think a lot of us grew up
04:27wanting.
04:28So I think be exuberant, be excited, but at the same time, obviously, you know, be thoughtful in how you're
04:33underwriting this stuff.
04:34By the way, it's not just, obviously, SpaceX has IPO, and we also have OpenAI filing, Anthropic does as well.
04:39And these are companies that have had a lot of VC backing.
04:42In fact, so much so, we were talking about this on stage, 65% of VC money has gone to
04:47just 0.05% of companies.
04:50Is something broken that those are the statistics we're faced with right now?
04:54It is a unique time.
04:55I think, clearly, as an early-stage investor, you know, I am insulated from this a bit because they're the
05:01ones, these multi-stages are often marking up my early investments.
05:04And so, you know, it's, I think, where you start to see the challenge is a lot of these companies
05:10in a previous decade would have already been public.
05:13And because companies held off going public longer, the private markets became a place that was effectively dealing like a
05:19public marketplace.
05:20So you're seeing these valuations, you're seeing this increase.
05:22I think it is a positive for America and for the world that, you know, retail, that regular folks get
05:29access to these opportunities.
05:31I, frankly, wish it would happen sooner because I think, historically, you know, people draw up, you know, the market
05:37cap of Amazon or revenues of Amazon or Google when they went public.
05:40And, you know, we're in a different world now where privately held companies are able to generate tremendous revenues and
05:46market caps before going public.
05:47But I do think, I think this has been a long time coming.
05:52And I do think, generally, venture should be a place to be contrarian and right.
05:57It should be a non-consensus asset.
06:00And especially on the growth side, it's looking more and more consensus.
06:03So, look, those companies are about to turn public.
06:05We'll see what the next wave of private looks like.
06:08I'm certainly trying to do my best to be on the non-consensus and right side early.
06:11And I do think venture is healthier as an ecosystem when it's not looking like a couple of very, very
06:17concentrated bets.
06:18Well, usually what you say when there's a consensus is that that's a dangerous thing and it means that there
06:22can be a correction.
06:23Do you think that that's possible for this industry if everyone is crowding around similar bets?
06:27Look, your instincts are right.
06:29And I know you always get in trouble saying why something is different this time.
06:34And with that caveat, I still think something is different this time.
06:38And I know, look, I lived through the social media wave.
06:41I naively thought the social media revolution that we were building with Reddit was like the revolution.
06:46It was not.
06:47I naively thought mobile was a revolution.
06:50It was not.
06:50I mean, it was, but in a much smaller way compared to what this is.
06:53We have seen in just a few years technology go from an interesting novelty that could help you write like
07:00a press release
07:01to technology that could literally write code as well as or better than even some of the most senior experienced
07:07developers.
07:07And it really augments the output of folks.
07:10So there's a real technology here.
07:12It's a real shift.
07:13And I don't think it goes away.
07:15And I also think it has, as I said on stage, a national security importance.
07:19Right.
07:19Because so much of our lives are digital.
07:21Being able, you saw us with the way Anthropic thoughtfully rolled out mythos, like, you know, we used it first
07:27and foremost to shore up vulnerabilities that we had in our businesses here in America.
07:32And so even if it never got, even if AI never got any better than where it is today, you
07:36know, that is already incredibly valuable.
07:38And there's so much wood to chop as we look across so many businesses that right now don't have any
07:43software in them.
07:44This hotel, I am sure.
07:46Don't tell me this hotel is going to be an AI company, Alexis.
07:48No, no, no.
07:49But I am sure that whatever systems they're using right now are very bad.
07:55And software, as a layer of user experience, user approved, should be able to level that up in a meaningful
08:02way.
08:03And by the way, I do want to just ask quickly, because we have 45 seconds left.
08:06There is this idea that the thing that survives in AI is just, like, live entertainment.
08:10And you have a lot of bets around women's sports.
08:13Yes, very much.
08:13Has this whole revolution, this thing we're experiencing, just made you double down on that?
08:17Yeah.
08:17I mean, look, I was a rare voice five, six years ago saying this was an institutional-grade asset, not
08:22just sports, but also specifically women's sports.
08:24I love seeing this.
08:25I am certain five, ten years from now, we will still watch, no matter how good the AI-generated highlights
08:31get, you know,
08:32watching the AI version of that Knicks final last night would do nothing for the human soul.
08:39Yep.
08:40Because it requires, even if it was pixel perfect, if it didn't actually happen, it is irrelevant and worthless.
08:46So live sports has to be fundamentally human.
08:49No one is going to line up to see a bunch of robots, you know, play 18 holes of golf
08:53against each other where everyone hits a hole in one.
08:55Right.
08:56The end state of this technology is some version of this perfection that no one is going to want to
09:00watch because sport has to be human.
09:02So I've been saying this for five, six years now.
09:04I'm only more confident about it.
09:06And I think what this technology does is it makes these assets more valuable.
09:10It makes them more engaging for fans.
09:12It improves training.
09:13It improves so many elements, but it does not replace by any means.
09:16It improves so many elements, but it improves so many elements.
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