Ben Horowitz on American Dynamism and the Future of AI | The a16z Show

1. 0:00 – 0:41

   Intro

   1. BHBen Horowitz0:00

      Over 70% of people in China are optimistic about AI, and less than 30% in America were optimistic about AI.

   2. DUDavid Ulevitch0:07

      We have placed the largest bet in American history on the proposition that this country will win the next century of technology.

   3. BHBen Horowitz0:14

      We won the Industrial Revolution, and we did that 'cause we had superior technology, and here we are on the dawn of a new technological revolution, the AI revolution. Every interesting company that gets started is a technology company now. America does give everybody a chance, and entrepreneurs can really count on that.

   4. DUDavid Ulevitch0:32

      If America loses its technology edge and its dominance, the entire world will lose as well. What makes the American system irreplaceable for the world at

2. 0:41 – 4:04

   Why America's Technology Dominance Matters for the World

   1. DUDavid Ulevitch0:41

      large?

   2. BHBen Horowitz0:41

      Everybody's in the same game, but the rules of the game have changed. And what I mean by that is-

   3. DUDavid Ulevitch0:47

      So we've had a lot of, uh, excellent discussions. We've talked a lot about policy, uh, but we're actually gonna start this more on the, uh, venture capital and, and technology side. Uh, you recently shared a blog post that the firm has raised over $15 billion in a new fundraising, uh, set of, set of funds for, uh, uh, the firm, the largest in a16z history. What do you think are the new obligations that come with that kind of scale? Uh, we are the largest venture capital firm in the world. Uh, and how does that, uh, tie into the mission?

   4. BHBen Horowitz1:22

      Yeah, so it's interesting. My, my old mentor, Andy Grove, said to me, he said, "Ben, when you're a leader in an industry, then the whole industry, um, the size of it, the ethics of it, the morality of it, kind of depends on you." And I remember thinking when he said that to me, he was running Intel at the time, um, I thought, "Wow, I'm glad I'm never gonna be the leader of an industry 'cause that's a lot of responsibility." Uh, but here I am. Here we are.

   5. DUDavid Ulevitch1:51

      Right.

   6. BHBen Horowitz1:51

      Uh, and I think, you know, for us, you have to take a step back and say, "Okay, for the technology industry, and particularly for kind of new technology companies, um, what does it need to be?" And, you know, you have to think about it o- on a large scale. And, and the way we've been thinking about it is, well, if you go all the way back to humanity, like w- what's important for humanity? What advances humanity? And it really kind of comes down to, um, do people have a chance to contribute? Because when people have a chance to contribute, then they can have an impact, and then they can kind of advance the state of things for everybody. Uh, and there's really been no country, um, in the world that comes close to, uh, America at giving people a shot, um, you know, giving them a chance to succeed. And, you know, it's not a completely equal chance. Some people are born rich, some people are born poor, some people have better genetics, some people, uh, live in dysfunctional families, and so forth. Um, but a chance. Uh, in most countries, uh, people don't have a chance. Um, you know, or they have a very small chance, [chuckles] a very slim chance. And, uh, and so that, that ends up being really important. And then if you think about why does America have the influence it has today from a military standpoint, from an economic standpoint, from a cultural standpoint, it comes back to, well, we won the Industrial Revolution, um, and we did that 'cause we had superior technology, and here we are on the dawn of a new technological revolution, the AI revolution, and are we gonna win? Um, and are we gonna have that influence? And are we gonna be able to give people a shot and kind of to continue to advance humanity? And I think that's an open question right now. And so when I think about our role in the industry, it's what can we do to help America win technologically? Um, and that, that's everything from what we invest in to how we integrate into, um, the government and make it accessible to all the citizens and in a, you know, integrate with our allies and so

3. 4:04 – 8:50

   American Dynamism, AI & Catching Up to China

   1. BHBen Horowitz4:04

      forth. And so it's a big mission. Um, it's a lot of work. Uh, and, you know, it's what, it's why we-- American Dynamism and the conference and everything.

   2. DUDavid Ulevitch4:11

      Yeah. We-- You, you know, you have said that the American way, you know, giving people a shot, uh, that if we lose this technology race, if America loses its technology edge and its dominance, that the entire world will lose as well. What, what makes the American system irreplaceable? Why is our technologic- technological dominance not just good for America, but actually good for, for the world at, at large?

   3. BHBen Horowitz4:37

      Yeah, so I think a lot of things go into it, but to, to me, it always comes back to there's a line in the Declaration of Independence, um, that is very well-known, but, um, also underrated, which is, "We hold these truths to be self-evident." And what does that mean? Um, well, it means that, you know, these truths didn't come from us. They're, they're truths. They are self-evident. They came from a higher thing. They came from God. We didn't make these rules. We didn't give you these rights. We didn't give you this freedom. Um, it came from something else. And that's really, really important because it means, like, if I'm the president, if I'm Congress, no matter who I am, I can't change it, no matter how much I wanna change it. [chuckles] And, you know, there, there are many, uh, who, who would like to change some things, who think they know better, um, than, than, than these truths.

   4. DUDavid Ulevitch5:30

      We're gonna talk, we're gonna talk about that in a minute.

   5. BHBen Horowitz5:30

      Yeah. Yeah. And then, you know, like, that is a thing. Um, but because of that, uh, those-- the freedoms that you have in America can-- are really, really protected to a degree that they're not in any other country, and they're very hard to lose. And we've seen this, you know, um, there's just a great talk about free speech. We've seen this with free speech, where countries are like, "Well, you know, maybe that's not such a good idea anymore." But if, uh, the, if it can't be taken-- If it didn't come from people, it can't be taken away from people, and that's been very, very powerful and very persistent, I think, over the entire, uh, history of the country. Um, and, and it's really unique. Uh, you know, there, there aren't other countries who have, uh, quite as strong a, a version of that.

   6. DUDavid Ulevitch6:19

      Absolutely. You've seen since we've launched, uh, you know, it's now been four-plus years since we launched the American Dynamism practice. We're on our second fund. Uh, you and, and Mark have been incredible supporters of this effort, uh, of investing in the national interest at the intersection of advanced, uh, software and hardware and, you know, rebuilding not just the defense industrial base, but manufacturing and, and all the, the precursors that go along with it. Um, what's been most surprising to you that you've learned about investing at these intersections of national security and venture capital? You know, along with it came a big presence in Wa- in Washington. Uh, so what, what, what's been the most surprising? What do you think the biggest learning has been?

   7. BHBen Horowitz7:01

      Well, y- you know, it's been interesting because th- if you go back to kind of pre-ChatGPT, the conventional wisdom was, you know, China had this big AI lead on us, um, and then ChatGPT comes out and says, "Oh, well, [chuckles] maybe no, we have a lead on them." Uh, and then, you know, things have evolved from there. But the, the thing that was true about the kind of old incorrect idea was that they were way ahead of us in integrating, um, their AI technology with, uh, their government, you know, on a kind of military basis, on a bureaucracy basis, you know, in all facets. And so, you know, when we started, we were coming from, uh, I would say very far behind, you know, in that, you know, in that idea. Um, the thing that's been surprising, though, is like how fast, um, we've been catching up. Uh, and I think that that's been really kind of heartening from both the number of entrepreneurs that want to help and then, um, the willingness of the US government to say, "Hey, we're interested in these new technologies. We're interested in these new companies. We're not stuck in our ways. Um, we'll change the rules if we have to." And that's been, uh, you know, it's been amazingly fruitful, and I think that y- you know, we're seeing it in the kind of current conflicts that we have. Uh, and, um, you know, it gives me g- great hope that, you know, if we keep at it, that that we'll be very strong going forward.

   8. DUDavid Ulevitch8:30

      Yeah, I agree. I think this is a moment of optimism to see just how quickly things can shift, uh, when there's a sense of urgency and, and a sense of change makers. Uh, I wanna talk about AI and policy. Uh, we had, uh, Emil Michael earlier, the Under Secretary of War for Research and Development, CTO of the Department of War here.

4. 8:50 – 13:37

   The Anthropic Deal: What Really Happened

   1. DUDavid Ulevitch8:50

      He was obviously in the news, uh, talking about Anthropic over the last week. But this isn't an, an issue, it, it may have bubbled up to the mainstream news in the last week, but this has been an ongoing issue. Uh, let, let's just actually talk about Anthropic-

   2. BHBen Horowitz9:03

      Mm-hmm

   3. DUDavid Ulevitch9:03

      ... and AI that's, like, directly head-on right now.

   4. BHBen Horowitz9:07

      Yeah.

   5. DUDavid Ulevitch9:07

      Um, and then we'll talk broader about policy in Washington.

   6. BHBen Horowitz9:10

      Yeah, so look, I think [chuckles] to, to me, the thing on the whole Anthropic kerfuffle, um, that nobody's really said out loud, but is the obvious thing that happened is y- you know, if you understand deals, particularly software deals, you realize that that deal did not fall apart because of philosophical differences. It fell apart 'cause Anthropic wanted out of the deal. Um, and you know that because they had all the leverage. You know, they were already deployed. [chuckles] We were about to go to war. Like, that-- nobody's ever had more leverage than that in a software deal. Um, so anything reasonable that they would've asked for, they would've gotten, like, even probably beyond what they should've. Uh, but the fact that they, you know, found something they could walk away on and then didn't return Emil's calls for [chuckles] whatever, the three calls and then the call to the admin or all those things that happened, it's just why would you not return the call if you wanted in the deal? Y- they, they just wanted out of the deal. Now, I don't know why they wanted out of the deal, whether it was an employee thing or a Dario thing or what have you, but y- you know, that's what happened. And I think the fact that it's getting reported on like there's some ethical conflict, I don't think there is. Um, I think that-- and in fact, if you wanted to, somebody to use your AI safely, nobody has more rules than the US government, you know, particularly the Department of War, and nobody is more... By the way, and then, and since I'm speaking to a Washington crowd, you know this, if you were to break those rules, there is a 100% it's gon- 100% chance it's getting leaked to the press immediately.

   7. DUDavid Ulevitch10:50

      Yeah.

   8. BHBen Horowitz10:50

      You know, like, there are no secrets in Washington, so, y- you know, that, the, the whole thing was a little bit surreal to me to watch, at, at, at least at this point.

   9. DUDavid Ulevitch10:59

      Well, what do, what do you think that, is there anything that, uh, founders should be thinking about? People that wanna sell to the government, work with the government, um, you know, how, how should they approach it inside their own companies? Do you, you know, maybe Anthropic's a one-off.

   10. BHBen Horowitz11:13

       Yeah.

   11. DUDavid Ulevitch11:13

       Uh, but you, you and I have been in Silicon Valley long enough to know that these issues tend not to come up and go away.

   12. BHBen Horowitz11:19

       Yeah.

   13. DUDavid Ulevitch11:19

       They tend, they tend to, they tend to stick around. What would you say to the founders that wanna build for the national interest, but, you know, still are coming from a Silicon Valley mindset? What do they need to think about? How should they talk to their teams? You know, how, how can they build the, the products that are needed for our government to effectively have the best and, and most capable technologies?

   14. BHBen Horowitz11:38

       Yeah, so, y- you know, it's interesting, um, when I spoke to the firm about it the first time when we started American Dynamism and so forth, I said, "Look, you know, well, like, you can have whatever geopolitical views you wanna have, but, like, the world is what it is." Y- you know, it's not like everybody has agreed on peace worldwide, and it's not as if everybody's agreed not to commit crime ever. Uh, so, like, we do have crime, we do have war, we have these things, and then you have to think about, okay, the people that we grew up with who have gone into the military risked their lives to save our lives. You are making the call because you are better ethically and you know more about geopolitics than the people in the State Department and the people running the Department of War and the people running the intelligi- agencies. You're gonna decide that those people who are sacrificing their lives, putting their lives on the line to protect us, don't get the best technology? Like, I'm not doing that. I'm not doing that. So, like, you don't have to work here if you wanna do that.

   15. DUDavid Ulevitch12:54

       That'd be crazy.

   16. BHBen Horowitz12:55

       Yeah.

   17. DUDavid Ulevitch12:56

       Think you know better than the State Department.

   18. BHBen Horowitz12:57

       Yes. [chuckles]

   19. DUDavid Ulevitch12:58

       Yeah.

   20. BHBen Horowitz12:59

       Yes.

   21. DUDavid Ulevitch12:59

       Yeah. I mean, we, we have this issue. I mean, you know, as we're, we're board members of these companies and, you know, the, the founder will call us, the CEO will call us and say, "You know, I have some employees that don't think we should do business with this country or this country." And it's like, are, are you the State Department? Do you know better?

   22. BHBen Horowitz13:14

       [chuckles] Yeah.

   23. DUDavid Ulevitch13:14

       That's crazy. And by the way, what a slippery slope to go down. D- you don't-- like, y- you don't wanna be in that position.

   24. BHBen Horowitz13:20

       Yeah, these issues are complicated.

   25. DUDavid Ulevitch13:22

       Right.

   26. BHBen Horowitz13:22

       I mean, they really are complicated, and I think that these, uh, you know, this dime store morality or, or, uh, that, that, uh, companies come up with, y- you know, it's, it's like a vibe, vibe, v-v-vibe geopolitics.

5. 13:37 – 16:56

   Exporting American Dynamism to Our Allies

   1. DUDavid Ulevitch13:37

      Right. That's right. Okay, so we call it, we call it-- I wanna shift gears a little bit.

   2. BHBen Horowitz13:41

      Mm-hmm.

   3. DUDavid Ulevitch13:41

      We call it American dynamism, uh, but it is more than America. It's about America and her allies. Uh, you have spent a lot of time, I know this because sometimes I join you, but I also get a little bit of visibility into your travel schedule.

   4. BHBen Horowitz13:54

      Mm-hmm.

   5. DUDavid Ulevitch13:54

      You've spent a lot of time on the road internationally. A lot of foreign leaders come to you-

   6. BHBen Horowitz13:59

      Yeah

   7. DUDavid Ulevitch13:59

      ... and they say, "You know, we want a startup culture. We want American dynamism. Uh, we want to, you know, reinvigorate a startup community, do manufacturing-"

   8. BHBen Horowitz14:08

      Mm-hmm.

   9. DUDavid Ulevitch14:08

      "... build for defense." You know, how do you think about w- how can we export, uh, our capabilities, our advantages, our culture, uh, to these other countries, especially ones that we may have supply chain dependencies on and who are our allies, especially ones that are, that are connected to us like Mexico, Canada, you know-

   10. BHBen Horowitz14:28

       Yeah

   11. DUDavid Ulevitch14:28

       ... Latin America. How, how can we take America, American dynamism abroad?

   12. BHBen Horowitz14:33

       Yeah. So, you know, it's an interesting question. I [chuckles] don't have a full answer 'cause we, we haven't quite entirely figured it out. But, uh, I'll say this, y- you know, we, because America does give everybody a chance, and entrepreneurs can really count on that. I mean, that, that's a thing. Like, if you're gonna [chuckles] basically bet your whole life on an idea and going to build something, you kind of have to have the-- you really have to believe that the government isn't just gonna arbitrarily take it away from you at any point, and there are very few countries that have that g- going for it, so we are, um, reasonably unique. There are, there are a couple of places, uh, that have great technology entrepreneurship. Sweden is one, Israel is one. Um, but, but it's pretty rare around the world. Um, having said that, you know, there are, th- there is great expertise in things that, um, you know, we need help with particularly to industrialize. So in Mexico, uh, they are, they do have really good, you know, high-quality manufacturing expertise. In some ways, you know, I think the cars that come out of, uh, the American cars that come out of Mexico are better than kind of, uh, the kinda Chinese manufacturing on, on many fronts. So, uh, they do have talent. They are partners. Um, they wanna work with us. We need to help secure that country because, uh, you know, the [chuckles] it's a border, but it's not a thick border. It's a thin border.

   13. DUDavid Ulevitch15:56

       Right.

   14. BHBen Horowitz15:56

       You know, we have a lot of people vacationing down there and, and whatnot, and, and so that's a real thing. Um, you know, similarly, Japan, y- you know, they've always loved robots, and they're really good at manufacturing, and, you know, we have a big deficit on the kinda robot supply chain. So, uh, y- you know, we're working with them. At the same time, uh, they just went from 0% of GDP to 3% of GDP spent on defense. We have a lot of defense companies. Their interests and our interests are very aligned when it comes to China. So I think there are some great opportunities, um, you know, both kind of for us as a firm, our companies, and then the country in working, uh, with allies around the world.

   15. DUDavid Ulevitch16:36

       Yeah. The, the, the recent advancements in robotics, we haven't spent a lot of time talking about it today. Uh, I'm sure we will next year, but it's really feels like we're on the precipice of a robotics revolution, and, uh, it's gonna be very, very exciting to see that play out. And, and for sure, uh, a lot of our companies and, uh, a lot of our allies will have a role to play.

6. 16:56 – 18:58

   Power, Responsibility & How a16z Serves Founders

   1. DUDavid Ulevitch16:56

      In a, in a recent, uh, deep dive, you know, Packy McCormick did this long deep dive on the firm. Thought it came out-

   2. BHBen Horowitz17:01

      Mm-hmm

   3. DUDavid Ulevitch17:01

      ... pretty well. Uh, he described the firm as a power broker using capital and networks to shape markets and influence. How do you view that and balance that power with the need to remain authentic to our founders, uh, to institutions? How do we leverage that power? How, you know, obviously we're here in DC. Um, how do you think about that responsibility, and how do we use it to, to advance, uh, the state-of-the-art?

   4. BHBen Horowitz17:25

      Well, kind of what you lack as an entrepreneur is power. [chuckles] So you have a great invention. Um, you may have built a great technology, but you don't have, uh, kind of the power to call anybody. You, you don't have the power to kind of get the right meeting necessarily, um, with the right people in Congress to kind of help get the regulation correct. Um, you know, y- you, you don't have the power to, uh, get a, an audience with the right CEO to buy your product and that kind of thing. So power is sort of a feature of our offering, is the way I think about it, and that's very different than the culture that we wanna have and wanna project internally. And as you know, kind of our very first kind of cultural idea is first-class business and only in a first-class way. And what that means when it comes to entrepreneurs is the ultimate respect for what they're doing. You know, it doesn't mean we're always their best friend or anything like that, but we, um, [chuckles] we show up on time. We get back to them in a timely fashion. We're honest. Um, we do all the little things To make sure that our overall behavior isn't we're the powerful and you're the weak, uh, because, you know, that obviously would be a, a short, [chuckles] a short, uh, ride for our firm at the top.

   5. DUDavid Ulevitch18:46

      What do, what do you think about, uh, you know, as people watch us raising so much capital, uh, it happened during a period where, you know, I think broader, the VC industry had slowed down fundraising,

7. 18:58 – 23:21

   The State of Venture Capital & Why Most Firms Can't Scale

   1. DUDavid Ulevitch18:59

      uh, but we closed very quickly. Uh, we raised a massive amount of capital. Uh, do you, do you think that signals anything about where venture is going as an ecosystem, as an industry? Um, what is it, what is it-- what do you think it looks like in the state of venture capital today?

   2. BHBen Horowitz19:14

      Yeah, so this is something that we've seen coming for a long time, and that we kind of prepared for. So if you go back to when we started the firm, there was, uh, the, the-- there, there was a study that was done, um, that showed that in any given year, there were basically approximately 15 companies that would be started that would ever achieve $100 million a year in revenue. And so the whole idea of venture capital was that you had to get in as many of those 15 as possible, and you really didn't wanna be in anything that wasn't one of those. And so the way, uh, venture capital firms were constructed were as these, uh, partnerships in both economics and control, um, that were small because, you know, why have, you know, 100 or 500 or 600 people like we do now if you're only going after 15 companies? It doesn't make sense. Uh, but what we saw back then was, well, even though that had been true for decades, it wasn't gonna be true anymore because, uh, as, uh, Marc wrote, my partner, your partner, "Software is eating the world." And so what that meant is that there was gonna be no industry, no company that wasn't gonna be better, um, it's-- if there was a, if there was a great software team at its core. And, you know, that, that's even evolving now into AI. And so basically every interesting company that gets started is a technology company now. And so there are many, many more interesting companies, and so in order to reach that, you had to be able to scale, uh, your organization. Now, here's the problem. [chuckles] If you were one of those venture capital firms that started all those years ago, um, you were likely set up, as I said, as a partnership with shared economics and shared control. If you have shared control, it's very hard to reorganize, um, because, [chuckles] and, and you know this, David, as a, as a CEO, to reorganize, you need a single decision-maker. There is no way to reorganize, um, if everybody gets a vote. It's gonna be bad. Uh, I could write a whole book on just reorgs. [chuckles] But reorgs are essentially, uh, redistributions of power. When you redistribute power, people are mad. If they get a vote, um, that-- they're gonna foul that, that, that reorganization. And you can't scale without reorging, so as a result-- Like, we've been able to scale, uh, because we have centralized control, but, you know, most of our kind of competitors have not been able to scale, like a, a very few have. And so I think what we have now is large firms, um, who can cover all the technological areas, and then specialized firms that are, "Okay, I'm a specialist in AI infrastructure," or, "I'm a specialist in bio," or, "I'm a specialist in crypto," or, "I'm a specialist in games," but I'm not doing all of that. And, uh, and the kind of firms in the middle, I, I think are getting squeezed out.

   3. DUDavid Ulevitch22:20

      I think that's right. People, uh, people sometimes ask me, like, "How do you work at such a, a massive, uh, firm?" You know, 600-plus people. And I say, "Look, well, we're actually a bunch of really small teams that leverage a bunch of shared platform services, much like our portfolio companies, and that allows us to move with urgency, but have the might of a very, very large organization behind us." Um, I think one of the other things that, uh, I think is interesting that people don't always realize about the firm is there's probably more CEOs in-- as, as general partners inside the firm, there's gotta be, than any other firm. And I think all of us recognize having a hierarchy and a benevolent dictatorship-

   4. BHBen Horowitz22:58

      Mm-hmm

   5. DUDavid Ulevitch22:58

      ... is really appealing. You don't-

   6. BHBen Horowitz23:00

      [chuckles] Yeah, it works.

   7. DUDavid Ulevitch23:01

      Yeah, it works. And, uh, you know, it makes our life easy. My job, focus on American Dynamism. It, it's very simple. You know, Martine's job, focus on infra and being the best you can be, figure out what we need, and then, uh, it, it, it really is a dynamic that I think these, uh, the sort of dis-- death-by-committee kind of venture firms just cannot, uh, adapt to.

8. 23:21 – 26:22

   The New Rules of Media

   1. BHBen Horowitz23:21

      No, definitely.

   2. DUDavid Ulevitch23:22

      You've talked in a recent podcast about how the media landscape has shift, uh, shifted, how reputation can shape markets. We had Alex Karp here earlier today.

   3. BHBen Horowitz23:33

      Mm-hmm.

   4. DUDavid Ulevitch23:33

      Uh, he is, uh, phenomenal about going direct, uh-

   5. BHBen Horowitz23:37

      Yeah

   6. DUDavid Ulevitch23:37

      ... to, to his customers. Uh, how do, how do you think that, that shift-- It seems like we're seeing that shift in some ways in the government, Emil Michael-

   7. BHBen Horowitz23:45

      Mm-hmm

   8. DUDavid Ulevitch23:45

      ... going on X directly. Uh, how would you coach founders, uh, and even maybe coach people that are in the government, uh, where narrative and trust is paramount, uh-

   9. BHBen Horowitz23:57

      Yeah

   10. DUDavid Ulevitch23:57

       ... in terms of communicating and thinking about media and communications?

   11. BHBen Horowitz24:01

       Yeah so, look, I think that the, the media world has changed, and, y-you know, it can be confusing because I think that, um, y-you don't need to think about in terms of necessarily old media and new media, in that everybody's in the same game, but the rules of the game have changed. Uh, and what I mean by that is, in the old world, um, the key to a media strategy was defense. Uh, and the reason that the key was defense is there's a limited number of channels. Um, th-those channels have very strict formats. So if you're in The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal, you can get a few quotes in, and then you'll be characterized on the rest of what you say. If you're on, uh, CNN, you get, like, a short and hostile conversation, [chuckles] uh, with a bright light in your face and, and so forth. And then- Y- because there was a limited number of channels, if you said something wrong, you couldn't erase it. It was kind of like on the permanent record, and there are kinda many cases of these old school gaffes, like Howard Dean and so forth, where you can never erase, and you can never get over it, and so forth. In the new kinda world, there's unlimited channels, there's unlimited formats, um, and so the key to winning isn't not making a mistake, it's being interesting. Like, if you don't say anything that's interesting, it's not gonna get any pickup 'cause there's too many other interesting things out there. So people like Alex Karp and Donald Trump and so forth, who are just, like, a entertaining show, um, [chuckles] like Alex was super entertaining out here. I was, like, captivated. I didn't know what he was gonna say next. Uh, I, I don't know if he knew what he was gonna say next.

   12. DUDavid Ulevitch25:43

       Right.

   13. BHBen Horowitz25:43

       But it was really-- He, he is very entertaining, and that wins. And then, like, if you make a mistake, you just do 10 podcasts tomorrow and flood the zone. And, and, and it doesn't matter, like, y- whether the channel is The Wall Street Journal or, or a podcast or whatever, it's all the same thing now, like, because that's the way-- You're overwhelmed with media, and so to win, you have to be interesting. Um, and then, you know, y- that doesn't mean y- you can just be all over the place and not be on message. A- Alex is always very, very, very consistently pro-America. Like, that's the thing that you can always count on him to be, and that's his main message.

9. 26:22 – 28:51

   America's AI Optimism Gap

   1. BHBen Horowitz26:22

      Um, and that's great, and he's interesting about it. He's got a great knowledge of history and all these kinds of things and so forth.

   2. DUDavid Ulevitch26:28

      Awesome. Uh, okay, so we have placed the largest bet in American history on the proposition that this country will win the next century of technology. Uh, so what, uh-- And I've, and I do feel very optimistic. I think you, you, you and I have, are both optimists. I think our firm is broadly very optimistic.

   3. BHBen Horowitz26:46

      Yeah.

   4. DUDavid Ulevitch26:46

      In fact, I would say that's, that's, that's ul- ultimately even a core value of the firm is being optimistic about the future.

   5. BHBen Horowitz26:52

      Yeah.

   6. DUDavid Ulevitch26:52

      And, uh, but what keeps you up at night? What worries you? What, uh, what would you ask of the audience, uh, some of whom are founders, some of whom are policymakers, uh, some of whom are implementers? What, what worries you and keeps you up at night, and what can we do to help?

   7. BHBen Horowitz27:07

      So actually, my biggest worry is kind of the perception of technology in America. So there was a interesting kind of poll that went out that showed that, like, I think s- over 70% of people in China are optimistic about AI, and kind of [chuckles] less than 30% in America or something like that were optimistic about AI. And it's really because we always talk about all the bad things. You know, we're, we're very focused on the dangers of AI here and not on the positive things. And it's interesting, I, I just spoke to someone from Japan who was like, "You know, the whole Japanese startup ecosystem is restarting 'cause everybody's so fired up about AI. They're-- We're all very positive on it. We love robots. You know, we can't..." [chuckles] The Japanese love robots, uh, by the way. Uh, and you know, I think we really need to focus-- Somebody asked me the other day, "Well, what good can AI do?" And I was like, "Well, we can-- We're gonna, [chuckles] not just we can, we're gonna end traffic deaths. We're gonna cure cancer. Um, we're l- we're gonna end poverty as we know it." Like, those are pretty good things. [chuckles] Like, we need to think about that, uh, as much as we think about, um, you know, the AI overlords or, um, mass surveillance or, or, or any of these other things that we worry about. I think that, that the positive uses of the technology are extremely positive. The negative ones are there, but we can manage them, uh, in the same way we've managed, you know, kind of the negative of every technology, starting with fire, which has very bad consequences. [chuckles]

   8. DUDavid Ulevitch28:39

      True.

   9. BHBen Horowitz28:39

      It can burn down your village. It's horrible. Uh, but it does a lot of-- You know, it also heats the house and cooks your food and does some very wonderful things, and, and I think we have to get back to that. [upbeat music]

Episode duration: 29:02