All-In PodcastAnthropic's $2T IPO, Zuck's AI Manifesto, Nvidia's $500B AI Bet, Grok's Comeback
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
95 min read · 18,867 words- 0:00 – 2:36
Gavin Baker joins the show!
- JCJason Calacanis
All right, everybody. Welcome back to the All-In Podcast, the number one podcast in the world. David Sacks and Gavin Baker are with us this week. We got a, we got a short crew, but a long docket, and we are gonna rock it. How are you doing, Gavin? Nice to see you.
- GBGavin Baker
Fantastic.
- JCJason Calacanis
You still in that SpaceX afterglow? This is the, the biggest win of your career, correct?
- GBGavin Baker
Y- you know, it's, uh... SpaceX was a magical moment. Um, there, you know, there, there's only one SpaceX, but-
- JCJason Calacanis
Yep
- GBGavin Baker
... to quote Bill Belichick, you know, "It's on to Cincinnati."
- JCJason Calacanis
Got it.
- GBGavin Baker
And there's a lot, I think, ahead for SpaceX, so the SpaceX story isn't over.
- JCJason Calacanis
Yeah. Yeah, and you're, you're [chuckles] only as good as your last investment in our business, I guess. Uh, everybody's like, "What now?" Sacks, you're back. How are you doing, brother? How's the summer wrapping up for you?
- DSDavid Sacks
Good. I'm looking forward to talking to Gavin.
- JCJason Calacanis
Oh, fantastic. Um, well, I'll, I'll, I'll try to stay out of the way-
- DSDavid Sacks
And putting up with you [laughs]
- JCJason Calacanis
... and not step on you. You missed a really great, uh, discussion we had on the All-In [laughs] Interview Show with your guy, Rahm Emanuel. Rahm Emanuel was on-
- DSDavid Sacks
Oh, on that go. I heard, actually, it got kind of spicy, no?
- JCJason Calacanis
It got super spicy. Rahm came in, like, full guns blazing, but it's a really great interview, and, uh, we'll take anybody who wants to do the interview show who's running in 2028. Did you catch it, Gavin, by chance? Did you catch it?
- GBGavin Baker
I haven't watched it yet.
- JCJason Calacanis
Okay, got it in the queue? Beautiful.
- GBGavin Baker
Of course.
- DSDavid Sacks
And basically, the verdict on Rahm is that he's kind of a throwback to the Clinton/Obama DNC.
- JCJason Calacanis
I think if you were thinking of a Clinton moderate-
- DSDavid Sacks
Which means he has no chance whatsoever-
- JCJason Calacanis
[laughs]
- DSDavid Sacks
... in the Mamdani DSA Democrat Party.
- JCJason Calacanis
This is the, uh, great irony, the, um... And it, and it's a very similar moment, I think, to what happened in your Republican Party, where you had this sort of civil war internally, and I'm hoping the mods, the moderates have a chance here. But, uh, you know, who knows what's gonna happen with these lunatic Democratic socialists, um, who don't have too much of a-
- DSDavid Sacks
Did he have a take on that, on that, their takeover of the Democrat Party?
- JCJason Calacanis
Yeah, I mean, he, he... I- I'd say his, he... First of all, he's, um, got incredible amount of experience, having worked for Obama, Clinton, uh, been mayor of Chicago, and ambassador to Japan, so he was awesome on foreign relations, et cetera. Yeah, and to your point, he thinks hard no on Democratic socialists, and the socialist policies are a road to nowhere. So he just went totally hard at it, as hard as you would, Sacks, in fact. I, I hope he has... Nothing would be greater than to have a moderate or more moderate candidates. I think we can all agree on that. Um, so we'll see. We'll see. It's worth, it's worth
- 2:36 – 27:32
Anthropic IPO report: $2T valuation, $100B+ run rate, October listing
- JCJason Calacanis
checking out. All right, let's get to the docket. Breaking news, uh, at the time of this recording, for those of you who don't know, we record on Thursdays, publish on Fridays. Anthropic targeting a $2 trillion IPO according to the Financial Times. This would obviously break the record-setting $1.75 trillion IPO by SpaceX. FT reported Wednesday night that investors expect the company to go public in October, which is, like, six to eight weeks away. This lines up with the Polymarket. The shop- sharps at Polymarket saying 80% chance of Anthropic IPOing this year, and Brad Gerstner, our fifth bestie, uh, he, um, he also was signaling that this would happen sooner rather than later. Annualized run rate, we talked about this, Sacks, a bunch, will end the year between $100 and $120 billion. This is an extraordinary ramp-up of revenue that we have never seen in Silicon Valley. Uh, at a $2 trillion valuation, obviously you all can do the math, but it's 16 to 20 times sales, which is a fraction of, uh, what SpaceX and Palantir and some of these highly valued stocks went out at. So pretty interesting revenue growth over the last year, 10X. Anthropic still has AI's top model, but Grok, and we're gonna get into it today, is catching up quickly, and OpenAI, not too shabby as well. Polymarket says 67% chance that at the end of the year Anthropic will have the top model. Breaking on Thursday, Anthropic's in talks to buy an AI startup called Decart for $6 billy. Uh, their software lowers the cost of AI training and inference by making chips more efficient. I'll stop here. Gavin, if you could comment, and I don't know if you're a shareholder in Anthropic or not, um, so it'd be great to get that out of the way, but what's your take on just straight up the revenue ramp we're seeing here, and then what to expect from an IPO?
- GBGavin Baker
So a few things. I'm, I'm not currently an Anthropic share- shareholder. I would say the, uh, Anthropic-SpaceX detente, uh, probably came a little too late. I, I don't, uh, generally invest in Elon's competitors. I don't think it's a wise course of action.
- JCJason Calacanis
That tracks. And the de- detente was obviously Elon decided, uh, when he had so much extra compute with Colossus, that he would rent it to Dario and Anthropic.
- GBGavin Baker
A- absolutely, and I think he almost probably more importantly got comfortable with Dario's morals and that Dario is a good person, and like all humans, you know, to, to be human is to err, so maybe he's made some mistakes in the way he's handled government relations. But, um, he got comfortable that his morals were in the good place. As E- Elon said, "They don't set off my evil detector," and he has a pretty good evil detector, you know. He famously, uh, uh, cut his conversation with the SBF short. So a couple of things on Anthropic. You know, the, the rumored numbers are exceptional. We've really never seen anything like this. You know, I, I still think those moments in April and May were some of the most extraordinary moments in the history of capitalism, and what's wild to me is that probably on the margin, Anthropic is losing share to OpenAI, to open source. And to Groq, and they're still growing so fast. The numbers are still exceptional. So I think, you know, that speaks to the strength of-
- JCJason Calacanis
And, and why is that? This is, like, an important thing for people to understand. The pie is getting ginormous, so even if on a percentage basis Anthropic is losing on a percentage basis, the real number, uh, and we talked about open source being dark tokens that aren't tracked anywhere, you know, this is a major, major pie-growing moment. That's, that's what you mean there, Gavin?
- GBGavin Baker
That's the point. I think AI broadly accelerated in the month of July, which was kind of crazy to contrast with the public stock market action. Now we have a higher resolution view of what was happening. But a few things on the Anthropic IPO. L- listen, it's an exceptional business. They've executed really well, and they haven't just executed on the model. Their products are amazing. I always think about, um, Eric Visria. I don't think you've ever had on the pod, uh, but, you know, I think he'd be a great guest. He's a good friend. He said, as a thought experiment nearly two years ago, that he thought OpenAI would still, and Anthropic, would still have a lot of value even if they lost at the model layer because the product, the harness, the user familiarity, um, it's all, it's all so important, and I think there's an element of truth to that. But as far as the IPO, listen, the first thing I would just say is the two trillion, I'm a little skeptical. We saw this with SpaceX. If you're... Everybody's jockeying to be lead left, um, for Anthropic, and if you lose that, first thing you wanna do is make whoever's lead left look bad.
- JCJason Calacanis
Mm.
- GBGavin Baker
So you leak to the press, and you say, "Hey, we're, we're in the room. You know, the bar is a $2 trillion IPO." Even if-
- JCJason Calacanis
You said on a previous episode three to four trillion.
- GBGavin Baker
Absolutely, but I think [laughs] that's probably where it could, where, where, where it might trade. I mean, I... You know, we haven't seen-
- JCJason Calacanis
Ah, so they're sandbagging now.
- GBGavin Baker
Yeah. We haven't seen the S-1. You know, I do think, like, if you're bringing a company out responsibly, like you do, you, you wanna price it in such a way that you can absorb the lockup 'cause you don't wanna price it really high, create a lot of volatility. That's, like, very disconcerting for employees, and you do not want anyone distracted at this moment. So I think that they'll price it smartly. M- maybe that is two trillion, maybe it is two and it trades to three. But you just gotta remember these leaks are always coming from the bankers who probably lost lead left, and they wanna make lead left look bad. So if it comes out at two trillion, it probably means that the testing the waters or the roadshow just went incredibly well. Um, and people, they do wanna own this. We've never... You know, these, these numbers are unprecedented, so things close out, right?
- JCJason Calacanis
So are you saying the roadshow probably occurred already, um, or quietly occurred?
- GBGavin Baker
No. No, definitely not. I'm saying-
- JCJason Calacanis
Definitely not? Oh.
- GBGavin Baker
If they price it at two, it means, like-
- JCJason Calacanis
Ah
- GBGavin Baker
... the testing the waters went well, the roadshow went well, and they've got-
- JCJason Calacanis
Okay, I understand
- GBGavin Baker
... a lot of confidence about where it's gonna trade.
- JCJason Calacanis
Sacks, in the history of Silicon Valley, you pointed out multiple times here during this, uh, podcast in 2026 that we've never seen a revenue ramp like this. Can it continue? And if it does continue, what would that say about the value of AI to corporations and enterprises where Claude is the definitive leader?
- DSDavid Sacks
Well, I think it can continue, um, although it is a legitimate question because if you're ending the year at, let's say, $100 billion run rate, up 10X plus year over year. And by the way, they've grown 10X year over year for the last three years, so it's growing exponentially. If that rate of growth were to continue, that'd hit a trillion dollars of ARR by the end of next year. And then the question you have to ask is, well, is the TAM big enough for that, but also is there enough compute? Is there enough energy? I think you start to get into physical constraints. I do think the TAM is big enough. I think the demand is, is gonna be there. There's so many new applications of AI. Agents are just taking off now. You saw that with the launch of GroqBot. All these other companies are gonna keep extending the uses of AI into more and more contexts. So the demand for tokens is gonna keep growing exponentially. I think the question is whether they can physically meet that demand, and then also Gavin's point about market share. Other companies are seeing what they're doing, and they're competing more effectively to take share. Remember, Anthropic made this huge bet on coding, and that ended up being a very prescient bet. I don't know if it was because of ideology. They thought that was the way to get to recursive self-improvement first. I don't know if it was because they saw Cursor-
- JCJason Calacanis
That's the reason, uh-
- DSDavid Sacks
... building on top of them
- JCJason Calacanis
... from our understanding. Yeah, they, they watched Cursor's utilization.
- DSDavid Sacks
Right.
- JCJason Calacanis
And they said, "We're, we're gonna take that business," and that's such-
- DSDavid Sacks
Right
- JCJason Calacanis
... an important note for you to make, Sacks.
- DSDavid Sacks
So they moved vertically.
- 27:32 – 56:41
Zuck's AI manifesto: What it means for Meta and frontier AI
- GBGavin Baker
Yeah.
- JCJason Calacanis
And OpenAI's manifesto was rewritten this week, topic two, by Mark Zuckerberg, quite paradoxically or ironically, in a 6,500-word essay. It's titled The Future Is For Everyone: The Path To A Positive AI Future. He laid out a, an extremely optimistic AI worldview where, uh, he would, as now OpenAI 2.0 Facebook, he would release open source models. He would create an agent for everybody. He would make it free. He would provide everybody in the world with their own tutor and unlimited abundance. He has picked up the abundance crown, which Sam Altman dropped when he went for the private company, and he says super intelligence is invention, not automation, and that AI safety should be based on the balance of power, no singular centralized intelligence. I'm assuming, Sacks, you read or scanned or got the coverage of Zuckerberg's manifesto, and do you have any thoughts on his positioning?
- DSDavid Sacks
Yeah, I mean, I read it, and I found myself nodding in agreement with much of it. Uh, I really liked the point he made pretty early on where he pointed out that a lot of the, the doomers, and I think he was kind of taking a shot at the effective altruists and Anthropic.
- JCJason Calacanis
Dario.
- DSDavid Sacks
He said-
- JCJason Calacanis
Yeah.
- DSDavid Sacks
Dario. He said, "Look, why are you guys rushing to create a future that you don't believe in, that, that is so dystopian? You know, if you think this is such a bad future where everyone's out of work and-
- JCJason Calacanis
Yeah
- DSDavid Sacks
... AI goes rogue and creates all these safety issues, why are you so excited about creating it?" So I, I think he does point out a fundamental contradiction. Now, there is an answer to that question, which is... Actually, there's two answers. One is they could be trying to create a future they don't believe in for, let's call it mercenary reasons. It could be lucrative. Although I don't think that's the real reason. I think most of those guys are missionaries, and what they believe is that that future is dangerous, and only under their enlightened control-
- JCJason Calacanis
Mm
- DSDavid Sacks
... can humanity be protected.
- JCJason Calacanis
Yes.
- DSDavid Sacks
It's right out of The Vision Of The Anointed, which is a book Thomas Sowell wrote 30 years ago, where intellectuals throughout history have thought that if they're maximally empowered, then they can engineer society in a more benevolent direction.
- JCJason Calacanis
Mm.
- DSDavid Sacks
And this has always backfired. It's always led to not just empty or broken promises, but also it becomes an excuse for totalitarian schemes and state power. And actually, Zuckerberg goes on to say something that I think gets at this. So right after he kind of made the point about, you know, why are you rushing to bu- build a future that you-
- JCJason Calacanis
You don't want [laughs]
- DSDavid Sacks
... don't believe in, you don't want, he says, "The notion that AI is so dangerous that the only safe path is an extreme concentration of power seems inherently problematic." Historically, hoping that an absolute power will benevolently provide for humanity if sufficiently enlightened has not led to safer positive outcomes. So I think the point he's getting at here is that a major frame on the whole AI debate, it's not just about open or closed, it's also about centralized versus decentralized, and whether you think a centralized outcome is the right outcome or a decentralized outcome. I'm on the side of decentralized. I think it's-
- JCJason Calacanis
I mean, how could you not be on the side of decentralized? I mean, it's like the most-
- DSDavid Sacks
They, they are not
- JCJason Calacanis
... obvious argument ever. [laughs]
- DSDavid Sacks
The E- the EA types are not. And, and by the way, I experienced-
- JCJason Calacanis
Yeah, they're delusional
- DSDavid Sacks
... well, I experienced this when I got to Washington and, you know, all the former Biden people had just moved over to Anthropic's government affairs. I also dealt with think tank people who are part of this, like, clique.
- JCJason Calacanis
Mm.
- DSDavid Sacks
And their, their frame on AI was that it was inherently dangerous and that we had to centralize control over it in the government. There should be, you know, just two or three companies, and they should essentially work together. It should be made into a cartel. Remember, you know, Marc Andreessen had a meeting with those Biden officials-
- JCJason Calacanis
Yeah, and they said-
- DSDavid Sacks
... where he came out-
- JCJason Calacanis
... "Don't bother." [laughs] "Don't bother-
- DSDavid Sacks
Yeah. Now-
- JCJason Calacanis
... competing." [laughs]
- 56:41 – 58:13
All-In Summit Speaker Announcements!
- JCJason Calacanis
The All-In Summit is coming September 13th to 15th in Los Angeles. We told you about the giants last week, Jensen, Satya, Jared, Gwen. I mean, [laughs] it's the all first name club. But here we go, Steve Hilton, running for governor of California, he's gonna come. Spencer Pratt, gonna talk about his failed LA run, but successful in terms of capturing people's imagination. Abigail Shrier, author of Bad Therapy, a fantastic book, is gonna be with us with a very special surprise guest. And, uh, hey, Bestie Gavin, our guy, Bestie Gavin, might even make an appearance. And my guy Blake Scholl, CEO of Boom Supersonic, who I mentioned earlier in the program. And this year we're going to turn the outside of the Shrine into a festival-like experience from you, for you, a frontier tech hub featuring AI and robotics demos, and a gifting suite. Mm. The gifting suite, like you're a celebrity. Merch.com has made an incredible All-In swag suite for you. Wellness suite with red light therapy, facials, and IVs if you, uh, hey, you, you stay out a little too late, saxy poo. That sometimes happens. Don't miss these important conversations. And by the way, we're gonna announce all the DJs and parties, which is the reason Friedberg does this. Gonna blow your mind. Theallinsummit.com to apply today. Go ahead and apply.
- 58:13 – 1:14:29
Nvidia's $500B financing plan, how the AI market could fall apart
- JCJason Calacanis
Hey, speaking of our guy, Jensen, sixth Bestie here on the pod, uh, Nvidia is partnering with Goldman, BlackRock, and others to raise 500 billion in AI compute. Jensen laid out his vision in an X article, as we mentioned. Jensen is now on X. Titled, "Nvidia AI Factory Compute is Becoming an Investable Asset Class," the firms will establish independent financing platforms, raising third-party capital. The idea is to treat GPUs like a financiable, income-producing asset, like a, maybe mortgage-backed securities, or hopefully not with the same outcome. Here's how it works at a basic level. Instead of a company paying billions to buy chips up front, they borrow money. They buy Nvidia-based systems and use them to start generating revenue, i.e., renting compute. Uh, and then they can use the cash flows to pay back the loan. Nvidia's role is matchmaker, connecting customers who need compute with lenders. Obviously GM, Ford have their own, uh, finance divisions. Gavin, uh, what do you think of this announcement vis-a-vis round tripping and the hand-wringing concerns we talked about on this very podcast a year or two ago?
- GBGavin Baker
Well, I do think what's important here is, what is, what, what's essentially happened is, like, Blackstone, KKR, these firms, Goldman Sachs, they would n- would not have done this, they would have not have done that CNBC, um, episode with Jensen if they did not believe that Nvidia GPU compute was a financiable asset. And so what's really smart here is you're getting, you know, some of the smartest asset managers in the world, you know, who charge 2 and 20 for many products, to essentially validate this market. And Nvidia's being a matchmaker, and what they're basically saying is, "Hey, our compute, because it's so flexible, is going to have a long enough life that you can finance it at lower rates than other, um, kinds of compute." And I think, and I think that's, that, that's smart. That's good for everyone. And it is interesting. If you look at the underlying architectures of the three, what I would call big Chinese open source models, and maybe even throw a few, or four, you know, if we have, um, Qwen, if we have Kimi, if we have DeepSeek, um, and then we have GLM, they're actually evolving in very different ways. And that architectural variation works in Nvidia's favor and in GPU's favor, um, because it means that- You do need this more flexible compute to be able to finance it, to be able to think that you can have a long life. But what, what Nvidia is doing that I think is really smart is they're saying, "Hey, we are going to help create this market, grow this market." But what... They're gonna provide two very important functions. They're gonna say, "Hey, um, Blackstone, Goldman Sachs, KKR, Apollo, BlackRock," um, I'm leaving someone out and I'm so sorry. There are six of them. "Come to us. If you have a deal, you can bring it to us, and we will give a residual value guarantee." And I think the way that that residual, which will further lower the cost of financing these, and that residual value guarantee can then be incorporated into those companies' underwriting. And what that basically means is they're saying that after three years, four years, we guarantee that these GPUs can be rented at a certain rate. And then the risk that they are bearing is the risk between that v- that value, um, and wherever the market rate is. And right now everything's going straight up. Nvidia has better telemetry than almost anyone into the supply and demand of compute, so they can put that at a very, very smart place, um, further make it financeable. You're risking, you know, they're only bearing 25% of the risk. The world's, some of the world's smartest underwriters, you know, in terms of reputation, uh-
- JCJason Calacanis
What could go wrong, Gavin? I mentioned-
- GBGavin Baker
Well, now the first-
- JCJason Calacanis
... um, mortgage-backed securities, et cetera. And obviously the lifespan is the key issue here. Um, the different-
- GBGavin Baker
And-
- JCJason Calacanis
... hyperscalers were saying, "Hey, four, five, six years, Amazon," and the big debate happened. But what we've seen is, to your point with the open source models, is they can be, uh, tweaked to run on the oldest hardware, so maybe we get year six, seven, eight out of these. Is, that's the key to this?
- GBGavin Baker
No, no, we're gonna be more than that. CoreWeave said that they are renting Amperes at economically profitable rates today for 2029. So an Ampere that came out in 2020 is going to have a nine-year life, and I think that's what Nvidia sees, you know? It's like old American cars, they get sent overseas. Like, just the idea that these GPU-
- JCJason Calacanis
Where could it go wrong? That's I think everybody-
- DSDavid Sacks
Here, I'll tell you where it could go wrong in theory
- JCJason Calacanis
... yeah, Sacks, that was it. In theory-
- DSDavid Sacks
Look, the-
- JCJason Calacanis
Just so we're, we're, we're steelmanning it
- DSDavid Sacks
... the biggest risk-
- JCJason Calacanis
Yeah
- DSDavid Sacks
... is, to me, is not on the demand side. The biggest risk is that you get a glut of compute, and you get an overbuild. And the same way that we had dark fiber after the dotcom crash, if you had dark GPUs, that'd be a disaster for everyone, especially if you built out your compute infrastructure expecting a spot price of 30 to $50 a watt as, you know, Elon said that they were expecting, right? So if all of a sudden there are too many people racing to provide this compute, and now there's an oversupply, and the market crashes, that'd be the risk factor. In a weird way, all the political headwinds I think insure against that outcome.
- JCJason Calacanis
[laughs]
- DSDavid Sacks
Because it is so hard to build data centers for all the reason we said. There's a whole moral panic/hysteria/hoax going on, that actually it's those political headwinds I think will almost guarantee that there's not an oversupply relative to the exponentially growing demand. So in a weird way you're protected against that. But Jake, how, could I, could I shift gears for a second to-
- JCJason Calacanis
Absolutely
- DSDavid Sacks
... tell you what's so brilliant about what Jensen did here?
- GBGavin Baker
Well, there's, there's one part-
- DSDavid Sacks
Or Gavin, you respond to that. Yeah
- GBGavin Baker
... there's just one other part. In return for that, they get a revenue share above that floor.
- JCJason Calacanis
Who, who gets the revenue share above the floor? Explain.
- GBGavin Baker
Nvidia.
- JCJason Calacanis
Yeah.
- GBGavin Baker
So they, I think, m- m- the way I think the deals will work is say we're willing to guarantee offtake at, you know, nowhere near 30 or $50 a watt. We're willing to guarantee offtake at a very low-risk revel-
- JCJason Calacanis
Hmm
- GBGavin Baker
... level that with our really high-resolution view of, like, productive capacity and future model trends we're comfortable with. And in return we get some revenue share above probably a higher level. And Morgan Stanley wrote a great note I think two days ago. N- Nvidia could become, and these are effectively royalties, these revenue shares, they could very quickly become a very large cloud with a capital light business.
- DSDavid Sacks
Let me tell you why I think what Jensen did was so brilliant. It's because the numbers are getting so big that the TAM is getting constrained by the ability to finance this build-out, and what he's doing is alleviating that finance constraint so that he can grow, uh, as big as the, the, the TAM actually is, right? It's removing that constraint. So for, just to take one example, Elon wants to add somewhere around six to eight gigawatts next year. We know that that would cost 3 to $400 billion of CapEx. The company just raised 100 billion in its equity and debt offerings, so obviously they would have to go out and finance that somehow. And as we talked about on our previous episode, the simplest way to finance it would be to get seller financing from Nvidia, especially given that the payback period could be as quick as one year. So now Jensen is creating the, you could say the line of credit using these big banks, using these big private equity shops, and he's making that available, and that's gonna now benefit all of these downstream purchasers. I don't think it's circular. This is not a, a circular situation like Gurley's worried about. This is, I think, Wall Street banks and private equity firms providing financing based on the expected cash flows that will be delivered from these GPUs.
- 1:14:29 – 1:27:32
NJ and Mamdani take on Amazon over subcontracted drivers
- JCJason Calacanis
Very interesting story coming out of New Jersey and New York around Amazon. New Jersey's AG s- has sued Amazon last week. They're arguing the company is cheating, basically, uh, by hiring drivers through subcontractors. This has been well known. It's called DSP. This concept of delivery service partners is a very clever, perhaps too clever, of a way for Amazon to shield themselves according to these lawsuits that are starting to pile up. Because if an Amazon driver crashes, there is liability, and it gets you out of some, you know, things you might have to pay for if they were Amazon employees. On Monday, New York City mayor and friend of the pod's, the Zoran Mamdani, jumped into the fray. He is throwing his support, and he did one of his big grin socialist, Democratic socialist, uh, videos that he's now becoming famous for, telling, uh, and demanding through municipal laws that will require Amazon to hire the drivers themselves. Quote, "Corporations like Amazon build billion-dollar business models by insulating themselves from accountability through a system of exploitative subcontracting." This has been an issue for a long time. There have been, tragically, a number of deaths because these subcontractors are put under massive pressure, and people get killed, uh, tragically, when they run into people 'cause of them operating in the real world. And because the drivers are technically employed by the DSP, Amazon claims, you know, hey, we're not the employer, so we're not on the hook, and we don't have to get into union bargaining or labor obligations. So, Sacks, I'm curious your take on this in terms of the overall surge in people believing in socialism now and believing that corporations are cheating on the margins. Is Amazon cheating here? Is this too clever and maybe they need to roll this back? I'm curious your opinion because it's getting momentum, and it's gonna be one of the big issues in the midterms and obviously in 2028.
- DSDavid Sacks
Well, I mean, this is a practice that's widespread. It's not focused on New York. I think Amazon's been using these networks of independent contractors as drivers for a while. And what they say is that if you deny them the ability to use these independent contractors, it will raise delivery costs. And there was a study that showed that the average household could pay hundreds of dollars extra if you change this. It would slow down service. It would put thousands of jobs at risk at, at small contractor businesses. And Amazon says that it could lead them to shift operations outside the city. Also, one thing that this DSP model does is it enables rapid scaling for peaks, so holidays, surges, dense urban routing, lower costs. It's a much more flexible arrangement than if everyone was just an Amazon employee. So this is how the market has evolved, is I think maybe when they started, Amazon probably was doing everything themselves, and they started to decentralize it to these networks of small businesses, these contractors. It actually ends up creating more jobs. It creates more entrepreneurship. I think these DSPs employ thousands of people in New York City. Those jobs would be threatened if you basically made them illegal. So I think this is a case where they should just let-
- JCJason Calacanis
Where do you stand, Sacks? Where do you stand on it? [laughs]
- DSDavid Sacks
I would just let freedom of contract and voluntary exchange-
- JCJason Calacanis
Okay
- DSDavid Sacks
... prevail here. And look, this, this market structure evolved for a reason. The workers liked it. The DSP owners liked it. Amazon liked it. These are mutually beneficial arrangements. I don't see the reason why Mamdani has to insert the city in the middle of this.
- JCJason Calacanis
Gavin, do you have a take here?
- DSDavid Sacks
What, what I would do if I was, if I was Amazon, and I'm sure they will not do this, I would just put a surcharge. Hey, this is the Mamdani, this is the Zoran Mamdani fee that is being imposed on you. You're ... Loads of people use Amazon, not just wealthy people in New York. Lots of people use Amazon. And this is the, this is the Zoran Mamdani fee as a result of this ill-advised policy. I'd have it as a line item in every bill. 'Cause that's what it's gonna result in. When you compare Amazon's service to anything government provides, it's insane how efficient Amazon is. You order your thing, and it can be there the same day. Or at worst, it gets delivered to you the next day. It's unbelievable how amazing Amazon's service is. It's optimized for low prices for consumers, and we're gonna basically get in the middle of that and have the government get in the middle of Amazon's driver network? What city service does Mamdani provide that remotely is as efficient as what Amazon does that he now is gonna tell them how to run their business? It's insane.
- JCJason Calacanis
If you look at what Starbucks did when Schultz was running it, he gave people a job worth having, and he took pride in taking the lowest paid people in the organization and give them a, giving them a living wage. And that living wage is somewhere around 20 bucks, 22 bucks in these cities. These DSP drivers are actually paid quite well, 18 bucks, 19 bucks, 20 bucks. But this was not created, uh, in the free market as you're sort of saying, Sax, and it was just what everybody wanted. No, this was created explicitly to benefit Amazon and to take the burden of these employees and put it onto the American taxpayer, and they are getting called out on it, rightfully so, by New Jersey and New York. And I believe, you know, and I'm a long-term, uh, Amazon customer, I've been a, a, you know, a, a Prime subscriber since the beginning. It would be a de minimis cost for them to make these employees full-time employees, and you'd still have some DSPs to scale up and down, sure. But this is an opportunity for them to make those frontline workers part of the Amazon family. It would cost but 25 cents per delivery in New York to move them from this 18, $19 an hour, to give them a, a, a slightly higher pay raise, maybe 21, 22 bucks, and give them benefits. This is an easy thing to do. And what our industry, what our industry has a crazy blind spot for is that they look for efficiencies, and Amazon is the most efficient company in the world, to the point of it being abusive to the most vulnerable members of our society, and for being against the esprit de corps of capitalism. And this is a level of capitalism that needs to be self-corrected for, and I think the government's gonna have very valid arguments here. I think it would be amazing for Amazon to get ahead of this, because this'll be what the Democratic socialists, also known as socialist communists in my mind, this is a very valid argument that will sell with Americans who believe that this group of people is being taken advantage of, and that we can easily afford to pay 25 cents more per package delivery. Yeah, Sax, you're right, it might add $100 a delivery.
- DSDavid Sacks
Okay, well, why don't we have Uber do that too, then, J Cal?
- JCJason Calacanis
Absolutely. Uber has-
- DSDavid Sacks
'Cause Uber was basically castigated for the exact same thing, using independent contractors instead of making them full-fledged employees.
- JCJason Calacanis
Sax, you make a great point about Uber, and this would be the equivalent of if Uber had 3,000 or 4,000 people representing their drivers and they had no exposure. Uh, Uber actually has massive insurance exposure, massive lawsuits that they have to contend with for what those drivers do. So it's distinctly different, and they've gone through this. I'm not a proponent of socialism, but I do think that there's an opportunity for Amazon, which is going to be automating along the way, to just take a little bit of a, a, a haircut on their amazing business, but then be on the right side of history and not take their employees' benefits, unemployment, food stamps, and health insurance, and give that to the public to do. And these socialists are gonna point this out in the next two election cycles to the point of absurdity, and it's going to play. Socialism is playing. Socialism is making inroads, and it's infecting people's brains, and it's up to capitalists to say, "You know what? We don't need to be as cutthroat and don't need to be as clever." So that's my message as a long-term shareholder in Amazon. I have a very big position in Amazon, and I keep increasing it every year. They should do the right thing here and get ahead of this so that they can say, "Hey, we are an incredible employer," as opposed to, "Hey, we really are trying to hide and move these expenses around." That's my only point on it. Not a socialist, not a cuck, not, uh, interested in, uh, you know, uh, messing with capitalism. I think they got a little too clever here. That's my only point, and I think they should do the right thing here and treat those, the, the, the most vulnerable employees and the lowest paid ones-
- DSDavid Sacks
Now I know why you put this on the docket.
- JCJason Calacanis
What's that?
- DSDavid Sacks
Now I know why you put this on the docket, so you can get on your soapbox.
- JCJason Calacanis
Well, no, no. I, I put it on the docket 'cause it's one of the top news stories, and I put it on the docket because we talk about socialism every week, and we talk about all the virtues of capitalism, and there are downsides to capitalism where we can get too clever and then try to take expenses-
- DSDavid Sacks
Well, let me ask you a question. I think we spent too much time on this.
- JCJason Calacanis
Yeah.
- DSDavid Sacks
But let me ask you a question.
- JCJason Calacanis
Yeah, please.
- DSDavid Sacks
You said-
- JCJason Calacanis
Go ahead
- DSDavid Sacks
... that you want Amazon to employ all these drivers. By the way, they don't nec-
- JCJason Calacanis
Not all of them. I think they should employ a bunch of them.
- DSDavid Sacks
I know. You said you wanted a bunch to still remain with the DSPs.
- JCJason Calacanis
I think the DSPs can happen-
- DSDavid Sacks
So how do you decide which is which?
- JCJason Calacanis
I, I, I think they could proactively do that. It's a great question. Uh, Andy Jassy could proactively decide, just like Schultz did in, in, in-
- DSDavid Sacks
Well, Mamdani wants to get rid of the DSPs, and he wants to make them all employees.
- 1:27:32 – 1:35:21
Grok 4.6 launch: SpaceX's high-ceiling, high-floor AI strategy
- DSDavid Sacks
Gavin, last issue. What did you think of GroqBot? What did you think of the releases that xAI made this week? I guess it was GroqBot, and then also it was Groq 4.6, right? And people were saying that it is close to the frontier or at the frontier but a lot cheaper. So I've been maintaining as of even last week that we were down to a frontier lab duopoly with Anthropic and OpenAI. Was I wrong about that? Is this number three? Is it more flexible than, and fluid than I thought?
- GBGavin Baker
Yeah, I think it is. I mean, I think it's ... Can, uh, can we show up, show that graph of the Pareto frontier? This is pretty wild. Now, on the left, what this shows is kind of like quality or intelligence on the, um, Y axis and cost on the, on the X axis. So you want to be in the upper right quadrant. And you can see here you just wanna be on the outside of this. And you can just see, like, how disruptive Groq 4.6 is pricing-
- DSDavid Sacks
Right. So, so, so sorry, just as you move-
- GBGavin Baker
... um, in terms of intelligence
- DSDavid Sacks
... as you move right on the X axis, it's getting cheaper.
- GBGavin Baker
It's getting cheaper.
- DSDavid Sacks
Normally we get ... And the Y axis-
- GBGavin Baker
Yeah
- DSDavid Sacks
... is the capability, and it's getting more and more capable as you move up.
- GBGavin Baker
Exactly.
- DSDavid Sacks
But they, they invert the X axis so that as you move to the top right, it's better, right?
- GBGavin Baker
Exactly. And I mean, this is now, and this is on Cursor bench, and xAI, you know, SpaceX is, you know, almost certain, you know, they have a right to acquire Cursor. They're working with Cursor. So maybe this is grading your own homework. Well, right here on the right, this is from Databricks, which just raised money at $190 billion. Um, this is a very real company that is very sophisticated, and you can see, like even on this, you're well ahead of, um, Fable 5, which, you know, I think most people would, would, would kind of agree is the, um, you know, the gold standard. Like, this is your, your, your higher quality at s- a slightly lower price. So I think Groq 4.6 is, um, you know, the numbers are the numbers, you know, on X. I think we can put it down. Um, people, you, you know, we do have to wait and see the vibes, but I think it's pretty interesting. Um, DHH, who I think created Ruby on Rails, um-
- JCJason Calacanis
David Heinemeier Hansson. Yeah.
- GBGavin Baker
Yeah. He posted something really positive. Basecamp, Basecamp. D- DHH's, David Heinemeier Hansson-
- JCJason Calacanis
37signals. Great, great
- GBGavin Baker
... 37signals, Basecamp, yes. Um, he posted something really positive. Um, you saw the Databricks evaluation. You saw our Merco, Merco evaluation. And you, so I think the early vibes are really good, and these benchmark scores, um, are bearing out in the real world. Uh-
- JCJason Calacanis
Elon has caught up, in other words, and if you were to attribute why he's caught up, it would really be two reasons. Number one, he bought Cursor. He's got that team. They're a dialed in team. Number two, he reshuffled the management of, uh, xAI and brought in his killers from SpaceX. Yeah, Gavin, those are the two reasons.
- GBGavin Baker
A hun- uh, absolutely. He brought in, you know, he brought in, you know, the, the SpaceX aces, um, along with the Cursor aces and some new people, and it's-
- JCJason Calacanis
And he did that in six short months, Gavin. Never count Elon out. He's frequently late. He's never wrong [laughs] , and he tends to over-deliver when it does come. A- and that's to his own admission. He's like, "I'm always late, but I, we get it right eventually." Yeah?
- GBGavin Baker
Absolutely, and this is still a relatively small model. It's 1.5, 1.5 trillion parameter models. A larger model, Groq 4.7, that should be significantly more capable, is coming out, you know, in a few short weeks. GroqBot is also seems just as important. It feels kind of like another OpenClaw, uh, moment for AI, for this kind of personalization of AI, of making it re- democratizing AI, making it easy for-
- JCJason Calacanis
The same thing that Zuckerberg said in his manifesto. He wants to create-
- GBGavin Baker
Absolutely
- JCJason Calacanis
... bots for everybody.
- GBGavin Baker
Yes.
- JCJason Calacanis
And that's what Claude CoWork and Claude Tag both do exceptionally well, as well as Hermes, Perplexity Computer, and OpenClaw.
- GBGavin Baker
I'm just gonna admit, for me-
- JCJason Calacanis
Yeah
- GBGavin Baker
... some of those are, like, and I try to be very technical, but I, um, like-
- DSDavid Sacks
GrokBot feels-
- JCJason Calacanis
Too hard to use. Yeah
- 1:35:21 – 1:39:26
Workday in talks to be acquired by Silver Lake for ~$43B
- DSDavid Sacks
Hey, there is one thing that broke during the show that we should-
- JCJason Calacanis
Yeah
- DSDavid Sacks
... for sure talk about, and that's that Silver Lake may be buying Workday. Workday's up 17%. And if this is true, this is I think a significant moment for the stock market. Um, you know, software has been in a death spiral that really kind of has started, you know, that probably, you know, troughed maybe three, four months ago, but it was, it was in a tough spot for 12, 15, 18 months. And the return of a private equity bid for software really changes, um, the investing landscape. And I, I don't know what the potential buyers of Workday are thinking, but I do know that the rise of open source and the increasing competitiveness of open source is a godsend for the American software industry. Um, it is an absolute godsend. Yeah, if you wanna throw up a chart of Workday, you know, like a five-year chart, you can just see it. But a world where you have one, two, or three dominant frontier models, I mean, you can just see the stock went from, yeah, we'll call it 300 straight down to 100, um, you know, in a really short period of time, and even with this bid, you've only recovered a little bit. But a world where Anthropic, OpenAI, and, and, you know, maybe even SpaceX are kind of the only model providers that dominate the model layer, that is a hard wor- world for software. If I were to guess why the private equity bid for software might be coming back, it's because they see what's happening with open source.
- JCJason Calacanis
Pretty amazing. And that is the backstop, isn't it, Sacks? We've talked about this. If nobody in the public markets wants to own these companies, and private equity sees a way, we talked about, uh, bending spoons I think last week a whole bunch. There is now, I think, I don't wanna call them bottom feeders, but w- what would you call them, Gavin? Like, um, you know, sharp, uh, acquirers of e- of money printing businesses that want to extract even more revenue from it. Yeah, Sacks? This is a, a good turn of events that there is a buyer for these companies.
- DSDavid Sacks
Absolutely. Well, I mean, what, what Silver Lake is saying, they've been oversold. So-
- JCJason Calacanis
They've been oversold, yeah. And so here they go. There must be some value in that. And if you use AI to run these, I think that was the thing Bending Spoons is doing really well. They get rid of 80% of the employees and then put the 20% who are left as AI first employees, and they figure out how to get all of this incredible revenue. There's your breaking news, Gavin Baker. Amazing.
- DSDavid Sacks
Thank you.
- JCJason Calacanis
Tied right now, just so you know, I looked at the metrics before we got on today. You're now tied with Brad Gerstner in terms of ratings. You and Brad Gerstner are neck and neck and tied for fifth bestie, which means one of you will drop to sixth bestie, um, if this continues, and we'll see. Brad Gerstner may be on next week, so we'll see which bestie takes the fifth slot. David Sacks, great to see you. Hey, maybe we'll get a s- you around later. Maybe we can get a steak. You wanna get a steak later? I'm, uh, I, I got Thursday night off here. I got a hall pass tonight.
- DSDavid Sacks
Oh, okay. All right. Maybe we'll-
- JCJason Calacanis
Yeah. Maybe we can go get a steak. This has been an amazing episode of the All-In Podcast for August 14th. So see you next time. Bye-bye. [upbeat music]
- DSDavid Sacks
We'll let your winners ride.
- JCJason Calacanis
Rainman David Sacks.
- DSDavid Sacks
And instead, we open source it to the fans, and they've just gone crazy with it.
- JCJason Calacanis
Love you, besties. Ice queen of Kin Wong.
- DSDavid Sacks
Let, let your winners ride. Let, let your winners ride.
- JCJason Calacanis
Besties are back.
- DSDavid Sacks
Gold 13. [laughs] That is my, uh, dog taking a piss in your driveway, Sacks. [laughs]
- JCJason Calacanis
Wait, no, no, it's good. [laughs]
- DSDavid Sacks
Oh, man. My amateur will meet me at Glens Falls-
- JCJason Calacanis
We should all just get a room and just have one big huge orgy, 'cause they're all just useless. It's like this, like, sexual tension that we just need to release somehow. Wet your the feet. Wet your feet.
- DSDavid Sacks
Wet your feet. Wet-
- JCJason Calacanis
[laughs] We need to get merch. Besties are back.
- DSDavid Sacks
[upbeat music] I'm going all in. I'm going all in.
Episode duration: 1:39:29
Install uListen for AI-powered chat & search across the full episode — Get Full Transcript
Transcript of episode kVzYGVJ8zUk
