Joe Lonsdale on AI, Defense, and American Optimism | Ep. 51

1. 0:00 – 0:32

   Intro

   1. JLJoe Lonsdale0:00

      If you, like, took, like, the normal path without AI and, like, things we were building and knew we needed to build and, and, like, assume we need to build, we're, like, taking the 2030s and 2040s and we're, like, packing them into the next [laughs] two or three years-

   2. JAJack Altman0:10

      Yeah

   3. JLJoe Lonsdale0:10

      ... 'cause so much is happening right now.

   4. JAJack Altman0:11

      Yeah.

   5. JLJoe Lonsdale0:12

      And, and that means we're taking the 2050s and 2060s-

   6. JAJack Altman0:14

      Yeah

   7. JLJoe Lonsdale0:14

      ... and gonna put them into the end of the decade and the start of the next decade.

   8. JAJack Altman0:16

      Yeah.

   9. JLJoe Lonsdale0:16

      And it's just, like, so much cool stuff. [upbeat music]

   10. JAJack Altman0:22

       All right, Joe, I've been really looking forward to doing this with you. You're one of the most interesting people to me, and, um, I love a lot of the work that you've done, and so I'm really excited to chat and learn with you.

   11. JLJoe Lonsdale0:31

       Thanks for having me, Jack.

2. 0:32 – 3:53

   Why Joe keeps building

   1. JAJack Altman0:32

      One of the things I want to start with is I kind of put you in this category of people who are both investors and founders, like, the real way. You know, like, a lot of people say that, but you really have done it. Um, you've, like, started many companies. You've, you've started companies that you then, you know, become chairman, some you work for a long time on. Obviously, there's Palantir, but there's, like, there's many others. Then you also have your own VC firm. I'm just sort of curious, like, what's the mindset that you approach company building, company investing with? Like, where do you start when you think about doing-

   2. JLJoe Lonsdale1:01

      [laughs]

   3. JAJack Altman1:01

      ... your work?

   4. JLJoe Lonsdale1:02

      Well, I think, like, starting a second or a third company is, like, fundamentally sort of an insane act after you've been successful, 'cause you already obviously, like, have the money you need, so like, what are you doing? 'Cause these things are so hard. Like, uh, you almost have to convince yourself every time that it's not gonna be as hard as last time, even though you know it is.

   5. JAJack Altman1:17

      Yeah. I mean, I did it once, then I remembered-

   6. JLJoe Lonsdale1:18

      I know

   7. JAJack Altman1:18

      ... how, like, it's too hard. I can't do it.

   8. JLJoe Lonsdale1:19

      It's like, it's like really, really hard.

   9. JAJack Altman1:21

      Yeah.

   10. JLJoe Lonsdale1:21

       I really-

   11. JAJack Altman1:21

       But you kept go- you just keep doing it.

   12. JLJoe Lonsdale1:22

       Well, I did, like, two where I was CEO, Palantir and Addepar. And then I've did a few where I was chairman and, like, really in the weeds with OpenGov. I was, I was with Zach last night, who was my CEO at OpenGov, who did very, very well. He sold it for $1.8 billion after, like, 14 years. And I was... If, if... It was, it was like paddling through the dirt, I was saying. It's, like, so [laughs] freaking hard, especially compared to these things today. They're so easy.

   13. JAJack Altman1:43

       Like an AI founder who's just, like, at 100 million in no time.

   14. JLJoe Lonsdale1:45

       We were next to this kid last night who I'm backing, who's like, "Joe, I'm not just doubling, I'm tripling revenue this quarter."

   15. JAJack Altman1:50

       Right. [laughs]

   16. JLJoe Lonsdale1:50

       And, and like Zach and I are just like [laughs] ... 'Cause it was just like, it was so hard getting these things to work.

   17. JAJack Altman1:54

       100 million used to be, like, eight years of hard work where basically everything went right.

   18. JLJoe Lonsdale1:57

       Yeah. Yeah. Now, like, now, like, one of these kids who worked for me has a billion in revenue in his third year. Like, screw these kids.

   19. JAJack Altman2:01

       Yeah.

   20. JLJoe Lonsdale2:01

       Like, I love it. I'm ta- I mean, I'm investing in them and they're, they're great kids. But it's like, they're great. You're adults. I should calm. But no, listen, I, I think, like, building is really, really hard. Uh, there are just gaps in the world that I, that I see, just how my mind works, and there's, like, this is a gap, and there's, like, people who are hurting because of this gap. There's things that are broken because of this gap, and it's so broken and no one else is fixing it, and I have all these really smart friends. Let's go fix it. And so I just can't help that instinct to, like, just go fix things. We say, we say at 8VC, like, the world is broken, let's fix it. That's just, that's just my energy. So if no one else is gonna do it, fine, let's get people together and do it. But it's, like, the last option. You'd much rather back a really competent person who's, they themselves are already all in, you know?

   21. JAJack Altman2:39

       Yeah. Do you think not enough investors have this instinct? Like, do you think it's right that most people don't do it, or do you think there's actually, you know, more investors who can and should, you know, understand this is an interesting setup, just, like, get some balls moving, and then you can attract people to it?

   22. JLJoe Lonsdale2:54

       Um-

   23. JAJack Altman2:54

       Or do you think it's, like, right that most people don't do it?

   24. JLJoe Lonsdale2:55

       I think if you haven't yourself gone all in and built a startup and gone through the pain of that over years, then you probably have no idea how to actually build a startup-

   25. JAJack Altman3:03

       Yeah

   26. JLJoe Lonsdale3:03

       ... and you just shouldn't be doing it.

   27. JAJack Altman3:04

       Yeah.

   28. JLJoe Lonsdale3:04

       And I think the first time you do it, and probably the second time, you should just be 100% all in-

   29. JAJack Altman3:08

       Yeah

   30. JLJoe Lonsdale3:08

       ... and you shouldn't be distracted. So I think I'm, like, a really bad example for people.
3. 3:53 – 5:39

   AI being contrarian and right

   1. JAJack Altman3:53

      Yeah, totally. I'd be curious to hear a little bit about how you're feeling in this general moment. You know, we were just talking about how hard it used to be to build companies to 100 million of revenue. Now these, like, AI companies are going nuts.

   2. JLJoe Lonsdale4:01

      So fast.

   3. JAJack Altman4:02

      It's, like, so fast. You strike me as, like, you know, kind of like a, in the sort of Peter Thiel contrarian-esque mindset of things, and one of the things that, you know, uh, I wonder is, like, is it uncomfortable in any way when the whole world sees something and you're like, "We might be in that, the quadrant of the two by two that is both, like, contrarian and right." Like, are you kind of in the mindset of, like, "AI is actually the thing. Most people have it right, and so I just need to go do it better than everybody else"? Or do you sort of take the view of, "Well, when everybody's here, I should actually be, you know, spending my time here 'cause there's gonna be a new wave by 2030"?

   4. JLJoe Lonsdale4:37

      You could still make, like, a bunch of, like, sub-quadrants, and they could be wrong in some things, and you could be right about some things, but you're all inside the big AI is right thing, right?

   5. JAJack Altman4:44

      Yeah.

   6. JLJoe Lonsdale4:44

      It's, it's not, it's not like you just have this, like, super simple model. But-

   7. JAJack Altman4:46

      Yeah

   8. JLJoe Lonsdale4:47

      ... y- y- yes. I mean, obviously this stuff is working in lots of ways in AI.

   9. JAJack Altman4:51

      Yeah.

   10. JLJoe Lonsdale4:51

       I think people are probably not focused enough on productivity as, like, the kinda, like, grail you should be going after. I think they're not focused enough on the moats created just by the very most talented technologists. So I think, I think, and, you know, going after just the very, very best teams and going after problems that are gonna lead to higher productivity.

   11. JAJack Altman5:09

       Yeah.

   12. JLJoe Lonsdale5:09

       And then there's just, there's just all these nuances for how big industries work, and we've been, I've been obsessed with a lot of these large industries for a long time, so I think we have advantages there and we're... But yeah, the, I mean, listen, it's, it, it is non-consensus. They're... I'm just, like, really bullish on this stuff right now.

   13. JAJack Altman5:22

       Yeah.

   14. JLJoe Lonsdale5:22

       And it, it's working.

   15. JAJack Altman5:23

       Yeah. Totally.

   16. JLJoe Lonsdale5:23

       It's what we're gonna say. It's all working.

   17. JAJack Altman5:25

       Yeah.

   18. JLJoe Lonsdale5:25

       And let's go after, go after the very best of it and help it, you know?

   19. JAJack Altman5:27

       I can't remember where I heard this, but, you know, somebody saying, like, there's w- there is a form of contrarianism even among good ideas, which is that you can, like, believe harder than everybody else. [laughs]

   20. JLJoe Lonsdale5:35

       You believe, you believe more. You can under- you can understand more the nuances of what's working. So,

4. 5:39 – 6:53

   What Palantir got right

   1. JLJoe Lonsdale5:39

      so the thing... Listen, I've got really lucky the last few years 'cause I, I get no credit for, like, Palantir figuring out what it did the last five years.

   2. JAJack Altman5:47

      Yeah.

   3. JLJoe Lonsdale5:47

      The only credit I get is that I actually, like, originally, like, built the company. I did hire a bunch of those people who are in charge.

   4. JAJack Altman5:52

      Yeah.

   5. JLJoe Lonsdale5:52

      But, like, but it's, it's them now-

   6. JAJack Altman5:53

      Yeah, yeah, yeah

   7. JLJoe Lonsdale5:53

      ... who've done it recently. But, like, the stuff that we figured out at Palantir and the stuff that they figured out at Palantir turned out to be relevant to a t-... ton of other AI companies. Like, so it's like kind of the center of the AI world in terms of what's working in many ways-

   8. JAJack Altman6:05

      Mm

   9. JLJoe Lonsdale6:05

      ... was right around Palantir.

   10. JAJack Altman6:07

       Yeah.

   11. JLJoe Lonsdale6:07

       And so that's just a huge advantage for us, and I think we understand a lot of the nuances, like how do you apply a workflow ontology to this area? How do you apply, like, the FTE motion to this thing-

   12. JAJack Altman6:17

       Yeah

   13. JLJoe Lonsdale6:17

       ... and go deeper on this with a SaaS plus FTE?

   14. JAJack Altman6:19

       It is interesting.

   15. JLJoe Lonsdale6:20

       You just, yeah.

   16. JAJack Altman6:20

       The FTE thing is just everywhere now.

   17. JLJoe Lonsdale6:21

       But you have to.

   18. JAJack Altman6:21

       I mean, it's, like, almost memetic, but it's true.

   19. JLJoe Lonsdale6:23

       And Palantir figured out that the way you do these things-

   20. JAJack Altman6:25

       Mm

   21. JLJoe Lonsdale6:25

       ... in AI world, and it just, and, and you have to use that.

   22. JAJack Altman6:28

       When you say, you know, Palantir figured out a lot of, like, the modes of, like, how AI is working, like, what else, besides the FTE model, what about, like, the technology itself?

   23. JLJoe Lonsdale6:34

       Well, it's like how do you, how do you, like, extract, like, the ontology of the workflows and how do you, how do you, like, figure out where to apply LLMs and where not to apply LLMs to?

   24. JAJack Altman6:45

       Yeah.

   25. JLJoe Lonsdale6:45

       And then, and then what do you have to build for it, for it to work? And, and to-

   26. JAJack Altman6:49

       Yeah

   27. JLJoe Lonsdale6:49

       ... and, and, and it's just, there's just a lot of stuff-

   28. JAJack Altman6:51

       Totally

   29. JLJoe Lonsdale6:51

       ... that's like-

   30. JAJack Altman6:52

       Yeah
5. 6:53 – 9:32

   Pulling forward innovation

   1. JLJoe Lonsdale6:53

      it right.

   2. JAJack Altman6:53

      When you talk about, like, the productivity stuff being, like, sort of, like, underexplored and people don't appreciate how important it is, do you mean, like, areas of, like, productivity software? Are you talking about, like, making individual, like, professional workers more productive every day? Is it both? Like, what are you thinking about?

   3. JLJoe Lonsdale7:08

      No, it's, it's, it's definitely both. It's also just, like, how should this industry work in 2035? Like, what does this industry look like today?

   4. JAJack Altman7:14

      Yeah.

   5. JLJoe Lonsdale7:14

      And what does it look like if it's doing everything that's possible and that we know is likely to become possible-

   6. JAJack Altman7:19

      It's, like, unmap-

   7. JLJoe Lonsdale7:20

      ... and what matters.

   8. JAJack Altman7:20

      20- 2035 seems like it's... I can't even-

   9. JLJoe Lonsdale7:22

      It's so far away now

   10. JAJack Altman7:23

       ... I can't even think about, like, May.

   11. JLJoe Lonsdale7:25

       No, I know. They, we, it's like we're pulling, if you, like, took, like, the normal path without AI and, like, things we were building and knew we needed to build and, and, like, assume we need to build, we're, like, taking the 2030s and 2040s and we're, like, packing them into the next [laughs] two or three years-

   12. JAJack Altman7:37

       Yeah

   13. JLJoe Lonsdale7:37

       ... 'cause so much is happening right now.

   14. JAJack Altman7:39

       Yeah.

   15. JLJoe Lonsdale7:39

       And, and that means we're taking the 2050s and 2060s-

   16. JAJack Altman7:41

       Yeah

   17. JLJoe Lonsdale7:41

       ... and gonna put them into the end of the decade and the start of the next decade.

   18. JAJack Altman7:43

       Yeah.

   19. JLJoe Lonsdale7:43

       And it's just, like, so much cool stuff. And my, my favorite one this week, every week there's something, my favorite one this week is I was with, uh, the guy who runs Joby Aviation. I was actually doing an episode with him. And, uh, and it's just like it turns out there's just gonna be all these ways that jets and airplanes are gonna be, like, 10 or 20 times as efficient in the next decade.

   20. JAJack Altman8:01

       Yeah.

   21. JLJoe Lonsdale8:01

       And, like, you know, he's launching in the next year, obviously, these current flying cars, but actually there's, like, massive things that would take him three months before, you do it in an afternoon now-

   22. JAJack Altman8:08

       Yeah

   23. JLJoe Lonsdale8:08

       ... with these aerodynamices. It's crazy.

   24. JAJack Altman8:10

       Yep. By the way, it's funny because, um, I feel like before AI took off, or, like, right at the beginning, like, right after ChatGPT, so much of the conversation felt like it was around, like, you know, AGI, ASI, and, like, is this, you know, is this, like, sci-fi terminator taking over? And then as everything has, like, become super commercialized and, you know, these are great businesses and it's plor- proliferating the economy, in a weird way feels less sci-fi now and more just, like, technol- technological-

   25. JLJoe Lonsdale8:36

       There's just cool things to build.

   26. JAJack Altman8:36

       Yeah.

   27. JLJoe Lonsdale8:36

       There's just so much... And people underestimate, like, really smart people, like he was saying, like, his right hand had just, like, a list of, like, 50 things he wished he could work on and build.

   28. JAJack Altman8:44

       Yeah.

   29. JLJoe Lonsdale8:44

       And it just wasn't the resources.

   30. JAJack Altman8:45

       Yeah.
6. 9:32 – 12:23

   AI vs social media

   1. JLJoe Lonsdale9:32

      like, TikTok is evil.

   2. JAJack Altman9:33

      Yeah.

   3. JLJoe Lonsdale9:33

      And I hate that X is having to copy it, 'cause the, the, the financial incentive for social media is, is evil right now.

   4. JAJack Altman9:38

      Yeah. No, I mean, you're saying X copy-

   5. JLJoe Lonsdale9:40

      It's bad

   6. JAJack Altman9:40

      ... you know, you, on X you go into a video, you start, you scroll, you're like-

   7. JLJoe Lonsdale9:43

      It's bad

   8. JAJack Altman9:43

      ... you're on TikTok again.

   9. JLJoe Lonsdale9:44

      I've blocked, I've blocked TikTok for years, partially 'cause of the CCP and stuff, but partially 'cause also I don't have the willpower-

   10. JAJack Altman9:50

       Yeah

   11. JLJoe Lonsdale9:50

       ... not to fricking scroll these things. So I block it. I block Instagram. I can't deal with it.

   12. JAJack Altman9:53

       Yeah.

   13. JLJoe Lonsdale9:54

       And, like, I'm an investor with Elon on X. I guess, I mean, SpaceX now, so maybe it doesn't matter.

   14. JAJack Altman9:57

       Yeah.

   15. JLJoe Lonsdale9:57

       But it's like, so I sort of have it, you know, and also I'm addicted to, like-

   16. JAJack Altman10:00

       Yeah

   17. JLJoe Lonsdale10:00

       ... like, commenting my stupid views online.

   18. JAJack Altman10:02

       Yeah.

   19. JLJoe Lonsdale10:02

       I'm arguing with Balaji. We were today, whatever. Ah, he's a good guy, but I got angry at him. But, but, like [laughs] , but, like, but, but you go on this thing and it gets addicted to you late at night too. It's horrible. I, I, I don't know. I'm gonna have to turn it off.

   20. JAJack Altman10:12

       Yeah.

   21. JLJoe Lonsdale10:12

       It's terrible.

   22. JAJack Altman10:12

       Yeah. I feel like, um, tech probably lost a decent amount of trust with the public as a result of social media and people being like, you know, they don't care. Like, the tech industry is just, like, here to, like, monetize eyeballs and make money off of us.

   23. JLJoe Lonsdale10:26

       You know, you know what's ironic? It's, like, generally market forces are really good in our society. Like, they cause us to have to work hard to solve problems. They're gonna bring down the cost of so many areas if we can get rid of chronic capitalism. In the media itself, like with newspapers and in social media, market forces are terrible.

   24. JAJack Altman10:41

       Yeah.

   25. JLJoe Lonsdale10:42

       'Cause it's like, 'cause it's, 'cause of an attention economy. Your incentive-

   26. JAJack Altman10:44

       Totally

   27. JLJoe Lonsdale10:44

       ... is to, like, distract people and just, like, polarize them. So it's just like, that is, like, the worst area of society for tech, and unfortunately that's what we're known by.

   28. JAJack Altman10:51

       It's really bad. It's also, you know, it's, you know, I'm not, like, some, I'm not anti-journalist. I'm not, you know, against mainstream media or s- social media particularly. But, you know, it's like even with journalists who I really like, it's not their fault always, but, you know, they might write a great article and then somebody, you know, some editor slaps-

   29. JLJoe Lonsdale11:08

       It's like fake headline always

   30. JAJack Altman11:09

       ... slaps a crazy headline on top of it-
7. 12:23 – 18:03

   Making AI work for America

   1. JLJoe Lonsdale12:23

      do that.

   2. JAJack Altman12:23

      So relating this to AI, I feel like, um, the tech industry has some currently missed opportunity to do a better job with our like-

   3. JLJoe Lonsdale12:32

      Yes

   4. JAJack Altman12:32

      ... you know, relations to-

   5. JLJoe Lonsdale12:33

      We need people to love AI more, 'cause otherwise we're gonna like ban it, and it's gonna hurt us.

   6. JAJack Altman12:37

      And they don't love AI.

   7. JLJoe Lonsdale12:38

      All, all of society is gonna get hurt by this.

   8. JAJack Altman12:39

      Like, I don't think America loves AI right now. I think America-

   9. JLJoe Lonsdale12:41

      Not enough people.

   10. JAJack Altman12:41

       Yeah, I th- I think not nearly enough people. And I'm-

   11. JLJoe Lonsdale12:43

       Yeah

   12. JAJack Altman12:43

       ... like, I think, um-

   13. JLJoe Lonsdale12:44

       They're scared, right?

   14. JAJack Altman12:45

       It's understandable. Like I-

   15. JLJoe Lonsdale12:46

       I think are they scared? Why, why don't they like it? What, what do you think?

   16. JAJack Altman12:48

       There's, there's a threat for jobs, you know, obviously.

   17. JLJoe Lonsdale12:49

       Yeah.

   18. JAJack Altman12:49

       And so if you're in an industry where it looks like, you know, you're seeing all these headlines-

   19. JLJoe Lonsdale12:53

       Do you know anyone personally who's worried about their job being lost, just to be totally honest? Like, like, like, "Oh, my life's gonna be tougher," or anything. So 'cause everyone talks about it, but no one knows anyone.

   20. JAJack Altman13:00

       Everyone thinks it's not coming for me.

   21. JLJoe Lonsdale13:01

       Exactly, right.

   22. JAJack Altman13:01

       I think. I think everybody believes it's gonna happen to everybody else, but not themselves.

   23. JLJoe Lonsdale13:04

       Who are we afraid for? I'm actually really curious.

   24. JAJack Altman13:05

       Well-

   25. JLJoe Lonsdale13:06

       Like, who's the, who, who's the archetype? 'Cause even if you walk through it, it's hard to get to the person.

   26. JAJack Altman13:09

       You know what's interesting is-

   27. JLJoe Lonsdale13:09

       You know?

   28. JAJack Altman13:09

       ... um, we should be a... You know, software engineering let's take as a good example of like it's probably the best application of AI right now. I just saw a chart that like, you know, job postings for engineers are going up and are like as high as ever right now.

   29. JLJoe Lonsdale13:19

       There's so much to build right now. There's so much to build.

   30. JAJack Altman13:21

       And so, you know, then you have the question of are we basically just, um, are we basically just amplifying the value of that function, and so there's gonna be more demand because it's more valuable?
8. 18:03 – 21:16

   Department of War debate

   1. JAJack Altman18:03

      Um, I'd be curious, like, you know, 'cause you're, you're obviously very close to the Department of War and so like, you know-

   2. JLJoe Lonsdale18:08

      [laughs]

   3. JAJack Altman18:08

      With, with, with-

   4. JLJoe Lonsdale18:09

      My friend, my friend Emil and, uh, then, and DepSec Feinberg and-

   5. JAJack Altman18:12

      Yeah

   6. JLJoe Lonsdale18:12

      ... all these guys in the middle of this.

   7. JAJack Altman18:14

      Yeah. And so it's like, you know, with most people in tech, it's like, you know, people have, you know, got sort of their tribe to some extent or whatever, and that's fine.

   8. JLJoe Lonsdale18:20

      We, we were talk- we were talking about this ahead of time. That is my tribe, but I was trying to tell you ahead of time that even though I am on-And I can explain why.

   9. JAJack Altman18:26

      Yeah.

   10. JLJoe Lonsdale18:26

       I, you know, I th- th- they think they're right and Palmer's right. Uh, like I actually introduced Dario and Palmer and was trying to get them-

   11. JAJack Altman18:32

       Yeah, and you appreciate them

   12. JLJoe Lonsdale18:33

       ... I was trying to get them to get on.

   13. JAJack Altman18:34

       And it's like how you're saying, you know, you, you appreciate the moderate left and you wanna hear the good side of the other side of things.

   14. JLJoe Lonsdale18:39

       This is, this is, I think it's really important in this state. Like if you've heard about the DOW and Anthropic battle, and you only think there's like stupid pers- people on one of those sides-

   15. JAJack Altman18:46

       Yeah, you have to assume it's smart people who want good outcomes for the world.

   16. JLJoe Lonsdale18:49

       They're just smart people who want good outcomes, who have their good point of view.

   17. JAJack Altman18:52

       Yeah.

   18. JLJoe Lonsdale18:52

       So my, my main point of view, supporting the Department of War ultimately, is that y- you can't have the gray, complicated, nuanced decisions about what's allowed being made by the company or having the company involved in those. You have to be able to make those nuanced decisions-

   19. JAJack Altman19:06

       Yeah

   20. JLJoe Lonsdale19:07

       ... at the Pentagon at the end of the day, and I think that's a fair, totally correct viewpoint. Uh, you know, but stepping back, like, listen, originally Anthropic came from like a much more effective altruist.

   21. JAJack Altman19:18

       Yeah.

   22. JLJoe Lonsdale19:18

       I'd call it very left, very like different perspective. And originally they had like, I don't know, like 50 pages of demands for the Pentagon, which were ridiculous. And then to Dario's credit, A, he went and worked with the Pentagon ahead of time more flexibly, so he was trying to help America. He does believe America's better than CCP. B, he got all that 50 page of nonsense after lots of iteration with his team and lots of work down to just two requests.

   23. JAJack Altman19:38

       Yeah.

   24. JLJoe Lonsdale19:39

       And, and he really has boundaries of why they created Anthropic and what their boundaries should be, and that's in his mind and he's managing a bunch of co-founders who have different views.

   25. JAJack Altman19:47

       Yeah.

   26. JLJoe Lonsdale19:47

       You know? And, and, and they got him all the way there. They were working with him. They tried really hard. But at the end of the day, like when they're in the room with Emil, there's 20 people and, and, and, you know, the two deman- demands were like no autonomy-

   27. JAJack Altman19:58

       And no surveillance

   28. JLJoe Lonsdale19:59

       ... and no surveillance. And like, and that's okay. Well, for autonomy, let's say we're gonna be using one of Palmer's autonomous fighter jets-

   29. JAJack Altman20:06

       Yeah

   30. JLJoe Lonsdale20:06

       ... in something we're planning, but and, and Anthropic's involved in planning the whole thing. Is that not allowed? Or let's say we're using some autonomy in how we respond to d- attack. And they go, "Oh, that's defense, that's okay." Well, what if we're doing an attack, but then as part of the attack we're using autonomy to respond-
9. 21:16 – 26:51

   Betting on defense

   1. JAJack Altman21:16

      On the defense side, you know, obviously you've been involved in a bunch of companies like Palantir, Anduril, Sironic.

   2. JLJoe Lonsdale21:22

      Yeah, I started Palantir, Sironic, and I only invested in Anduril.

   3. JAJack Altman21:25

      Only invested.

   4. JLJoe Lonsdale21:26

      Yeah.

   5. JAJack Altman21:26

      Too bad.

   6. JLJoe Lonsdale21:26

      And, and every, and, and every one in the early rounds, so those guys are crushing it, man. It's so impressive to see. You know, three of them used to work with us at Palantir.

   7. JAJack Altman21:31

      Yeah.

   8. JLJoe Lonsdale21:32

      And then Palmer's a good friend, and it, it's just... Yeah, and then Dino at Sironic. He just, uh, you know-

   9. JAJack Altman21:36

      He's built-

   10. JLJoe Lonsdale21:37

       He's built more big ships than anyone else now.

   11. JAJack Altman21:38

       It's great. I mean-

   12. JLJoe Lonsdale21:39

       The fastest built ship since World War II that are big.

   13. JAJack Altman21:40

       Yeah.

   14. JLJoe Lonsdale21:40

       It's so fun.

   15. JAJack Altman21:41

       Yeah, I mean, I wasn't doing venture 10 years ago obviously, but like seems like there was no interest in this stuff now, and now outside of AI it's like the hottest space.

   16. JLJoe Lonsdale21:49

       It wasn't just that there was no interest. Like when I wrote the check into Anduril, I had multiple people tell me they would never work with me again and to not even talk to them about their next round because it's so evil to be working in defense and working on weapons. It's like, it, it was like-

   17. JAJack Altman21:59

       Yeah

   18. JLJoe Lonsdale21:59

       ... you had to basically be willing to just go completely against the cultural zeitgeist and be-

   19. JAJack Altman22:03

       Totally

   20. JLJoe Lonsdale22:03

       ... and be excommunicated basically.

   21. JAJack Altman22:05

       It's crazy.

   22. JLJoe Lonsdale22:05

       It's like, 'cause it... Which is like, but by the way, sometimes that's the most valuable things to do is, is when you do stand up to-

   23. JAJack Altman22:10

       Totally

   24. JLJoe Lonsdale22:11

       ... to everyone, you know?

   25. JAJack Altman22:11

       Well, it is cra- I mean, Tr- Trey wrote something, uh, Trey Stevens wrote something recently that's basically about like you wanna be funding people who are, you know, saying the thing that's not popular and not exciting and is gonna be the creation of the next era.

   26. JLJoe Lonsdale22:21

       I, I love it. This is one of my favorite things is like what does no one else want to do that is really important to do?

   27. JAJack Altman22:26

       Yeah.

   28. JLJoe Lonsdale22:27

       And by the way, that to me that's like a definition of leadership.

   29. JAJack Altman22:29

       It also, um, like but, but it, it both means you're playing in a space that other people aren't playing, but it also reflects a personality type that has like a very-

   30. JLJoe Lonsdale22:36

       You're willing to just say you guys are all wrong.
10. 26:51 – 32:16

    Robotics, bio, and energy

    1. JAJack Altman26:51

       Yeah. What else are you interested in out... I mean, we can talk about AI too if I want to, but outside of AI, what are the other areas? Like bio, robotics, like any, anything-

    2. JLJoe Lonsdale26:58

       Yeah. Well, well everything is, like, tied back to AI in a way.

    3. JAJack Altman27:00

       Interesting.

    4. JLJoe Lonsdale27:00

       Because if you're doing things in robotics, like our best... We have one robotics investment called Bedrock, and it's a bunch of guys from Waymo with, I mean, Boris, and he's, and he's, like, doing excavation, and it's working, right? So it's AI-driven excavation-

    5. JAJack Altman27:11

       Yeah

    6. JLJoe Lonsdale27:11

       ... which is 25% of the construction spent in the US. It's gonna change the value of quarries and mines and super cool stuff.

    7. JAJack Altman27:16

       By the way, it seems to me like robotics should be, like, a bigger category than, like, software.

    8. JLJoe Lonsdale27:20

       Yeah, I think eventually. I think most of the stuff doesn't work yet.

    9. JAJack Altman27:21

       But it'll take, it'll ta- it might take 30 years to-

    10. JLJoe Lonsdale27:23

        None of this stuff works yet. I mean, his thing's working. It's my first big investment I made. Most of this stuff doesn't really work yet. That's the problem. I've looked at hundreds of things.

    11. JAJack Altman27:28

        Yeah.

    12. JLJoe Lonsdale27:28

        Like, not personally, but my team and I.

    13. JAJack Altman27:30

        Yeah.

    14. JLJoe Lonsdale27:31

        I just-

    15. JAJack Altman27:31

        Don't you just think, like, Elon will figure this out at some... You know, like one thing, one-

    16. JLJoe Lonsdale27:33

        I know. He'll figure out a big piece of it, I think.

    17. JAJack Altman27:35

        Yeah.

    18. JLJoe Lonsdale27:35

        But, but like, and, and, and, and I love Elon, and I back everything-

    19. JAJack Altman27:37

        I'm not saying he'll make the, there's no other robots available. I'm just saying, like, don't you think this sh-

    20. JLJoe Lonsdale27:41

        Yeah.

    21. JAJack Altman27:41

        Why would this not end up, why would robots not end up working?

    22. JLJoe Lonsdale27:45

        I mean, no. It, it, I, I think the world models are harder than people think. It's obviously, uh, and I, I've backed, I've tried to back everything Elon does. I think it just takes longer than even he thinks for some of these things, right?

    23. JAJack Altman27:54

        Yeah. Yeah.

    24. JLJoe Lonsdale27:54

        And it's the same thing we can say the estimates are really hard to get right.

    25. JAJack Altman27:56

        Yeah.

    26. JLJoe Lonsdale27:57

        Um, I don't know what's gonna be there by 2030. I'd be surprised if we don't have some really cool robotics companies by 2040, right?

    27. JAJack Altman28:04

        Yeah.

    28. JLJoe Lonsdale28:04

        It's just like it's clearly coming.

    29. JAJack Altman28:05

        Yep. Yeah. What, what about other thing, like is there anything in, like, bio that you're interested in?

    30. JLJoe Lonsdale28:10

        There's a bunch of stuff going on in bio, but again, like the discover- rate of discovery is just like-
11. 32:16 – 35:38

    Investing in the AI era

    1. JAJack Altman32:16

       Looking around, like the venture market now, you've obviously been doing this for a long time, and we're in like a kind of chaotic moment.

    2. JLJoe Lonsdale32:21

       It's really fun.

    3. JAJack Altman32:22

       It's really fun.

    4. JLJoe Lonsdale32:23

       It's chaotic. It's a fun moment.

    5. JAJack Altman32:24

       Well, it seems like this is what you, you know, if you can't enjoy it now, like when can you enjoy it?

    6. JLJoe Lonsdale32:27

       If you're not gonna be enjoying it now, you should retire.

    7. JAJack Altman32:29

       Then you should just do a different job.

    8. JLJoe Lonsdale32:29

       This is like the best time of whatever we're doing.

    9. JAJack Altman32:30

       Yeah, compared to what I imagine 2022 or something was like.

    10. JLJoe Lonsdale32:33

        It was actually pretty painful like four years ago, because it was like, it was like not clear to me yet like how you could do AI or how AI was gonna work. I, I was-

    11. JAJack Altman32:40

        Yeah

    12. JLJoe Lonsdale32:41

        ... unfortunately wasn't-

    13. JAJack Altman32:41

        Yeah

    14. JLJoe Lonsdale32:42

        ... as smart as some people about how it was gonna work. And then like, and then like you couldn't really start a new SAS company, because I was trying to convince everyone, like if you start a SAS company now, you're competing against SAS companies now, which is much harder than competing against things when we first started them. So-

    15. JAJack Altman32:52

        Absolutely

    16. JLJoe Lonsdale32:53

        ... there was a couple years there where I was like, "Oh, this is like-

    17. JAJack Altman32:55

        Yeah, it was like most of the good stuff was picked over

    18. JLJoe Lonsdale32:56

        ... and I had to like, so I started Ceronic then, and-

    19. JAJack Altman32:58

        Yeah

    20. JLJoe Lonsdale32:58

        ... 'cause I spent, spent a lot of time on it, 'cause I had a lot of extra time back then.

    21. JAJack Altman33:00

        Yeah.

    22. JLJoe Lonsdale33:00

        You know, 'cause, 'cause there wasn't that, as much else to do, and that worked out.

    23. JAJack Altman33:02

        Yeah.

    24. JLJoe Lonsdale33:03

        The defense was like the right thing, I think, to do.

    25. JAJack Altman33:05

        Yeah.

    26. JLJoe Lonsdale33:05

        But yeah, it w- it's, but now it's like there's like so much, and yeah, we're like two-thirds is just like AI productivity type stuff.

    27. JAJack Altman33:11

        Yeah. What do you think is like the, um, either the sort of like structure of firm or individual that is like best equipped to succeed right now?

    28. JLJoe Lonsdale33:21

        You need a lot of young people on your team who are friends with the other young people who are the best programmers and who are in the networks from talent. I just think you do.

    29. JAJack Altman33:28

        Yeah.

    30. JLJoe Lonsdale33:28

        Like I, I think-
12. 35:38 – 38:35

    Peptides opportunity

    1. JAJack Altman35:38

       I'm fidgeting around on this podcast 'cause I tweaked my back out.

    2. JLJoe Lonsdale35:41

       So you need to do some peptides, I told you.

    3. JAJack Altman35:42

       I said before. Yeah, peptides.

    4. JLJoe Lonsdale35:43

       [laughs]

    5. JAJack Altman35:44

       Yeah. What do you, what, what do you think about all those peptides? I mean, like they're like everywhere right now. Do you think this is like gonna be like a huge, um, we're gonna learn that it was all like a huge problem? Or do you think this is like next coming of like the great wave of medicine?

    6. JLJoe Lonsdale35:55

       So, so I first had some peptides because I tore up my knee hella skiing. It's, and then it, uh, so you know, so I'm like, "I got to heal." And, and not only did it like make me heal faster, it like fixed my back problem.

    7. JAJack Altman36:04

       Hm.

    8. JLJoe Lonsdale36:05

       So I'm like, "Oh, this is interesting. I should study these things." And one of our other friends actually who you know as well, Matt Mazzeo, uh, he, uh, had gotten pretty overweight, bad blood markers, not in shape at all, working too hard, making too much money. So he like took some time off, s- like started taking like a bunch of peptide stacks and exploring it, and like all of a sudden, like seven months later, he's like lost over 60 pounds. His blood markers are perfect. The girls in the office were asking who he was. He's married, girls, you know. But, and he's like this, he's like, and he's in great shape. He's crushing it.

    9. JAJack Altman36:31

       Yeah.

    10. JLJoe Lonsdale36:32

        And, and, uh, so he's actually our new CEO of a peptides company we're doing that he- he's founding with us, and it's called, called NOHO Labs, and it's, it's like, it's like growing like crazy. This is one of-

    11. JAJack Altman36:41

        Yeah

    12. JLJoe Lonsdale36:41

        ... I mean, listen, GLP-1s is one of the biggest market in the world. One of my bio infrastructure companies I built is, makes billions of dollars producing GLP-1. So I'm watching peptides from that side.

    13. JAJack Altman36:49

        Yeah.

    14. JLJoe Lonsdale36:50

        Uh, and now it turns out a bunch of these other peptides are also, I think, going to be, you know, market worth hundreds of billions of dollars-

    15. JAJack Altman36:57

        And new things like it

    16. JLJoe Lonsdale36:57

        ... and we're going after it. Yeah. It's, it's growing, it's one of the fastest growing consumer things I've ever been part of. You can go online. We wanted to make... We're buying our own compounding pharmacy 'cause we wanna, like have everything done here, everything legit, everything super careful. Listen, like RFK himself is, is, is rumored to be on these. I'll say I won't give any-

    17. JAJack Altman37:11

        Yeah

    18. JLJoe Lonsdale37:12

        ... inside information. He runs HHS. I mean, these things are gonna be coming-

    19. JAJack Altman37:14

        On a bunch of these peptides, you're saying?

    20. JLJoe Lonsdale37:16

        He's rumored to be on a bunch of them himself.

    21. JAJack Altman37:17

        Yeah.

    22. JLJoe Lonsdale37:17

        A lo- a lot of smart old people are. A lot s- a lot of, a lot of, a lot of my billionaire friends are all on these things. It's like it's a legit thing.

    23. JAJack Altman37:22

        Was there some unlock that just like made us discover, made people discover like a bunch of these things and now we're just like, you know, there's, there's this just like proliferation-

    24. JLJoe Lonsdale37:30

        I think-

    25. JAJack Altman37:30

        ... of new ideas happening at once? Or what, what happened here?

    26. JLJoe Lonsdale37:33

        You know, I think a lot of them have been around for a little while and people just started, like, sharing more stories and I, I think maybe the fact that people are willing to do the GLP-1s and they work so well 'cause that is a peptide-

    27. JAJack Altman37:43

        Yeah

    28. JLJoe Lonsdale37:43

        ... and that's like the cultural phenomenon kinda opened people's mind up-

    29. JAJack Altman37:47

        To the rest of them

    30. JLJoe Lonsdale37:47

        ... to the others. And, and now the HHS, the unlock, is that they are taking some of them off the schedule to like make it like more legal to, to sell them and stuff.
13. 38:35 – 40:12

    Texas vs California

    1. JAJack Altman38:35

       You lived here for a long time. Obviously, you still spend a lot of time here.

    2. JLJoe Lonsdale38:37

       By here you mean Woodside. That's right. We still have-

    3. JAJack Altman38:38

       Here, just like the broad here

    4. JLJoe Lonsdale38:40

       ... we still have a house somewhere in here, near here, but, you know. [laughs]

    5. JAJack Altman38:42

       California. Yeah. But, um, you know, now obviously you spend most time in Texas, and, um, I'm curious, like, ba-

    6. JLJoe Lonsdale38:47

       We're bas- we're based with our six kids in Austin

    7. JAJack Altman38:48

       ... six kids in Austin. My brother Max lives in Austin. I feel like, um, there's probably some changes to your mindset, I would imagine, by being out of California. I'm just like curious if it like, does it like help you think more cl- like, do you feel more in touch with like the world outside of tech? Does it change anything? Is it just a place to live? Does it, uh... Is there anything about it other than it's just a place to live-

    8. JLJoe Lonsdale39:09

       No, it's, it's, it's definitely-

    9. JAJack Altman39:11

       ... as it relates to your work?

    10. JLJoe Lonsdale39:11

        ... definitely a different culture. You definitely, you definitely see, I mean, I am talking, it's partially 'cause of my policy work as well. I talk to a lot of people from a lot of red states and, and purple states, like in different parts of the country, and you see the skepticism of tech, you see the things they're afraid of. Uh, and, and you, and you kinda, you kinda see more clearly to them it's just such an alien thing and, and how certain things come across like much more naively than I would see it coming from here and kinda knowing the insiders, realizing it's, what's, what's going on is not as scary as, as you think.

    11. JAJack Altman39:38

        Yeah.

    12. JLJoe Lonsdale39:38

        And so it's definitely given me more perspective on, like, I guess like you said, we really probably should be doing a better job marketing some of these things for our country and, and, and coming across in the, in the right way and respectfully to people.

    13. JAJack Altman39:48

        Yeah.

    14. JLJoe Lonsdale39:48

        Listen, it's also a more sane place. I think there's like a really healthy middle class-

    15. JAJack Altman39:51

        Yeah

    16. JLJoe Lonsdale39:51

        ... in Texas. I think I have people who work for me there who can live 10 minutes away even though you only pay them $100,000 a year. Whereas if you, if here in Woodside, if you pay someone $100,000 a year, they're living an hour away.

    17. JAJack Altman40:00

        Yeah.

    18. JLJoe Lonsdale40:00

        And I, I think, so I think it's just a healthier, better place for society-

    19. JAJack Altman40:03

        Yeah

    20. JLJoe Lonsdale40:03

        ... the way it works.

    21. JAJack Altman40:03

        I mean, we also I think have more, um, more, more aggressive and challenging, like political swings happening here in general and, um,

14. 40:12 – 43:08

    Political correctness

    1. JAJack Altman40:12

       you know, you've obviously been, you know, sort of focused on politics for a long time, like back since Stanford Review, which-

    2. JLJoe Lonsdale40:17

       I'm just trying to bring common sense, man. That's my point of view. [laughs]

    3. JAJack Altman40:19

       Yeah. We, we actually had, uh, someone intern with us who was editor of Stanford Review recently.

    4. JLJoe Lonsdale40:24

       I love it.

    5. JAJack Altman40:24

       At All Cap before Benchmark, but, um-

    6. JLJoe Lonsdale40:26

       I love it

    7. JAJack Altman40:26

       ... and I'm like, you know, it's like really good. Anyways, but so like I'm, I'm like familiar with like the school of thought, and I think it's great and, you know, I, I'm just curious, like, as you've watched us go over the last few years through the sort of like, you know, swings of politics and political correctness and all of it, where are we now? Like, do you think that like, do you think people can more or less say what they wanna say now? Do you think there are still, like the Overton window's not where it should be? Like-

    8. JLJoe Lonsdale40:52

       There's like, there's still a lot of things that I think like polite society, like won't talk about or won't-

    9. JAJack Altman40:57

       Like what?

    10. JLJoe Lonsdale40:57

        ... wanna understand. You know, there's, there's a lot of the reasons for why things are broken. There's a lot of stuff in California that's very corrupt that I think people here are just starting to appreciate. Like, they don't realize the billion dollars for San Francisco to NGOs is not to help the homeless, it's to help a very powerful political class of people who control things. You don't realize that, you know, that the, the government worker unions here just really run the state and really just light insane amounts of money on fire. The budget's gone up 75% here in six years. 75% in six years.

    11. JAJack Altman41:24

        That's crazy.

    12. JLJoe Lonsdale41:24

        And it's like, you, things are getting-

    13. JAJack Altman41:25

        And like for what?

    14. JLJoe Lonsdale41:26

        ... not better.

    15. JAJack Altman41:26

        What have we gotten?

    16. JLJoe Lonsdale41:27

        Well, you get much better paid civil servants, and you get a few million of them with much better pensions and which is great, except for the fact you can't afford that and you, and, and you're breaking so many other things. And, and so it's, and you know, and, and in Texas you'll have things like, in Texas we had something where the cities were, which were, cities are always a little bit blue and, and they weren't permitting things 'cause the people are in envy. So we said, "Listen, if a city won't get back to a permit in 45 days, you go around it to the state and the state'll approve it really quickly."

    17. JAJack Altman41:50

        Mm.

    18. JLJoe Lonsdale41:50

        And we passed this law and Austin building exploded the last three years. The prices are down 20% in Austin, not because people are leaving, but because there's just-

    19. JAJack Altman41:58

        Still so much

    20. JLJoe Lonsdale41:59

        ... so much more stuff we brought online. And here, and I, and I, and I, by the way, of course Ceronix building there, all these companies are building there.

    21. JAJack Altman42:04

        Yeah.

    22. JLJoe Lonsdale42:04

        The things that we're building there really fast, you still have like five to 10 years later be in permit hell if you're trying to do it in California.

    23. JAJack Altman42:10

        Yeah.

    24. JLJoe Lonsdale42:10

        So we, and we have to fix CEQA in California, and I don't think, the fact that people still don't know what CEQA is very much, like I'm not sure things have shifted that much.

    25. JAJack Altman42:16

        Yeah.

    26. JLJoe Lonsdale42:16

        Like, this California Environmental Quality Act, it's like there's just crazy things in there where you're like, you know, talking to like 14 Indian tribes and you're like in years and years and years of lawsuits to pay off environmental lawyers. I mean, the whole thing's just broken still. So-

    27. JAJack Altman42:29

        Yeah

    28. JLJoe Lonsdale42:29

        ... so I, I, I, and by the way, there are candidates here, even on the left, like-

    29. JAJack Altman42:32

        Yeah

    30. JLJoe Lonsdale42:32

        ... I say the San Jose mayor on the left, I don't agree with him on everything, but he like, he like gets it.

Episode duration: 43:09