Dueling Presidential interviews, SpaceX’s big catch, Robotaxis, Uber buying Expedia?, Nuclear NIMBY
Jason Calacanis (host), David Friedberg (host), David Sacks (host), Chamath Palihapitiya (host), Guest (guest)
In this episode of All-In Podcast, featuring Jason Calacanis and David Friedberg, Dueling Presidential interviews, SpaceX’s big catch, Robotaxis, Uber buying Expedia?, Nuclear NIMBY explores election Odds, Elon's Triumphs, Uber’s Ambitions, and Nuclear Power Showdown The episode ranges from 2024 election odds and media bias to major breakthroughs at Tesla and SpaceX, Uber’s rumored bid for Expedia, and a bruising debate over nuclear power and SMRs. The besties contrast polls with prediction markets and dissect Trump and Harris’s recent interviews, arguing most voters are already locked in. They then celebrate SpaceX’s Starship booster catch and Tesla’s robotaxi/bus concepts, exploring the economics of ultra‑cheap access to space and Starlink’s upside. The conversation shifts to whether Uber buying Expedia makes any strategic sense in an AI/agentic future, before devolving into a heated, highly specific fight over nuclear safety, NIMBYism, and whether SMRs will ever actually get built in the US. The show closes on “lawfare” against Elon in California and speculation about election night and the future of the pod.
Election Odds, Elon's Triumphs, Uber’s Ambitions, and Nuclear Power Showdown
The episode ranges from 2024 election odds and media bias to major breakthroughs at Tesla and SpaceX, Uber’s rumored bid for Expedia, and a bruising debate over nuclear power and SMRs. The besties contrast polls with prediction markets and dissect Trump and Harris’s recent interviews, arguing most voters are already locked in. They then celebrate SpaceX’s Starship booster catch and Tesla’s robotaxi/bus concepts, exploring the economics of ultra‑cheap access to space and Starlink’s upside. The conversation shifts to whether Uber buying Expedia makes any strategic sense in an AI/agentic future, before devolving into a heated, highly specific fight over nuclear safety, NIMBYism, and whether SMRs will ever actually get built in the US. The show closes on “lawfare” against Elon in California and speculation about election night and the future of the pod.
Key Takeaways
Prediction markets are signaling a clearer Trump edge than polls
Sachs explains that Polymarket and betting markets (around 60/40 or 65/35 for Trump) measure *probabilistic outcomes*, not vote share, while state polls measure *current preference splits* (e. ...
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Most voters are locked in; interviews mostly serve partisan confirmation
Friedberg observes that reactions to Trump’s Bloomberg interview and Harris’s Fox/Bret Baier interview broke strictly along tribal lines (≈310s–420s). ...
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SpaceX’s booster ‘catch’ unlocks a path to $10/kg to orbit
The hosts describe Starship’s Super Heavy booster being caught by ‘chopsticks’ as a watershed step in full reusability (≈1260s–1500s). ...
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Starlink could become the largest subscription business in history
With ~4M subscribers at roughly $100/month, Starlink is already a multi‑billion‑dollar run‑rate business (≈1540s–1650s). ...
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Uber–Expedia looks financially accretive but strategically fragile in an AI world
Chamath calls a full Expedia acquisition “stupid” because OTAs are essentially UI layers on top of commodity data feeds—exactly the kind of surface that AI agents and services like Perplexity can disintermediate (≈1900s–2100s). ...
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Nuclear is a lightning rod: data vs fear vs NIMBY
Friedberg argues that to meet surging electricity demand from GDP growth and AI, there is “no way” to do it fast enough without major nuclear build‑out, especially SMRs (≈2760s–3000s). ...
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Regulatory ‘lawfare’ is shaping tech infrastructure decisions
In closing, they highlight the California Coastal Commission’s 6–4 vote limiting additional SpaceX launches from Vandenberg, with at least one commissioner publicly citing Elon’s political tweets as a factor (≈4270s–4460s). ...
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Notable Quotes
“Substantively, I think it was nonexistent. Stylistically, I thought [Harris] did well and remained composed.”
— Chamath Palihapitiya
“It was just such an incredible feat… a skyscraper falling out of the sky and perfectly aligning itself to go into that chopstick catching device.”
— Jason Calacanis
“It could be the largest subscription business in the history of humanity… the first 500 million subscriber product in the world.”
— Jason Calacanis (about Starlink)
“I cannot think of a more fragile business model than the UI layer on top of widely available data.”
— Chamath Palihapitiya (about Expedia/OTAs)
“This is a classic luxury belief, where it’s easy for you to espouse [nuclear] for everybody else… because you know the downsides aren’t gonna fall on you.”
— David Sacks
Questions Answered in This Episode
For Friedberg: Can you walk through a concrete Gen‑3 or Gen‑4 SMR design (e.g., Kairos or China’s recent deployment) and explain in engineering terms why a Chernobyl‑style meltdown is physically impossible, including worst‑case failure modes and evacuation radii?
The episode ranges from 2024 election odds and media bias to major breakthroughs at Tesla and SpaceX, Uber’s rumored bid for Expedia, and a bruising debate over nuclear power and SMRs. ...
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For Chamath: In a world where AI agents can directly query airline and hotel APIs and execute bookings, what specific types of travel or commerce UIs—if any—do you think *will* retain durable value, and why wouldn’t Expedia’s package/vacation products qualify?
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For Sachs: You framed pro‑nuclear advocacy as a ‘luxury belief’ of elites; what policy mechanism, if any, would satisfy your concerns about siting reactors (distance thresholds, local referenda, compensation schemes), or is your opposition essentially non‑negotiable at any proximity?
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For Jason and Dara (if he were on): Given Uber’s real‑world data on cross‑selling Uber Eats and newer services to existing riders, what have you actually observed about attach rates when adding a *new vertical*—and do your experiments so far support or contradict the idea of adding a full ‘Uber Travel’ layer?
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For all four: Looking ahead 10–15 years, which is more likely to reshape how ordinary people interact with services like Uber, Expedia, and even political news—AI agents that mediate almost all transactions and content, or a consolidation into a few super apps—and what are the biggest regulatory or business risks to your prediction?
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Transcript Preview
Freeberg's channeling Tim Walz over there.
I know. Wow. (laughs) He's as excited as Tim Walz.
Got your flannel on. Do you know what a venture capitalist is, Freeberg?
Oh, he's shilling Supergut.
Well, as of last week-
No good.
... when J Cal decided to turn All-In into a commercial, I was actually gonna do a Supergut background.
Mm.
We're launching Supergut nationwide in Target this week. Any Target in the United States, you can go into and pick up Supergut.
You're kidding. That's great.
You can buy the GLP-1 booster. You can buy the prebiotic shake.
I have that, actually. Is that the chocolate or do you have the mocha?
It is the chocolate.
W- I mean, I like the mocha.
This one's chocolate.
Okay. Mocha is good, too. All right. Let's get started.
Well, thanks for the support, J Cal. I appreciate it.
Of course. Of course, of course.
We're cutting all this out.
No way. This is why I do this.
Next time, plug a company I have a stake in.
I'm goin' all in. Don't let your winners ride. Rain Man David Sachs. I'm goin' all in. And I said-
We open-sourced it to the fans and they've just gone crazy with it.
WSI.
Queen of quinoa.
I'm goin' all in. Also, All-In election night live stream is coming November 5th. You can watch live. Sacks will be hosting.
Oh, we're doing that?
(laughs)
Yeah.
We're doing it. You're hosting it. Your team said you're doing it.
(laughs)
And so you'll either get to see-
Sacks.
... Sachs-
Well, if things continue to look good for Trump-
(laughs) Oh, imagine.
... I- I might go to Mar-a-Lago. I might.
Oh, gee. Yeah. Okay, so you're a maybe.
Well, I mean, you come to Mar-a-
Chris-
... Mar-a-Lago, you're a maybe. If you go to Mar-a-Lago, you're excused.
I could live stream from Mar-a-Lago.
Oh, that would be amazing.
Live from Mar-a-Lago?
Absolutely amazing. I'll go to Mar-a-Lago.
Yeah, that'd be fun. Yeah, if it looks good, I'll go. So maybe that's, um- (laughs) Just go. Jason's like, "I'll just go."
November 5th. Of course I'm invited. I talked to Jared. Jared picked me.
If things look as good as they do right now, then-
(laughs)
... I mi- I think I'm gonna have to go to Mar-a-Lago.
I think we should all be in Mar-a-Lago yeah. That's gotta be the only-
It's gonna be a unique experience.
Oh my God. Can you imagine being in Mar-a-Lago and he loses? (laughs) Oh my God.
Well, that's why I don't wanna go.
That would be dark. (laughs) Yeah.
Unless this thing is in the bag.
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