LinkedIn finds out about tech news a week after we all talk about it on 𝕏. If our plan works, we could shorten that to as little as 5 days.

From the archives: @generalmatter CEO and early SpaceX engineer @ScottNolan on Elon's solar predictions and putting solar panels in orbit: "Solar obviously takes a lot more area on the ground, but there is plenty of area for that in general. The missing piece was really storage." "Solar is inherently cyclical. To smooth it out, you need very cheap grid-scale or at least gigawatt-scale storage. Batteries or other forms. We haven't had that yet at a cost point that I think can compete with nuclear. That could change, and that would be great. But for now, in the foreseeable future on Earth, it's nuclear." "Now, when we talk about in-orbit, it's a whole different ballgame. If you have very cheap launch capacity, if your GPUs don't weigh very much, which they don't, and they're high-value, you could potentially put all of that in orbit, have your solar panel completely in sun-sync, and solve the battery issue. The one remaining piece is — you've got a lot of incident solar energy, and you're going to run those GPUs, how do you cool them? I think that's the piece that people are going to be working on for the next few years."

From the archives: Varda's @zebulgar says the $1–2 trillion SpaceX IPO is about to flood the space industry with capital, attention, and talent moving into next-gen applications as people rotate out of their positions: "I like to think of space like a highway: when you first only had a handful of cars there, everybody had to bring their own gas tank. Once you get thousands of cars up there, you can start to invest in a gas station." "There are layers of infrastructure, and as you build up each layer - reusable rockets, space factories, gas stations, ground stations - now you can start building application layers on top of those." "I think one day you'll see Founders Fund lead a round in a lunar ice mining operation." "I would bet that in the next five years, we lead a ~$10M financing round into a lunar ice mining operation."

Happy Thursday. On today's show: - @arielcoco (Navan) - @mikewior (Allen Control Systems) - @jtatarchuk (TensorWave) - @fraenkelj (Fundamental) - David Reger (NEURA Robotics) - Matthew Joseph (Minerva) - Ade Ajao (Base10) See you on the stream.

FULL INTERVIEW: Cloudflare CEO @eastdakota joins TBPN to discuss why agent traffic has surpassed human web traffic, the company's acquisition of VoidZero, and why concerns about data center water usage are overblown. 2:13 - Why today's infrastructure can't support billions of AI agents 7:38 - Bot traffic vs. human traffic 11:51 - Long-running AI agents are the future, not chatbots 15:15 - The 3 reasons companies are moving AI inference to the edge 17:29 - On concerns about data centers using too much water 19:41 - Matthew Prince on lawsuits from Spain and Italy over piracy 22:10 - Why being a public company is healthier than taking VC money 28:57 - Matthew Prince on hiring 1,111 interns

Nvidia stock is up 50 million basis points since IPO. The company is now worth nearly 500 trillion cents. Let that sink in.

The smartest thing @eastdakota did before Cloudflare's IPO was offer shares to people who could help the company in the future. "The most clever thing that we did [for the IPO], and this was advice that I got from Qualtrics Co-Founder Ryan Smith, was he said, 'What are you doing about friends and family?' because you can take 5% of the IPO and allocate it to friends and family. I said we weren't going to do it." "He said, 'No, you're thinking about it wrong. Think about the people, who if they owed you a favor, could make a meaningful difference in the future of Cloudflare, and then offer them the ability to invest in the IPO.'" "I said, 'Some people are going to have conflicts.' He said, 'It doesn't matter. Even just the fact you offered it, even if they can't do it, they'll always remember that super fondly.'"

Chip War Author @crmiller1 says China's spending on chips and data centers doesn't reflect the same sense of urgency around AGI seen in the U.S. In response, @johncoogan asks whether China is actually behind or simply operating on a much longer timeline. Chris: The puzzle is why isn't Xi Jinping more AGI-pilled? China has been underspending on AI for the last four years. I think it's because the Chinese government just doesn't really believe that AI is going to be nearly as important as we do. If they did believe it, they'd be buying H200 chips and spending more on data centers, and they're not doing it. John: Is it possible that China believes in AGI, but they just have longer timelines? China might not be necessarily behind the ball. They might just be optimizing for a 2035 AGI. Chris: I think one explanation is that the U.S. is a service-sector-heavy economy and is going to be more impactful in services first, manufacturing second. Second, U.S. firms could be more tech-forward. You see this in cloud computing. China has a tiny cloud computing market relative to GDP because its large enterprises just don't want to move to the cloud. Third, we should be open to the prospect that the Chinese government just hasn't gotten the memo yet. You know, for better or for worse, we have no deficit of VCs and tech entrepreneurs in government.

Sources Author @alexeheath says Apple may still make AI acquisitions, but they'll likely be focused on talent rather than acquiring a company capable of reshaping its AI strategy. "I think [Apple] could make an acquisition, but it would be talent-based. I don't think there's anything that's going to be fully resetting the strategy or that's foundational, like an Oculus. I think that moment's passed." "All these [AI] companies are huge and mature. You're not going to buy Anthropic. Even if you're Apple, you can't afford it, and they wouldn't sell, so you have to go out on your own."

Rivian CEO @RJScaringe says the company plans to launch hands-off driving later this year, eyes-off driving in 2027, and fully autonomous vehicles that never require human intervention in 2028. "Getting to Level 4, which is the idea of the vehicle driving empty, you sitting in the backseat, picking up groceries for you, or dropping you at the airport, our timeline for that is 2028. "We have point-to-point capabilities launching later this year. That's when you're in the driver's seat, you type in the address, and the car will completely navigate to that address. Your hands are not on the wheel, you're still alert and aware of what's happening, but you're not driving the car. We call that hands off, eyes on." "Next year we'll go to Level 3, which is hands off, eyes off. So you do all that, but you no longer have to look at the road at all. You can be on your phone, reading a book, etc." "Level 4 is where the car won't ask you to take over in any situation. It's fully on its own."

BREAKING: Apple is turning Siri into a chatbot. @johncoogan called this in January. He broke down why this makes sense for Apple:

Alex Karp is saying “tool shaped objects” and you’re short the stock at 140 times forward

FULL INTERVIEW: Alex Karp joins from AIPCon 10 to discuss tokenmaxxing, why taste matters in business, and political backlash against AI. 00:30 - Alex Karp's 5m30s dead hang routine 3:00 - Alex Karp on toxenmaxxing and the state of AI 5:10 - You can't scale taste 8:30 - AI companies have a likability problem 9:35 - AI tools are magical and addictive 13:20 - Palantir copycats and competitors 18:50 - Karp on getting nationalized 21:05 - Karp on layoffs and upskilling

BREAKING: Palantir CEO Alex Karp has been privately sounding the alarm to AI leaders their companies are going to be nationalized. "The momentum is on the side of people who want to nationalize them."

we sat 12 tech legends around a table and played a game of mafia. watch the full first episode on x —

Electric interview every time. Tune in at 11:45am for Karp and more!

🔴 Alex Karp LIVE from AIPCon 10 x.com/i/broadcasts/1dGYllbAA…

are you ready?

BREAKING: Palantir CEO Alex Karp will be live on TBPN from AIPCon 10 today at 11:45a PT

I somehow completely missed this. Should be a bigger story. Glad to see protections are already being rolled out but what an interesting problem.