Person
Jason Calacanis
LAUNCH founder and angel investor
Blake Scholl: Why Plane Speed Stalled, Supersonic Commercial Flight, & Revolutionizing the Engine
Blake Scholl argues Boom Supersonic is close to making commercial supersonic travel viable again, with XB-1 proving the physics and Overture targeting faster transatlantic flight at a premium but potentially break-even fare. The episode also spotlights Boom’s surprise pivot: using the same vertically integrated engine program to generate behind-the-meter power for data centers.
Naveen Rao: 4D Computing, AI's Energy Wall & Beating Biology
Naveen Rao argues AI is heading toward an energy wall, and that the answer is a new kind of computing architecture rather than incremental chip improvements. He describes Unconventional AI’s "dynamical computer" and 4D computing approach as a way to unify memory and compute, cut data movement, and dramatically improve power efficiency.
Adam Foroughi, Applovin CEO: Surviving a 92% Drawdown, Ads as ML 1.0 & the $50B Game Ad Market
Adam Foroughi argues AppLovin sits at the center of a massive mobile-game ad market, where discovery ads and machine learning drive monetization. He also recounts a brutal public-market drawdown, a large buyback, and why he thinks lean execution and differentiated data remain the company’s main moat.
Bill Gurley: Searching for Feynman
Bill Gurley uses a series of major disasters to argue that effective failure analysis requires root-cause investigation, not just public blame. He then applies that framework to COVID-19 origin questions, arguing the search for answers was obstructed and remains incomplete.
Jared Isaacman: A New Era for NASA and American Space Exploration
Jared Isaacman argues NASA should pivot from broad political dispersion to focused execution: return to the Moon, build nuclear power capability, and use the Moon as a proving ground for Mars. He also frames SpaceX as indispensable to current U.S. space operations and warns that China and Russia could rapidly turn lunar competition into a new space race.
Nick Shirley: Exposing Government Fraud, Suing California & Taking on the Media
Nick Shirley walks the Besties through a field-report on California’s high-speed rail, portraying it as a spectacular infrastructure failure with ballooning costs and no meaningful service. The conversation then shifts to his fraud investigations, a California law he says targets his filming, and the risks and incentives of building an audience-driven investigative media business.
Brad Gerstner: No AI Bubble, Semis Eat the Nasdaq & AI's Take Off Problem
Brad Gerstner argues the AI rally is being driven by real earnings and infrastructure demand, not speculative multiple expansion. He says the key question is whether lab revenues and off-take demand can catch up with the enormous capex required to build AI compute.
Satya Nadella on the AI Doomer Slowdown, Microsoft's Master Plan & Who Wins AI
Satya Nadella lays out Microsoft’s AI strategy as broad diffusion, enterprise control, and infrastructure scale rather than hype-driven frontier dominance. He argues the near-term bottlenecks are safety, workflow integration, and interoperability, while Microsoft keeps spending on Azure, models, and heterogeneous compute to serve the long tail of AI demand.
Elon Musk & Gwynne Shotwell on AI Risks and Peer Review, Starship, Terafab, SpaceX/Tesla Merger
Gwynne Shotwell and Elon Musk frame SpaceX as increasingly tied to AI, Starlink, and chip manufacturing, while defending Starship as essential to Mars ambitions and future reusability. The conversation also centers on AI safety, with Musk proposing cross-company peer review of frontier models before release.
AI Kills Everybody or Doomer Psyop? OpenAI's Math Breakthrough, Nike's $200B Collapse
The episode is dominated by a debate over AI doom: whether Anthropic’s resignation controversy is a genuine whistleblower moment or a coordinated doomer campaign used to justify tighter control and regulation. The second half covers OpenAI’s reported math breakthrough, AI privacy and data leakage concerns, and Nike’s long decline from brand powerhouse to index outcast.
Nvidia's Historic Quarter, SaaS Comeback, Bessent vs Druck, America's Debt Crisis, Cancer Vaccine
The hosts celebrate Nvidia’s blowout quarter and Salesforce’s rebound as evidence that the “AI capex bubble” and “SaaS apocalypse” narratives were overstated. They then argue that U.S. debt dynamics are worsening, debate AI-assisted writing norms, and end with a technical discussion of Moderna’s personalized mRNA cancer-vaccine approach.
AI Sovereignty Wars, Palantir-Nvidia Deal, SCOTUS Birthright Ruling, Newsom's CA Budget Lie
The episode centers on “AI sovereignty,” with the hosts arguing that enterprises and governments should control their own models, data, and inference stacks rather than depend entirely on frontier labs. They also debate AI job displacement, U.S. open-source/export policy, the Supreme Court’s birthright citizenship ruling, and California’s fiscal outlook.
Nate Silver Predicts: Democrats Take the House, Newsom Is Fading & AOC Might Win It All in 2028
Nate Silver argued that US politics is dominated by durable polarization, making most states and many election outcomes highly predictable. He also said California’s slow vote count reflects mail-ballot timing rather than fraud, and that Democrats’ strongest 2028 path may run through an anti-oligarch, youth-friendly insurgent message rather than Gavin Newsom.
Socialists Sweep NYC, China Catches Up in Coding, AI Memory Crunch, Micron's Blowout Quarter
The episode centered on a New York Democratic primary wave for socialist/DSA-backed candidates, with the hosts arguing it reflects a broader ideological and generational realignment in the Democratic Party. The back half shifted to AI infrastructure, China’s model catch-up, Micron’s blowout quarter, and the growing bottlenecks around memory, power, and data-center deployment.
GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen's $56B Plan to Take Over eBay
Ryan Cohen traces the operator playbook behind Chewy and GameStop, then makes the case that eBay is a neglected marketplace with major room for cost cuts and new growth. He argues that live commerce and digital collectibles could transform eBay if the company fixes seller tooling, trims expenses, and leans into its core marketplace model.
World's First Trillionaire, Anthropic Fable Banned, The New Oligarchs, Iran Peace Deal
The episode opens with a long argument about welfare, learned helplessness, and whether redistribution erodes agency before shifting to SpaceX’s blockbuster IPO and the meaning of trillionaire-scale paper wealth. The back half digs into Anthropic’s Fable/Mythos controversy, model access controls, and a debated Iran peace MoU that the hosts frame as a major de-escalation with nuclear and market implications.
Anthropic's Fable Backlash, Nationalizing AI, Inflation Heats Up & California's Broken Elections
The episode centers on a fierce backlash against Anthropic’s Fable 5 safety controls, prompt retention, and silent downgrades, with the hosts arguing about censorship, regulatory capture, and the rise of open-source alternatives. They then pivot to AI nationalization ideas, inflation and rate risks, and a long segment attacking California’s election system as structurally broken.