Bill Gurley

Let me just maybe opine on that for a second. Like, where do I think we go from here? After hours with the NASDAQ down, peak to trough post-Trump at almost 18%, right? That's down a lot. A lot of names in the NASDAQ are down 40% or 50%. So we're starting to get some of that fear into the market. Somebody asked, and I said, at its very root, I do believe the president wants to do deals.

Let me just maybe opine on that for a second. Like, where do I think we go from here? After hours with the NASDAQ down, peak to trough post-Trump at almost 18%, right? That's down a lot. A lot of names in the NASDAQ are down 40% or 50%. So we're starting to get some of that fear into the market. Somebody asked, and I said, at its very root, I do believe the president wants to do deals.

He believes in fairer trade. I think we're going to land the plane here closer to $300 or $400 billion in tariffs, not $600 or $700, and certainly not a trillion in tariffs, even though it feels today like it was bigger than that. And one of the things I think that's going to kind of force the president's hand, he talked at the press conference. He had a bunch of senators there and House members.

He believes in fairer trade. I think we're going to land the plane here closer to $300 or $400 billion in tariffs, not $600 or $700, and certainly not a trillion in tariffs, even though it feels today like it was bigger than that. And one of the things I think that's going to kind of force the president's hand, he talked at the press conference. He had a bunch of senators there and House members.

The senators and House members are hearing from their constituent CEOs that they don't like these tariffs. And remember, most important to the president, he wants to get this reconciliation package passed, which he calls a big, beautiful bill. He wants to get this thing passed, which puts in place no taxes on tips and the permanency of the tax cuts, which he passed in his first administration.

The senators and House members are hearing from their constituent CEOs that they don't like these tariffs. And remember, most important to the president, he wants to get this reconciliation package passed, which he calls a big, beautiful bill. He wants to get this thing passed, which puts in place no taxes on tips and the permanency of the tax cuts, which he passed in his first administration.

He can't afford to lose a single Republican vote. And so I think that that also is going to guide them a little bit more to the center. And that's what, you know, we'll see whether the market believes that. Certainly didn't believe it after hours today. We're going to get a little bit more positive on the companies we like the best because we think some of this fear is now getting priced in.

He can't afford to lose a single Republican vote. And so I think that that also is going to guide them a little bit more to the center. And that's what, you know, we'll see whether the market believes that. Certainly didn't believe it after hours today. We're going to get a little bit more positive on the companies we like the best because we think some of this fear is now getting priced in.

Yeah, I think we're still in the fog of war, certainly. But I will be looking at, do these exemptions on things like semiconductors and pharmaceuticals hold? Are we seeing the country-by-country renegotiation on some of these things? And probably most importantly, Bill, it's really about China. China is the second largest economic power in the world.

Yeah, I think we're still in the fog of war, certainly. But I will be looking at, do these exemptions on things like semiconductors and pharmaceuticals hold? Are we seeing the country-by-country renegotiation on some of these things? And probably most importantly, Bill, it's really about China. China is the second largest economic power in the world.

It scares me how big the tariffs are that we are suggesting are going to go in place on China. And I think it's imminent that he and Xi are going to have to talk and get a big trade deal done. And so those are the things I'm going to be watching for. I don't think I see any clearing event here for at least another 30 to 60 days. But remember...

It scares me how big the tariffs are that we are suggesting are going to go in place on China. And I think it's imminent that he and Xi are going to have to talk and get a big trade deal done. And so those are the things I'm going to be watching for. I don't think I see any clearing event here for at least another 30 to 60 days. But remember...

The best opportunities to buy something are when people are a little fearful. So you may have to just take a bit of a leap of faith on this one if you want to purchase at the best prices.

The best opportunities to buy something are when people are a little fearful. So you may have to just take a bit of a leap of faith on this one if you want to purchase at the best prices.

You know, another thing that we heard a lot about this week, Bill, speaking of China, is, you know, some developments in Chinese open source and some developments on the US open source front, particularly with respect to these frontier models.

You know, another thing that we heard a lot about this week, Bill, speaking of China, is, you know, some developments in Chinese open source and some developments on the US open source front, particularly with respect to these frontier models.

You have a lot of, I think, understanding about kind of the history in China around open sources, around the history in the United States around open source. So help us unpack, if you will, What do you think strategically is going on in China with respect to these open source models? I've seen some people tweet that maybe that DeepSeek was forced into open source by Xi.

You have a lot of, I think, understanding about kind of the history in China around open sources, around the history in the United States around open source. So help us unpack, if you will, What do you think strategically is going on in China with respect to these open source models? I've seen some people tweet that maybe that DeepSeek was forced into open source by Xi.

Do you think that's going on or is there something else going on here?

Do you think that's going on or is there something else going on here?

It's going to be a heck of a weekend, and maybe if a certain couple teams end up in the championship game, I'll sneak in there on Monday night.

It's going to be a heck of a weekend, and maybe if a certain couple teams end up in the championship game, I'll sneak in there on Monday night.

So let me just double click on that. So basically what you're saying is they may have been fearful that they would have been cut off from other type of software products in the United States. Like, you know, there might have been export controls or other things put on them. So they said, I may as well support Linux because I may not be able to get Windows.

So let me just double click on that. So basically what you're saying is they may have been fearful that they would have been cut off from other type of software products in the United States. Like, you know, there might have been export controls or other things put on them. So they said, I may as well support Linux because I may not be able to get Windows.

But I think it's important because that lays the foundation, right? If that's a foundational belief among Chinese entrepreneurs and Chinese companies, then it's understandable that this new generation of entrepreneurs might also see the advantages of open source.

But I think it's important because that lays the foundation, right? If that's a foundational belief among Chinese entrepreneurs and Chinese companies, then it's understandable that this new generation of entrepreneurs might also see the advantages of open source.

Speaking of a lot of good stuff happening, I think there are some people in the world that think a lot of not so great stuff is happening based upon market reaction to the president's announcements of these tariffs. So why don't we kick it off talking about Liberation Day?

Speaking of a lot of good stuff happening, I think there are some people in the world that think a lot of not so great stuff is happening based upon market reaction to the president's announcements of these tariffs. So why don't we kick it off talking about Liberation Day?

You're saying Washington may intervene to take action because there are people perhaps lobbying against or other concerns that Washington may have about open source Chinese models being used by American.

You're saying Washington may intervene to take action because there are people perhaps lobbying against or other concerns that Washington may have about open source Chinese models being used by American.

Well, listen, we've talked here, and Sam has been dropping the breadcrumbs on Twitter that they wanted to launch an open source model. They've been GPU constrained. They've been bandwidth constrained. But he got the announcement out this week, which I was thrilled with. where he said, you know, we're excited to release a powerful new open weight language model with reasoning in the coming months.

Well, listen, we've talked here, and Sam has been dropping the breadcrumbs on Twitter that they wanted to launch an open source model. They've been GPU constrained. They've been bandwidth constrained. But he got the announcement out this week, which I was thrilled with. where he said, you know, we're excited to release a powerful new open weight language model with reasoning in the coming months.

And we want to talk to devs. So he's inviting all these developers to participate and give feedback. He said, we want to make it a very, very good model. We're planning to release an open weight language model, one of our first since GPT-2. And he says, we've been thinking about this for a long time.

And we want to talk to devs. So he's inviting all these developers to participate and give feedback. He said, we want to make it a very, very good model. We're planning to release an open weight language model, one of our first since GPT-2. And he says, we've been thinking about this for a long time.

And the interesting thing is somebody in the replies I saw, somebody said, are you going to make people buy licenses if they get a lot of users like Meta is doing with Lama? And he kind of takes a jab at Meta. And he says, no, we're not going to.

And the interesting thing is somebody in the replies I saw, somebody said, are you going to make people buy licenses if they get a lot of users like Meta is doing with Lama? And he kind of takes a jab at Meta. And he says, no, we're not going to.

Yes, he said no. He says no, which indicates maybe we're going to out open Lama. So that's on the one hand, you know, kind of open AI.

Yes, he said no. He says no, which indicates maybe we're going to out open Lama. So that's on the one hand, you know, kind of open AI.

Yeah, no, which I think is notable. Because remember, at the end of this month, we have Llamacon, which is the developer event for LLAMA. It's a big deal for Meta. The launch of LLAMA 4 has been rumored for a long time. And in fact, I think there are just a lot of people who are surprised they haven't released it. But it seems to everybody they're going to have to release it ahead of LLAMACON.

Yeah, no, which I think is notable. Because remember, at the end of this month, we have Llamacon, which is the developer event for LLAMA. It's a big deal for Meta. The launch of LLAMA 4 has been rumored for a long time. And in fact, I think there are just a lot of people who are surprised they haven't released it. But it seems to everybody they're going to have to release it ahead of LLAMACON.

What I'm hearing, Bill, is that it'll be a 400 billion parameter model. It'll be a mixture of expert model using 50, 60, 70 experts. It's going to have huge context window, like 10 million context window, and it's going to launch this month. I think it's terrific that OpenAI has now fully committed.

What I'm hearing, Bill, is that it'll be a 400 billion parameter model. It'll be a mixture of expert model using 50, 60, 70 experts. It's going to have huge context window, like 10 million context window, and it's going to launch this month. I think it's terrific that OpenAI has now fully committed.

Everybody on the team, Brockman, Kevin, et cetera, were all retweeting this, fully committed, and maybe even suggesting that this is going to be a more capable model and even more open. I think it's good that we have competition in the U.S. And when it comes to the administration and what Washington, D.C.

Everybody on the team, Brockman, Kevin, et cetera, were all retweeting this, fully committed, and maybe even suggesting that this is going to be a more capable model and even more open. I think it's good that we have competition in the U.S. And when it comes to the administration and what Washington, D.C.

is going to do, my best sense is they do not want to see a Huawei DeepSeek Belt and Road either with chips or with open source models. They do not want to see the world run on DeepSeek on Huawei 910 chips. And so, you know, this gets back to the AI diffusion bill and how we're going to restrict these things. I think they would love to see the world continue to run on, you know, U.S. compute, U.S.

is going to do, my best sense is they do not want to see a Huawei DeepSeek Belt and Road either with chips or with open source models. They do not want to see the world run on DeepSeek on Huawei 910 chips. And so, you know, this gets back to the AI diffusion bill and how we're going to restrict these things. I think they would love to see the world continue to run on, you know, U.S. compute, U.S.

silicon, and they would love to see Lama and perhaps OpenAI's open source model around the world. They know it has a lot of distribution. So I think this was a really positive step forward on that.

silicon, and they would love to see Lama and perhaps OpenAI's open source model around the world. They know it has a lot of distribution. So I think this was a really positive step forward on that.

Yeah, I think it makes sense on a bunch of fronts. On the first front, I think they want developers to develop on their platform and build applications for open AI. And so this brings them into the ecosystem. Number two, I think that they fundamentally have a view that they want to build... You know, they want to build products and applications that move humanity forward with AI.

Yeah, I think it makes sense on a bunch of fronts. On the first front, I think they want developers to develop on their platform and build applications for open AI. And so this brings them into the ecosystem. Number two, I think that they fundamentally have a view that they want to build... You know, they want to build products and applications that move humanity forward with AI.

And this is another way to do it at scale. You know, Sam has said publicly now, I've heard him several times, say that he thinks that models are commoditizing, they're anti-commodity. into the game. You know, they will continue to push the frontier.

And this is another way to do it at scale. You know, Sam has said publicly now, I've heard him several times, say that he thinks that models are commoditizing, they're anti-commodity. into the game. You know, they will continue to push the frontier.

So he thinks they'll have the best models, but that general intelligence, you know, that average level of intelligence is we already see is going to be widely distributed and that the battleground bill is really going to be fought around products and services. And I wouldn't say that they view themselves as an exclusively a consumer company, but

So he thinks they'll have the best models, but that general intelligence, you know, that average level of intelligence is we already see is going to be widely distributed and that the battleground bill is really going to be fought around products and services. And I wouldn't say that they view themselves as an exclusively a consumer company, but

But clearly, ChatGPT is a major thrust, a major focus of the business. It's the market-leading consumer application, probably has 80% to 90% market share. I think network effects are kicking in and other things. But I also think their enterprise business is, if not the biggest, one of the biggest and also growing at the fastest rate. Because remember, the consumerization of the enterprise, right?

But clearly, ChatGPT is a major thrust, a major focus of the business. It's the market-leading consumer application, probably has 80% to 90% market share. I think network effects are kicking in and other things. But I also think their enterprise business is, if not the biggest, one of the biggest and also growing at the fastest rate. Because remember, the consumerization of the enterprise, right?

One of the fascinating things that's happening in the enterprise is these are all users of ChatGPT. So when the CEO shows up in the boardroom and somebody says, yeah, we're looking at bringing AI into the company and we're looking at ChatGPT enterprise, it's an easy yes. It reminds me of when every CEO said, hey, get me an iPhone in the enterprise.

One of the fascinating things that's happening in the enterprise is these are all users of ChatGPT. So when the CEO shows up in the boardroom and somebody says, yeah, we're looking at bringing AI into the company and we're looking at ChatGPT enterprise, it's an easy yes. It reminds me of when every CEO said, hey, get me an iPhone in the enterprise.

it was pretty clear to me and you, we were talking about it in early Feb, this was doctrinal. There was a philosophical belief around trade that they wanted to create a more fair and level playing field. And the real debate has been going on is like, how big? And there are a couple of different camps.

it was pretty clear to me and you, we were talking about it in early Feb, this was doctrinal. There was a philosophical belief around trade that they wanted to create a more fair and level playing field. And the real debate has been going on is like, how big? And there are a couple of different camps.

And they were on BlackBerry and they all switched to iPhones because they loved using them at home. I think the natural thing for them to do. So it's not to say... Enterprise is going to be a battle. It's not going to be winner-take-all, but I think these guys do have their eyes squarely set on building a big enterprise business.

And they were on BlackBerry and they all switched to iPhones because they loved using them at home. I think the natural thing for them to do. So it's not to say... Enterprise is going to be a battle. It's not going to be winner-take-all, but I think these guys do have their eyes squarely set on building a big enterprise business.

Well, one of the things you pinged me on this week was the investment round around OpenAI. And I'm happy to share what I can share. Tell us what happened.

Well, one of the things you pinged me on this week was the investment round around OpenAI. And I'm happy to share what I can share. Tell us what happened.

Yeah, well, I mean, they announced the long-rumored investment that was led by SoftBank, which many people described in the headline as a $40 billion investment round. I think if you read the breakdown of it, it comes in a couple tranches, the first tranche being closer to $10 billion, the second tranche being closer to $30 billion. And it's an extraordinary amount of money.

Yeah, well, I mean, they announced the long-rumored investment that was led by SoftBank, which many people described in the headline as a $40 billion investment round. I think if you read the breakdown of it, it comes in a couple tranches, the first tranche being closer to $10 billion, the second tranche being closer to $30 billion. And it's an extraordinary amount of money.

It's bigger than I think the largest IPO sans maybe one or two that has ever been done. I've often described these as private IPOs. Altimeter participated along with several others who were reported. And the valuation was like 260 pre, which would make it, if all the money were to come in, a 300 post valuation. And so it certainly got a lot of attention this week.

It's bigger than I think the largest IPO sans maybe one or two that has ever been done. I've often described these as private IPOs. Altimeter participated along with several others who were reported. And the valuation was like 260 pre, which would make it, if all the money were to come in, a 300 post valuation. And so it certainly got a lot of attention this week.

And, you know, you asked me the question, I think, Bill, just around kind of valuation, right? How did we think about valuation? The first thing I would say is market leaders never look cheap.

And, you know, you asked me the question, I think, Bill, just around kind of valuation, right? How did we think about valuation? The first thing I would say is market leaders never look cheap.

When I invested in Google in 2005, when I invested in, you know, Meta, when the IPO broke and we looked at those late stage private rounds, I certainly remember the Microsoft round in a Meta at $15 billion that was roundly criticized as being incredibly expensive. None of these things, you're certainly not going to buy a market leader on the cheap.

When I invested in Google in 2005, when I invested in, you know, Meta, when the IPO broke and we looked at those late stage private rounds, I certainly remember the Microsoft round in a Meta at $15 billion that was roundly criticized as being incredibly expensive. None of these things, you're certainly not going to buy a market leader on the cheap.

But if you really look at this, I think that they've said publicly they expect their revenues this year to be around $13 billion, right? To do $13 billion in revenue, it probably means you have to exit the year closer to $15 to $18 billion in run rate revenue. So as I look at this on a forward run rate for this year, you're paying something like, you know, 20 times revenue for the business, okay?

But if you really look at this, I think that they've said publicly they expect their revenues this year to be around $13 billion, right? To do $13 billion in revenue, it probably means you have to exit the year closer to $15 to $18 billion in run rate revenue. So as I look at this on a forward run rate for this year, you're paying something like, you know, 20 times revenue for the business, okay?

Now, we also had a couple other announcements this week. There's the Anthropic funding round, and there's talk that they're doing a billion to $2 billion in revenue, a $60 billion funding round. So that, to me, looks like something like 50 times revenue. So again, you've got OpenAI at 20 times, Anthropic at 50 times. And then we had the merger of X and X.AI. Correct.

Now, we also had a couple other announcements this week. There's the Anthropic funding round, and there's talk that they're doing a billion to $2 billion in revenue, a $60 billion funding round. So that, to me, looks like something like 50 times revenue. So again, you've got OpenAI at 20 times, Anthropic at 50 times. And then we had the merger of X and X.AI. Correct.

And so JP Morgan had this great event in Montana last week, 100 tech CEOs, but they had Howard Lutnick, Elon Sachs, Doug Bergeron, all talking about you know, various aspects of this. And they asked me to do a little bit of a presentation on decoding the Trump economic agenda. And really, it boils down to this, Bill.

And so JP Morgan had this great event in Montana last week, 100 tech CEOs, but they had Howard Lutnick, Elon Sachs, Doug Bergeron, all talking about you know, various aspects of this. And they asked me to do a little bit of a presentation on decoding the Trump economic agenda. And really, it boils down to this, Bill.

which are rumored to have around, let's call it 3 billion in revenue. And the combined market cap there is like 125 billion. So that looks like closer to 80 times revenue. So the market leader here, which usually trades at a premium, not at a discount, To me, again, we can argue about the sustainability and could somebody disrupt them? And is 20 times a good valuation in this environment?

which are rumored to have around, let's call it 3 billion in revenue. And the combined market cap there is like 125 billion. So that looks like closer to 80 times revenue. So the market leader here, which usually trades at a premium, not at a discount, To me, again, we can argue about the sustainability and could somebody disrupt them? And is 20 times a good valuation in this environment?

And yeah, but aren't they spending a lot of money on compute? And is it really high value revenue? But apples for apples relative to their peers, it certainly appears to me like 20 versus 50 versus 80. It's hard to say that this would be more expensive on a multiple basis than Anthropic or X.ai.

And yeah, but aren't they spending a lot of money on compute? And is it really high value revenue? But apples for apples relative to their peers, it certainly appears to me like 20 versus 50 versus 80. It's hard to say that this would be more expensive on a multiple basis than Anthropic or X.ai.

You know, at the top, I think that all the CEOs in the room are pretty excited about the golden age that people have been talking about, you know, a pro-growth administration, pro-business, pro-investment, lower taxes, less regulation, pro-M&A. We've seen this M&A flywheel starting to kick up, this AI super cycle. But everybody's been pretty terrified about these tariffs.

You know, at the top, I think that all the CEOs in the room are pretty excited about the golden age that people have been talking about, you know, a pro-growth administration, pro-business, pro-investment, lower taxes, less regulation, pro-M&A. We've seen this M&A flywheel starting to kick up, this AI super cycle. But everybody's been pretty terrified about these tariffs.

Right. Listen, I think the analogy is a fair one, Bill. And obviously, Masa was involved in the Uber-Lyft battle. So it's an easy one, particularly with his involvement here, to say you've referred to it before as weapons of economic destruction, all of this capital. But I would remind you, there was a moment in time in 2020 where the headlines were that Uber would never be profitable.

Right. Listen, I think the analogy is a fair one, Bill. And obviously, Masa was involved in the Uber-Lyft battle. So it's an easy one, particularly with his involvement here, to say you've referred to it before as weapons of economic destruction, all of this capital. But I would remind you, there was a moment in time in 2020 where the headlines were that Uber would never be profitable.

It was a failed business model. It will never make money. And here's a business that's going to do $6 billion in free cash flow this year. No doubt. Right? No doubt. And so the winner does take all. The winner does take most. I will tell you, as a shareholder, I speak with the leadership of the company all the time about unit economics.

It was a failed business model. It will never make money. And here's a business that's going to do $6 billion in free cash flow this year. No doubt. Right? No doubt. And so the winner does take all. The winner does take most. I will tell you, as a shareholder, I speak with the leadership of the company all the time about unit economics.

Obviously, if I'm investing in the business, I feel confident in their leadership around unit economics. One of the things that I think is really important here is just what's happening in the business. right? Sam tweeted this week, they added a million chat GPT users in an hour, in an hour, that they crossed 20 million subscribers, paying subscribers for chat GPT.

Obviously, if I'm investing in the business, I feel confident in their leadership around unit economics. One of the things that I think is really important here is just what's happening in the business. right? Sam tweeted this week, they added a million chat GPT users in an hour, in an hour, that they crossed 20 million subscribers, paying subscribers for chat GPT.

They crossed 500 million weekly average users of chat GPT. In fact, they're going so gangbusters, they're throttling all their demand. In fact, I don't know if you saw David Sachs' tweet where he said America's leading AI companies are all reporting that demand is off the charts, so much so that they're being forced to impose rate limits.

They crossed 500 million weekly average users of chat GPT. In fact, they're going so gangbusters, they're throttling all their demand. In fact, I don't know if you saw David Sachs' tweet where he said America's leading AI companies are all reporting that demand is off the charts, so much so that they're being forced to impose rate limits.

And he said, fortunately, we have massive new infrastructure projects coming online, which gets me to the point of why are they raising so much money? And you and I are talking about taking the pod down to Abilene, Texas, to see Stargate, to Denton, Texas, to see the CoreWeave facility that they're standing up for OpenAI.

And he said, fortunately, we have massive new infrastructure projects coming online, which gets me to the point of why are they raising so much money? And you and I are talking about taking the pod down to Abilene, Texas, to see Stargate, to Denton, Texas, to see the CoreWeave facility that they're standing up for OpenAI.

And the fact of the matter is, I think that they need to bring on a massive amount of compute just to support the demand they currently have. I can tell you, when you look at the product pipeline for OpenAI... Right. Whether it's, you know, there are two or three models they already have completed on the shelf. There's a lot of agent stuff that they want to do that's on the shelf.

And the fact of the matter is, I think that they need to bring on a massive amount of compute just to support the demand they currently have. I can tell you, when you look at the product pipeline for OpenAI... Right. Whether it's, you know, there are two or three models they already have completed on the shelf. There's a lot of agent stuff that they want to do that's on the shelf.

I think there's a lot of stuff they want to do around pricing, but they can't do these things today and open source. with their current level of GPU demand. And, you know, Sam went online and said, if anybody has a cluster of 100,000 GPUs, you know, send me a DM. And, you know, you may say it's promotional and hyperbole, but the round was already raised.

I think there's a lot of stuff they want to do around pricing, but they can't do these things today and open source. with their current level of GPU demand. And, you know, Sam went online and said, if anybody has a cluster of 100,000 GPUs, you know, send me a DM. And, you know, you may say it's promotional and hyperbole, but the round was already raised.

Yeah, it's true. I actually think, in this case, it's true. I know they were pulling a lot of things offline just to support the demand. Now, the irony is, what was this demand coming from? And the demand... Because we didn't mention Gemini 2.5 that happened to release in this last week.

Yeah, it's true. I actually think, in this case, it's true. I know they were pulling a lot of things offline just to support the demand. Now, the irony is, what was this demand coming from? And the demand... Because we didn't mention Gemini 2.5 that happened to release in this last week.

And the real question going into today, Liberation Day, was were tariffs going to land closer to the $600 billion, trillion-dollar tariff level that Peter Navarro had been talking about and Howard Lutnick had been talking about, or maybe at a little bit lower end of the spectrum, which we heard a little bit more from Scott Bessent and Kevin Hassett. And I think everybody was holding their breath.

And the real question going into today, Liberation Day, was were tariffs going to land closer to the $600 billion, trillion-dollar tariff level that Peter Navarro had been talking about and Howard Lutnick had been talking about, or maybe at a little bit lower end of the spectrum, which we heard a little bit more from Scott Bessent and Kevin Hassett. And I think everybody was holding their breath.

And part of the reason we didn't mention it is because literally on the day that they launch it, OpenAI launches this upgrade to Imogen where people are making all these anime photos of themselves that literally blew up, like demand for a billion anime photos a day from the United States all the way to India worldwide. And they can't support it.

And part of the reason we didn't mention it is because literally on the day that they launch it, OpenAI launches this upgrade to Imogen where people are making all these anime photos of themselves that literally blew up, like demand for a billion anime photos a day from the United States all the way to India worldwide. And they can't support it.

And some people may say, oh, well, this is an example of how dumb AI is. People are using it to make anime photos. But I would point them to Chris Dixon's blog that he wrote some time ago where he says, listen, the next big thing will first appear as a toy. Right.

And some people may say, oh, well, this is an example of how dumb AI is. People are using it to make anime photos. But I would point them to Chris Dixon's blog that he wrote some time ago where he says, listen, the next big thing will first appear as a toy. Right.

And there are a lot of things that we do for entertainment, a lot of things that, you know, we know that OpenAI and ChatGPT are being used for a lot of deep research. But the fact of the matter is at least as to this one, and I'm not going to get into the other, you know, valuations for the other models, but I'd say at least as to this one. I was an early investor in Google.

And there are a lot of things that we do for entertainment, a lot of things that, you know, we know that OpenAI and ChatGPT are being used for a lot of deep research. But the fact of the matter is at least as to this one, and I'm not going to get into the other, you know, valuations for the other models, but I'd say at least as to this one. I was an early investor in Google.

I was an early investor in Meta. I saw what those early consumer products looked like, what those demand curves looked like, what that cohort retention looked like. And I would just say to you that, you know, what I see out of ChatGPT, reminds me a lot of kind of those winner-take-all consumer applications. They're not infallible. It's not that they can't be assaulted.

I was an early investor in Meta. I saw what those early consumer products looked like, what those demand curves looked like, what that cohort retention looked like. And I would just say to you that, you know, what I see out of ChatGPT, reminds me a lot of kind of those winner-take-all consumer applications. They're not infallible. It's not that they can't be assaulted.

Grok has been a great model launched by Elon. But I think they really do have a big moat. And I think the network effects are kicking in. And I think that not only are they order of magnitude bigger, but they're also growing a lot faster. And so... you know, I think that the consumer business here will ultimately be valuable, but to your point, the unit economics can be crap along the way.

Grok has been a great model launched by Elon. But I think they really do have a big moat. And I think the network effects are kicking in. And I think that not only are they order of magnitude bigger, but they're also growing a lot faster. And so... you know, I think that the consumer business here will ultimately be valuable, but to your point, the unit economics can be crap along the way.

And it's up to the company to launch the things like advertising pace, uh, you know, different pricing tiers, et cetera, that, uh, you know, bring all of those things.

And it's up to the company to launch the things like advertising pace, uh, you know, different pricing tiers, et cetera, that, uh, you know, bring all of those things.

Yeah, I mean, honestly, I think that right now we probably, you know, we're throttling chat GPT. So when you bring on more compute, all those numbers would be higher, right, if you just have more compute. Secondly, I think most of chat GPT users are using a model that's like a year old. right?

Yeah, I mean, honestly, I think that right now we probably, you know, we're throttling chat GPT. So when you bring on more compute, all those numbers would be higher, right, if you just have more compute. Secondly, I think most of chat GPT users are using a model that's like a year old. right?

Because they haven't been able to upgrade the models because I don't think they can support the things they want to do in the upgraded models from a GPU perspective. So my suspicion is when they're able to do that, that they're going to have a lot more flexibility around things like pricing tiers.

Because they haven't been able to upgrade the models because I don't think they can support the things they want to do in the upgraded models from a GPU perspective. So my suspicion is when they're able to do that, that they're going to have a lot more flexibility around things like pricing tiers.

Sam has said he doesn't particularly like advertising, but at some point they will obviously have something that they think is beneficial to consumers that will be around that. If you look at If I say to Operator, book me the Four Seasons Hotel in New York next Tuesday, and it does that for me, which I think they're getting a lot closer to. You and I have this back and forth on that.

Sam has said he doesn't particularly like advertising, but at some point they will obviously have something that they think is beneficial to consumers that will be around that. If you look at If I say to Operator, book me the Four Seasons Hotel in New York next Tuesday, and it does that for me, which I think they're getting a lot closer to. You and I have this back and forth on that.

But let's just stipulate that even you believe at some point they're going to get there. And if we're driving that kind of value for users, either user will pay or the end merchant will pay. I think there are all sorts of business models that will evolve around that. So my hunch is you're going to see a mixture of advertising. You're going to see a lot of different pricing tiers.

But let's just stipulate that even you believe at some point they're going to get there. And if we're driving that kind of value for users, either user will pay or the end merchant will pay. I think there are all sorts of business models that will evolve around that. So my hunch is you're going to see a mixture of advertising. You're going to see a lot of different pricing tiers.

Well, we got the answer. We got the answer today. And so I was framing that at the JP Morgan conference. I showed this slide you'll get a kick out of. I ended the presentation with two planes coming in for landing. They both actually land, believe it or not. But it's like the glide path that we land here with tariffs and budget cuts matter a lot. And so, you know, we got the news tonight.

Well, we got the answer. We got the answer today. And so I was framing that at the JP Morgan conference. I showed this slide you'll get a kick out of. I ended the presentation with two planes coming in for landing. They both actually land, believe it or not. But it's like the glide path that we land here with tariffs and budget cuts matter a lot. And so, you know, we got the news tonight.

You're going to see models. I don't think we're going to have this You know, this long menu of model choices that forces the consumer to understand the difference between 04 Mini and 03 and 01 and, you know, all these different models.

You're going to see models. I don't think we're going to have this You know, this long menu of model choices that forces the consumer to understand the difference between 04 Mini and 03 and 01 and, you know, all these different models.

I think you're just going to have a smart model, CHAT GPT-5 or CHAT GPT-6 that may be coming sooner rather than later that's just going to make those choices for you.

I think you're just going to have a smart model, CHAT GPT-5 or CHAT GPT-6 that may be coming sooner rather than later that's just going to make those choices for you.

Well, let's click on that for a second. We have our friend Glenn Fogle who runs Booking.com, an incredible CEO. They've been an incredible business. And they're one of the largest advertisers, have historically been one of the largest advertisers on Google. I think it's been reported that Google generates – It's one of their largest advertising categories in the world.

Well, let's click on that for a second. We have our friend Glenn Fogle who runs Booking.com, an incredible CEO. They've been an incredible business. And they're one of the largest advertisers, have historically been one of the largest advertisers on Google. I think it's been reported that Google generates – It's one of their largest advertising categories in the world.

And we're back. Bill, great to see you.

And we're back. Bill, great to see you.

It's travel, hotels specifically. Booking is one of their largest global advertisers. So you sell a $100 hotel room and you take $20, right? Youbooking.com. Let's call it take 18 to 20 bucks. And then you pay a portion of that to Google, maybe half of it, maybe more than half of it.

It's travel, hotels specifically. Booking is one of their largest global advertisers. So you sell a $100 hotel room and you take $20, right? Youbooking.com. Let's call it take 18 to 20 bucks. And then you pay a portion of that to Google, maybe half of it, maybe more than half of it.

right or or whatever you know it's a it's a so so there's no doubt there's competition coming to that um you know google's traded down from 200 to 150 and change and and you know they see that disruption coming their way the irony here right is we we still have you know this antitrust investigation with with google i always i always get a you know a laugh out of the fact that

right or or whatever you know it's a it's a so so there's no doubt there's competition coming to that um you know google's traded down from 200 to 150 and change and and you know they see that disruption coming their way the irony here right is we we still have you know this antitrust investigation with with google i always i always get a you know a laugh out of the fact that

Finally, in 2025, the first time we've actually had competition for Google, like very clear that competition is coming to all those categories. And now we get around to talking about breaking up their search monopoly. I mean, it's ridiculous. I don't think that's I think that's the last of our problems. But I do think we're going to see business model evolution around these different categories.

Finally, in 2025, the first time we've actually had competition for Google, like very clear that competition is coming to all those categories. And now we get around to talking about breaking up their search monopoly. I mean, it's ridiculous. I don't think that's I think that's the last of our problems. But I do think we're going to see business model evolution around these different categories.

So let's just say, Bill, that it settles out at 10 bucks. Hotels are clearly willing to give $20. Let's say it settles out at $10. Well, hell, that's all upside for OpenAI.

So let's just say, Bill, that it settles out at 10 bucks. Hotels are clearly willing to give $20. Let's say it settles out at $10. Well, hell, that's all upside for OpenAI.

You're right. We just listened to the president talk. You know, and he came in on the larger end of this. I mean, there's no other way to slice it. There was a headline that hit right after the market closed from the Wall Street Journal, I believe, that it was 10% across the board. And the markets jumped up like 2.5%. And then as the presentation started unfolding, they started coming in.

You're right. We just listened to the president talk. You know, and he came in on the larger end of this. I mean, there's no other way to slice it. There was a headline that hit right after the market closed from the Wall Street Journal, I believe, that it was 10% across the board. And the markets jumped up like 2.5%. And then as the presentation started unfolding, they started coming in.

Well, the tectonic plates, as I've said, as we've said for now two years, this is the first time they've shifted in this magnitude in 20 years. This is a 20-year event. For 20 years, the search paradigm ruled everything in consumer internet, and Google stood at the top of that mountain. And it took something, it took an AI-level shift.

Well, the tectonic plates, as I've said, as we've said for now two years, this is the first time they've shifted in this magnitude in 20 years. This is a 20-year event. For 20 years, the search paradigm ruled everything in consumer internet, and Google stood at the top of that mountain. And it took something, it took an AI-level shift.

It took ChatGPT moment and them getting to the scale of maybe a billion monthlies and 500 million weeklies to even lead to this conversation. But things happen very slowly, Bill, as we know, and then they happen very fast. And I think that's your point.

It took ChatGPT moment and them getting to the scale of maybe a billion monthlies and 500 million weeklies to even lead to this conversation. But things happen very slowly, Bill, as we know, and then they happen very fast. And I think that's your point.

That's great. As you know, we're shareholders in CoreWeave. Since a couple rounds ago, we were one of the largest buyers in the IPO, and we're happy we did. I have to say, on Friday, I was pretty damn nervous, Bill. It broke the offering price, went down to about $37 a share.

That's great. As you know, we're shareholders in CoreWeave. Since a couple rounds ago, we were one of the largest buyers in the IPO, and we're happy we did. I have to say, on Friday, I was pretty damn nervous, Bill. It broke the offering price, went down to about $37 a share.

I think today they had some announcements of this deal with Google where they're going to provide NVIDIA-graced Blackwells through CoreWeave. So Google's going to be buying a bunch of NVIDIA chips through CoreWeave. And one of the big criticisms of this company was they were too dependent upon Microsoft. But now they've diversified.

I think today they had some announcements of this deal with Google where they're going to provide NVIDIA-graced Blackwells through CoreWeave. So Google's going to be buying a bunch of NVIDIA chips through CoreWeave. And one of the big criticisms of this company was they were too dependent upon Microsoft. But now they've diversified.

They have Microsoft, Meta, now Google, OpenAI, NVIDIA, Cohere, Mistral. And so I think they've really emerged as the leading AI kind of cloud. And the stock in the last couple of days, despite the fact they took it public last Friday. I mean, talk about taking a company public into a category five hurricane. I mean, we had...

They have Microsoft, Meta, now Google, OpenAI, NVIDIA, Cohere, Mistral. And so I think they've really emerged as the leading AI kind of cloud. And the stock in the last couple of days, despite the fact they took it public last Friday. I mean, talk about taking a company public into a category five hurricane. I mean, we had...

I mean, you have to be pretty stoked coming off those wins last weekend in San Francisco.

I mean, you have to be pretty stoked coming off those wins last weekend in San Francisco.

We had like Liberation Day staring us in the face and they had to fly into that. And as you pointed out, it wasn't the least controversial of IPOs, but I have to give credit to Mike Intrator and his team. And listen, I'm here in Silicon Valley. They started this company five years ago. It's worth over $30 billion today.

We had like Liberation Day staring us in the face and they had to fly into that. And as you pointed out, it wasn't the least controversial of IPOs, but I have to give credit to Mike Intrator and his team. And listen, I'm here in Silicon Valley. They started this company five years ago. It's worth over $30 billion today.

It's played a really important role in standing up OpenAI and a lot of the leading AI labs. And I just think that's a good thing for all of us. But it's also fair to ask the questions that you've asked around kind of the durability, if you will, about CoreWeave and the revenue.

It's played a really important role in standing up OpenAI and a lot of the leading AI labs. And I just think that's a good thing for all of us. But it's also fair to ask the questions that you've asked around kind of the durability, if you will, about CoreWeave and the revenue.

People saw this chart that they presented on reciprocal tariffs, right, where they say tariffs on China going to 54%. Can you believe that? 34% on top of the 20% that already exists. And he starts going through this list. And the futures, the S&P futures, the NASDAQ futures start sinking. They had a 600 basis point fall. between where they initially jumped and where they ended up.

People saw this chart that they presented on reciprocal tariffs, right, where they say tariffs on China going to 54%. Can you believe that? 34% on top of the 20% that already exists. And he starts going through this list. And the futures, the S&P futures, the NASDAQ futures start sinking. They had a 600 basis point fall. between where they initially jumped and where they ended up.

Well, you know, somebody else I should mention is Morgan Stanley. I mean, they took a lot of heat last Friday, you know, on this deal. Why are you bringing it now? You know, the stock went below 40. CNBC was roundly critical of, you know, of the company, you know, and of Morgan Stanley. And the stock's at $60 or whatever it ended today at. And so, again... You know, we feel good as shareholders.

Well, you know, somebody else I should mention is Morgan Stanley. I mean, they took a lot of heat last Friday, you know, on this deal. Why are you bringing it now? You know, the stock went below 40. CNBC was roundly critical of, you know, of the company, you know, and of Morgan Stanley. And the stock's at $60 or whatever it ended today at. And so, again... You know, we feel good as shareholders.

I feel good for the people involved in the company. Obviously, there are still questions, you know, that remain about the business. You mentioned depreciation.

I feel good for the people involved in the company. Obviously, there are still questions, you know, that remain about the business. You mentioned depreciation.

The one thing I tell you about the depreciation argument as it relates to this company is, you know, a lot of people push on, you know, there's a statement by Jensen at GTC that, you know, hoppers may not have value because Grace Blackwell is so much better.

The one thing I tell you about the depreciation argument as it relates to this company is, you know, a lot of people push on, you know, there's a statement by Jensen at GTC that, you know, hoppers may not have value because Grace Blackwell is so much better.

My view on this is like, listen, because we've got to square this circle. We have the SACS tweet. We know the inference demand is off the charts. Everybody is demonstrating their need for more GPUs to run inference. Everything in the world is becoming inference. We've talked about that at length. And so my view is this. When you talk about two years for GPUs,

My view on this is like, listen, because we've got to square this circle. We have the SACS tweet. We know the inference demand is off the charts. Everybody is demonstrating their need for more GPUs to run inference. Everything in the world is becoming inference. We've talked about that at length. And so my view is this. When you talk about two years for GPUs,

They're going to—cutting-edge GPUs are going to be used for cutting-edge training for the, you know, frontier models in that first two-year period. But all these things are going to continue to get used for inference.

They're going to—cutting-edge GPUs are going to be used for cutting-edge training for the, you know, frontier models in that first two-year period. But all these things are going to continue to get used for inference.

And the right way to think about CoreWeave, you know, and, you know, I think the consensus margins for this business are like 25% EBIT, you know, over the course of the next couple of years. How do they get there? You know, so think about their unit economics bill. you know, their CapEx, their OpEx. So they got to get a data center. They got to pay for all their operating expenses.

And the right way to think about CoreWeave, you know, and, you know, I think the consensus margins for this business are like 25% EBIT, you know, over the course of the next couple of years. How do they get there? You know, so think about their unit economics bill. you know, their CapEx, their OpEx. So they got to get a data center. They got to pay for all their operating expenses.

Then they got to buy the servers. So the way this works, I think, is they sell a four-year deal to Microsoft or a four or five-year deal to OpenAI or four-year deal to Google or whatever. They expect to pay back all the CapEx, OpEx, and GPUs in three years. And so the fourth year, which is a four-year guaranteed contract, the fourth year is your profit margin, right?

Then they got to buy the servers. So the way this works, I think, is they sell a four-year deal to Microsoft or a four or five-year deal to OpenAI or four-year deal to Google or whatever. They expect to pay back all the CapEx, OpEx, and GPUs in three years. And so the fourth year, which is a four-year guaranteed contract, the fourth year is your profit margin, right?

So the market is not liking this at all. And depending what index you were looking at, we were already down 8% to 15% on the year. Now, whatever comes in tomorrow will be on top of that. So that's the chart. That's kind of the initial reaction out of the market. We can break them down a little bit if you want. But that was the initial reaction.

So the market is not liking this at all. And depending what index you were looking at, we were already down 8% to 15% on the year. Now, whatever comes in tomorrow will be on top of that. So that's the chart. That's kind of the initial reaction out of the market. We can break them down a little bit if you want. But that was the initial reaction.

And then anything you earn past the four years, that's all gravy on top. And the consensus earnings are not giving them any credit for anything after the end of those contract periods. Now, what I'll tell you is, and we've done a lot of research on this, There's still a lot of A100s in use in the world today. In fact, Jensen has talked at length about that. That's a 2020 product.

And then anything you earn past the four years, that's all gravy on top. And the consensus earnings are not giving them any credit for anything after the end of those contract periods. Now, what I'll tell you is, and we've done a lot of research on this, There's still a lot of A100s in use in the world today. In fact, Jensen has talked at length about that. That's a 2020 product.

So we're in the fifth year and A100s are still out there being used by almost everyone that bought A100s. And then if you look at it, I think Jensen at GTC said last year that that OpenAI had just retired the V100s. That was a 2017 GPU. So that's like a seven-year lifecycle that they were using those for.

So we're in the fifth year and A100s are still out there being used by almost everyone that bought A100s. And then if you look at it, I think Jensen at GTC said last year that that OpenAI had just retired the V100s. That was a 2017 GPU. So that's like a seven-year lifecycle that they were using those for.

And so I think that we have a lot of comfort that at a minimum, people are going to be using these things for four years, a couple of years for training, a couple of years for inference. I've yet to hear of anybody throwing away any GPU because it doesn't have value. Remember the way CUDA works. The software that runs these GPUs, it constantly gets upgraded. It's like my Tesla, right?

And so I think that we have a lot of comfort that at a minimum, people are going to be using these things for four years, a couple of years for training, a couple of years for inference. I've yet to hear of anybody throwing away any GPU because it doesn't have value. Remember the way CUDA works. The software that runs these GPUs, it constantly gets upgraded. It's like my Tesla, right?

I had an old Tesla Model S, like seven years old, but it felt like a new car because my software got updated all the time. And frankly, it still got me to the places I needed to get to. It wasn't as good as the new model I bought in December with full FSD and everything else, but it didn't feel like a really old car because the software was constantly updating.

I had an old Tesla Model S, like seven years old, but it felt like a new car because my software got updated all the time. And frankly, it still got me to the places I needed to get to. It wasn't as good as the new model I bought in December with full FSD and everything else, but it didn't feel like a really old car because the software was constantly updating.

I kind of think of that the same way for these GPUs. The GPUs are getting better every year, even though the hardware remains the same. So I'm not nearly as worried about that depreciation schedule. It seems to be a, you know, a big hit on the company and lots of people are talking about it, but they're out the door and, you know, you know, kudos to them on this big new deal today.

I kind of think of that the same way for these GPUs. The GPUs are getting better every year, even though the hardware remains the same. So I'm not nearly as worried about that depreciation schedule. It seems to be a, you know, a big hit on the company and lots of people are talking about it, but they're out the door and, you know, you know, kudos to them on this big new deal today.

And the answer may lie somewhere in between. And like I said, I don't think they need it to be more than four in order to achieve the margins that they have. But they're also, to your point, it's a highly levered business. They got to de-lever the business. So there's a lot of things in play here with CoreWeave. That's why, again, if you look at the multiples it's trading at,

And the answer may lie somewhere in between. And like I said, I don't think they need it to be more than four in order to achieve the margins that they have. But they're also, to your point, it's a highly levered business. They got to de-lever the business. So there's a lot of things in play here with CoreWeave. That's why, again, if you look at the multiples it's trading at,

Well, I don't know what they are today, but the multiples that came public were not overly taxing from our perspective. But there's a lot of headwind for all these AI companies. I mean, you have NVIDIA trading at 19 times fully taxed earnings.

Well, I don't know what they are today, but the multiples that came public were not overly taxing from our perspective. But there's a lot of headwind for all these AI companies. I mean, you have NVIDIA trading at 19 times fully taxed earnings.

And so, you know, there's a lot of skepticism in the world, notwithstanding all the stuff we hear about demand, a lot of skepticism in the world about AI demand.

And so, you know, there's a lot of skepticism in the world, notwithstanding all the stuff we hear about demand, a lot of skepticism in the world about AI demand.

Well, I kind of thought that maybe you thought this was a perfect IPO because it ended day one at precisely $40, which was the offering price.

Well, I kind of thought that maybe you thought this was a perfect IPO because it ended day one at precisely $40, which was the offering price.

Well, I mean, listen, there's a lot of rumors swirling, which not surprisingly, this deal is set to expire or need to be extended by April 5th under the terms of the first congressional extension that was made by Trump. They've made very clear that there are a lot of buyers for the TikTok asset bill and that the president has— wants to put together a deal.

Well, I mean, listen, there's a lot of rumors swirling, which not surprisingly, this deal is set to expire or need to be extended by April 5th under the terms of the first congressional extension that was made by Trump. They've made very clear that there are a lot of buyers for the TikTok asset bill and that the president has— wants to put together a deal.

And of course, we have all these tariffs going on on China. And so I'm sure this will end up as part of a big trade negotiation as it pertains to China. But as you know, just for everybody, we're shareholders. I've been a shareholder in this company since 2015, one of the earliest venture capital rounds in ByteDance, the parent company which owns TikTok.

And of course, we have all these tariffs going on on China. And so I'm sure this will end up as part of a big trade negotiation as it pertains to China. But as you know, just for everybody, we're shareholders. I've been a shareholder in this company since 2015, one of the earliest venture capital rounds in ByteDance, the parent company which owns TikTok.

And for the last two years, I've agreed largely with Elon and Sachs and others that we should engage with China. We shouldn't just shut down TikTok. We should make TikTok abide by the rules and regulations, right, that we have in this country. And that's what this whole legislative unwind was about, you know, the for sale of spin out TikTok U.S. So here's what I'm hearing.

And for the last two years, I've agreed largely with Elon and Sachs and others that we should engage with China. We shouldn't just shut down TikTok. We should make TikTok abide by the rules and regulations, right, that we have in this country. And that's what this whole legislative unwind was about, you know, the for sale of spin out TikTok U.S. So here's what I'm hearing.

I'm hearing that there will be a new company stood up, you know, and I'm not privy to any information. I'm not party to these negotiations, but I'm, you know, let's call it TikTok U.S., And that TikTok US will be partly owned by ByteDance. But I think they have to keep that ownership threshold under 20%. So let's call it 19.5% owned by ByteDance.

I'm hearing that there will be a new company stood up, you know, and I'm not privy to any information. I'm not party to these negotiations, but I'm, you know, let's call it TikTok U.S., And that TikTok US will be partly owned by ByteDance. But I think they have to keep that ownership threshold under 20%. So let's call it 19.5% owned by ByteDance.

That it will be owned partially by just the existing shareholders. Remember, the shareholders in ByteDance, 60% of those are US investors like Altimeter. So that we'll get our shares in TikTok US. And then 50% of it or thereabouts will be new investors. So think, folks, like some of the rumors I've seen, Amazon, Andreessen, Oracle, et cetera.

That it will be owned partially by just the existing shareholders. Remember, the shareholders in ByteDance, 60% of those are US investors like Altimeter. So that we'll get our shares in TikTok US. And then 50% of it or thereabouts will be new investors. So think, folks, like some of the rumors I've seen, Amazon, Andreessen, Oracle, et cetera.

And these are investors who are not currently in the cap table yet. of ByteDance. So Altimeter or Co2, we're currently in the cap table of ByteDance. So we're not going to be part of the new investor syndicate, or at least that's my understanding. So imagine they stand that up and then the question- And where would that money go, Brad? So the money would go into this new co, right?

And these are investors who are not currently in the cap table yet. of ByteDance. So Altimeter or Co2, we're currently in the cap table of ByteDance. So we're not going to be part of the new investor syndicate, or at least that's my understanding. So imagine they stand that up and then the question- And where would that money go, Brad? So the money would go into this new co, right?

So the new co would be capitalized with this new money. It would have a new board.

So the new co would be capitalized with this new money. It would have a new board.

No, that's my understanding, that it would go into NUCO, that NUCO would get a license to the algorithm, and it would be up to NUCO to audit that, to audit the data. Because remember, that's the whole point here, Bill. We want to have some control over the algorithm and the data, so it makes sense that Oracle would be involved in that.

No, that's my understanding, that it would go into NUCO, that NUCO would get a license to the algorithm, and it would be up to NUCO to audit that, to audit the data. Because remember, that's the whole point here, Bill. We want to have some control over the algorithm and the data, so it makes sense that Oracle would be involved in that.

Because remember, TikTok runs on the Oracle Cloud down in Texas. I think a logical question is, okay, what's the so what here? And I'm hearing that the valuation for TikTok US could be pretty low, which I would expect, right? Because remember, Trump has said, maybe we'll put this in the US sovereign wealth fund. So he's negotiating the deal. I expect that he wants to get a pretty damn good deal.

Because remember, TikTok runs on the Oracle Cloud down in Texas. I think a logical question is, okay, what's the so what here? And I'm hearing that the valuation for TikTok US could be pretty low, which I would expect, right? Because remember, Trump has said, maybe we'll put this in the US sovereign wealth fund. So he's negotiating the deal. I expect that he wants to get a pretty damn good deal.

No, no, no idea. No idea.

No, no, no idea. No idea.

Well, I think, remember, if we go back six months... There was a camp that said, shut it down. And there's a camp saying, or we'll just take it, right? Right.

Well, I think, remember, if we go back six months... There was a camp that said, shut it down. And there's a camp saying, or we'll just take it, right? Right.

And I think that the company's perspective, Yiming, the founder of the company, he basically said there's no way to separate the algorithm between TikTok US and TikTok rest of world because creators in the US create content that go to the rest of the world and vice versa. And so, like, if you took away all the U.S., it does so much damage, you would be better to shut down TikTok U.S.

And I think that the company's perspective, Yiming, the founder of the company, he basically said there's no way to separate the algorithm between TikTok US and TikTok rest of world because creators in the US create content that go to the rest of the world and vice versa. And so, like, if you took away all the U.S., it does so much damage, you would be better to shut down TikTok U.S.

Correct. I mean, they call them non-tariff trade barriers. This is everything from what they call currency manipulation to things like judicial actions that restrict free and fair trade of our products into their countries. And by the way, we know there are non-tariff trade barriers. So it's not totally surprising.

Correct. I mean, they call them non-tariff trade barriers. This is everything from what they call currency manipulation to things like judicial actions that restrict free and fair trade of our products into their countries. And by the way, we know there are non-tariff trade barriers. So it's not totally surprising.

and just invite the U.S. creators onto the French platform or the United Kingdom version of this or the Australian version of this via a VPN or something. So I think the big change here, Bill, is this idea that U.S. TikTok... And global TikTok will continue to use the same algorithm. And it's just a license to the US TikTok would be my guess was part of that bridge or breakthrough.

and just invite the U.S. creators onto the French platform or the United Kingdom version of this or the Australian version of this via a VPN or something. So I think the big change here, Bill, is this idea that U.S. TikTok... And global TikTok will continue to use the same algorithm. And it's just a license to the US TikTok would be my guess was part of that bridge or breakthrough.

I think a key thing here is like, how does Altimeter or Sequoia or other US investors? Remember, 60% of the investors in ByteDance are US investors. And the investors in places like Altimeter, they're pension funds, they're teachers, they're firefighters.

I think a key thing here is like, how does Altimeter or Sequoia or other US investors? Remember, 60% of the investors in ByteDance are US investors. And the investors in places like Altimeter, they're pension funds, they're teachers, they're firefighters.

And if you think about the fair value for ByteDance, I think most people, although it only trades at, let's call it 300 billion, most people think the fair value of this is closer to a trillion dollars or certainly to 800 billion. So if you take 60% of a trillion dollars, that's 600 billion in locked up venture capital value. for all of the endowments and pension funds, et cetera, for U.S.

And if you think about the fair value for ByteDance, I think most people, although it only trades at, let's call it 300 billion, most people think the fair value of this is closer to a trillion dollars or certainly to 800 billion. So if you take 60% of a trillion dollars, that's 600 billion in locked up venture capital value. for all of the endowments and pension funds, et cetera, for U.S.

investors. That's more than almost every other unrealized venture gain put together, Bill, right? And so if you're able to take this company public, that turns into DPI, like hundreds of billions of dollars of DPI that goes out to the investors in these venture funds.

investors. That's more than almost every other unrealized venture gain put together, Bill, right? And so if you're able to take this company public, that turns into DPI, like hundreds of billions of dollars of DPI that goes out to the investors in these venture funds.

This company being ByteDance. But we had to get the TikTok deal done as a condition required to get ByteDance public or ByteDance out the door. And so remember, ByteDance, about 90% of ByteDance's business is not TikTok U.S.,

This company being ByteDance. But we had to get the TikTok deal done as a condition required to get ByteDance public or ByteDance out the door. And so remember, ByteDance, about 90% of ByteDance's business is not TikTok U.S.,

90% of the value of the company is things like Doyan, which is the Chinese version of TikTok, and Daobao, which is the Chinese version of ChatGPT and TikTok around the world. And so there's a huge and profitable business inside of China and in rest of world. And we're just debating this piece in the United States. Got you.

90% of the value of the company is things like Doyan, which is the Chinese version of TikTok, and Daobao, which is the Chinese version of ChatGPT and TikTok around the world. And so there's a huge and profitable business inside of China and in rest of world. And we're just debating this piece in the United States. Got you.

And so as a shareholder, I will tell you that whatever the dilution is caused by this, it's nominal relative to the value of the total. And what I really want to see get done is just certainty, right? Certainty for the company. I think it's good for the U.S. that TikTok will remain. My kids love it and I don't.

And so as a shareholder, I will tell you that whatever the dilution is caused by this, it's nominal relative to the value of the total. And what I really want to see get done is just certainty, right? Certainty for the company. I think it's good for the U.S. that TikTok will remain. My kids love it and I don't.

I'm glad we're going to make them abide by the rules and regulation. I think it's a win for Team Trump. I think it's a win for ByteDance. But remember now, we just hit them today, Bill, with 54% tariffs. So there may be a conversation that has to occur before Xi and Trump. I thought this deal would get approved by China. Now I'm not so sure.

I'm glad we're going to make them abide by the rules and regulation. I think it's a win for Team Trump. I think it's a win for ByteDance. But remember now, we just hit them today, Bill, with 54% tariffs. So there may be a conversation that has to occur before Xi and Trump. I thought this deal would get approved by China. Now I'm not so sure.

But if you and I were to do the math on these, you can kind of make those numbers whatever you want to make them. Correct. And so, you know, if I had to go through this, the tariffs largely break down into, let's call it three or four big buckets, right? There's the auto tariffs. That's largely on Mexico, Canada, and Germany. And the auto tariffs were imposed at 25%.

But if you and I were to do the math on these, you can kind of make those numbers whatever you want to make them. Correct. And so, you know, if I had to go through this, the tariffs largely break down into, let's call it three or four big buckets, right? There's the auto tariffs. That's largely on Mexico, Canada, and Germany. And the auto tariffs were imposed at 25%.

Exactly. So just because we announce a deal, if we do hear a deal announced over the course of the next few days or over the next week, doesn't mean that it's a done deal. But I'll leave on an optimistic note.

Exactly. So just because we announce a deal, if we do hear a deal announced over the course of the next few days or over the next week, doesn't mean that it's a done deal. But I'll leave on an optimistic note.

I think that the president wants to do a deal with Xi. I don't believe we're going to have 54 percent tariffs against China. We have two. It's too important. to the rest of the world, that we can cooperate with China on things like ending the war in the Ukraine, things in the Middle East. Yes, there is a great competitive struggle between the two countries.

I think that the president wants to do a deal with Xi. I don't believe we're going to have 54 percent tariffs against China. We have two. It's too important. to the rest of the world, that we can cooperate with China on things like ending the war in the Ukraine, things in the Middle East. Yes, there is a great competitive struggle between the two countries.

But I think that ultimately, the president will cut a deal. He said that he likes Xi, invited him to the inauguration. And as we know, he's a dealmaker. And now we've got the everything from the Panama Canal to negotiate over, to TikTok, to all the other trade deals between the two countries.

But I think that ultimately, the president will cut a deal. He said that he likes Xi, invited him to the inauguration. And as we know, he's a dealmaker. And now we've got the everything from the Panama Canal to negotiate over, to TikTok, to all the other trade deals between the two countries.

So I suspect that when we get back to what really came out of Liberation Day and what really matters, I think the most important thing that matters is U.S.-China bilateral trade relations. And I think that's going to really dictate the direction of global growth and the direction of U.S. and China economic growth over the course of the next few years.

So I suspect that when we get back to what really came out of Liberation Day and what really matters, I think the most important thing that matters is U.S.-China bilateral trade relations. And I think that's going to really dictate the direction of global growth and the direction of U.S. and China economic growth over the course of the next few years.

Take care. As a reminder to everybody, just our opinions, not investment advice.

Take care. As a reminder to everybody, just our opinions, not investment advice.

This, you know, in fact, he had 20 members of the UAW union. Worth noting. In the front row at the event, he invited, I think, the president of the UAW up on stage to make some comments. And he said, these people used to be Democrats. They're Republicans now. We're the only ones who fight for them. And by the way, this is really – he said, we won the state of Michigan because of this.

This, you know, in fact, he had 20 members of the UAW union. Worth noting. In the front row at the event, he invited, I think, the president of the UAW up on stage to make some comments. And he said, these people used to be Democrats. They're Republicans now. We're the only ones who fight for them. And by the way, this is really – he said, we won the state of Michigan because of this.

That was an incredible final few minutes. Explain it. Take us through the final few minutes.

That was an incredible final few minutes. Explain it. Take us through the final few minutes.

This is what I campaigned on. These are the promises we made, and we're delivering on the promises. It is striking to me that just politically, this is what Democrats were running on 20 years ago, and it just shows how much the political parties have changed. So this is a big tariff differential as it relates to autos.

This is what I campaigned on. These are the promises we made, and we're delivering on the promises. It is striking to me that just politically, this is what Democrats were running on 20 years ago, and it just shows how much the political parties have changed. So this is a big tariff differential as it relates to autos.

Then he had the reciprocal tariffs, which are the ones that I outlined here, Bill. Remember, Trump is the negotiator-in-chief. This is the starting point. All these tariffs go into place, and we'll put these charts up on April 9th, country by country.

Then he had the reciprocal tariffs, which are the ones that I outlined here, Bill. Remember, Trump is the negotiator-in-chief. This is the starting point. All these tariffs go into place, and we'll put these charts up on April 9th, country by country.

And so we're going to hear all these ad hoc negotiations going on, some of which I'm sure, like Vietnam, he'll declare victory on even before we get to April 9th, because they've already capitulated on a bunch of tariffs. He's also declared that there are $6 trillion of new investments that people have committed to in the United States.

And so we're going to hear all these ad hoc negotiations going on, some of which I'm sure, like Vietnam, he'll declare victory on even before we get to April 9th, because they've already capitulated on a bunch of tariffs. He's also declared that there are $6 trillion of new investments that people have committed to in the United States.

He mentioned NVIDIA, Apple, TSMC, SoftBank, OpenAI in his remarks. In fact, I particularly noted when he talked about SoftBank and OpenAI, he said, great companies. So for the people who are watching the battle between OpenAI and X, that was notable. And then he said, we're going to have a minimum tariff of 10% on all countries.

He mentioned NVIDIA, Apple, TSMC, SoftBank, OpenAI in his remarks. In fact, I particularly noted when he talked about SoftBank and OpenAI, he said, great companies. So for the people who are watching the battle between OpenAI and X, that was notable. And then he said, we're going to have a minimum tariff of 10% on all countries.

So even if you're not on this list, we're going to have a minimum tariff of 10% on all countries. And then, of course, China is kind of in this bucket on its own, right? That's going to be a huge negotiation on its own. There are a lot of things that go into that negotiation, everything from the Panama Canal to the TikTok stuff. So set that aside, if you will, for a second.

So even if you're not on this list, we're going to have a minimum tariff of 10% on all countries. And then, of course, China is kind of in this bucket on its own, right? That's going to be a huge negotiation on its own. There are a lot of things that go into that negotiation, everything from the Panama Canal to the TikTok stuff. So set that aside, if you will, for a second.

There's no way that lands, I think, at 54%. That's the headline tariffs, okay? When we do the math and we add all of these up and say, what does this come up with, okay? The headline is we were at $77 billion last year, and we end up at about $750 billion. Remember, Peter Navarro, the hawk, the person who had been saying we're going to land big tariffs, he was estimating $600 billion.

There's no way that lands, I think, at 54%. That's the headline tariffs, okay? When we do the math and we add all of these up and say, what does this come up with, okay? The headline is we were at $77 billion last year, and we end up at about $750 billion. Remember, Peter Navarro, the hawk, the person who had been saying we're going to land big tariffs, he was estimating $600 billion.

So this definitely landed on the larger side. But then they came out right after that, and there was a footnote about things that were exempted from the tariffs. Exemptions. exemptions, which included pharmaceuticals, and notably for you and I, semiconductors. Wow. Right? So Taiwan's got a 32% tariff, but semiconductors are exempted.

So this definitely landed on the larger side. But then they came out right after that, and there was a footnote about things that were exempted from the tariffs. Exemptions. exemptions, which included pharmaceuticals, and notably for you and I, semiconductors. Wow. Right? So Taiwan's got a 32% tariff, but semiconductors are exempted.

And so we're going through the value of those exemptions right now. My hunch is that this is going to land right around $600 billion. But Bill, I have to ask you, you know, Here we are, you and I, we're trying to make our way through this, make sense out of it. I don't think there are many CEOs we know who support this or like this.

And so we're going through the value of those exemptions right now. My hunch is that this is going to land right around $600 billion. But Bill, I have to ask you, you know, Here we are, you and I, we're trying to make our way through this, make sense out of it. I don't think there are many CEOs we know who support this or like this.

In fact, I think a lot of congressional Republicans don't like this. You've made an eloquent defense of, you know, the benefits of free and largely fair trade. When you start hearing things like this, like, okay, this category got exemption, you know, or this category got exempted, like, just give me your reaction.

In fact, I think a lot of congressional Republicans don't like this. You've made an eloquent defense of, you know, the benefits of free and largely fair trade. When you start hearing things like this, like, okay, this category got exemption, you know, or this category got exempted, like, just give me your reaction.

As somebody who I think totally understands the benefits of free trade, when you see the Republican Party doing this, how does it make you feel?

As somebody who I think totally understands the benefits of free trade, when you see the Republican Party doing this, how does it make you feel?

I think it's so well stated. You and I have said markets and business abhors uncertainty. It can deal with almost anything, but it has to have predictability so it can build a forecast, so it can look at an investment and say, is that NPV positive? And I was literally texting with some big CEOs during the president's announcement, and they are asking questions. Do you see us exempted?

I think it's so well stated. You and I have said markets and business abhors uncertainty. It can deal with almost anything, but it has to have predictability so it can build a forecast, so it can look at an investment and say, is that NPV positive? And I was literally texting with some big CEOs during the president's announcement, and they are asking questions. Do you see us exempted?

Are we in there? And this is just amazing to me, right, that you have this level of uncertainty. You know, I was with those 100 CEOs in Montana last week, and I would say almost 201, they said things are slowing down in February and March because nobody knows what to do. And remember, you know, the Fed had just come out.

Are we in there? And this is just amazing to me, right, that you have this level of uncertainty. You know, I was with those 100 CEOs in Montana last week, and I would say almost 201, they said things are slowing down in February and March because nobody knows what to do. And remember, you know, the Fed had just come out.

last week had taken down their forecast for GDP growth, had taken up their forecast for inflation, had taken up their forecast for unemployment by the end of the year. So the economy, you know, most major economists are increasing their probability of recession. are slowing the rate of growth. And the question today was, was Liberation Day a clearing event? Does everybody have clarity now?

last week had taken down their forecast for GDP growth, had taken up their forecast for inflation, had taken up their forecast for unemployment by the end of the year. So the economy, you know, most major economists are increasing their probability of recession. are slowing the rate of growth. And the question today was, was Liberation Day a clearing event? Does everybody have clarity now?

And I think your point you make is a great one. Even though they may have gotten an exemption or they may not have an exemption, the question is, can I count on this? And how long can I count on this? And can I really plan a year out based upon this? Or is this going to change yet again over the course of the year? And so...

And I think your point you make is a great one. Even though they may have gotten an exemption or they may not have an exemption, the question is, can I count on this? And how long can I count on this? And can I really plan a year out based upon this? Or is this going to change yet again over the course of the year? And so...

Let me tell you two other cascading effects. I heard from one of the CEOs last week that four contracts with him had actually been canceled, right? Because they had like three European contracts canceled and one Asian contract canceled because the countries were so upset with America that they're going to do deals instead with European companies or whatever the case may be.

Let me tell you two other cascading effects. I heard from one of the CEOs last week that four contracts with him had actually been canceled, right? Because they had like three European contracts canceled and one Asian contract canceled because the countries were so upset with America that they're going to do deals instead with European companies or whatever the case may be.

And then I saw a couple of tweets, Bill. One was that China and Korea and Japan were actually going to collaborate in a response to the US tariffs. And somebody said, we haven't seen the Koreans and the Japanese and the Chinese combined forces on anything since the Mongols caused them to get together. And so it is causing a lot of strange bedfellows. And I sent you,

And then I saw a couple of tweets, Bill. One was that China and Korea and Japan were actually going to collaborate in a response to the US tariffs. And somebody said, we haven't seen the Koreans and the Japanese and the Chinese combined forces on anything since the Mongols caused them to get together. And so it is causing a lot of strange bedfellows. And I sent you,

The tweet where the Europeans, the president of Europe, the president Macron, they're all going to China and they want to talk about closer trade relationships with China. And you warned us about this.

The tweet where the Europeans, the president of Europe, the president Macron, they're all going to China and they want to talk about closer trade relationships with China. And you warned us about this.

Let me just maybe opine on that for a second. Like, where do I think we go from here? After hours with the NASDAQ down, peak to trough post-Trump at almost 18%, right? That's down a lot. A lot of names in the NASDAQ are down 40% or 50%. So we're starting to get some of that fear into the market. Somebody asked, and I said, at its very root, I do believe the president wants to do deals.

He believes in fairer trade. I think we're going to land the plane here closer to $300 or $400 billion in tariffs, not $600 or $700, and certainly not a trillion in tariffs, even though it feels today like it was bigger than that. And one of the things I think that's going to kind of force the president's hand, he talked at the press conference. He had a bunch of senators there and House members.

The senators and House members are hearing from their constituent CEOs that they don't like these tariffs. And remember, most important to the president, he wants to get this reconciliation package passed, which he calls a big, beautiful bill. He wants to get this thing passed, which puts in place no taxes on tips and the permanency of the tax cuts, which he passed in his first administration.

He can't afford to lose a single Republican vote. And so I think that that also is going to guide them a little bit more to the center. And that's what, you know, we'll see whether the market believes that. Certainly didn't believe it after hours today. We're going to get a little bit more positive on the companies we like the best because we think some of this fear is now getting priced in.

Yeah, I think we're still in the fog of war, certainly. But I will be looking at, do these exemptions on things like semiconductors and pharmaceuticals hold? Are we seeing the country-by-country renegotiation on some of these things? And probably most importantly, Bill, it's really about China. China is the second largest economic power in the world.

It scares me how big the tariffs are that we are suggesting are going to go in place on China. And I think it's imminent that he and Xi are going to have to talk and get a big trade deal done. And so those are the things I'm going to be watching for. I don't think I see any clearing event here for at least another 30 to 60 days. But remember...

The best opportunities to buy something are when people are a little fearful. So you may have to just take a bit of a leap of faith on this one if you want to purchase at the best prices.

You know, another thing that we heard a lot about this week, Bill, speaking of China, is, you know, some developments in Chinese open source and some developments on the US open source front, particularly with respect to these frontier models.

You have a lot of, I think, understanding about kind of the history in China around open sources, around the history in the United States around open source. So help us unpack, if you will, What do you think strategically is going on in China with respect to these open source models? I've seen some people tweet that maybe that DeepSeek was forced into open source by Xi.

Do you think that's going on or is there something else going on here?

It's going to be a heck of a weekend, and maybe if a certain couple teams end up in the championship game, I'll sneak in there on Monday night.

So let me just double click on that. So basically what you're saying is they may have been fearful that they would have been cut off from other type of software products in the United States. Like, you know, there might have been export controls or other things put on them. So they said, I may as well support Linux because I may not be able to get Windows.

But I think it's important because that lays the foundation, right? If that's a foundational belief among Chinese entrepreneurs and Chinese companies, then it's understandable that this new generation of entrepreneurs might also see the advantages of open source.

Speaking of a lot of good stuff happening, I think there are some people in the world that think a lot of not so great stuff is happening based upon market reaction to the president's announcements of these tariffs. So why don't we kick it off talking about Liberation Day?

You're saying Washington may intervene to take action because there are people perhaps lobbying against or other concerns that Washington may have about open source Chinese models being used by American.

Well, listen, we've talked here, and Sam has been dropping the breadcrumbs on Twitter that they wanted to launch an open source model. They've been GPU constrained. They've been bandwidth constrained. But he got the announcement out this week, which I was thrilled with. where he said, you know, we're excited to release a powerful new open weight language model with reasoning in the coming months.

And we want to talk to devs. So he's inviting all these developers to participate and give feedback. He said, we want to make it a very, very good model. We're planning to release an open weight language model, one of our first since GPT-2. And he says, we've been thinking about this for a long time.

And the interesting thing is somebody in the replies I saw, somebody said, are you going to make people buy licenses if they get a lot of users like Meta is doing with Lama? And he kind of takes a jab at Meta. And he says, no, we're not going to.

Yes, he said no. He says no, which indicates maybe we're going to out open Lama. So that's on the one hand, you know, kind of open AI.

Yeah, no, which I think is notable. Because remember, at the end of this month, we have Llamacon, which is the developer event for LLAMA. It's a big deal for Meta. The launch of LLAMA 4 has been rumored for a long time. And in fact, I think there are just a lot of people who are surprised they haven't released it. But it seems to everybody they're going to have to release it ahead of LLAMACON.

What I'm hearing, Bill, is that it'll be a 400 billion parameter model. It'll be a mixture of expert model using 50, 60, 70 experts. It's going to have huge context window, like 10 million context window, and it's going to launch this month. I think it's terrific that OpenAI has now fully committed.

Everybody on the team, Brockman, Kevin, et cetera, were all retweeting this, fully committed, and maybe even suggesting that this is going to be a more capable model and even more open. I think it's good that we have competition in the U.S. And when it comes to the administration and what Washington, D.C.

is going to do, my best sense is they do not want to see a Huawei DeepSeek Belt and Road either with chips or with open source models. They do not want to see the world run on DeepSeek on Huawei 910 chips. And so, you know, this gets back to the AI diffusion bill and how we're going to restrict these things. I think they would love to see the world continue to run on, you know, U.S. compute, U.S.

silicon, and they would love to see Lama and perhaps OpenAI's open source model around the world. They know it has a lot of distribution. So I think this was a really positive step forward on that.

Yeah, I think it makes sense on a bunch of fronts. On the first front, I think they want developers to develop on their platform and build applications for open AI. And so this brings them into the ecosystem. Number two, I think that they fundamentally have a view that they want to build... You know, they want to build products and applications that move humanity forward with AI.

And this is another way to do it at scale. You know, Sam has said publicly now, I've heard him several times, say that he thinks that models are commoditizing, they're anti-commodity. into the game. You know, they will continue to push the frontier.

So he thinks they'll have the best models, but that general intelligence, you know, that average level of intelligence is we already see is going to be widely distributed and that the battleground bill is really going to be fought around products and services. And I wouldn't say that they view themselves as an exclusively a consumer company, but

But clearly, ChatGPT is a major thrust, a major focus of the business. It's the market-leading consumer application, probably has 80% to 90% market share. I think network effects are kicking in and other things. But I also think their enterprise business is, if not the biggest, one of the biggest and also growing at the fastest rate. Because remember, the consumerization of the enterprise, right?

One of the fascinating things that's happening in the enterprise is these are all users of ChatGPT. So when the CEO shows up in the boardroom and somebody says, yeah, we're looking at bringing AI into the company and we're looking at ChatGPT enterprise, it's an easy yes. It reminds me of when every CEO said, hey, get me an iPhone in the enterprise.

it was pretty clear to me and you, we were talking about it in early Feb, this was doctrinal. There was a philosophical belief around trade that they wanted to create a more fair and level playing field. And the real debate has been going on is like, how big? And there are a couple of different camps.

And they were on BlackBerry and they all switched to iPhones because they loved using them at home. I think the natural thing for them to do. So it's not to say... Enterprise is going to be a battle. It's not going to be winner-take-all, but I think these guys do have their eyes squarely set on building a big enterprise business.

Well, one of the things you pinged me on this week was the investment round around OpenAI. And I'm happy to share what I can share. Tell us what happened.

Yeah, well, I mean, they announced the long-rumored investment that was led by SoftBank, which many people described in the headline as a $40 billion investment round. I think if you read the breakdown of it, it comes in a couple tranches, the first tranche being closer to $10 billion, the second tranche being closer to $30 billion. And it's an extraordinary amount of money.

It's bigger than I think the largest IPO sans maybe one or two that has ever been done. I've often described these as private IPOs. Altimeter participated along with several others who were reported. And the valuation was like 260 pre, which would make it, if all the money were to come in, a 300 post valuation. And so it certainly got a lot of attention this week.

And, you know, you asked me the question, I think, Bill, just around kind of valuation, right? How did we think about valuation? The first thing I would say is market leaders never look cheap.

When I invested in Google in 2005, when I invested in, you know, Meta, when the IPO broke and we looked at those late stage private rounds, I certainly remember the Microsoft round in a Meta at $15 billion that was roundly criticized as being incredibly expensive. None of these things, you're certainly not going to buy a market leader on the cheap.

But if you really look at this, I think that they've said publicly they expect their revenues this year to be around $13 billion, right? To do $13 billion in revenue, it probably means you have to exit the year closer to $15 to $18 billion in run rate revenue. So as I look at this on a forward run rate for this year, you're paying something like, you know, 20 times revenue for the business, okay?

Now, we also had a couple other announcements this week. There's the Anthropic funding round, and there's talk that they're doing a billion to $2 billion in revenue, a $60 billion funding round. So that, to me, looks like something like 50 times revenue. So again, you've got OpenAI at 20 times, Anthropic at 50 times. And then we had the merger of X and X.AI. Correct.

And so JP Morgan had this great event in Montana last week, 100 tech CEOs, but they had Howard Lutnick, Elon Sachs, Doug Bergeron, all talking about you know, various aspects of this. And they asked me to do a little bit of a presentation on decoding the Trump economic agenda. And really, it boils down to this, Bill.

which are rumored to have around, let's call it 3 billion in revenue. And the combined market cap there is like 125 billion. So that looks like closer to 80 times revenue. So the market leader here, which usually trades at a premium, not at a discount, To me, again, we can argue about the sustainability and could somebody disrupt them? And is 20 times a good valuation in this environment?

And yeah, but aren't they spending a lot of money on compute? And is it really high value revenue? But apples for apples relative to their peers, it certainly appears to me like 20 versus 50 versus 80. It's hard to say that this would be more expensive on a multiple basis than Anthropic or X.ai.

You know, at the top, I think that all the CEOs in the room are pretty excited about the golden age that people have been talking about, you know, a pro-growth administration, pro-business, pro-investment, lower taxes, less regulation, pro-M&A. We've seen this M&A flywheel starting to kick up, this AI super cycle. But everybody's been pretty terrified about these tariffs.

Right. Listen, I think the analogy is a fair one, Bill. And obviously, Masa was involved in the Uber-Lyft battle. So it's an easy one, particularly with his involvement here, to say you've referred to it before as weapons of economic destruction, all of this capital. But I would remind you, there was a moment in time in 2020 where the headlines were that Uber would never be profitable.

It was a failed business model. It will never make money. And here's a business that's going to do $6 billion in free cash flow this year. No doubt. Right? No doubt. And so the winner does take all. The winner does take most. I will tell you, as a shareholder, I speak with the leadership of the company all the time about unit economics.

Obviously, if I'm investing in the business, I feel confident in their leadership around unit economics. One of the things that I think is really important here is just what's happening in the business. right? Sam tweeted this week, they added a million chat GPT users in an hour, in an hour, that they crossed 20 million subscribers, paying subscribers for chat GPT.

They crossed 500 million weekly average users of chat GPT. In fact, they're going so gangbusters, they're throttling all their demand. In fact, I don't know if you saw David Sachs' tweet where he said America's leading AI companies are all reporting that demand is off the charts, so much so that they're being forced to impose rate limits.

And he said, fortunately, we have massive new infrastructure projects coming online, which gets me to the point of why are they raising so much money? And you and I are talking about taking the pod down to Abilene, Texas, to see Stargate, to Denton, Texas, to see the CoreWeave facility that they're standing up for OpenAI.

And the fact of the matter is, I think that they need to bring on a massive amount of compute just to support the demand they currently have. I can tell you, when you look at the product pipeline for OpenAI... Right. Whether it's, you know, there are two or three models they already have completed on the shelf. There's a lot of agent stuff that they want to do that's on the shelf.

I think there's a lot of stuff they want to do around pricing, but they can't do these things today and open source. with their current level of GPU demand. And, you know, Sam went online and said, if anybody has a cluster of 100,000 GPUs, you know, send me a DM. And, you know, you may say it's promotional and hyperbole, but the round was already raised.

Yeah, it's true. I actually think, in this case, it's true. I know they were pulling a lot of things offline just to support the demand. Now, the irony is, what was this demand coming from? And the demand... Because we didn't mention Gemini 2.5 that happened to release in this last week.

And the real question going into today, Liberation Day, was were tariffs going to land closer to the $600 billion, trillion-dollar tariff level that Peter Navarro had been talking about and Howard Lutnick had been talking about, or maybe at a little bit lower end of the spectrum, which we heard a little bit more from Scott Bessent and Kevin Hassett. And I think everybody was holding their breath.

And part of the reason we didn't mention it is because literally on the day that they launch it, OpenAI launches this upgrade to Imogen where people are making all these anime photos of themselves that literally blew up, like demand for a billion anime photos a day from the United States all the way to India worldwide. And they can't support it.

And some people may say, oh, well, this is an example of how dumb AI is. People are using it to make anime photos. But I would point them to Chris Dixon's blog that he wrote some time ago where he says, listen, the next big thing will first appear as a toy. Right.

And there are a lot of things that we do for entertainment, a lot of things that, you know, we know that OpenAI and ChatGPT are being used for a lot of deep research. But the fact of the matter is at least as to this one, and I'm not going to get into the other, you know, valuations for the other models, but I'd say at least as to this one. I was an early investor in Google.

I was an early investor in Meta. I saw what those early consumer products looked like, what those demand curves looked like, what that cohort retention looked like. And I would just say to you that, you know, what I see out of ChatGPT, reminds me a lot of kind of those winner-take-all consumer applications. They're not infallible. It's not that they can't be assaulted.

Grok has been a great model launched by Elon. But I think they really do have a big moat. And I think the network effects are kicking in. And I think that not only are they order of magnitude bigger, but they're also growing a lot faster. And so... you know, I think that the consumer business here will ultimately be valuable, but to your point, the unit economics can be crap along the way.

And it's up to the company to launch the things like advertising pace, uh, you know, different pricing tiers, et cetera, that, uh, you know, bring all of those things.

Yeah, I mean, honestly, I think that right now we probably, you know, we're throttling chat GPT. So when you bring on more compute, all those numbers would be higher, right, if you just have more compute. Secondly, I think most of chat GPT users are using a model that's like a year old. right?

Because they haven't been able to upgrade the models because I don't think they can support the things they want to do in the upgraded models from a GPU perspective. So my suspicion is when they're able to do that, that they're going to have a lot more flexibility around things like pricing tiers.

Sam has said he doesn't particularly like advertising, but at some point they will obviously have something that they think is beneficial to consumers that will be around that. If you look at If I say to Operator, book me the Four Seasons Hotel in New York next Tuesday, and it does that for me, which I think they're getting a lot closer to. You and I have this back and forth on that.

But let's just stipulate that even you believe at some point they're going to get there. And if we're driving that kind of value for users, either user will pay or the end merchant will pay. I think there are all sorts of business models that will evolve around that. So my hunch is you're going to see a mixture of advertising. You're going to see a lot of different pricing tiers.

Well, we got the answer. We got the answer today. And so I was framing that at the JP Morgan conference. I showed this slide you'll get a kick out of. I ended the presentation with two planes coming in for landing. They both actually land, believe it or not. But it's like the glide path that we land here with tariffs and budget cuts matter a lot. And so, you know, we got the news tonight.

You're going to see models. I don't think we're going to have this You know, this long menu of model choices that forces the consumer to understand the difference between 04 Mini and 03 and 01 and, you know, all these different models.

I think you're just going to have a smart model, CHAT GPT-5 or CHAT GPT-6 that may be coming sooner rather than later that's just going to make those choices for you.

Well, let's click on that for a second. We have our friend Glenn Fogle who runs Booking.com, an incredible CEO. They've been an incredible business. And they're one of the largest advertisers, have historically been one of the largest advertisers on Google. I think it's been reported that Google generates – It's one of their largest advertising categories in the world.

And we're back. Bill, great to see you.

It's travel, hotels specifically. Booking is one of their largest global advertisers. So you sell a $100 hotel room and you take $20, right? Youbooking.com. Let's call it take 18 to 20 bucks. And then you pay a portion of that to Google, maybe half of it, maybe more than half of it.

right or or whatever you know it's a it's a so so there's no doubt there's competition coming to that um you know google's traded down from 200 to 150 and change and and you know they see that disruption coming their way the irony here right is we we still have you know this antitrust investigation with with google i always i always get a you know a laugh out of the fact that

Finally, in 2025, the first time we've actually had competition for Google, like very clear that competition is coming to all those categories. And now we get around to talking about breaking up their search monopoly. I mean, it's ridiculous. I don't think that's I think that's the last of our problems. But I do think we're going to see business model evolution around these different categories.

So let's just say, Bill, that it settles out at 10 bucks. Hotels are clearly willing to give $20. Let's say it settles out at $10. Well, hell, that's all upside for OpenAI.

You're right. We just listened to the president talk. You know, and he came in on the larger end of this. I mean, there's no other way to slice it. There was a headline that hit right after the market closed from the Wall Street Journal, I believe, that it was 10% across the board. And the markets jumped up like 2.5%. And then as the presentation started unfolding, they started coming in.

Well, the tectonic plates, as I've said, as we've said for now two years, this is the first time they've shifted in this magnitude in 20 years. This is a 20-year event. For 20 years, the search paradigm ruled everything in consumer internet, and Google stood at the top of that mountain. And it took something, it took an AI-level shift.

It took ChatGPT moment and them getting to the scale of maybe a billion monthlies and 500 million weeklies to even lead to this conversation. But things happen very slowly, Bill, as we know, and then they happen very fast. And I think that's your point.

That's great. As you know, we're shareholders in CoreWeave. Since a couple rounds ago, we were one of the largest buyers in the IPO, and we're happy we did. I have to say, on Friday, I was pretty damn nervous, Bill. It broke the offering price, went down to about $37 a share.

I think today they had some announcements of this deal with Google where they're going to provide NVIDIA-graced Blackwells through CoreWeave. So Google's going to be buying a bunch of NVIDIA chips through CoreWeave. And one of the big criticisms of this company was they were too dependent upon Microsoft. But now they've diversified.

They have Microsoft, Meta, now Google, OpenAI, NVIDIA, Cohere, Mistral. And so I think they've really emerged as the leading AI kind of cloud. And the stock in the last couple of days, despite the fact they took it public last Friday. I mean, talk about taking a company public into a category five hurricane. I mean, we had...

I mean, you have to be pretty stoked coming off those wins last weekend in San Francisco.

We had like Liberation Day staring us in the face and they had to fly into that. And as you pointed out, it wasn't the least controversial of IPOs, but I have to give credit to Mike Intrator and his team. And listen, I'm here in Silicon Valley. They started this company five years ago. It's worth over $30 billion today.

It's played a really important role in standing up OpenAI and a lot of the leading AI labs. And I just think that's a good thing for all of us. But it's also fair to ask the questions that you've asked around kind of the durability, if you will, about CoreWeave and the revenue.

People saw this chart that they presented on reciprocal tariffs, right, where they say tariffs on China going to 54%. Can you believe that? 34% on top of the 20% that already exists. And he starts going through this list. And the futures, the S&P futures, the NASDAQ futures start sinking. They had a 600 basis point fall. between where they initially jumped and where they ended up.

Well, you know, somebody else I should mention is Morgan Stanley. I mean, they took a lot of heat last Friday, you know, on this deal. Why are you bringing it now? You know, the stock went below 40. CNBC was roundly critical of, you know, of the company, you know, and of Morgan Stanley. And the stock's at $60 or whatever it ended today at. And so, again... You know, we feel good as shareholders.

I feel good for the people involved in the company. Obviously, there are still questions, you know, that remain about the business. You mentioned depreciation.

The one thing I tell you about the depreciation argument as it relates to this company is, you know, a lot of people push on, you know, there's a statement by Jensen at GTC that, you know, hoppers may not have value because Grace Blackwell is so much better.

My view on this is like, listen, because we've got to square this circle. We have the SACS tweet. We know the inference demand is off the charts. Everybody is demonstrating their need for more GPUs to run inference. Everything in the world is becoming inference. We've talked about that at length. And so my view is this. When you talk about two years for GPUs,

They're going to—cutting-edge GPUs are going to be used for cutting-edge training for the, you know, frontier models in that first two-year period. But all these things are going to continue to get used for inference.

And the right way to think about CoreWeave, you know, and, you know, I think the consensus margins for this business are like 25% EBIT, you know, over the course of the next couple of years. How do they get there? You know, so think about their unit economics bill. you know, their CapEx, their OpEx. So they got to get a data center. They got to pay for all their operating expenses.

Then they got to buy the servers. So the way this works, I think, is they sell a four-year deal to Microsoft or a four or five-year deal to OpenAI or four-year deal to Google or whatever. They expect to pay back all the CapEx, OpEx, and GPUs in three years. And so the fourth year, which is a four-year guaranteed contract, the fourth year is your profit margin, right?

So the market is not liking this at all. And depending what index you were looking at, we were already down 8% to 15% on the year. Now, whatever comes in tomorrow will be on top of that. So that's the chart. That's kind of the initial reaction out of the market. We can break them down a little bit if you want. But that was the initial reaction.

And then anything you earn past the four years, that's all gravy on top. And the consensus earnings are not giving them any credit for anything after the end of those contract periods. Now, what I'll tell you is, and we've done a lot of research on this, There's still a lot of A100s in use in the world today. In fact, Jensen has talked at length about that. That's a 2020 product.

So we're in the fifth year and A100s are still out there being used by almost everyone that bought A100s. And then if you look at it, I think Jensen at GTC said last year that that OpenAI had just retired the V100s. That was a 2017 GPU. So that's like a seven-year lifecycle that they were using those for.

And so I think that we have a lot of comfort that at a minimum, people are going to be using these things for four years, a couple of years for training, a couple of years for inference. I've yet to hear of anybody throwing away any GPU because it doesn't have value. Remember the way CUDA works. The software that runs these GPUs, it constantly gets upgraded. It's like my Tesla, right?

I had an old Tesla Model S, like seven years old, but it felt like a new car because my software got updated all the time. And frankly, it still got me to the places I needed to get to. It wasn't as good as the new model I bought in December with full FSD and everything else, but it didn't feel like a really old car because the software was constantly updating.

I kind of think of that the same way for these GPUs. The GPUs are getting better every year, even though the hardware remains the same. So I'm not nearly as worried about that depreciation schedule. It seems to be a, you know, a big hit on the company and lots of people are talking about it, but they're out the door and, you know, you know, kudos to them on this big new deal today.

And the answer may lie somewhere in between. And like I said, I don't think they need it to be more than four in order to achieve the margins that they have. But they're also, to your point, it's a highly levered business. They got to de-lever the business. So there's a lot of things in play here with CoreWeave. That's why, again, if you look at the multiples it's trading at,

Well, I don't know what they are today, but the multiples that came public were not overly taxing from our perspective. But there's a lot of headwind for all these AI companies. I mean, you have NVIDIA trading at 19 times fully taxed earnings.

And so, you know, there's a lot of skepticism in the world, notwithstanding all the stuff we hear about demand, a lot of skepticism in the world about AI demand.

Well, I kind of thought that maybe you thought this was a perfect IPO because it ended day one at precisely $40, which was the offering price.

Well, I mean, listen, there's a lot of rumors swirling, which not surprisingly, this deal is set to expire or need to be extended by April 5th under the terms of the first congressional extension that was made by Trump. They've made very clear that there are a lot of buyers for the TikTok asset bill and that the president has— wants to put together a deal.

And of course, we have all these tariffs going on on China. And so I'm sure this will end up as part of a big trade negotiation as it pertains to China. But as you know, just for everybody, we're shareholders. I've been a shareholder in this company since 2015, one of the earliest venture capital rounds in ByteDance, the parent company which owns TikTok.

And for the last two years, I've agreed largely with Elon and Sachs and others that we should engage with China. We shouldn't just shut down TikTok. We should make TikTok abide by the rules and regulations, right, that we have in this country. And that's what this whole legislative unwind was about, you know, the for sale of spin out TikTok U.S. So here's what I'm hearing.

I'm hearing that there will be a new company stood up, you know, and I'm not privy to any information. I'm not party to these negotiations, but I'm, you know, let's call it TikTok U.S., And that TikTok US will be partly owned by ByteDance. But I think they have to keep that ownership threshold under 20%. So let's call it 19.5% owned by ByteDance.

That it will be owned partially by just the existing shareholders. Remember, the shareholders in ByteDance, 60% of those are US investors like Altimeter. So that we'll get our shares in TikTok US. And then 50% of it or thereabouts will be new investors. So think, folks, like some of the rumors I've seen, Amazon, Andreessen, Oracle, et cetera.

And these are investors who are not currently in the cap table yet. of ByteDance. So Altimeter or Co2, we're currently in the cap table of ByteDance. So we're not going to be part of the new investor syndicate, or at least that's my understanding. So imagine they stand that up and then the question- And where would that money go, Brad? So the money would go into this new co, right?

So the new co would be capitalized with this new money. It would have a new board.

No, that's my understanding, that it would go into NUCO, that NUCO would get a license to the algorithm, and it would be up to NUCO to audit that, to audit the data. Because remember, that's the whole point here, Bill. We want to have some control over the algorithm and the data, so it makes sense that Oracle would be involved in that.

Because remember, TikTok runs on the Oracle Cloud down in Texas. I think a logical question is, okay, what's the so what here? And I'm hearing that the valuation for TikTok US could be pretty low, which I would expect, right? Because remember, Trump has said, maybe we'll put this in the US sovereign wealth fund. So he's negotiating the deal. I expect that he wants to get a pretty damn good deal.

No, no, no idea. No idea.

Well, I think, remember, if we go back six months... There was a camp that said, shut it down. And there's a camp saying, or we'll just take it, right? Right.

And I think that the company's perspective, Yiming, the founder of the company, he basically said there's no way to separate the algorithm between TikTok US and TikTok rest of world because creators in the US create content that go to the rest of the world and vice versa. And so, like, if you took away all the U.S., it does so much damage, you would be better to shut down TikTok U.S.

Correct. I mean, they call them non-tariff trade barriers. This is everything from what they call currency manipulation to things like judicial actions that restrict free and fair trade of our products into their countries. And by the way, we know there are non-tariff trade barriers. So it's not totally surprising.

and just invite the U.S. creators onto the French platform or the United Kingdom version of this or the Australian version of this via a VPN or something. So I think the big change here, Bill, is this idea that U.S. TikTok... And global TikTok will continue to use the same algorithm. And it's just a license to the US TikTok would be my guess was part of that bridge or breakthrough.

I think a key thing here is like, how does Altimeter or Sequoia or other US investors? Remember, 60% of the investors in ByteDance are US investors. And the investors in places like Altimeter, they're pension funds, they're teachers, they're firefighters.

And if you think about the fair value for ByteDance, I think most people, although it only trades at, let's call it 300 billion, most people think the fair value of this is closer to a trillion dollars or certainly to 800 billion. So if you take 60% of a trillion dollars, that's 600 billion in locked up venture capital value. for all of the endowments and pension funds, et cetera, for U.S.

investors. That's more than almost every other unrealized venture gain put together, Bill, right? And so if you're able to take this company public, that turns into DPI, like hundreds of billions of dollars of DPI that goes out to the investors in these venture funds.

This company being ByteDance. But we had to get the TikTok deal done as a condition required to get ByteDance public or ByteDance out the door. And so remember, ByteDance, about 90% of ByteDance's business is not TikTok U.S.,

90% of the value of the company is things like Doyan, which is the Chinese version of TikTok, and Daobao, which is the Chinese version of ChatGPT and TikTok around the world. And so there's a huge and profitable business inside of China and in rest of world. And we're just debating this piece in the United States. Got you.

And so as a shareholder, I will tell you that whatever the dilution is caused by this, it's nominal relative to the value of the total. And what I really want to see get done is just certainty, right? Certainty for the company. I think it's good for the U.S. that TikTok will remain. My kids love it and I don't.

I'm glad we're going to make them abide by the rules and regulation. I think it's a win for Team Trump. I think it's a win for ByteDance. But remember now, we just hit them today, Bill, with 54% tariffs. So there may be a conversation that has to occur before Xi and Trump. I thought this deal would get approved by China. Now I'm not so sure.

But if you and I were to do the math on these, you can kind of make those numbers whatever you want to make them. Correct. And so, you know, if I had to go through this, the tariffs largely break down into, let's call it three or four big buckets, right? There's the auto tariffs. That's largely on Mexico, Canada, and Germany. And the auto tariffs were imposed at 25%.

Exactly. So just because we announce a deal, if we do hear a deal announced over the course of the next few days or over the next week, doesn't mean that it's a done deal. But I'll leave on an optimistic note.

I think that the president wants to do a deal with Xi. I don't believe we're going to have 54 percent tariffs against China. We have two. It's too important. to the rest of the world, that we can cooperate with China on things like ending the war in the Ukraine, things in the Middle East. Yes, there is a great competitive struggle between the two countries.

But I think that ultimately, the president will cut a deal. He said that he likes Xi, invited him to the inauguration. And as we know, he's a dealmaker. And now we've got the everything from the Panama Canal to negotiate over, to TikTok, to all the other trade deals between the two countries.

So I suspect that when we get back to what really came out of Liberation Day and what really matters, I think the most important thing that matters is U.S.-China bilateral trade relations. And I think that's going to really dictate the direction of global growth and the direction of U.S. and China economic growth over the course of the next few years.

Take care. As a reminder to everybody, just our opinions, not investment advice.

This, you know, in fact, he had 20 members of the UAW union. Worth noting. In the front row at the event, he invited, I think, the president of the UAW up on stage to make some comments. And he said, these people used to be Democrats. They're Republicans now. We're the only ones who fight for them. And by the way, this is really – he said, we won the state of Michigan because of this.

That was an incredible final few minutes. Explain it. Take us through the final few minutes.

This is what I campaigned on. These are the promises we made, and we're delivering on the promises. It is striking to me that just politically, this is what Democrats were running on 20 years ago, and it just shows how much the political parties have changed. So this is a big tariff differential as it relates to autos.

Then he had the reciprocal tariffs, which are the ones that I outlined here, Bill. Remember, Trump is the negotiator-in-chief. This is the starting point. All these tariffs go into place, and we'll put these charts up on April 9th, country by country.

And so we're going to hear all these ad hoc negotiations going on, some of which I'm sure, like Vietnam, he'll declare victory on even before we get to April 9th, because they've already capitulated on a bunch of tariffs. He's also declared that there are $6 trillion of new investments that people have committed to in the United States.

He mentioned NVIDIA, Apple, TSMC, SoftBank, OpenAI in his remarks. In fact, I particularly noted when he talked about SoftBank and OpenAI, he said, great companies. So for the people who are watching the battle between OpenAI and X, that was notable. And then he said, we're going to have a minimum tariff of 10% on all countries.

So even if you're not on this list, we're going to have a minimum tariff of 10% on all countries. And then, of course, China is kind of in this bucket on its own, right? That's going to be a huge negotiation on its own. There are a lot of things that go into that negotiation, everything from the Panama Canal to the TikTok stuff. So set that aside, if you will, for a second.

There's no way that lands, I think, at 54%. That's the headline tariffs, okay? When we do the math and we add all of these up and say, what does this come up with, okay? The headline is we were at $77 billion last year, and we end up at about $750 billion. Remember, Peter Navarro, the hawk, the person who had been saying we're going to land big tariffs, he was estimating $600 billion.

So this definitely landed on the larger side. But then they came out right after that, and there was a footnote about things that were exempted from the tariffs. Exemptions. exemptions, which included pharmaceuticals, and notably for you and I, semiconductors. Wow. Right? So Taiwan's got a 32% tariff, but semiconductors are exempted.

And so we're going through the value of those exemptions right now. My hunch is that this is going to land right around $600 billion. But Bill, I have to ask you, you know, Here we are, you and I, we're trying to make our way through this, make sense out of it. I don't think there are many CEOs we know who support this or like this.

In fact, I think a lot of congressional Republicans don't like this. You've made an eloquent defense of, you know, the benefits of free and largely fair trade. When you start hearing things like this, like, okay, this category got exemption, you know, or this category got exempted, like, just give me your reaction.

As somebody who I think totally understands the benefits of free trade, when you see the Republican Party doing this, how does it make you feel?

I think it's so well stated. You and I have said markets and business abhors uncertainty. It can deal with almost anything, but it has to have predictability so it can build a forecast, so it can look at an investment and say, is that NPV positive? And I was literally texting with some big CEOs during the president's announcement, and they are asking questions. Do you see us exempted?

Are we in there? And this is just amazing to me, right, that you have this level of uncertainty. You know, I was with those 100 CEOs in Montana last week, and I would say almost 201, they said things are slowing down in February and March because nobody knows what to do. And remember, you know, the Fed had just come out.

last week had taken down their forecast for GDP growth, had taken up their forecast for inflation, had taken up their forecast for unemployment by the end of the year. So the economy, you know, most major economists are increasing their probability of recession. are slowing the rate of growth. And the question today was, was Liberation Day a clearing event? Does everybody have clarity now?

And I think your point you make is a great one. Even though they may have gotten an exemption or they may not have an exemption, the question is, can I count on this? And how long can I count on this? And can I really plan a year out based upon this? Or is this going to change yet again over the course of the year? And so...

Let me tell you two other cascading effects. I heard from one of the CEOs last week that four contracts with him had actually been canceled, right? Because they had like three European contracts canceled and one Asian contract canceled because the countries were so upset with America that they're going to do deals instead with European companies or whatever the case may be.

And then I saw a couple of tweets, Bill. One was that China and Korea and Japan were actually going to collaborate in a response to the US tariffs. And somebody said, we haven't seen the Koreans and the Japanese and the Chinese combined forces on anything since the Mongols caused them to get together. And so it is causing a lot of strange bedfellows. And I sent you,

The tweet where the Europeans, the president of Europe, the president Macron, they're all going to China and they want to talk about closer trade relationships with China. And you warned us about this.