Replay 2025: David Sacks on AI, Crypto, and America's Technology Future
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The Europeans, I mean, they have a really different mindset for all of this stuff. When they talk about AI leadership, what they mean is that they're taking the lead in defining the regulations. You know, they get together in Brussels and figure out what all the rules should be, and that's what they call leadership.
It's almost like a game show or something. They do everything they can to strangle them in their crypt. And then if they make it through a decade of abuse in small companies, then they're going to give the money to grow.
Ron Reagan had a line about this, which is, if it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. If it stops moving, subsidize it. The Europeans are definitely at the subsidize it stage.
The biggest questions surrounding AI aren't just technical anymore. They're increasingly about policy, infrastructure, regulation, and America's ability to stay ahead in a rapidly changing technology landscape. In this conversation, David Sachs joins Mark Andreessen, Ben Horowitz, and me to discuss AI, crypto, open source models, energy, regulation, and the global competition to build the next generation of technology. They explore what it means to win the AI race, why permissionless innovation matters, and how today's policy decisions could shape the future of both AI and crypto for years to come.
David, welcome to the AsyncZ podcast. Thanks for joining. Yeah, good to be here. So David, you're the AI and crypto czar. Why don't you first talk about why it makes sense to have those as a portfolio? What do they have to do with each other? And then I'll have you lay out what's the Trump plan on those two categories and how we're doing.
Well, there are two technologies that I guess are relatively new. And so there's a lot of fear of them. And I think people don't actually know that much about them. They don't really know what to make of them. I think that from a policy standpoint, and we can talk about the similarities and differences, the approaches are a little different. I think with crypto, the main thing that's needed is regulatory certainty. All the entrepreneurs I've talked to over the years, they all say the same thing, which is just tell us what the rules are. We're happy to comply, but Washington won't tell us what they are. And in fact, during the Biden years, you had an SEC chairman who took an approach, which I guess has been called regulation through enforcement.
which basically means you just get prosecuted. They don't tell you what the rules are. You just basically get indicted. And then everyone else is supposed to divine what the rules are as you get prosecuted and fined and imprisoned. So that was the approach for several years. And as a result of that, basically, the whole crypto industry was in the process of moving offshore. And America, I think, was being deprived of this industry of the future. And so President Trump, during his campaign last year, he gave a now-famous speech in Nashville in which he declared that he would make the United States the crypto capital of the planet and that he would fire Gensler. That was like the big applause line.
I applauded him.
He's talked about how surprised he was at what a big ovation he got at that. So he said it again and the crowd erupted again. But in any event, he promised basically to provide this clarity so that the industry would understand what the rules are, be able to comply. In turn, that should provide greater protection for consumers and businesses, everyone who's part of the ecosystem. And it makes America more competitive. So I think that's the mandate on crypto is, in a way, it's pro-regulation. It's basically, we want to put in place regulations. In a way, AI is kind of the opposite, where I think the Biden administration was too heavy-handed. They were starting to really regulate this area without even understanding what it was.
No one had really taken the time to understand how AI was even being used, what the real dangers were. There was this intense fear-mongering. And as a result of that,
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