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Times Tech

21 May 2026 · 36m · 21 chapters

Episode artwork

Inside Elon Musk’s trillion dollar mission to colonise Mars

In short

The episode (Times Tech Podcast) examines Elon Musk’s “trillion-dollar empire” ahead of the SpaceX IPO and the fallout from Musk’s recent court loss against Sam Altman and OpenAI. It starts with the trial: after three weeks, a jury dismissed Musk’s $134B bid on a statute-of-limitations technicality (conflict tied to 2017–2018), without ruling on merits. Hosts argue the reputational mud and “insular” AI leadership camps (Musk, Altman, Brockman, Suskever, plus Anthropic/OpenAI dynamics) may linger. Then it details SpaceX’s origin (reusable rockets, early failures, NASA ISS contract lifeline) and current businesses: Starlink (10M+ subscribers) and launch dominance (about 80% market share), while X and xAI lose money. Key claim: investors are valuing a “Musk ecosystem” story more than current profits.

Notable examples

Starlink use in Ukraine and rural England; SpaceX launches “every two days”; valuation despite SpaceX’s large accumulated deficits and last-year losses.

Guests

Dan Ives, managing director and senior tech analyst at Wedbush Securities, long-time Musk/tech bull.

Written by AI. May contain mistakes.

Chapters

1:15

Elon Musk in the Spotlight

Discussion on recent events surrounding Elon Musk and his companies.

“So a couple of things have happened that put the spotlight on him.”
2:14

Court Case Recap

Detailed recap of the court case involving Musk and Altman.

“Securities, to talk about what all this means, what the vibes are on Wall Street, how Musk got here and why this massive valuation, you know, is raising eyebrows among some people and not among others.”
2:58

Jury Verdict Details

Insights into the jury's verdict and its implications for Musk.

4:00

Reactions and Implications

Discussion on the fallout from the court case and its impact on OpenAI.

4:53

Silicon Valley Dynamics

Exploration of gossip and reputational impacts within Silicon Valley.

6:05

Controversies and Leadership

Examination of leadership styles and controversies among tech leaders.

“You know, get$134 billion from it, remove the executives and return it to a nonprofit.”
7:36

Court Drama and Evidence

Insights into the courtroom drama and how evidence affected perceptions.

“the reputational mud slinging that's been going on will stick.”
8:29

Musk's Business Motivations

Discussion of Musk's motivations and actions in relation to OpenAI.

10:02

The SpaceX IPO Process

Overview of the upcoming SpaceX IPO and its significance.

“against and you know so you're kind of like it's all quite incestuous and it's way more incestuous than Oasis and Blur.”
12:11

History of SpaceX

A brief history of SpaceX's journey from conception to current status.

“I think you used the word launch just there.”
Show all 21 chapters
13:19

Challenges Faced by SpaceX

Discussion of the challenges Musk faced while building SpaceX.

14:00

Elon Musk's Risky Ventures

Learn about the early struggles and breakthroughs of Musk's ventures, SpaceX and Tesla.

15:20

The Multifaceted Musk Empire

Explore the diverse businesses under Musk's umbrella and their financial implications.

“And that was the thing that kind of like gave it its lifeline.”
19:39

Introducing Dan Ives

Meet Wall Street analyst Dan Ives as he shares insights on Musk's ventures.

“So if you hear anything in the background, that is why.”
20:24

Valuation vs Financials of SpaceX

Delve into the contradiction between SpaceX's valuation and its actual financials.

“The reality is that the investors, and it speaks a lot of the early investors too that I know, it's really the start of the category.”
22:44

The Excitement of the AI Revolution

Hear perspectives on the transformative impact of the AI revolution on the tech industry.

“we're replacing this, we're replacing that.”
25:43

Future of SpaceX and AI Investments

Examine the potential future landscape for SpaceX and related AI investments.

“because now it's like you that's why you're seeing the insatiable appetite because of the validation not just the valuation from the appetite, but in terms of the fundamentals.”
28:03

The AI Revolution and Investment Trends

Explore the current state and future potential of AI investments and valuations.

“but that's going to lead, like I've said, we're in year three of an eight to 10 year build out of the AI revolution.”
29:26

Fairy Tales vs. Reality in Investment

Discuss the clash between visionary tech narratives and financial realities.

“Well, and that's what's really interesting is that like, you know, I'm out here in Silicon Valley, and this place is built on fairy tales.”
30:26

Valuation Metrics and Historical Context

Analyze the implications of high valuations in tech companies and past precedents.

“like, the financial sophistication of your typical venture capitalist versus your typical Wall Street or analyst, whatever, like a VC is like a two out of 10.”
33:07

The Future of AI Companies Amid AGI

Examine the potential for tech companies to thrive with the advent of AGI.

“We digress, actually, to a listener email from Philip Long.”
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Transcript

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0:00Who won, how did they play, what was wonderful, what was woeful and why? I'm Tom Clarke and on the Game Football Podcast we answer all of that plus provide detailed analysis of the tactical trends on the pitch and the financial situations off it. I'm joined by former footballers as well as reporters and columnists from the Times and Sunday Times. We're here twice a week and for this summer's World Cup we'll bring you daily shows with our team covering every inch of the tournament. Find the game wherever you get your podcasts.

0:41Danny Fortson: hello and welcome to the times tech podcast where we unpack how technology is reshaping business culture in everyday life i am danny fortzen out here in silicon valley and i'm katie Prescott here in the city of London. And this week, it's the big one. Following one of Silicon Valley's most infamous trials, we're going to be taking a deeper look into the world's richest man and most infamous tech billionaire, Elon Musk, the man who wants to conquer earth and space and everything in between, I think. Indeed. Indeed. So a couple of things have happened that put the spotlight on him. In case you've been, you know, living under a rock you don't know, after three weeks in court a jury dismissed musk's case against sam altman and open ai and it was during this blockbuster trial that musk was also in the background making plans to get spacex onto the public markets usually when executives have a company that is about to go public they enter what is known as a quiet period but musk uh doesn't do anything that's quite you know so conventional does he yeah no i don't know that was there wasn't hasn't been much quiet about about musk in the last few weeks um the space exploit is going to be the largest in history and will make musk the first trillionaire i was just absolutely trillions and trillions how many zeros is that i don't even know um yeah so later we are going to be joined by Dan Ives, who is the managing director and senior tech analyst at investment company Wedbush Securities, to talk about what all this means, what the vibes are on Wall Street, how Musk got here and why this massive valuation, you know, is raising eyebrows among some people and not among others.

2:32Danny Fortson: And Dan, of course, has been one of the most vocal commentators on Musk and a big supporter for a number of years now. I would say Dan's eyebrows are definitely not being raised on this no like he is not he is not surprised about the valuation he is he is a big uh a big cheerleader cheerleader for the valuation first of all though please can we talk about one of my favorite stories of the year which you've been really really carefully which of course is that court case that elon musk and sam altman have been involved in last time we left this cliffhanger with you previously on the times tech podcast sam altman blubber you were waiting for the phone call from the court to say get here now the verdict is coming like bring us up to speed yes spoiler alert musk lost but like what happened yeah so as we mentioned it was three weeks of court proceedings lots of drama stories of betrayal and accusations of lying all the kind of stuff um they were all on the stand elon musk sam altman greg brockman sachie nadella every billionaire floating around every billionaire around was had their day on the stand but it had a very anticlimactic end with the jury dismissed his you know he was looking for at least 134 billion dollars it was dismissed in less than two hours unanimous verdict and really on a technicality which is like basically musk you waited too long you know statute of limitations the all of this was around kind of a conflict that broke out in 2017 2018 and they're like look you can't just like sue you know in ad infinitum whenever you feel like it whenever you feel like you've been wronged they said he just waited too long interesting so they didn't go into the details of the argument it was just like okay no and did you get there in time like i wanted a danny part in this like what happened so the end of last week they're like look the last day of evidence i believe was on thursday anyway they're like we're gonna start deliberations on monday and the way this usually works is that once we hear a verdict we'll send you an all an email blast i you all being the journalists and then usually within a half an hour you have basically a half an hour to get to the courthouse which is why we said you do not leave your phone like sit by your phone and so what did i do i left my phone no no i didn't leave my phone but i was on monday there was a big tech conference down in san jose which is about an hour from where i live and so i'm getting in my car to go back up um to berkeley and like as i get in the car it's like verdict is in and i was like and nobody expected it to happen on monday less than two hours your wife's giving birth yeah i was like now i have one of those like um magnet police sirens i put on the roof of my car

5:41Danny Fortson: anyway so i was like oh man but i knew that they you know they've been streaming this trial which has been an interesting thing so i just like set it up in my car so i was like let me just at least get on the live stream so i don't miss the verdict because i'd seen the message like eight minutes or 12 minutes after it was sent i get on there and they're already dismissing the jury oh wow i was like this has all happened just so so fast and then i heard them asking you know miss uh musk's lawyer you know i presume you want to appeal and he's like yes i want to appeal i was like oh this dude lost and lost quickly so it all happened very very fast and again the the jury like they didn't even get into the merits of the case at all which is really interesting because this is three weeks of dirty laundry being aired everybody came out kind of looking worse yeah you had all these embarrassing emails diary entries etc and then you know the at the end of this this nine-person jury's like you know you waited too long and the judge agreed and that was it they're kind of like oh and his lawyer outside the court's house he's like i've got one word appeal

6:55Danny Fortson: but i do think this has kind of taken the air out of that balloon um because you know we're talking on this today's pod about big mega trillion dollar floats open ai could go as soon as this year and this like lawsuit whose goal was to destroy the company. Yeah. You know, get$134 billion from it, remove the executives and return it to a nonprofit. The fact that that has been thrown out of court, you know, that just removes this one big uncertainty question mark that was hanging over the company. So it has big implications as far as that. I can see that. But I wonder if the damage from some of, you know, the reputational mud slinging that's been going on will stick.

7:47What's the vibe in Silicon Valley of people? I mean, because it's, you know, the gossip around this has been extraordinary.

7:52Danny Fortson: I mean, honestly, I know Sam Altman won, but I think between there's this big New Yorker piece about him and his allegedly kind of duplicitous manner. and then you have this lawsuit where he's on the stand and like you know as i think i mentioned before elon musk lawyer is like basically are you a liar so it was a little bit of a not a little bit it was a character assassination of sam altman and when you step back and you think about okay well he's going to be one of the people who are leading the development of this very influential technology. I think for people who are paying attention, and I don't know how many people are paying attention outside of, you know, tech land, I think it has left people with a certain kind of like, you know, feeling less great about the people who are leading this charge, because of course, the other person, one of the other people is Elon Musk.

8:51Danny Fortson: And we all know that he is um he has very strong and controversial views he's very erratic and he seems to be getting more so the kind of the richer and more powerful he gets very good friend of mine texted me this week and said um that open ai and anthropic reminded her of oasis and blur in the 90s yeah do you feel like that like this this and the world is dividing into two camps or a bit like take that in e17 you probably didn't go through that phase as a teenage girl no i was not a teenage girl but i do remember take that but but the other thing that reminded that that has like emerged from all this whole kind of drama partially through the court proceedings and also other stuff that's come out since it's just like how insular this group of of men yes is that are to like leading the charge on this because you have elon musk and sam altman and greg brockman and elias suskever they kind of founded this thing dario amaday comes in not long after and then leaves because he doesn't like how sam altman runs his ship he starts anthropic who's an early investor according to new reporting sir demis hasabas who runs google deep mind who they're both competing against and you know so you're kind of like it's all quite incestuous and it's way more incestuous than Oasis and Blur.

10:16Danny Fortson: Exactly. And also, the other thing that came out in the trial, which was quite extraordinary, was when Sam Altman famously got fired and rehired in those chaotic five days, in the midst of all of that, the board of OpenAI had a meeting with Dario Amadei and be like, hey, what do you think about Anthropic merging with OpenAI and you leading the new organization? And you're kind of like, whoa. it's like 10 dudes that are doing this all of it it's just quite extraordinary and are you picking up anything from you know what happened in court and how the evidence landed with the jury and you know the lawyers and people listening no no from my take like having sat through a lot of it I didn't find Musk's case that convincing because at the end of the day, he discussed in great detail the very thing that he then got angry about, which is starting up a for-profit arm of this nonprofit to raise the vast amounts of money that were going to be required.

11:26Danny Fortson: He wanted to do that. He wanted to be the CEO of that. And when he didn't get his way, he left. So then for him to be like years later, be like, hey, I funded a nonprofit. Man, that's not cool. You're like, well, you were going to fund a for-profit. They just didn't agree to your terms effectively. And then, of course, after that, he launched a direct competitor. Then you launched a competitor that is not doing nearly as well. And so you sued to destroy that competitor. It's kind of that. In that sense, it's a fairly straightforward business dispute. Well, speaking of Elon Musk and vast sums of money, he's not a man to rest on his laurels.

12:09And we've got the SpaceX IPO. I think you used the word launch just there. This is absolutely out of this world.

12:18Danny Fortson: Oh, my gosh. The puns. The puns are just flowing this morning. It's evening. Yeah. Whatever. Whatever. You know, we're a Transatlantic podcast. I mean, what a moment this is. So the float's going to happen on the 12th of June, very, very soon. Roadshow is getting underway imminently where, you know, they go and sort of sell their shares, sell their wares around the banks. And I will say, regardless of what you think of Elon Musk, the fact that SpaceX exists is an incredible story. Like, incredible. So I think it's just worth doing a two-minute history. Just remind me. yeah yeah so going back to 2002 elon musk and you know the paypal what came to be known as the paypal mafia they sold to ebay and that included peter teal right reed hoffman david sacks now the aiz are in the white house so all big big cheeses still yeah they're all billionaires now basically and elon musk made you know 100 i think he made like 180 million dollars personally from that deal and he was like he was obsessed with colonizing mars as kind of creating a like an intergalactic backup plan for earth if it all goes terribly wrong here on earth and so he's like you know i want to start a rocket company i want to make reusable rockets which would be like a huge step forward because basically every time you make a rocket previously just governments effectively were the only ones making rockets there would be one-time use and so everything is like this like artistic just so type of thing wildly expensive but if you make a reusable rocket you bring down cost dramatically you can start to kind of launch lots of stuff into space so he's launches he goes with this idea and he's like i was just an internet guy nobody would work for me because he was just a dude who had just sold paypal which is a payments company it was like uh what you're gonna start a rocket company yeah exactly you're gonna start a rocket company that no one and do it in a way that no one's ever done it before like what are you talking about so he becomes chief engineer and they start building rockets the first one blows up second one blows up third one blows up and so by the time the fourth launch comes around in 2008 they're basically have no money he's like if that launch failed spacex dies and sorry to interrupt but tesla's going at the same time correct and tesla is also struggling and also on the brink of bankruptcy he's on the brink of bankruptcy every year for the first like 15 years of its life so he's like running these two kind of like companies that are on the precipice of financial ruin and then he has this launch that actually works finally the fourth launch um because he'd run out of money And then not long after, NASA gives him like a billion and a half dollar contract to start sending stuff up to the International Space Station.

15:20Danny Fortson: And that was the thing that kind of like gave it its lifeline. And then it was off. And today, it launches like a rocket into space every two days. It's incredible. And it's like brought down launch costs by orders of magnitude. It controls 80 % of the launch market into space. and so what it is now is you have this launch business where you basically pay for space on a rocket you have starlink which is the this internet-based high-speed internet which is growing super fast so if you live in parts of the world where you find it hard to get internet you can plug into one of musk's satellites essentially yes so they're used in ukraine and parts of rural In rural England.

16:01Exactly.

16:01Danny Fortson: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And then you have, and then weirdly in February, he merged in X and XAI, you know, the whole kind of like, oh, let's append a social media business as well as my startup AI company that's losing tons of money. And we're going to mash all of this together and then, you know, bring it to market. it is the strangest kind of agglomeration of assets maybe ever that has been kind of offered to the public of like we've got we've got rockets we got internet service we got ai we got data centers we've got a social media site twitter and it's all yeah exactly and so and it's really just like you are buying elon musk inc which a lot of people i suspect want to do and it's always it's very very different in the u.s to here in the uk where companies don't file regular accounts with companies house but what what do we know about the finances of this weird mashup they're terrible which is the most interesting part yeah yeah so like call a spade a spade well so starlink is a really good business because it's growing like from zero a few years ago for like four years ago to like now has over 10 million paying subscribers we pay a monthly you know internet service fee and that's just growing and growing and growing and like there it's the largest constellation of satellites ever so he has ringed the earth with all these internet beaming satellites and putting up more every week so that's that business is just booming and then there's a launch business which is good and then everything else is bad like twitter loses a ton of money XAI loses a ton of money.

17:49Danny Fortson: And so when you mash it all together, last year it lost$5 billion on something like$18 billion in revenue. And then you zoom back out, you're like, okay, and they're going to value this company at maybe a trillion and a half, pick your gigantic number, for a company that is losing$5 billion. It's quite extraordinary. We'll be back in just a minute when we'll hear from Dan Ives. who is a Wall Street analyst who's covered the tech industry and Musk in particular for many years.

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19:39why i'm tom clark and on the game football podcast we answer all of that plus provide detailed analysis of the tactical trends on the pitch and the financial situations off it i'm joined by former footballers as well as reporters and columnists from the times and sunday times we're here twice a week and for this summer's world cup we'll bring you daily shows with our team covering every inch of the tournament find the game wherever you get your podcasts

20:07Danny Fortson: Nick Newark Airport. So if you hear anything in the background, that is why. But Dan is a managing director and tech analyst at Wedbush Securities. And he's been following what he calls the Musk ecosystem from Wall Street for years. Welcome to the show, Dan. It's a big week for tech. And we wanted to ask you or kind of have you weigh in on SpaceX because, you know people are talking about 1.75 trillion but that would seem to bear no resemblance to the actual financials like it seems like you're being asked to buy a story in a way to a degree that maybe no one ever has before and i'm wondering if you agree with that or what your view is

20:50Dan Ives: i think the reality is if you looked at it just on financials you would never get a valuation near this. The reality is that the investors, and it speaks a lot of the early investors too that I know, it's really the start of the category. No different than tech in late 90s, early 2000s. This is a start, whether it's a data centers in the space, almost business operations that now from energy to storage, the AI revolution, and SpaceX basically being the foundation of that. I think that's more the way it's viewed combined with it's the Musk ecosystem. And it's our view a year from now, 18 months from now, has some mergers with SpaceX.

21:34I love that you brought up the late 90s, though, early 2000s, because we all know what happened shortly after that. I mean, is that the sort of space, for want of a better word, is that the sort of era that you compare this to in terms of the bubble bursting very soon after?

21:52Dan Ives: See, I compare it more to a 96, 97 moment than a 99, 2000 moment. And now, like we've talked about, this AI revolution party started at 9 p.m. Goes to 4 a.m. It's about 11, 11.30 p.m. But look, if you go back, tech companies are trading at 30 times revenue. Now it's 27 times earnings. Big tech, trillion dollars in the balance sheet, generating another$300 to$400 billion a year. And this is a true AI revolution. It's a true fourth industrial revolution. So I view it differently. Look, I get the comparisons, but kind of Danny's point, it does come down to like execution, monetization, go from the CapEx phase to now seeing the monetization.

22:39Dan Ives: I think that's the mood that we're in to see NASDAQ 30 ,000. And, you know, when we're talking about the AI revolution, I mean, when I was talking to a venture capitalist out here the other day, and he was saying, look, the way I think about this is like, this isn't like we're replacing software, or

22:59Danny Fortson: we're replacing this, we're replacing that. It's kind of a new layer of capability. And when you put it through that lens, it's kind of like human labor. And that goes from like, you know, several hundred billion dollar market to many trillions. And I'm just wondering how you think about that. Again, when we're talking about, you know, we have SpaceX coming. Probably soon after that, we have Anthropic and or OpenAI. We're talking about multiple trillion dollar IPOs, which is not a thing that's ever been, obviously never happened or even been contemplated.

23:33Dan Ives: Look, I mean, Bill, I mean, Dan, you, Katie, I mean, for decades, I mean, you guys have of course seen files. like every part of tech and we've gone through ups and downs and we've talked about a lot together i think it's a new era right and i think when you think about spacex and open ai and anthropic it's there's four trillion that's going to be spent next three to four years so it's about like who are the winners the arms race speaks to musk altman so far for trial like it there will be losers and we see like the sass apocalypse in terms of the nervousness that's gone on there adobe into it i mean you know the whisk goes on but i i view it as a multiplier effect because in my when you take a step back like first time in 30 years u.s is ahead of china when it comes to tech and i think now it's like an important dynamic where we are when it comes to ai what i want to know sitting here in london where we barely have any ipos let alone trillion dollar IPOs.

24:33What is the vibe like on Wall Street? How excited are people about this? What are they saying? I think the roadshow hasn't started yet, right? But presumably everybody's getting, you know, everybody's thinking about it.

24:46Dan Ives: I mean, this is, it's as exciting a time as I've seen because of the investment, because of the entrepreneurship, because of this true fourth industrial revolution that starts off at SpaceX. And look, and I think investors, they view it that this is really the start of the next leg of AI revolution. I can come back. I mean, I was in Europe last week in London. I was in Poland for a long time. And I got the big conversation there. It was like, who's the country that leads in Europe? How do you get out of regulatory? There's entrepreneurship and innovation. So I think there's a lot going on that's going to happen around the globe.

25:25but in terms of this the sort of the finance world in the u.s how are they viewing this as a sort of you know split between cynics and those who are big believers i mean how would you how would you

25:37Dan Ives: kind of describe it maybe cynics eight months ago or 12 months six months no cynics now i mean because now it's like you that's why you're seeing the insatiable appetite because of the validation not just the valuation from the appetite, but in terms of the fundamentals. And when anyone looks at what an entrepreneur's already done, it's like, okay, what does that mean when we look at 6, 12, 18 months? I think the big focus is just like, especially like in like, who's the country that's going to break out and where entrepreneurship is going to be? because of the regulatory because of data privacy there's so many companies in europe that i've talked they want to play and like so many entrepreneurs and now have to leave to go to

26:27Danny Fortson: asia middle east u.s israel whatever it may be but so on wall street spacex is coming in i think it's june 12th like do you think like people are going to be biting his arm off to get a piece of this I believe not just retail but institutional.

26:44Dan Ives: Like I think when you think about the valuation where this could go, I think that that's all fair game. But Danny, it's like you said, like you have to believe the story. You have to be able to look around the corner to where this could go. I think one of the interesting things about an Elon Musk company as well is that clearly he is so well known by the general public that there must be an impetus from retail investors here too, right? And around the world. Well, of course. And think about the ones that bet against Tesla and everything else. And now with what's happening next. But at that point, like when they go public, there's a six months, nine months, 12 months, whether they need to group it.

27:28Is there enough dry powder to kind of take all of this new capacity?

27:33Danny Fortson: When, again, when we talk about first SpaceX, OpenAI, Anthropic, we're talking about hundreds of billions of dollars that are going to have to flow into just a handful of companies. Do you think that's going to happen? Or are we going to quickly reach a saturation point?

27:48Dan Ives: I just have to go because otherwise I'm going to have to take a SpaceX rocket to get to where I'm going. We will let you go. With that said, I don't believe it's just going to be a few players. I think it's going to be a ripple effect, a second, third, fourth derivative. And look, the big players are obviously in terms of the IPO and everything else, but that's going to lead, like I've said, we're in year three of an eight to 10 year build out of the AI revolution. All right.

28:13Danny Fortson: Safe travels, Dan.

28:13Dan Ives: Appreciate it. Bye, Dan. Thanks for coming on. Well, it was great to hear from Dan Ives. And I think it's fair to say, isn't it, that he has a reputation, both on Wall Street and amongst tech journalists for being a drum banger for the tech industry. Cheerleader. Cheerleader. That's the better word. Yes, indeed. He's absolutely very bullish. Yes. And he produces lots of notes on tech companies every week, which are very breathless, very supportive, and always, always see the upside.

28:45Danny Fortson: And what I think is interesting is like, you know, he is not a minority of one, you know, So like there is obviously if you just look at what's happening with the valuations, especially of the private big AI labs and various things like this is there's a lot of people who are like, yeah, this is the beginning of a revolution. Get on board. You know, like don't don't worry so much about like the big losses and the uncertainty and lack of clarity and all. they're just like you better you know grab your ticket or you're gonna you know miss this train to the promised land i did a really interesting interview with a cambridge professor the other day who was talking about this in light of ineffable which is a british ai company that's raised a billion dollars seed round and i kind of find the word seed a bit difficult given given the billion dollar price seed it's a very big seed i mean it's a very big seed for a company that was only registered at company's house in november but he was saying he was making exactly that point that investors are looking for stories now there's so much FOMO that you're looking for a very credible individual so in Effable's case uh David Silva's come from um Google DeepMind but also a brilliant story and that's what you're trading on and and so and one of my colleagues sort of jokingly said well you know has revenue become old-fashioned these days uh because it just seems like people aren't looking at the numbers.

30:14Danny Fortson: Well, and that's what's really interesting is that like, you know, I'm out here in Silicon Valley, and this place is built on fairy tales. And like Bill Gurley, famous benchmark investor has famously said, like, you know, if you look at like, the financial sophistication of your typical venture capitalist versus your typical Wall Street or analyst, whatever, like a VC is like a two out of 10. And an analyst is a 10 out of 10 and what's really interesting is the IPO moment is when the fairy tale meets reality and it's like it either works or it doesn't and most famously that was like you know we work when it was like oh this is just a fairy tale and it was completely rejected and the whole thing fell apart I'm not suggesting that's happening at all with SpaceX because there's it's much there's much more there there but it does like the the kind of the meeting of that kind of like we're gonna sell you this fantastical vision now look at the numbers and buy our stock it's a really interesting kind of proof point that happens over and over again and as you say with elon musk he's got this he's got a cult following he is like this mythical figure and people are gonna people are buying it probably going to buy into that in droves but when you go in front of the investment banks and you're trying to sell that story they do also want to see the numbers i mean spacex as we mentioned earlier founded 24 years ago accumulated deficit which is all of its losses plus all of its like shares that are handed out to employees etc 37 billion dollars okay that is more than any company ever buy it like a country mile you know but again and you know last year they lost might be worth like some countries exactly last year they lost five billion dollars So the numbers are kind of eye-watering.

32:10But again, you have to look forward, not back.

32:14Danny Fortson: And nobody wants to miss out. Exactly, exactly. Do you remember when I think it was Apple became the first trillion-dollar company, everybody was like, whoa. Yeah. That's crazy. That's a Rubicon past. And now you have like Anthropic, which didn't exist six years ago, is raising money at$900 billion. And that's extraordinary. I remember last year, actually, when NVIDIA went to$3 trillion,$4 trillion,$5 trillion. I was like, my God, what's going on? Interesting times. Interesting times. So anyway, it's always good to hear from Dan, get the kind of the rose-colored view from Wall Street. And it'll be interesting to watch those worlds collide as, you know, the kind of the bean counters finally get to look at the books and see what they think of SpaceX.

33:06Danny Fortson: And us. We digress, actually, to a listener email from Philip Long. And he asks, lovable friend of the pod, has recently been valued at$6.6 billion. And as far as I understand, it's one of Europe's biggest AI hopes. Do you think, I will go to you, Katie, because you're out there. Do you think there is room for tech companies like that in the future with ChatGPT, Cloud, etc.? given that AGI can't be far away? This is an amazing question, but I don't think it's a European question. I think it's a broader business question, isn't it? It's like, will we need any of these? So lovable for people who don't know is a vibe coding business.

33:54The idea being that you tell its program about the app or website or whatever it is you want to develop and it will spin it up for you. So you don't need to know how to program. It'll just create an app or website. however you want it. And this sort of plays into these fears that there are at the moment about the saspocalypse and business strategy. What companies will we need, as he makes the point, when you've got AGI, which is artificial and general intelligence, essentially intelligence that is as good as humans. I think this all depends really on how you bottle and create that AGI I still think there will be room for different companies because I think those companies will be able to do things that we individually still can't do even in an age of AGI I don't know what your your view is on that yeah I I agree because I think you know

34:54Danny Fortson: this makes this it's a good question because it makes me think of like you know both Anthropic and OpenAI have recently launched effectively like AI deployment companies, like separate companies that are heavily funded with partners to go out into the world and like send out forward deployed engineers, as they call them, to actually help companies just implement this stuff. And that gets to this basic idea, which is, you know, inertia is a very powerful thing. like even if we had agi tomorrow it's not like the world would like suddenly be revolutionized you know it takes a long time for this stuff to kind of get used to kind of start to change industries change processes and like we feel it because we're like right on this cold face and we're interviewing tech companies all the time and it feels so inevitable and it feels so like urgent but if you go out there in the world like things happen are happening much much slower And that's not to say that it's not happening still incredibly fast, but I just think there's still lots and lots of room for companies to find a niche.

36:05Danny Fortson: And if they, as to your point, if they have a really good product, they're going to win. Because like, cool, you have AGI, but like how does that, how do I interface with it? Like if you have a really good way of like packaging your certain type of capability into a product. like if you iPhone it, then people will buy it. Yeah. And individuals aren't necessarily going to know how to deploy AGI for specific uses, like creating apps or creating websites. Exactly. And like, well, my wife and I were just talking about this the other day. Her mom's 84 and she's caretaking her husband, who's kind of not doing well.

36:49Danny Fortson: And so she's doing a lot more kind of admin. and my wife was like, let me get you a Claude subscription. So it can help you write emails. It can help you manage things. It can kind of help you do it with your calendar, like all of this stuff. But even she's just skittish. She doesn't really know what to do. And all you have to do is talk to it. And it'll start to do stuff for you. But it's just one small example of like, AGI is coming, sure, but it's not coming nearly as fast as it sometimes feels. I don't think so. And the world's a very big place. There's going to be lots of room for lots of companies to do interesting things.

37:30So that's it, Philip. Thank you for the question.

37:34Danny Fortson: Bring them on. Thank you. I think it's a really, really thoughtful question. And who knows if we're right? This is all evolving so, so quickly. We're right, Katie. We're definitely right. Definitely right. Well, that is it for this week's episode of the Times Tech Podcast. If you're enjoying the show, drop us a line to let us know at techpodatthetimes.co.uk. That is techpodatthetimes.co.uk. And we'd love to know your thoughts on today's discussion and whether you're planning to buy into SpaceX when the IPO happens. What do you make of all of that? Anyway, so we will see you next week. Thanks, as always, for listening.

38:16See you next week. Goodbye.

38:46you daily shows with our team covering every inch of the tournament find the game wherever you get your podcasts

From the publisher

Two big events have put Elon Musk in the spotlight. First, a jury has dismissed Elon Musk’s case against Sam Altman and OpenAI after three weeks of testimony. But while this blockbuster trial was taking place, the Tesla CEO was making plans to get his other company, SpaceX, onto the public stock market. The space exploration company has filed for a huge IPO that will likely be the largest in history, valuing the company at up to $1.75 trillion and making Musk the world’s first trillionaire. Danny Fortson and Katie Prescott are joined by Wedbush Securities' Dan Ives to take a deeper look at the world’s richest man and discuss why this massive valuation is raising eyebrows.


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