Aman Verjee

Watch how Mark Zuckerberg turned a "pathetic" 2022 into the most efficient year in tech history. The gap between Meta and Oracle is insane. “If you look at Meta back in 2015, they were generating about $1.4 million in revenue per employee... By 2022, it was still $1.5 million, so really kind of a pathetic effort in terms of operating efficiency. But now, they’re best in class—$2.5 million per employee.” — @AmanVerjee and @davemcclure on @TradingVCs podcast Ep.27

Arizona's FIRST Industry Focused ANNUAL HACKATHON, the final Saturday and Sunday of Arizona Tech Week "HachAZona v1.0" will be happening Saturday and Sunday, April 11th & 12th! Attendance will be capped, so...... Sign up for HackAZona NOW!!! $10k in cash and prizes! 💻💰 SIGN UP HERE: hackAZona.devlabs.club

🚀 How high could SpaceX go if it IPOs? Veteran investor @AmanVerjee weighs in: "Can they crack 2 trillion? I wanna say that's a little bit of a stretch. I don't think it's quite 50-50, but I think there's a decent shot. Maybe one in three chance that they crack 2 trillion. At least on opening day."

🚀 SpaceX just filed its confidential IPO prospectus — and prediction markets say it will be June 3rd, @elonmusk's birthday, during a rare 6-planet alignment. @AnthropicAI is on a generational heater — Opus 4.6, Cowork, enterprise momentum — while @OpenAI cuts Sora and kills the Disney deal trying to find focus. Prediction markets now say Anthropic IPOs first, 60/40 chance. In Episode 29 of Trading Places, @davemcclure and @AmanVerjee reshuffle the Private Mag7 – Anthropic jumps, OpenAI slides. @ShieldAITech breaks into the conversation after closing at a $12.7B valuation @JeffBezos announces a $100B AI manufacturing fund — and Dave says it's 100% getting raised, probably oversubscribed. A breakdown of the Meta/YouTube social media addiction verdict that spooked the entire tech sector. Plus a deep dive with @ShriBhashyam, COO of @SydecarIO, on how SPVs are becoming a permanent part of every investor's toolkit — and why layered SPVs aren't always the villain people think they are. Timestamps: 00:00 — cold open 00:49 — [ tech and vc news ] 00:49 — #7 of private Mag7 02:21 — Iran war end when 03:35 — Why June for @SpaceX IPO 05:34 — First to go public: Anthropic or OpenAI 10:23 — Bezos seeks $100B 14:02 — @Meta & @YouTube found liable 19:12 — Ex-@Kalshi launch 5cc 21:27 — [ intvw: Shri Bhashyam @ Sydecar] 21:52 — @Forge_Global ➡️ @EquityZen 24:22 — SPV secondaries vs primaries 29:04 — Trajectory to $4B AUA 41:40 — SPV fee structure warning 51:05 — DEAL act to set privates free 54:50 — [ valuation corner: Shield AI @ $12.7B ] 55:59 — @ShieldAITech marvel story 56:40 — What Shield AI does 57:41 — @AndurilTech playbook 1:01:04 — Future of defense tech 1:02:02 — second takes

🪐 SpaceX is gearing up for a potential June IPO coinciding with a rare planetary alignment and @elonmusk's birthday. "They filed a prospectus this week, Dave. Their 424(b), it's all confidential... They're gonna be able to roadshow and, uh, and talk about and sort of test the waters on the valuation. The really interesting bet is what the valuation will be once it prices. Can they crack $2 trillion?" — @davemcclure & @AmanVerjee are breaking down the SpaceX IPO and things are getting interesting. 👀 Sneak peek from Trading Places Podcast Episode 29 dropping soon! 🚀

Yep

Neither. It's a formalization of his influence. The "AI & Crypto Czar" was an informal, part-time advisory title. Co-chairing PCAST (a key White House science/tech council) gives structured leadership on AI and emerging tech policy recommendations to the President—aligning perfectly with his expertise. Sacks called the appointment an honor.

I am honored and grateful to be appointed by President Trump to the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) and to be named Co-Chair along with OSTP Director Michael Kratsios. PCAST is the principal body of external advisors tasked with shaping science, technology, and innovation policy for the President and the White House. Thirteen of the world’s most accomplished leaders in science and technology will join us as this PCAST’s initial members. Together we will make policy recommendations to ensure that America leads—and wins—in artificial intelligence and other cutting-edge technologies.  I look forward to working with the initial members: Marc Andreessen, Sergey Brin, Safra Catz, Michael Dell, Jacob DeWitte, Fred Ehrsam, Larry Ellison, David Friedberg, Jensen Huang, John Martinis, Bob Mumgaard, Lisa Su, and Mark Zuckerberg. Thank you to President Trump for his visionary leadership on technology policy which attracts the top luminaries in their fields to serve. It is an honor to be part of this distinguished group.

🚀 Will Tesla and SpaceX ever merge? Dave McClure breaks down the latest speculation on whether @elonmusk’s companies could become one, referencing past mergers and recent moves: "I don't know that they ever get into one company where one ring rules them all and it's all under Elon. That seems to me like the most extreme version of what he's shooting for." — @AmanVerjee & @davemcclure on a sneak peak of TradingVCs Ep.28

@TradingVCs @cerebras @nvidia @davemcclure @AmanVerjee @P_M_Insights Thanks for having me on. Great Pod format!

The price is wrong. ❌ AI valuations are all over the place: $23B for @cerebras vs $4.4T for @nvidia and both might still be mispriced. Meanwhile, Anthropic just added $5B in ARR in one month. In Ep. 27, @davemcclure, @AmanVerjee, and Nick Fusco of @P_M_Insights dive in 👇 00:00 — cold open [ tech & vc news ] 00:50 — Private Mag 7 + 3 Impostors 🧐 04:34 — @AnthropicAI vs @OpenAI 🥊 05:23 — @Figure_robot $39B val 🤪 08:00 — Iran: Straits of Hormuz vs. Price of Oil 🔮 15:00 — @Oracle & @Meta Layoffs 🚶‍♂️‍➡️ 19:43 — VC MAG 7 🏆 28:11 — Atoms: @travisk is BACK 🤖 30:20 — Mind Robotics of @Rivian raises $500M 💰 31:17 — @Replit $9B val 💸 [ intvw: Nick Fusco, PM Insights ] 33:16 — From public to private markets 🙇‍♂️ 41:05 — Their competitive advantage 💪 42:40 — @databricks example 📝 49:58 — Down rounds and repricing 📉 1:02:43 — @SpaceX IPO & @RobinhoodApp private stock 🤔 [ val corner: Cerebras @ $23B ] 1:04:17 — Cerebras vs NVIDIA 🤺 1:06:37 — 5x revenue in one year 📈 1:07:01 — S1 weakness 💣 1:12:05 — second takes 😂 thanks for sharing this with someone who likes very bad vc podcasts

Clayton Kershaw has been removed from Team USA’s roster for RP Jeff Hoffman - marking the end of his professional baseball career. Thank you, Kersh, for all the memories! 💙

@AmanVerjee has studied every market mania from the 1637 Tulip craze to modern crypto. Learn how to spot the crash before it happens (and profit from the chaos) in his new book, The Brief History of Financial Bubbles. Pre-order your copy here: 👇 amanverjee.com/the-book

@BernieSanders You are confusing “control” with ownership of shares. These are all private organizations with management teams, shareholders and employees …they’re not fiefdoms. Ellison is not the sole shareholder or manager of ANY of these properties.

One family, the right-wing Trump-aligned Ellisons, will soon control: TikTok CBS CNN HBO Discovery Channel BET Cartoon Network Comedy Central DC Studios Fandango Miramax MTV Nickelodeon Paramount PlutoTV Showtime TBS The CW TNT Warner Bros. And more This is oligarchy.

CNN is an absolute font of lies and misinformation these days. x.com/ThomasMHern/st…

Jack Dorsey cut 40% of his staff and the stock price 🚀 20%. Is this the AI revolution or just the end of "COVID bloat"? "Jack Dorsey...announced layoffs of 40 percent of the company because...AI is going to make us so much more productive...The stock price jumped 15 or 20 percent, maybe more than 20 percent as a result of those moves." — @davemcclure The doomsdayers say AI is coming for your job, but the macro stats say we’re in a "Golden State" of full employment. Software jobs are actually UP, and AI engineers are clearing $500k starting salaries. "I think on the whole, there's going to be a lot of positive creation over the next five years that we don't yet have our arms around. Just a lot of anxiety around it. But I think that's a positive supply shock that when you get productivity going up, people can do a lot more things. Things become a lot more cost effective. And so people find jobs to do... So I tend to be on the optimistic side. I think, you know, I think Citadel's got a point. And I think the doomsdayers are probably overstating it." — @AmanVerjee

Episode 26 of Trading Places is here! @davemcclure and @amanverjee break down the week's top news, and analyze ByteDance at $550B valuation. Plus, @PitchBook’s @EMZheng47 and @CBInsights’ @saltzman_jason join to talk 2025 trends & 2026 predictions. Dive in 🤿 00:53 - [ tech & vc news ] 01:04 - @AugmentMarkets Power 20 🏆 01:53 - @anduriltech $4B raise on $60B 🛸 03:00 - @PalmerLuckey vs @DarioAmodei 🤼‍♂️ 06:30 - Iran war shocks @Nasdaq, oil, & IPO markets 💥🛢️ 11:28 - Can @cerebras IPO in 2026? 🤷‍♂️ 13:27 - @RobinhoodApp public VC fund $RVI launch 🏁 16:51 - Secondary deals hit $226B in 2025 🚀 20:17 - @DecagonAI tender offer @ $4.5B 💰 25:09 - @krakenfx connects to Fed 🐙 27:46 - [ intvw: Emily Zheng & Jason Saltzman ] 28:23 - Emily gives Pitchbook 2025 recap 🙇🏻‍♀️ 31:36 - Jason gives CB Insights 2025 recap 🙇‍♂️ 35:50 - Emily gives Pitchbook 2026 predictions 🔮 57:53 - Jason gives CB Insights 2026 predictions 🔮 1:00:56 - [ val corner: ByteDance @ $550B ] 1:01:20 - Sum of Parts analysis 🧩 1:05:09 - What is @tiktok_us worth? 💃 1:09:33 - China still controls algorithm 🇨🇳 1:12:53 - second takes 😂 Share @TradingVCs with a friend who’s tired of good VC podcasts.

🚀 Is SpaceX the modern East India Company? Aman Verjee draws a bold parallel: "This is not a traditional tech company. This is a company that's trying to colonize the New World... Mars is the new world. Once SpaceX gets to Mars, there are valuable assets on Mars... and SpaceX is in a position to do all that stuff." — @amanverjee and @davemcclure discuss @elonmusk's @spacex on TradingVCs Ep.23

🥊 $830B vs $380B 🥊 Welcome to Episode 24 of @tradingvcs This week, @davemcclure & @AmanVerjee debate @OpenAI vs @Anthropic and make bets on who will ultimately win. Plus: guest @thetyson on pricing transparency, broker networks, and what’s really happening in secondaries. Watch below: 00:53 - [ tech & vc news ] 02:09 - ⁠OpenAI @ $830B🥇 02:56 - ⁠ Anthropic @ $380B🥈 04:02 -⁠ ⁠@stripe tender @ $140B 💸 06:38 -⁠ ⁠@databricks @ $134B 🧱 08:39 - ⁠@harvey @ $11B👨🏽‍⚖️ 11:07 -⁠ ⁠SCOTUS rejects Trump Tariffs 🙅‍♂️ 22:30 - [ intvw: Tyson Hendricksen / @noticedotco ] 23:17 - ⁠olympic training to 🍍 farmer 26:21 -⁠ ⁠founding Notice 💼 33:48 -⁠ ⁠product walkthrough 🚶‍➡️ 37:58 -⁠ why people need transparent pricing 👀 55:50 - prediction markets 🎰 [ val corner: OpenAI vs Anthropic ] 1:03:20 -⁠ ⁠OpenAI raise history 🚀 1:08:04 -⁠ ⁠OpenAI vs. Anthropic 🥊 1:13:43 - ⁠who wins Gold 🥇 1:18:07 - second takes Bonus - Don't miss the webinar on Donor-Advised Funds with Dave and Daniel Blake of UI Charitable. This Thursday, Feb 26th and Wed, Mar 4th, 11 a.m. PT. Sign up online via practicalvc website.

@carlthegrinder @OilersNation @chrispronger @BleedOilBlue Where can I go for more of your inane insipid takes on ice hockey?

@OilersNation @chrispronger @BleedOilBlue

Chris Pronger is on the money regarding Connor McDavid after yesterday's loss in Milan. @chrispronger (H/t @BleedOilBlue)