Opening

I need them to ask “Do you have the aircraft 4 miles off of your 2 o’clock, 300ft above you.

I took Flying lessons…its like learning a foreign language.

Markets

• Rocky week:
  • NVIDIA largest mkt cap loss ever in 1 day. ~$600b
• DeepSeek fear!
• Fed decision on interest rates. Stay and hold.

Microsoft
Microsoft’s earnings for the second quarter of fiscal year 2025 were $24.1 billion in net income and $69.6 billion in revenue.

Apple

Apple per WSJ. Apple’s total revenue was $124.3 billion, rising almost 4% from the same quarter last year. Net income was $36.3 billion, up more than 7% from the prior year. Iphone sales down, but service continues to grow.

Meta

• Record Revenue and Net income: $48b and $21b. Record high stock price: $702, or $1.8t mkt cap
• Start: 12:50.
• 3.3b people using at least 1 app everyday.

Tesla

• Record deliveries and revenue. But Auto revenue down, but offset by Energy and Services.
• Elon’s opening remarks. Start 7:10.
• Model Y best selling vehicle on Earth in 2024.
  • 4 in US. F-series, Silverado, RAV
  • Asked random people and they thought Toyota
• Autonomy is 10x’ing
• Tesla more valuable than several times next 5 companies combined. Difficult but achievable. Well over $15 trillion. So > 10x increase.
• Ridiculous 2027 & 2028. 🧐
• In Q4, Tesla vehicles using Autopilot technology drove 5.94 million miles between accidents2 – the best Q4 ever – compared to the U.S. average of 700k miles.
• Tesla cars now drive themselves from factory floor to loading doc queue. Sometimes a mile+
• Launching Robotaxi in Austin in June.

NVIDIA/AI

• Single largest market cap day loss in 1 day. $147 to 118 (down 25%). Back to 127.
• Interesting take on “Distillation” from Sacks.
• DeepSeek: Bill Ackman nails it.
• Brad Gerstner on cost.

DOGE

• CA Govt: FTB Tax board. My experience!!
  • $800 fee. Tax returns. Penalties. Waiting on phone. Snail mail.
  • Can’t find on Sec of State how to dissolve!?
• Cancelling scholarships in Burma.
  • USAID spends $40B+ of taxpayer dollars to fund foreign aid:
  • – $45mm to DEI scholarships in Burma
  • – $520mm for consultant-driven ESG investments in Africa
  • – $1.2bn in awards to undisclosed recipients
    • Source: https://usaspending.gov

Government

40 Years Ago (1985): 11 doses by the time a child was 18 years old, considering the schedule and booster shots required.

Children now receive about 70 doses of vaccines by the time they reach 18 years, including annual flu shots and considering the broader spectrum of diseases covered.

Bill Ackman on RFK.

Recommendations

• Andreeson on Lex
• Tesla Earnings call

Open

Chiefs vs Eagles

Inauguration

• Carrie Underwood! A cappella
• Elon on planting Flag on Mars: Mark at 1:30
• Tech heavy weights in attendance per WSJ.
• Exec orders: my favorite: Everything will be revealed,” Trump said while signing. 
  • Give the pen to RFK Jr.
  • What about Epstein and Diddy?!?!

Markets

• Markets Up 3% YTD. That’s great 30 days in.
• NVIDIA down 17% on pressure the Chinese AI company DeepSeek.

Congressional Trading:

• Insider trading by Congress from AOC Play at 0:15 min.
• Here are the top political traders of 2024. 
• 25 congressmen beat the markets. 6 people at or over 100%.

Netflix

• Huge flywheel of momentum!
• Stock close to $1000!!
• Bernstein hikes to $1200. Rosenblaut $1500
• Absolute RECORD number of subs!! 19m subs…biggest quarter EVER! 301m members
• More subs in US now than Cable. 80-90m vs 70m.
• Investor Letter
• Big hits: Squid Game, Carry-on. And live: Jake Paul & Tyson and NFL.
• 2025: Stranger Things, Wednesday, Squid Game…  Happy Gilmore 2 ?!! More sports.
• Spending more on content $16b+ than Market cap of paramount ($7.3b and WB $25b)
• From WSJ

Ads:

• From Greg Peters
• Q4 was 55% signups with ads. Barely monetized!!
• Engagement is healthy with ads.
• Goal is to make offering better for advertising.
• Doubled ads revenue in 2024. Expect to double again in 2025!
• Using own ad server and tech stack!
  • Enhanced targeting. Better measurement. Better relevance to users and advertisers.

DOGE

• Shouldn’t be bi-partisan.
• Argentina is now in a budget surplus! Eliminated 100’s of regulations.
• Jaime Dimon on Doge
• Trump signed an Executive Order directing all federal employees to return to full time in person work.
  • 6% of federal workers go to office?
  • A report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that during early 2023, 17 out of 24 federal agency headquarters buildings in Washington, D.C., were operating at 25% capacity or less.
• DOGE $784 MILLION in taxpayer dollars for a new U.S. embassy in South Sudan, initiated in 2023. This is not a reasonable expenditure.

Project Stargate

Project Stargate is a $500 billion investment aimed at building AI infrastructure across the United States.

Oracle CEO, Larry Ellison on Cancer detection

Markets:

• Fed Funds rate lowered from 5.0% to 4.5%, but mortgage went from 6% to 7%.
• Why. Mortgage rates are tied closer 10 year bonds. And with market uncertainty, people buy bonds:
  • Example: $100 bond pays 5%.
  • Demand drives bond to $98; so implied rate is 7%.
• S&P 500: ~33% is Mag 7
• RSP Equal weight.
• Some correction is healthy.

California Fires

• Firefighters continue attempts to gain control of almost 40,000 acres of ongoing wildfires, which have killed at least 27 people and destroyed more than 12,300 structures. See maps of the fire areas and evacuation zones.
• The Palisades Fire is 31% contained, and the Eaton Fire is 65% contained.
• CA FAIR is insurer of last resort. But they only have $200m in cash and $2.5b in reserves.
• A rule change in CA, requires those providing insurance to cover short-fall, which they will do by subsequently raising insurance for ALL CA residents.
• Already hard to get insurance. State Farm, Allstate = NO.

Govt Regulation and Cost

• From Chamath: A tale of incompetence, grift and corruption…
• Governor Gavin Newsom released his proposed 2024-25 California state budget on January 10, projecting a $38 billion shortfall
• Based on the available data, in 2021, the top 1% of earners in California contributed approximately 49.9% of the state’s personal income tax revenue.
• Janisse Quiñones, who makes $750k a year,.
• Here’s a public list of all salaries. 

Other Regulation

•  Marc Andreessen on China’s manufacturing dominance
• Marc Andreessen says America is primed for a new golden age. “We have the people, we have the resources. We have geographic security. We have all of these capabilities.”We continue to be the beacon of capitalism and enterprise and entrepreneurship.
• Here’s another one from Alex Karp

Meta

• $1.5t, $655 and up 67% YoY.
• Zuck on Rogan
• TikTok set to go dark on Sunday

Rocket Ships:

• Starships 7th flight test. The landing burn slowed Super Heavy down and maneuvered itself to the launch and catch tower arms, resulting in the second successful catch of a Super Heavy booster.
• Blue Origin: New Glenn made it, but didn’t successfully land the booster.

2025:

Success stories pretty reliably happen for people who combine: solid talent, savvy business sense, 15-20 years of persistent hard work.

Goals: Health, Family and Wealth.

Bryson Deshambeu: 7 hours for hole in 1. $100k.

Fires:

9000 homes and counting.

Video of homes destroyed.

The California FAIR Plan (Fair Access to Insurance Requirements Plan)

Markets:

Big pull back. WSJ Jobs report good, so interest rate cut less likely.

@unusual_whales Here are the top political traders of 2024. 

• Markets up 25%.
• 25 congress people beat the markets. 6 people at or over 100%.

Meta

• Dana White joins the Board of Directors.
• Freezing 3rd party fact checking.
  • Play Mark Zuckerberg video about why?
• Eagerness to work with Trump.
• Also on board:
  • CEO of Broadcom. Up 100% in last year. $1t company. #10 or so.
  • Marc Andreeson

Autonomous driving and Robots:

• WSJ – Uber and Lyft Gear Up For the Revolution in Driverless Taxis
• Travis Kalinick said “Elon has it covered”
• Tesla videos of self-parking.
• Jim Farley – CEO Ford – On 150 different softwares “confederation of software providers” Play Video

This is the year the markets wake up and realize Tesla is the leader in Autonomous, and Real-world AI.

https://x.com/herbertong/status/1876677493270479271

Source Elon’s interview at CES.

• Thinks humanoid robot will be biggest industry of all time! 3-4 robots/ person.
• Time to first Robot: Play at 10:20. Optimus robot is most advanced robot ever.
  • 1000’s this year. Several 1000.
  • 10x next year. 50-100k robots in 2026.
  • 10x again, so 500k robots in 2027+.
    • 30k robots * 30k price tag = 900,000,000 (900m). $1b.
    • Summary = $1b in 2027. Runrate.

New Model Y is out.

NVIDIA

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang 

• Most interesting “The ChatGPT moment for robotics is coming. Like large language models, world foundation models are fundamental to advancing robot and AV development.

NVIDIA’s decision to invest in xAI ‘s recent $6B round speaks volumes.

Recommendations

Netflix: Squid Game.

Landman

Mel Gibson on Rogan