March 2025

#87 – Life, Markets, Netflix, Nvidia, Tesla, SpaceX

Opening

True Friends

Grok vs Google

  • I literally am using Grok for everything. 
  • Guitar tuning and adjusting for an hour with it. We’re like friends! 
    • Chatted with good buddy who had it plan international vacation.  
  • Gemini: Mixed opinions. 
    • Wouldn’t create a pivot table for me!! 

Kennedy Files

  • No Clue what’s going on.

Golf

  • Stats from 60 yards out. 

California Business

  • Be very careful if creating a company in California!!! OMG!!! 
  • 100’s of hours working to pay taxes and close entity!!!
  • Tax Returns, dissolution, penalties. Hold times!! 

Markets

  • S&P 8% off highs. Was 10% 1 week ago. So that was a correction.  
    • Tesla 52%. Nvidia, Meta: 20%. Apple: 18%.
  • Fed Cuts. 
    • Dual mandate: stable employment and prices.
    • Might play Powell at night to fall asleep. Who needs soft noise.  
  • Tesla!! Would be remiss not to discuss. Below. 

Finance Education

Security

  • Digital Hygiene:  Great from Karpathy
    • 2-factor authentication and strong password for financial websites. 
    • YubiKey. Extra external key.  
    • 1Password

IRA Contributions

401k Max: 2025: $23,500 + Employer Match + After-tax = $70,000

Still can do $7000 in IRA.

  • Why. Can move around with tax penalties.  Financial discipline. 

Treasury Secretary 

  • Scott Bessent and All-in. (40 years of private sector global investment experience). 
    • Interviewed by Chamath and David Friedberg 
    • Full Interview on X here. 
    • Employees are great! 
    • Need this. High quality people. 
      • 46.00 Booz Allen gets 90%+ of revenue from govt. 
  • Grok vs Gemini on clarification around Booz Allen! 
    • Public company. 
    • Grok for the gigantic win! 
      • Based on available data, the company has consistently relied on the U.S. government for 97-98% of its revenue in recent years, a figure that aligns with what you’ve heard in recent interviews. For instance, in fiscal year 2024 (ending March 31, 2024), Booz Allen reported that 98% of its $10.66 billion in revenue came from U.S. government contracts, spanning defense, intelligence, and civil sectors. This heavy dependence has been a hallmark of the company’s business model for years, with similar percentages (96-98%) reported since at least 2019.
    • Palantir. More bullish now! 
      • Why do we need “consultants” if Palantir and LLM/AI can analyze everything instantly!??? 
      • Booz Allen is “people”, not tech. 
  • Freidberg on Social Security Trust Fun. Can fund at $500b.  

DOGE

Netflix

  •  CNBC video here. 0:35 mark MoffetNathanson Upgrades Netflix to $1100. 
  • “Netflix has won the streaming wars. Case closed”.
  • “We don’t see any cap on margins…”
    • WOW. Bold statement. 
    • Subscription pricing power, increased Ad revenue and margin expansion. 

Nvidia 

  • Jensen Huang KeyNote at GTC 2025
  • Nvidia working on driverless vehicle with GM!!   
  • Play at 0:45. Blue the robot. Robots are coming!!

SpaceX Tesla

  • Breaks my heart to see what is going on.  
    • Employees ~125,000, ~70,000 in US.  
    • Most American car made. 
    • Leader in green energy. No electric today if not for them. 
    • Crazy! 
  • $480. Now $230. So down 52%. So increase 1.1x or 110% to get back. 
  •  Winner take most by Cathie Wood. 
    • $8-10 trillion in Revenue in 2030. ½ to platforms, like Tesla. Which is the biggest AI platform in the world.
  • Dragon crew launch to ISS.
  • Carried a russian cosmo. And not there was already another cosmo on spacestation. 
  • No other US company can do this. At least at required safely level. 
  • 400th landing of Falcon 9 booster.  
  • Will launch to Mars and carry Optimus. Crossover.
  • Per Elon, SpaceX carries 95% of payload to orbit.
  • Starship is the only “vehicle” currently built that can go to Mars. 
  • 16.50 on going to Russia to buy rockets. Trying to buy ICBM’s. 
    • Talk about thinking outside the box!! 
  • Talks about Russia charging us $90m per seat to go to Space Station. 
  • Boston Dynamics Robot – Break dancing. Yes its here.

Play. Andrew Schulz onThis Past Weekend with Theo Von Tesla

China Tech 

Mars

Interview with Ted Cruz – YouTube Part 2 Love that they talk so much about Mars!! Not politics. 

  • Man sets foot on Mars in 2029. Not more than 4 years after that. 
  • Thinks we can have self-sustaining environment on Mars in 20 years. Maybe 1 million people.  
  • SpaceX probably a good investment if true!! 

How to invest in SpaceX. 

  • On Hiive can do thru Funds. Not direct shares. 

University Endowments

Recommendations

  • All-In Podcast. Chamath and Friedberg interviewing Secretary of Treasury Scott 
  • Dictators. 
  • White Lotus. 
  • Primeval. 
  • Elon Interview on Ted Cruz.

#87 – Life, Markets, Netflix, Nvidia, Tesla, SpaceX Read More »

#86 – Apple, Markets, Tesla, AI, Anthropic, Mice

Opening

  • The MOUSE!
  • College world tour
  • Golf Players Championship. TPC Sawgrass.  All tree talk.  Most seem to be using 3 wood.  Morikawa hit Driver. Tree is ~90-100 yds in front and 10 ft clearance? 
  • Diddy. May 5th sex trafficking and prostitution. Racketeering. 

Markets

  • Hang on tight. Its gonna be a bumpy ride. Big bounce today.  
  • We are in “Correction” territory. Down 10%. Every 2 years. 
    • Bear Market is down 20%. 
      • Remember. ~25 times in last 100 years. So once every 4 years. 
      • Last “Bear” market was in 2022. 
  • Could be a rocky next 6 months; until fed policy (including tariffs, like you mention) are better defined, solidified, etc… (Markets hate uncertainty).  
  • Lot’s of talks of recession; which would drive markets lower. Thoughts are Fed would/will lower rates if data starts to indicate unemployment increasing. Fed/Powell does not want to ruin their legacy. 
  • This “correction” while painful, really needs to be taken in context:
    • S&P500 down ~9-10% from all time high. Nasdaq 100 down ~12-13% from all time high.  
    • BUT…
      • Both indices are still up about 10% over last year (i.e. 365 days). 
      • S&P 500 and Nasdaq100 over the last 3 years have annualized returns of 11.5% and 15%, respectively. 
  • US Economy and US company fundamentals remain strong. I think its going to be a great next 3+ years, but bumpy 12 months.

Finance Education

  • Rule of 10 best days
    • 2024 up 24%. Excluding 10 best days. Only up 4%
  • DOLLAR COST AVERAGE.  if you’re in a 401(k) or something right now and still just plowing a percentage of your paycheck in the markets, you’re doing just fine.

Actively managed vs. Benchmark. 

According to the SPIVA U.S. Year-End 2023 Scorecard:

  • Over a 15-year period (ending December 31, 2023), 87% of actively managed U.S. large-cap equity funds underperformed the S&P 500.
  • For all U.S. domestic equity funds (including large-cap, mid-cap, and small-cap), the underperformance rate over 15 years was approximately 88% compared to their respective benchmarks (e.g., S&P 500 for large-cap, S&P MidCap 400 for mid-cap, S&P SmallCap 600 for small-cap).

Diversify your RSUs. 

Now let’s chat Apple.  

Apple

  • Trading around $210. Was $260. Down 20%. 
    • Still has high PE 28-30 (depending on current or forward)
  • Apple subtle announcement; made huge waves! 
    • “Apple provided a statement to media outlets like Reuters and CNBC, confirming the delay of these features until 2026. The statement read: “We’ve been working on a more personalized Siri, giving it more awareness of your personal context, as well as the ability to take action for you within and across your apps. It’s going to take us longer than we thought to deliver on these features and we anticipate rolling them out in the coming year.”
  • Daring Fireball by Jon Gruber.  Something is rotten in the state of cupertino. 
  • Two Analysts: 
    • Bear Case
    • Bull case
  • I’ve been on the inside of companies and know that what news reports is often, if not most the time erroneous or off the mark. 
    • I think Apple will figure it out. 
    • Remember Apple maps…took a few years, but now Great!

RSU’s 

This is also a good reminder to Diversify RSU’s. 

Tesla

  • Monday this week.  $260-$220 in 1 day. 15% down!
  • Largest single day drops in history.
    • Largest single-day drops in $TSLA history (adjusted for splits):
    • 9/8/2020 21.1%, to $110.07
    • 1/13/2012 19.1%, to $1.52
    • 3/16/2020 18.6%, to $29.67
    • 2/5/2020 17.2%, to $48.98
    • 7/6/2010 16.4%, $1.07
    • 3/18/2020 16.0%, to $24.08
    • 3/10/2025 15.4%, to $222.15
    • 12/27/2010 15.4%, to $1.70 
  • Ron Baron: 
    • Ron Baron on Tesla sales down because they’re not building…they’re in “refresh” mode for Model Y. 
    • Ron on Robotaxi future
      • Instead of $7-8k 
      • $$3-$40k in profit per car per year.  
      • So adding $30-50b per year in profit! 
  • Morgan Stanley says could go to $800 in next 12 months. 
  • NEWS: Tesla is reportedly working with Chinese tech giant Baidu to improve FSD performance in China. 
  • Trump accepting car. Elon says Tesla will double manufacturing output in US over next 2 years. That’s a lot. And all with FSD approved and operational.  

My Take:

  1. Most Dems won’t sell their Tesla’s or Boycott the best car in world. 
  2. Now Republicans are Buying! 
  3. 1 year from now, this will all be forgotten. 

AI

DOGE:

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#86 – Apple, Markets, Tesla, AI, Anthropic, Mice Read More »

#85 – College, Markets, AI Robotics & China, Govt

Opening Fun

College tours:

  • A&M, TCU, Miami, Tennessee, Clemson
  • Nashville. Cool city.

College thoughts: 

Saturday Night Live –  CouplaBeers 

SpaceX. Starship Booster caught for 3rd time

WSJ Headline: SpaceX Again Loses Spacecraft During Latest Starship Test Flight

Markets:

Bad Week. Fundamentals still there, but uncertainty driving correction. 

  • Keep in mind. Was over-valued. 
  • Markets correcting.
    • Tech down 12%, S&P 500 down 5.5%.  
    • Tesla down 45%. This means up 82% to back to normal. That’s huge!! Wait till Robotaxi. 
    • Netflix down 14%

Crypto

Fortknox for digital gold: Bitcoin. 

  • Definitely bullish for Bitcoin and Crypto

Tesla

SpaceX

NEW: Astronaut says Elon Musk is “absolutely factual” after a WaPo reporter asked him about how Musk said his rescue efforts were denied for political reasons.

Musk was condemned by the media for making the comment but it appears the astronauts agree.

Reporter: “Elon Musk has The astronauts were only supposed to be in space for 8 days. They have been there for 9 months.

China Tech

Xiaomi

  • Apple of China. 
  • pronounced SHAU-mee
    • is year, the company’s assembly lines are set to turn out 300,000 vehicles, and it has already shipped more than 135,000 in less than a year on the market. The wait list for its first car, the SU7, a Porsche look-alike that starts at around $30,000, is around half a year, and Xiaomi’s Hong Kong-listed shares have more than tripled in a year. Lei has done what Tesla TSLA 3.91% increase; green up pointing triangle, Apple, Ford Motor increase; green up pointing triangle and General Motors have been unable to do: create a hit, inexpensive electric vehicle—and fast. Tesla took more than a decade from its founding to reach the 300,000-vehicle production level. Fifteen-year-old EV truck maker Rivian made one-sixth that number last year.
  • Tesla did 1.8m cars last year. 460k last quarter

Key Takeaways:

  1.  Headline is a joke. Tesla was the pioneer.  would not even be happening or having this discussion if it were not for Tesla and Elon Musk.
  2. Now we in the US government have to vote for Tesla otherwise China beat the United States in electrical vehicle manufacturing. Tesla is our only hope.

China AI

China Tells Its AI Leaders to Avoid U.S. Travel Over Security Concerns

On Feb. 17, Beijing summoned the country’s most prominent businesspeople for a meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who reminded attendees to uphold a “sense of national duty” as they develop their technology. The audience included DeepSeek’s Liang and Wang Xingxing, founder of humanoid robot maker Unitree Robotics. 

Robots

Website for all things Robots: Robotsguide.com

Couple big announcements in US.  

Figure

Discussed on All in Podcast.  Figure’s focus on general-purpose humanoid robots aligns with the podcast’s tech-forward audience, and their recent moves—like a $675 million funding round in 2024 with backing from OpenAI and NVIDIA—

1x.tech

Robot called: Neo Gamma. U.S. based humanoid robot startup @1x_tech has unveiled their next-gen robot, NEO Gamma. Improvements: NEO can now walk with a natural human gait and arm swings.

Tesla

  • Robots? Enough said. 
  • People thought and still think this is a joke!!

China Robots

  • Xpeng (not even in top 5?!)
  • Xiaomi.  
    • Xiaomi, a major Chinese electronics company, is making significant strides in humanoid robotics alongside its well-known smartphone and EV businesses. Their standout entry is the CyberOne, a full-sized humanoid robot unveiled in August 2022. Standing at 177 cm (5.8 feet) and weighing 52 kg (114 lbs), it’s got 21 degrees of freedom, letting it mimic human movements decently well—think walking, gesturing, even handing over a flower in demos. It’s powered by Xiaomi’s Mi-Sense depth vision module and AI algorithms, giving it 3D spatial awareness and the ability to recognize 45 human emotions, per their claims. Peak torque hits 300 Nm, and it tops out at 3.6 km/h (2.2 mph)—not a sprinter, but functional.
  • Unitree Robotics
    • Why They’re Top: Unitree’s H1 humanoid is a standout—clocking a world-record speed of 7.4 mph in 2024, it’s fast, agile, and affordable. Their G1 model, priced at $16,000, is already on sale, targeting developers and early adopters.
    • What They’ve Got: The H1 uses 3D LiDAR and depth cameras for 360-degree perception, with modular joints packing 70 Nm of torque. It’s been demoed doing flips and climbing stairs, and they’re scaling production after a $150 million Series C in December 2024.
    • Real-World Edge: Partnerships with EV giants like BYD and XPeng have their bots testing in factories, proving they’re not just lab toys.
  • UBTECH Robotics
    • Why They’re Top: UBTECH’s Walker S is a workhorse—deployed in car factories like Nio’s, handling tasks from inspections to material transport. Their 2023 Hong Kong IPO (valuing them at $1 billion) shows serious muscle.
    • What They’ve Got: Walker S has 41 degrees of freedom, multimodal AI, and can navigate complex environments. Their earlier CyberOne (with Xiaomi) reads emotions and moves bipedally with 300 Nm torque.
    • Real-World Edge: It’s in actual assembly lines, not just showcases—think precision tasks in automotive manufacturing, backed by Shenzhen’s tech ecosystem.
  • Agibot (Zhiyuan Robot)
    • Why They’re Top: Agibot kicked off mass production in December 2024 at their Shanghai Lingang factory, claiming 962+ humanoids built already. They’re gunning for Tesla’s Optimus with a versatile lineup.
    • What They’ve Got: The Expedition A2 series includes the A2 (40 degrees of freedom, precision tasks like threading needles) and A2 MAX (67 degrees, heavy lifting). They’ve got $150 million from a Series A to fuel this push.
    • Real-World Edge: Videos show their bots assembling parts and testing performance—geared for manufacturing and aiming at commercial rollout in 2025.
  • LimX Dynamics
    • Why They’re Top: Their CL-1 humanoid is a beast at terrain adaptation—climbing stairs and running outdoors with real-time perception. They’re small but mighty, with $46 million raised since 2022.
    • What They’ve Got: CL-1 uses a closed-loop system linking sensors to motion control, making it rugged and practical. It’s pitched as a platform for future AGI-driven tasks.
    • Real-World Edge: It’s been tested in dynamic settings—think industrial sites or disaster zones—showing off China’s knack for rugged robotics.
  • EX Robots
    • Why They’re Top: EX Robots specializes in hyper-realistic humanoids, deployed in museums and service roles. They’ve been at it since 2016, with a factory in Dalian churning out lifelike bots.
    • What They’ve Got: Their robots use 3D scanning and lightweight mechanics for fluid movements and facial expressions. Priced at $207,000-$276,000, they’re niche but advanced—think 60+ actuated joints.
    • Real-World Edge: You’ll find them greeting visitors at science museums or hotels—less industrial, more public-facing, but undeniably real and interactive
  • Start at 19:54.  Tesla  Will produce several 1000 Optimus robots for factory use. Ramp Optimus production faster than anything ever manufactured. Thinks can make 100m per year if increase by 5x per year. Optimus will overwhelming be the value of the company. 100m * 20k = $2T revenue.
    • Built everything from scratch
    • Best manufacturing ever. Supply.

Politics

I WANT 2 Parties!!!! 

DOGE

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