This Week in Startups
00:01:10 · Lon Harris, Jason Calacanis
[00:01:10] S2: Definitely. So on Tuesday, democrats secured majorities in both the house and the senate. Many of their candidates ran on slowing AI development, especially data center construction. Voters also acted locally. More than a dozen Ohio towns, for example, voted to halt or restrict new data center development. Similar bans passed in Kansas, Florida, and California, and Texas governor elect Hinojosa campaigned on pausing construction until the legislature passes new regulations per The Wall Street Journal. [00:01:40] S0: Hinojosa. Hinojosa. Hinojosa. Hinojosa. Yes. We're gonna have to get used to saying that. I knew Greg Abbott, and Yeah. She follows me. She's only got, like, a 100,000 followers. She follows me on Twitter, so I'm gonna reach out to her and do an interview with her and maybe have the brisket summit. We might have to have a brisket summit between the tech industry, Gina, and Talarico. [00:02:00] S2: They were at they were at Whataburger right down the street from Terry Black's. They were right there on Barton Spring. Now is Barton Springs Road in first? That was the Whataburger they were at if you saw those photos. [00:02:09] S0: I'm gonna have to reassess my opinion. I'm gonna give Whataburger a second chance. [00:02:13] S2: It's terrible. No. Whataburger's bad. I'm sorry, Texas. They're very proud of Whataburger. And, you know, I'm not some burger snob. I think P. Terry's is fine. Like, I'll eat a burger. I... Whataburger's really disappointing. They treat it like it's like they're Texas In N Out. And come on, guys.
00:02:13 · Lon Harris, Jason Calacanis
[00:02:13] S2: It's terrible. No. Whataburger's bad. I'm sorry, Texas. They're very proud of Whataburger. And, you know, I'm not some burger snob. I think P. Terry's is fine. Like, I'll eat a burger. I... Whataburger's really disappointing. They treat it like it's like they're Texas In N Out. And come on, guys. [00:02:29] S0: It's not. It's not. P. Terry's is the one where I might have said something a little spicy, but if I'm gonna run for office, I'm gonna have to re... I'm gonna have to reassess and re Yeah. I'm gonna have to re underwrite my P. Terry's opinion based on how love that brand is. I'm gonna give it a second shot. [00:02:43] S2: I think Torchy's Tacos and P. Terry's you have to like if you're in Austinite. Anyway, Texas, Georgia, and Ohio account for more than 40%, Jason, of all planned US data center capacity. And by Wednesday morning, senior OpenAI leaders were already discussing whether to reset expectations for next year's capacity. Bloomberg also reports Microsoft is souring on neo clouds like Nscale, Nscale, Nscale, Nscale, Nscale, canceled the roughly $3,000,000,000 Nscale deal tied to a UK data center. So, that's what's going on from the tech view. What's your view just as a person who's been watching all of this go down? What were your immediate reactions to, the midterms?
00:02:43 · Lon Harris, Jason Calacanis
[00:02:43] S2: I think Torchy's Tacos and P. Terry's you have to like if you're in Austinite. Anyway, Texas, Georgia, and Ohio account for more than 40%, Jason, of all planned US data center capacity. And by Wednesday morning, senior OpenAI leaders were already discussing whether to reset expectations for next year's capacity. Bloomberg also reports Microsoft is souring on neo clouds like Nscale, Nscale, Nscale, Nscale, Nscale, canceled the roughly $3,000,000,000 Nscale deal tied to a UK data center. So, that's what's going on from the tech view. What's your view just as a person who's been watching all of this go down? What were your immediate reactions to, the midterms? [00:03:21] S0: So, you know, the one thing that Trump really nailed during his first two years, first half of his, presidency, just under two years, was supporting big tech, supporting growth, getting rid of regulations, and just let's grow, grow, grow, including the AI trade. So I think he was super engaged in that. That is kind of the most important thing happening in our, in the world. So if you frame it that way, AI is the most important thing in the world. I would give Donald Trump like an a to a plus, in his handling of it. Like, just [00:03:57] S2: Really? Flawless. Absolutely. Wow.
00:03:57 · Lon Harris, Jason Calacanis
[00:03:57] S2: Really? Flawless. Absolutely. Wow. [00:03:59] S0: Alright. A plus. Because you you wanna get these data centers going. You wanna get energy going. He made it a focus. He he he stood his ground when people were anti data center, and he said, listen. These data centers are incredible. You really have to look at it when it was becoming incredibly unpopular. He said, be careful. You wanna negotiate your best deal here. You can get a great deal. Because he's a dealmaker. And because he has a good nose for business, you may not like his personal style. You may hate many things about Trump, not you, but a person. [00:04:27] S2: Right. [00:04:27] S0: And, obviously, the country was very upset at him, and this is obviously a referendum against him. [00:04:32] S2: Right. That's what I was gonna ask is Trump really put himself front and center in terms of the midterms and said, you know, it's a referendum on me. If you love me, you gotta vote Republican. He kinda did the same thing with data centers. He made it such a huge focus that Yes. Do you think that he might have made it more partisan than it otherwise would have been?
00:04:32 · Lon Harris, Jason Calacanis
[00:04:32] S2: Right. That's what I was gonna ask is Trump really put himself front and center in terms of the midterms and said, you know, it's a referendum on me. If you love me, you gotta vote Republican. He kinda did the same thing with data centers. He made it such a huge focus that Yes. Do you think that he might have made it more partisan than it otherwise would have been? [00:04:52] S0: Okay. So now you nailed it. He did make it a a wedge issue here. Right. And the... Forcing the Democrats to take the other side. What you're going to see, I'll just make the prediction for you, and I have a lot of tweets about this today. On the data center, let's just go data center data center tech. Tech tanked today. We had a five, 6% correction. That's on... And and when we've... The day after the midterms, we had a big boom. Right. Because people thought, hey. The war is gonna end in Iran. The grifting is gonna stop. We have a check against Trump with the tariffs, mainly Right. Tariffs and war. If the tariffs we get... The tariffs calm down and we get the war ending, it's very bullish for stocks, for loans, etcetera. [00:05:35] S2: An interesting perspective from DA Wallach on yesterday's, This Week at VC roundtable, I also have seen in a few other places. Do you think there may be a sense that gridlock is almost good in a way? Like, if the government can do less, they can regulate less, they can force less, like, they're gonna be less aggressive.
00:05:35 · Lon Harris, Jason Calacanis
[00:05:35] S2: An interesting perspective from DA Wallach on yesterday's, This Week at VC roundtable, I also have seen in a few other places. Do you think there may be a sense that gridlock is almost good in a way? Like, if the government can do less, they can regulate less, they can force less, like, they're gonna be less aggressive. [00:05:53] S0: A 100% having a split government is the preferred case. You wanna have checks and balances. Sometimes you get all three aspects of government. You you get the house and the the judiciary. You have control over the supreme court, you have the executive branch. And you have the two branches, the senate and the the house of representatives. So arguably, there's, like, five... Four pieces of government, I think, is how you probably should look at it, not three, because the house and the senate are, [00:06:21] S2: you know, unique. Very different.