This Week in Startups
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.
00:06:21 · Lon Harris, Jason Calacanis
[00:06:21] S2: you know, unique. Very different. [00:06:23] S0: They're very different. So you really have four parts of government. How often do you have four of four? And Trump had four of four for two years. And some people will say he squandered it. You can make arguments that he did, or didn't do enough when he had that. Now he has two. Right? He still has the supreme court. He still has the executive branch, but he he lost the senate and the house of representatives. The trade has been overblown. I said from the beginning when governor Abbott came out and said, like, oh, we gotta pause data centers and make sure they're all tight. That was just appeasing the masses who we've talked about many times hate AI because Dario said, you're all gonna die, and half of people are losing their jobs and and all this chaotic stuff. [00:07:04] S2: I have a clip of this if you wanna take a look at your comments from August. So, Zach, this will be episode two three three two, 08/31/2026. Here is Jason making this prediction about what would happen with data centers before and after the election. Oh, wow. Let's think you're very prescient. Very prescient. Zach,