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▶ 65:50 · $SCALE-AI · $MERCOR · Jason: Scale AI and Mercor selling expert-labeled data to Chinese labs, helping them catch up
episode briefing
All-In Podcast

Google’s AI Brain Drain, SpaceX's Huge Quarter, Airtable’s 90% Collapse, US Data Fuels China AI

2026-08-08 · 26 company · 15 thematic
sentiment
15 bull5 bear6 neu
speakers
brad gerstner

Founder and CEO of Altimeter Capital, a technology investment firm, and host of the BG2 podcast. Known for concentrated growth bets and widely-read public memos on big tech.

david sacks

Co-founder of Craft Ventures and a co-host of the All-In podcast. Part of the PayPal mafia and founder of Yammer; active on AI and tech policy.

jason calacanis

Angel investor, host of This Week in Startups and co-host of the All-In podcast. An early investor in Uber, Robinhood and Calm.

david friedberg

Co-host of the All-In podcast and a serial founder, including The Climate Corporation. Focuses on science, agriculture and deep tech.

quote
“Two startups, Sergei and Mercor are both valued at over $20 billion. They sell training data sets to people like OpenAI Anthropic federal agencies. Um they all sell the same data sets to top Chinese AI companies. According to this report,…”
—jason calacanis

episode shorts · 3

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now playing · $SCALE-AI · $MERCOR
$GOOGL···neutral· highdavid friedberg
Friedberg: Google shifting capex from risky model training to high-ROIC compute infrastructure
Google's $200B capex commitment favors data center infrastructure over frontier model development because compute infrastructure offers high alpha/low beta returns with visible de…
$GOOGL···neutral· mediumbrad gerstner
Gerstner: Google has channel conflict between cloud compute rental and internal model building
Google Cloud wants compute to rent to Anthropic and others, while internal frontier model teams want that same compute to compete with Anthropic, creating structural conflict that…
$ANTHROPICbullish· highdavid sacks
Sacks: Anthropic ARR at $80B+, tracking to $110-120B exit ARR
Anthropic started year at $10B ARR, forecast $100B exit ARR, now likely $110-120B+ proving frontier model duopoly can charge premium; revenue acceleration validates two-tier marke…
$OPENAIbullish· mediumdavid sacks
Sacks: OpenAI seeing acceleration, part of frontier duopoly with Anthropic
OpenAI and Anthropic form a durable frontier duopoly that can charge premium pricing like Apple vs Android, while commodity models compete on compute cost.
$SPCX···bullish· high· posbrad gerstner
Gerstner: SpaceX at $1.4T with 100B ARR target, $1T ARR by 2030 pulled forward
SpaceX's spectacular Q2 (7.8B revenue, +92% YoY) and Elon's guidance of 100B ARR by year-end and $1T ARR by 2030 (vs Morgan Stanley's 325B) suggest market not pricing in growth; S…
$CURSORbullish· mediumbrad gerstner
Gerstner: Cursor on path from $3B to $10B ARR by year-end
Cursor's revenue trajectory (3B to 10B ARR) combined with Grok's token tripling could create $10-20B ARR asset trading at much higher multiple than data center rental business.
$SPCX···bullish· mediumbrad gerstner
Gerstner: Grok tripled tokens in July, combined with Cursor could hit $10-20B ARR
xAI's Grok model showing rapid adoption (3x tokens in July) alongside Cursor acquisition creates potential $10-20B ARR frontier model business at high multiple.
$CRWV···bearish· mediumbrad gerstner
Gerstner says GPU rental businesses like CoreWeave command low multiples
In discussing SpaceX's compute-rental strategy, Gerstner said GPU rental businesses tend to trade at low valuation multiples and cited CoreWeave as the example.
$SPCX···bullish· highdavid sacks
Sacks: Starlink alone could be $1T market cap in 18 months at 30x FCF
Starlink generated $2.6B adjusted EBITDA on $4.3B revenue in Q2 with 12M subs doubling YoY; at 24M sub run rate could hit $40B revenue/$30B FCF, and at 30x multiple (high renewal,…
$TSLA···bullish· mediumdavid sacks
Sacks: Every future Tesla will have Starlink built-in, enabling direct-to-phone and robotaxi mesh
Tesla-Starlink integration creates 400M+ US mobile subscriber opportunity via direct-to-cell from satellites and vehicle mesh networks, accelerating Starlink beyond rural niche.
$ANTHROPICbullish· mediumbrad gerstner
Gerstner frames rumored Anthropic valuation as modest against projected revenue
Gerstner said a rumored $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion Anthropic valuation would equal roughly 10 to 15 times a projected year-end revenue run rate above $100 billion, noting its ra…
$NVDA···neutral· mediumbrad gerstner
Gerstner: Nvidia may backstop data center financing but shareholders resist unlimited exposure
Nvidia could vendor-finance Elon's 6 GW buildout ($300B capex) but Nvidia shareholders fear spot price collapse would extend payback from 1 year to 4-5 years, creating circular re…
$AIRTABLEbearish· highdavid sacks
Sacks: Airtable spun out AI agent business, sold legacy PE play to Bending Spoons at 90% discount
Airtable's 30% sales attainment revealed failed sales-led motion; Bending Spoons can cut 85-90% costs, return to PLG roots, achieve 80-90% EBITDA margins on $480M revenue growing…
$AIRTABLEbearish· highdavid sacks
Sacks: Airtable sale exposes VC-PE structural mismatch
Airtable's $1.28B sale (90% off peak) reveals founders/VCs cannot switch from venture growth mode to private equity cost-cutting; Bending Spoons can strip 85-90% of costs, revert…
$BSP···bullish· mediumdavid sacks
Sacks: Bending Spoons creating roll-up model, AI makes maintenance easier without institutional knowledge
Bending Spoons' infrastructure managing dozens of legacy properties (Evernote, Vimeo, Meetup) plus AI's ability to learn codebases instantly makes maintenance-mode roll-ups highly…
$ADBE···neutral· lowdavid sacks
Sacks: Leopold shorted Adobe as SaaS apocalypse bet, trade moved against him
Shorting broad SaaS indices (including Adobe) on AI disruption thesis has failed YTD as IGV ETF up 20% in 6 months; not all SaaS equally vulnerable.
$CRM···bullish· mediumdavid sacks
Sacks: Salesforce entrenched via compliance rails (15/15 cabinet agencies), not code quality
Enterprise SaaS with deep compliance moats (FedRAMP, DoD clearances, identity management) are defensible against AI-native replacements because rip-and-replace costs exceed softwa…
$FIG···bullish· lowdavid friedberg
Friedberg: Figma has passionate user base and founder commitment to make AI-first transition
Figma's strong community and long-term founder vision position it to successfully integrate AI rather than be disrupted by it.
$IGV···bullish· mediumbrad gerstner
Gerstner: IGV up 20% in 6 months, SaaS not monolithic in AI disruption
Software ETF recovery shows market differentiating between AI-vulnerable no-code tools and defensible compliance-heavy platforms; Snowflake's 88% gain parallels semiconductor stoc…
$SNOW···bullish· mediumbrad gerstner
Gerstner: Snowflake up 88% in 6 months, data/AI infrastructure winners diverging from no-code SaaS
Snowflake's 88% gain shows data infrastructure and AI-native platforms (Databricks, ClickHouse) are outperforming, while no-code/low-code SaaS faces disruption from AI coding agen…
$DATABRICKSbullish· lowbrad gerstner
Gerstner: Databricks doing extraordinarily well alongside Snowflake
Databricks benefiting from AI data infrastructure demand as enterprises build proprietary data platforms for model training.
$CLICKHOUSEbullish· lowbrad gerstner
Gerstner: ClickHouse doing extraordinarily well in AI data infrastructure
ClickHouse benefiting from real-time analytics demand for AI applications.
$SCALE-AIbearish· mediumjason calacanis
Jason: Scale AI and Mercor selling expert-labeled data to Chinese labs, helping them catch up
US data labeling startups (Scale AI, Mercor valued $20B+) selling PhD-curated training datasets to top Chinese AI labs (Tencent, ByteDance, Alibaba, Moonshot) spending $500M/year,…
$MERCORbearish· mediumjason calacanis
Jason: Mercor valued $20B+ selling expert data to Chinese AI labs
Mercor's expert-labeled datasets sold to Chinese frontier labs represent potential technology transfer risk as China spends $500M/year on US-curated training data.
$MICRO1neutral· lowjason calacanis
Jason: Micro1 founder chose not to sell data to China, unlike competitors
Micro1 differentiated by refusing China data sales, highlighting ethical/competitive choice facing data labeling companies.
$TCEHY···neutral· mediumbrad gerstner
Gerstner: Chinese labs (Tencent, Alibaba) catching up fast via data/distillation
Chinese models (Kimi, Qwen, GLM) now competitive; US data labeling sales to China accelerate catch-up via expert-labeled datasets and distillation; Washington scrutiny will increa…