I'm an entrepreneur, investor, & philanthropist. I founded @PalantirTech @Addepar @UAustinOrg @8VC & other mission-driven orgs. Bold policy @InstituteCicero

Austin, Texas USA
Pleased to announce we closed @8VC Fund 7; $1.5B capital to partner w/ top talent in this US-led AI Industrial Revolution! Productivity, manufacturing, defense, healthcare, et al. We are too busy crushing it to make a new video; what an exciting time in the innovation world! 🇺🇸
We are proud to announce 8VC Fund VI, with $998 million in new LP capital to back the most fearless and ambitious builders. The world is broken. Let's fix it. To the frontier!
196
85
1,738
339,628
The Japanese are a noble people, and are close friends and critical allies of our country. The free world needs their economy and military to be strong. In the not too distant future, much may depend upon our relationship.
NOBODY tells Americans this part of the story. March 11, 2011. A black, 30-foot wall of ocean swallowed Northeast Japan. Our government froze. The Pentagon had no orders. Communications were dead. You know what Captain Thom Burke and Rear Admiral Robert Girrier did on the USS Ronald Reagan? They didn't wait for the White House. They didn't wait for paperwork. They looked at the TV screen, saw their friend drowning, and committed the ultimate military sin: UNAUTHORIZED ADVANCE. “We’re going. NOW.” They turned the massive nuclear carrier full throttle straight into the disaster zone. Then came the hydrogen explosions at Fukushima. Radiation plumes drifted across the Pacific. Every foreign embassy told their citizens: RUN. The US Embassy ordered an evacuation zone: STAY 50 MILES AWAY. Did the Ronald Reagan turn around? DID YOUR SAILORS RUN? NOT. ONE. INCH. Nineteen-year-old kids from Texas and Ohio stood on a freezing flight deck, radiation detectors in hand, launching helicopters into blizzards. They hovered over submerged rooftops, pulling shivering mothers and babies out of the black water. When Japanese refugees were brought aboard shivering in shock, your sailors gave up their own warm bunks and slept on the cold steel floor. While the rest of the world ran away from Japan, AMERICA CHARGED STRAIGHT INTO THE FIRE. You didn't do it for a treaty. You didn't do it for politicians. You saw your friend bleeding, and you kicked the doors down to save us. Happy 250th, America. Japan will remember your boys forever. 🇺🇸🤝🇯🇵
16
37
490
23,195
The USA is blessed to have successful leaders like Scott Kupor willing to go into government, for a tiny fraction of what he was making building a16z, to fight to improve how it works - and bring back merit and accountability. Great discussion! We’ll publish on @AmOptimistShow.
UATX founder Joe Lonsdale (@JTLonsdale) sat down with OPM Director Scott Kupor (@skupor) to talk about bringing merit-based hiring back to the federal government, rebuilding accountability for its two million civilian employees, and why the country's toughest problems need young talent. His message to students: your government needs you, even if just for two years. Thanks to the David Network for co-hosting.
10
17
164
12,072
Joe Lonsdale retweeted
The NGOs end up increasing the number of homeless people they manage, because that’s the only way to increase their revenue! Incentives drive outcomes. “Homeless” is a propaganda word used to describe people on the street who are mentally ill or severely addicted to drugs. The word implies that this is someone who fell a little behind on their mortgage payment and they’re one job offer away from getting back on their feet, which is obviously false if you’ve ever tried talking to a “homeless” person in SF, LA, NY, Austin or anywhere else. The honest reality is that we need to bring back asylums for extreme mental illness or drug addiction for those who are a serious danger to themselves or others.
Incentives determine outcomes If you give an NGO a certain number of dollars per homeless person, they will never solve homelessness SF spends more than $1b/yr (up 5x) and the homeless population has only grown NGO fraud is so insane, man.
3,256
12,820
59,604
3,584,519
Amazing company 🫡 ! Just getting going 🇺🇸
Cognition has crossed $1B in annualized revenue run rate. This milestone belongs to our customers. Here's how a few of them are building with Devin.
12
9
283
27,557
Islamists are commanded to lie to further their goals. This guy is tied closely to America-hating, terror-funding extremists. It’s clear he is of the same ilk. I hope there are enough moderates left in Michigan to stop him.
BREAKING: Abdul El-Seyed’s sister is caught on film admitting that Abdul is lying about his policies and that he’s not a capitalist.
45
523
2,641
86,699
Joe Lonsdale retweeted
The most accurate political recap of the past 3 years since October 7th.
DFF
571
5,744
19,486
811,006
We need a bold and permanent FDA Commissioner willing to unleash cures, bypass the Soviet style bureaucracy and beat China. Heidi has big plans; Americans should be in her corner, rooting to ensure we are the safest & fastest place for new cures and AI innovation in the clinic.
Confirm Heidi Overton as FDA commissioner washingtontimes.com/news/202…
14
50
451
21,786
Joe Lonsdale retweeted
BREAKING: It’s been revealed that Abdul El-Seyed signed onto a statement, calling for the Muslim Brotherhood to purge the media and police. What are we even doing?
22
495
1,130
20,018
AI and robotics are advancing faster than most predicted, opening up categories of companies that would have sounded like science fiction only a few years ago. @vvkgopalan has pushed our team to believe the future will arrive faster than consensus expects, and he has repeatedly been right. I’m excited to announce that Vivek has been promoted to Partner, six years after joining @8VC from Yale. Vivek has earned the trust of exceptional researchers, engineers, and founders across AI and robotics, helping us partner with ambitious companies including @GeneralistAI, @BedrockRobotics, @edra_ai, @withsableai, @ValsAI, Bobyard and more. He genuinely loves the craft of company-building, helping founders pursue the maximally ambitious version of what they can build. Vivek and I recently sat down with @GeneralistAI founder @peteflorence to discuss recent breakthroughs in general-purpose robotics. Listen to our conversation below. Proud to call Vivek our Partner. To the frontier!
EPISODE 161: The Robotics GPT-3 Moment @JTLonsdale sits down with @peteflorence Pete and @GeneralistAI are changing everything we know about robotics: -- robots trained on new tasks in seconds (seconds!) -- self-taught ambidexterity & other breakthroughs -- 10X more science and how the world will change (00:00) Episode intro (01:30) Bay Area to MIT and DeepMind (03:55) Pete's epiphany: robots sitting still (08:30) Why intelligence, not hardware, is the next frontier (13:20) The GPT-3 era of robotics (14:55) Why leave DeepMind? (16:50) How to train robot brains (18:30) Emergent ambidexterity (20:40) LLMs vs robot world models (23:50) GEN-0, GEN-1 & scaling laws in robotics (27:28) 10x more science per year (32:50)  Skilled trades, reindustrialization & future of robots
33
52
596
97,373
Tbh, I would crush them in football. Peter might edge me out in chess.
I’m getting the Founder Edition
33
26
488
99,707
Always fun to stop by Squawk Box; I was on right before my friend and mentor Ken Langone this morning, and got to give him a hug. He is still a fighter at 91! AI is a huge and growing advantage for our country. As Ken will tell you, don’t bet against America 🇺🇸.
🚨NEW: @JTLonsdale & @SquawkCNBC clash on AI and wealth inequality. Joe Lonsdale: 2030s is the disinflation decade... we're all going to be really wealthy if we don't break this. Joe Kernen: Everybody's going to get wealthier? Because only the wealthy have been getting wealthier... Joe Lonsdale: That's not true. Let's go back: 1870 to 1900, the Second Industrial Revolution, the last time productivity shot up a lot, the average American, the average working class American, was twice as wealthy in real terms within one generation... Andrew Ross Sorkin: Tell me where you land on "We've got to slow everything down, because if we don't, we could end up dying... Joe Kernen: or worse... Joe Lonsdale: or worse, the companies go bankrupt  Andrew: versus we've got to go full steam ahead. No matter what. No matter what the case. Joe Lonsdale: I love the meme where it's Dario and Sam saying, please regulate us. And Trump says, keep building, nerds.  These companies have a lot of liabilities. These companies need to slow down if they see themselves causing damage. I'm not worried about any existential risks in the near term. I 100% could see these companies accidentally causing some problems with hacking with cyber, for example. They have a responsibility to slow down themselves, and we should be holding them liable if they cause any damage. And so it makes sense that they would be very careful about that. But we were just talking... 2030s is disinflation decade. We're going to all be really wealthy if we don't break this. So don't slow down too much is my view. Joe Kernen: Go back to this again. You told me that 2030s are going to be the decade of disinflation. We're going to all get rich, and we're not going to need to raise taxes, and we're going to start growing faster. The deficit will come under control. This is going to happen? Joe Lonsdale: The AI is really good for rooting out fraud and grift in the government. It's really going to bring down health care costs dramatically. It's amazing for bringing back manufacturing. We have companies already bringing back lots of manufacturing here. That's only about to accelerate. We're at what's called a GPT-3 moment right now for robotics, right. World models, which are a new type of AI -- how do things move and interact in the real world in general terms... Joe Kernen: So this will help one of our most daunting fears of the $40 trillion and the out of control deficits we're running now, this will come under control from AI?  Joe Lonsdale: If you get productivity up to 3, 4 or 5%, what you 100% should be able to do with these things, if not significantly higher, that solves the deficit problem. This is an amazing thing for a civilization; this is the answer is to get growth higher, and it's how everyone gets wealthier, it's doing more with less. It's going to do it. Joe Kernen: Everybody's going to get wealthier? Because only the wealthy have been getting wealthier... Joe Lonsdale: That's not true. Let's go back: 1870 to1900, the Second Industrial Revolution, the last time productivity shot up a lot, the average American, the average working class American, was twice as wealthy in real terms within one generation. And that's what happens when productivity goes up. Everyone gets wealthier. We we teach economics very poorly in this country.
61
113
1,369
104,916
🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
To build the Arsenal of Freedom, American companies must move fast—and move at scale. Thankfully, the patriots of Austin, Texas, have answered the call. AMERICAN WORKERS. AMERICAN MADE.
11
37
693
45,388
Such a great American company.
1
20
4,187
Watch what they do, not what they say. The globalists’ goal is consistent - whether in the Biden admin, this UK admin, or the EU. All over the west, voting for the left is a vote for this insane invasion. Don’t let them distract you with personalities and lame culture wars.
🚨NEW FOOTAGE: They used a blue light boat to stop the cameras Two men on a small boat off Eastney. RNLI on the beach with the arrivals. Official boat moves in to push them back so they can’t film it. You pay for the landing. You pay for the coaches. You pay for the boat that hides it.
33
151
1,684
97,552
Nothing to see here guys. If you comment on CCP-linked activity, they imply you’re “racist”. Better not to notice any of this! “Richard Dearlove, former head of MI5, explaining how China's influence ops in the UK led to deindustrialization and a precarious dependence on China.”
Two important essays were published this week on the theme that the climate movement is now a serious national security risk for the US and Europe. This one in Tablet magazine: tabletmag.com/sections/news/… is by 2 authors, one from the Hudson Inst in DC and the other a professor at the Naval Postgrad Academy in CA. They trace the links between China and the western Net Zero movement, which is partly financial, but works mostly through influence operations by which the CCP gains exemption from criticism by western green groups despite its own coal-intensive and slave labor-dependent growth strategy. This one: thegwpf.org/content/uploads/… is by Richard Dearlove, former head of MI5, explaining how China's influence ops in the UK led to deindustrialization and a precarious dependence on China; to the extent that the UK could not now reindustrialize or stabilize its electricity grid without seeking assistance from Beijing. Dearlove's paper raises the possibility that a security agency like MI5 saw a threat building but was unable to address it because of a perception that climate science forbids criticizing Net Zero and related measures. A question I think worth asking is whether western intelligence agencies have internalized the green Net Zero mindset thereby preventing them from challenging the climate alarmism so effectively weaponized by the CCP. And if they now want to start doing so, would they know how, or have the capacity to do so.
27
128
1,126
58,278
Amazing. Everybody is sleeping on how important this is. For all of us! For a relatively very small additional cost, we could add in a few dozen stations and get rid of a lot of traffic in Austin, too. This is key for growing business but also the cultural / music scene, etc.
Replying to @elonmusk
Boring Company is working on a simple, precursor Hyperloop tunnel between Austin and San Antonio (>200 mph). Due to traffic congestion, that journey can currently take up to 2.5 hours. @BoringCompany can reduce that to a consistent <30 mins.
214
323
3,949
840,134
Joe Lonsdale retweeted
A company that has access to sensitive payments info about millions of our fellow US citizens and businesses should not have 712 employees and key engineering infrastructure built in China. The law there means that any of them MUST work with CCP intel to secretly plot to get access to this data, and hide it from you. You are unable to tell them not to do so! We know that the CCP PLA has an entire division of cognitive warfare that goes beyond land / sea / air / cyber. It gathers data and builds profiles of our people and economy, and creates AI models, and explores how to weaken or disrupt us. AirWallex has exactly the data it wants and needs to do its mission. Perhaps you are just naive - but consider this, would you bet your life against some part of your team in China working with the CCP to have accessed some of this info? To build a backdoor, somehow? I would not, if I were you. Since you bring up Palantir: what you are doing supporting a company like this with China-based operations is clearly against Palantir’s mission or modus operandi.
23
40
455
80,423
The MUCH better answer - which ironically, Anthropic would know if they had access to a higher intelligence - is to build cheap tunnels around the SF Bay Area, and eliminate traffic. For a fraction of 1% of Anthropic’s value - a cost that CA tech itself could easily cover - the Bay Area could have 500 miles of tunnels and 500 small, accessible stations all over. Bye-bye to commutes. And these would even make money, versus needing higher sales taxes! Hoping these lefty nerds actually figure out super intelligence, and then listen to it! There are so many easy answers that no leader is currently smart or courageous enough to embrace.
Anthropic is spending $750k to raise our property and sales taxes and give more money to our poorly run transit systems. $500k for higher property taxes $250k for a 1% SF sales tax hike Love public transit but hate how poorly ours is run, I don’t think money solves it.
61
45
767
390,280
Joe Lonsdale retweeted
.@JTLonsdale on Greenland: “It’s a frontier mindset” “I think having a frontier is very healthy. I think Britain was a healthier society when it had a frontier and was growing.” “The most competent things grow.”
BBC Newsnight
BREAKING: President Donald J. Trump announces complete and permanent American security control over Greenland, and excludes any adversary from Greenland and the surrounding region.
11
18
246
42,405
Important work by the House China Committee: Airwallex has founders with ties to China, 712 employees there, and Chinese laws that require the company to help CCP intel gathering on demand. If you use Rippling, Deel, Brex, Navan, or Zip, it’s worth asking them if your US or intl payments run through Airwallex. If so, there’s NO protection if the CCP decides they want to take a look.
41
95
653
345,712
PDF from the House Committee files.constantcontact.com/f0…
4
2
46
13,833
Addendum: Parker clarified that the info on a site was out of date, and that nothing from Rippling is going over AirWallex. I trust him and appreciate the clarification. We are lucky to work with amazing Chinese talent; it is sad that we live in a world with bad CCP actors.
5
4
43
8,966