Episode summary
Chip Stocks Crash, $20B Fund Margin Called, Frontier Labs: SLOW DOWN AI, Mamdani's Grocery Stores
All-In Podcast
· · 1 hr 37 min · Hosts: Chamath Palihapitiya, Jason Calacanis, David Sacks, David Friedberg
Summary
Chip stocks sold off sharply after a long run, with the panel arguing that the biggest damage came from leverage rather than a collapse in the AI story itself. They discussed reports that Leopold Aschenbrenner’s fund was forced to unwind positions after a large drawdown, and used it as a cautionary example of how a highly levered momentum trade can snap back violently. The panel contrasted that unwind with the still-strong five-year gains in names like Nvidia, Micron, and Broadcom, arguing that the move looked like a brutal correction in a crowded trade rather than proof that AI capex is broken.
The discussion broadened into macro, with higher Treasury yields, persistent inflation, federal deficits, and war-related energy pressure framed as reasons investors may prefer government bonds over richly valued semis. They also argued that China is changing the AI and chip landscape from both sides: open-source models could compress model-layer economics, while Chinese gains in lithography, memory chips, and fusion infrastructure could shift long-run value toward energy and compute.
The back half focused on the frontier AI ecosystem’s call to “pace” development. The panel treated the Anthropic/OpenAI letter as part sincerity, part regulatory strategy, and part monopoly signaling, while disagreeing on how threatened the duopoly really is by open source. They ended on the idea that falling energy costs, solar, batteries, and future fusion could still unlock a major productivity boom.
Key takeaways
- The panel said the chip rout was intensified by leverage, not just fundamentals, and warned that forced selling can turn a normal drawdown into a wipeout.
- The panel argued that 30-year Treasury yields above 5% change the valuation math for semis and make cash-flowing bonds more attractive on a risk-adjusted basis.
- Sacks said China’s open-source AI push could commoditize model-layer value and shift more economic upside to compute and energy.
- The panel treated the frontier labs’ call to slow AI as a mix of sincerity, virtue signaling, and regulatory capture, not a genuine pause in competition.
- The panel repeatedly pointed to energy abundance—solar, batteries, and fusion—as the long-term offset to inflation and AI cost pressure.
Notable quotes
“if you name your fund situational awareness, that's Yeah. Come on the pot anytime, Lualt”
“The market moved against him. He lost a very large percentage of his gains and then the prime brokers started calling folks”
“I think it's driven by momentum. Meaning that over the past year, you've had this roughly 10x runup in memory chip stocks”
“We request that the US government support an international effort, that's key, to develop the technical and governance tools needed to deliberately pace the frontier”
How the episode opens
All right, everybody. Welcome back. Welcome back to the number one podcast in the world. The Core Four, Fantastic Four. The original Quartet is here. Did we peak at like uh number two or number three last week? Is that what happened?
I think it was number four in the world. So, yeah, usually we're trending. — US trending. — US trend. We're usually number one globally, but yeah, and sometimes number four US. — I forgot my Starlink. So, let me apologize to everybody. That was a critical error when you're on the road or on the water, but you know, it'll be fine.
I had five huge leads come in this week. — The Glengar Glenn enterprise leads. Enterprise sales is a bear because it's super chunky, but the deals are ginormous. — Sax, you got any advice for Chimat from your uh enterprise sales days? You closed some of those big seven figure deals when you were doing Yammer?
No leverage. Don't put on leverage. — No leverage of the show today. Leverage equals risk of ruin. — PSA, no leverage. — I have the situational awareness to not lever up. — That's good. Yeah, you want that. That situational awareness. — I mean, it's kind of out there. I mean, if you name your fund situational awareness, that's
Yeah. Come on the pot anytime, Lualt. All right, everybody.
We got to talk about chip stocks crashing after an alltime runup. And we had a major hedge fund get margin called and some incredible margin calls happening in South Korea. Leopold Ashen Brener is a 25-year-old hedge fund manager.
He left OpenAI two years ago to start his own fund and apparently according to reports, this is breaking news on Thursday when we tape, he got margin called and had to sell his entire public portfolio to cover massive losses caused by his leverage.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- chip stocks selloff
- ai frontier model capacity
- hedge fund margin calls
- us china tech competition
- ai regulation and safety
Companies and tickers mentioned
- ASML
- ASML
- OpenAI
- Citadel
- Anthropic
- Polymarket
- Frontier Labs
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Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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