Delian Asparouhov on China's lithography bet, lunar strategy, and why space tourism is the emperor's elephant

doing, Delian? Bulgarian mafioso just carrying a bat ready to break kneecaps at all times. I was gonna bring that up to you. I was gonna I I thought it was a rumor. Um but you know uh uh how's it going? I I think I want to kick it off.

I mean we'll get to the space stuff obviously Delta V with Delhi must go on but uh what's the what what's the reaction to AGI arriving April 16th being AGI day. Are you feeling the acceleration? Are you feeling the AGI? Uh are you do you still have a job or or or can AGI break kneecaps?

You know, I do think that there are, you know, sort of uh junior research jobs that, you know, probably got a lot harder to, you know, sort of justify both in like the land of like, you know, sort of venture all the way to like, you know, sort of grad school labs. Um, the stuff is getting like really like really good.

Like I, you know, I'm not somebody that has been investing in a ton of, you know, sort of AI slop, but I think it's, you know, sort of crazy to not figure out how to like integrate this stuff into your workflow.

And like I very regularly now like will read a paper and then immediately go to chat GPT and use it as like a little bit of like a quiz to make sure like I understood it or like you know I've been getting into a little bit of like you know trying to take some like quantum physics classes and like you know nights and weekends and same thing I like basically have chat GPT like be my tutor like structure which courses and videos I should watch like pull like even though I can like go pull the homework myself I'm like go find the homework on like the MIT website and like pull it for me and then I'm just going to like submit the homework to you and you go check it against like the solution set that way.

It's like all these things that I I just don't have to do and it's sophisticated enough to actually like be able to read like a PDF of like paper that I put in and it goes and grades it. That's like literally what like the junior grad students are for at colleges like to go grade the you know you know the the pet sets.

So you're out of a job once the humanoid robotics drops and then they can break the kneecaps and then you don't have any. That's all I have value for at Founders Fun is just like you know I just like threaten people with violence in order to you know get money in. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. whatever it takes.

Uh anyway, uh so uh in in your world outside of AI, what is the top story in defense space? Uh for the normies, I think Blue Origin was top of mind this week. We can talk about that, but but on a serious level, like what is actually important for people to be paying attention to? Yeah.

I mean, I think there's a couple of different stories that have, you know, come out over the past couple weeks um that are all kind of, you know, um related to some of the Trump tariff stuff where basically what he's done is effectively like implemented the trade war that would have happened if a hot war with Taiwan had started to start to basically preview in some ways it's almost like a military exercise in that it's basically like let's go preview and see you know sort of what China um you know would do if a hot war you know kicked off.

And so they obviously have like immediately restricted a bunch of rare earth minerals. I think the area that you know people should be paying more attention to is basically all things you know sort of semiconductor you know landscape.

Um you know the you know articles that came out yesterday talking about um you know Nvidia basically getting you know sort of slapped on the wrist because they like were exporting I forget what the number was but like $20 billion per year of chips to like Singapore.

Um Singapore is obviously not buying $20 billion worth of chips. They were just immediately going and reselling those to China. And so, you know, Yensen Huang is going to get a bit of a, you know, sort of slap on the wrist.

But, you know, the whole Taiwan story is all around the, you know, sort of semiconductor uh industry. And there was some news that came out about two weeks ago where the you know, Chinese are working on a synatron as a energy source for lithography and semiconductors.

So um there's a bunch of different you know sort of components of the you know sort of stack of you know sort of semiis but you know to really really you know keep it you know sort of brain dead simple you basically have like the chip designers of the world think of those as like you know sort of the you know sort of apples of the world with their like you know A1 chips as an example you have the you know sort of tools providers that make the tools that are necessary for um you semiconductor processes by far the most famous there is you know sort of ASML and lithography um and then you have the foundaries think of those like the factories that you know sort of make the you know sort of chips and Obviously, you know, TSMC is, you know, sort of best in class.

Um, uh, you know, the the tools and the like, you know, sort of foundry are where there's been by far the, you know, most aggregation, let's say, you know, sort of in the market, right? That's where it's basically a monopsiny.

Um, we're obviously, you know, sort of trying to break the, you know, sort of TSMC, uh, monopsiny and obviously we're spending on chipsack, etc. trying to get this stuff reshorted to the United States and get foundaries set up here.

Um there hasn't been a whole lot of effort you sort of domestically in the United States to really do anything around lithography. We've just kind of accepted um that the Dutch right I think is a Dutch company um you know are going to you know have that monopoly on lithography.

Um and then people are starting to think a little differently now that it looks like that the Chinese maybe have an alternative effort. The sort of oneliner like you know sort of what is lithography? It's basically like you shine light at a mask.

Um some light passes through that mask and then it you know basically um you know uh inscribe something on a wafer and that wafer you know it's basically what you're inscribing is the chip. Um the way the like you know Dutch people do it is they basically like zap tin droplets um really fast and really precisely.

And it turns out when you zap tin droplets they release a very particular wavelength um uh pretty coherently and you can use that as the like what's known as like the energy source in lithography.

Um people have theorized for a while on like hey are there other potential energy sources in particular all the like linear accelerator synatron stuff that for the longest time was purely like physics science research this is like think like CERN um you know think about like spark down at Stanford right all this stuff was just like let's you know run particles really fast let's try and discover the Higs boson and stuff like that that's all that it was used for and at some point people were like man like this stuff is actually like getting pretty good maybe like we could actually like use this commercially cuz like The reason we zap the tin droplets is to get like, you know, xyz very short wavelength out of them, but like maybe we can just attune these linear accelerators to basically just be like really really really really fancy lasers and get energy sources out of them.

And so people have like theorized about that and then it kind of looks like the Chinese have claimed that they've started to demonstrate that.

And so now there's a bit of a panic in the US where it's like oh [ __ ] like they could take over Taiwan and then in theory we could try to ban you know ASML you know from you know you know selling to China but maybe that doesn't [ __ ] matter because they've figured out their own way of basically doing you know sort of lithography and so now the United States has got to think about well like do we want to start to spin up our own internal effort that is you know using linear accelerators or synatrons and try to decouple from ASML and decouple from Taiwan at the same time.

we have Arizona doing you know um uh the foundaries but then you know maybe we co-op the you know sort of Stanford linear accelerator and you know sort of turn that into a lithography shop and build a foundry around that too.

So um anyways that's the that's the area that I feel like people don't you know sort of think about enough lately. Yeah. Is there is there any and I don't have context here.

I don't know if you do, but is there any effort to get ASML to start manufacturing here in the United States or is it just completely out of the question? Right? Because we've seen the efforts of TSMC, Nvidia came out uh and is basically doing I I read as marketing.

They came out a couple days ago and said Nvidia to manufacture Americanmade AI supercomputers in the US for the first time.

uh pulling out the the supercomputer word uh but basically saying they want to make hundreds of billions of dollars of their new Blackwell chips here in the US uh which is awesome but I just don't it's hard to read in how much of that is is sort of marketing uh versus like actually super real but I'm curious if you've heard of of anything on the actual uh ASML side in terms of US operations.

I feel like we just don't have leverage in that you know sort of relationship like it's not obvious like what lever to pull like at least in like the whole like you know sort of Taiwan etc thing it's like hey this is geopolitical enemy like you know you know all the western allies agree generally you know sort of with that if you start to sell to them we're going to like you sanction the [ __ ] out of you you know Nvidia is like a US company there's like you know we can slap them with US fines with ASML it's like okay this is like a you know European company and like if we start to try to like sanction or slap fines on them they'll be like okay great.

The very limited number of machines we were selling to the US, we're going to stop selling them. We're going to keep selling to Taiwan because they're obviously, you know, by far our biggest customer.

And so why does like the America have that much influence in this like Dutch to Taiwanese basically relationship versus at least with like, you know, Invidian crew that's like a US to Taiwan, you know, relationship and we can, you know, sort of influence that.

And so, um, yeah, I haven't, you know, I'm not even sure if I were in Trump's shoes like what angle I would even try to take to like, you know, do that. And also these ASM machines are like so complicated to manufacture. I mean it's like it's it's it's it's extremely complicated to operate them, right?

Like that's what you know. So Taiwan has basically you know sort of figured out how to do. Um manufacturing them is like even more complicated. And so somehow figuring out how to like pull that out of you know the Netherlands, man, that like that seems like a really herculean effort.

That's where it's like I think actually you're sort of better off starting with a blank slate on a totally different technological approach and just like domesticating that um rather than trying to like you know try to force them to move manufacturing operations to the US.

H how do you think about the role of the government in actually winning some of these really key industries? Like we did this whole dive yesterday on uh China's investment in the the domestic semiconductor industry and they've poured tons of uh tons of resources into that.

But I'm always reminded of the the there's that segment in 0ero to1 about Celindra, how the government tried to kind of pick a winner. They gave them this, I think it's a $535 million loan guarantee. And any physicist could have told you just the basic math on the the cylindrical was not going to win.

Meanwhile, China, it's not that they were like, let's let the free market win. They they had the golden sun program.

They subsidized photovoltaics super aggressively, but they just made were they just smarter and they funded the right thing or do they do something differently like like it feels like I want the linear accelerator if that's the right path in the tech tree to happen and I want to win but also I don't necessarily want us to just like get scared and mimemetically invest in exactly what the Chinese are building and there's like this dance of like you know low taxes versus like okay sometimes the government does need to step into these things like how are you thinking about the role of the government in like driving R&D right now.

Yeah. If there's a way to like you sort of distinguish between the two potential strategies government can take.

One is like you know sort of subsidize inputs or you know you know match investment efforts or something you know broadly in an entire market but don't take a particular stance on like what technology tree it needs to be a part of.

just like subsidize this portion of the market and then the other half is like subsidize a very particular you know path in the technology tree where there is no market whatsoever and so if you did like market level subsidies I think the right answer is like you know probably a balance right where you know um on all things let's say like you know sort of rare earth you know sort of minerals there feels like there's sort of market level things that one could do just like slash some amount of regulations um you know um you know encourage you know or you know um guarantee some level of, you know, sort of purchasing power from the US government on like certain rare earth minerals.

That way you say, "Hey, however you refine lithium, you know, whether it's, you know, sort of, you know, you know, pulling it from the slag from the Great Salt Lake or you sort of mining in Eastern California, great. However you do it, like a reserve is what you're talking about. " Like like building up a reserve.

Yeah, exactly. Like we're gonna build it, but we're only going to buy it from domestic suppliers and we're to buy it at like this like fixed rate, right?

um you know in relation to space stuff this is kind of what you know they've done with like the you know lunar payload services program right NASA has just said I don't care how you build your lunar lander um but we are just going to guarantee they were going to buy x amount of basically like lunar payload services and it's going to be at xyz price and up to you how to go to do it and so I'm definitely like a big fan of those approaches I do think there are the occasional warranted you know hey here's a huge next step in the tech tree it's just totally uneconomically viable for anybody to step into that tech tree without knowing that there's going to be government support, you know, sort of basically from the get-go, right?

Um, in some ways like, you know, nuclear weapons were that there was never going to be like a private company that was going to go invest into, you know, figuring out, you know, sort of the fision or fusion bombs, um, without knowing if there was basically going to be government support.

I do think that like linear accelerator is sort of one of those.

Now there's a big question of like is it celindra you know is it you know you know fearfully copying the Chinese mimemeticism but it's like I'm not sure there's any other option where you know I'm not sure that there is any other credible you know approach to domesticating lithography like I don't think that like trying to just copy the ASML tech tree makes any sense I'm not sure that anybody else has come up with an energy source that like you know sort of as an option so there probably needs to be like some you know sort of bet so if we were to assign xyz budget to like domesticating foundaries Mhm.

I mean probably 10% of that equivalent budget should be assigned to trying to domesticate lithography and there's really only one bet on that tech tree basically you know sort of to make and so I I mean it's kind of a lame answer but I think the answer is like there needs to be a little bit of a blended approach to like you know national reserves guaranteeing demand in you know refined lithium domestically in the United States.

Um there's also some questions on like look like you know with like let's say magnets we do a lot of like you know the rare earth mineral production of those you know magnet precursors but the actual like you know sort of final synthesis and refinement that all happens in China but a part of why it happens in China is like the current processes are like crazy destructive for the environment and so it's like it's like actually a question of like I mean we do want to like where how do we want to like try to come up with a different process but it's like better for the environment but like 10x more expensive like you know there are questions like that where it's like, you know, we were kind of looking into like the magnet supply chain recently and as we were debating an internal investment.

It's like you look at that step in the supply chain and I'm like, man, it's like not particularly technologically difficult. It's like really easy for us to replicate, but it literally is just like releases poison into the like, you know, environment. Yeah. uh taking it back to space.

Uh you know, it seems like the the the helicopter on Mars, the uh the the massive James Webb telescope, like these are things that are not economically viable, but I could totally see them paying off and being like, "Oh, that was a great investment.

" Even just like inspiring the next generation, but also like probably commercializing some some technology down the road. Uh on the flip side, we saw Blue Origin with the space tourism thing. It's like barely space uh past just past the Carman line.

But, uh, how do you think that plays into the overall like space economy? Do you like that strategy of of growing that business? Is that a business that can stand on its own? Uh, or is it just kind of like a fun side project for Bezos?

I don't know what you know about that uh that whole like industry as it as it's growing because we've seen it kind of play out before with Virgin Galactic and uh I'd love to know what you think about space tourism generally. Yeah.

I mean, I want to also touch on like that, you know, an earlier point that you had around like the helicopter on Mars, James Webb telescope, etc.

I'm not sure um if you know, but the White House actually recently released um its proposed NASA budget um after um future you know, you know, nominated administrator, you know, sort of Jared Isaacman after his confirmation hearing.

Um and in it, they, you know, significantly slashed all you know, sort of science, you know, sort of missions at NASA. And so that includes um future telescopes that we have in the works. Um that includes, you know, some of those helicopter on Mars missions.

Um and so the White House is at least taking a stance on that is not something that you know we see as being you know sort of valuable. Um those are definitely you know sort of things that clearly don't have any you know sort of economic you know sort of feedback loops like more deeply understanding the universe.

You know I don't know if you recently saw we like found an exoplanet where it looks like there are um you know organic compounds that you know on on Earth are only you know made by marine algae.

Um and the planet you know is um uh very large and in the Goldilock zone of a red dwarf star that would be at a temperature zone where you know sort of liquid water would be possible and so it's like yeah like what is the you know sort of value of that you know hard to you know sort of prescribe economically and the white house has at least thought hey we don't see the geopolitical you know sort of significance in this doesn't get boots on the moon and it doesn't return you know sort of uh to an economic use case um so that's at least the white house stance which also for what it's worth it was different than what um administrator Isacman said in his confirmation hearing.

So um you know it's interesting to see that obviously um there's you know maybe some disconnect between um the administrator and the White House. Um on all things space tourism I don't think it's you know sort of an economic you know sort of use case that is going to be what really you know drives us to the frontier.

You know whenever I've thought about VA I always go back to this um 15th you know sort of century um analogy which you know sometimes people think is a bit of a scratch. I think it's actually pretty reasonable.

But if you look at the early 1400s and the Portuguese and the Chinese empire, they both were uh in the early days of investing into basically their naval capabilities and they took you know sort of radically different approaches.

Um the Chinese basically took the approach of build these very large and ornate ships um and go and sail along the African coast um you capture elephants, you know, bring back some gems um and uh you know uh you know bring them back to the Chinese emperor as basically displays of power, right?

And so um you know the the Chinese emperor would now have a pet elephant for the first time. They would have these gems. They would have these like African trinkets. Um the Portuguese took a very different approach. Uh the Portuguese built very small naval merchant flatillas.

Um they would basically um you know dock along the African coast. Um they wouldn't tour the entire coast like the Chinese did. They would just stay there make a trading outpost basically find you know sort of economic means and reasons for that naval flotilla to be around.

And then only once that initial merchant outpost was established would they move basically 50 miles west down the coast until they eventually covered the entire coast. Um so fast forward to the late you know sort of 1400s where did these naval empires basically end up?

Um the Chinese emperor ended up deciding that this was basically a waste of resources. He didn't see any economic value for his empire for having elephants around. Um and so ultimately basically shut down the entire naval you know sort of um power for China for the following I think almost 300 years.

um the Portuguese as we you could probably guess um became the most powerful naval power you know in the entire world um and led to significant you know growth of their empire and so I think about you know sort of space you know sort of pretty similar to the you know sort of naval frontier in the you know sort of 1400s and 1500s um I think you want to find these you know sort of clear economic use cases that you know involve trade and resources versus the like you know sort of Katy Perry going above the Carmen line is probably kind of like the elephant for the emperor um where you know Bezos gets to you sort of pop some champagne Um, and you know, I'm sure his wife is super happy um that you know, Katy Perry feels indebted to, you know, them as a couple, but like I don't know that that like generates a ton of economic value.

And so, um, the e economic incentive around space is obvious. Let's maybe talk about the national security incentives, specifically China in 2030. They've come out and said very clearly, we want to put, you know, uh, our astronauts on the moon. you know, I I don't know if it's by 2030, but in the 2030, early 2030s.

Um, so maybe, you know, how much can you speak to? Yeah.

Do boots on the ground actually matter or or would it be viable for them just to send up so many landing zones that they start building like uh we've heard about this like when you land you kick up a bunch of dust and so you're kind of de facto claiming an area and there's only so much ice water there.

So like if they could just send a bunch of like rovers, they could effectively start like claiming and they might not even ever need to send humans to really claim the resources. What do you think?

Yeah, let me give you this sort of you know sort of China bear versus China you sort of bull case on this China bear case is this is China repeating the same mistakes from the 1400s you know so they're going there they haven't really figured out you know sort of economic use cases they don't even haven't even really figured out economic use cases in LEO right they have nothing equivalent to like Starlink generating billions of dollars you know of commercial you know sort of revenues that you can use as infrastructure to build off of right and so they're the you know sort of Chinese with yes they're building big fancy ships yes they're landing rovers on the back side of the moon but they're not connecting this into capitalism whatsoever and so this will all you know sort of fade away versus the United States the Portuguese while we maybe haven't more recently succeeded as well as they have on the moon we've got Starlink we've got Starship going up we have all these things that are built off of commercial infrastructure and so while we may not have as big of a ship soon if you fast forward over the course of the next 30 years the Chinese will shut down their program and we'll be the most powerful naval empire eg space empire in the entire universe um China you know it's a bullcase um nobody's landed, you know, sort of on the, you know, sort of back side of the moon ever and returned samples.

Perhaps they're finding, you know, helium 3 deposits. They're finding lunar ice deposits. Um, you know, they're taking a much more concerted approach to trying to get, you know, sort of human boots on the moon and forcing it from top down.

And if they get those first handful of boots, like you said, they can, you know, sort of claim, you know, particular land areas. And there's only a handful of crater craters on the moon today that are clearly known to have lunar ice.

If they claim those first handful, if they start mining that ice, they can turn it into propellant. they can turn it into economic value where they can send that back into lower earth orbit to some of their satellites they have set up there. They're setting up, you know, sort of Starlink, you know, sort of competitors.

Um, and so there's definitely a world where, you know, they establish the first, you know, sort of permanent lunar presence while we get distracted by this dual path between moon and Mars. That permanent, you know, sort of lunar presence turns into a mining operation. And so they do connect it back to economic value.

Even though it has a lot of like, you know, strong, you know, from top down state power, you know, getting it established, it eventually transitions to something, you know, sort of fully economic. And so I think there's way to, you know, sort of take both those angles.

I tend to think I think you should never underestimate, you know, sort of your, you know, enemies. And so I tend to take the China bullc case and assume that as the default. Um, and I think we're a little, you know, sort of, you know, lost in the rudder right now.

I think, you know, it'll be interesting to see how, you know, administrator Isaacman, you know, comes in and starts to put together what our plans are for, you know, getting boots on the moon, you know, over the course of the next four years.

Do you have uh any insight into like the timeline of actually generating propellant on the moon? I've heard like oh there's water and at a certain point you can draw out the chemical process for turning like carbon and hydrogen into some fuel but like that's hard to de desalination is hard in America in California.

Uh I can imagine that actually taking the resources on the moon and turning into propellant is like a massive industrial process that looks more like a Tesla gigafactory than like a little science experiment. But maybe I'm wrong about that.

like is this something where we could actually build a box that starts doing this get it up there in the next decade or are we talking about like 20 30 40 50 years? I think this is where like exponential equations always you know sort of catch up on you in a way that's you know sort of unexpected.

If you look at the total mass to orbit basically over the past decade it's basically following a perfect exponential equation. Yeah. And so I think this stuff is you know sort of way sooner than people expect.

Like I actually think with a concerted concentrated effort I think we can get boots on the moon again before you know Trump is out of office. Um and it's not like you know sort of betting on a bunch of you know sort of new you know sort of radical programs.

It's you know Starship maturing at the the sort of rate that it is maybe a little bit more aggressive um you know sort of the current you know Artemis vehicles Orion etc. Um and some of the current lunar lander companies starting to develop you know sort of larger landers.

I think that's all you know I'm not saying that's going to happen like in the next year or two. it would be like late in the Trump, you know, sort of presidency, but I think it's possible on like conversion to fuel. Not that complicated a process.

There's like five or six groups that are sort of already, you know, working on it. Um, you know, I'd say the desalination thing that's, you know, sort of more of a economic challenge than it is like a technical, you know, challenge to like basically, you know, justify the amount of water that you need.

The benefit of water on the moon is like on a per kilogram basis. It's so incredibly valuable because it's just so much easier to shoot water from the moon into low Earth orbit than it is to bring water um you know from Earth's surface up into low Earth orbit.

Um and even to start you don't need anything more complicated than water. Like you can use water as it's not a very good propellant but you can basically just spray water and it is a rocket you know propellant. Um now there's you know better things you can do.

You can turn it into you know atomic hydrogen and stuff like that and hydrogen gas um or liquid hydrogen but you know you can start with very you know sort of basic things. And so you know um I think it's like a end of decade problem totally solvable.

U now depends on you know taking a really concerted focused effort and again maybe a part of it is you do have to sacrifice the Mars helicopter you have to sacrifice you know some of these you telescopes etc to get the country really really focused on getting lunar infrastructure set up as quickly as possible.

What's the probability that you or I go to the moon in the next 20 years? Um specifically you or I. Yes. What's your P moon? I'd say our P moon is like, you know, 30 35% is my P moon. Yeah. I' I've been talking to my son about that. We look up at the moon and I'm like, do you want to go with me? And he's like, yeah.

And I'm like, I think it's possible. I think it's possible. If you extend that to 40 years, that would put like P moon at like 98%. Awesome.

Uh so wait there so there's this conspiracy theory that the Blue Origin launch didn't happen, that they didn't go to space, that it's impossible to go to space using only familyfriendly language. Uh what would you say about the people that don't believe they went to space?

Well, um you know, there are certain conspiracy theories uh that uh you know, always have some truth or merit to them. You know, JFK probably was killed by the CIA. Um um you know NASA may have had a sound stage um for the you know sort of lunar landing um as a backup.

Um and you know Katy Perry probably is not an astronaut. Um you know you could probably just you know fly a fighter jet you know up and then down and uh you probably roughly get the same experience that she did. Very different to be going you know a little up a little down versus you know 15,000 miles an hour.

So I'd say God bless those conspiracy theorists. They're always helping us find the kernels of truth in the uh um you know stories that they weave. Yeah, that's legitimate. Uh going back to uh space and geopolitics, um China has their national space day uh on April 24th, so next week.

Is that something significant in the space community that that people are like really paying attention to?

like they feel like there's going to be like real signal or exciting results or is it just kind of do people kind of uh write it off or not write it off but just kind of look at it as this sort of like uh kind of like a demo day kind of marketing uh keynote style event where where it's you know not a lot of signal they're delivering like you know if you look at you know sort of China's you know sort of plans from 2018 and sort of where they are today they're not totally off track on you They said what they promised they'd be able to do, right?

They've established their own, you know, low Earth orbit Chinese space station. They're regularly flying astronauts up and down to it with cargo. Um they're attracting international partners um to that space station.

Um they've clearly gotten a coalition of folks willing to sign on to their, you know, sort of lunar, you know, station or lunar base plans. Um and so I do think it's something that, you know, people pay a lot of attention to.

they tend to, you know, sort of, you know, re-update or re-reveal basically what their next, you know, sort of 5, 10, 15 year goals are. Um, and it's something that everybody from like, you know, sort of NASA to Space Force definitely pays a lot of lot of attention to.

Um, they're not always fully transparent about obviously, you know, sort of what they're up to. So, there's no guarantees that there will be anything new. Um, but I would expect that there will be given, you know, all the tensions that have risen over the past year between the United States and China.

And so, I would And how how do some of these partnerships happen? Right. So, uh, one of the things that they're going to be reporting on next week is is related to a partnership they have with France on like a joint satellite program. Is that a, uh, is that is that like due to NASA's shortcomings?

Like, is that a missed opportunity for us to not be partnering with France on something like that? or like how how do these sort of like how do the and and are the geopolitics of space almost like disconnected in some way between uh with Earth? Oh no, very connected.

That entire French thing I would basically, you know, sort of pinpoint back to the nuclear submarine contract. Basically the United States ended up moving a chunk of nuclear submarine contracts out of France over to Australia. The French were furious.

Mcronone, you know, sort of went on and, you know, gave a bunch of public talks about it. And then basically like the, you know, so Chinese collaboration started less than a month later. And so it was clearly like a, hey, you're going to slap us on the wrist as an ally. Great.

We're going to go to your geopolitical adversary. Um, I don't think obviously those two things are, you know, one one is like purely economic, like we're moving the place that we're making submarines. The other one is saying like we are partnering with your ally.

Those two things feel like one is like a business decision. The other one is like very clearly like you know picking uh a side totally.

I mean from France's perspective it's like you know it's billions of lost revenue for one of their you know major defense primes and um you know they see that as a you know sort of slap on the wrist and so you know they feel like they need to you know sort of slap back and so um yeah I'm not sure that you know it's the smartest geopolitical move.

I don't think like you know a western democracy should be you know sort of cozing up to you know an authoritarian dictatorship. Um, but I also don't think the French are the most intelligent people in the world right now.

Well, they they have the opportunity to turn it all around because if they don't, I will be boycotting Don Pering. You heard it here first. And that will that that will crush shock waves through LVH through the French economy. I will not be vacationing in Leon or Nice or Burgundy.

I will not be spending my time on the French Riviera. I'll be in Nice late June, no matter what. Uh, no matter how dumb the French are. Cancel it. cancel it unless it unless it comes back to No, he's going to turn them. He's going to turn them. Yeah. Yeah. You got to go over there. You're our You're our plant. There.

I'm going to look at those Airbus facilities in Tulus and uh take a look at that Chinese satellite project. Wait, La last thing. Uh if you don't have a hard hard stop, um how do you think about uh the Chinese uh aerospace industry specifically?

They they earlier uh in the week they they canled or paused some Boeing orders. Um, someone else on the show was saying, "Well, they'll probably just move those orders over to Airbus, something like that.

" But at the same time, um, how long is it until we're all going to be um, you know, uh, really that hard to build a jet engine? I I feel like they should have copied that by now. This is kind of a bare case for them.

Well, up until a year ago, my like one line would have been, you know, there haven't been any commercial airliner deaths in the United States for like 16 years. And so the reason that it's really difficult is because like the safety bar is so so high that basically nobody wants to touch anything.

They're like everything's been perfect. Now obviously you know so DCA and uh you know sort of Toronto um well Toronto I think it didn't end up leading to any deaths but DCA obviously did. Um, and I'm not sure that that's really going to change the culture.

Like, you know, FAA aviation, you know, um, uh, regulations are just so so stringent because they do have in some ways a great track record, but man, it just sets the bar so high. Mhm. Will the Chinese ever really manage to get any traction? I don't know. It's like definitely not in the United States ever.

There's no way that like the United States is ever letting a United States airline buy like a Chinese, you know, sort of jet liner. It's the Karmac C919. Yeah. And there's no way France is gonna let them, you know, buy anybody other than Airbus. Same thing with the entire EU.

So, who the hell are they going to sell their like Chinese airliners to? Like Africa or something, you know, I don't know how big of a Malaysia, maybe Malaysia teleport teleporting.

Oh, did you see that there was some uh you know, revealed potential documents of uh four um UFOs surrounding the Malaysian airliner and then disappearing it. Okay. Well, we'll have to dig into that next time. Got to get do another half an hour. Get Jesse to come, you know, talk. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We'll break it down.

Uh I really appreciate you stopping by. Thanks so much. This is great. See you next week. Cheers. Bye. Uh next up, we are going to uh the founder of a company that Delian is in love with. He's obsessed with these uh these AI apps. He can't get enough of them. So, we're very excited to have Gam on from Captions.

Uh I'm actually a huge fan of this app and this company. Uh I use it all the time. Anytime you see me post a clip on X and there's captions there, I'm using the captions app. That's right. It's fantastic. Uh, and there's a bunch of other cool features and the company has been just maniacally adding functionality.

And as you saw with chat GPT, uh, you wanted to generate a video, it like it couldn't do it. Like these tool usages are increasingly difficult and they're not something that you can just it it increasingly looks like you can't just oneshot it with tokens out of an LLM.

And so building up traditional software around the system actually improves the AI. And so these products are very complimentary. So we're excited to welcome him to the show. How you