Republic's Kendrick Nguyen launches SpaceX mirror token — a blockchain-based financial product giving retail investors SpaceX-pegged returns without Elon's consent

got big balance sheets now, but they won't stay that way for that long unless they can create some some real traction. Yeah, great. I mean, there's I I think my parallel is like the networking companies of the early 2000s. You had Quest and Nortell, uh, who like grew really, really fast.

Super capex intensive businesses building out connecting basically every computer to every other computer.

It's kind of a necessary thing and ultimately like if you got out at the right time you made an unbelievable multiple but if you got out at the wrong time you you could have lost your shirt pretty significantly and that was you know there's a great parallel here which is these businesses the foundation models they require huge capex I mean the open AI data center Stargate at full deployment will consume as much electricity as all of as all of Ireland right just full of scale.

It sounds exciting. And so, you know, like there's there's a lot going into them. The business models are unclear. A lot of them have been unwilling to show advertisements because more ads you show, the greater the consumer deflection or bounce rates.

Uh and then some of like anthropic is more B2B, chat chat, open AI is more BTOC. But yeah, and then the capital markets, we'll see how long they're able to to sustain. But the Yeah. Well, it's been amazing noodling on all this with you. This has been really, really fun.

We'd love to have you back and just chop it up about a million different topics. Uh I I had a blast. It was great meeting you. So, thanks so much for hopping on. Thanks for having me on, guys. Pleasure to meet you both. Yeah. Hope we can do it again soon. Talk to you later. Bye. Bye.

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Um and he was he was just like walking his dog. He's like, "Wait, what is this? " I think he was like thinking that he was in a dream. Maybe the technology dream following me around. Um but uh if you're around Soho, you will see uh our billboard. So yes, send us a picture in the next 24 hours. Send you a hat. Yeah.

Fantastic. Uh we're almost ready for our next guest, but uh let's go to this post from Lulu. Uh she says, "The center of gravity for techcoms right now is recruiting. The war for talent is more heated than ever. The top 5% of people are making 95% of the in impact.

If you're a startup, do not waste energy on being liked by the general public. Focus on reaching the few dozen people you need to hire. Bunch of interesting takeaways from this. Reminds me of uh DJ. I was going to say is doing this announcement to recruit. You can't buy a Neuralink right now. Yeah.

They don't need you on a wait list. They need you to go and work there if you're absolutely the top of your field. Uh and so I think a lot of that is kind of a new paradigm. I wonder where this goes. You can also see it with uh I mean the question is is clearly doing the right thing on techcoms to recruit.

They're very very good at recruiting influencers and creators and they have clearly they the 50 interns that they hired I don't know how many they actually wound up. All those people have social media followings and be able to create a lot of content.

I guess the question is is that going to translate is their current communication strategy going to translate into great product managers and engineers and everything that they need to do to build out the actual product. Um but you know product works we reviewed is launching their product at 3 p. m. Pacific today today.

So we might have to live in other news seeks 29 billion from private credit giants to fund AI data centers. So this just this just got announced a few minutes ago. Apollo Pimpco among the lenders in talks with Mark Zuckerberg, social media giant. Oh, that's a good hit.

Uh, Meta is looking to raise 29 billion to fund its all-in push into artificial intelligence according to the Financial Times. But on that note, another watch for Zuck. Go to getbzel. com. Your bezel concier is available for now to source you any watch on the planet. Seriously, any watch.

Anyway, what what you're addicted. Let's uh bring in Ken from Republic. He had a big announcement and launch this week. I am thrilled to talk with him. I'm gonna let you take the intro. Perfect. Hey guys, how are you? Kendrick from Republic. Thanks for having me. Great to have you on the show, Ken. What's happening?

Oh man, just chilling uh in New York. Perfect weather. You're never You're never chilling. You're never You're like the least chill guy. You're working 20 hours a day, you know? We're all going to have a really long good rest when we die. So, uh, yolo, you know, still alive and just gota got to keep on moving. Yeah.

Uh, do you are you are you intentionally video off by the way? Oh, no. I I didn't realize that. Uh, give me one second, please. I apologize. I'm I'm dialing in from uh uh while being on the move. Let me uh let me uh you know, turn my video on. Sweet. Just one second. Yep. I am pumped to hear about the launch this week.

You guys were tearing up the timeline. There you are. Perfect. Hey, nice. How are you guys doing? Awesome. Well, give give a quick intro on yourself, your background, and then and then Republic as well. And then I want to get into the launch. Yeah, you know, just a reformed lawyer, been in tech for like forever.

Uh started out earlier at Angelist. we launched uh now a decade ago.

Uh and the whole goal is to uh make sure that uh you know uh private markets and public markets got to become much much more accessible not unlike how the internet uh really transform commerce right now we all buy things we need and need uh and everywhere. Uh and I think the next phase of it is ownership.

Whatever it is that we love, whether it's SpaceX, Neuralink, um a movie, a song, uh we all got to be able to to uh be able to acquire uh a little bit of a sliver uh in in that. And I think the world is moving fast in that direction with or without Republic.

We just happen to be at the forefront of it for a moment in time. Makes total sense. Uh break down the launch this week or the announcement this week. I I know this has been in the works for quite a while.

This has been I feel like this the the mirror tokens uh product is something that has probably been in the back of your mind since even years before you started the actual company. So, you know, break it down for us. Yeah. Yeah. You know, like at the end of the day, it's just about how do you fractionalize any asset?

It can be public equity. It can be private securities and leveraging what is an evolving legal framework and of of course the technology fractionalization automation. Two key elements of blockchain as a technology and bring that to the masses.

And what we launched earlier this week is a token that provides performance uh basically benchmark to that of SpaceX. And you're going to see other companies maybe XAI, open AI, neural and beyond uh getting rolled out on Republic.

It's not it is going to be controversial uh but it is basic traditional financial engineering package around an innovative um framework that is a technology a legal evolution around it to make this possible but uh uh this is something that I think with or without republic again uh it is going to be an emerging trend which has happened to be the one that introduces it to the market.

So, so, uh, talk about the mechanics more because I think people would see the launch and they would just immediately think that you you acquired some SpaceX shares and then you were allow you were effectively fractionalizing them and putting them on chain, but from my understanding, this is closer to something like a prediction market in that um, no, not at all.

It's not a prediction market. We may indeed have exposure to SpaceX in this case.

uh it it probably is not a direct you know ownership of 101 shares but as you know uh SpaceX secondaries in the private markets people have SpaceX exposure through SPV SPV and SPV and three four five levels all the same at the end of the day republic is going to promise that when you make an investment or when you purchase or hold the Republic SpaceX token when SpaceX experes a liquidity event that to acquire or most likely go public.

Whatever that return uh in a value proposition to gain the performance of a SpaceX share that is priced comparable to market today, you're going to be able to turn in that token and get the exact economics back.

Uh so that is a an obligation an economic obligation from Republic and of course we have exposure to make sure that we underrite and going to be able to fulfill that obligation. But it is not a onetoone space share. Yeah.

So, so when when somebody buys, you know, one of these tokens that's representative of the performance, they're not they're not buying they're they're not buying direct they're they're not buying equity.

They're they're buying again uh the the sort of basically an option on on the rate of change in the future to some degree. Could you could you correct Could you give um some type of I I'm having a little bit of a technical snafuh today, but can you hear me? Okay. Uh yeah, you sound you sound great. Sound great to us.

Um can you give us some comps and like other types of uh like sort of financial uh engineering throughout history that that that you were kind of inspired by in the in the creation of this? Yeah, you I mean the the history of Republic has been dealing with retail investors and enable them to buy private securities.

The early phase of it we call it crowdfunding, you know, which was like a dirty word for many founders in VC. But at the end of the day, it means one thing.

How do you get the general public the opportunity to participate in private companies whether it's a early stage YC company or SpaceX and Neurolink uh and people don't really care if it's a direct interest on the cap table or a comparable economic interest. We're talking about emotional identification.

The fact that someone say that hey I'm going to part way with $10 and I believe in this technology and when it succeeds I too want to you know share in that in that success.

It can be structure, it can be a derivative, it can be a financial engineering product that may not be required one day, but right now that is needed to see this through. Uh, and what we doing, we do not need SpaceX consent or permission.

This is a Republic financial product and an obligation on the company that we're going to deliver to those who believe not just in SpaceX but in Republic as a market participant as well.

is wait hold on like okay so you don't need SpaceX's approval but if I were to create a list of people that I wouldn't want to make angry I think Elon Musk would be right at the top so like uh is this like you you better be ready to if you're not asking for permission I hope you're really really good at begging for forgiveness well well you could say lawyer up but Ken's a lawyer he is a lawyer yeah so maybe he'll figure it out I I I'm rooting for you this feels like something that that could be very successful.

Uh it also feels like uh you're maybe poking a bear. Um a very large bear, but uh like have you thought about that? Yes. Uh and again, apologies. I have to leave my video off. Yeah, no worries. On and you guys look incredibly sharp, by the way.

Uh uh you know, at the end of the day, I think obviously Elon like the the man of our generation, right? What an incredible brilliant human being.

There's no doubt that the notion of everyday folks, fans of his and SpaceX in the US and around the world being able to share in the upside, I don't think he's against that at all. He certainly has, I assume, some concerns around information and pricing and all of that.

And I'm quite confident that we can deliver a product in collaboration with companies like SpaceX and OpenAI so that we can address their concern while