Eric Newcomer at Cerebral Valley: Jensen's exit diffuses power across the chip ecosystem and opens lanes for challengers

Speaker 1: Your AI agents can now create and modify your Figma files with design system context. Up next, we got Eric Newcomer coming into the TBPN UltraDome, the new Kuman agent. Founder, journalist, host. Welcome to the show.

Speaker 2: How are there? There he is.

Speaker 7: Great to be here.

Speaker 1: Thanks so much for coming on the show. Give us what you're up to.

Speaker 2: And you you you... I... You were pulling all the strings with the Jensen stuff make How can

Speaker 1: I get? Make this during

Speaker 2: Cerebral Valley?

Speaker 1: Let me do... Let me put on the the gumshoot journalist hat and leak it. Right?

Speaker 7: Yeah. Newcomer, we're hosting our event of the year Yeah. At the Cerebral Valley AI Summit. Hey, Monteneja from General Catalyst on stage already. Ryan Daniels of Crosby. I'm gonna interview Nikesh Arora Fantastic. Later today, Ali Goetzee. So Fantastic. Yeah. It's a lot of fun and we released a list of the top 100 AI companies. So this is

Speaker 1: There we go.

Speaker 7: On a Newcomer Super Bowl today.

Speaker 1: It is.

Speaker 7: Super happy to be on this show.

Speaker 1: Yeah. I think I went to the one with... Did it used to be specific on voice? This is just AI generally? Take us through some of the history of the Cerebral Valley Summit strategy.

Speaker 7: Well, literally, I cofounded this summit with Max Child and James Willstrom, who are my college friends. They had a beautiful office in Hays Valley back in 2023. Mhmm. They're like, oh, you're flying to California for your bachelor party from New York, like, host an event in our office. And then I started texting and I think was like Miles Grimshaw Yeah. Bucky Yeah. Who was at Kleiner Perkins, a modest stability. Within like forty minutes, they were like, yeah, we're down to speak. I was like, oh my god, this is gonna be a real event. Had, you know, I think Samsung is a sponsor, Daniela at Anthropic spoke, then sort of most famously, Ali Gotzi bumped into Naveen Rao at Mosaic ML at our speaker dinner

Speaker 1: Oh, boy.

Speaker 7: And then acquired his company for Yeah. $1,300,000,000. Wow. And so that that was a great headline So much in Business Insider. And so we've been doing Cerebral Valley basically twice a year. This November 1 is sort of our, you know, hallmark event.

Speaker 1: Yeah. What what are the key questions that, people are trying to answer today at Cerebral Valley?

Speaker 7: We're leaning with Jensen. Definitely. We're not afraid. Just What

Speaker 1: do what you what's this mean?

Speaker 7: Yeah. You know, I think people are giving different answers. I mean, there's a lot of everyone, like, whenever people pull me aside, you know, I bump into somebody for two minutes between conversations and they're they're immediately giving me their download of what they've heard, who might be the next CEO, what it means. I mean, I think early takes are that, you know, Nvidia Nvidia had such centralized power that does open up some room for other chip makers. He was such a Yeah. Deal maker in cheap. So it diffuses power a little bit, but... And I think people are saying, you know, there's been an overemphasis on sort of the fair angle and an underemphasis on the China piece of it and the sort of revenue coming from... Yeah.

Speaker 1: Yeah. It's interesting. There's been a bunch of high flying semiconductor startups, Cerebras, Etch to Fractal was on the show yesterday. There's a number of others. And it's it's always been eye popping valuations. And the thesis beforehand was, well, if you get 1% of market share, it's $50,000,000,000 because NVIDIA is a $5,000,000,000,000 company, so maybe you can underwrite it. But now, it actually does feel like the the the playing field is much more open. And it's got to feel pretty good to be one of those companies today. Is that...

Speaker 7: Yeah. Have the etch co founder on stage so I can't say what he's going to say but

Speaker 2: he's Is coming

Speaker 1: it Gavin on the on stage or...

Speaker 7: I forget which of the co founders it is honestly. I'll have to go look. It's not my panel.

Speaker 1: It not my problem. I mean,

Speaker 2: the timing is just very interesting because every single player in the ecosystem needs to like

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 2: Try to forecast now how this single, you know, the fall of one man is gonna impact open source, inference providers, which impacts the application layer companies, which impacts, you know, ends up impacting the the companies doing routing. And and, of course, you know, the the chip makers are some of the few that are... Haven't haven't been getting Jensen bucks, you know? So it's like, if anything, they, again, it it creates some kind of lane that they can, you know, imagine there's gonna be less control over some of these very scarce suppliers which which might open up interesting opportunities. But, yeah, first and foremost, bad bad time to be an NVIDIA bag holder.

Speaker 7: Yeah. Right. And people... Nobody wants the bubble to burst. Right? Like, what they don't want is this... One

Speaker 1: of your former guests, Teddy, Trent certainly wants it to burst, you know? This is... I invited Ed.

Speaker 7: I invited Ed to come. That'd be I think afraid afraid of the AI bulls in the room. Don't know. I couldn't get him to do it.

Speaker 1: I feel like he would he would be getting fired up like kind of the...

Speaker 7: Get like some investor Yeah. Argue with him but Yeah. Wasn't to

Speaker 1: Exactly. How are you thinking about the VC realignment post midterms, post Jensen story?

Speaker 7: I know. That's the main thing we thought we'd talk about, the blue wave. Yeah. I mean I mean, HT, CEO of General Catalyst

Speaker 6: Mhmm.

Speaker 7: Was saying we should be non barrister again. Know, I think part of the answer is, oh, you know, a lot of Silicon Valley became very republican, very pro Trump. Maybe the answer is to, you know, try to try to be like, you know, the defense juggernauts where you you... Maybe you have a slight tilt one way or the other, but you Yeah. You know, build relationships with both parties. So I think people are waking up to that. I think I think most people think they're gonna get around the data center issue. Right? If the elections were a sign that the American public hates data centers, does that mean all of a sudden all the data center businesses are in big trouble? I think, know, I was literally talking to Byron Dieter before this and he was making the point that, you know, maybe you have to pay a higher tax, it hurts your margin

Speaker 1: Sure.

Speaker 7: Slightly, but there is some negotiation that can be had to get data centers still built on planet Earth. So I don't think people are freaking out about that piece of

Speaker 1: it to be... Looking at the the donation data for the Midas list of venture capital firms seeing like, do they donate to the Republicans or Democrats over time? And there was a realignment and a shift, but it shifted from like 90% Democrat to like 70% Democrat, which felt crazy. And then there was a lot of talk on podcasts and x and whatnot. But Silicon Valley just like shifted to the right, but the... There's still just a huge amount of blue because it's California because it's Silicon

Speaker 7: But the blue people are cowards. I don't know. They're much less vocal, much less willing to, I don't know, go on podcast and talk their politics, you know, besides like Reid Hoffman or Yeah. It's been pretty quiet.

Speaker 1: They were kind of fighting with one arm tied behind their back I suppose. But, yeah, it'll be interesting. Definitely more room for for folks on the left to like, you know, get on podcasts and yap and make noise. We'll see. Well, congratulations on Cerebral Valley.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Is it is Thank you. To think about is it... Is Vinod the most outspoken venture capitalist on like on on the left?

Speaker 7: Vinod's just never been a great friend to the Democrats, you know. He's he's very loud Sure. But it's not... He's, you know, an independent first and foremost. So he's... I agree with you that he's stuck to his principles, but, know, he's he's got a sort of variety of opinions that sometimes don't don't align him

Speaker 1: with the...

Speaker 2: A also Or his own or his own, you know, NFL team.

Speaker 7: Right. Or portfolio company or he he says what he wants.

Speaker 2: Honestly, props to that.

Speaker 1: Was it Mike Moritz? Mike Moritz was was still a big donor Right. During the last cycle. And so Definitely. Like most of the firms have like one partner that's kind of stayed the stayed the line

Speaker 7: even though Lawrence is not part of Sequoia anymore.

Speaker 1: No. I'm not sure. But he's still like in that Midas list like or high aura important Silicon Valley broadly.

Speaker 7: I mean, Reed Hoffman was one of, you know, the first Talarico donors. Definitely did more... Some of the more, like, thoughtful...

Speaker 1: Yeah. And Mike Moritz, he he was always in, the Financial Times with, like, an essay, not, like, the duking it out on Joe Rogan. So, like, even though he didn't get quiet, he just took his message to a different place. And so it was... I don't think a lot of people read those essays, honestly, in in Silicon Valley. Maybe occasionally, but...

Speaker 7: He stuck to his principles. He's just not at the center of the VC business anymore. Totally. So I don't think it had the same weight.

Speaker 2: Oh, well. What... Assume Jensen gets through these investigations and he's free to do what he pleases. What do think he does? You think he joins?

Speaker 7: What's the next act?

Speaker 2: Joins Ed Zitrin, goes to China, joins space...

Speaker 1: I think he's going to Saint Bart's. Think he's going to Saint Bart's. We're gonna see bottle service. It's gonna be a Jeff Bezos repeat.

Speaker 7: I just think, you know, people of this stature want the next thing to be as exhilarating. You step your foot off the gas and you're like, oh, life's good, like, I can have fun. I agree with you that it's sort of hard to imagine he finds the next next act at this level. I think the most likely is, you know, the Bob Iger type situation where it's like, I can't get away from the company.

Speaker 1: Oh, you think you're

Speaker 7: I don't... I mean, what do

Speaker 3: I know?

Speaker 7: I I don't know the board dynamics you're asking I'm me to sound not... That is not a prediction, but I think if he was to have a next act...

Speaker 1: Reported. Newcomer predicts that Jensen will be back, and he's in favor of it. He loves it. Forget it. Forget Forget it. Know, we're over it already.

Speaker 6: I know it.

Speaker 1: That is a word.

Speaker 7: We need to know a lot a lot about what happened here. And

Speaker 1: For so

Speaker 7: I I think it's gonna be hard for him to get some amazing landing anytime soon.

Speaker 1: Yeah. There's more questions than answers still. Well, fortunately, Cerebral Valley exists for exactly that purpose to ask the questions Exactly. Pontificate about the answers.

Speaker 2: Give our best to everybody at and the congrats. Will.

Speaker 7: Thank you so much for having me on.

Speaker 1: A great rest of your day. We'll talk to you soon. Cheers. Goodbye. Up next, we have the author of the bitter struggle. I'm gonna tell you about Codex. Codex. Codex is a powerful workspace for getting work done with AI agents. Whether you're writing code, analyzing data, creating content, or automating business workflows. Codex helps you move projects forward from start to finish.