SpaceX

Building a Power Company for the Next 50 Years | Zach Dell, Base Power

Sep 6, 2026 · 1:16:20

David Senra interviews Base Power co-founder Zach Dell about building an energy company to make electricity affordable and reliable. Dell says the grid is too small, as AI drives demand growth from 2% to 10% a year, and Base's fix is owning home batteries as a fleet—charging when power is cheap, discharging when expensive, providing backup—so customers pay 1/20th to 1/40th of owning one outright. He explains the counterposition—selling electricity, not batteries; 10-year megawatts-as-a-service deals for utilities like CoServe; and a compounding cost advantage via vertical integration and Base's custom battery, the Base Core. He covers the 'Dad Terminal' with Michael Dell, ex-SpaceX lessons, and Base's habits: monthly updates, North Stars, dashboards, a turtle marking the critical path.

How to Dominate for Decades | Doug Leone, Sequoia Capital

Aug 30, 2026 · 1:22:18

Doug Leone, who led Sequoia Capital for 26 years, tells David Senra he dominates through fear of irrelevance, and at 69 he is again a 'low-level analyst' racing to understand an AI revolution he calls more radical than anything he has seen. His investment tests are whether he would put his kids' money in, whether it is one of 20 lifetime investments, and whether it can return the whole fund — he wants only 100x outliers and says the biggest venture mistake is selling winners early, citing Sequoia's 20% of NVIDIA and 10% of Google. He recounts backing David Vélez before Nubank existed, Fred Luddy's ServiceNow pitch, and seeking founders who are hypercompetitive with a heart of gold. He advises founders to architect boards like products and to avoid 'completely fucking clueless' investors.

Sam Altman on Building OpenAI & Betting on the Impossible

Aug 23, 2026 · 1:18:17

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, tells David Senra that AI capabilities will outpace society's ability to adapt, and that human connection becomes more valuable as AI improves. Altman cites Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke as the most forward-leaning CEO because he builds with AI himself. He explains OpenAI's platform strategy—one interface, one API—which meant killing Sora and Atlas to focus on general intelligence. He credits Y Combinator's iterative philosophy for making OpenAI possible, even though OpenAI broke the playbook by going four and a half years without shipping a product. He also recalls the first day at Greg Brockman's apartment and says he learns more from successes than failures.