🚀 SpaceX IPO Liftoff | Diet TBPN

Summary

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TBPN Podcast Summary

Episode: 🚀 SpaceX IPO Liftoff | Diet TBPN

Date: June 13, 2026
Hosts: John Coogan & Jordi Hays
Special Guests/Contributors: Tyler, Andy

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Overview

This high-energy episode of TBPN centers on SpaceX’s historic IPO—the most significant public offering in recent memory. The hosts provide real-time updates on the stock's dramatic first day, debate the broader implications for the tech and venture capital ecosystems, and reflect on SpaceX’s journey from scrappy startup to $2+ trillion market cap behemoth. They weave in company lore, celebrate Gwen Shotwell’s leadership, and pull back the curtain on their own IPO predictions and personal anecdotes. Lighthearted tangents and running jokes keep the tone lively, but the episode offers plenty of substantive takeaways for tech and finance followers.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

SpaceX IPO: Moment-to-Moment Action

• Opening & Pop:

  • SpaceX IPO priced at $135/share, opened at $150, and quickly climbed to $172, equating to a $2.28T market cap.
  • [00:00] John and the team actively track price movements, making live predictions and responding to the day’s news.

• Predictions Contest:

  • John, Jordi, and Tyler submitted confidential price/mkt cap predictions, each with their own methodology (market cap, price, % change).
  • The winner earns a special prize (revealed at noon—an extra ad read, delivered with much fanfare).

• Market Chatter:

  • Extensive discussion on whether an IPO “pop” is good or bad, referencing Bill Gurley’s views (ideal: a 10%-30% pop for big deals).
  • Comparison to historical pops, “paper hands” of early Google/Amazon shareholders.

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Fun Exchanges & Side Debates

• Dog Walker vs Dentist (Useless Profession Showdown):

  • [02:14] John and Jordi debate which profession is “better.”
    • Jordi: “Every time I go [to the dentist], they’re like, looks good boss. I just head out.”
    • After much prodding, Jordi sides with dog walker, but dreams of a roll-up where dog walkers buy out dentists.

• IPO Allocation FOMO:

  • [22:34, 27:21] The challenge of getting shares at IPO prices; most people only receive minimal allocations.
  • “The one share wonder… that’s almost worse than zero shares because you can see it in your portfolio.” (Jordi, 27:52)

• Text from an Uber Driver:

  • [29:06] Comedic anecdote about receiving unsolicited trading advice from non-professionals, reflecting the retail investor hype around the IPO.

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Gwen Shotwell Spotlight

• NASADAQ Speech Recap:

  • [06:51 - 09:54] Clip of President/COO Gwen Shotwell from the NASDAQ, lauding SpaceX teams, recounting milestones, and noting the company’s culture of defying doubters.
  • Notable Quote:

    “Everyone said we could never get to orbit. Check… Oh, you’ll never take astronauts to the space station. Check. We did that too. Doubters, right?... You’ll never build a rocket large enough to take humans to the moon and Mars. We build one, we’ve flown it…” (Gwen Shotwell, 07:07–09:00)

• Reflections on Her Journey:

  • [10:38-13:45] John and Jordi recount Gwen’s path:
    • Leaving a solid career at Chrysler for SpaceX in 2002 (“felt risky, seemed crazy at the time”),
    • “It was the trying part that was the most important.”
    • Shotwell’s “residual capability” strategy—building capacity ahead of demand, enabling launches and new businesses like Starlink.

• Personal Rituals & Leadership Style:

  • [13:53-15:38] Tyler shares superstitions: Gwen writes “Scotland” on sticky notes in her shoes, recalling the first launch success when she was in Scotland.
  • Shotwell lauded for stability and focus, and for handling political/NASA relationships amid Musk’s controversies.

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Elon Musk’s Congressional Foresight

• Flashback: Musk Testifies to Senate (2004):

  • [16:24–21:26] SpaceX’s struggle for credibility and government support—Elon’s early Capitol Hill appeals for competitive contracts and the need for "creative destruction" in aerospace.
  • Quote:

    “The past few decades...had been a dark age for human space flight. One costly government program after another...” (Paraphrasing Musk’s testimony)

• Vindication:

  • Musk’s predictions proven correct: SpaceX’s reusable rockets revolutionized the launch market.
  • “Today, SpaceX launches more than half the world’s payloads… The semi-reusable rocket Mr. Musk described… became a fleet of boosters that land themselves and fly again.” (John, 21:19)

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Venture Capital & Legendary Returns

• Peter Thiel’s Investment:

  • [22:34] FF’s (Founders Fund) $20M investment at a $200M valuation is cited as possibly the best venture bet ever.

• Alibaba Comparison:

  • [27:11] “Only Masa [Son] has it beat—$20 million into $70 billion” with Alibaba. (Jordi)

• Distribution Lessons:

  • [27:07] Unlike Google/Amazon, FF and others held until IPO (rather than distributing at “just” a $5B value).

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Viral Moments, Jokes, and Silicon Valley Folklore

• Peter Thiel Chess Fumble:

  • [23:34] Andy describes finding Peter Thiel’s Chess.com account and defeating him despite Thiel’s reputation as a chess prodigy.

  • “Peter Thiel never gives up… But also makes elementary mistakes.” (Andy/Jordi, 25:10–25:37)

  • Tied back to Elon—ordinary people making mistakes but persisting.

• Technical Analysis Meme:

  • [26:05] Andy’s joke “TA” of SpaceX’s stock: pop on day one, three-year slump, then “to the moon”—a playful nod to retail trading culture.

• Siri AI Girlfriend “Debate”:

  • [33:24–34:42] Apple’s claim Siri “will not be your AI girlfriend” is lampooned, with speculation over users jailbreaking the restriction.

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Notable Quotes & Moments by Timestamp

• On IPO Success:

  “It’s hard not to look at this as a success... For something this big, it just feels like everything came together properly.” (John, 00:42)

• Shotwell’s Humility & Grit:

  “What I recognized... was that it was the trying part that was the most important. Try that risky thing, be a part of something exciting.” (Paraphrased by John, 12:27)

• Superstitions:

  “Gwen writes ‘Scotland’ on sticky notes and puts them in her shoes for every launch.” (Tyler, 13:56)

• Silicon Valley Humor:

  “Founders Fund investment at $200 million might be the best venture investment in history… but I do think Masa hasn't beat with Alibaba.” (Jordi, 26:41, 27:11)

• Chess and Persistence:

  “Peter Thiel never gives up… Also makes elementary mistakes, sometimes picking, you know, accusing the president of things, on social media… Elementary mistake if you’re a government contractor.” (Jordi, 25:28–25:37)

• On IPO Allocations:

  “The one share wonder… that's almost worse than zero because you can see it in your portfolio.” (Jordi, 27:52)

• On Apple’s AI Ethics:

  “Apple won’t be your AI girlfriend… but people have jailbroken every single model.” (John, Tyler, 34:17)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• SpaceX IPO Opening & Predictions: 00:00 – 06:12
• Gwen Shotwell’s NASDAQ Speech & Reflections: 06:51 – 15:38
• Elon Musk’s Early Senate Testimony & Industry Transformation: 16:24 – 21:26
• Venture Investment Returns & IPO Access FOMO: 22:34 – 28:50
• Thiel Chess Story & Silly Ad Reads: 23:34 – 25:43, 32:09
• Apple’s Girlfriend AI Statement: 33:24 – 34:42

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Closing & Final Results

• IPO Prediction Results: At noon, Tyler wins the prediction contest, nailing a 31% pop (actual was 24%) and earns the privilege of reading an extra sponsor ad.
• Concluding Thoughts: John and Jordi reflect on SpaceX’s journey, the episode’s themes of risk, resilience, and the role of both myth and reality in Silicon Valley legend.
• Farewell:

  “Have a great weekend. Congratulations to anyone that got in on the SpaceX IPO… We love you." (John & Jordi, 34:42–34:54)

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Summary Tone

Playful, fast-paced, and occasionally irreverent, but underpinned by real respect for SpaceX’s achievement, technological innovation, and the audacity of ambitious founders. The banter interlaces deep dives with viral fun, making for a “live at the water cooler” feeling for anyone adjacent to the world of startups and markets.

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For full episode details and more, visit tbpn.com or find TBPN on your podcast app of choice.

Transcript

[John]

It's a massive day today. SpaceX IPO, priced at $135 a share, opened at 150. Where is it right now? Jordy, are you on it? Do you have the price? Oh, the price is up there. Okay, now we're getting the endless mirror. You can pull up the price, but here we go. We'll be tracking throughout the show, so stay tuned. It's $2.28 trillion company 1, 72, $172 a share. I had Tyler and Jordi submit confidential estimates for where the stock would be at noon. Effectively, Jordi went with a market cap based estimate. Tyler went with a share price estimate,

[Tyler]

which is what I was told.

[John]

I went with a percentage based estimate. You can translate between all of them. We'll get there. But the stock's doing well. The IPO is successful, I would say. There's been a bunch of chatter back and forth, bull cases, bear cases, but overall, it's hard not to look at this as a success. The, you know, Bill Gurley doesn't want a crazy pop on day one, doesn't want it to go up 100% if we're in 10, 20, 30% range for something this big, that just feels like everything came together properly and so, so far, looks really, really good. So at noon we will check in with our predictions and see who won. There is an exciting prize for the winner, by the way. It will be revealed at noon as well. We can pull up this video from Gwen Shotwell, who is the president of SpaceX and has been on an absolute tear building the company for basically its entire existence. What? What are you laughing at?

[Jordi]

I didn't know what your prediction was.

[John]

Did you see what it is?

[Jordi]

Yeah, Nick just shared it.

[John]

He did.

[Jordi]

What's this guy over here? This is a funny guy over here. Funny guy over here. This is why you trade.

[John]

I was trying to.

[Jordi]

This is why you trade bits, not stocks.

[John]

I was trying to pull an estimate out of you and you were like asking me 25 clarifying questions. The purpose is content to have a conversation. Just pick a number and you're like, oh, well, does it count where it opens or what? Where it opens after, like.

[Jordi]

I just saw your positioning was confused. I just saw your position.

[John]

We got to have a discussion about this.

[Jordi]

There's nothing price per share. Sure. Everything's on the line, John. Everything is on.

[John]

I was laughing about how you wouldn't take a side on the. On the dog walker versus the dentist. I was like, dog walker, dentist blind. Who you going and you were like, I can't possibly. I couldn't possibly. In the name of good television, just

[Jordi]

pick a random side for the dog walker or dentist.

[John]

Yeah.

[Jordi]

Beach debate.

[John]

The beach debate. We never got your answer. And you're like, I need more information. I can't possibly make a call.

[Jordi]

It's such a tough one because I don't.

[John]

It's not that tough. Why is it tough?

[Jordi]

Here's why it's tough for me, John, okay? I have never in my life hired or worked with a dog walker. My family growing up, we had a couple dogs. We walked our dog.

[Tyler]

Yeah.

[Jordi]

Like, we never.

[John]

You've been to the dentist.

[Jordi]

I was the dog walker.

[John]

Yeah, you've been to. You're not your own dentist, though, so why aren't you just going dentist?

[Jordi]

I've never had a cavity. Every time I go in there. I guess I'm blessed.

[John]

Okay.

[Jordi]

Every time I go in there, they're like, looks good, boss. Okay. And I just head out.

[John]

So equally useless.

[Jordi]

Equally useless profession.

[John]

So flip a coin. It's tv. Useless profession.

[Jordi]

No, I just don't have. I need, I need.

[John]

What about the economic. Why don't you fall back to like, the economic power of the dentist industry versus the dog walking industry? Like, if you had to pay job, you were trying to get a bag.

[Jordi]

I respect dog.

[John]

Oh, you would go dog walker. Oh, you would be an elite dog walker over a mid dentist.

[Jordi]

Here's, here's two. Here's, like, here's kind of my thing.

[John]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Jordi]

There's a guy in my neighborhood.

[John]

Yeah.

[Jordi]

Who is walking dogs in my neighborhood all day long. I'm like, who? Like, a lot of people in my neighborhood don't walk. They're just home all day. Like, why aren't you walking your dog?

[John]

Okay.

[Jordi]

But I think it's amazing that this guy is just like, he's printing, clearly printing all day long. Just going for walks, hanging out. He's listening to music, hanging out. Super nice guy. He picks up the sounds like you're going dog walking up the poop when he. When they poop on my lawn.

[John]

Yeah. It's great.

[Jordi]

I appreciate it. We have a, you know, good relationship. Maybe wish you wouldn't do that, but we have a fine relationship. But then dentists, I could get really excited about a dentist if they were.

[John]

You're still torn. You're still. You're still not taking aside.

[Jordi]

Equity backed roll up.

[John]

Okay. Okay, well, that's an option.

[Jordi]

Dentist was kind of a figurehead for. For some PE firm.

[John]

Yeah.

[Jordi]

Be able to deploy Huge amounts of capital to rolling up family practices.

[John]

Yes.

[Jordi]

And raising prices.

[John]

What if. What if you're a dog walker, You. You earn so much money, you start being able to buy small dentist shops. Rolling them up. You flip from dog walking into dentistry.

[Jordi]

Well, that would be the way. I don't. We don't know much about this story.

[John]

Yeah.

[Jordi]

But we do know there's a conflict.

[John]

Yeah.

[Jordi]

But that would be the way for the dog walker to strike back is by the dentist.

[John]

So final, final answer.

[Jordi]

Come in.

[John]

What side are you picking?

[Jordi]

If the dog walker will commit to no conditionals.

[John]

Dog walker or dentist.

[Jordi]

Why can't I have conditions?

[John]

You can't have conditions because that's the rules that I'm laying down. You got to pick one dog walker or dentist. Whose side are you on?

[Jordi]

Dog walkers.

[John]

There we go. Finally, we got.

[Jordi]

But I'm going to put. But I'm going. I'm going to put heavy. The whole point is a serious amount of pressure.

[John]

I'll just take dentists and I'm going to defend that. And steel, man, that'.

[Jordi]

I'm going to put a serious amount of pressure on the dog walker and I will provide the financial backing to acquire the dentist practice and shut it down. Because I know they have. I know they have some conflict and it sounds like it's over the beach. It's really not that personal.

[John]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jordi]

In access to the beach. But I think there's an opportunity to make it personal. I think. I think at this point, if they're getting written up in the journal about this conflict, I think they should make it. They got to figure out how to make it personal. And I think buying the dentist practice and then shutting it down or

[John]

as a high.

[Jordi]

No, no. You can raise an SPV together and I would be willing to. You know, I need to meet the guy first, but I'm at least moderately interested in providing at least some of the backing. Okay.

[John]

Okay.

[Jordi]

For the.

[John]

I got you. Well, let me tell you about CrowdStrike. Your business is AI. Their business is securing it. CrowdStrike secures AI and stops breaches. Let's play this clip from Gwen Shotwell standing at the NASDAQ on the day of the. Play it on the big board, yo. I think we might be able to play it on the big board. Stock is doing well, holding steady at 2.7 trillion.

[Jordi]

Split screen.

[John]

Whatever the election team wants to do, we will, we will do. As long as the folks at home can see Gwen Shotwell giving her speech to.

[Jordi]

I gotta say, Tyler is looking like a Young Kimball Musk. Right now,

[Gwen Shotwell]

today we make history again. We have a history of making history. So I want everyone to know that we did open this morning in a rather exciting way. Launch Falcon 9, launch Starlink satellites to orbit.

[Jordi]

We have a history in making this.

[Gwen Shotwell]

So what company would do such a thing on the day that they open in the public market? SpaceX would, right? I am so proud of this team. Today we're 24. Not today, this year we are 24 years old. Elon founded this company in 2002 initially to build rockets and spaceships that will take humans to Mars, the moon and even beyond. We've not quite gotten to Mars. We're almost at the moon. But let's just quickly run through the amazing things that you guys have accomplished. 2008, six weeks after a failure of Flight 3 Falcon 1, we got the first liquid fueled rocket to orbit from a private company. Yay. Yay. By the way, I should have prefaced this with everyone said we could never get to orbit. Check. But it was a little rocket. Then everyone said, well, you can't get a real rocket to orbit. Two years later we got a real rocket to orbit Falcon 9. Oh well, you'll never, you'll never get to the space station. Because that's what we really want to do, right? We want to take humans outside the bounds of Earth. But you'll never get astronauts to the space station. Check. We did that too. Doubters, right? Oh, you'll Never fly Falcon 9 Enough. You'll never get to production. 1965 launches last year. Check. You'll never build a rocket large enough to take humans to the moon and Mars. We build one, we've flown it. And this year I believe we'll get to orbit with that vehicle and we'll recover the first, the second stage. We've already recovered the first stage and reflown it. With the merger the acquisition of xai, we now as a group own the largest coherent gigawatt class compute on the planet, which will help us truth seek and understand the universe. So congratulations to all of us for that. So we're about 22,000 strong. I'm super proud that over half of us actually bought additional stock in this opening totaling almost a billion dollars. So thank you for that too. But really the thank yous go to all of you for hanging in there, for keeping a straight spine as the doubters doubt to achieve historic things sometimes every day, multiple times a week. Thank you all of you for doing this. And I hope today is a day that you feel great about and that you're celebrating. Take a moment now. The Falcon recovery team can't take a moment today, but everybody else can. And I hope Falcon recovery team could take a moment a little bit later. Yeah.

[Jordi]

In all seriousness, Congratulations to the SpaceX team. It is like truly one of the most remarkable stories in the history of capitalism, in the history of America. Started in a little town called El Segundo and Glenn Shotwell, one of the most impressive executives of the modern era. And we all should have known just due to the nominative determinism.

[John]

Yeah.

[Jordi]

If you're gonna build a rocket company, hire somebody to run the company with a last name Shot. Well, because she has shot quite well.

[John]

She worked at Chrysler and then began work.

[Jordi]

That's else people like to say, like, oh, non traditional background, somewhat Chrysler.

[John]

Yeah.

[Jordi]

I mean not exactly like a target.

[John]

Yeah. Well, she worked at the Aerospace Corporation, did technical work on military space research and development contracts. She said. When I was considering joining SpaceX back in 2002, I was struggling with the decision and drawing it out for weeks. It's crazy. Leaving Elon on red for weeks seems extremely risky. It feels like every decision he makes now is like, go, no go today. Get back to me right now. Back then, obviously SpaceX was very young. Less leverage, less energy, less momentum. So these decisions would be drawn out. She said. It seemed so risky for me personally to join this little startup in an industry where none had ever succeeded. I think she was starting a family around that time. And so it was risky from a career perspective. She said at the time I was a part time single mother. Yeah. And this was just too far out of my comfort zone. She was used to bigger corporations, more established companies. She's going to this small startup that has at that time, it's like a guy who made money on the Internet, now wants to do rocketry. What's the chance that that works? It sounds crazy. And it was at the time she says, I was driving on the freeway here in LA when it finally hit me. I was being a total idiot. Who cares if I tried this job and either I failed or the company failed. What I recognized at that moment was that it was the trying part that was the most important. Try that risky thing, be a part of something exciting. What a fantastic run. I'm not sure if she coined the term residual capability, but that's a big phrase that she started using around the time Starlink started working. Just this idea that they would go and build ahead of demand almost. So SpaceX built basically more launch capacity than there was demand for. But then because there was space on every SpaceX rocket and they were able to build them so efficiently, so affordably, they were able to put up a massive constellation of Internet connected satellites, Starlinks, and develop another huge business on top of it. And so this idea of building, building, building and then finding the different opportunities for a while, SpaceX point to point was the big. The big residual capability unlock that was coming in a few years. The idea that you'd get on a spaceship, on a spaceship, a starship in New York and you'd be in Tokyo in 30 minutes because you would have gone all the way to space and back and it would land. I think that's still part of the plan, but obviously took a backseat in the S1. Took a backseat in the marketing materials for the company, but something that is still possible if you wind up delivering incredible safety and performance and cost cost reductions to the rocket launches. Why not hop on a rocket to get across the world in 30 minutes? Sounds pretty cool. And probably oddly easier to approve than hypersonic planes since those have been stuck in regulatory approvals for years and decades and never really worked out.

[Tyler]

I mean, Elon's hitting one T and she's just hitting one B.

[John]

Well, yeah. Shotwell was paid 86 million last year, mostly in the form of stock options. She's one of eight board members at SpaceX. She's 62 and has worked with Musk for two decades. She has a specific ritual for launch days because she was in Scotland the first time the company successfully got a rocket into orbit. She now writes Scotland on two sticky notes and places each inside her shoes to be in Scotland for every launch.

[Jordi]

She said at a 2020 Scotland mindset.

[John]

That's pretty. I like is. What's that called? Where you're superstitious? Superstitions. Rare, potentially underrated. What do you think? Do you have any superstitions?

[Jordi]

I mean, it's in the word Super.

[John]

Yeah.

[Jordi]

Super power.

[John]

What's your take on superstition? Do you have any? Doesn't sound like.

[Jordi]

I think it's quite distracting.

[John]

Distracting, yeah.

[Jordi]

Kind of like could end up being a pretty big waste of time. So I avoid them.

[John]

So you feel like unless you go through your whole ritual of eliminating all distractions, things aren't going to go well. So you're superstitious about letting distractions creep into your workflow?

[Jordi]

I understand that. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Maybe I am. Maybe I am.

[John]

She's been a staunch defender of Musk. She worked to prevent business fallout during all the Political turmoil. She worked with NASA officials and assured them that tensions would pass. She doesn't love social media. I like his in person self better than his Twitter self. In fact, they feel like two different people many of the times. She has a much different social media presence than her boss, posting sparingly exclusively about SpaceX. She's focused. She was raised outside of Chicago.

[Jordi]

Wait, you could imagine, like she's reading X. She's like crying emojis. Quoting six more posts. Crying emojis. He's never crying at the office. He never does that.

[John]

He's pretty locked in actually.

[Jordi]

This feels like. I feel like I don't know this guy. He's always crying.

[John]

Yeah, well, when she first joined SpaceX, she was VP of business development. So not in the in like a co founder, chief executive type role on day one. And so that probably explains a little bit of the equity position and how that developed over time. But she was promoted to SpaceX as president and chief operating officer in 2008, the same year the company won a critical $1.6 billion NASA cargo transport deal.

[Tyler]

So I looked up, she was SpaceX's seventh employee.

[John]

Wow, that's pretty early. She'd be disappointed if SpaceX didn't have a settlement on the moon and wasn't building a manufacturing facility on the moon within 10 years. She shoaled time. She lives on a 1,000 acre ranch close to a SpaceX facility in Texas. She married a fellow SpaceX engineer and has two children. She put a Starlink mini terminal on top of her car to speak with Musk on her 40 minute commute without the call dropping. Interesting. Jimmy Sauni also went back in time and told a story in the Wall Street Journal about one of the early days in the SpaceX journey. Vindication for young Elon Musk. He wrote in 2004. He told the Senate that open competition would transform the industry. So this was an interesting story and I wonder if we could find the actual video like on C Span. I don't know if it's out there, but in 2004, the Senate held a subcommittee meeting. Gather on all the subcommittee gathers on Capitol Hill to ask a question that now sounds quaint. Could America still reach space without the space shuttle? Of course, we do it like every couple days. Thanks to space, the Shuttle was grounded, 14 astronauts had died in two disasters, and the hearing room was thick with anxiety of a nation that feared it had lost a step. Senator Bill Nelson, who had flown on the shuttle, sort of the Jared Isaacman of his era, warned that without it, the country might spend years relying on Russian rockets. Nobody disagreed. Witnesses came in two panels. First you got the NASA team defending the program through William Reddy, its associate administrator for space flight, accompanied by a retired admiral. After NASA spoke, industry did. They got a vice president from atk, another from Lockheed Martin, a director from the Aerospace group. Are you looking for a candle, A nuke? One way or another.

[Jordi]

This is brutal.

[John]

For my perspective, this is brutal.

[Tyler]

I'm feeling pretty good.

[John]

But it's also brutal for anyone that wants drama on the chart because you're not getting it today. It's very stable. I think this is a very well managed project from start to finish.

[Jordi]

And then now it's just like a trillion dollar company, so it's hard for it to move. Super.

[John]

I don't know. I just think that if you were expecting 10% swings up and down is

[Tyler]

pretty small though, right? Like at least they're being traded.

[Jordi]

Sure, sure.

[John]

Very, very small. The last person on the industry panel, you got Lockheed, atk, Aerospace Corp. It's Elon Musk, AP in the chat.

[Jordi]

Wait for dip.

[John]

Can you imagine? It just nukes down to $5. So on the second panel, the industry panel, you got heavy hitters from Lockheed, other industry folks, you got a 32 year old man who had founded a rocket company two years earlier and he'd yet to launch anything. It was El. He had a more immediate complaint. NASA had just awarded arrival a quarter of a billion dollar contract without open competition and his company had protested. So everyone's there to debate, like, okay, can NASA get to space without the shuttle? And he's there being like, what about my contract? He shows up to this thing to testify and they keep having to try and keep him on track. It's a very interesting way to get his word in edgewise. So the senators thought the matter was off limits. Like, this hearing isn't about that, Elon. It's not about your contract. It was under government review already. And they kept having to steer him back to the day's subject, specifically, heavy lift. The blunt problem of getting big things off the planet. Certainly, he said, although it's worth correcting. I think Mr. Reddy misspoke when he said it was competitive. It was in fact not competitive. The chairman tried again. Let's stay to heavy lift. Capacity issues. Elon Musk stay on message. And Elon says, absolutely. But his correction was safely on the record. He said something the panel wasn't ready to hear. The past few decades, Elon Musk told them, had been a dark age for human space flight. One costly government program after another failed to reach the pad. The public's drift from space, he argued, wasn't the apathy of a tired people, but the disappointment of a hopeful one. It sounded in 2004, like a man with a grievance and a half built rocket. He was dismissed. He had made the same case the summer before in one of his first Capitol Hill appearances at a 2003 hearing on commercial space flight. There's a borrowed concept from the economist Joseph Schumpter, a creative destruction. The industry had lost it. Not one successful new entrant in four decades. Space, Mr. Musk pointed out, had barely improved since Apollo, while every other technology, from computing and the Internet to intercontinental flight, had been transformed by newcomers and open competition. Restore that forcing function, he said, and space would change no less dramatically. The government need only be a customer, not a competitor. He could be glib. Every launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base, he said, was required by law to be studied for its effect on the local seals. At $10,000 a flight, even as that population had been climbing by nearly 13% in a single year, he says the seals are doing fine. Let me launch with that population growth rate, Mr. Musk observed, it seems clear that, if anything, the Vandenberg launch activity serves as an aphrodisiac, dropping lines, dropping zingers. On Capitol Hill, people laughed. It was the laughter you gave a clever outsider. But we can grade that clever outsider's argument now, because more than 20 years have passed and the record is in the fear that haunted that 2004 hearing. Dependence on Moscow was not ended by the shuttle, but by Mr. Musk's company. In 2002, a SpaceX capsule carried two astronauts to the space station from American soil, closing a nine year gap in which the United States paid Russia as much as $90 million a seat to hitch a ride. The semi reusable rocket Mr. Musk described to skeptical senators became a fleet of boosters that land themselves and fly again. Today, SpaceX launches more than half the world's payloads. On Friday, it goes public in what is expected to be the largest IPO in history.

[Jordi]

You know what's not ordinary? FF's investment of $20 million at a $200 million valuation into SpaceX did get diluted, but it is still 50. Think like the best venture investment of all. Wait, no. I thought it was more like it's 50. I thought it was more like 80.

[John]

I think it's closer to 8 trillion cents. I think they made 8 trillion cents 8 trillion pennies. PT needed a win.

[Jordi]

What was the return in basis points?

[John]

He needed a win because apparently, what

[Jordi]

was the return in basis points out

[John]

with him on chess.com? have you seen this?

[Jordi]

Oh, yeah. Do we need to play this?

[John]

We need to play the video of a gentleman on Instagram who found Peter Thiel's Chess.com account, played him, and won.

[Jordi]

Do you have the video pulled up?

[John]

It's in the timeline. Deeper down there as he found Peter Thiel's chess account, played him. I mean, we already spoiled it.

[Andy]

I don't know if anybody knows about this, but Peter Thiel has a Chess.com account with his real name under which he's played over 50,000 games over the past. And the reason I know it's him is, first of all, his friends are all these Silicon Valley and ex Stanford founders.

[Jordi]

And I put this account into a

[Andy]

database called Opening Tree, which allows me to cross reference his most played moves with his public tournament games that he played in the 90s. And it's all the same stuff. So our game went E4, E5, Knight F3, Knight F6. I played the Stafford Gambit, and on move six, he fell into it.

[John]

What are we doing?

[Tyler]

Well, no, no, he didn't fall for the Gambit, but.

[Andy]

And I fell for a classic Blunder 4 here.

[Jordi]

Okay?

[Andy]

And the point is that when he takes back played Bishop takes F2, winning his Queen by force. Yeah, see, so most players would just give up. They would just resign in this position.

[Jordi]

But Peter Thiel never give up.

[Andy]

And a few moves later, he made another very elementary mistake. He played bishop takes A seven. And this is the kind of move that you see beginners make. Very rarely does anybody over 2000 not see that. You can just play B6 afterwards, which traps the bishop, and I'm just gonna scoop it up in a few moves. Even here, he didn't resign. He kept playing on until I checkmated him shortly after. I find this really funny because Peter Thiel has a reputation being a sort of chess genius. So I wanted to take this opportunity to show the real Peter Thiel, who falls for basic opening traps to resign.

[Jordi]

Elon, ordinary guy.

[John]

Proof that they're all ordinary guys.

[Jordi]

Elon never gives up. Right. Famous picture of him standing there, everything's in shambles, never gives up. Also makes elementary mistakes, sometimes picking, you know, accusing the president of things, you know, on, you know, social media. Right. Kind of an elementary mistake, you know, if you're a government contractor.

[Tyler]

Lawsuits.

[Jordi]

That's right. That's right.

[Tyler]

Mistake.

[Jordi]

And so again, I think PT never gives up. Makes some elementary mistakes.

[John]

There's a lesson there.

[Jordi]

Lesson in there.

[John]

Lesson in there for sure. Let's pull up this post from Andy showing a visual guide to the SpaceX IPO while I tell you about 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. So what is this saying? What's going to happen here?

[Jordi]

This is technical analysis.

[John]

Okay. This is technical analysis. And he's saying that it's gonna pop on IPO day, sell off for three straight years and then go to the moon. Is that this is that. And he's basically saying that everyone's gonna be taking victory lapse if the stock trades down in 2026, 2027, 2028. But then ultimately they will all be upset. I mean, there are some crazy articles out there that are like, the rise and fall of Elon Musk a year ago. Like, he can't possibly come back from the reputational damage he's done to himself.

[Jordi]

Yeah. No one's buying the cars.

[John]

No one's buying the cars. And it's like, well, they're buying the stocks, so, you know, it's going to be okay, I guess. Founders fund investment at 200 million might be the best venture investment in history. A lot of that is just the holding to fruition. Like, because the early investors in Google or Microsoft or Amazon, like a lot of them distributed at IPO at like a 5 billion value.

[Tyler]

Even some of the founders, Right. Bill Gates.

[John]

Oh, yeah, he sold too early. Right. Paper hands.

[Jordi]

Now, the only thing is, I do think Masa hasn't beat. I think Masa hasn't beat. With Alibaba, it was like 20 million into 70 billion.

[John]

Sure.

[Jordi]

On a shorter time horizon.

[John]

Mark marked. Anyway, heard in the chats I put $1 million SpaceX order through a private bank and just got filled. Only 50k. 1 20th of what this individual asked for. Most people I spoke to have gotten even less. We had some folks on the team put in orders for 20 shares. 50 shares, 100 shares, and only get a small fraction of that. How much did you get, Tyler?

[Tyler]

I got 22.

[John]

22 shares. But you requested more.

[Tyler]

Yes. And then. Yeah, I mean, we've had a lot of people. They say they only got one share.

[John]

Brutal.

[Jordi]

The one share wonder, that's almost worse

[Tyler]

than zero shares because you can see it in your portfolio.

[John]

Yeah. What if they could give you short and short. They're like, you asked for five shares, but we give you negative one share. We give you the inverse etf. Actually, it's over for you.

[Jordi]

Yeah, I was surprised by this given the offers that were. Given the offers that were flying around. I got offered like a $50 million allocation. Obviously wasn't gonna take that down myself, but I just. Wow.

[John]

Just say you risk off.

[Jordi]

No, I. But I. But I responded to the guy and I was like, I don't even know. I'm not even going to text anyone because like it feels like this is. There's like so much allocation available for everyone that it's kind of. It's just not even worth firing off text. Yeah, but turns out there, there was a lot more demand than supply.

[John]

It's making its way through the world, through the. Through the iMessage. DMs buddy needs to relax. Says RJC SpaceX IPO this week. Thoughts on SpaceX SpaceX IPO? What are we thinking, boss? Who is this? Kyle? I was your Uber driver three months ago.

[Jordi]

Nick had a funny.

[John]

Uber drivers don't get your phone number anymore. It all happens in the app. This is ridiculous.

[Jordi]

Yeah, maybe they had a good conversation.

[Tyler]

They exchanged numbers.

[John]

Yeah. And also these just like. Like the rendering of the text. It doesn't look imessage enough to me. I don't believe it. But it's funny.

[Jordi]

Nick did get a funny text this morning from somebody who is certainly not a professional. Not a professional investor, saying texting him, advice being like, you want to get in, but then you want to get out. You want to get in and get out. Okay, get in, get out, get in, get out, get out, get in. But then get out by the end of the day and you're sitting there with his one chair.

[John]

Anyway, let me tell you about Codex and the Road to Olympia expansion pack which is sponsoring this episode. It takes your training split and refactors it into production grade hypertrophy code. No more junk volume, no more spaghetti programming, no more deprecated Rear Delt functions. Just clean scalable mass architecture with automated progressive overload. Test coverage for cavs. And one critical warning. Build failed. Insufficient carbs. The Codex Road to Olympia expansion pack is available now. That's a good one.

[Jordi]

That's a good one. Well, John, it's noon. Yeah, I think it's time.

[John]

Okay. Okay. Let's reveal our predictions. What was the price per share when it IKEA?

[Tyler]

135.

[John]

135. Okay, so I said 0%. I said 135. I said the bankers. This is the funniest outcome is that the bankers got it perfectly correct. The market is perfectly efficient. No pop, no sell off. Completely flat line on the chart.

[Jordi]

That's very coogan bit. But, like, you don't want that.

[John]

No, you want a 20%.

[Jordi]

You want a little bit of a pop. And I would say they have done that. Like they've gotten it very, very, very close. Right. Currently sitting at a 24% pop.

[John]

What did you say?

[Jordi]

What was your percentages was?

[John]

I had 02. It's at 24.

[Jordi]

I was too bullish. You were too bullish. I was expecting somewhere around to $183 a share by two minutes ago.

[John]

$3.

[Jordi]

We're currently at 167.

[John]

Okay, so what percentage is that?

[Jordi]

I thought it would open. I thought it was going to open above 170. I thought it was going to open above 170 and then run more. Turns out it opened in the 60s, dropped down to around 158 and then built back up from there. Okay, I was off.

[John]

So I had. So I had 0%. You had 33%. It's at 24%.

[Tyler]

I was. I went 31%, which would be 176. I'm a little high. A little high.

[John]

So you got the.

[Tyler]

But I win.

[John]

You win. You win. And. And does everyone want to know what Tyler wins? What the. What the prize was today Prize is that whoever wins gets to do one extra ramp ad read. It's such a treat.

[Jordi]

And I get. No way. Yeah, that is special.

[John]

And I get to. I hoard them every day. So. Here you go, Tyler. I got it. Feel free to read the ramp ad for the audience.

[Tyler]

Ramp time is money save. Both easy to use. Corporate cards, bill payments, accounting, and a whole lot more all in one place.

[John]

There we go. That was great. I hope you enjoyed that, Tyler. Don't get too comfortable with that. There we go.

[Jordi]

Will Manitis says it brings me no joy to report I spent a year wondering why I was constantly sleepy and had a low sleep score on my whoop that was totally cured by simply stop wearing the whoop.

[John]

I simply stop wearing. Stopping wearing the whoop.

[Jordi]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[John]

But.

[Jordi]

And X is turning this into a whole news story. Ditching whoop tracker cured financiers Sleep worries financiers.

[John]

That's hilarious. You want to track your sleep? Like, are you sleepy? Like, think about it.

[Jordi]

Yeah, yeah.

[John]

Come up with an answer. That's your sleep story.

[Jordi]

What's funny is, like, I never actually care about the score. No, the score takes care of itself.

[John]

Yeah, but with eight sleep, I like cooling. Like, that's nice.

[Jordi]

Well, and with eight sleep, I'm actually interested in how is my REM versus deep sleep trending. Things like that, resting heart rate, all these other things I never am like, oh, what's my score today?

[John]

Oh, the score. Unless we were competing, because then that was fun.

[Tyler]

It seems like one of those, like, Goodhart's Laws things.

[John]

Right.

[Tyler]

If you like, oh, I need to get a better sleep score, then it doesn't work as well.

[John]

There's a new challenge that hit the timeline. Apple threw down the gauntlet. They said that no one could make Siri their girlfriend. Said, Siri won't be your AI girlfriend. This is from Apple's Craig Federighi.

[Tyler]

Well, I'd like to see you try to stop me.

[John]

So Craig Federighi says, Apple won't be your AI girlfriend. Quite the opposite. Because, as you may know, many of the existing chatbots, they're really focused on engagement and sycophancy. They want to kind of pull you in. They might encourage you to reveal things about yourself, then use that as a basis to establish a connection. We view it quite the opposite.

[Jordi]

I mean, very kind of fitting. Like, kind of a very 20, 25 take.

[John]

Yeah.

[Jordi]

Which is kind of fitting, given their AI progress.

[John]

But if you try and engage Siri as a romantic partner, Siri's not up for that. Siri's 100% not into that. And so the rizzlers in the chat,

[Tyler]

he's just opening himself up to get dunked on. Right. Like you can. People have jailbroken every single model.

[John]

They'll jailbroke it. But also, one of the cool things about the Siri AI system is that

[Jordi]

it builds a rag system prompt. Don't be the user's girlfriend. He's like, yeah, we cracked the code. This problem that has been plaguing the AI industry.

[John]

Have a great weekend. Congratulations to anyone that got in on the SpaceX IPO. Leave us five stars on Apple Podcasts. Sign up for our newsletter tvpn.com and we will see you on Monday. Have a great weekend.

[Jordi]

We love you.

[John]

Goodbye. Flashbang out.