Inside America's New Defense Tech: Drones, Data and AI with Joe Lonsdale
The Tony Robbins Channel
Tony Robbins
4.3 • 6.9K Ratings
🗓️ 4 March 2026
⏱️ 55 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this episode of The Holy Grail of Investing, Christopher Zook sits down with Joe Lonsdale, a leading investor at the intersection of AI, defense, and national competitiveness, for a timely conversation on what is real (and what is hype) in the AI revolution.
Joe shares why he views AI as a major industrial revolution driven by productivity, not an "existential" technology destined to replace civilization. He breaks down the AI value chain, from energy and chips to data centers, models, software infrastructure, and the applications delivering real economic value, along with where he sees the best risk-reward opportunities.
The conversation expands into the strategic stakes of the AI race, including how defense, space, energy, and critical minerals fit together and what it takes to build world-class companies in sectors shaped by both innovation and policy. Joe also reflects on founding the University of Austin, and why courage and open debate matter more than ever in a rapidly changing world.
Disclaimer:
Joe Lonsdale appeared as a guest in his personal capacity. The views expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of 8VC or any affiliated funds or portfolio companies. This conversation is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice, a recommendation, an endorsement, or an offer or solicitation to buy or sell any securities or fund interests. Any examples mentioned are illustrative and may not be representative. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Joe and/or affiliated entities may have investments or other relationships with the companies discussed.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey everyone, it's Tony Robbins with the Holy Grail of Investing podcast. |
| 0:03.0 | AI is going to change the world. |
| 0:05.0 | Dario, who runs anthropic. |
| 0:06.0 | He's really, very worried. |
| 0:07.0 | And a lot of people think you've created the God. |
| 0:08.0 | But I think the right way to look at it, this is a very important industrial revolution. Please welcome to the stage. Co-founder, volunteer, Joe Lozde. Today my partner and co-host Christopher Zook is going to sit down one of the greatest entrepreneurs of this generation. |
| 0:20.0 | That says a lot, I know. |
| 0:21.0 | But he's someone who doesn't just talk about the future. |
| 0:24.0 | He's actually building it. We were pretty horrified that our country was under attack. The FBI spent tens of billions of dollars on stuff that was 20, 30 years behind Silicon Valley. Before I left the company, we hunted down 9,000 terrorists. Wow, let that sink in for just a second. How do AI, defense-based energy fit together in a strategic landscape? There's six levels, zero through five. These levels are all interesting to invest in. I happen to think level five is the best risk reward. It's tough to invest in defense because you don't know that the revenue is going to be there. We shot down military drones nine and a half times farther away. The generals were plotting and it was a big deal. And then the next year we basically got almost no |
| 0:57.7 | revenue. And I found out. Give us what you're most optimistic about in the next decade. |
| 1:02.2 | Every one of our challenges that we face, there's really good answers that come. |
| 1:05.7 | And what we cannot afford to get wrong. One big part of that is we can't afford not to fix them. |
| 1:15.6 | Our guest is none other than Joe Lonsdale, the co-founder of Palantir, one of the most |
| 1:19.6 | influential companies in the modern world. Joe's also co-founded in back category |
| 1:23.6 | to find your businesses like OpenGov, Serronic, and Anderil, companies that are reshaping finance, government, defense, and technology itself. |
| 1:32.5 | But I think what makes Joe different isn't just what he's built. |
| 1:36.3 | It's really how he thinks. |
| 1:37.8 | He thinks long term. |
| 1:38.9 | He uses first principles, and he's relentlessly focused on real world impact. |
| 1:43.4 | If you want insight and how the most powerful platforms of the next decade are being created today, this episode will expand how you see the opportunities ahead. Let's meet Joe Lonsdale. It's a bigger crowd than I realized. It is a big crowd. We're very proud of that, and we're glad that you're here. Thank you for making the time. I'm going to put up on the screen just so that everybody has a little bit of history. I'm not going to read you all of this. Sorry about this. Okay? No, that's so you should be very proud of it. But it would take way too long to introduce him. But as a co-founder of Palantir, obviously a lot of you know that company as being involved in some of the |
| 2:18.3 | most innovative companies that exist on the planet. We wanted to put them up here as well as |
| 2:24.1 | some other things we'll talk about, including the University of Texas of Austin. I love it. She is a |
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