Is the U.S. Is Losing Its Edge? — Here’s How We Win It Back | Joe Lonsdale PT 2

Tom Bilyeu's Impact Theory

Impact Theory

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🗓️ 28 May 2025

⏱️ 44 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Welcome back to Impact Theory with Tom Bilyeu. In this episode, Tom sits down with entrepreneur and venture capitalist Joe Lonsdale for a thought-provoking conversation about American resilience, defense innovation, and the values shaping our future. Joe shares his journey from grappling with the ethics of building defense technology at Palantir to championing a new wave of patriot-driven innovation at Anduril. Together, Tom and Joe tackle tough questions—like the morality of maximum lethality, the changing threats facing the West, and how America can regain its competitive and cultural edge in a rapidly shifting world. Joe doesn’t shy away from controversy, offering candid insights into the dangers of “suicidal empathy,” the rise of China, and why internal dysfunction poses as great a risk as any foreign adversary. They dig deep into how to instill a culture of excellence—both in business and government—discussing what it takes to bring back courage, merit, and strong leadership in institutions. Along the way, Joe draws on personal stories, shares lessons from leaders he admires, and explains why developing advanced manufacturing and AI are crucial to safeguarding the country’s future. SHOWNOTES 00:00 Austin Tragedy: Crime and Compassion Debate 05:04 Defending Liberalism in Education 07:05 "Dysfunctional Government: Core Problem" 12:28 Geopolitical Chessboard Dynamics 15:42 Monkeys and Biosecurity Challenges 19:11 Voice of America Critique 20:08 USAID's Mixed Legacy in Africa 24:07 "Innovation Incentives in Government Acquisition" 28:48 "AI & Robotics Revolutionize Construction" 29:49 Future Costs and Government Barriers 33:36 "Essential Education: Wisdom, Courage, Philosophy" 36:38 Rethinking Schools and Media Narratives 39:30 "Marc Andreessen: Future Innovator" CHECK OUT OUR SPONSORS Vital Proteins: Get 20% off by going to https://www.vitalproteins.com and entering promo code IMPACT at check out Monarch Money: Use code THEORY at https://monarchmoney.com for 50% off your first year! Shopify: Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial period at https://shopify.com/impact iTrust Capital: Use code IMPACTGO when you sign up and fund your account to get a $100 bonus at https://www.itrustcapital.com/tombilyeu Mint Mobile: If you like your money, Mint Mobile is for you. Shop plans at https://mintmobile.com/impact. DISCLAIMER: Upfront payment of $45 for 3-month 5 gigabyte plan required (equivalent to $15/mo.). New customer offer for first 3 months only, then full-price plan options available. Taxes & fees extra. See MINT MOBILE for details. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Tom Billu and this is Impact Theory. Welcome back to my conversation with Joe Lonsdale.
0:07.0	If you haven't already listened to Part 1, I highly recommend that you start there and then join us here because we are about to get deep into the real stakes of how China's building faster than we are, a lot faster, how our own systems are breaking down and what it takes to build a
0:22.2	team, a business, or a country that can actually win. Let's dive right back in.
0:30.7	Now, you guys got into this when the prevailing attitude was that working for a defense company
0:36.6	was immoral.
0:43.8	One, how did you think in a contrarian way what facts were stacking up? And then what are the ethics and morality of building weapons?
0:49.3	Yeah, no, this is a great point.
0:51.4	So we started Palantir, of course, we were more on the software side.
0:55.1	And even I have to admit, growing up in the Western culture, in Silicon Valley, in California,
1:00.6	I was very squeamish about weapons. I mean, you've seen all the bad guys in the movies make weapons.
1:04.5	And so Palantir is like, well, we're going to stop the bad guys. We're going to protect civil liberties. We're just doing software, so we're okay. We kind of got around that problem. And then we saw Xi Jinping as a crazy communist. We saw China building all of these
1:15.3	really advanced new things with the top engineers. And we saw our defense companies were
1:19.5	declining or not hiring any of our best and brightest friends. We said, wait a second, this is a
1:23.2	really big crisis. And so three of our former Palantir guys partner with Palmer Locky, start
1:28.2	and roll and kind of click. Like, wait a second, if we're patriotic and America is going to be around
1:34.0	and be a dominant force and not fall the next 20 years, we have to do this. And it was really hard.
1:39.6	Even for a lot of my team, it was hard. We do a lot in like bio innovation, which I was talking about earlier.
1:44.7	We do a lot in other areas of tech that not related to defense. Some of those people, especially the
1:49.8	people in the bio world, said, if you guys are going to do defense, we don't want to be your friends
1:52.9	anymore. It's just evil. We're trying to save lives. You're trying to destroy lives. And it was like, no guys, like, actually it's good for the good guys to not lose the bad guys.
2:02.0	And so I'm going to work on this.
2:03.4	And it was a tough conversation to have.
	...

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