Tue. 02/04 – Uncle Sam As A VC?
Techmeme Ride Home
Brian McCullough
4.7 • 984 Ratings
🗓️ 4 February 2025
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Is the US government about to get into, or at least, heavily impact the VC investing business? Apparently, the trade war with China is still on. The resurrection of Twitterific. And how Spotify has quietly stopped investing, and started getting real about profitability.
Sponsors:
Links:
- Trump Signs Executive Action to Create Sovereign Wealth Fund (Bloomberg)
- China Hits Back Against Trump’s Tariffs With Targeted Actions (Bloomberg)
- China targets Google, Nvidia and Intel as Trump tariffs bite (Financial Times)
- Twitterrific team launches new ‘Tapestry’ iPhone app for Bluesky, Mastodon, RSS, more (9to5Mac)
- Opera’s new browser might save you from doomscrolling (The Verge)
- Spotify Reports First Full-Year Profit (WSJ)
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Tech meme right home for Tuesday, February 4th, 2025. I'm Brian McCullough. Today is the |
| 0:09.3 | U.S. government about to get into, or at least heavily impact the VC investing business? |
| 0:14.3 | Apparently, the trade war with China is still on, the resurrection of TwitterRific, and how |
| 0:19.5 | Spotify has quietly stopped investing and started getting |
| 0:22.1 | real about profitability. Here's what you miss today in the world of tech. |
| 0:32.7 | Donald Trump has signed an executive action to direct officials to create a U.S. |
| 0:36.9 | sovereign wealth fund and says that it could direct officials to create a U.S. sovereign wealth fund |
| 0:38.1 | and says that it could be used to facilitate a sale of TikTok U.S. |
| 0:42.9 | Also, we've been waiting for the announcement of some sort of crypto or Bitcoin Reserve |
| 0:47.2 | too. This is not that, I believe, but this could be part of that, I guess. |
| 0:51.8 | Quoting Bloomberg, we have tremendous potential. Trump told reporters |
| 0:55.3 | in the Oval Office on Monday as he announced the move, the president said the action would |
| 0:59.5 | charge Treasury Secretary Scott Besant and Howard Lutnik, the nominee for Commerce Secretary |
| 1:05.1 | with spearheading the effort. Bessonet, who joined Trump at the Oval Office, said the fund |
| 1:10.5 | would be created in the next |
| 1:11.5 | 12 months, calling it an issue of great strategic importance. |
| 1:14.9 | Trump suggested the fund could be used to facilitate the sale of TikTok, which is currently |
| 1:18.4 | operating in the U.S. thanks to an extension he signed, prolonging the deadline for a forced |
| 1:22.9 | sale or shutdown. |
| 1:24.4 | Lutnik said the U.S. government could leverage its size and scale, given the business |
| 1:28.2 | it does with companies, citing drugmakers as an example. If we are going to buy two billion |
| 1:33.1 | COVID vaccines, maybe we should have some warrants and some equity in these companies, he said. |
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