Inside the Mysterious Drone Encounter at Barksdale Air Force Base

0:00 I almost texted my friends in the Pentagon to ask them about this.

0:03 I actually just posted something right before I

0:04 went on the show a couple hours ago.

0:06 Epris has a new autonomous thing where the the truck drives autonomously,

0:09 opens up and fires autonomously at the drones.

0:11 You put a couple of these, you put a couple of these to the base,

0:13 they take the drones down right away.

0:14 Cuz see, anti-jamming is one thing.

0:16 Epis is not just jamming.

0:18 Epis is frying the circuits.

0:19 If China takes Taiwan tomorrow and controls TSMC and those chip factories,

0:25 can we even continue to build drones and AI weapon systems?

0:30 I'm always jealous of Japan because like they'll have

0:32 their roads just like the guys will come at night because

0:34 they respect their other people so much in their society

0:36 and they don't have the weird unions that the break thing.

0:38 So they just like work really hard at night

0:40 well paid and get it done fast, right?

0:42 So you can be on the road again.

0:43 Now you could do it again without having

0:44 to keep the union guy up at night, you know?

0:46 Damn, man.

0:48 No, but and by the way, here's the thing.

0:50 This is like a classic Jevans paradox

0:52 thing which is really important for economics because

0:53 a lot of people might see this and their first instinct might be, well, f you.

0:57 you're just getting rid of people's jobs, right?

0:59 That that that might be the thing they think.

1:01 And and and and here here's here's what it is.

1:04 It's that when you when something goes down in cost,

1:06 you you can get do a have demand for a lot more of it, right?

1:09 So the original Jevans paradox, it's important for people to understand.

1:11 This is a key economics concept is is they figured out uh

1:15 how to make coal plants twice as efficient in the 19th century.

1:18 This is a big deal cuz coal was like the big energy.

1:21 And so if you own a bunch of coal mines,

1:23 a lot of people did, that was a big thing back then.

1:25 and coal plants are twice as efficient.

1:26 All of a sudden, everyone's like, "Oh my god,

1:28 they're not going to need our coal anymore." And you know what happened instead?

1:31 This demand for coal went way up because because

1:34 all of a sudden because energy was so much cheaper,

1:37 it was now in much more in demand and there's much more uses of it.

1:40 And it's the same thing here.

1:41 If you can build buildings in America for much cheaper,

1:44 suddenly a manufacturing project that you were forced

1:46 to do in Mexico or forced to do

1:48 in the Philippines or Vietnam or wherever else

1:50 the hell the numbers said to do it, suddenly it makes a lot more sense to do

1:54 it here because you're building it for much cheaper.

1:56 And so suddenly suddenly you're cut so all so the amount of economic

1:59 activity you're going to create if we can make these things cheaper,

2:02 it's going to go so up.

2:03 There's going to be so much more stuff that just

2:05 right now there's all this stuff Sean that I

2:07 really want to do here as a patriot and I do I produce a lot of things here.

2:09 I build things with the ships and everything else,

2:11 but a lot of stuff just doesn't pencil.

2:12 Like Joe, I'm sorry.

2:13 It doesn't pencil.

2:14 And you you can't just be a crazy person.

2:16 It has to pencil, right?

2:17 But this makes a lot of stuff going to pencil

2:19 a hell of a lot better in the next few years.

2:20 So, it's going to lead to a massive boom in economic activity here.

2:23 It's it's a very good thing for America.

2:25 Yeah, man.

2:26 I mean, what do what do these machines look like?

2:28 Are they just repurposing?

2:29 They're repurposing Caterpillar machines for now.

2:31 Caterpillar, by the way, is crushing it the last few years, you can imagine,

2:33 because of all the construction and data centers

2:35 and demand for their machines around the world.

2:37 So they're a very profitable massive company and they they love this.

2:40 They know they can't build it themselves and and so they're they're

2:43 working really well and partnering and figuring

2:45 out and we're equipping their machines

2:47 and you know you know who else is going to be going

2:49 into this sector as well is our friend Travis just announced it.

2:52 Have you followed that at all?

2:53 Travis Kalanick.

2:55 No.

2:54 So he's the one who built Uber, right?

2:56 Very famously amazing entrepreneur, super hardcore uh guy in terms of a builder.

3:01 And his latest company he's renaming Adams

3:03 and he's going into the world of Adams.

3:05 as you can go.

3:05 He did a whole manifesto online.

3:07 So, Bedrock's my favorite big company exists in this space,

3:10 but in other parts of the space like mining, etc.

3:12 Travis wants to figure out how to how to make the world of atoms work with AI.

3:16 So, this is going to be a hopefully a huge

3:17 growth area for everyone in the next several years.

3:19 Man, that is wild.

3:22 Yeah.

3:21 What are you excited about?

3:23 You know, I'm America is back, man.

3:24 Like I said, I think I think I think

3:26 our country went through something very weird for 50 years.

3:28 All of a sudden, we had way too many lawyers from the early '7s.

3:31 We had this fiat currency.

3:32 We got rid of the gold standard.

3:34 We had all this bureaucracy sprout up.

3:37 I mean, it was almost like it was like it

3:39 was almost like the Soviet Union somehow it infiltrated us.

3:41 I don't know.

3:42 Something really bad happened where our culture went off the rails.

3:45 Workers weren't paid as much.

3:47 Finance got to be too big relative to workers.

3:49 I think it's a major problem.

3:50 I still think we got to fix that with, you know,

3:52 there's all these things were broken for 50 years.

3:54 And suddenly, and the airplanes didn't get better,

3:57 healthcare got more expensive.

3:58 Everything got broken.

3:59 Suddenly, it's all reversed.

4:00 Suddenly, healthcare is going to get cheaper.

4:01 Airplanes are going to get better and faster.

4:03 like government's gonna get less stupid with it with with this AI stuff.

4:06 All this manufacturing is coming back.

4:08 All of a sudden, we're building ships again with Dino.

4:10 Like America, China builds 230 times ships as we we can.

4:14 We're going to 100x it in America the next next several years.

4:16 Like all this stuff like he just, you know,

4:18 he's just he's he announced it himself and he just raised billions more, right?

4:20 There's all this stuff that's getting funded,

4:22 all the stuff that's working, all stuff that's growing.

4:24 Like America is going to be by far number one again.

4:28 And we just got to make sure we don't rip ourselves apart

4:30 and we don't let the left get in charge because they'll break it.

4:32 I love to hear that.

4:33 I love to hear that.

4:34 I got a hot question for you.

4:36 All right,

4:36 you ready, Joe?

4:40 Drone swarms just flew over Barksdale Air Force Base for a week straight.

4:45 This is where we keep nuclear B-52s.

4:47 Oh, yeah.

4:48 They resisted jamming.

4:49 They were customuilt and the military couldn't stop them.

4:53 Your company, Eperis,

4:54 literally builds the weapons designed to solve this problem.

4:58 So, what's actually going on here?

5:00 Is this a real foreign adversary probing our nuclear infrastructure?

5:04 Or is there any chance this is a scop,

5:07 a distraction from what's happening with Iran and everything else right now?

5:11 You know, it's a great question and I I almost texted my friends

5:14 in the Pentagon to ask them about this because I was wondering it too.

5:16 I probably should.

5:17 Huh.

5:18 Although although the reason they might not tell me is

5:20 that they know I'd probably tell everyone I talked to you.

5:22 So So I I don't have inside information.

5:24 I wish I did.

5:25 Um there that your your listeners 100% right.

5:29 Epris could shoot shoot shoot these things down.

5:30 I actually just posted something right before I

5:32 went on the show a couple hours ago.

5:34 Epris has a new autonomous uh thing where the truck drives autonomously,

5:37 opens up and fires autonomously at the drones.

5:40 You put a couple of these you put a couple of these to the base.

5:42 They take the drones down right away cuz see anti-jamming is one thing.

5:45 Epris is not just jamming.

5:46 Epis is frying the circuits.

5:48 Epis is literally applying like an insane amount

5:51 of energy all smooshed into a 10,000 of a second

5:54 and like and like using AI and everything to get

5:56 the power to hit the guy nitrite all at once.

5:58 and the burst just like is a cone of energy.

6:00 It just it fries these things.

6:01 So yes, uppers 100% could fry these and turn them off and you know,

6:06 so if we really need to, maybe they're going to adopt it.

6:08 So let's let's see.

6:09 That's I think that's the obvious solution.

6:12 Andy Lowry is coming here on Monday.

6:13 I think he is.

6:14 All right.

6:15 He's bringing one.

6:16 Oh, good.

6:16 Really?

6:17 He's bringing one.

6:17 We're going to get a walk around.

6:19 Let's get him.

6:20 We'll fry the neighbors.

6:21 Andy Andy's the CEO of Empress, man.

6:23 Don't fry the neighbors.

6:24 You'll get us in trouble.

6:25 The neighbors cars.

6:27 Uh, the problem is is once you fry some of these things,

6:30 you can't turn them back on.

6:30 They might wouldn't be very happy with you.

6:34 There's a followup.

6:35 If China takes Taiwan tomorrow and controls TSMC and those chip factories,

6:41 can we even continue to build drones and AI weapon systems?

6:46 So, first of all,

6:47 that's kind of what I was alluding to earlier about,

6:49 you know, if they do take Taiwan, what does that mean?

6:51 And you were talking about repurposing chips.

6:53 Yeah.

6:53 F first of all TSMC is part of like a massive ecosystem.

6:58 So a lot of the design, a lot of the work,

7:00 a lot of other things happen in America,

7:02 happen around the world, happen in ASML in Europe.

7:05 Like you couldn't just like take TSMC and just like own it for yourself.

7:08 Like it would it would stop working because you'd stop sending the designs,

7:10 you'd stop doing the work, you stop it, right?

7:13 I thought it was all centralized.

7:14 No, it's actually really interesting.

7:15 I think America actually does capture more

7:17 of the profits from the chip ecosystem than Taiwan does.

7:19 This is what people miss.

7:20 like they they definitely they definitely capture more

7:22 of the revenue because of like the cost, but if you look at the actual profits,

7:26 we're still capturing more than they are because we do so much of the work.

7:29 It it's a very distributed industry where a lot of that's

7:32 happening at Lamb Research and Applied Materials and all these companies

7:35 that maybe you haven't heard of that are in the Silicon

7:37 Valley that are that are part of the US still.

7:40 Uh and so so they couldn't just take it all away.

7:42 Now, that said, they could massively

7:44 slow down everything in global chip production.

7:46 They could definitely cut off uh all the newest stuff.

7:49 It would take a long time to redo it,

7:51 which is why we're trying to obviously build what we can here.

7:54 But listen, it it would set back AI by five or 10 years.

7:57 Would it stop us from building drones?

7:58 No.

7:59 Like we have another separate problem right now,

8:01 which is that we don't do enough rare earth refining,

8:03 which is something the Department of War has

8:05 done a really good job trying to change.

8:06 There's been at least a couple companies are putting

8:07 a lot of money into uh to, you know, they're going to mine rare earth,

8:10 they're going to refine rare earths,

8:12 and you need those things to be able to build the magnets and the drones motors.

8:15 Like most of the Ukrainian drones on both

8:17 sides involve China in their supply chain, which is not good for us.

8:20 That's like it's a shame right now.

8:21 That's what how it works.

8:22 So, we got to fix that.

8:23 But that's not necessarily just a TSMC problem.

8:26 That's a separate problem we got to fix that we're working on.

8:32 How I mean, you were talking about Elon, you know, getting diving into this

8:36 terafab.

8:36 Yeah.

8:37 How how I mean, you got to bring someone on who knows

8:39 more about it because it's it's a new thing.

8:40 Yeah.

8:41 Yeah.

8:41 Yeah.

8:41 I'm just curious.

8:42 What is the timeline?

8:45 Is there one?

8:47 I have nothing but respect for Elon as a number one builder in the world.

8:51 I think when you're a great entrepreneur,

8:53 at least if I speak for others as well and and for my own

8:57 things where I've built five or six pretty big companies,

9:00 like I think you almost have to trick yourself, at least for me,

9:02 into thinking it's going to be faster than it

9:04 is because otherwise you can't get yourself to do it.

9:05 You know what I'm saying?

9:06 Like cuz when you start one of these companies,

9:08 at least in my experience, maybe I'm just slower, but they always take longer.

9:11 They're always harder.

9:12 I think I think Elon is is has done the most amazing things,

9:15 but he's also made predictions where things take longer.

9:17 And that's I think that's just normal for a great entrepreneur.

9:19 So, I think it's just really hard to know how long things are going to take.

9:22 And I think whatever someone guesses is a great entrepreneur,

9:25 you could sometimes maybe add a few more years.

9:27 And so, I think this thing takes a while.

9:30 Uh that said, they're going really fast.

9:32 They have the best people in the world.

9:33 And it's really good for America that they're doing it.

9:35 So, I'm I'm rooting for him.

9:36 Is that an Austin Duke?

9:38 Yeah, it actually is.

9:39 Man, that is wild, man.

9:40 That place is so cool.

9:41 We're just finishing our STEM building from a new university right next

9:43 to SpaceX uh and Boring Company right there uh next to all this stuff.

9:48 We're going have a 30 acres and have this awesome building.

9:50 We're going to be doing they're actually helping us.

9:52 They're going to be doing like robotics and electrical

9:54 engineering and and all sorts of stuff there.

9:56 So, it's a it's a really fun area right now.

9:58 Bam.

9:58 That's cool.

9:59 University of Austin.

10:00 We're crushing it.

10:01 That's cool.

10:01 What are you guys doing over there at University of Austin?

10:04 We talked about it last time we were here.

10:06 Yeah, it's great.

10:06 The third class is joining right now.

10:08 These are the Oh Peter Thiel has already hired away a few of our a few

10:12 of our people from the first two classes and a bunch of them online.

10:15 You can go look.

10:16 They're doing all sorts of cool companies,

10:17 all sorts of cool internships with Boring Company and Palunteer

10:21 and all sorts of different groups we partner with.

10:23 Uh listen, these are amazing young people.

10:25 To to have a really top score, Sean, and then to turn down an Ivy League

10:29 or another top school and go to a new university,

10:31 you have to be an entrepreneur.

10:33 You have to have an opinion.

10:33 you know, you have to want to be part of like the, you know,

10:37 frankly, it's the country elite.

10:38 It's the new elite.

10:39 It's the people who don't want to be part of the old kind

10:41 of broken Harvard deal kind of kind of loser mess like CFR, you know,

10:45 guys who predict everything wrong about what's going to happen in the Middle

10:48 East and are just like part of the old kind of corrupt old guard.

10:51 Like they want to be part of the builders.

10:53 They want to be part of the the actual competent people who

10:55 think for themselves and don't just echo what you're supposed to say.

10:57 I think I think it's going really well.

10:59 No matter where you're watching the Shaun Ryan Show

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