AI Venture Capitalist: These Tech Predictions Will Change Everything by 2030 w/ Vinod Khosla | #159

Summary

Highlights

• Vinod Khosla predicts a billion bipedal robots by 2040, overshadowing the auto industry. 🤖
• AI will make expertise in fields like medicine and teaching virtually free. 🧠
• Advertising must evolve as AI shifts consumer buying behavior. 📈
• Fusion and geothermal energy could eliminate reliance on coal and natural gas. ⚡
• Self-driving public transit could multiply city transport capacity tenfold. 🚍

Key Takeaways

• AI will redefine expertise, making it accessible and affordable for everyone. 🧠
• Bipedal robots will eclipse the auto industry in significance by 2040. 🤖
• Fusion and geothermal energy will revolutionize power generation by 2030. ⚡
• AI will transform healthcare and education accessibility. 💉📚
• Public transit systems will undergo a complete overhaul, reducing congestion. 🚍

Overview

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction The chapter introduces the unpredictability of the future, highlighting the necessity to approach it incrementally. Venard Kosla is presented as a key figure influencing the future directions of AI, clean energy, and biotech, having transitioned from Sun Microsystems to making billion-dollar investments. The discussion touches on the evolving nature of programming, suggesting a future where computers adapt to humans rather than requiring humans to learn how to operate them.
• 00:30 - 01:00: Venod Khosla's Background and Vision The chapter discusses Vinod Khosla's visionary insights into technology and its transformative power in converting scarcity into abundance. He predicts that the business of bipedal robots will surpass the auto industry within the next 20 years. Khosla highlights that the auto industry is unaware of this impending shift, describing this outlook as a significant, ambitious goal, or a 'moonshot.'
• 01:00 - 02:30: Bipedal Robots and Future Impact The chapter titled 'Bipedal Robots and Future Impact' opens with greetings between Venode and another individual, highlighting their shared belief in abundance and optimism for the future. The conversation reflects on the importance of believing in what seems impossible and the pleasure of knowing each other for several decades. This sets the stage for discussions on future technologies like bipedal robots and their potential impact, emphasizing the role of positive thinking and community in technological advancement.
• 02:30 - 04:30: AI in Healthcare and Education The chapter discusses the involvement of certain individuals in the investment and entrepreneurial landscape. A specific individual, referred to as Venode, is highlighted for their impressive track record as an entrepreneur and company builder, despite not personally identifying as an investor. The conversation takes place in a context where the appreciation for innovation and enterprise is emphasized.
• 04:30 - 05:30: Future of Advertising with AI The chapter discusses the future impact of AI on advertising, focusing on predictions made for the year 2040.
• 05:30 - 07:00: AI's Impact on Different Sectors The chapter titled "AI's Impact on Different Sectors" discusses the significance of understanding situational awareness in the context of AI's expansion into large business sectors. Brett emphasizes the importance of reading a specific situational awareness paper to gain insight into the changes AI might bring. For those not keen on reading, it's suggested to use Notebook LM or listen to a related podcast to comprehend the concepts discussed in the paper. The paper is deemed extraordinary and of great importance to understanding AI's potential impact.
• 07:00 - 08:30: Programming and AI's Role The chapter titled 'Programming and AI's Role' discusses the prediction that bipedal robots or their equivalents, in various forms and configurations, will surpass the auto industry in size within the next 20 years. It argues that the auto industry is unaware of this impending shift. The chapter also speculates on the future role and capabilities of these robots.
• 08:30 - 10:30: Health Innovations The chapter discusses the transformative impact of technological advancements in the realm of labor and healthcare. It emphasizes the significant increase in labor capacity due to automation and Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), highlighting that these technologies enable 24/7 work capabilities far surpassing the traditional human workforce. This increased capacity allows for the handling of more complex tasks and the enhancement of human expertise, potentially at no cost, signaling a major leap in how humanity could tackle global challenges and improve health outcomes.
• 10:30 - 14:30: Energy and Climate Solutions The chapter titled 'Energy and Climate Solutions' discusses the significant opportunity in the auto industry related to robots, particularly highlighting Elon Musk's focus on developing Optimus through Tesla. The speaker acknowledges that this opportunity is largely unrecognized by most in the industry, except for Musk, who predicts that Optimus will become the biggest part of Tesla. Additionally, the chapter touches on the prediction that expertise will become free in the future.
• 14:30 - 18:30: Future of Transportation The chapter titled 'Future of Transportation' delves into the transformative impact of AI technologies in fields other than transportation, namely healthcare and education. It briefly touches on the role of AI-based tutors and doctors, emphasizing the continuous availability and potential effectiveness of AI in these sectors. The chapter reflects on the projections made in 2012 through blogs questioning the future need for doctors, hinting that while doctors will continue to play a role in healthcare, it might be a more minor one than anticipated before the advent of AI.
• 18:30 - 20:30: Conclusion The chapter discusses the evolving role of human connection and questions the necessity of traditional teaching roles in light of advancements in AI technology. It references a piece from Beijing in 2012 about the Chinese government's interest in implementing AI tutors for children, suggesting a shift in how expertise is conveyed and education is delivered.

AI Venture Capitalist: These Tech Predictions Will Change Everything by 2030 w/ Vinod Khosla | #159 Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 the only thing we know about the future is it'll be uncertain We have to figure it out in increments Venard Kosla Venard Kosla Vernard Kosla From Sun Micros Systemystems to billion dollar bets He is shaping the future of AI clean energy and biotech How do you think about the future of programming no more programmers or everyone's a programmer In the past users of computers have had to learn computers I think in the future computers will learn humans There are no
• 00:30 - 01:00 resource limitations Technology is a force that converts whatever was scarce into abundance This business of bipedal robots will be larger than the auto industry within 20 years And the auto industry doesn't know it What's going to be the impact on them well let me put it this way Now that's a moonshot ladies and gentlemen
• 01:00 - 01:30 Welcome Venode Thank you It's It's been too long It's been long but it's great to see people who believe in abundance Yes To see so many people who believe in it So congratulations for that My favorite saying is skeptics never did them possible Yes So that's a good place to start It it is um and you know I've had the pleasure of knowing you for I don't know a couple of decades now and
• 01:30 - 02:00 to be in some deals together through through Bold Capital Uh but always love your vision but I I think it's important for you to realize that Venode beyond being a great investor is a entrepreneur and a company builder You've built some extraordinary companies Thank you I want to read a uh uh I have to say in 40 years I haven't once called myself an investor Yes Because I don't like investors very much
• 02:00 - 02:30 So in December 23 I have a wide range of questions I try and get through as many as we can and please take your questions down for Benode because we'll be going to Q&A with him and Brett shortly So December 23 you predicted a billion bipedal robots by 2040 and that the robots would play a larger role than the auto industry and 6 months ago you suggested robots could be at 10K and be as essential as a smartphone So coming off of Brett's presentation talk to me about your thoughts on on I I think
• 02:30 - 03:00 Brett is right It is going to be a large business And from a situational awareness point of view how many people have read the situational awareness paper well for the rest of you you should read it Yeah And and if you don't want to read the whole thing grab the paper put it in Notebook LM and listen to the podcast That's a good idea I'm I'm serious It is uh it's it's an extraordinary paper Yeah it is extraordinary
• 03:00 - 03:30 I think what I would say is this business of bipeedal robots or some equivalent like that in various form factors and configurations will be larger than the auto industry within 20 years and the auto industry doesn't know it So when if we have a billion bipedal robots and I think that's an underestimate I agree with you First these robots will do more
• 03:30 - 04:00 work than all of the manual labor humanity does across 7 billion people today right and and there may be many more than a billion And they'll be working 24/7 not 8 hours with breaks Yeah So the capacity for labor goes up dramatically while AGI we can address that increases the capacity for human thinking and human expertise which will essentially be free We can come back to
• 04:00 - 04:30 that but it's such a large opportunity that very few people and almost nobody in the group that should understand this which is the auto industry uh their biggest opportunity Yeah Uh has failed to recognize it except Elon He's doing robots Yeah Elon says it will be bigger It'll be the biggest part of Tesla will be Optimus I I believe that Yeah Uh you go on in your predictions you mentioned expertise will be free
• 04:30 - 05:00 with AI based tutors and doctors 247 And so for the abundance members here that are running healthcare education companies what's going to be the impact on them well let me put it this way It was 2012 I wrote a blog or two blogs The first one was called do we need doctors just to be a little conversational And now it's clear they will play a minor role in healthcare They will care play a role
• 05:00 - 05:30 in certain levels of human connection That'll be important And the my second blog was do we need teachers and and frankly I just saw a piece out of uh Beijing today about why the Chinese government is going to adapt AI tutors for kids So this was 2012 Yeah uh almost certainly no matter what expertise you're talking about
• 05:30 - 06:00 uh AI doctors AI teachers AI oncologists AI structural engineers AI accountants and by the way we investing in all these any place the US Bureau of Labor Sts there's more than 100,000 workers in a category we should be investing in all these categories uh so what will its impact be at the level you know you have to talk about time frames the next five years all of you should be thinking every single
• 06:00 - 06:30 professional can can get five AI interns so if you're an MD you can supervise five AI interns just like they graduated out of Stanford medical school if you're an accountant uh You already hire junior accountants fresh out of school Imagine five AI intern accountants and whether they grow up in 3 years 5 years or 10 years A little hard to predict It'll vary by category But that's a good model
• 06:30 - 07:00 to think about first leveraging expertise But the more interesting question that I've asked a number of boards I speak to in the health care business is if all expertise were free how would you design a health care system and I think that's the right question That's the right model That's the right model for if you're a health care provider of any sort But let me go a little further and say at the national
• 07:00 - 07:30 policy level if a farm worker and an oncologist have exactly the same expertise up level to what an AI has how do you pay people interesting question to ask Everybody I hope you're enjoying this episode You know earlier this year I was joined on stage at the 2025 Abundance Summit by a rockstar group of entrepreneurs CEOs investors focused on the vision and future for AGI humanoid
• 07:30 - 08:00 robotics longevity blockchain basically the next trillion dollar opportunities If you weren't at the Abundance Summit it's not too late You can watch the entire Abundance Summit online by going to exponentialmastery.com That's exponentialmastery.com You've said that the most consumer most consumer access of the internet could be agents acting for consumers I I don't think my agent is going to be interested in Google ads or is interested in a you know a TV
• 08:00 - 08:30 commercial of somebody with white teeth on a toothpaste What happens to advertising if agents are doing the buying i actually might disagree Okay First I'd say the one thing that's clear is the level of unpredictability in all this including what I say Okay like the only thing we know about the future is we'll probably be wrong Well the only thing we know about the future is it'll be uncertain We have to figure it out in
• 08:30 - 09:00 increments Yes But what is advertising it's information uh to emotionally induce us into buying $300 pair of jeans when $30 Levis will do just fine That's a filter the AI can apply So the nature of advertising I suspect will change to moreformational which is the original purpose of
• 09:00 - 09:30 advertising It has switched to one of my big beefs with capitalism is mostly capitalism is about making you buy things you had no intention of buying That's what advertising has become But that's not what it was And so uh making people buy things they don't want to buy or had no intention of buying makes them unhappy uh that doesn't add to societal good
• 09:30 - 10:00 right but information is valuable and frankly uh I think people will pivot into other models I mean chat GPD has been phenomenally successful uh and nobody thought consumers would pay $20 a month I you know look if that was true that's more revenue per user than Google or Facebook at
• 10:00 - 10:30 uh in fact they should have tried this model earlier uh if they added enough value which uh you know in the past preai they had added a lot of value So where will this stop you know the $200 a month level of chat GPD is incredibly valuable How many people have tried it a good number of hands How many people have tried deep research yeah it is amazing Like it is
• 10:30 - 11:00 way more valuable I'll tell you a fun story My chief of staff is a PhD in viral immunology and we were researching a particular application like a developmental model uh a model for developmental biology a fundamental uh uh foundation model for developmental biology She did an 18page report for me including recommending what indications to go into After she'd finished I said
• 11:00 - 11:30 "Just enter into deep research and give it some time to think." Coincidentally it came back with an 18page report and the same two end disease indications to go after Now that's mindblowing It is How much did you pay deep research for that not a lot Not a lot well worth it for anybody who hasn't tried it Uh I was just talking to the CFO of u and so I gave you a very technical example I was
• 11:30 - 12:00 talking to the CFO of OpenAI and she was talking to a retailer You've been you've been a big uh investor supporter of OpenAI Yeah we committed in 2018 Yeah And you have to believe in things And I believed in it enough to make the largest initial investment I'd ever made by a factor of two In 40 years of venture capital I'd never even made an investment half the size because I was a believer That's turned
• 12:00 - 12:30 out well Yeah it has turned out very well But my my point is this retailer CEO was talking to her and he said he had just finished a large strategy review on what products to add to their retail operation U she while on the call summoned deep research It came back with a report she gave to him almost instantly tens of
• 12:30 - 13:00 minutes and he said uh you know to be honest this was a better report than my strategy team produced over the last however many months So we are at a transition point and I think that's one of the things I I tell people you know you're not using this technology even a fraction of your potential right is it open in every board meeting is it open every every executive meeting are you giving it the
• 13:00 - 13:30 same challenges you're giving your team um let's talk about yeah look the other thing I want to add is the range of applicability is from what product should a retailer add Yes To I was sitting in a scientific meeting uh for a couple of days uh multiple days uh small group of scientists going after a particular topic of personal interest to me So I
• 13:30 - 14:00 sat in and anything I didn't understand Chad TPD was able to explain to me where I could really not only follow the conversation but ask not so dumb questions Yeah I mean it is a superpower and one of the things I love I keep on mentioning this is the ability to ask it to look at something from a completely different perspective Right My favorite is like how would Steve Jobs answer this question yeah uh and we are
• 14:00 - 14:30 so limited inside our organization by the knowledge and the opinions that we have in our team that why would you limit yourself in that way let's well the best example is the row 37 example Yes of course you know centuries of humans hadn't come up with the row 37 example because we look incrementally about upon what others have done not think outside the box So that's a real
• 14:30 - 15:00 massive accelerator for humanity pretty soon when AI does science and scientists and things Do you believe that most Nobel prizes in the future will get uh basically be derived from AI human partnerships or AI alone uh possibly AI alone Yeah Uh I think that will happen Now whether us humans will allow recognize it as such recognize AI as winning capable of winning a Nobel Prize that's a human limitation Um but that's also true in
• 15:00 - 15:30 most creative tasks Right let's go into programming Uh so probably the single area that's had the most success with the LLMs besides just written word has been programming Mhm Um how do you think about the future of programming is it a future of no more programmers or everyone's a programmer um both So we investors to be fair in
• 15:30 - 16:00 cognition That doesn't give you a co-pilot like Microsoft does for a programmer It does the programming for you And their model is very much what I explained earlier They'll give you a software intern who can program an intern programmer today and they'll grow up in seniority and experience over time At the other end we investors in replet where company replet Yeah So you don't
• 16:00 - 16:30 need to know anything about programming or even the know the names of the language you're coding in You just speak in English language and it codes for you So whether you're an individual your son or daughter asks you a particular question you want to build a model of the planetary system you just code it in replet without ever having touched code or knowing anything about
• 16:30 - 17:00 coding that as well as you know if there's uh an employee in a large enterprise and this is starting to happen every employee can write their own applications without going to IT so any of you who worked in large companies and need to go through IT and security reviews and all that other stuff know how freeing it is if you don't have to deal with it at all you can just program
• 17:00 - 17:30 your apps on in English language So there's a fundamental thing I like to say in in the past users of computers have had to learn computers You get trained on SAP or Oracle or Workday or your favorite application I think in the future instead of humans learning computers computers will learn humans and humans won't have to adapt to how our program works the notion of a menu will go away
• 17:30 - 18:00 I think it was about 13 years ago I had my two kids my two boys and I remember at that moment in time I made a decision to double down on my health Uh without question I wanted to see their kids their grandkids and really you know during this extraordinary time where the space frontier and AI and crypto is all exploding it was like the most exciting time ever to be alive And I made a decision to double down on my health And
• 18:00 - 18:30 I've done that in three key areas The first is going every year for a fountain upload You know Fountain is one of the most advanced diagnostics and therapeutics companies I go there upload myself digitize myself about 200 gigabytes of data that the AI system is able to look at to catch disease at inception you know look for any cardiovascular any cancer any neurogenerative disease any metabolic disease These things are all going on all the time and you can prevent them if
• 18:30 - 19:00 you can find them at inception So super important So fountain is one of my keys I make that available to the CEOs of all my companies my family members cuz you know health is a new wealth Uh but beyond that uh we are a collection of 40 trillion human cells and about another 100 trillion bacterial cells fungi vy and we you know don't understand how that impacts us and so I use a company and a product called Viome and Viome uh
• 19:00 - 19:30 has a technology called metatranscrytoics was actually developed uh in New Mexico the same place where the nuclear bomb was developed as a biodefense weapon And their technology is able to help you understand what's going on in your body to understand which bacteria are producing which proteins and as a consequence of that what foods are your superfoods that are best for you to eat or what foods should you avoid right
• 19:30 - 20:00 what's going on in your oral microbiome so I use their testing to understand my foods understand my medicines understand my supplements and Viome really helps me understand from a biological and data standpoint what's best for me And then finally you know feeling good being intelligent moving well is critical but looking good when you look yourself in the mirror saying you know I feel great about life is so important right and so
• 20:00 - 20:30 a product I use every day twice a day is called One Skin developed by four incredible PhD women that found this 10 amino acid peptide that's able to zap scenile cells in your skin and really help you stay youthful in your look and appearance So for me these are three technologies I love and I use all the time Uh I'll have my team link to those in the show notes down below Please check them out Anyway hope you enjoyed
• 20:30 - 21:00 that Now back to the episode I remember uh early on the Palm Pilot uh had us adapting to it to have a the proper language and then finally the computer got smart enough to adapt to us Energy Energy is one of the single most important things from so many It tips health it tips AI it tips everything You've been a huge investor proponent across a multitude of different energy investments How are you thinking about where we're in the near term and the
• 21:00 - 21:30 middle term well so I am pretty optimistic about energy and about climate solutions So let's talk about energy Uh coincidentally uh the year we committed to OpenAI which was 2018 we made two other investments I'm very proud of One was Commonwealth Fusion Yes happened to be the same time they weren't orchestrated I didn't connect AI
• 21:30 - 22:00 will need more power So I wasn't that visionary And the third was another one of my favorites which hopefully we'll have talk time to talk about public transit using AI It completely upends every assumption about public transit There is no chance if you have a chauffeered car it'll be more convenient than public transit That's the world we're going towards I suspect most cars in most cities will be replaced by 2050
• 22:00 - 22:30 But let's talk about energy So let's talk about So Commonwealth is a fusion company Last time I looked the node there were some I mean blows me away There was something like 40 VC funded fusion companies which I would have never imagined Yeah Well you couldn't imagine it till 2018 Nobody wanted to fund fusion I won't name the names who said never to me when we funded it They said "Are you rid you're being
• 22:30 - 23:00 ridiculous it's 50 years." Yeah It's always been 50 years in weight in in holding Yeah And the Department of Energy didn't want to talk about fusion as an energy source when I visited them We invested anyway Um almost certainly this won't be a question in 5 years So my current perspective is everything we can make happen by 2030 By 2030 nobody will be debating whether fusion's a economic
• 23:00 - 23:30 possibility There may be some question of exactly how much it costs So educate us one second on on Commonwealth Uh where are they what have they been able to demonstrate so um you know without going into details they expect to demonstrate positive energy net energy output net energy output by early 2027 and start soon thereafter the construction of their first plant and
• 23:30 - 24:00 they've announced a site for it Uh in the interest of time uh let me just say they won't build fusion power plants The fastest way to deploy fusion and I believe one of my forecasts is we will replace every coal and natural gas plant in this country by just repowering the boiler So we'll have a fusion boiler Love that vision By the way you know the environmentalists who say well we need
• 24:00 - 24:30 to shut down all the coal plants I think we will repower them with fusion boilers and maybe a turbine change and steam conditions There's lots of technical details but you don't need 10 years of permitting 10 years of getting a grid connection power lines all that stuff You just retrofit the same locations That's why I'm optimistic This won't be a problem There's another technology that nobody is talking about Please Geothermal Ah yes Um we've toyed at the
• 24:30 - 25:00 edges We need better drilling Yeah So turns out the same well if it's at 200 degrees or 250 degrees which is almost all geothermal anywhere in the world today uh produces certain amount of power But you take that drilled to 400 degrees or 450 degrees you get 10 times the power out of the same well suddenly super hot geothermal as it's called is
• 25:00 - 25:30 cheaper than natural gas And I think that'll be deployed well before 2030 We have two different efforts The hard part is drilling at high temperatures because metal becomes soft and metal can't drill in hard rock and sometimes hard rock is hard to frack Both those technologies are well on their way and will surprise us in how much power they can generate
• 25:30 - 26:00 Do you want to jump into uh cultured meat do you want to dive into transportation what are you most excited about i'm very excited about transportation Let's go there What does it look like i want to go from point A to point B in the future Yeah So here's what it looks like First let me start by what it shouldn't be and what the right role for self-driving cars are If when we added Uber to cities what happened congestion increase Simulate driverless
• 26:00 - 26:30 cars and they'll increase even more So we'll have gridlock for the but people won't be driving which is you know driverless cars are cool I I recommend everybody fly to a site that has driverless cars and try them They're amazing Uh but they increased congestion So what should you do driverless public transit that is personal vehicles Should you get off your restaurant job at 1:00
• 26:30 - 27:00 a.m A car shows up for you don't need to know when when on the schedule Why because there's no driver So your cost is zero to have a car available when you show up not when the public transit is scheduled It gets to where you're going independent time of day traffic lights doesn't stop anywhere gets to your destination and drops you off And because it's personal nobody gets picked up or dropped off along the way So it will always be faster than a chauffeur
• 27:00 - 27:30 driven car That's the right use of self-driving And then off these fixed routes um is when a Whimo might make sense for the last mile And I think it has a useful purpose But here's the fundamental thing What is the one thing if you ask basic question that's limited in cities it's street widths Only one thing limited Everything else you can change
• 27:30 - 28:00 And so if you can increase the throughput of city uh streets because you're not going to destroy the buildings on both sides of a street you you got solved congestion Turns out with a self-driving system like this if you model it it can 10x the capacity of of a light of a street by building more capacity than light rail in a bicycle lane width
• 28:00 - 28:30 That's the system we are designing It can run in bicycle lanes on the road in cordoned off areas uh not interacting with other traffic because that's key to throughut But 10x the capacity of street you've suddenly created 10 streets wherever you had one and regular cars can just still flow without disrupting the thing This is a far better solution than congestion charges and you know New
• 28:30 - 29:00 York has 14th street you can't have public private cars on or constraints isn't the right way to go Getting 10x more capacity is the right way to go and then you can solve the housing problem too because you can live further away and have the same 30 minute commute I love that I want to close on a question before we go to the Q&A So please again get your questions ready You know I have been so adamant since uh I wrote
• 29:00 - 29:30 abundance with Steven Cutotler about there is no resource constraints There are no there there are no resource limitations Technology is a force that converts whatever was scarce into abundance I think you agree with that I 100% agree with that and I would urge somebody to ask me the question that always gets asked Well we have restricted amount of minerals or metals or ores Turns out it's a constraint because
• 29:30 - 30:00 we are not looking or not looking with the right tools So we have a separate effort to look under the earth's surface for minerals and metals Uh we only mine stuff that's on the surface mostly The most convenient stuff you run into Yes Yeah Accidentally run into And if we can look a kilometer under the Earth's surface we'll have plenty of abundance of minerals metals cobalts lithium whatever you're looking for Yeah Amazing
• 30:00 - 30:30 All right guys Let's give it up for Venode Kosla If you enjoyed this episode I'm going to be releasing all of the talks all the keynotes from the Abundance Summit exclusively on exponentialmastery.com You can get on demand access there Go to exponentialmastery.com [Music]