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American Optimist, hosted by Joe Lonsdale: entrepreneur, investor, and founder of four multi-billion dollar companies and other mission-driven organizations. American Optimist is an alternative to the fear, cynicism, and zero-sum thinking in mainstream media. Learn from the innovators and leaders who are solving our nation’s most pressing challenges, and doing it in a way that will lift everyone up. Hope should dominate our discourse, and American Optimist will show you why.
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Ep 168: Sky Harbour CEO Tal Keinan on Why America Stopped Building Airports, the AI Wealth Wave & Private Jet Boom
In the 1930s and 40s, the United States built thousands of airports; today that number is virtually zero. What happened? Why is it nearly impossible to build major new airports or even find hangar space in large cities? And how will the com
Ep 167: The Company That Evaluates the AI Labs — Vals AI CEO Rayan Krishnan on Measuring Frontier Models & the Race to Recursive Self-Improvement
Rayan Krishnan is the co-founder and CEO of Vals AI (https://www.vals.ai/home), a leader in the independent evaluation of frontier AI models. What is the science behind model evaluation? What role should independent evaluators play as we de
Ep 166: Eric Glyman on Ramp's Meteoric Growth, Selling Outcomes vs Products, and the Future of White-Collar Work
Eric Glyman is the co-founder and CEO of Ramp (https://ramp.com/), the finance platform doing over two billion in annual revenue and growing over 100 percent year per year. How did a company built on the promise of helping customers spend l
Ep 165: OPM Director Scott Kupor on Shrinking Government, Bringing Merit Back, and Why America’s Best Minds Should Join the U.S. Tech Force
Scott Kupor is the Director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management and has achieved some of the most important reforms in DC in only a couple years. How has he reduced the size of the federal government for the first time in generations
Ep 164: Inside Anthropic with Sholto Douglas & Nicholas Marwell — AGI, Optimism vs Risks, Regulatory Capture, Open Source & More!
Anthropic is one of the fastest-growing companies in history and sits at the forefront of the AI race. This week, we’re joined by two key leaders on Anthropic’s technical team — Sholto Douglas and Nicholas Marwell — for an inside look at th
Ep 163: John Jovanovic on Turning Around the U.S. Export-Import Bank, Trump’s $12B Critical Mineral Reserve, and "Revenge of the Physical World"
John Jovanovic is the President and Chairman of the Export-Import Bank of the United States. After years of mismanagement, Ex-Im is now profitable and has become a key driver of American reindustrialization. How did he turn the bank around?
Ep 162: Brian Chau Built an AI That Uncovers Fraud — It Just Found a $21 Billion Racial Wealth Transfer
Brian Chau is an investigative journalist using AI to uncover widespread corruption and billions in fraud. He recently revealed how the Effective Altruism movement bought (https://www.effort.news/tarbell) and planted AI doomer articles, and
Ep 161: Generalist CEO Pete Florence on the Robot Revolution & Bringing General Intelligence to the Physical World
Until recently, robots were constrained to narrow, specific tasks. Think assembly lines, medical devices, or household vacuum cleaners. But now all that is changing. One robot trained by Generalist's foundation model can do everything from
Ep 160: Box CEO Aaron Levie on Silicon Valley's AI Problem, Evidence for AI Job Creation & What Doomers and Accelerationists Get Wrong
Aaron Levie has spent two decades building Box into a cloud storage leader — and he's never been more excited for the future. What's next in the AI wave? Where is he already seeing evidence for new job creation? What do the doomers and acce
Ep 159: Aaron Cannon Is Building the Leading AI Customer Research Platform; It's About to Upend a $140B Industry
Aaron Cannon is applying AI to solve one of the oldest and most important challenges in business: understanding exactly what customers want and need. Traditional consumer surveys often provide low-quality data, while one-on-one interviews a
Ep 158: Nima Ghamsari on Blend's Comeback & the Power of AI Agents and Infinite Workforce
Nima Ghamsari was a top talent at Palantir before founding Blend Labs to digitize the mortgage process. Blend became one of Silicon Valley’s hottest SaaS companies until the mortgage industry came to a screeching halt in recent years. Now,
Ep 157: Scott Nolan on the AI Energy Crisis & America's Nuclear Renaissance
In 2010, the U.S. and China were at parity in electricity generation. Today, China boasts triple our capacity. We’re at the vanguard of the AI revolution but falling dangerously behind in energy production. Scott Nolan has identified a key
Ep 156: Coleman Hughes Takes on America's Most Contentious Debate: the Legacy of Slavery
Is America’s national wealth built on slavery? Are disparities between races today attributable to past injustices? Will we ever overcome race politics? These difficult questions are at the heart of Coleman Hughes’ new course at the Univers
Ep 155: Eric Scott on the Biggest Missed Opportunity in Venture Investing
As a former Principal at Founders Fund, Founding Partner at SciFi VC, and 8VC advisor, Eric Scott has invested in and helped build numerous technology leaders. He’s launching his new fund, Overlook Capital, where he sees missed opportunitie
Ep 154: Jacob Helberg on Pax Silica & the New Global Order in the AI Age
Jacob Helberg is leading the State Department's efforts to secure critical supply chains and win the global AI race. How is the U.S. shifting from dependency on China to building new partnerships around energy, minerals, and infrastructure?
Ep 153: Palantir CTO Shyam Sankar on Heretics, AI Weapons, and Rebuilding the Arsenal of Democracy
Shyam Sankar is one of my favorite American innovators. As CTO of Palantir, he's been a key leader for over 20 years and built much of what the company stands for. He's also a patriot, and recently commissioned as a Lieutenant Colonel in th
Ep 152: Ben Black Runs America's $200B Foreign Investment Fund; Here's His Plan to Counter China & Rebuild American Influence
Ben Black is the CEO of the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC). Backed by a $205 billion budget, his mandate is to invest in U.S. strategic interests, build new markets, and deliver real returns for taxpayers. What pro
Ep 151: The Myth of Michael Milken with Richard Sandler
Michael Milken revolutionized American finance and democratized access to capital for thousands of companies that Wall Street had previously written off. Yet he was unjustly attacked in the 1980s in one of the most controversial prosecution
Ep 150: How AI Is Transforming Diligence, Decision-Making & the Future of Investing with John Melas-Kyriazi
John Melas-Kyriazi is the co-founder and CEO of Standard Metrics (https://standardmetrics.io/), which powers portfolio management for more than 150 venture capital firms and 10,000 companies. He runs a high-growth SaaS company at the leadin
Ep 149: Will Fry on the Small Business Succession Crisis & New Opportunities in the AI Age
In the coming years, over two million small businesses will change hands or close their doors as Baby Boomers retire. Will Fry, Founder and CEO of American Operator (https://www.americanoperator.com/), is on a mission to save Main Street an
Ep 148: JoeBen Bevirt, Founder & CEO of Joby Aviation — Flying Cars Have Arrived
Last year, JoeBen Bevirt joined the show (https://blog.joelonsdale.com/p/ep-114-flying-cars-are-about-to-change?utm_source=publication-search) to discuss the vision behind Joby Aviation and bringing air taxis to life. Now, he's back to talk
Ep 147: Scott Wu & Russell Kaplan on the New Era of Software Abundance
Scott Wu and Russell Kaplan, co-founders of Cognition, are leading one of the fastest-growing, talent-dense AI companies. Their mission: make expert software engineering ubiquitous. What does a world of software abundance look like? How is
Ep 146: Jake Paul & Geoff Woo on Building Anti Fund, the Future of the Creator Economy & How to Change the Culture
Jake Paul is a social media influencer-turned-entrepreneur and boxer. He’s not only one of the most popular figures on the planet among Gen Z, but also an outspoken patriot, capitalist, and builder. Together, he and Geoff Woo founded Anti F
Ep 145: SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler on Exposing Billions in Fraud & What AI Means for Small Business
Small Business Administrator Kelly Loeffler is playing a pivotal role in our nation on two fronts: supporting the next generation of small business owners, while exposing and combating billions of dollars in fraud. How is AI impacting small
Ep 144: Jared Isaacman's Bold Vision for Moon Bases, Nuclear Power in Space, and Returning NASA to Greatness
As a teenager, Jared Isaacman built a billion-dollar payments company. He then pursued aviation, acquiring the world's largest private air force and creating “Top Gun as a service,” before commanding the first all-civilian spaceflight. Now,
Ep 143: JD Ross on the New Invention Era & Building with AI in 2026
JD Ross is one of my favorite entrepreneurs. I hired him out of college at Addepar where he quickly became Head of Product. He went on to co-found Opendoor with Keith Rabois and is now building WithCoverage (https://withcoverage.com/) — one
Ep 142: Understanding the AI Wave with 8VC's Alex Kolicich & Jack Moshkovich
Advances in AI are occurring at a pace we haven’t seen before in Silicon Valley. How do we know what’s real versus hype? What does it mean for large software incumbents? And how are the top investors and builders thinking about the new poss
Ep 141: AI Hackers Are Here; Cybersecurity Legend Kevin Mandia Is Building the Answer
When Kevin Mandia’s phone rings, it’s often a Fortune 500 CEO or government leader with a billion-dollar problem. How did he become the go-to expert in cybersecurity? What new threats from AI led him back into the arena? And what is he buil
Ep 140: SEC Chairman Paul Atkins on Making IPOs Great Again, Crypto's Comeback & New Rules for Retail Investors
America’s capital markets are the envy of the world, but in recent years, misguided policies have driven innovation offshore and stifled the number of companies going public. SEC Chairman Paul Atkins is reversing course. What’s his plan to
Ep 139: Make Government Beautiful & Functional Again with America's Chief Design Officer Joe Gebbia
First, he digitized the entire federal retirement process, cutting it from six months to a few days. Now, he’s overhauling the U.S. government’s online presence, one website at a time. And Joe Gebbia has been in Washington, D.C. less than a
