Gavin Baker - AI, Semiconductors, and the Robotic Frontier

**Patrick O'Shaughnessy** (0:00)
Two fun facts about our newest sponsorship partner, Ramp. First, they are the fastest growing fintech company in history, reaching a level of revenue in five years that I can't quote exactly, but is eyebrow raising. Second, they are backed by more of my favorite past guests, at least 16 of them when I counted, than probably any other company that I'm aware of. A list that includes Ravi Gupta at Sequoia, Josh Kushner at Thrive, Keith Raboi at Founders Fund and Coastal Ventures, Patrick and John Collison, Michael Ovitz, Brad Gerstner. The list goes on and on. These facts demand the question, why? Having been personally obsessed with the great businesses through history, one clear lesson is that the best of them are run by disciplined operators. These operators manage costs with incredible detail and they are constantly thinking about how they can reinvest every dollar and every hour back into their business. This is RAMP's mission to help companies manage their spend in a way that reduces expenses and frees up time for teams to work on more valuable projects. First on expenses, the average American business has a profit margin of 7.7%. This means saving 1% on costs is the equivalent of making 13% more revenue. The average RAMP customer is able to save 5% on their expenses each year. Of course, every entrepreneur is looking for ways to grow revenue by 50%. They should just as seriously seek to save 5% on their expenses. Second on time, unnecessary complexity is why most finance teams spend 80% of their time doing operational work and only about 20% of their time on strategic work. RAMP makes spend management very simple by handling your company's expenses, travel, bill payments, vendor relationships, and even accounting. It's notable that some of the best in class businesses today, companies like Airbnb, Anduril, and Shopify, and investors like Sequoia Capital and Vista Equity are all using RAMP to manage their spend. They use it to spend less, they use it to automate tedious financial processes, and they use it to reinvest, save dollars and hours into growth. At both Colossus and Positive Sum, my businesses, we've used RAMP for years now for these exact reasons. Go to ramp.com/invest to sign up for free and get a $250 welcome bonus. That's ramp.com/invest.
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Hello and welcome everyone. I'm Patrick O'Shaughnessy and this is Invest Like the Best. This show is an open-ended exploration of markets, ideas, stories, and strategies that will help you better invest both your time and your money. Invest Like the Best is part of the Colossus family of podcasts and you can access all our podcasts including edited transcripts, show notes, and other resources to keep learning at joincolossus.com.

**SPEAKER_2** (3:29)
Patrick O'Shaughnessy is the CEO of Positive Sum. All opinions expressed by Patrick and podcast guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinion of Positive Sum. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions. Clients of Positive Sum may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this podcast. To learn more, visit PSUMVC.

**Patrick O'Shaughnessy** (3:58)
My guest this week is Gavin Baker. Gavin is the managing partner and CIO of Atreides Management, and he has been on the show many times before. He is one of my favorite investors to talk to, and this may be my favorite conversation with him. Gavin first started covering Nvidia as an investor at the turn of the century, making him the perfect guest to discuss all things AI and investing. There's so much detail in this conversation, and I'm incredibly grateful to Gavin for sharing his wisdom with us again. Please enjoy this fantastic conversation with Gavin Baker.
All right, Gavin, you and I have actually not done this in years, even though we do it offline much more frequently than that. So I'm really excited to do it again on the record. I have a list of 50 things I want to talk to you about, so we'll see how many we get to. But a really fun opening framing was something I saw you put out into the world, which was back in 1960, the Magnificent Seven were led by Yul Brenner, and ultimately only three of the seven survived the shootout. We've got a new Mag-7 today, and we could probably spend the whole time talking about them. We won't, but I thought it would be a fun opening moment just to hear you riff on why these massive companies might actually be in some form of business shootout. Now, with a lot of what's happening in the world of technology.