SpaceX just finished its first week as a public company. Anthropic just had its newest model frozen by the US government. And Jeff Bezos just raised $12B for a startup that's been alive for about a year.

Dave and Aman break it all down — from SpaceX IPO mechanics and gamma squeeze risk, to the Dario vs. Washington standoff that could derail the Anthropic IPO, to Bezos's $41B physical AI bet, a massive Salesforce acquisition of a 500 Startups alum, and why Mistral and Cohere just became the Dr. Pepper of AI.

Plus: the Valuation Corner returns with Powerlaw (PWRL) — the new retail-accessible VC fund from Ben Black and Mike Dinsdale backed by Acadian. Dave and Aman break down the portfolio, the price-to-NAV, and whether it's worth the ride.

00:48 - [ tech news and vc ]

02:58 - oil down, defense up 🚀

10:31 - SpaceX week one on the tape 📈

15:15 - Anthropic gets frozen 🧊

30:30 - SaaS enters valuation winter ❄️

33:42 - Bezos bets $12B on an AI engineer 🤖

36:30 - Mistral doubles to $23B 💸

42:15 - Saronic unmanned ship saves lives 🛟

43:20 - [ val corner: PWRL Ben Black ]

how Power Law gives retail a chance 🙏

46:06 - portfolio breakdown 💼

47:15 - strategy pros and cons 👍👎

49:29 - manager accolades 💐

[ links ]

[ invest = https://practicalvc.com ]

[ trading places socials = www.linktr.ee/tradingplacespod ]

[ aman verjee = https://www.linkedin.com/in/aman-verjee | https://x.com/amanverjee ]

[ dave mcclure = https://www.linkedin.com/in/davemcclure | https://x.com/davemcclure ]

Thank you for watching

#spacex #anthropic #mistralai #secondaries #venturecapital