One clear detail in the Times article is that Sachs or his venture capital firm Craft Ventures owns 438 software or hardware company investments, including companies that are not necessarily AI companies, but bill themselves as AI companies, or have AI in their name. This is a headache-inducing fact because over the past two years, seemingly every tech startup has pivoted toward AI. In fact, companies now keep bending the definition of “AI” until it breaks just to stay relevant.
So the question isn’t just whether Sachs benefits from the questionable investment the Times reports. He’s a billionaire podcaster whose show, “All-In,” features a group of supposed insider tech bros who dish it out about politics and the markets. The presence of such a person – who everyone knows has a huge tech-based portfolio of investments – completely guarantees the perception that public policy in the tech world is being shaped by self-dealing, which in turn distorts common sense.
At any rate, it’s hard to give him the benefit of the doubt this way, because fights do seem to happen. (For the record, a spokesperson denied this to the Times.)
The Times claims that Sachs’s stakes in AI companies – which he apparently retained even after unloading some of his investments for ethical reasons – have increased or are likely to increase in value because of his recommended policies. The Times says there are still “708 tech investments” in his portfolio and his company’s portfolio, as well as “449 stakes in artificial intelligence-related companies” and the aforementioned 438 “software or hardware” companies that predate AI.
On some level, it feels absurd to talk about this right now. Anti-corruption protesters picketed an event where Trump spoke to a dinner packed with crypto fans, who bought a total of $148 million in Trump’s own cryptocurrency to be allowed to attend. The questionable pardon granted by Trump to Changpeng “CZ” Zhao has been fueled by corruption charges, while he still appears to be engaging in the practices that led to his conviction. Trump has tried to dodge at least one question from the press about this, and has done so with a degree of lack of decorum, even for Trump.
But despite more discussion than the general milieu about corruption, it’s still worth pointing out that if someone is rich, and got rich by holding stakes in companies, unless you really like the person, he or she will come across as untrustworthy if he or she is somehow in charge of government policy while all this wealth accumulation is happening. (And the same is true of Nancy Pelosi and her publicly disclosed portfolio.)
For my money, the prime example from the Times article is SAC’s stake in Anduril Industries, which makes AI-powered night vision goggles.
Anduril Industries is part of the Craft Ventures portfolio, and even has its own page on the company’s website. Additionally, the Trump AI Action Plan – which Sachs drafted – encourages US-based AI companies to enter into contracts with the Pentagon. In September, Anduril announced that the Pentagon was paying him $159 million to design prototypes for the government. “This award represents the largest effort of its kind to equip every soldier with superhuman perception and decision-making capabilities – combining the best of night vision, augmented reality and AI into a single system,” Anduril’s announcement said.
However, that’s apparently OK, because an Anduril spokesperson named Shannon Pryor told the Times, Anduril got the contract not because Sachs has a stake in it, but because the company’s founder, Palmer Luckey, is “the world’s best virtual reality headset designer” and contracting with Anduril was an “obvious idea.” Pryor says Anduril was in talks with the military even before the AI action plan was implemented.
When it comes to taking solace in these excuses, your mileage may vary. When you zoom out, it looks like this: As an adviser, Trump hired a venture capitalist who organized a dinner for him in San Francisco last year for $500,000 a couple. It turns out the man has a stake in a company that makes AI night vision goggles. When he makes you write an AI action plan for AI in the military, and your Pentagon terminates the contract with the same company, this is just sensible government policy. After all, the military needs AI-powered night vision goggles, right?
In the reality where David Sachs works for Donald Trump’s White House, of course the government thinks the military is needed. But it’s easy to imagine another reality where the White House AI and crypto czar is someone else, or—gasp—There is no AI and crypto czar. In this reality, perhaps, “Hey wait, is it in the public’s interest to pay $159 million to try to incorporate AI into night vision goggles?” This is a question that is at least asked.
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