Topic
64 facts from 40 episodes, in date order. These are what speakers said on the shows, each linked to the moment it was said. They aren't independently verified.
1891
The hosts say basketball reached China through YMCA organizations before 1900, only a few years after James Naismith invented it in 1891.
“before 1900, like only four or five years after 1891, when they Smith invents this, the game lands in China through the YMCA organizations there”
2008
Ray Ma says China passed the first version of its antitrust law in 2008.
“Chinese antitrust law, the first version was passed in 2008, which is really late, right?”
2010s
Tyson says NASA's Artemis moon program began under the first Trump administration, prompted by China's lunar plans.
“Happened under the first Trump administration, so the Artemis mission gets birthed.”
2019
Costco's first China store opened in 2019 and reached about 400,000 members within two years, versus about 68,000 at an average US store.
“The first store in China opened in 2019, which popped to 400,000 members within two years.”
2020
Ray Ma says China issued the first draft of new antitrust rules in January 2020 to catch up with other countries.
“Then in January 2020, in an effort, honestly, to catch up with the rest of the world, right?”
2021
Ying Lu says foreign brands hold more than 40% of fast-moving consumer goods in China, versus about a quarter in the United States.
“if you look at China, again, the foreign brand penetration is actually north of 40%, very, very much higher than that for certain other categories.”
2021
Ray Ma says a Starbucks coffee costs about three to four dollars in China, making it a premium product and a signal of a city's rising consumption.
“Starbucks is about three to four dollars per cup in China, right?”
2022
Sales to mainland China made up about 25 percent of NVIDIA's revenue in the prior year.
“Last year, China was 25%, or sales to mainland China, was 25% of NVIDIA's revenue.”
2022
After US export controls announced in September 2022, NVIDIA could not sell H100 or A100 chips in China and created reduced-speed A800 and H800 versions.
“NVIDIA can no longer sell their top-of-the-line H100s, or A100s, to anybody in China. So, they created a nerfed SKU, essentially, that meets the regulations, the performance regulations, the A800 and H800s.”
2022
Amit Joshi says that in 2022, when the US pivoted to generative AI, Chinese companies were still focused on traditional machine learning.
“in 2022, when the US market suddenly pivoted to generative AI, China was still all in on traditional AI, machine learning, as we call it”
2023
Brad Smith said China is ahead in narrow AI such as vision and face identification because it collects so much data.
“Narrow, special-purpose AI uses like vision, where they just have so much data that they collect and AI they develop based on identifying people's faces”
2023
Brad Smith said China accounts for only about 1.5% of Microsoft's revenue.
“We're present in China today, even though it's only about one and a half percent of Microsoft's revenue.”
2023
Brad Smith said Microsoft has special controls to stop the Chinese military from using its technology.
“we have special controls in place, for example, so that the Chinese military is not using it.”
2023
Jensen Huang says US restrictions on chip sales to China limit the performance level of Nvidia's GPUs rather than banning sales outright.
“The limitations are related to the performance levels of our GPUs. This is like restrictions of of, uh, CPUs and and computers”
2023
Jensen Huang says Nvidia faces many local competitors in China while it complies with the export restrictions.
“the challenge there is that the local markets, especially in China, has a lot of competitors, and so we have to compete in the marketplace”
2024
Schultz credits Belinda Wong with building Starbucks' China business, which he says is about 18% of company revenue.
“She single-handedly built the China business. Today, 18% of Starbucks' revenue is China.”
2024
Dario Amodei said that, with chip export restrictions, Russia and China could be kept roughly two to three years behind in AI.
“I think if the US government plays its plays its cards right, then, uh, you know, those countries could be kept behind, I don't know, maybe 2 or 3 years.”
2024
Donald Trump said Japan is rearming because China is taking over certain islands.
“They're starting to rearm now, they're starting to rearm because China's getting, you know, taking over certain islands.”
2026
Chris Benson says the report finds the AI model performance gap between the United States and China has effectively closed.
“AI model performance. Between the United States and China has closed, it's effectively closed”
2026
Chris Benson says China is currently the powerhouse of open models.
“there's a lot out of China, which is kind of the the the powerhouse planet of open models now.”
2026
Tommy Vietor said oil prices did not spike more mainly because China sharply cut its oil purchases.
“the main reason prices didn't spike more than they did was the Chinese drastically cut back their purchases of oil.”
Undated
Kuaishou grew mainly among rural Chinese users getting their first smartphones, rather than urban elites.
“Kuaishou takes off in the rural areas with sort of the 80% of the country that is still living in the provinces”
Undated
Porsche uses AI to predict orders so the right cars reach dealerships, which Ulbrich says is difficult in China.
“how we can predict for order to deliver markets, uh, to have the right cars in the dealerships. That is not easy, for example, in China.”
Undated
Ray Ma says the previous cap on antitrust penalties in China was roughly a million RMB or less, around $70,000.
“I think the upper cap for violations was like a million RMB, right? Or 500,000 RMB. It might have been even lower, which is like $70,000.”
Undated
Ray Ma says some Chinese clothing companies go from design to shipped product in about seven days.
“It's about seven days, right, from a design to being made and then shipped out the door, right?”
Undated
Ying Lu says China's GDP rose about 30 times over 30 years.
“GDP went up 30 times in China in the last 30 years, right?”
Undated
Reid Hoffman says Silicon Valley and a set of mostly coastal Chinese cities are the world's two leading tech regions.
“I'd say the two areas in the world that are the most tech leading are both Silicon Valley and a set of cities in China, mostly along the coast.”
Undated
Reid Hoffman says he does not think Chinese tech companies discuss the effects of their work on the Uyghurs.
“in China, I don't think you have any discussion in the tech and companies of like, what it means for the Uyghurs”
Undated
Charlie Munger said he believes China's economy has better prospects over the next 20 years than almost any other large economy.
“my position in China has been that the Chinese economy has better future prospects over the next 20 years than almost any other big economy.”
Undated
Charlie Munger said Costco's first attempt to open in China was met with a $30,000 bribe demand, which Costco refused.
“The first store they tried to open in China, the first store somebody wanted a $30,000 bribe.”
Undated
Harari describes Go as a strategy game developed in ancient China and long regarded as a basic art for cultivated people in East Asia.
“a strategy game developed in ancient China, and considered one of the basic arts that any cultivated, civilized person in East in East Asia had to know.”
Undated
Tyler Cowen describes China as a middle-income country whose per capita income is only slightly ahead of Mexico's.
“They're just a middle income country. They struggle to tie per capita income with Mexico. I think they're a little ahead of Mexico now.”
Undated
Sridhar Ramaswamy says DeepSeek's own app sends everything users type to servers in China.
“DeepSeek also offers services on servers that are hosted in China, where if you use their app, for example, everything that you are typing in is getting sent to China.”
Undated
Ahlberg says Recorded Future chose not to have customers in China, Russia, Iran and North Korea.
“chose to not have customers in China and Russia and and and, e- Iran and North Korea”
Undated
Klein says he has seen warehouses in China where robots do 95% of the work.
“I have seen warehouses in China and other places in the world where 95% of the work in a warehouse is done by robots.”
Undated
Aaron Levie says hacking and intellectual property issues in China are big problems, even though he is not deeply afraid of China winning in AI.
“The hacking issues are a huge problem. IP issues in China are a huge problem.”
Undated
Amit Joshi says Chinese companies vertically integrated their AI infrastructure so that chips, storage and data were designed for generative AI.
“let's take something that kind of vertically integrates this infrastructure, let's put it all together, and then make sure that the stack that we are building is meant for this.”
Undated
Amit Joshi says Chinese AI models are trained on the Chinese internet in addition to the internet used to train Western models.
“the Chinese models have been trained on the Chinese Internet, in addition to the Internet, which the Western models are trained on.”
Undated
Amit Joshi says the Chinese government has become a massive user of Chinese AI for governance, city management and taxes.
“The government sector has now turned into a massive user of the Chinese ecosystem, of the Chinese AI ecosystem, for everything from governance to city management to taxes”
Undated
Amit Joshi compares AI to the mobile revolution, saying China's key difference was the business models built on the technology rather than the devices themselves.
“Were there mobile phones better than ours? I don't know. Maybe. Depends who you ask. Did they have significantly different business models that were based on them? 100% yes.”
Undated
Andrew Ng said China's recent ban on certain Nvidia chip imports signals movement toward independence from TSMC in Taiwan.
“it's been interesting to see China recently banned certain imports of Nvidia chips, which is a strong signal that China is moving toward independence from TSMC in Taiwan”
Undated
Andrew Ng said China has pulled ahead of the US in releasing open-weight models, which anyone can download and use for free.
“China has really pulled ahead of the US. in releasing open weight models. These are models anyone in the world can download and use for free.”
Undated
Andrew Ng said he saw a statistic suggesting cumulative adoption of Chinese open-weight models may have surpassed that of US open-weight models.
“I think I saw a stat showing that cumulative adoption of Chinese open weight models, I think, is about to surpass or may already have surpassed cumulative adoption of US. open weight models.”
Undated
Pentland says China is pursuing access to global business-process data through its Belt and Road initiative.
“So that's what, uh, China is primarily focused on through Belt and Road, and they've been doing a very good job at it.”
Undated
Pentland says investment funds in China and the Middle East use time horizons of around 40 years.
“if you look at investment funds in China, 40 year time horizons, if you look at investment funds in the Middle East, 40 year time horizons.”
Undated
Reid Hoffman says Silicon Valley and China are the two places that demonstrate blitzscaling in robust, general ways.
“and the two places in the world that I see demonstrate blitzscaling in really robust, general ways are Silicon Valley and China.”
Undated
Rob T. Lee says Chinese and North Korean threat actors have gained network access by getting hired as employees, not by hacking in.
“I go back to the Chinese and North Korean threat actors that instead of hacking a network, they just get hired as an employee.”
Undated
Jensen Huang says roughly half of the world's AI researchers are Chinese and mostly based in China.
“50 of the world's AI researchers are Chinese, plus or minus, and they're mostly in China.”
Undated
Chris Benson says China leads in open-source AI models.
“if you look at leading, uh, open source, uh, AI models, China is definitely taking the lead, uh, in that space.”
Undated
Von Tschammer says Chinese carmakers develop a new car in 18 to 24 months.
“In in China, it's eighteen to twenty four months.”
Undated
Tyson says China, India, Russia and the United States have each destroyed one of their own satellites with a missile.
“Uh, China's done it, India's done it, Russia's done it, and we've done it four times.”
Undated
Chris Benson said China is recognizing the value of its open models, which are cheaper than expensive US proprietary models, and may restrict them.
“China is now recognizing the value it has in its open models, which are much cheaper to use than the, you know, these expensive proprietary models, you know, in the US.”
Undated
Daniel Whitenack described a Chinese token black market in which brokers resell discounted API access to Western AI platforms like OpenAI and Anthropic, which are blocked in mainland China.
“brokers are reselling discounted API access to Western artificial intelligence platforms. AI platforms like Openai or Anthropic”
Undated
Ray Dalio said a Chinese blockade of chips leaving Taiwan could crash world stock markets, showing China's non-military leverage.
“chips come out of Taiwan. We could imagine what would happen if they blockaded chips leaving Taiwan.”
Undated
Ed Sim says many large financial organizations are not allowed to use Chinese models.
“there are lots of large financial organizations, um, that are not allowed to bring in Chinese models.”
Undated
Jones says mobile-first markets like China need agent-to-agent protocols, and gives WeChat as an example of an app using them with various agents.
“they could, like, use that, like, for example, like WeChat uses that, uh, you know, with various agents and stuff like that.”
Undated
Andy Frisella said a Panama court blocked China from controlling the Panama Canal, which he said handles 40 percent of U.S. container traffic.
“Panama court just blocked China from controlling the canal. 40% of US. container traffic flows through there, the Panama Canal.”
Undated
Schmidt says Chinese AI developers have adopted an open-weight strategy, releasing their models publicly.
“The Chinese have adopted an open weight strategy, so they give the software and they give the so so forth.”
Undated
Schmidt describes distillation as asking a large model many questions to learn to imitate it, and says Chinese models appear to have used it.
“There's a technique called distillation, where you basically ask the big model a series of questions, and then with that, you learn enough to think like the big model.”
Undated
Schmidt estimates Chinese AI models are about six months behind American ones.
“It looks like they are six months, uh, six months behind.”
Undated
Kurtz says it will be hard to stop distillation of frontier models by Chinese labs because much has already occurred.
“I think the challenge is the the genie's out of the bottle. I mean, there there's a lot of distillation already taken place.”
Undated
Joe Rogan described fentanyl supply as Chinese precursor chemicals shipped to Mexico, made into fentanyl by cartels and smuggled into the United States.
“China ships the precursors to Mexico, the cartel makes the fentanyl, they sneak it across the border.”
Undated
Joe Rogan said Chinese pool tournaments pay winners about half a million dollars and use tables with curved pockets that make the game harder.
“China is, uh, paying like half $1 million for the winners of tournaments.”
Undated
DJ said China's population fell by about 3 million people, the largest drop since 2022.
“they lost like 3 million people, the largest population drop since 2022”
Episodes