As tech companies continue to report quarterly earnings, AI has become a clear focus for investors, especially regarding how these tech players invest in emerging technology.

Joe Lonsdale, 8VC Founding Partner and Palantir Co-Founder (PLTR), joins Yahoo Finance to give his insight into the AI boom, military applications of AI, and the current presidential election cycle

When asked about defense applications, Lonsdale responds: "AI is absolutely critical for defense. You need people and computers to work together... When it comes to targeting and tracking and a lot of different tactics, people aren't fast enough anymore, if you're competing with AI."

For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Yahoo Finance Live.

Editor's note: This article was written by Nicholas Jacobino

Video Transcript

JOSH LIPTON: It is a big week for big tech especially with artificial intelligence in focus. Both Microsoft and Alphabet facing investor concerns around higher costs amid the ongoing AI arms race. And my next guest is at the forefront of what's happening in that space. Joining me now is Joe Lonsdale, 8VC Founding Partner and Palantir Co-Founder.

Joe, it is good to have you on the show and to see you. And maybe I'll just start there, Joe. You know, listen, we've heard from some big tech names this week. I got Microsoft and Alphabet. We got Amazon, Apple, Meta on deck. And we know a focus for investors, Joe, it has been on AI. I guess just to start, Joe, I'm curious, how do you see that technology kind of evolving from here, Joe? And do you believe we're going to really start seeing now this real ramp in use cases and monetization?

JOE LONSDALE: It's great to see you, Josh. You know, AI is the big story in the venture capital world. It's what we're focused on. These things take a little while to build. Most of the money right now is in infrastructure. It's in the obvious applications of AI.

The big applications, though, for the decade, for the 2020s, is going to be in productivity. And you're going to start seeing productivity hit a lot of areas the next few years. A lot of these are smaller now, we're still building them. We're building them quickly. You're going to start seeing-- I mean, you talk to guys like Michael Dell at Dell. You know, he's expecting a lot of higher productivity the next couple of years at Dell in certain areas. But it's going to spread to, I think, probably most of the Fortune 500. I think it's very bullish overall over a five-year period. You're going to start seeing the numbers, I think, in the economy hit '26, '27 most likely. Be my guess.

JOSH LIPTON: And, Joe, I'd imagine there's a lot of AI founders startups knocking on your door. How do you, as a venture investor, Joe, how are you got to separate, let's call it, hype from reality?

JOE LONSDALE: Well, you know, it's like everything else. The two things that matter the most in venture capital, it's top talent and what's possible now that wasn't possible before. And what's possible to create real economic value is what we're looking at, right?

So if you're just sprinkling a little bit of pixie dust on something, and suddenly it works, that's actually probably not very valuable as a real company. The things that you actually have to do, Josh, to make most of these things work is a lot of really hard data work, a lot like the stuff we did back at Palantir in the day. And the Palantir still does today is like going into these places, organizing the ontologies, putting the workflows together, and then using what's possible in AI plus these workflows.

And this is applying to things. You know, I'll give you an example. Healthcare billing, you know, a couple hundred billion a year spent on that in the US. We're going to probably make this three or four times more productive. It's going to save the country a lot of money. It's going to make a lot of money. There's probably a dozen areas like that through that big where we can fix them.

JOSH LIPTON: And, Joe, let's talk about another area where you have a lot of expertise in, and that's the defense tech area, Joe. You know, you co-founded Palantir, co-founded Epirus. You were early investor in Palmer Luckey's Anduril. How is AI kind of upending, redefining defense?

JOE LONSDALE: I mean, AI is actually absolutely critical for defense here. You need people and computers to work together. You need to have the people do what they're the best at, and computers do what they're the best at. And when it comes to targeting and tracking and a lot of different tactics, people aren't fast enough anymore if you're competing with AI.

People are still part of the equation. They're part of the strategy. They're deciding what we're going to do in war. But if you have swarms of little ships and you make a thousand small ships that are weaponized for the cost of one big ship and how those ships work together, how they go on missions. That's, you know, if you're targeting drones that are coming in-- and we saw the drones unfortunately attack us in Jordan the other day-- AI systems should be identifying if they're friend or foe. We didn't have those there.

And the AI system should be shooting them down with technology like Epirus, EMP. You can take microwave radiation turn these drones off from far away, protect American lives, protect allies lives. This is all stuff where AI plays a key part. And we need to make the DOD go faster in implementing it.

JOSH LIPTON: Why isn't that, Joe, why aren't these technologies getting to American war fighters faster?

JOE LONSDALE: Well, you know, it's actually really frustrating as a patriot, Josh. Back in the 1990s, 2000s, when I was at Stanford, we'd hear of stories of how the government was so far ahead in the '60s and '70s. There was stuff that the Nsa and others did in the '70s that we didn't figure out until 20 years later why they were doing it in the top of academia and other places.

Nowadays, a lot of the best talents gone to Silicon Valley during the first bubble 20 years ago. If you're a really great technologist, you go into companies, you're paid really well, you own a big piece of it. If you go into the DOD as a great technologist right now, most of them reject that culture, because you're not treated respectfully there. It takes 20, 30 years to get to the top.

So the DOD does not understand software. It does not understand these cultures. It doesn't even know if it has the best people or not. And that's a huge cultural problem there. And there's a lot of great generals and admirals that are aware of this. They're trying to work with the best new companies, they're trying to fix it. There's a big slow bureaucracy. And it's controlled by the old giants defense companies. And so they're generally pretty slow right now.

JOSH LIPTON: Is that where a company, like, in your opinion, Joe, like Anduril comes in?

JOE LONSDALE: This is-- you know, Anduril done a great job, not only of attracting some of the very top talent, some of our best buys from Palantir there. Obviously, Palmer Luckey and others have recruited amazing people. But they've done a great job of building a game on the hill.

When you're building a defense company you need to build the best new technologies that's just terrify our enemies. But you also need to build a really good game on the Hill in DC, where you're teaching Congress, teaching the DOD what you're doing and why it's so much better. And they've done a great job of both of those. It's a good lesson to others to follow. And Anduril was doing amazing work.

JOSH LIPTON: And, Joe, you talked about, you know, potential advantages of deploying AI on the battlefield. What are some risks though, Joe? How concerned are you about bad actors employing this technology?

JOE LONSDALE: You know, any new technology is going to have bad actors. Using it along with good actors-- and listen, our enemies, I mean, I mean, China, Iran, Russia, there are people there who are using AI to build things as well. They're going to have great systems. They're going to be really advanced. Ours need to be better than theirs.

And is it scary that-- I mean, is there some kind of future where AI takes over and goes and attacks people? I mean, I think that's kind of ridiculous, like, maybe that's something that in the far, far future with AI to worry about. But right now, the question is, can our systems outperform their systems? Can our systems save lives and protect lives? Or can they defeat the bad guys?

And right now, we have the best software in the world in the US. And we need to use it to make sure we stay ahead of them. And we protect American lives and defeat them.

JOSH LIPTON: And, Joe, I want-- I want to switch gears here, a bit talking about another subject near and dear to your heart, which is American politics. You know, Joe, you were a supporter of Governor DeSantis, a believer. I think you donated to his campaign. Obviously, he's out. It certainly looks like, Joe, at this point, Trump could secure that nomination. If he does, Joe, do you throw your support behind Trump in 2024?

JOE LONSDALE: You know, Josh, I've spent most of my time working in states. The reason I had backed DeSantis earlier is Cicero Institute, which I work on, is nonpartisan Institute. We're in 19 states. He was one of the most competent governors we'd worked with getting great things done. And, you know, I was disappointed he didn't work out for him on the national stage.

And, you know, in general, I'm not that involved in the presidential election. I will say I'm very frustrated to see this current administration going after friends of mine like Elon Musk illegitimately and attacking them in so many different ways with activists right now. And it's extraordinarily frustrating. So I can imagine getting involved just because I'm pissed off that they're unfairly attacking good people.

JOSH LIPTON: All right. Joe, I want to get you out on this. You have a new university as well I want to talk about, the university in Texas. Board of trustees includes people like Bari Weiss, Niall Ferguson. Why did you start that university, Joe? What's the problem you're trying to solve for?

JOE LONSDALE: Well, Niall and Bari are-- just been amazing co-founders here with Pano and others. You know, Josh, we're trying to have one of the universities, that's one of the top universities in our country, not be run by a liberal forces. I think you-- we started this two years ago, people didn't know what I was talking about.

You've seen now since October 7, some of the things coming out of our universities. I think a lot of people have woken up and said, wow, these places have been conquered by ideologues, who are extremely radical, who don't represent America, who don't allow free speech, don't allow debates, don't stand up to antisemitism at the same time that they're going after anyone who violates any of their woke shibboleths. It's-- these places are broken.

You know what we need, Josh, is we need a place where young people come. They learn to have open debates. They're able to argue both sides. And they're able to learn how to be courageous citizens to fight for the future of America. And right now, we don't have that other schools. I want a place that people who are proud of America who want to be part of the solution can come and can learn how to do that.

JOSH LIPTON: And Joe, though, if the issue is on those campuses, Joe, did you ever think about maybe-- you know, if that's the problem that you would put more time and energy and effort into changing the culture at an established American colleges and universities rather than starting your own?

JOE LONSDALE: A lot of us have spent a lot of money trying to do things like this. And it's kind of like saying, did you go to IBM and fix it, or do you start Palantir? And what's happened to these universities, Josh, people don't realize you have departments have not brought in people who disagree with them for a very long time. The professors are in charge there. There's more administrators at these schools. Yale and Harvard have more administrators and students, and the administrators are far more radical ideologically than even the professors. You have hordes of lawyers.

I mean, it's not just that the presidents that were just fired at Harvard were corrupt is that there's multiple corrupt layers underneath them that have been conquered over the last 30 years. These places are going to take generations to fix at least. And we need at least one place to prove that it's possible to have a great university again that's not conquered by crazy people.

JOSH LIPTON: Joe, I appreciate you having on the show. And it's always clear where you stand, and we appreciate that. Thanks for the time.

JOE LONSDALE: Thank you.