Squawk Pod · Nov 5, 2026 · 39m · 27m saved
With Jessica Lessin, CEO and Founder of The Information · Kai-Fu Lee, Founder and CEO of 01.AI, Chairman of Sinovation Ventures and author of "AI Native"
Photo: Gabriela Bhaskar, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikipedia
Tuesday's Democratic sweep of the House and Senate handed Big Tech a gift, Jessica Lessin, CEO and founder of The Information, told Andrew Ross Sorkin on Squawk Pod. If new compute gets harder to build, the compute the largest companies already own is worth more.
Most of the market read a Democratic Congress as a threat to the AI build-out, and the suppliers traded that way on Thursday: CoreWeave lost close to 10% and Nvidia more than 3%. Jessica's point was that the companies already sitting on data centers come out ahead.
"I think the voters handed at least the big tech companies a gift by basically saying, in the short term, it's going to be harder to get new compute. If you have it, it's way more valuable and your margins are going to be better." — Jessica Lessin
Jessica founded The Information, which reports on the same companies she was describing. Later in the episode, Kai-Fu Lee, founder and CEO of 01.AI, chairman of Sinovation Ventures and a former executive at Google China, Microsoft and Apple, made the case from his new book that most chief executives are pointing AI at the wrong jobs.
The full episode is covered here so you can skip it. 39 minutes of audio, 12 minutes of reading.
Here are the 12 insights that matter.
Key Takeaways
Scarce new compute makes existing compute "way more valuable," Jessica says, which helps Big Tech and hurts Nvidia and the neoclouds
Rising compute costs at Anthropic are "not a good sign" ahead of its expected IPO, set against OpenAI's more efficient business
Approved data centers will still get built, but Big Tech will pay host towns more for them
Big Tech is quietly hiring Democratic lobbyists, and Jessica says Musk is "really in the crosshairs"
99% of CEOs are doing AI transformation wrong, Kai-Fu says, by putting an "IQ 300" employee on customer service
The US leads China by six to 12 months on AI, a gap Kai-Fu says China keeps closing "at one-tenth the price"
Anthropic's plan to set AI rules without China is "based on hubris," Kai-Fu says
1. Vance Blames the Iran War
Joe Kernen and Andrew Ross Sorkin, the show's co-anchors, opened the episode on the morning of Thursday, November 5, two days after the midterms. Oil fell sharply that day. West Texas Intermediate crude was down more than 8% to roughly $88.59, its biggest drop since May, and Brent sat near $96.05.
The political talk turned on a post on X from Vice President JD Vance, who blamed the Iran war rather than tariffs or affordability for the Republican loss of the House and Senate.
JD Vance blamed the war, not tariffs, for the Republican losses
"The reason we lost is the war. The president himself said so last night. If you'd like to argue it was worth it... then do so. Argue it was a worthwhile cost to pay. Agree or disagree. That's at least honest." — JD Vance
Donald Trump Jr. endorsed the post in a retweet. Joe and Andrew then argued over which factor mattered most: the war, tariffs, the border or ICE tactics. Andrew said no single cause explains the loss. Joe countered that erratic behavior alone could not explain a result Trump had already survived once.
President Trump separately told Andrew he could work with the incoming Democratic majorities on more than people expect, especially financial matters, while ruling out any easing of tariffs.
