Nico Rosberg on the Booming Business of F1 | All-In Live from Miami

First of all, hello, everybody. That’s a pretty intense start to the conversation. How are you still alive? Why haven’t you died yet, Nico? I looked at that car. Justify yourself. Why is there no canopy on it? Why is your head exposed? It’s so crazy what you’re doing—or what you did.

You’re absolutely right. I know better than most people, also because my father actually was a Formula 1 racer.

And he was a racing champion. I didn’t want to say it, but yes, he was also a world champion. I asked you backstage: you’re one of only 2 father-son world champions of all time. That’s pretty incredible and very special.

That’s true.

Your dad was out there racing, and you were at home with your mom, I assume. That’s got to be terrifying to watch your dad do this.

In his day, they started the season with 20 drivers and would end the season with only 18 of them left. So, it was more or less a 10% chance that you wouldn’t make it through the season, which is crazy.

What, then, if you do an 8-year career? What are your odds? That’s not looking very good.

To your point, it was 1 death every 100,000 miles. Now it’s 1 death every 67 million miles.

I was very lucky because, by the time I came in, they had carbon-fiber chassis. They had a roll hoop, and now they have this protection—the halo around your head—which recently saved a couple of lives in the last 5 years. Max Verstappen, who is now the 4-time world champion, landed on Lewis Hamilton’s head in Italy with the full car, and it was this halo that saved Lewis Hamilton’s life. We’re very, very lucky with how the sport has progressed in terms of safety.

How did you start driving? How old were you, and at what point did you start to become competitive? I didn’t realize until yesterday, when I went into the suite, that this kid was 18 years old as a driver. I had no idea that kids that young were driving.

It’s a bit like every sport: you have to start very, very young. I started karting when I was 6 and racing when I was 10. Now they start racing at 8 years old.

Antonelli, who was on pole position yesterday—the 18-year-old—started racing when he was 8. He was in my go-karting team when he was 12, so I know him very well. He is a generational talent, but it’s very early for him because he’s only 18.

He took over the car of the greatest of all time. Lewis Hamilton left Mercedes to go to Ferrari, and Antonelli took over Lewis Hamilton’s car. That is insane pressure.

You said he’s a generational talent. If we had to design some kind of model, could you define the features he had when he was 6, 7, or 8 years old that could have predicted how good he was? Is it the midi-chlorians?

Anakin Skywalker was really good. I don’t know.

Nico is a specialist on Star Wars lore. Anyway, do you think you could design something where kids could come and take some kind of test—look at their reflexes, their eye-twitch speed, or the way their brain works—and see whether there’s a pattern that genetically predisposes some people to be exceptional?

We haven’t reached the point where we actually put people through tests like that. But I think there are a couple of things that would satisfy that, and one is your speed of processing.

In a race car, you’re going at 220 mph and you have so many inputs flying at you—not only visual, but also sensory. Everything, including sound from the engine, has to be processed rapidly.

How did you train for that?

I even had a computer program that I developed just for myself, where I would have all these different inputs: audio, touch, and tactile inputs. I had, like, a thing around here, and even then visual on the computer. I would catch these inputs and try to break my record. The faster I went, the faster the program would go. I was trying to develop these things to train my brain to move faster and react. Reaction time is the key skill set of a driver. It’s one of the ones.

Is it also about being courageous, or something in your amygdala that means you don’t have fear?

There’s certainly that. Although I would say that I’m actually someone who’s quite fearful. But when you’re in it, you also get used to things, and you start to feel quite safe in the car nowadays.

I’m not a crazy adrenaline junkie, unlike most other drivers out there. Some of them are adrenaline junkies. Someone like Verstappen is completely fearless, or even Hamilton. They’re proper nutcases. The paths are a little different for everyone. There are different character and personality types.

Then, of course, there’s hand-eye coordination. So, to your point, Chamath, for young kids, there’s probably a high chance that if you put a tennis racket in their hand, they’ll also be pretty good very, very quickly. It’s a similar set of skills.

Can we shift and talk a little bit about the business of Formula 1? We were talking backstage before the show, and you shared some anecdotes about the valuations and what’s happened over the last decade or decade and a half. Maybe you can paint a picture for us of how this has evolved as a business, where things sit today, where they’re headed, and what has driven that.

I’m a venture capitalist myself, and that’s why I’m very interested in the business side of sport. F1 has gone through such an incredible inflection, and there are a couple of factors that have come into play.

They brought in budget caps for the teams. The teams were spending north of $200 million a year just on developing their cars, and now that’s limited to $130 million a year just for the chassis itself, not including the engine, drivers, or top personnel.

$130 million—how many cars is that for?

There are 10 teams.

No, but is that 13 cars?

Two race cars per year.

Per year?

But that’s just the chassis. You then have the engine, which is another $70 million. You then have the top driver, who takes $50 million a year or $100 million—

No, $100 million.

No, that was the Verstappen rumor. Plus marketing, plus everything else, and you get to maybe $70–80 million.

So, fielding a team costs how much?

Fielding a team gets close to $300 million.

Wow.

The budget cap brought in this cap for developing the chassis at $130 million. Then Netflix came in, and Netflix has made the sport so much more popular. It’s unbelievable. It really changed the landscape.

In the US alone, over the last 6 years, you’ve gone from 20 million fans to about 50 million fans. That’s more than doubled.

What did Netflix do right?

The owners of F1 are Liberty Media, which is a US-based company, and they did very well. They opened up social media. The new generation of drivers is really social-media savvy, and the fan base in America is 40% women.

How many women here today are F1 fans?

Are all the drivers as good-looking as you?

No. I don’t want to go into that kind of thing.

Don’t be too self-deprecating in Miami.

The audience has blown up. What did Netflix get right?

The Netflix show, for those of you who have seen it, is like a reality TV show. It’s not just a sports documentary saying, “This guy won here.” They managed to capture the personalities behind the scenes, and you really get to see the human beings behind the sport. That’s very special.

They tried to replicate it in other sports, like golf and tennis, and it didn’t work out as well. I think they also got a little bit lucky because quite a few characters allowed Netflix in and completely opened up, allowing them to capture the real, intense moments behind the scenes. It’s fascinating to follow.

If you come in as an outsider, you have this experience: “What team are you? Who do you support?” You’re not really sure. But once you get to know the personalities, you have a vested interest and a history—something you can contextualize.

Let me just end on the business part. Ten years ago, F1 teams were worth $150 million, and they would lose $50 million a year. Now the top teams go for $5–6 billion, 10 years later. It’s eye-watering. It’s incredible.

When you're driving the race, do you try to bump into each other?

Yeah, 100%. It's part of the game. Unfortunately, you have to.

Explain, because I'm a neophyte. I don't understand it. I see, once in a while, these NASCAR guys pull over, get out, throw their helmets at each other, and get really upset. They seem like hillbillies. You guys seem like a bunch of Europeans—fancy, a little more elegant. What do you guys do? Do you spray Clicquot on each other or something? How do you mess with each other?

The worst we had was one guy pushing the other guy, and he got 1 week of community service. So that was as far as it went. That's as far as it went physically, but when you're in the car, it's fierce.

So take us through the craziest altercation you've ever been involved in.

Well, my rival was my teammate. My rival was Lewis Hamilton at the time. We were both racing for Mercedes.

Any Lewis Hamilton fans here today? A little bit? Okay, I see them here. Good. Actually, Nico, can you talk about that period? He's so dominant, but the car is so dominant, and then you win. What is it like when you're teammates with your biggest competitor? What's that psychological dynamic like? Are you friends? Are you guys friends?

With Lewis Hamilton, we were actually best friends when we were 14 years old. We grew up racing together on the same team. We were best friends, but when you get to Formula 1, it's just so intense and so much is at stake. If it's just the 2 of you racing for race wins every single time, you can't stand him. You hate him.

Yeah, it goes into hating. Hate. I can see the contempt. Do you talk during the week, or do you not even really interact?

No, you don't interact much. Unfortunately, it really becomes like an enemy in a way, internally in your own team. It's a horrible dynamic, because even the rest of the team needs to start being neutral. They can't take any sides. So even when you win, it's not like everybody's leaning in with you. It's a really tough situation.

It's like 2 people in the same project who can't stand each other, Friedberg, yet they keep working together. How much of that fed your decision to retire literally days after you won the championship? That caught some people off guard. Can you just tell us what happened?

I was in my prime, and I won that championship, which for me was my dream come true. It was extremely intense. Thank you. Thanks, Mom. I got 1 clap from my mom sitting in the audience. A very big fan. Way to go, Mom.

I had a young daughter at home. She was 1 year old. Family just felt like the right moment. I was still in 1 piece, and, to your comment about it being dangerous, I decided rationally that I never wanted to exit on the way down. That's something I definitely wanted to avoid. I wanted to exit at the top, and that was my moment. I decided to pull the trigger.

Has there been a good ROI for the car companies that have invested in Formula 1, beyond the notoriety? Are they inventing things that we all use and see and interact with in our day-to-day driving experience, or not really?

You probably will be driving an AMG at some point. I had an AMG at one point. There you go. There is technology from the Formula 1 team in there now, including the hybrid technology from Mercedes. Every car company will be benefiting.

The return on investment is also in terms of marketing. Mercedes has a calculated return on investment of $2 billion for their brand annually, and they don't actually invest money anymore because the team is profitable now—and highly profitable. These teams make $200 million to $300 million in profit every year, so they now have $6 billion valuations.

Have we kind of peaked, from your point of view? Is the market and valuation curve still being climbed?

There's still a lot of upside at the moment, because this growth has just happened in the last 5 years. Even in America, there's still loads of growth potential. There are more races, and there's licensing. The sport hasn't really tapped into that yet.

Do you think there's something about sports that are more tuned to the way our brains now operate in a social-media world—a fast-paced world? Golf became LIV. I mean, LIV really changed the face of golf. Baseball is obviously dead. MLB has been on the decline for years in the United States. I'm not saying anything negative about baseball; I'm just saying that the viewership is going down.

There are also these conversations about basketball and the NBA. I'll tell you this crazy anecdote: I was a co-owner of the Warriors. I sold 2 years ago. A friend of mine, a friend of ours, is in the market for a sports team, and he went to Europe to look at a bunch of soccer teams. Then we were all having dinner, and his bankers produced a study that showed exactly this problem: Young people's attention spans are shrinking.

As attention spans shrink, there are certain sports they just cannot watch anymore. It's totally correlated with the negative viewership in baseball and the increase in the use of clips. People are willing to watch baseball clips; they will not watch a baseball game to save their life. People will watch basketball clips; they won't watch basketball. The NBA is moving to clips.

So it's this weird construction, but in some ways, Formula 1 is naturally set up for this already, right? People don't really watch the whole sport as much as they want to watch clips. I'm guessing it's not that long. How long is this race on-site?

It's never been that long, and it's not that long. That's the thing about it.

But you guys also have a lot of telemetry data. You can feed that kind of anxious mind, and there's no brakes—it just goes.

I'm not sure if you have a point there, unfortunately.

Pretty diplomatic. I was just trying to move the conversation.

What I can say is that our sport has the highest engagement rates across all sports, even compared to the NBA and everything else. Why is that? I think there's just a huge amount of hype at the moment. Maybe, yes, maybe a little bit of it is that it's fast-paced. There are incredible action scenes, thrilling action, and huge crashes.

Did you not want to get into the business, given your knowledge and your experience? You now have transitioned into venture capital. How did you make that decision versus working in the business of Formula 1?

In Formula 1, the jobs that would have been left for me after driving would be, for example, running a team. But running a team is 24/7. You need full commitment. You need to move to the UK; all the teams are in the UK. It's a full-life dedication, and I've done that. Been there, done that.

Now I want more freedom in my life to define my calendar and everything, and to be at home more. So that job, for example, would not be a possibility and is not something I want to do. Beyond that, you can be a driver manager, but even there, you need full commitment.

Tell us about this transition to tech, investing, and venture. What was that journey, and what attracted you to it?

I was always inspired by people like Elon Musk, who obviously you were talking about before, and by those achievements where you have an idea and then achieve something that impacts millions of lives. I found that fascinating. I always wanted to pursue that path, so I started investing as an angel investor.

What were your first few deals?

ElevenLabs, for example. That's gone really well.

How did you find that? How did that come about?

I'm really putting an effort into this community as well. I'm spending a lot of time in Silicon Valley meeting everybody and also connecting to the European corporate landscape. I'm bringing customers and revenues, connecting and building bridges, because there's a unique angle that I can bring thanks to my sports background.

I've just built my way into it and built a reputation. Then you start getting the opportunities.

What themes, Nico, have you invested in that today you would not invest in, knowing what you know today?

The flying taxis—the Volocopter, for example. Germany was leading the way on those. You have Joby, for example, Joby Aviation, which is probably currently best positioned in the U.S. But Germany was leading the way with 2 horses in the race, and both of them have run into trouble. One is bankrupt; I think both are bankrupt.

In hindsight, if you had read the book, you would have known: Hardware is hard, right? I would have avoided that.

Hardware is even harder now with the tariffs. I also invested in a cyber e-scooter here in New York called Infinite Machine, and now, with the tariffs, because the supply chain is so concentrated in China, it's a complete mess.

Nico, what about the political landscape in Europe? There was a pretty important election in Germany.

It seemed to kind of go down the middle.

What do you think of Europe? What’s happening in Europe—the investability of Europe, the ability to do business in Europe? What do European industrial businesses do? There’s a ton of skill. There’s a ton of cash. When you talk to those folks, what do you tell them? I know you’re very, very bearish on Europe. You wouldn’t put a dollar there, but is that correct?

Well, no. For sweaters and wine, he puts much more than a dollar.

That’s true. It’s pretty prolific.

It’s a really good question. I actually think industrials, right?

Yes.

Industrials—I think there’s tremendous skill. Outside of industrials, I think it’s hard.

So we have the problems with regulatory frameworks being way too cumbersome. We have the geographic fragmentation in Europe, which is very different from the U.S. Politically, it’s really in quite a bad place at the moment. I understand, but at the same time, as you said, talent density is insane. The universities are some of the best in the world. So that’s where our hope is—in the next generation that’s coming now.

Stick to the Nordics.

And the Nordics are very powerful.

Yes, but Spotify a little bit.

There’s a lot of hope still.

Hey, what’s your daily driver?

My daily driver is a Porsche.

A Porsche. And when you’re with your daughter—I don’t know how old she is—do you ever pull some tricks? Does she say, “Hey, Dad”?

No. She shouts, “Drive slowly, Daddy.”

Really?

I’m not allowed to drive fast with her.

No, she’s terrified, which is fine. Which is fine. You don’t want her to get into the family business.

No, no, no.

What? Okay. What are some investments that you’re really excited about?

Beyond ElevenLabs, there would be Applied Intuition, another one.

Oh, great business. I’m in it as well.

That’s a really, really interesting company. It supplies software primarily to all the legacy car manufacturers that have not managed this transition to being software-first, as Tesla has shown the way.

It’s like Scale AI for automotive in some ways, right? For part of the business.

Yeah.

Nico, you’re going to fit right in. Have you learned to play poker yet?

I’m a good poker player.

You’re a good poker player. We’ll see you on Thursday. Excuse me. Hold on, Nico.