Greetings from D.C., where I'm in town for our Axios AI+ Summit.

• Tune in here to watch the livestream, beginning at 2pm ET. Guests include Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, Sen. Ted Cruz, Sen. Mark Kelly, AMD CEO Lisa Su, Scale AI CEO Jason Droge and many more.

StubHub last night raised $800 million in its IPO, pricing at the midpoint of its $22 to $25 per share range.

• That gives the ticket resale giant an $8.5 billion initial market cap, although that may climb when shares begin trading today on the NYSE under the ticker "STUB."

I spoke with StubHub co-founder and CEO Eric Baker about the IPO and the business. What follows is an edited transcript of our conversation:

Axios: Why go public now?

Baker: "It's really about raising proceeds to deleverage, since we took on a lot of debt when [Viagogo] bought StubHub. For example, I'm not selling any shares.

• We flipped our S-1 just before 'Liberation Day' hit, at which point everyone hit pause, so we've been ready to go for a while."

What did you keep hearing from prospective investors on the roadshow?

"A lot of people are very excited about us doing direct issuance, like the deal we just signed with Major League Baseball. Everyone knows we're the dominant platform for global ticket resale, so they're interested in the next phase."

How much growth are you seeing from events outside of concerts and sports?

"Concerts and sports are huge, but we're seeing so many other experiences. For example, the University of Oklahoma created something where you can buy tickets to [postgame] press conferences. There are also all sorts of exhibits and live gaming. Plus, the growth of comedy through platforms like YouTube."

President Trump recently signed an executive order on ticket gouging. It's not mentioned in your S-1. Do you agree with what he's doing?

"Yes. If you look at the executive order, it has three planks:

• The first is pricing transparency. The second is stopping bots. We publicly lobbied for both of those. The third is making sure there's no anticompetitive behavior, like what DOJ is looking at the Live Nation and Ticketmaster."

Ticketmaster is a big reseller, in addition to being the top primary issuer. How do you view the regulatory resolution of that situation, vis-à-vis Stubhub?

"Everything we focus on doing assumes that nothing changes with the status quo ... If anything were to change, I'd assume there would be a lot of positive developments for us."

You mentioned the bots issue. When I go to buy tickets for an event, it feels like face value ones last for less than five minutes, and then suddenly, there are hundreds immediately on StubHub at very high prices. Isn't that a bot issue?

"I think many of the problems with major events often have nothing to do with bots, but rather the failures of how tickets are put up for sale by the primary seller."

President Trump yesterday delayed the TikTok ban, as expected.

There also was a buzzy WSJ report about how the White House has agreed to a deal whereby Andreessen Horowitz, Oracle and Silver Lake would control TikTok U.S. via a carveout from China's ByteDance.

• That should satisfy the divestiture law in terms of ownership structure, as Chinese interests would fall below 20%, although there still are questions related to the algorithm.

Three things to know:

1. This deal is largely the same as what was negotiated before "Liberation Day," when Trump's tariffs blew up talks with Beijing. Plus, Oracle has been involved since 2019, when Trump first tried to ban the app — although it's vascillated on being an equity partner in addition to a tech partner. Maybe it's now feeling a bit richer.
2. Several existing ByteDance shareholders in the U.S. tell me that they're still in the dark on what happens to their positions, or if they'll be asked to cough up new money. Which is odd for a deal that's supposedly being presented this week to Chinese President Xi Jinping.
3. One new wrinkle reported by WSJ is that the U.S. government would have a board rep. That's not required by the divestiture law, and raises questions about if taxpayers will have an equity stake in TikTok U.S. (either via an investment or given free of charge).

Samara, a maker of prefabricated tiny homes that spun out of Airbnb, tells Axios that it raised $34 million in Series B funding led by insider Thrive Capital.

Why it's the BFD: America has an affordable housing crisis.

Catch up quick: Samara was the brainchild of Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia and former Flex CEO Mike McNamara — a marriage of design and manufacturing chops.

• Despite the lineage, only a minority of its configurable homes are used as rentals. Many are used for multigenerational living, often situated in the backyards of larger homes.
• All of its sales so far are in California, which McNamara says is leading the nation on zoning reforms.
• Gebbia, who now works in the White House, "continues to check in on a constant basis."

By the numbers: Samara has booked $100 million in revenue over the past 12 months, and currently is delivering around 10 homes per month. Time from order to delivery can range from seven months for simple builds to 18 months for complex multi units.

• The company also agreed to donate $5 million worth of homes to victims of the Los Angeles fires, via Steadfast LA, while Gebbia made a $10 million match.

The bottom line: "Building homes is very different than what we built at Flex, but it's still manufacturing. That means repetition in a controlled environment that leads to lower costs and better quality every single year." — Mike McNamara

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