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I see multiple journalists on the horizon. You're watching TVN.
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Today is Thursday, January 22nd, 2026.
4:38
We are live from the TVPN trough, the temple of technology, the trough of technology, the fortress of finance, the capital of capital. >> Ramp. com. Time is money. Save both.
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He's used corporate cards, bill pay, accounting, and a whole lot more. Thank you again to R.
4:55
Crazy for coming on the show yesterday, breaking it down for us. That was a lot of fun.
4:58
And thank you to Mark Beni off. >> Mark Ben off.
5:01
We have acquired a one of one. >> Truly, he say aloha.
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>> One master puppets uh record >> signed signed by Hawaii uh resident.
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>> He was keeping us guessing when we had him on the show.
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We were like, can you send that to us? And he was like, no way. >> It's incredible. Look at this thing. Look at this thing. >> We got it.
5:20
>> This is going to the business uh hall of fame. Yeah.
5:23
Here >> the museum of business TV Ultra Dome. >> That's right.
5:26
Let's pull up the linear run of show.
5:28
Uh meet the system for modern software development.
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5:34
We're going to take you through the story, talk about Davos, talk about uh a whole bunch of news in the timeline.
5:40
Then we have Keller from Zipline coming on. Jake from Railway.
5:44
Joe Weisenthal is returning. >> That's right.
5:47
>> Uh we're very excited to get a whole bunch of updates.
5:49
>> I mean, look at look at the range here today.
5:51
>> We're going with Healing the Axon is coming on.
5:54
Kathy Woods coming is coming on time.
5:59
>> So >> Jake announcing a big round.
6:01
>> Um first uh Davos is winding down.
6:01
We're finally getting like the final uh you know surprise guests. Elon is the big one. >> Elon had to come in.
6:11
>> He had to come in >> the last How do you think that works?
6:13
Like how do you think that that Elon Do you think he just has like an open invite and then he makes the call like an a few hours before and just says, "Oh, it's going well. I'll be there."
6:22
And then they just throw him on.
6:24
Or do you think he he said he said yes a week ago and then I think Elon calls up JCAL and says, "Hey, save me a seat. >> Save me a seat."
6:33
>> And then it they figured out from there.
6:36
Uh I think I think when you're tracking to be the world's first teen, they just have a stage kind of set up. >> Yeah. >> Say come.
6:45
>> Apparently the the the the events go really really long.
6:47
Some of the interviews go at 10 p. m. Some start.
6:50
It's like a full full tilt across multiple uh multiple event spaces.
6:56
There's different houses.
6:56
All-In was doing something at the Freedom House.
6:58
Uh they had a really cool interview with Sacha Nadella that I watched.
7:00
Uh tech was out in full force and that's what I wrote about today in the TBPN newsletter.
7:06
Uh before we go through a little bit of this, let me tell you about Vanta, automate compliance and security.
7:11
Vanta is the leading AI trust management platform.
7:13
So, um, fun fact, Davos makes half a billion dollars a year in revenue.
7:20
Uh, you think of, yes, Tyler's clapping. It's good news.
7:22
Um, [clears throat] it's a nonprofit, an NGO, a think tank.
7:26
But you thinking what I'm thinking, Jordy, >> for-profit conversion. That's right. >> Let's make it happen. Let's make it happen.
7:33
Um, but, uh, you know, uh, it's a, you know, old old organization.
7:37
Cloud Schwab, who you probably know as the face of it, he he was the founder.
7:42
He started the he started Davos in uh 1971, the World Economic Forum.
7:47
It was called >> He was pushed out last year. >> Yeah.
7:51
So, it's been on the ropes.
7:51
I My thesis is that Davos is back.
7:53
It was a really good year.
7:56
I think tech is going to double down on this.
7:57
Um but the first decade, it just sounded like it was an amazing party.
8:01
Uh one person in 1981 told Time magazine that the forum offers a delightful vacation on the expense account.
8:08
What a great what a great line.
8:11
Uh time was really doing great reporting.
8:13
Um also time owned by Mark Beni off of the show.
8:16
Uh so it's been a rough decade for Davos.
8:18
Liz Hoffman teased the concept of an inverse Davos index in semaphore which I thought was sort of funny.
8:25
And she sort of wrapped up a few times when the consensus at Davos wound up being like woefully wrong.
8:32
And so she went through a few things.
8:33
First was that uh everyone got together at Davos.
8:35
There was an economist who went on stage in 2008 and said it is inconceivable, repeat, inconceivable to get a world recession.
8:46
[laughter] It's like the one thing like not mincing words, not hedging at all, just like my prediction is that we will never see a world recession.
8:52
And then of course we did.
8:54
Um the the the Davos crew, they also missed Brexit and and the rise of MAGA.
8:59
Um and then in 2020 they had a forum uh that the Davos in 2020 it's always in January in 2020 it was January 21st to 24th and there was really no talk of a global pandemic or being worried about that.
9:14
There was one panel about um about sort of risks from antibiotics or something.
9:21
Uh but they certainly weren't talking about the Corona virus.
9:24
And just a week later, Bology posted that famous going viral post on January 30th saying like, "Hey, I'm tracking this.
9:31
I've been tracking this for a while and this seems really serious."
9:34
And a lot of people in tech were already tracking it.
9:35
So there was this disconnect between like like you go to Davos and you hear like the number one thing this year is the metaverse.
9:42
Apparently they did a big metaverse push.
9:43
Um and then the the year plays out and it's a wildly different story.
9:46
Uh I personally stand behind the idea of Davos in the metaverse.
9:50
I would love a uh the all of the global elites coming together to create the ultimate VR skill simulator.
9:57
>> Has anybody built the world economic form in Roblox, Minecraft, something like that?
10:03
You know, one to one replica.
10:05
>> Yeah, it would be good.
10:05
There's been a bunch of interesting like behind the-scenes videos because uh obviously the big the big tentpole media groups, Bloomberg is there, CNBC is there, but then there's also a few just folks I follow on Instagram who went and are doing sort of uh walk-and talk vlogs and that honestly tell gives you more of like the lay of the land like what it's like getting around. Pretty interesting.
10:26
Um but before I continue, let me tell you about Console.
10:29
Console builds AI agents that automate 70% of IT, HR, and finance support, giving employees instant resolution for access requests and password resets. So, >> yeah.
10:38
And and it seems like they're >> maybe mov uh I I certainly wouldn't say the internet has forgotten about the iconic line, you'll own nothing and be happy.
10:48
But I haven't seen it so much over the last week.
10:51
A lot more focus on uh >> Yeah, it's interesting.
10:54
That line was all about just financialization and was really >> I like to think it was about enterprise software. [laughter] >> Yeah.
11:02
>> We're moving away from box software to SAS.
11:05
>> You're going to own nothing. You don't be happy.
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>> This particular version of Turbo Puffer you pay for consumption. >> Exactly.
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11:19
Um so [applause] uh this feels like this year feels like a big turnaround.
11:25
Uh Dario Amade, Damis Hassavis, Sachin Nadella, all their interviews uh have been going viral on the timeline in California.
11:32
There's been a bunch of uh articles written about what they've said at Davos.
11:36
And uh it the there there isn't there hasn't necessarily been a huge reversal in the positions of these tech leaders.
11:45
They're saying things that they've been saying for a year or two.
11:48
uh sometimes more, but there's some feeling like where when you say a line like we could have 20% unemployment in two years.
11:56
Uh it just sounds different when you say it directly to a bunch of world leaders, a bunch of global elites, a bunch of, you know, international executives than when you say it on a tech podcast that's a little more insidery, a little more inside baseball.
12:10
So, uh it just it just hits different.
12:12
And then it's also an interesting reflection to hear like the Satcha Nadella all-in interview had uh had an interesting like almost like high low aspect to it where Satcha was talking about um very specific details of co-pilot implementation what the future of the workstation could look like whether people will be uh running you know sidecar views. Yeah.
12:35
So, he's going in in a lot of detail there.
12:37
And then he's also zooming out and reiterating what he told other business leaders just about the general wave of AI adoption that's still pretty early on the global stage.
12:48
Um, and so it it it's felt like there's two different conferences going on.
12:53
We've read this from a this take from a couple different people where tech leaders are talking about research progress, employment impacts, sovereign AI, data center buildouts, and then the politicians are talking about Greenland, Venezuela, and trade deals.
13:05
Um, but even though there's like this two this bifurcated vibe going on, um, it still feels like a win-win because the tech industry is getting their messages into the global stage now where in in an audience that will ultimately determine how quickly this technology rolls out and how it will be regulated.
13:25
And I imagine that the tech industry is driving a lot of growth for the World Economic Forum because every company, you've seen the Palunteer House, there's a lot of different tech companies that have really gone big on sponsorship, gone big on their presence.
13:40
And I imagine this will get bigger.
13:41
OpenAI was sort of notably absent or not absent, but didn't take didn't take over the stage and you would imagine that next year given the vibes around this one that there will be more of a presence from basically all the big tech companies.
13:55
Yeah, we had a we had an opportunity to have a presence there and and we didn't think that it fully made sense for this year just given >> historical >> yeah travel was a big factor but >> yeah I did like the fact that uh Demis and Daario presented this like friendly and cooperative united front for what American AI progress looks like.
14:14
Uh it was particularly in stark contrast to last week when there was this incredibly messy AI drama, the opposite of cooperation between Elon and Sam Alman.
14:26
And so last week we're like, "Oh, no one between machines and >> yeah talent mix up."
14:30
That's been a big drama story and and then you see uh you see Demis and Daario sort of hanging out talking about how in how friendly they are and how much they want to work together and it feels a little bit like faith in humanity store restored.
14:44
It's very it it really captures the spirit of this like global cooperation which I think is good.
14:50
Um and and so I I think Davos is back.
14:53
I think it's time to ski and uh uh congratulations to everyone that's been having fun and making waves in Davos.
15:00
There's a whole bunch of videos that we should go through.
15:02
Um, first let me tell you about Octa.
15:04
Octa helps you assign every AI agent a trusted identity so [applause] you get the power of AI without the risk. Secure every agent. Secure any agent.
15:11
Um, did you want to watch this clip from Midnight Capital?
15:17
Jensen Wong is uh Midnight Capital.
15:20
He's given us some instructions.
15:22
He says or they say listen to this then watch the second video.
15:26
This host over at Fox Business has given us a run uh for our money in the costume department.
15:31
>> Maria Bart Romo knows how to dress.
15:31
This is fantastic outfit.
15:34
Uh let's play Jensen one trying to compete.
15:36
Is the space getting more competitive for you today?
15:42
>> Our space is incredibly competitive.
15:43
I've got a lot of competitors.
15:45
>> Um it it's hard to it's hard to imagine.
15:49
You know, Google's been here for a while and they're excellent AI company for a very long time and and they're incredible company.
15:54
Um, but we have competition from from all sides >> and >> well, we just have to run fast.
15:59
You know, Nvidia's the only >> you're doing and trying to compete.
16:04
>> And then Midnight Capital says, "Watch the >> You know, a company has an insane monopoly if they're trying to convince you that that >> I think that's where we're going with this.
16:11
You're giving away the you're giving away the punchline.
16:13
Play the the the teal clip at the London School of Economics."
16:18
>> Oh, I didn't even know we had a >> Scroll down. It's right here.
16:20
This is the whole one-two punch that Midnight Capital's serving up for us. Uh, here we go.
16:25
>> The people who the people who have monopolies pretend not to have them.
16:27
And the people who don't have monopolies pretend to have them.
16:30
And so it gets kind of confusing.
16:32
If you're Google, you will never say that you're a search engine.
16:34
You will say you're a technology company, which and technology is a vast, incredibly competitive space.
16:38
If you're in a completely competitive business, let's say you're trying to open a restaurant in London, and you will say, well, this is totally different from any other restaurant.
16:47
Uh it it will be the only um British Nepalese fusion cuisine within a fiveb block radius of the LSC.
16:55
The [laughter] people who have monopolies pretend not to have them.
16:56
And the people who don't have >> This is a very good point. >> I studied.
17:03
>> Yeah, Jensen studied and said, "You know what?
17:05
I I I'm incred It's incredibly competitive."
17:07
Of course, he's also going through an acquisition with Grock and uh it's not it seems like the Grock deal will go through, but it's >> like I have so much competition I had to spend $20 billion on a team. >> Yeah. Yeah.
17:17
And yeah, please define my market as also including CPU and also including AS6 and also including like everything else that could possibly compete with Nvidia.
17:25
Uh because >> the journal had a good summary of kind of some of Jensen's uh points of view out of Davos.
17:31
Uh Nvidia CEO says AI needs more investment in defiance of bubble fears.
17:36
Yeah, >> Jensen called for higher investments to further spread the technology across developed and emerging economies.
17:44
>> Speaking at the in Davos, Hong described AI as a five layer cake consisting of energy chips, cloud infrastructure, models and application.
17:52
He said AI's applications, how the technology is used in a specific industry is the most critical layer of that cake as it is where the economic benefits lie.
17:59
uh sectors like energy or semis both key to developing and harnessing the technology are already growing thanks to AI.
18:05
But he said more investments are needed to ensure that benefits of the technology spread to more industries across both developed and emerging economies.
18:12
The AI bubble comes about because the investments are large and the investments are large because we have to build the infrastructure necessary for all of the AI layers.
18:21
I think the opportunity is really quite extraordinary uh and everybody ought to get involved.
18:30
Everybody It's open for business, folks. >> Yeah.
18:32
Uh on the on the topic of uh uh just just do we need more investment?
18:37
Uh there was an interesting detail in the TSMC earnings uh this this week that Ben Thompson highlighted.
18:46
Basically uh uh TSMC they had this uh they had this earnings call and uh they announced a planned capital expenditure of 52 billion to 56 billion up 27 to 37% from last year and there was uh and there was some push back from uh an analyst.
19:03
So uh I'm not sure that coming in at the top of the p predicted range qualifies as quote higher level of capex spending.
19:12
An analyst pushed CEO CC Wayi on this point, noting that TSMC's revenue has grown 50% since 2022, but capex has only grown 10%.
19:24
There weren't many an there weren't too many answers from TSMC about this, which is understandable given that they won't announce next year's capex numbers until next quarter.
19:33
And so, uh, Ben is sort of pointing out that TSMC is potentially the biggest bottleneck.
19:39
TSMC has reiterated this that we're not bottlenecked on energy.
19:43
we're bottlenecked on chip production.
19:44
Uh we're going to scale up, but at the same time uh they don't want to be caught holding the bag.
19:50
So Ben Thompson says the implication of cloud service providers showing huge financial gains from AI now combined with the admission that there is an insufficient supply of silicon is that foregone revenue isn't a theoretical risk.
20:01
It's being foregone right now.
20:03
And you've and you've heard this from all the labs.
20:05
If we had more chips, we could actually deliver more services, charge more, make more money.
20:10
Um we are bottlenecked on compute.
20:10
Uh, and yet at the same time, notice that we led his answer, admitting to his fear.
20:17
TSMC doesn't want to get stuck holding the bag, spending billions of dollars for demand that might disappear.
20:21
This is a legitimate concern for TSMC, but it's a big problem for TSMC's customers.
20:25
The only way they're going to overcome that fear is by helping bring competition to bear such that such that TSMC worries more about losing business than they do about investing too much.
20:37
And so, uh, who who will be the competition?
20:39
Maybe it's Intel, maybe uh Samsung, there there's a number of other foundaries that could potentially ramp up and and put the screws to TSMC, but the the Nvidia TPU, the I not Grock, but Cerebris and a few other of the chip makers are all sort of still constrained by TSMC.
20:57
And so there there's still uh some some worry that uh if we don't expand just raw fab capacity that that will be a bottleneck for AI.
21:09
But anyway, >> before we move on, let me tell you [clears throat] about Gusto, the unified platform for payroll, benefits, and HR built to evolve with modern small and mediumsiz businesses.
21:17
Um, let's go to who is this?
21:21
Uh, we have a clip here from well, Philip Johnson's having fun at Davos.
21:26
But, uh, before we do that, let's head over to David Phillips.
21:28
Uh, me defending my vibecoded CRM I made in one shot with GPT40.
21:36
sometimes is too slow for sure and needs to be reformed for sure.
21:43
But which is predictable, loyal sometime.
21:51
>> He's on one right now. >> I love it.
21:52
What was the story behind the glasses?
21:54
Somebody I saw some meme that uh I think he suffered an injury or something and some people would say do an eye patch, but he went with the sunglasses. It's a fantastic rock.
22:03
>> Yeah, he looks like a rockstar.
22:03
Uh Elon Musk has uh has hit the timeline on Davos.
22:07
Um >> I love I love how Philip is just like in the front row >> with his phone camera.
22:13
>> It's incredible incredible citizen journalism here.
22:14
Let's play this clip from Elon Musk at Davos. What's he saying? Why did he go to Davos? What is his message?
22:21
What is he going to talk about?
22:22
>> Is that the lowest cost place to put AI will be space and and that'll be true within two years maybe three of the latest.
22:33
So looking 10 or 20 years out um what how would you describe success with a >> three at the latest >> three at the latest that's a aggressive timeline >> yeah for that uh Blue Origin launched satellite internet um uh to rival SpaceX
22:51
um and specifically to rival um Starlink uh Bezos backed Blue Origin is launching a satellite network for enterprise data center and government customers terow wave the aims to begin deploying the first of 5,48 satellites in the fourth quarter of 2027. So a little over a little under
23:08
So a little over a little under two years.
23:11
Uh the service will compete with Starlink and it will also compete with Amazon operated LEO which is interesting.
23:19
Um I guess they'll maybe work together at some point.
23:21
Uh the network called Terrowwave is targeted for enterprise data center and government users.
23:25
The company said it will provide speeds of up to 6 terabits per second from satellites position in LEO and medium Earth orbit uh regions of space that are between 100 miles and 21,000 miles from Earth's surface.
23:35
Blue Origin says it expects to deploying the constellation in the fourth quarter of 2027.
23:41
Bezos is entering an increasingly crowded satellite internet market that's uh currently dominated by Starlink.
23:48
Starlink has more than 9,000 satellites in orbit and roughly 9 million customers.
23:52
Amazon, which Bezos founded in 1994, is also ramped up its own offering.
23:56
Uh that service um recently rebranded from Project Koopier to LEO.
24:02
The company has set up 180 satellites since last April through a series of rocket launches handled by partners such as ULA and actually SpaceX.
24:08
Uh several future deployments are expected to be handled by Blue Origin.
24:12
Amazon aims to build a constellation of 3,236 low Earth uh satellites that will serve business, governments, and consumers.
24:21
Last November, the company opened up an enterprise preview to select users ahead of a broader commercial launch.
24:25
Bezos predicted in 2024 that Blue Origin would one day be a bigger company than Amazon.
24:32
That's a wild prediction.
24:32
He founded Blue Origin in 2000.
24:34
And Dave Limp, uh, Amazon's former device boss, serves as its CEO.
24:39
Quote, I think it's going to be the best business I've ever been involved in, but it's going to take a while.
24:46
You said at Dealbook in 2024.
24:46
Uh Blue Origin is primarily a rocket launch company flying research flying tourists and research to the edge of space on short trips last January.
24:54
The startup notched a major milestone when it successfully launched its towering new Glenn rocket for the first time.
25:00
Though it was unable to return the rocket booster back to a barge for reuse.
25:03
They nailed the landing of the new Glenn rocket last November following a successful launch of a pair of NASA spacecraft.
25:10
So good progress over there at Blue Origin.
25:14
>> We got to uh do some more research on the Chinese Starlink. Oh yeah, >> equivalent.
25:18
They have uh uh Guo Wong, which is their like state-led effort trying to get to 13,000 satellites >> uh by 2030.
25:27
Currently, they have around 150.
25:30
And then there's Chi Chian Fan, which currently has around 100, also trying to get uh they're trying to get to 15,000 uh by 2030.
25:38
And they're they're more commercial focused.
25:40
So be interesting to track.
25:43
And uh you would you would think that the Blue Origin news, the the the news that uh that Starlink has a second competitor, Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos, major players, uh well, what does that do for AS Space Mobile?
25:57
The stock is up 14% today.
25:57
And [laughter] it's up 24% over the last 5 days, 35% over the last month, and 100% mobile keep going. There's no way.
26:09
over the last six months.
26:10
[laughter] Uh it's at all-time highs.
26:12
It is at all-time highs and the market cap is now $42 billion.
26:16
I have I have some friends who are obsessed with Space Mobile and uh fascinating run.
26:22
They keep they keep running.
26:25
Um anyway, [snorts] moving on.
26:28
Uh Elon also gave some timelines for Optimus humanoid robots at the World Economic Forum.
26:33
He said, "By the end of next year, we will be selling humanoid robots to the public." To the public. not just enterprises.
26:39
You're going to be able to just buy one of these the way you buy a Cybert truck or a Model S Plaid or anything else.
26:46
That is a very very aggressive timeline.
26:49
But he does he has been buying the parts to actually manufacture them.
26:53
And you know what is selling to the public mean?
26:56
Does it mean a thousand deliveries, 10,000 deliveries? I don't know.
26:59
But uh he's he's definitely um uh pushing that uh project forward.
27:05
Having having an Optimus that is just on on staff here that can just go hit like if I can hit a button and have the Optimus hit the gong physically, that would be fantastic. >> Yeah. Priceless. Really? >> Yeah. Priceless.
27:17
There's really no >> Yeah.
27:20
>> No amount of money that we wouldn't pay to be able to get that kind of experience here in the Ultra Dome.
27:24
>> I'm Yeah, I'm excited.
27:24
I mean, the we we we've seen like, you know, Boston Dynamics, we've seen with the the Chinese humanoid companies.
27:31
Um there's like you can do cool things with these with 1x and whatnot.
27:37
Even if it's tea operated, even if it's prescripted like there there are the technology does work.
27:43
It's more just like how impactful will it be? How expensive is it? How reliable is it?
27:48
Is the battery 1 hour or more?
27:52
>> Has he has he spoken about teleoperation?
27:54
>> No, I don't >> seems like he'd just be generally against it.
27:57
>> Yeah, I mean >> on principle >> I know that don't the Tesla robo taxis do some teleoperation?
28:01
I think in the test zones there was like the ability to take over on that early demo.
28:05
So I don't think he's dogmatic about it, but he certainly is, you know, if you're against LAR, you got to be against uh >> Tragically Sane says robots replacing humans hitting the gong. Okay, never mind. Shut it down. >> I'm full.
28:18
[laughter] >> Don't don't worry.
28:20
That will be the last job.
28:23
>> That will be >> in the studio hitting the gong.
28:23
Uh let's move on to this clip from Sachi Nadella at the all-in uh AI summit in Davos.
28:32
First let me tell you about vibe.
28:32
co where DTOC brands B2B startups and AI companies advertise on streaming TV pick channels target audiences and measure sales just like on Meta.
28:40
So um uh let's play this clip from Sachi Nadella explaining how he's thinking about >> Jobs had the best line I would say for PCs or computers was to say if you it's a bicycle for the mind.
28:53
Uh Bill had a line which I liked as well which was it's information at your fingertips.
28:57
We kind of need now a new concept metaphor for how we use computers in the AI age.
29:06
you have one >> and the one I like actually came from the CEO of notion which I you know that manager of >> incredible product >> you haven't bought it yet [laughter] but the it's both management of you know basically a manager of infinite minds that's a nice way to think about it right if you
29:24
remember you know Jobs had the best line I would say for >> the manager of infinite minds that is uh I that is a good framing I like that and it's it's nice that >> how many minds are you managing Tyler >> right You know, >> right now it's probably like four cuz I have every every LLM >> like actively running. >> You got to get those numbers up.
29:43
>> You got to get those numbers up.
29:45
>> Yeah, I I'm not I I've never really used multiple cloud instances yet. >> Okay.
29:48
So, >> but uh yeah, good good framing and and good to see.
29:52
Yeah, it's interesting like the the manager of infinite minds concept obviously that that essay from Ivan, CEO of notion, it went viral over the holidays.
30:02
I think a lot of people in tech read it, but it did not necessarily break through to like the Davos community.
30:08
And so having Satin Nadella there just further popularize that concept, bake it down into a a repeatable phrase that can prepare people for what's coming.
30:18
Adapt like that is valuable and that's what we're seeing here anyway.
30:23
>> Uh every uh it'll feel like you're playing Starcraft now.
30:28
>> I like the Starcraft managing.
30:28
The Starcraft analogy is real. Zerg army.
30:33
Uh, let's pull up this video uh that was posted by the New York Times podcast.
30:38
John Coramica posted this video yesterday. Somebody sent it to me.
30:43
Actually, Leaf at Public sent it to me. >> Yeah.
30:45
>> And I was so confused because there's only about a hundred of these rugies out in the world and we kind of knew exact.
30:52
We kind of like everybody on the team like kind of sent them out.
30:56
>> So, I was I first thought this video was AI generated. >> It did. I mean, it's about AI.
30:58
So, let's play the video.
31:01
>> And I think we maybe don't want to do sound. >> Okay.
31:03
So, yeah, it's about Bruno Mars.
31:05
And uh and if we if I don't know if we can scroll back to the beginning, is that possible on Instagram reels if you repost?
31:13
But yeah, if you zoom in here, he's dancing.
31:16
And the dancing this part, I was like, maybe this part's AI.
31:18
But then when he sits down, you can see that he has a uh a microphone, a lav mic clipped to his collar.
31:26
And so everything about this says this is not AI generated. This is real.
31:31
And the hand motions are so accurate and they're oluding >> and he just looks extremely cool. >> Yeah, it's great.
31:38
Um and so he goes on to talk and we're gonna have him on the show later.
31:42
Anyway, so so uh Dylan messaged John and uh we figure out that John uh accidentally uh purchased >> fake TVPN merch online.
31:55
>> But at least he's still looking great. >> Yeah. >> So >> yeah, it works. >> Silver lining.
32:00
>> Um but yeah, I I mean our saga to battle the the fraudulent merch, the knockoff merch has been incredible.
32:05
I I I this site popped up and we assumed, okay, they're not going to take payments certainly.
32:14
Uh they're definitely not going to print and ship anything and we'll be able to get this taken down in two seconds.
32:19
And we I actually sent them an email saying like, "Hey, uh hey, like I assume you're a fan.
32:25
Like just so you know, like we don't want this out there.
32:29
like I'd be happy to talk to you about maybe working together or something, but uh can you please uh just not use our brand and our trademarks and all this stuff uh out there on the internet without without talking to us first?
32:41
Like let's have a conversation about this.
32:42
Uh did not get a response. >> Not a fan.
32:45
>> And I think some other people on the team were like, "Uh yeah, John, that was never going to work."
32:48
[laughter] And they were right.
32:50
And >> you tried to go Golden Retriever. >> I did. I did.
32:53
I was like, "I'm going to I'm just going to assume the best.
32:55
I'm just going to assume this an overeager fan or someone who just is entrepreneurial kid who's just trying to just make >> No, this is a Canadian. We know it's a Canadian.
33:04
[laughter] >> We know it's Canadian. >> This is a Canadian. [gasps] >> Yeah.
33:07
Anything could happen up there.
33:09
>> Uh we need in the chat says, "You guys have a good line of Shopify.
33:11
I assume most of them are hosted there."
33:12
No, it's not hosted on Shopify. >> It's not. It's not.
33:14
And and at one point, >> we've already gotten them taken down from >> from a number of platforms where we know the CEOs and we'll say, "Hey, we have this fake site. Can you take this down?" They will.
33:22
And they'll pop up on a different site.
33:24
And so it's been a true game of whack-a-ole.
33:25
We've sent a number of like, you know, sort of, you know, demand letters at this point.
33:29
We've really pushed it a lot, but they they keep finding a way.
33:33
And at this point, they are in fact taking people's money and shipping fake product now and and and fooling people that are discerning.
33:42
>> And apparently it smells kind of funny.
33:44
Oh, >> which is a big [laughter] which is an issue.
33:48
>> The real merch is coming.
33:48
The real merch is coming.
33:50
We do have We've been sampling a bunch of different stuff. >> Of course. Of course, Shopify.
33:55
>> We need to put out like a a Maduro style bounty.
33:58
>> We [laughter] put a stack on there.
34:01
Shopify, of course, is the commerce platform that grows with your business and lets you sell in seconds online, in store, on mobile, on social, on marketplaces, and now with AI agents.
34:11
>> Trey says, "Mark Carney is selling fake TVPN merch." Crazy.
34:13
[laughter] >> He heard he he saw your post about him cortisol spiking, >> his cortisol spiking, and he was like, "You know what?
34:20
I'm not doing anything about this."
34:22
Canadians, it's uh >> it's really concerning the number of people that didn't understand that my post was a joke.
34:30
>> You're very online and you're very early to a lot of these things.
34:31
You were trying to make a happen back like over a year last year.
34:35
Didn't happen to a long time.
34:39
Then you tried to make motion happen.
34:40
I still think people are just waking up to motion.
34:42
Uh this is this will happen, but you got to you got to let it simmer.
34:46
I mean, I've seen this I've seen this multiple times, >> but I just the the idea of like processing Davos as though it's like a bunch of kick streamers.
34:54
[laughter] So, >> it is it is very funny to, you know, look at the aesthetics and the whole kick like clipping economy is crazy.
35:00
I like I found one of those clips and then I went and looked at the account and it's like like dozens of posts that are the same format where it's like they have a word in all caps and then they have an emoji and then they have this and it's like very sensationalist.
35:14
It feels like paparazzi on top of a kickstream or something.
35:19
Very very odd phenomenon.
35:21
>> The the thing that is real is like the drama that's going on at Davos is not that different.
35:27
You see, you know, Bessant taking shots spikes.
35:33
>> They're definitely spiking each other's cortisol, [laughter] getting each other to crash out.
35:37
>> I still don't even I still don't even know what cortisol spiking means.
35:38
Is it just like getting angry?
35:40
What does it actually mean?
35:43
uh if you get into any type of you know verbal physical altercation >> it's like a fight or flight. >> Yeah.
35:49
The the the uh >> cortisol floods your brain just makes you okay well yeah >> gets your >> anyway private credit investors cortisol has been spiking because they are cashing out in droves.
36:00
Redemptions by individual investors in funds soared at the end of 2025 after performance declined reviving questions about suitability.
36:08
This is from Matt Worers in the Wall Street Journal.
36:10
Uh he says, "For the first time since the start of the private credit boom, large numbers of individual investors are trying to get their money out.
36:17
Several of the big funds eligible to wealthy individuals received requests from about 5% of shareholders to cash out at the end of last year, well above the normal volume according to the SEC.
36:26
One managed by Blue got redemptions for about 15% of its shares.
36:31
This was something where, you know, people were um were were nervous about the data center buildout, cyber credit, you know, the expansion here.
36:40
Uh, apparently what's driving it primarily was Asian clients um asking for redemptions from Blue L specifically.
36:47
The rising redemptions come at an awkward time for private credit fund managers for the Trump and for the Trump administration as they push for new rules that would democratize private markets by encouraging their inclusion in 401k retirement plans for all Americans.
37:00
Private fund managers including Apollo Global and Blue Owl blame fear-mongering about a recent spate of corporate bankruptcies.
37:06
This is the whole cockroaches back and forth with Jamie Diamond uh and some of the some of the folks uh in the private credit world um Blackstone, Apollo, Blue uh and because there was an automotive supplier that went bankrupt versus brands we talked about and there was a surge of withdrawals.
37:22
Analysts say there could be a simpler e explanation individual investors are falling into a similar pattern, a familiar pattern of selling out when an asset class underperforms expectations.
37:34
These investors got really surprised when their dividends went down.
37:38
Uh said Robert Dodd, an analyst at Raymond James.
37:40
Uh BDC's uh the business development companies, they typically make high interest loans to midsize corporations with junk credit ratings using the interest income from those loans to pay dividends.
37:51
A handful of these funds have cut dividends because the yield on their loans are falling in lock step with benchmark interest rates.
38:00
uh for more dividend reductions will follow, Dodd said, likely prompting more redemptions.
38:05
Total returns from five of the large largest private credit funds aimed at individual investors declined to an average of about 6.
38:11
22% in the first nine months of 2025, compared with 8.
38:16
76% in the same period 2024.
38:18
And back in 2023, if you were in these funds, you were making 11. 4%. Not bad.
38:24
Um, money managed by BDC's has tripled since 2020 to about 450 billion.
38:30
So, there's been a big growth and the funds still took in more new money from new investors than they paid out in their most recent quarter.
38:36
A sign that they are still popular among investments investors and adviserss. Um, let's move on.
38:43
But first, let me tell you about Phantom Cash.
38:45
Fund your wallet without exchanges or middlemen and spend with a Phantom card.
38:53
The KobSSE letter breaking.
38:53
SpaceX is set to hire Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley to lead its IPO.
38:59
That's a whole host, a murderous row.
39:01
The IPO is expected to be valued as as much as 1.
39:04
5 trillion, making it the largest IPO in history.
39:09
But >> the community knows put it in the truth zone because Saudi Ramco's IPO in 2019 sported a valuation of 1. 7 trillion.
39:14
Um, interesting, very different. >> Raised 25 billion. 25. 6 billion. Uh >> oh yeah. Okay.
39:25
>> So anyways, obviously Elon targeting more than that on a actual dollar basis.
39:31
>> Well, there's other news about anthropic.
39:32
Uh the revenue run rate for the end of 2025 was 9 billion, up from 4 billion in July 2025.
39:38
What an incredible growth.
39:42
Iconic Lightseed and Menllo are set to join the new funding round from TechMe here uh and Bloomberg reporting.
39:49
Um, this is maybe a deceleration.
39:49
I was debating this with Tyler.
39:52
I mean, they went from 100 million to 1 billion.
39:54
They 10xed, then they were going to 10x it again.
40:00
So, everyone was expecting 10 billion >> and 10x it again, >> and they landed at nine on run rate.
40:06
>> Yeah, I was trying to find Did they Did they uh did they predict 10 billion? >> I don't know.
40:13
I I I actually don't know the exact quote.
40:15
I think Dario like was pretty loose about it.
40:17
He was just saying that like we've seen magnitude.
40:21
>> Yeah, he was saying he was saying we we went a full order of magnitude from 100 to a billion.
40:25
We're going to do a full order magnitude again.
40:28
>> Is it a full order of magnitude to go from 1 to nine?
40:30
>> And he said he only expects like >> three or four more uh you know 10x's.
40:34
>> He said that no [laughter] >> no no.
40:36
I I I specifically remember him saying like like we cannot keep that level of growth going like it's like he said it would be pretty crazy if that >> Yeah.
40:44
>> I don't think he said we can't. >> Oh, okay.
40:46
He said it would be pretty crazy. Yeah. Okay.
40:47
Well, uh, obviously >> he said if that continues then like you're really in the, you know, the the biggest companies in the world are on that scale. >> Yeah.
40:54
I mean, at a certain point like there's no company that's doing a trillion dollars a year in in revenue and you're only two orders magnitude away from that. So, uh, we'll see. We'll see.
41:04
But obviously, Anthropic's been on a tear and the new round it seems to be coming together nicely.
41:08
Uh, there is other news from the information.
41:11
Amir says that Anthropic's inference costs on Google and Amazon servers were 23% higher than the company uh projected.
41:19
Of course, when you're growing so fast, you're probably willing to pay more for inference just to make sure that everything stays online.
41:30
>> Better to better to service the demand and not and not get that frustration, you know, people hitting rate limits, etc.
41:35
Yeah, I think uh later in the summer there were there was a lot of news about how the the anthropic API is like always down. They for issues. >> Yeah.
41:43
>> Yeah, there was that and then there was there were also some like FUD type articles about negative gross margins about you know margins being really really bad at these labs.
41:50
Who's where's the real where's the value acrewing?
41:53
Is it all going to acrue to Nvidia?
41:54
Uh last month uh Anthropic projected it would generate around 40% gross margins from selling AI to businesses and application developers.
42:03
Um, but I think that gross margin came in a little bit lower.
42:06
Um, but you know, there's so much more that they can do to optimize. They're buying TPUs now.
42:12
They're going to build new data centers.
42:14
Uh, and also there's it it does feel like we're going to enter a world where inference is load balanced across a variety of semiconductor stacks.
42:25
And so for really fast things, you might be going to a grock or a cere or cerebrus or you know you might for more basic stuff you might be going to a legacy model that's cheaper to inference and all of that might be blended together into something that's uh more profitable.
42:40
And then also you know the the dynamic of the of the equilibrium in the ecosystem could just be higher prices if it's delivering a lot of value.
42:47
People are really happy with the value that they're getting from this.
42:49
And uh Beth Jazos posted a real picture of Daario >> fact check >> uh that you can pull up here.
42:57
>> Daario a mog da [laughter] >> the jawline is crazy on this AI is good.
43:06
>> Claude's going to be able to do this to people one shot. >> No, Claude will not.
43:10
They're not launching an image model.
43:11
Claude will have >> No, no, I'm saying you're going to be able to just talk to Claude and say like, "Turn me into a uh into a moger in real life."
43:20
>> It will, you know, orchestrate the jaw. >> Okay. Got it. Yeah.
43:23
The double jaw surgery, >> leg lengthening surgeries, purchase it all for you and just create a schedule for you. >> Yeah.
43:29
Call the Whimo to take you to the, you know, to the dentist or whatever to do the surgery.
43:35
>> Well, if in if you're in San Francisco on February 3rd, you need to call a Whimo and head over to the Cisco AI Summit.
43:41
It's bringing together leaders from NVIDIA, OpenAI, AWS, and more to discuss the future of the AI economy.
43:47
The whole thing will be livereamed, and we'll be there for stream.
43:51
>> Hope to see you there.
43:52
>> Uh, apparently, >> yes, >> Google DeepMind is signing a licensing deal.
43:57
It really is a licensing deal economy that we're in.
43:59
Last year was the press release economy.
44:00
Yeah, >> this year very, very much the licensing deal economy.
44:04
Hume Aai, which builds emotionally intelligent voice interfaces.
44:11
Uh, and they're going to hire CEO Allan Cohen and seven of their engineers.
44:17
>> Is this the same uh ghost ship story that we've that we've seen so many times before?
44:21
It's essentially an acquisition.
44:22
Is that what we're we're reading this or?
44:24
>> Yeah, that's that's >> major licensing.
44:26
>> I mean, that's Yeah, the CEO is joining Deep Mind. Uh, >> interesting.
44:31
>> I I I never thought of uh of Google as particularly behind in voice interfaces.
44:36
Um, it doesn't I I'm wondering what else is going on here.
44:39
Um, I mean certainly it's an important part of the stack if you have an app that people are chatting with and talking to.
44:47
Um, obviously Notebook LM was sort of a viral success, but I do really wonder about the longevity and the and the retention.
44:57
It feels like they were maybe like I don't know 80 or 90% there in terms of people may maybe it's just a speed thing.
45:05
Maybe it's the actual cadence.
45:07
I've talked to some people that have >> didn't that team leave and start their own thing. >> They did.
45:12
But I mean you got to be able to backfill that if you're if you're googling deep mind like you have a great product with a lot of people talking about Notebook LM very positively.
45:20
I think a lot of the notebook LM functionality eventually got baked into the Gemini app.
45:25
And so um but this but there still is just it feels like when you have a latency step where you ask a question.
45:36
Okay, prepare a deep research report and turn it into a podcast and read it to me on the Roman Empire and you have the option to just go to YouTube and just find a video of or pull up hardcore history or something and just listen to it and as soon as you click it just starts playing versus you have to wait.
45:54
That's going to induce churn.
45:56
That's going to >> I always thought No LM was the the product that I wanted to cram for college exams. I did that. >> I remember final. >> Yeah.
46:06
There's so many moments in college where I was like >> riding my bike to an exam and being like I could really use these 15 minutes to learn about write a paper on >> or whatever.
46:15
But at the same time, for probably 99% of high school exams, the the the the topic is wellstudied and there's already like Spark Notes when I went to high school, like Spark Notes existed.
46:30
And if you were you if you were doing a book report on the Odyssey, there was already a pre-written summary of it. You didn't need an LLM.
46:38
Like LLMs are particularly good.
46:40
Notebook LLM is particularly good when you need to generate a report or an essay or a deep dive or a podcast about something that no one has ever made a podcast about before. >> Yeah.
46:53
But if you're just looking for an hour of really thoughtful content on, you know, peptides, like the Huberman Lab podcast exists and has created a very polished product around that, >> opinionated, >> opinionated as well, which I think people want, but even just in terms of in terms of just facts, like like the facts are already polished and the most important thing is that it's there just one click to start that video.
47:12
So, I'm sure that, you know, a lot of a lot of high school students are pulling up YouTube videos that summarize the topics that are going into their calculus exam or whatever they're about to walk into.
47:25
There's plenty of >> Yeah.
47:26
You didn't have streaming video on the internet when you were going through college, right?
47:30
That exist >> a little bit.
47:31
[laughter] It was it was YouTube was there, but the library of YouTube videos, it was >> the catalog value was >> it was truly like, hey, come in this dorm room.
47:41
Let me show you the three YouTube videos that I know about.
47:42
Like it's a great sign of my culture and respect to show you like the greatest YouTube videos that are like viral in my world.
47:51
Uh anyway, MongoDB, choose a database built for flexibility and scale with best-in-class embedding [applause] models and rerankers.
47:58
MongoDB has what you need to build what's next.
48:02
>> Uh more news from Sam Alman. Oh yeah.
48:02
He shared today we have added more than 1 billion of AR in the last month just from our API business.
48:09
People think of us mostly as chat GBT, but the API team is doing amazing work. So >> that's fantastic.
48:16
Yeah, I mean we saw they just did this huge deal with Service Now.
48:20
Like they they're definitely cooking.
48:22
They've been cooking for a long time.
48:23
They have a they have an enterprise go to mo market motion that's definitely uh working and and somewhat disconnected from like whatever the hot story of the week is.
48:32
>> People are people are pretty funny in the comments going, "Brother, one billion of IRR at a five billion valuation.
48:38
you're going to need to make that MR.
48:39
[laughter] >> Obviously, this person misread posted, which is a added 1 billion in the last month. >> Okay. Yeah.
48:48
>> Um, that's pretty good.
48:49
>> So, of course, uh, I would imagine their plan is to continue doing that, actually scale that, but >> um, uh, Bubble Boying.
48:57
>> I love Bubble Boy, but I I I do not believe his rumors.
49:00
[laughter] I don't I don't go to him for rumors necessarily, but I don't know.
49:03
May a lot of likes on this. Maybe it's real.
49:06
There's no there's no community note.
49:07
What's the rumor from Bubble Boy?
49:08
>> The rumor Google is spinning out TPU team into a separate entity under Alphabet Umbrella to sell hardware to third parties directly. >> Okay. >> Uh it could happen.
49:16
[laughter] >> Someone calls it a crosschain atomic swap. That's funny.
49:19
Uh anyway, uh would they even need to do that? I don't know.
49:24
>> Yeah, I mean you can see they uh whimo it's like did they need to raise money at the Whimo level, right?
49:30
Sometimes it's helpful for, you know, a company to be have its own >> alphabet structuring and how they report out earnings and whatnot.
49:39
Anyway, >> uh staying in the big tech world, let's head over to Mark German's latest report.
49:46
>> The Germinator, >> Apple is revamping Siri as a built-in iPhone, Mac, and chatbot to fend off Open AI.
49:52
And there's an image here. What is this?
49:55
the Gemini Google uh Google Gemini AI chatbot on a Galaxy S25 Ultra smartphone.
50:01
So, Apple plans to revamp Siri later this year by turning the digital assistant into the company's first artificial intelligence chatbot, thrusting the iPhone maker into a generative AI race dominated by OpenAI and Google.
50:13
The chatbot, cenamed Kempos, uh will be embedded deeply into the iPhone, iPad, and Mac operating systems and replace the current Siri interface according to people familiar with the plan.
50:24
Users will be able to summon the new service the same way they open Siri now by speaking the Siri command or holding down the side button of their iPhone or iPad.
50:33
The new approach will go well beyond the capabilities of current Siri for even a long promised update that's coming earlier in 2026.
50:40
Today, >> John, say Siri again really loud and clearly for anybody that's watching on their TV at home or in their office.
50:50
Yeah, the the feature is a central piece of Apple's turnaround plan for the AI market where it has lagged behind Silicon Valley peers.
50:56
The Apple intelligence platform had a rocky roll out in 2024 with features that were underwhelming or slow to arrive.
51:00
Shares of Apple gained on the chatbot news climbing as much as 1. 7%.
51:07
Uh the previously promised non- chatbot update to Siri, retaining the current interfaces planned for iOS 26.
51:12
4 due in the coming months.
51:15
The idea that the the idea behind that upgrade is to add features unveiled in 2024, including the ability to analyze on-screen content and tap into personal data.
51:23
It will also be better at searching the web.
51:25
The chatbots capabilities will come later in the year, according to people uh who asked not to be identified.
51:30
The company plans to unveil that technology in June at WWC Campos, which will have both voice and typing based models.
51:38
Tyler, what's that sound like? >> Typing.
51:44
You're going to be able to type to Siri back and forth. >> Oh, no. Let's go.
51:48
>> Wait, you can can't you type to Siri? >> No. >> Right now you can't. I thought it open. >> Maybe.
51:52
But you don't have an app.
51:52
You don't have a place to store all your conversations, which was my take. >> Okay, cool.
51:57
But I I still care about I still care about the model being implemented way more than I care about. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Of course.
52:02
Like where where where are I mean?
52:03
Like the model's going to be good.
52:06
Like they're using Gemini. We know that.
52:07
But like what specifically are you looking for on the boys?
52:11
[laughter] >> Jimmy Boys.
52:12
Jimmy Tim Cook's a Jimmy boy.
52:15
Um, but where where are you uh like like what are you worried about them not implementing correctly?
52:24
>> Um, >> like you want like an agentic harness so it can do like claude code style work like for a long time on your phone directly. >> Yeah. I don't know.
52:32
There's just like like the current Apple intelligence is so bad. >> Yeah.
52:37
I just like have very low like I I it's I think there's a real possibility that they just like make it so every time you have to talk to to Siri you have to like press an extra button or something like there's just like random stuff like that. >> Yeah.
52:50
But what if it what what if it's just you press and hold the button and then you're just submitting a Gemini prompt and then it just returns exactly what Gemini would have returned.
53:00
That's like not implementation. That's just like normal. Yeah, but like why?
53:05
I mean they could have already done that with like an open source model.
53:08
They like they could have done that.
53:10
>> No, they needed a deal.
53:10
They they they can't just Apple can't just go and implement anything.
53:14
I I I think it's I think it's going to be tricky for them.
53:16
Like specifically so so specifically Llama uh has in the in the terms of service like you cannot use this.
53:23
It's open source unless you have more than like 800 million users or something like that.
53:27
Like there's some specific >> opening I trained their open source model for like $5 million.
53:31
It's like Apple could do it for 100 million. >> You think so? >> Yeah.
53:36
People always talk about how amazing the open source model is. >> Okay.
53:39
It's way better than the current Apple intelligence. >> That's true. That's true. Yeah. Okay.
53:43
>> Like open source models are are are pretty solid.
53:45
>> So you're saying you want Apple to to make the phone with Foxcon and run DeepSeek. >> Yeah. Come on. They're not doing that.
53:53
They're not putting DeepS on there.
53:53
Uh other than the chatbot interface, the operating systems aren't getting a big aren't getting big changes this year.
53:59
Of course, we got Liquid Glass.
54:00
So, Apple is more focused on perfor on improving performance and fixing bugs.
54:04
Last year, it rolled out a major design overhaul, unifying the look and feel of its operating systems.
54:10
Internally, Apple is testing the chatbot technology as a standalone Siri app. Let's go.
54:14
Similar to the chat and Gemini options available in the app store, the company doesn't plan to offer that version to customers though, so we might not get an app.
54:22
I'm on a roller coaster here.
54:24
Uh, instead, it will integrate the software across its operating systems like the Siri of today.
54:28
I still think they need an app because I'm going to I'm going to hit it.
54:31
I'm going to ask it a question.
54:31
I want to come back to it.
54:33
How am I going to do that? So, I don't know.
54:36
>> Hey Siri, go back to the recent >> Yeah, maybe. But it's got to be good.
54:39
Then then it is then the implementation has to be good because even in Gemini and chatbt there are oftent times when I will I will fire off a query it will come back with like thousands of words and if I search a keyword in the search box of previous chats I have so many previous chats that I can't necessarily find the exact one that I'm thinking of. >> Okay.
54:59
So, so one implementation thing that I think is important is like if it's super long, if the run if the response is super long, it reads it out to you like you should be able to pause or something like like that.
55:08
Like in cloud, you can't do that right now. >> Yeah.
55:11
>> You can't even fast forward five is an important thing.
55:13
There's all these >> implementations materally affects like how good it is. >> Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's good.
55:16
Um, embracing the chatbot approach represents a strategic shift for Apple, which has long downplayed the conversational AI tools popularized by OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft.
55:28
Executives have argued that users prefer having AI woven directly into features, something Apple has done with its writing tools, Genoji, emoji generator, and notification summaries, rather than standalone standalone chat experiences.
55:40
That's not that's not an unreasonable take.
55:42
Like I I I do I do uh I do see why they landed there.
55:45
And in the long term, I I wouldn't be surprised if that's if that's if the if the AI woven in the features, like the AI that's in the photos app is better than, okay, I got to open up the chat app and ask it to edit this photo and import the photo from my photo.
56:00
Like, no, you just want to be able to go into the photos app, have the, you know, change the color temperature, change the brightness, draw on it, add text, and then also have AI features in there, I would imagine.
56:09
So, I I am bullish on Apple diffusing AI into all the other apps, but it's taking a while. >> Yeah. >> What do you think? >> Uh, yeah.
56:17
I just I just hope the team specifically that designed the new version of the photos app from the ground up takes the lead on Apple intelligence because >> you're not a fan.
56:27
I It's been getting better.
56:28
It's not perfect, but it has been getting better.
56:30
I've been I've been learning how to do it.
56:31
I know there I I know the quirks.
56:34
>> Is it getting better or are you getting better? >> I'm getting better. I'm getting better. I can't believe it.
56:37
You're >> They should have just come out and said, "Hey, we hear that you guys don't like the photo app." >> Skill issue. >> Billboard campaign. >> Skill issue. >> Skill issue. Let's [laughter] do it.
56:47
>> Yeah, just the Apple photos icon.
56:47
And then just the text skill issue. >> Skill issue. Stop complaining. Anyway, graphite.
56:54
It's code review for the age of AI.
56:57
>> Graphite helps teams on GitHub ship higher quality software faster.
56:59
So, >> Terminator had more news.
57:02
Uh he says uh just now Apple quietly gave hardware chief John Turnis oversight over the company's hardware and software design teams at the end of last year marking the first evidence he is being groomed for the eventual CEO role. >> I like Turnis. I'm a Turnis fan.
57:18
Turnis head >> and I think >> I'm I'm bullish. I hope he gets it. I don't know.
57:24
It feels like still very up in the air, very rumor based, but uh he's been putting out good vibes. He's been delivering. I don't know.
57:30
I I'm I whoever that whoever that source that was, he never made a hard decision.
57:34
I need >> We should start making edits of him talking doing Apple keynotes.
57:41
>> Yes, we need to get a Turnis vibri reel up for sure.
57:43
Start the prime the pump. Prime the pump.
57:46
If he doesn't [laughter] get it and we've been pumping Turnis going becoming Turnis heads, uh it would be uh it would be a big L for we'd see. We we we'll see. Um >> let's see.
57:58
Uh we we we already talked enough about the the thinking machines drama.
58:02
The New York Times is reporting on the on the internal drama. Thinking machines now. Uh who who wrote this?
58:06
Was this uh from >> Mike Isaac? >> From Mike Isaac. Seven minute article. Okay.
58:14
Defection secret conversations deal talks that fizzled and a battle for control.
58:18
And the and the quote from uh Andrew Curran that he pulls out says, "But in less than a year, Mr. Zof, Mr. Mets, and Mr.
58:23
Shonholtz had become deeply unhappy with the startup's direction."
58:26
I wish they'd unpacked that more.
58:28
the the these uh these pieces have not gone deep enough into the nature of the dispute around the technical direction.
58:35
I would really like more uh more answers there because like they like what specifically are they unhappy about because just you know the like B2B fine-tuning that seems like a good business like OpenAI is having a lot of success with it.
58:50
success with it. uh has thinking machines has it been go to market problem has it been implementation problem has it been >> yeah overall there's nothing that kills motivation like having to show up to work every day and believing that the company is moving in the wrong direction but what but what specifically so
59:06
>> I'm sure I'm sure the team at OpenAI has a maybe a rough idea uh and that was again part of part of >> what Mera it sounds like frustrated with >> thinking machines lagged OpenAI and other rivals in releasing products and was struggling to raise new funding at an eyepopping 50 billion valuation. The
59:20
The men had urged Marotti to strike a deal with Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, had discussed buying Thinking Machines, and Miss Marott had developed closer ties with the chief executive of Anthropic, a leading AI company, but no traction had resulted.
59:34
At the meeting, the men lobbyed uh for Mr.
59:35
Zof, Thinking Machines Chief Technology Officer, Sir, to oversee decisions.
59:39
And this is just a strange >> this has been weird parts of it which is like why would the CTO not be overseeing decisions about the company's technical direction but >> I don't know I don't know maybe job title inflation or something.
59:54
It it happens sometimes people give funny joke jobs you you give some random intern the chief CIO officer CIO title and then what are you trying to say going around? I don't know.
1:00:07
I'm just saying that, you know, uh, many people might see your title and think that you're the chief information officer or the chief investment officer and and then you might come around and say, "Hey, why am I not in charge of investments?
1:00:17
Why am I not in charge of all the information here?"
1:00:21
Um, anyway, Cognition, they are the makers of Devon, the AI software engineer.
1:00:27
[music] Crush your backlog with your personal AI engineering team.
1:00:30
Elon Musk has essentially confirmed SpaceX is going public this year and will use the funds to build solar panel AI satellites scaling uh to 100s hundreds of terowatts in three years.
1:00:40
And Elon Musk replies to Nick. He says no.
1:00:43
The probable case 50th percentile gas is reaching an annualized rate of 100 gawatts of year a year of space AI satellites launched from Earth in three to four years.
1:00:54
100 terowatts a year requires manufacturing satellites on the moon at massive scale that are shot into deep space with a mass driver which is 10 years away.
1:01:02
Worth noting that average US electricity consumption is only half a terowatt.
1:01:08
So that would mean launching 200 times the current electricity [laughter] output of of Earth.
1:01:14
>> Nick's response here for sure.
1:01:17
[laughter] >> Uh I love that Nick is Elon's just like Nick you're too bullish on me. You're too bullish. Let's dial it back.
1:01:22
I I am going to deliver something incredible very quickly, but it's going to take longer to get to the truly unfathomable scale.
1:01:33
Um anyway, uh OpenAI CFO, we could take a cut of customer revenue from AI aided inventions. Is it a fantasy?
1:01:41
asks Amir from the information.
1:01:44
Uh maybe, but scientists have been going gaga for LLMs as idea synthesizers and research collaborators.
1:01:48
and OpenAI is actively trying to license proprietary biology and data for training c AI discoveries.
1:02:00
So you would think that this would happen in in sort of like a joint venture or some sort of investment.
1:02:05
Obviously OpenAI has the the OpenAI startup fund and so and they have made investments.
1:02:10
So there's a world where uh if they're particularly bullish on a biotech company, they could participate in an early round and then participate in the upside.
1:02:17
This is sort of framed as more of like they will uh they will just randomly be taking revenue if you sign an enterprise contract.
1:02:26
That feels like >> yeah really rough headline.
1:02:29
Uh but I'm sure they'll like work on clarifying this.
1:02:33
Uh obviously I saw some people uh getting really upset about it immediately.
1:02:39
Of course uh I don't I think it's too early for that.
1:02:41
You know >> they they definitely need to clarify, right?
1:02:45
It's like, you know, if you were working on a startup and you use Google search to do some research and then, you know, Google said, "Hey, >> hey, you know what?
1:02:54
>> We see your search history.
1:02:54
We know, we know that you looked up reream, John.
1:02:56
We know that you wanted to live stream." >> Yes.
1:03:00
>> And we played a pretty big part in that. >> That's true. That's true.
1:03:02
Um, I'll tell you about Reream.
1:03:05
One live stream, 30 plus destinations.
1:03:08
If you want to multiream, go to reream. com.
1:03:11
Um, they should implement tipping.
1:03:11
They added a billion dollars in in enterprise revenue.
1:03:16
You get your enterprise API bill.
1:03:18
Why not throw a little turn the iPad around 15 20 25%.
1:03:25
>> Throw a little tip in. Why not?
1:03:25
You know, hey, if you cure cancer, >> a little >> adding tipping to your consumer SAS product is a great enterprise SAS product >> and enterprise is a great way to test product market fit. >> I completely agree. I completely agree.
1:03:38
Staying in uh OpenAI world.
1:03:38
Uh Sharon has a a scoop here in Bloomberg.
1:03:40
Sam Alman met with investors in the United Arab Emirates recently to discuss new a new funding round targeting around 50 billion at a 750 to 830 billion valuation.
1:03:53
Uh I think the 750 was pre 830 was maybe post talks are early and >> let's give it up for early talks. >> Early talks.
1:04:04
>> [applause] >> Well, fortunately our next guest is beyond the early talks phase.
1:04:07
He's has some amazing news announced announcing here today.
1:04:12
Uh we have Keller from Zipline in the reream waiting room.
1:04:16
We'll bring him in as soon as I tell you about Sentry.
1:04:17
Sentry shows developers what's broken [music] and helps them fix it fast.
1:04:20
That's why 150,000 organizations use it to keep their apps working.
1:04:26
And without further ado, we will bring in Keller from [music] Zipline out of the Ram rating room and into the TBP and Ultradump.
1:04:31
Keller, how are you doing? >> There he is.
1:04:34
>> Hey guys, how are you?
1:04:36
>> Fantastic, but not as good as you. Give us the news. What happened?
1:04:41
>> So, yesterday, yeah, yesterday we had some big announcements.
1:04:42
I mean, first of all, you know, the company just raised more than $600 million to fund um US [music] and global expansion.
1:04:52
>> Got to go with the gong.
1:04:52
But even even cooler, I mean, you guys know like on X, Zipline is constantly, you know, kind of celebrating how fast the system has been growing.
1:05:01
It's been growing about 15% week over week over the last year.
1:05:02
Um, but we are finally announcing new metros.
1:05:07
So, we announced Houston and Phoenix as the metros that we're going to be launching over the next couple months.
1:05:11
And then every quarter that passes now, we'll be announcing new major metros that we're bringing autonomous delivery to.
1:05:17
>> Talk to me about what it takes to launch a metro.
1:05:19
Is that the the mayor's calling you, you're calling the mayor?
1:05:21
Is there a form that you're filling out?
1:05:23
Like, how what's the process?
1:05:25
Do you have sales reps going? Do you set up an office? Like, do you do tests?
1:05:28
office? Like, do you do tests? what's involved >> in the main thing you know this is different people think of hyperscalers and people adding metros you know with >> uh some of you know the the ride share companies for example where you were just hiring people who already live there I mean zipline is building infrastructure in these cities it looks
1:05:47
a little bit more maybe like how Tesla was building superchargers we are actually building superchargers but for airplanes rather than for cars >> and uh and so we're going in we're building maintenance depots we're creating a lot of highpaying jobs for both maintenance as well as um as well as all the people who are doing uh you know community engagement, government affairs, permitting. Uh there's a lot of
1:06:07
Uh there's a lot of complexity for each metro that we launch.
1:06:11
But uh you know the uh the reality is that we're we're trying to scale.
1:06:17
I mean 50% week overweek growth is really hard to keep up with and uh and so we're trying to add you know we'll add multiple metros every quarter as we go here um as we accelerate.
1:06:24
Uh what makes uh what what makes for for a metro area uh that that that's exciting to to zipline?
1:06:35
>> Both of those don't seem very snowy. Is that important? >> Well, yeah.
1:06:39
And and I know you're going to be announcing a lot more in the future, but for people listening that are excited to have zipline in their area, I feel like if you kind of describe the sort of ideal uh metro, maybe people can kind of start figuring it out. >> Yeah.
1:06:53
Yeah, I mean ultimately we're going to be in every metro in the US in the in the next couple of years.
1:06:56
Um, one thing that we just did that, you know, I was posting some cool stuff on X.
1:06:59
Uh, we just launched a brand new test site in the Cascades, which is an Oregon.
1:07:04
We have a team that is operating there in insane snow, insane ice, insane sleeping conditions, day in and day out.
1:07:11
All of Zip Lines test sites operate 24/7, by the way.
1:07:15
So, um, why are we doing that?
1:07:18
We're doing that so that we can be ready by the end of this year to start launching cities in a wide variety of you know uh uh climates across the US and then eventually across the world.
1:07:26
So it just takes time to basically validate um all the different technology, >> aircraft, ground infrastructure um across these different conditions and you really want to do it comprehensively and test before you then operate you know over tens of millions millions of people's heads. >> Yeah.
1:07:46
What's the hardware life cycle like?
1:07:48
Uh is there a like a v2 v3 that comes and gets rolled out to all the metros? Is there testing?
1:07:55
Like are there new innovations that are happening deeper in the supply chain that you're excited about uh implementing?
1:08:01
What uh what needs to happen or what are you excited about on the development of the actual platform?
1:08:09
>> Well, you know, funny you should ask.
1:08:10
So, basically right behind me, so I'm standing in a new part of the manufacturing facility.
1:08:14
um Zipline's manufacturing facility um tripled in size in the last two months.
1:08:18
This was all this was all nothing >> actually.
1:08:24
I don't know you know if you realize but like >> 15% people don't put it together.
1:08:26
We just had a board meeting last week where we started board meeting by being like oh yeah uh you know flight volumes and revenue tripled since the last board meeting 3 months ago.
1:08:35
So [laughter] the manufacturing growth is pretty much in line with the business growth.
1:08:39
But um >> you know this space was all empty a month ago and it is now the new line for next generation aircraft. It's called EV3.
1:08:48
Um the advantages of of this next generation I mean right now Zipline is rapidly cycling through hardware software plus all the operational improvements we need to make uh uh you know to to continue to advance the the technology.
1:09:00
But the uh you know EV3 has a huge number of performance improvements relative to the system that we've been operating over the last year and it's half the cost.
1:09:10
>> So you know there's giant uh you know steps being made improvements possible because the technology is so early. It's 12:01 a. m.
1:09:17
when it comes to automated logistics.
1:09:19
This facility where I'm standing will be capable of building 20,000 aircraft a year.
1:09:22
It's the largest autonomous aircraft factory in the United States.
1:09:27
>> How do you get something like a 50% cost reduction?
1:09:28
Is that automation or de or buying bigger purchase orders deeper in your supply chain or is there just like a cost curve that's coming down and the price of motors is just dropping and you're just a beneficiary of that?
1:09:43
Like what what's driving cost savings on the vehicle?
1:09:49
>> There are a lot of things.
1:09:49
I mean first of all uh the best part is the is no part the part that you delete.
1:09:54
And we were able to delete a lot of parts on this aircraft relative to the previous version.
1:09:59
We we, you know, we've been able to um >> yeah, deleting things is the best way to, you know, the the most reliable part, the part that never breaks is the one that isn't on the aircraft at all.
1:10:08
>> Um we've also been able to redesign a lot of parts and fundamental subasssemblies on the aircraft to make them easier to manufacture or just less expensive from a component perspective.
1:10:17
And then finally, Zipline now has enough scale with a lot of these suppliers that yeah, as you said, you know, you can get much better deals um on on a lot of these key components.
1:10:24
And so all of those things add up to um just a vehicle that's significantly less expensive.
1:10:30
>> Are they also getting quieter over time?
1:10:33
I've seen some incredible demos of drone rotors and and propellers that they're shaped in a certain way and they're way quieter.
1:10:41
Uh is there progress there?
1:10:41
or is that happening in like physics labs and then it gets implemented?
1:10:46
Are you doing the research?
1:10:47
What's going on acoustically?
1:10:51
>> So yeah, zipline I mean we've always had this attitude that like this technology can only scale if it is quieter, more serene >> for neighborhoods than the traditional delivery mechanisms of cars.
1:11:01
And so, you know, Zipline has a big team of aerodynamics engineers and aerodynam aerero acoustics engineers who have been focusing on this question of like how do you design something that's really really quiet for the last 5 years.
1:11:13
And by the way, you can't planes aren't like cars where you can just put a muffler on the back of it and make it quieter.
1:11:18
Like the the design of the aircraft >> has to be from the ground up made with aerero acoustics in mind.
1:11:26
Zipline is, despite the fact that we operate bigger, more complex vehicles, Zipline is six times quieter >> than the next closest competitor when we're making a delivery to someone's home.
1:11:38
And we'll actually make significant improvements to the aerodyam aerero acoustic profile of the vehicle this year.
1:11:44
We actually think we're going to get about another 8 dB of improvement this year, which for non-engineers, you know, think of 8 dB as being like about half as loud to the human ear.
1:11:52
So having again um >> that's awesome.
1:11:57
Um what about uh congestion as you scale?
1:12:00
How much of the routing is proprietary software uh maybe on your network sort of your own flight control interfacing with more national level flight control or even just like on the actual drone just cameras saying oh there's some random object over there that I need to steer away from.
1:12:26
I mean, all of these, you know, Zipline has a a huge autonomy team that is responsible for not just how these vehicles route themselves to go and make deliveries, how they navigate the physical world because we're flying at about 400 ft.
1:12:40
>> Um, but also how we a how we detect and avoid other air traffic.
1:12:42
And there are many different layers of zip lines air traffic control.
1:12:46
>> Um, >> well, detect and avoid system.
1:12:47
We work closely with air traffic control.
1:12:49
We build um you know we're essentially building in partnership with the FA a new version.
1:12:55
It's called unmanned traffic management >> or how you manage thousands soon to be tens of thousands of vehicles.
1:13:01
But in the long run you know we're already used to our cities being full of these like >> loud dangerous polluting vehicles creating tons of traffic driving around in our neighborhoods. >> Yeah.
1:13:13
>> Small 50 lb vehicles that are silent and electric are going to be way better for neighborhoods.
1:13:17
are way less um you know they're they're less like obtrusive.
1:13:23
People generally don't notice them.
1:13:23
I mean we do a lot of deliveries to people's homes where they didn't even realize the delivery happened. >> Mhm.
1:13:28
Do you have a timeline for me or you actually getting into an EV tall and the the the true flying car vision?
1:13:38
Maybe it's not like like let's say Whimo level adoption of a human in a in a vertical takeoff and landing.
1:13:46
Not a helicopter, not a single rotor, not a plane, but something like that.
1:13:50
Are we five years away from that longer?
1:13:53
Is there something fundamental?
1:13:55
Because this has been something that's been promised and I've been excited about my entire life and it feels like there's a lot of serious companies working on it, but we're not quite there yet.
1:14:02
How are you thinking about that market?
1:14:04
Uh, generally, >> I'm also really excited and it's a question that I'm very interested in.
1:14:13
Yeah, >> I think that I think a lot of the technology has made probably faster progress than people realize like these vehicles that achieve that are electric vertical takeoff and landing fixed wing hybrids that like achieve a lot of the core performance characteristics.
1:14:28
I think two challenges that I would point out.
1:14:30
One is on the autonomy side.
1:14:32
Like those companies are still putting human pilots in the cockpit.
1:14:36
And it's not going to be like Uber if you have to hire an FAA certified pilot to come >> do your Uber ride to get you to work in the morning like that's doesn't scale.
1:14:47
It's a little too expensive. Yeah.
1:14:48
>> Um >> so I think from an autonomy perspective, >> who is going to design that autonomy layer?
1:14:55
It's always seemed kind of obvious to me that the company that does that is going to do billions of autonomous deliveries delivering non-human things before you want to carry humans.
1:15:04
I think humans will be more comfortable with that.
1:15:07
>> The other thing I would kind of point out is a huge part of this actually has to do with like integration which is like you can totally do the flight.
1:15:13
There are vehicles again flying those kinds of mission profiles today.
1:15:15
But where are you landing?
1:15:17
I mean there are no helports in cities.
1:15:18
They are getting shut down rather than built.
1:15:21
And I think that it's all about the it's all about integration.
1:15:26
You know, if you want to get design a vehicle that is more than just like a uh an electric version of a helicopter that can do like 20% of missions that a normal helicopter can do.
1:15:36
I think if you're really talking about flying car, the key is to solve the integration problem.
1:15:40
Like >> can you actually get picked up directly from your home and delivered directly to your office for your daily commute?
1:15:47
That's the core question. >> Yeah.
1:15:48
What at what point do you think courier like having a courier feature will make sense? This is top of mind.
1:15:53
I I left my laptop at home Monday and I felt that it was super silly that I just like I was I ended up having to like use Uber Courier and you're using car for just one little laptop. Made no sense.
1:16:06
I was I was thinking about you guys.
1:16:09
It feels like an edge case.
1:16:10
It's like not really >> It's not a big market.
1:16:13
>> It's not a big market. >> Yeah.
1:16:14
What's the thinking around it?
1:16:17
>> Well, I think you might be surprised.
1:16:17
I mean I, you know, similar for what I just said, you know, >> with flying cars, integration is the thing that Zipline is most focused on.
1:16:26
You know, we're launching all these amazing new partners.
1:16:27
I mean, you know, a lot of the statistics that we're seeing in in the city is >> if you look at Dallas, I mean, there are municipalities in Dallas where more than 50% of homes are ordering from zipline.
1:16:38
We had an all-time new record on Sunday.
1:16:41
Uh we blew away the previous record by 25% which had been set a week previously. Yeah.
1:16:46
>> And we had 10% of all homes in a municipality place an order with zipline on Sunday. >> Wow.
1:16:53
>> Was that was that football?
1:16:53
Is that like does that spike with like football?
1:16:55
Is it >> a holiday weekend?
1:16:58
But you know these are like shocking statistics.
1:17:00
I mean, we have, you know, a lot of the restaurants that we serve, Zipline is a huge percentage, a a majority of deliveries happening from those restaurants today.
1:17:11
>> And so, I think that, uh, you know, the usage is way different than what we were originally expecting.
1:17:16
Um, >> and the key is integration.
1:17:19
You know, we want to be able to add so many different, and this is why we announced zipping points.
1:17:24
This is a really simple new kind of ground infrastructure that we can install for free next to any partner whether it's a hospital, health facility, retailer, restaurant, or even eventually someone's home.
1:17:35
You know, you can almost just think of it like a new kind of mailbox for autonomous logistics.
1:17:40
>> Do you think you'll be able to put a camera on them such that you can scan an ID so that you can deliver alcohol? >> Um, we will do that.
1:17:49
You don't need a camera on the vehicle.
1:17:51
What you actually need is you just you need a camera on the person's phone.
1:17:54
Okay, >> that's the way that a lot of this delivery works today.
1:17:56
They'll basically be able to place an order.
1:17:58
They'll be able to use their phone to upload a picture of their ID and we can deliver um and then you can basically require signature on the phone itself. Okay.
1:18:04
In the exact same way that it works for UPS or FedEx, we can deliver, you know, I mean, today from a lot of our partners, you know, we deliver over a 100,000 SKs.
1:18:14
I mean, people are ordering Legos and like weird little nozzles for a gardening hose and birthday cakes and rotisserie chickens and prescriptions.
1:18:22
>> That's a crazy It's everything.
1:18:24
>> I I I I don't trust a normal delivery a human delivery driver with a birthday cake.
1:18:28
That could go disastrously wrong.
1:18:30
So yeah, the flight automated systems are Yeah, exactly.
1:18:32
Or like look, automated systems aren't going to eat significant percentages of the food, you know, before it's delivered, too.
1:18:40
There's [laughter] also >> there's also way less safety risk.
1:18:41
You know, I think it's very similar to Whimo where, you know, a young woman who like suddenly looks up from her phone in a, you know, in a ride share and is like, "Where the heck did my driver just drive me to?"
1:18:52
Yeah, >> you know, people have similar similar experiences with delivery where it's like someone's looking over your shoulder like are you home alone tonight?
1:18:57
A lot of these like service a lot of these kinds of services it is much safer to have automated systems that are supervised by humans. >> Mhm.
1:19:06
>> Mhm. uh you know pro serving serving people and um you know by the way what what we are observing is it's like there really is no comparable like when we look at the frequency of customer ordering right now uh you know you there are lots of lots of people who are ordering from zipline every single day >> and so I think it's this is not something that you see with traditional instant logistics you see it once you
1:19:29
make it 10 times faster half the cost and zero emission >> well congratulations thank you so much for I And I every time you come on, I can't wait for more people to experience it because given given the the you know how focused you are in in, you know, places like Dallas, it's I think it's one of those things like Whimo where you have to experience it [clears throat] until you can really uh realize that the future's here. So, congrats. Uh So, congrats.
1:19:50
Uh >> but you guys, >> yeah, >> I have a surprise for you, >> please.
1:19:55
>> Someone's here auditing.
1:19:55
One of your guys' sponsors is here on [laughter] Empongor for TVPN.
1:20:04
I'm telling him about the oral farming benefits.
1:20:09
TVPN top tier sponsorship [laughter] lambda lambda lightning round.
1:20:18
[laughter] the Lambda Cloud in Lambda and he's uh and and uh and he's he's really we're just been grinding it out in the hardware founders complex coordination business and we just punched people in the face really hard.
1:20:34
[laughter] >> Are you are you delivering >> said he was so pleased with this interview that he's going to be quadrupling down on the partnership with [laughter] me >> of their advertisement. Good to see you guys.
1:20:47
>> Teleportation as a service. >> Yes. >> Yeah.
1:20:50
Are you getting uh hopefully you're getting if those GPUs need to get to the data centers faster, hopefully they're they're flying in zip lines. >> That's right.
1:20:58
And you know, we'll eventually turn them into distributed uh >> computes doing maybe a zipline will do this with Lambda.
1:21:05
We have GPUs in all the aircraft. >> That's amazing. >> Amazing.
1:21:09
>> Well, thank you so much for taking the time. Congratulations again. Wish we were there.
1:21:12
the awesome performance, overnight success.
1:21:14
You got to hit him with the overnight success every time he comes on.
1:21:18
[laughter] This man spent a decade in the 10 years in the making and now he's growing every day and doubling the business with incredible speed.
1:21:26
Uh, >> great stuff, guys.
1:21:28
>> We'll talk to you soon. Goodbye. >> Cheers. >> Lambda.
1:21:31
Lambda is the super intelligence cloud building AI supercomputers for training and inference that scale from one GPU to hundreds of thousands.
1:21:37
And without further ado, we will continue our Lambda Lightning round and bring in Jake Cooper from Railway.
1:21:45
He's the co-founder and CEO, also a TV sponsor. >> There he is.
1:21:51
>> Jake, good to see you. How you doing? >> Get that going.
1:21:54
>> How are you all doing?
1:21:55
>> We're doing fantastically.
1:21:57
>> So stoked finally have you on the show.
1:21:59
>> Yeah, great to have you here. >> Give us the update. What happened? >> Cool.
1:22:03
Uh yeah, I mean we raised uh a bunch of money.
1:22:05
So uh raised $100 million round to build data centers.
1:22:10
um and make software just way easier to use because the definition of a developer is melting before our very eyes.
1:22:17
>> It's melting, you know.
1:22:17
Um so anybody can ship code which is crazy.
1:22:20
Um [laughter] we're making it trivially easy for anybody to go and do that.
1:22:24
So it's it's a really exciting time to be uh you know in the business and also just you know on the planet. >> Yeah.
1:22:30
What uh how is that actually playing out?
1:22:32
We've talked to some folks about how there are designers that there's one idea that AI will create will take a 1x engineer and turn them into a 10x engineer and that's probably true.
1:22:42
Uh but there's also this idea >> it's going to be like a 10,000x 1000 like we have people internally moving so so quickly.
1:22:48
I've like rebuilt a bunch of the internal organization so we can move at what I'm calling it's super cringe but I'm calling it agent speed [laughter] because people are just moving way way faster now.
1:22:58
Um, so like you get a 10,000x engineer. Yeah. Sorry.
1:23:02
>> But then but then there's also the zero to onex engineer where you take a designer and then they're able to actually ship production code or a manager or a sales development representative. Anyone can build a tool.
1:23:12
Uh which one is more of more central to the current railway pitch when you're talking to customers?
1:23:20
>> I I think there's like resonance across the entire space.
1:23:22
So we have like larger companies who are you know they're spending six figures.
1:23:24
they're they're building something like of deep consequence like critical critical critical for their business, right?
1:23:29
And then you have like teams of, you know, a thousand essentially all kind of like vibe coding and they're building like really really kind of smaller things.
1:23:36
Um but they're really really important either for client infrastructure or internal tools or anything else like that.
1:23:43
Um and you know we've got everybody internally now on like a cloud cloud code subscription.
1:23:47
Um you know in including our recruiting, our operations etc.
1:23:52
Um there's just the boundary of your ambitions needs to be deeply deeply kind of re-evaluated just with how good these tools are getting. Um and we're excited.
1:24:01
excited. What's your what's your personal framework internally and kind of like guidance or how how are you and the team thinking about like when it makes like uh cuz right now I feel like there's this obviously so much excitement you can build you know an internal tool in an hour or something like that but every time you build a
1:24:19
tool you're creating like some type of like ongoing uh maintenance burden something like that >> tech tech so but yeah so what what's your framework of like hey this should be something that uh that we just should build versus you know finding a point solution or or even using something as like a Google sheet or uh at the at the uh kind of low end. >> Yeah. So, so, um, we use notion a lot >> Yeah.
1:24:41
So, so, um, we use notion a lot internally and I think lots of like deeply flexible tools are going to be really really key because now that the agent can kind of go and almost like orchestrate these things in general, um, you can kind of compartmentalize very very flexible tools together, right?
1:24:55
And so I think that when you're thinking about kind of the build versus buy boundary, right?
1:24:59
Um, it's a lot on kind of pushing the context into the tool so that you can access a lot of the context and take advantage of it, right?
1:25:06
Um so I think the the burden for uh almost buy goes up a lot um because the ambitions and the capability of you being able to build something that's purpose-built internally is actually so trivial now right um like historically I've I've built a lot of internal tooling to allow us to do project management releases etc.
1:25:25
Um and now I can actually just kind of push the boundary on a lot of those things.
1:25:28
One of my hot takes is that like um you know ERP software right?
1:25:31
of course with it, right? >> We love ERP software. So ERP software, right?
1:25:38
Only useful at scale uh to build an organization to manage resources or whatever, right?
1:25:42
Um now you can kind of build those like organizational structures way way earlier, right?
1:25:46
So the way that railway runs um has historically been different than organizations.
1:25:50
And so I think what you're going to see is almost this cam cam explosion of various different ways that you can run your organization, which I think is super super cool.
1:25:58
So um unfortunately like I'm an engineer so I have engineering brain damage.
1:26:02
I think everybody should be building kind of their own stuff. Uh you know um so yeah.
1:26:07
>> How has your thinking on product management evolved over the last year? >> Oh man.
1:26:12
Um yeah I I had this this tweet that I I was like oh yeah engineers are going to turn into PMs like faster than you know PMs can turn in into engineers.
1:26:20
And I think like a week ago I was like that's completely wrong.
1:26:21
Um [laughter] you know like >> I like I like that you were willing to to just be like yep bad take. >> Oh yeah.
1:26:27
I mean, you got to you got to take your lumps, too, right?
1:26:28
Like, um, I I don't mind like your take can be awful, but if you're going to stand behind it, just like almost like go down with the ship and be like, "All right, the [laughter] take was awful."
1:26:36
Um, you know, we're going down.
1:26:37
Um, you know, don't delete the tweet. Um, so yeah.
1:26:40
Um, but yeah, I think I think the there's only three things essentially left if you assume that the agents are going to kind of be able to do pretty much anything, right?
1:26:48
Um, it's taste, agency, and structure, right?
1:26:51
Um, so when you think about almost anything that you can go and build, those PMs have a lot of that context, right?
1:26:56
And so you don't need to be a Rust engineer to write Rust anymore.
1:27:01
You don't need to be a JavaScript engineer.
1:27:02
You don't even have to be an engineer, right?
1:27:04
Like we're almost doing this like like double shift, right?
1:27:08
Uh where you have like knowledge workers, programmers, engineers, architects, and scientists, right?
1:27:14
Um based on how nebulous your work is, right?
1:27:17
And I think that if you're a knowledge worker, you should probably actually just be like, yeah, I can just engineer things now, right?
1:27:22
What it takes is kind of a bit of critical thinking, a bit of kind of like, okay, how will this system kind of roughly fail?
1:27:28
Um, and now you can do it in kind of a lower stakes environment.
1:27:31
we hope to provide um with railway is actually those kind of uh like bleeding edge industry best practices like really annoying stuff like VPC peering uh like you know versioned uh infrastructure uh so that you can move quickly but also safely and build these kind of bigger and bigger structures over time.
1:27:48
So I think I think the role of the PM evolves a lot and and you're going to see a lot of these kind of almost like merging or melting of these kind of roles together, right?
1:27:57
Like software engineers will have to become PMs because now it is completely trivial to just go and and write code, right?
1:28:03
Like I wrote like 5,000 lines of of code yesterday, right?
1:28:06
Um and I spent most of [laughter] my Yeah.
1:28:08
I mean, and this is like between meetings, right?
1:28:10
meetings, right? Um and and I spent most of the time not actually um like auditing the code itself but auditing a lot of the logic going in working talking about the architecture all of those other things right um so I think again the the burdens or the the boundary of your ambitions needs to be
1:28:26
deeply deeply um pushed and so if we at railway can kind of almost unbburden the developer so that they can think about those bigger and bigger things our hope is that you can build those kind of almost like massive massive structures right like if you look at the Golden Gate Bridge in this current day and age. My first uh kind of response is like how
1:28:41
My first uh kind of response is like how the do we build that thing?
1:28:43
It's so big and so impressive, right?
1:28:46
And so now you actually have these wonderful tools that push the boundary of that.
1:28:50
So you can build these massive things, right?
1:28:52
And it's super exciting to just, you know, you know, I was telling this to an investor, which is probably the wrong thing to tell to an investor, but I was like, even if we get schmucked here, like what a time to be alive.
1:29:00
And they were like, [laughter] cool, dude. All right.
1:29:03
So, um, we're gonna pass.
1:29:03
Um, but yeah, >> that's wild.
1:29:06
[laughter] Uh uh how are you thinking about >> No, I do I do think that like uh I mean obviously you know play to win and and uh you know but it's very it's very refreshing versus the I know exactly how the next 5 to 10 years will unfold day by day.
1:29:23
It's like no, no one knows like the space is moving so quickly.
1:29:24
You need to really deeply understand like who's signing up for your product, who loves your product, why do they love your product, how do you, >> you know, expand your product and continue to be, you know, critical infrastructure uh for those customers.
1:29:38
So, >> we have some questions from the chat. Uh >> yeah, yeah, sorry.
1:29:41
Uh what were you about to say?
1:29:42
>> I was just going to say, yeah, like I I think that like during this period, you should kind of take those risks, right?
1:29:47
Like it's it's almost a deeply uh almost like risk by default period, right?
1:29:49
like risk by default period, right? And and I think that you know um there's like what does Elon know that that probably other people don't know right and I think you've heard like Peter Teal talk about this too and it's almost the calculus of risk is not it's not just purely there right uh risk is less risky than you you actually think right so I think people should kind of push those boundaries and if we can kind of create
1:30:09
those safety nets for people in general um I think we can we can build wonderful wonderful things and as a side note I think we've made uh risk and failure a bit too expensive in our current society and if we can re like rewind that essentially we can open people up to
1:30:22
like sweet success and a bit of bitter failure because when you take risks some sometimes things don't work out but that forms a baseline experience that allows you to kind of drive these unique kind of tastes forward. So to the chat to the
1:30:30
So to the chat to the chat uh we have to ask you about your bike >> your and says uh your motorcycle liability clause on your term.
1:30:42
>> Yeah we have key man insurance.
1:30:42
Um yeah I'm I'm kind of like you know I'm counting the days until somebody really asked me to like go up and give up the bike.
1:30:49
And and it's funny because people people ask me like oh my god you ride a motorcycle.
1:30:52
Like I I feel like I should get into that.
1:30:53
I was like my answer is like absolutely not. I do not do that.
1:30:56
Like I I've been riding dirt bikes since I was like 13 basically.
1:30:57
And so and so like I've had I've had a bike for a while and I've kind of worked my way up, right?
1:31:03
Um you know uh yeah don't just don't be stupid.
1:31:07
>> No say the riskiest thing you can do is not take any risk.
1:31:10
Get on the >> motorcycle ride.
1:31:13
>> My Sunday ride is uh basically I I live near the enrichment so I basically just like go up and drive through the Prescidio maybe in the marina.
1:31:18
There's that like nice uh coffee uh like truck basically.
1:31:23
Um I I go to the gym in the marina. Um they've got a sauna. It's wonderful.
1:31:27
So I just kind of >> Do you ever try to find like a super steep, you know, classic SF hill and go a little too fast [laughter] on the way up?
1:31:34
>> No, those those days are like behind me.
1:31:36
Uh because uh yeah, I I I promised the investors that like I wouldn't do anything stupid.
1:31:40
So the unfortunate thing about the bike is like it's a it's a nice bike in it's like the bike I wanted growing up, >> but I don't ride it like like it should be. >> What bike? What bike?
1:31:48
>> It's a it's a Ducatti like the kind. >> There we go. >> There we go.
1:31:53
>> Uh we have another question from the chat.
1:31:54
Everyone's loving the bookshelf behind you.
1:31:56
Uh, give us some book recommendations. What's on the shelf?
1:31:59
>> What's the most underrated book?
1:32:00
>> What's the most underrated?
1:32:00
What's the favorite book?
1:32:02
What's the one with the most uh highlights and notes?
1:32:05
>> Well, this is actually my wife's side of the the bookshelf.
1:32:07
Um, so I'll go off things that are maybe not on there. I know.
1:32:11
I do see I think the Steve Jobs book is somewhere up there, which it's pretty good.
1:32:14
Um, one of my favorite books actually is uh getting to Yes.
1:32:15
I don't know if you yall have read it.
1:32:17
Um, >> so [clears throat] is negotiation.
1:32:19
Uh it's a book essentially on compromise, right?
1:32:24
Um and so essentially it allows you to uh break down problems in a way that uh is not kind of me versus you, but it's me versus the problem, right?
1:32:30
And so one of my favorite analogies in there is like you know we're splitting an orange, right?
1:32:33
Um we could split it down the middle essentially and uh you know I could like you could have half and I could have half in general or we could figure out what we care about in general, right?
1:32:42
And maybe I'm making mixed drinks and maybe you're taking your kid to the soccer game, right?
1:32:45
Or anything else like that.
1:32:47
And so in in essence I want the peel and you want the whole orange, right?
1:32:50
whole orange, right? we can both come out on top roughly right and I think that figuring out ways that you can almost like have a solid compromise with people is is deeply deeply important um you know on that one so I like that book >> love it >> uh back to back to AI and how it's changing software development uh database selection uh database migration
1:33:09
switching something as uh ingrained in an organization as a database has historically been very difficult are AI agents making it easier are you actually seeing companies move move around from one database to another, maybe based on cost, maybe based on features, is is the is the fact that a particular LLM is in love with a Reddus or a MongoDB, like is that going to be relevant in the future? >> So, um I'm unfortunately a little bit
1:33:35
>> So, um I'm unfortunately a little bit like too Daario pill in terms of uh like the the fundamental laws of physics, right?
1:33:42
And so I think it's it's actually probably the hardest thing to change about your your system is uh the database roughly, right?
1:33:46
Because you have that storage, you have all of those other things, right?
1:33:49
Like this is fundamentally also why we build data centers, right?
1:33:51
Um one, you need more production roughly in the world and we can start with data centers and that's that's wonderful.
1:33:56
Um but two, it's actually a really solid mode in terms of um you know, you can't just will into existence a data center, right?
1:34:02
Like and at some point um potentially down the line like those things will get more and more expensive just because of the cost of labor, but like the cost of capital is decreasing, right?
1:34:10
Um and so I think the similar thing kind of applies roughly with data centers if you kind of move roughly up the stack.
1:34:15
And so we actually started building uh or sorry databases.
1:34:19
Uh we actually started building databases like we were originally just a you know click a button get a Postgress instance or Reddus instance or anything else like that and we've slowly worked our way back up right up to building you know web apps.
1:34:29
Um you know we'll launch a CDN at some point in the future. Um stuff like that.
1:34:33
U so I I think that when you look at that lens of like fundamental law physics I think the database is like a very very important part of your your kind of rough calculus.
1:34:40
Um, and I think the agents are making it easier to go and uh, almost manage those migrations.
1:34:46
But, you know, when I was talking about those 5,000 lines of code, um, you have to think about kind of what you are roughly building, right?
1:34:52
And so, you're still going to need to audit it.
1:34:54
And that's sort of why I say, you know, moving from engineers to like architects, right?
1:34:58
Um, where you're thinking about that kind of bigger bigger vision.
1:35:01
And so, you know, um, as as Jordy said earlier, like I don't think anybody can roughly pick uh predict the the future for a lot of these things, but I do still think that fundamentally there are going to be um requirements for how do you integrate the things that exist in the physical realm.
1:35:17
So, roughly around those data databases to storage to data centers um and with with kind of your expected reality basically, right?
1:35:24
Um, and the hope over time is is um that railway can actually help you do that, right?
1:35:28
So we do this on a software level.
1:35:30
Um, and we've built tooling internally to help build data centers.
1:35:33
And so we've actually virtualized a bunch of those racks.
1:35:36
So now you can almost drag and drop those servers into them.
1:35:38
And at some point we can get to a point where we're working directly with the super micro API.
1:35:43
You can drag and say, "Hey, I want this data center of this size in general."
1:35:46
You'll create POS for that that and say, "Okay, cool. Hit a button.
1:35:50
It'll cost you 25 mil or something like that."
1:35:52
[laughter] And and that's one click check out for data centers.
1:35:56
>> One click checkout for data centers and stuff like that.
1:35:58
um and and moving towards a world where you can almost cuz it's easier to build things on the internet, right?
1:36:02
Like it's just it's a fundamental like fact, right?
1:36:03
Um if you can simulate it and simulate that small section of it and you can create almost APIs to reconcile like this is what Terraform did really really well like expected state versus desired state.
1:36:12
Um and if we can do that with your intention as you kind of move through time and give you those safe kind of primitives to say okay cool like I want to make this change.
1:36:21
Let me fork my entire environment.
1:36:22
entire environment. uh you know get copy on right storage for for everything make some small change I make it in production it merges and you deploy it instantly then you're kind of moving at agent speed right um and that's that's what we think a lot about in terms of building the next fundamental layer of
1:36:36
of software development and then physical production beyond that >> you were at Bloomberg did you get to work directly on the terminal >> uh yeah a little bit um I bounced around a bit at Bloomberg I was only there for about six months um but it was it was a really really cool cool time to kind of work on stuff like that. Um I was
1:36:54
Um I was working on a bit of the internal tooling.
1:36:56
Um so I got a couple commits that I think are probably still inside of the powering the bots podcast making Joe Weisenthal's job easier. We love to see it.
1:37:06
>> Putting Joe Weisenthal in agent mode. >> Yes. [laughter] Hopefully.
1:37:08
Well, thank you so much for taking the time.
1:37:11
>> Congratulations to the whole team. The chat loves you. Come back on again soon.
1:37:18
And thanks for thanks for having us as sponsors.
1:37:20
like we're just we're big proponents of like rich taste and like we believe that TBNN has a rich taste that y'all are sharing with the world and we're just happy to be here. So have me on anytime.
1:37:28
Love to to join and hang out.
1:37:31
>> Thank you for making this possible. >> Awesome.
1:37:33
>> We'll see you on for the C very soon I'm sure. >> Bye. >> Cheers.
1:37:36
And in case you've been living under a data center, Railway Railway simplifies software deployment.
1:37:40
Web apps, servers, and databases run in one place with scaling, monitoring, and security built in.
1:37:46
We're very happy to be partnered with railway.
1:37:48
Um we have Joe Weisenthal coming in into the >> He said he was running five minutes behind so we can get back to the timeline.
1:37:58
>> Quickly let me tell you about 11 Labs.
1:38:01
Build intelligent real-time conversational agents reimagine human technology interaction with 11 Labs.
1:38:04
And we do have Joe Weisenthal in the reream loading room.
1:38:09
We'll bring him into the TVP ultra. Joe, how are you doing?
1:38:10
It has been it has been eons. It's been far too long. I'm so glad you're here.
1:38:17
Thank you so much for taking the time.
1:38:20
>> I missed you guys, too.
1:38:20
And it has been far too long.
1:38:22
It probably hasn't even been that much time, but probably like there's just been so much that's happened since the last time we connected. It feels year. It feels like years. >> There it has been.
1:38:31
So So, uh, do you have Davos FOMO right now?
1:38:34
I I feel like it's been a good year for Davos.
1:38:36
You're normally our foreign correspondent.
1:38:40
You're on the ground at all these big hoytoy events.
1:38:41
I go to you, but you're appears you're in New York.
1:38:43
I'm in the New York studio.
1:38:45
You know, I was in Davos in January. >> Whoa. We get it, dude. We get it. We get [laughter] it. We get it.
1:38:51
Joe, you've been to Davo. >> 15.
1:38:55
They said 10 years and he wouldn't lose touch apparently.
1:38:57
He just completely [laughter] lost touch.
1:39:00
>> No, this is a real story.
1:39:00
This is a real story, though.
1:39:02
I got like I got like First of all, it's like very cold there. It's not that nice.
1:39:05
I got a flu or I got sick there. I was so miserable. Yeah.
1:39:09
that when I got back, I told the people inside Bloomberg, I said, "Never invite me to Davos again, lest I feel tempted to say yes."
1:39:18
Cuz I don't cuz it's like, "Oh, do you want to be part of our Davos team?" Of course. >> Oh, yeah. Okay, maybe.
1:39:22
So, I didn't even want the temptation to say yes.
1:39:26
>> I thought you were going to I thought you were going to say you got back and you immediately switched up on your day one.
1:39:30
[laughter] >> You never You never looked back.
1:39:33
>> Not where you came from. No, >> no.
1:39:35
And it's like I I I do not want the temptation to go back.
1:39:37
But I've always been the same as everyone else.
1:39:39
Like a Davos, boring, blah blah blah.
1:39:41
And then finally there's a good Davos.
1:39:43
10 years or however many years it's been since I went.
1:39:48
There's finally a good Davos where there's like a bunch of news and action.
1:39:52
And I guess did I have a little FOMO? Maybe I did. I don't know.
1:39:53
It seemed like a fun one this year.
1:39:55
>> Yeah, it's been 55 years, something like that. Uh going strong.
1:39:57
What headlines have stuck out to you uh that have come out?
1:40:02
We've been tracking most of the AI and tech stuff, but has anything popped up on your radar that's sort of updated you?
1:40:09
>> Did anything spike your cortisol?
1:40:11
>> With without question, the Mark Carney speech, the Canadian prime minister, it was like pretty out there in terms of like the old world is dead.
1:40:18
There's no point in nostalgia.
1:40:21
Everybody for themselves, sovereignty, power, politics is back.
1:40:24
And this is like, you know, it's one of these things where like you the three of us could have had this conversation a couple years ago, but to hear it from someone like a Mark Carney who's like he's such an institutional man, right?
1:40:36
So he used to be the head of the Bank of England and the Bank of Canada for the matter uh for that matter like a true internationalist Davos man.
1:40:44
I mean I think if you thought of who is Davos man, you would think someone like Mark Carney.
1:40:49
So to hear him basically say say like we shouldn't be that world is dead and there's no point in spending time being nostalgic for it.
1:40:56
I would say it's sort of a it was a mark tomarket moment I would say.
1:41:00
And so without question I think like that was from a sort of geopolitical standpoint the highlight of the whole event.
1:41:07
The other one the other speech that I thought was really remarkable or very important was the Chinese vice premiere there talking about how China doesn't want to just be the factory to the world.
1:41:17
also wants to buy your stuff because for all the anxiety that we have here in the US, every other country is feeling that stress as well.
1:41:24
Their manufacturing sector is getting hollowed out by Chinese competition.
1:41:28
So, it's clearly a source of I would say a different anxiety for China that every country around the world looks at them and thinks, wait, are you going to kill my domestic champions as well as you've done to, you know, European chemical automakers and so forth? >> It's great.
1:41:45
Great that they're saying that, but does anybody actually believe it?
1:41:50
>> I mean, ask ask like Elon, do you think do you think do do the Chinese really want to buy Teslas? >> No.
1:41:55
I mean, so I I wrote about this and my take is that like they have been saying this for years.
1:42:02
This is not the first time.
1:42:04
And they're like, "Oh, we're going to lift domestic consumption and that's going to create imports.
1:42:07
Then that'll benefit the rest of the world and so forth."
1:42:10
and so forth." um they've been saying this for years and I think there is this view that's like well this is just lip service it's just they just say it every year and they then they say it again the next year I think however in their defense what I would say is the structure of the sort of domestic Chinese political economy makes it very hard and if I can just get technical for
1:42:30
a second they have this very decentralized approach to fiscal policy which is you know all of the different provinces basically run their own economies and the provincial leader They try to achieve goals that are set by Beijing and basically this is how you get this crazy race to the bottom which is every you know every province wants to have their BYD their you know battery maker etc. And so the issue isn't so
1:42:53
And so the issue isn't so much whether Chinese leaders in Beijing are serious about wanting to like boost imports.
1:43:01
The question is whether their system will ever allow them to get out of the sort of game theory equilibrium where all of the provincial leaders feel incentivized to just export as much as possible.
1:43:12
And it is probably a tricky thing to turn around that political system in the same way that we have difficulties that are very difficult to turn around even if someone in Washington DC says otherwise.
1:43:25
>> What's the sweet spot for Chinese imports?
1:43:28
because it feels like they're they are exporting a ton cars and phones and all sorts of stuff rare earth elements.
1:43:35
>> The sweet luxury goods is the one thing it's like you can't but they want to import chips but we've you know we're really putting the kibash going back and forth whatever >> the companies do.
1:43:44
>> The companies do but uh you know the the China seems to want to be a buyer of semiconductors and silicon but is there a sweet spot product that you think that they'd actually be well suited to scale their imports of?
1:43:55
I think this is the this is the real serious question.
1:43:57
this is the real serious question. So I mean even on the chips thing they want to be an importer of chips now but they don't want to be an importer of chips in 5 years right they want to be an importer of chips only so long only for so long as it takes for them to have domestic capacity to produce the world's
1:44:14
most advanced chips they certainly I mean they clearly do not want to like have this permanently be importing Nvidia chips or whatever they would like Huawei to uh uh supersede them but then on the other things you know the intuitive answer is like you're like going to um import luxury goods and fine wines and all that stuff. But even there
1:44:32
But even there like there was a great uh FT story in December talking about how China is becoming a booming producer of caviar and sparkling wine.
1:44:41
These things that we don't associate with China at all or really nice like organic cherries and stuff like that.
1:44:48
And so even their there's the sort of effectiveness of their domestic productivity, their ability to sort of identify a sector and get really good at producing it really fast, which you can't knock them for it. That's progress.
1:45:01
But it does create these very intense strains.
1:45:03
And so you ask, okay, you want to import more from the rest of the world.
1:45:06
Well, what do you imagine that's going to be in 2035?
1:45:08
What is the rest of the world making that you can't make domestically?
1:45:13
You can't really knock the country for it, right?
1:45:17
Being good at building things is awesome and everyone would like to do it, but you can't. What is that thing?
1:45:21
And I don't think anyone really has that sweet spot answer.
1:45:25
I think it's really >> Yeah.
1:45:27
On the luxury good side, they're so good at making stuff.
1:45:28
They can make you a watch that looks exactly like a Rashard.
1:45:33
Like it looks it looks like a one to one.
1:45:35
one to one. The only difference and that that well the kind of saving grace for our RM is like >> you can't just like snap your fingers and have you know that quality of the story >> but like the but if you can't you definitely can't sort of establish the backstory and the brand the legend
1:45:53
that's going to take a long time but I think like even in I bought a Chinese a very cheap Chinese watch last year but I sort of looked into the Chinese watch industry and the sort of like the watch nerds online, you know, people who talk about luxury watches on Reddit, etc. They're full of praise at the quality of
1:46:09
They're full of praise at the quality of the mechanical gearing or whatever >> the >> in a lot of the sort of so they are catching up, you know, they are catching up fast to what they can do in Switzerland and elsewhere even in that category. >> Interesting.
1:46:23
>> What's going on with Japan?
1:46:23
What's going on over there?
1:46:28
>> So, you know, we did a we actually we have a we have a great episode that came out today.
1:46:31
So, we talked to the CEO of PIMCO which you know owns the world's largest bond fund.
1:46:37
>> That's on the OddLots podcast which is available in your podcast.
1:46:41
Wherever you get your podcast making it handmade for over 10 years. >> Over a decade. >> That's right. Yeah.
1:46:46
Handmade in New York City for over a decade.
1:46:50
>> The P tech Khalifa podcast. >> That's right. That's right. Yeah. Many people say that. Yeah.
1:46:54
You I haven't said that but has a lot of history. It does.
1:46:58
>> This is what everyone always says. Oh, art.
1:47:00
Yes, that's the PC Philippe of podcast. That's right.
1:47:02
But um there, you know what?
1:47:04
So, everyone's looking at these bond yields in Japan and they're surging and people are saying, you know, Japan has a lot of government debt. That's very true.
1:47:12
And they're they're saying, is this the big one, right?
1:47:13
Is this the moment where the bill comes due and they're going to have to print a ton of yen and the yen, you know, is worth as much as confetti or whatever?
1:47:21
His argument is like, no, that's he just he had just gotten back from Japan.
1:47:25
He said, no, that's not what's going on at all.
1:47:29
all. What's happening is that Japanese economic growth etc has been stagnant for 30 years about and there is actually a reinvigorate um reinvigorated uh uh domestic investment and that has an inflationary impulse and that does push up rates you know just in the way that
1:47:48
rates have come up in the US since the zer era of the 2010s and his argument which I find compelling is that >> if you look at the um the nikkeay the their main stock index and you look at it in US dollar terms that is surging to new all-time highs. So, we're not seeing
1:48:01
So, we're not seeing a collapse of the yen at all. Okay?
1:48:03
And you would not expect, you know, if this country was like, "Oh, this is the prelude to hyperinflation."
1:48:10
You would not expect to see such robustness in the stock market.
1:48:14
And I find that uh I find that compelling.
1:48:16
So, for now, I'm going to take it as a sign of a country.
1:48:20
expand that a little bit more because uh >> hyperinflation you could have asset prices going up even if even if there's not necessarily >> the fundamentals changing >> yes but you would not expect to see that happening in other currency terms so it's like yes if you look at the
1:48:37
Venezuelan stock market in in the 2010s I mean you just look at a line and it looks like it's going through the moon because it ex to the moon existed and then you just like on the Bloomberg you just toggle that and now I want to look at the name stock market in US dollar
1:48:52
terms uh not in boloulevards and then you see the stock market's basically gone to zero and so it's like a simple test >> yeah like in a period of like broadscale devaluation of the currency you get the phenomena that you describe where everything goes up but when you see it
1:49:06
going up in dollar terms there has been some dollar weakness but when you see it going up so much in terms of a foreign uh currency then it's no longer a story about debasement >> what did you think about uh some of Ken Griffin's comments ments. I I thought it
1:49:19
Griffin's comments ments. I I thought it I I I appreciated his perspective on the AI boom and job loss specifically because this is somebody who's like been heavily focused on automating trading specifically for a very long time working with some of the best
1:49:35
>> uh what did he say now I feel bad what was the I missed >> he he was just basically saying that like this sort of job loss concept is is overblown in in the short >> his example he had he said it was he said it was hype >> yeah he had a commodities trader come to
1:49:50
him with a report that was AI generated and he said he was he was you know amazed with the title amazed with the intro paragraph and then as he dug in he he basically called it slop and it's a classic debate on well are we about to turn the corner and Ken Griffin's the next person to be impressed because
1:50:08
Andre Carpathy was not impressed with the code that these models were writing a year ago now he's like I'm falling behind it's amazing and so is Ken Griffin the ne the next domino to fall or is he a canary in the coal mine for some true plateau. >> It would be really interesting. I would
1:50:22
>> It would be really interesting.
1:50:22
I would love to if I could the dream if I I what I would really love is not to hear Ken Griffin's take on AI, but what I'd like to hear is a pod manager within Citadel because so many of those jobs of like running the pods or the um you know, I've talked to a bunch of them now and they're coding jobs.
1:50:41
So there someone gets hired as a junior analyst within a pod, right?
1:50:45
and they're going to study, you know, they're going to track industrial stocks or they're going to track they're going to trade chemical stocks, but those jobs are like basically coding jobs or a large part and they're they're running back tests and so forth and they're trying to see, okay, what information corresponds to useful signal, what sort of economic data and so forth.
1:51:04
And these are all just, you know, they're computer jobs, they're engineering jobs, they're in many cases competing at some of these firms for some of the same talent as many cases as big tech. Yeah.
1:51:13
So I agree like like you I I think it's many people would agree with Ken Griffin that you are not going to get some gem of insight about what stock to trade or anything like that or any commodity from a sort of AI generated report.
1:51:29
I but you know like it's also we know at every every engineer every software engineer we talk to talks about how much how impressed they are right now with like Opus 4.
1:51:41
5 and so forth and so I you know I would be curious because we've talked to we have an episode of the podcast coming out next week with the head of a major bank they are seeing you know the I'll say the tenor of the conversation has changed from last year to this year last year when you ask executives, well, what are you actually getting value out of from AI right now?
1:52:05
They would say, well, we have tests everywhere, right?
1:52:07
We all of we're all we're testing a bunch of stuff.
1:52:11
We're really excited about it.
1:52:12
Now, they come back with clear examples of this is a workflow process that was more costly or time inensive last year than it is right now.
1:52:22
>> And so, I I think from my perspective, clearly just talking to people, people are finding productivity gains that are real from it.
1:52:29
That's so funny because yeah, I remember more of the Ken Griffin quote and one of the lines he said was that he specifically asked a bunch of business leaders to give examples of how AI is improving their business and he was taken aback by the fact that none of them were citing generative AI as the core driver. >> That's interesting.
1:52:47
>> But I but I I I agree with you generally.
1:52:49
Uh there was an interesting report in the Wall Street Journal about how uh the seauite is reporting much more timesaving from AI tools than workers in the nonsweet seuite uh category.
1:53:01
Uh and it wasn't sure what to make of that.
1:53:03
Um whether it's just like stuff fills the gaps more, there's some sort of incentive. I don't know.
1:53:08
sort of incentive. I don't know. I do look I I I still think by and large at this point probably it's modest what people in terms of oh this is like really moving the dial or this is a dramatic change in how productive our employees can be at any level and I'm sort of you know even in the seauite I'm
1:53:30
like I I'd be curious to know what exactly they're doing that okay this is saving them time I mean maybe in some cases it might just be they're having an AI draft an email for them that's a lot quicker and there's probably some >> yeah I when I think about the seauite
1:53:45
job I think about a lot of deep research reports for every every business decision that they're making and they're probably they're not working less they're just saying that you know well to make this one decision I need to I needed to get a survey together of all the companies in this category that I
1:54:00
could potentially do business with before I walk into this meeting with this one company that I might do business with and yes that would take an hour on Google and a spreadsheet to pull together deep research does it in 10 minutes in the background on your phone. And so I I feel like there there are
1:54:11
And so I I feel like there there are real speed ups there and maybe workers just haven't been diffused in that way or it's less relevant in like a non-nowledge work nonexecutive functioning task.
1:54:21
It's it's just a different diffusion level.
1:54:23
Um anyway, I I want to talk to you about the future of the New York Times homepage because you were I love this topic. I love this topic. >> Yeah. Yeah.
1:54:31
You were blackpilling a little bit saying that it's not going to be maintained in a future where you know the news is is collected.
1:54:37
My point was maybe uh if the cost to maintain the New York Times homepage goes down because AI tools are more available and more diffuse and cheaper that you might actually see a continuation of the greatness that is you know beautiful homepages. What do you think?
1:54:54
>> Yeah, I think that's a great take actually and I I I I guess my concern isn't like okay we're not going to have websites anymore per se.
1:55:01
websites anymore per se. I mean we still have newspapers that seems so yeah we still have newspapers right but it's more that um you know if in a world in which >> we are communicate you know I buy my auto insurance through an AI agent of
1:55:18
some s of of some source like why did that why does that auto insurance company really need to have a web presence as we know it or why is the web presence optimized for human consumers as the sort of human consumer uh becomes less and less a factor, less and less relevant for them. So, you know, I I I
1:55:38
So, you know, I I I wasn't even like when I wrote that like I wasn't even like dooming or blackpilling or any of that per se.
1:55:44
And actually, you know, even going back to the New York Times example, you know, the post homepage era is actually, you know, it's been there for years, right?
1:55:54
So, if you think if you think like the digital >> digital media at the New York Times, what are they probably really excited about?
1:56:00
Well, it's probably like getting their many of their reporters to get comfortable doing reals or going out doing TikToks where they talk about that story.
1:56:06
So, like in a sense, the sort of post web page era has been around for a long time.
1:56:11
But it feels like with like the sort of efficacy and the clear usefulness of agents and scraping etc.
1:56:19
It's just not obvious why it's going to be much of a priority maybe for you know the times is a really nice homepage and so to your point it would be easy to maintain and so forth.
1:56:28
It's probably very easy to maintain as it is or a lot certainly a lot easier than it used to be.
1:56:33
It's not clear that this is going to be the sort of dominant way that we sort of trade digital information.
1:56:39
>> Yeah, they might they they have a big obviously games division.
1:56:42
>> We could see them we could see them continue to invest or maybe get into gaming, open a casino in Vegas.
1:56:50
>> The New York Times casino that would be a great idea.
1:56:53
I went to Vegas hanging out by the pool at the New York Times casino.
1:56:56
I want high stakes Wordle.
1:56:58
[laughter] I'm putting a 100 G's down on Wordle. Let's go.
1:57:03
>> I would love People would love that.
1:57:04
They got [laughter] >> people probably would love that. >> Yeah.
1:57:07
>> The thing about the New York Times is um you know other than there's a handful of others perhaps and I'd like Bloomberg is one of them.
1:57:15
But you know it is a brand.
1:57:17
It is a lifestyle brand right in a way that very few news outlets of any sort have ever been able to achieve.
1:57:23
So, you know, they go into cooking and they have cooking shows.
1:57:27
They go into uh, you know, simple games on the phone.
1:57:29
There are not many news entities of any sort that could pull that off.
1:57:34
And I've always been for years a sort of not literally, but a a New York Times bull because it's just been so obvious to me that there is this one news brand that is also this big lifestyle brand and their core subscribers will follow them into all of these new ventures.
1:57:53
And it's just something you know like >> I don't want to name names but like other like big publications uh similar national general news publications do not have that same cache where if they get into some totally new line of business that they'll have subscribers who will pay up all of that money.
1:58:09
So the New York Times is sort of a sort of a special entity. >> Totally. Totally.
1:58:13
You know I completely agree.
1:58:15
It's also interesting that the New York Times has managed this like sort of influencer transition remarkably well.
1:58:20
When I go on YouTube, I'll see the Ezra Klein show or Ross Det or Hard Fork and and Ezra and and Ross have like their own brands, but they it's still like has the aesthetics of the New York Times and they brought that into YouTube and they do these collabs like just watching how they've actually mechanically positioned as the talent is more forward but it's still under the umbrella.
1:58:45
very very smart >> and every again every publication would love to pull that off but it's really tough because then you get this situation which the talent says like oh wait why am I still here etc.
1:58:54
I think it actually speaks to just like how powerful that New York Times brand is. Yeah.
1:59:00
That someone, you know, Ross Alet, Ezra, etc.
1:59:03
No, this is a very good fit. But it's tricky.
1:59:06
Every publication is going to try to do some version, have their own, you know, equivalent of their Substack roster, right?
1:59:12
Or have their equivalent of that.
1:59:14
And I think very few are really going to be able to pull it off at scale.
1:59:20
>> Are you oneshotted by vibe coding? [laughter] >> Yeah. You know what?
1:59:24
I I have like full-on AI psychosis and I'll tell you here's here's the uh here's the evidence that I realized >> complete victory of attack. >> Yeah.
1:59:33
So, here's uh I I I'm going to admit this um here, but here's here was the moment that I knew I had full-on um one-shotted psychosis, which was whatever whatever term you want to use.
1:59:46
So, I was like vibe coding.
1:59:46
I was using cloud code and I was like very uh impressed and then I opened up a second claude code window.
1:59:52
So, cuz I wanted to be able to work on a couple like aspects of the project in parallel.
1:59:56
And then the second window, it made a suggestion for what I work on that was actually a very bad suggestion.
2:00:03
It was the first had I actually said yes to the suggestion, it would have really set me back quite a bit.
2:00:09
It was and I'm glad I paid attention, overwrote it.
2:00:11
And my first thought in that moment was like the original window would have never made that mistake.
2:00:17
You know, it's [laughter] like the original window, that window really got me.
2:00:21
this window doesn't get me at all.
2:00:23
And I was like, I'm I'm I'm sticking with the window on the right side.
2:00:26
And in that moment when I like had that thought that, oh, this window doesn't get me the way the other window.
2:00:32
I was like, Joe, okay, I got to step away from the computer a little bit.
2:00:35
That is those are early signs.
2:00:35
I think I'm like, you know, I'm very proud of myself.
2:00:39
I think I avoid psychosis of all sorts.
2:00:41
I've been on Twitter for 15 years and I haven't gone crazy.
2:00:43
And so I was like, okay, I saw that in myself.
2:00:45
I was like, step away from the computer. It's just a computer. There's no personality.
2:00:51
There's not one screen that gets me better.
2:00:52
But when I noticed that, I was like, okay, I am I am more at risk perhaps uh than I thought.
2:00:58
>> What have you been building? >> Yeah.
2:00:59
So, I'm very obsessed uh for years with this idea that people write and speak fundamentally differently.
2:01:04
And when we give speeches, we use various things.
2:01:08
We rhyme and we speak in rhythm and we use pneumonic aids and we say first and you and all these different linguistic things have just been a personal interest of mine.
2:01:17
And I sort of think that a as uh as digital media has saturated our lives over the last 15 20 years, even our written text comes to resemble more um spoken text.
2:01:27
And so I thought, well, it would be fun if you could like build a piece of software that actually empirically tested this question like do does a piece of writing in a newspaper today resemble more written word than say that same column or whatever 20 years ago?
2:01:42
I'd like to be able to test this out.
2:01:44
And there various lexical markers that uh linguists and others have used to work on these things.
2:01:50
So I thought, okay, it would be fun to see if I could build this.
2:01:52
And so I've actually been able to uh build it. People go check it out. Havlock. ai.
2:01:56
And you just drop a piece of text in.
2:01:59
And then it says, "This sentence looks literate.
2:02:04
This sentence looks like the spoken word." And so forth. And it's almost works.
2:02:08
Like I'm actually astonished.
2:02:09
It's not perfect by any stretch.
2:02:11
I still have a lot of work to do, but basically I sort of was able to vibe code this sort of machine learning model where I trained a model to to detect this is rhyme, this is not, etc.
2:02:23
And then it breaks out every sentence and then sort of scores the whole piece and it works and I'm sort of astonished.
2:02:29
>> You're testing it on Davos. >> Yeah.
2:02:31
Like so I you know I tested on the Mark Carney speech and the Trump speech and the difference is remarkable. It's every sentence.
2:02:37
It sort of classifies one as this resembles the spoken word, this resembles the written word.
2:02:41
And the difference, you know, we hear this, right?
2:02:45
You hear the two speeches, it's like, okay, they're speaking in a very different register.
2:02:48
This feels very different.
2:02:49
And it's cool that like I've been uh you know with two weeks of hobby coding been able to build this model and I actually I trained uh you know I'd learned how to I don't know what I learned but I was able to build this little machine learning model that identifies each sentence and categorize in one and I'm like this is crazy.
2:03:07
in one and I'm like this is crazy. it actually kind of works and I don't know anything about code and this is something that I've wanted to exist for a long time and I was able to just build it and it's cool because one shoted >> it's something uh it's something that like I'm I'm sure you could find a way to turn it into a business but it's
2:03:25
actually a tool that just should exist like there were so many tools that didn't exist because there was no business justification to devote hundreds of hours >> exactly that right like so this is an interesting thing but who's actually going to take the many many sort of uh hours that it would take to actually code this cuz I don't think there was like some obvious path to riches here. But it was a you know I did like an hour
2:03:48
But it was a you know I did like an hour or two a day for a few days at 5 in the morning before my kids got up and it is a properly working piece of software that I can use.
2:03:57
I still need to fine-tune a little a lot.
2:03:59
There are still mistakes and so forth, but it actually works.
2:04:05
You need to turn into like a vibe codingmindset influencer [laughter] every morning. It's like, it's 5:00 a. m. I'm tired.
2:04:09
I'm still at my I'm up at my desk.
2:04:12
Everyone else is sleeping. I'm >> willing.
2:04:16
It's the photo of the watch every day. >> It's 2 a. m. on the West Coast.
2:04:18
Every All my enemies are sleeping. >> Yeah, that's right. That's right.
2:04:21
I'm going to >> That's great.
2:04:23
I just ran my most recent I just ran my most recent uh uh essay through havlock. ai.
2:04:28
I got a 76% orality score.
2:04:32
I write very very loosely strongly oral.
2:04:36
>> Part part of that is start the essay I I started the essay Trump Greenland Elon blah blah blah let's focus on the important thing like because I I deliberately write exactly like I talk but >> so that's like and like I'm pretty happy about that.
2:04:50
It sounds like it scored it pretty well.
2:04:52
It also means that you are writing in a way that connects with the modern um you know the modern audience and so I think that's great and you could test that and now you can know and is this in the contemporary register and I don't know like high score low score better or worse I just think it's cool that this thing can actually sort of figure it out. >> I love it. I love it. Anything else Jordy? >> No super fun.
2:05:15
>> Thank you so much for taking the time for me. Always great.
2:05:16
Can't wait to talk to you soon. >> Great to hang. >> Have a good one. >> Talk to you. Have fun out there. Goodbye. Figma.
2:05:21
Figma make isn't your average vibe coding tool. It lives in Figma.
2:05:26
So outputs look good, feel real, and stay connected to how teams build, create codeback prototypes and apps fast. >> That is right.
2:05:35
>> So up next we have an anonymous guest. An anonymous poster.
2:05:40
>> Healing an anonymous poster join.
2:05:43
>> An internet anthropologist.
2:05:44
>> The Tik Tok anthropologist called healing midwesterner in exile.
2:05:49
loneliness, epidemic super spreader, and a dark statistician.
2:05:52
I'm going to tell you about Crowd Strike before we bring him in to the from the reream waiting room.
2:05:57
Crowd Strike, your business is AI, their business is securing it.
2:06:00
Crowd Strike secures AI and stops breaches.
2:06:04
So, without further ado, >> chat is saying that Microsoft is down. Microsoft is down. >> What happened?
2:06:12
>> People are not getting emails, but I thought the stock was down.
2:06:15
Wyatt is in the chat hanging out with us because Microsoft is down.
2:06:19
So, little silver lining there.
2:06:23
>> Uh, well, without further ado, let's bring in Cole Keane into the TV channel. >> Whoa.
2:06:31
>> This is his profile picture. Their profile picture. How are you doing?
2:06:32
What What is your profile picture of?
2:06:37
>> That is a photo of me.
2:06:37
Um, it's in my apartment in Poria, Illinois.
2:06:39
Um, that I lived in when I was posting a lot on Twitter.
2:06:43
Um, I took it's it's I'm holding a sword in it.
2:06:45
Um, it's like a selftimer photo that I set up.
2:06:49
>> For some reason, I thought it was an RPG.
2:06:51
>> Yeah, people always say this.
2:06:51
I really don't get this RPG thing.
2:06:52
I mean, it's I mean, it is kind of sharp like an RPG is, but >> I did I initially I I now see the sword outlined by RPG. >> I did think RPG.
2:07:01
>> Too many Too many hours in COD.
2:07:03
>> Too many hours in COD. Sure.
2:07:04
>> It's at a very small hilt, but yeah, thanks for having me on, guys. >> Thanks for joining.
2:07:08
Anyway, uh give us a little uh background on like how you see your work, what you post, how you select content, how you curate, what what are you trying to achieve with everything you do?
2:07:23
>> And I'll start by saying I'll start by saying I I think that uh something that I like one one thing about your account that I think is really important is like algorithms like make us view the world and the internet in a specific way, right?
2:07:38
Like even with Davos this week, I've been thinking like, "Wow, Davos was like all AI, all tech."
2:07:41
[laughter] And obviously it was not, right?
2:07:43
There was like tech was was a part of it.
2:07:44
And that's just my algorithm uh you know, serving me content that it knows I'm going to uh be excited about.
2:07:52
Uh and you're taking content from all over the internet.
2:07:56
I don't even I'm sure you have like a bunch of different instances and accounts that have different interests.
2:08:01
Uh but I feel like the work that you're doing is is a >> is a is a new science and uh ology is the correct term >> and it's very important. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah. That's very nice to say.
2:08:10
Um I mean I think my goal is to just try to be like on the crest of what's happening on the internet.
2:08:17
I mean there there's so much happening.
2:08:18
Um I think that in a lot of ways institutions are not fully chronicling what's happening if that makes sense.
2:08:25
Like a lot of the cutting edge culture on Tik Tok especially >> um I felt was not I'm just also being unnoticed by other people on the internet.
2:08:33
I think I mean I sort of accidentally came into this role quite honestly.
2:08:37
I mean I've been on Tik Tok since 2018.
2:08:39
I was like you know viscerally loved the platform like first time I got on it you know just >> the um the algorithm of it is just so good and I was just you know instantly like you know just pulled in of like wow I can just you know see so many different parts of the world really quickly.
2:08:53
Um and so you know I was doing YouTube anthropology even before that of just you know getting into different niche subcultures online then.
2:08:59
Um but yeah, I mean basically it's just you know I think this is all like worthy of studying um and worthy of just further thought and so I try to share the things that I think are um you know worth commentary um to my audience. Yeah.
2:09:15
>> What uh what videos are most memorable?
2:09:18
You were uh you surfaced the the product manager >> poolside PMI product.
2:09:22
I think that's of all the ones that's like number one most memorable.
2:09:27
memorable. That's like for sure cuz I was like you know it really like blew up my account in a lot of ways and also just you know the downstream impacts of you know it it kind of causing the >> you kind of destroyed you know [laughter]
2:09:39
>> yes you set the product no they were early they were early they understood that there will be a lot of downtime while you're waiting for the agents to respond after you fire off a big long prompt and so best to spend it at the pool. They were just early. the They were just early. the future's here.
2:09:54
It's just not not evenly distributed.
2:09:56
Um, yeah, but what was the response to the poolside PMS thing?
2:10:01
Because when you surf and when you recontextualize some of these videos, sometimes there can be pylons, there can be, you know, like positive things that come out of it.
2:10:09
Like how were you processing that moment of like mega virality?
2:10:14
>> Um, I mean, yeah, for sure.
2:10:14
I was definitely like me reposting it changed the context of it a ton, right?
2:10:17
It was initially posted by like, you know, a girl on TikTok excited to share, you know, her like, you know, her somewhat comfortable life.
2:10:24
And she's posting it in a tongue-in-cheek way, too, right?
2:10:27
She's aware this is like, you know, not her normal way of going about her day.
2:10:31
She's posting it, you know, because it's like, oh, this is a funny afternoon that I spend.
2:10:34
But then, you know, it gets into, you know, Twitter discourse and especially in like tech.
2:10:37
Twitter discourse, you know, becomes kind of like a a representation of the the excesses of the um 20 2020s like tech hiring boom.
2:10:48
And um yeah, I don't know.
2:10:51
I think that it, you know, that recontextualization definitely brought like a whole new audience from it. It was very interesting.
2:10:55
I mean, like she like had like multiple responses to my my reposting of it, which was not really just me reposting it, you I mean, I think it was also all the other, you know, external commentary cuz I didn't really say that much.
2:11:05
I mean, for me, I reposted it because it felt like my own life, you know, that's what I was doing back then.
2:11:09
You know, I was working a work from home job and, you know, I felt represented by the fact, you know, like I wasn't in the pool, you know, but I would go outside and sit on my patio, you know, and it's it's really not that that dissimilar and it's, you know, it's great.
2:11:20
It's it's great to sit in the sun with your laptop and, you know, you can go inside when something important happens.
2:11:24
Um, I really don't think that that's like, you know, an end of the world way to work. >> Yeah.
2:11:29
talk to me about uh day in the life videos generally.
2:11:31
Every time I see one surfaced, uh the comments are always like there's so little work getting done.
2:11:38
But if you I personally I I've made enough videos that I can imagine if I tried to make a day in the life.
2:11:44
Uh there would be a lot of downtime that I would cut out because taking one phone call isn't as engaging as watching me assemble a meal from six different things.
2:11:55
things. just visually it makes more sense to take a video of the commute the the coffee that you get the meal that you have then yes there's one frame of you doing Excel for 6 hours but you don't put you don't put that doesn't take up 45 seconds of the one minute clip um but have you thought about like
2:12:12
what the what the medium is that is the message of these videos >> no 100% you know is like it's initially shot or these earlier videos like 2022 day in the life videos that I was posting of you know like the product manager pool Those are sort of shot in this way that's aspirational that shows all the fun parts of their life. One
2:12:28
One thing I've been talking a little bit on my account recently is how it's kind of flipped the other way recently.
2:12:32
You actually see kind of people shooting these day in the life videos in an intentionally mundane looking way. >> Yeah.
2:12:38
These people like day in the life of of a middle manager at an accounting firm and they just show like it it just looks like >> they make it look like grinding.
2:12:49
>> They're like wake up >> protein shake.
2:12:50
[laughter] Go on a go on a onemile jog, drive to work.
2:12:55
It's like it's like the least >> music in the background. [laughter] >> Wow. >> Yeah.
2:13:01
And and yeah, it's it's such an interesting uh interesting view.
2:13:04
Some something about the day in the life is just so triggering to people too.
2:13:08
Like whatever life is being lived, people just develop an opinions because everyone has a life.
2:13:14
Everyone has a day in their life and they immediately compare it.
2:13:17
I suppose um what what what do you think about this?
2:13:20
If I remember correctly, the original poolside day in the life video at the end she sort of remarks that uh you know her she's been making uh personal social media content because everyone might post a photo of an engagement or a wedding or a kid announcement, but then at a certain point if your account gets big, it's it felt like she felt pressure from her colleagues to actually make content about work and this was her expression of that.
2:13:45
And I'm wondering if you've reflected on like what the role of the lower level employee in brand building around a corporation's work life balance and what it's like to work there that could go either way.
2:13:59
Is that an interesting new trend?
2:14:02
Are there pitfalls there? How are you?
2:14:05
>> I think I think that's already over to be honest.
2:14:07
I mean this was you know three years ago that that that video was posted.
2:14:09
I think that now people would not represent that.
2:14:11
You know what I Like if you were a um you you especially would not say what company you work for.
2:14:18
Um like if you are representing like if you're a paluntier employee you're not going to make a day in the life of a palunteer employee with you know the fun little lunch that you get you know like that's not like it's it's very discouraged by HR departments you know it's also just socially discouraged.
2:14:30
So I think that people of that become like aware of the context of it.
2:14:34
And yeah, I mean in that video she does say at the very end she's, you know, like, hey, my my friends were encouraging me to share about, you know, my life.
2:14:40
I didn't have if you look at my post, it looks like I didn't have a job.
2:14:43
And, you know, it's definitely just like a playful post that she was making.
2:14:46
Um, but >> yeah, >> how are you uh how have you processed uh generative AI content on these platforms?
2:14:54
feels like, you know, from our point of view over the last few weeks, we don't we don't use Tik Tok, but our point of view over the last few weeks is that >> uh it's getting really good and there's like entire entirely new genre of of of creators that are just leaning in and this is the only thing that they're doing.
2:15:10
Uh but what's it been like on Tik Tok? >> Yeah.
2:15:14
Um it's definitely there.
2:15:14
I see it more on Instagram reels than I do on Tik Tok personally, but there definitely is generative AI content on it yet.
2:15:18
I still don't think it's at the level where it like viscerally wins over humanmade content.
2:15:24
Like we have, you know, all these, you know, repetit like viscerally.
2:15:26
I just mean like, you know, every person sits and they watch it and they see like which one they spend more time on, which one they're compulsively drawn to.
2:15:33
I don't think generative AI content is at the point where it's winning at scale yet.
2:15:36
But there are some niches it's really good at.
2:15:38
Um, it's honestly really good for like lower budget creators.
2:15:42
I see it like a lot from content that feels like it's from not like not in America.
2:15:45
Like it's someone that's maybe not in as pretty of a place.
2:15:48
you know, they're in like a country that's not as good and they, you know, make content that ends up, you know, um with generative AI that kind of can whatever represent certain things and yeah, I feel like that's where it's it's doing well.
2:16:00
Um >> um I have one more on the generative AI question.
2:16:05
Um >> uh I' I've noticed that we it does feel like we're at a tipping point on Instagram reels.
2:16:11
notice that uh oftent times there's AI content and you and and and if I can clock it, I usually go to the comments and there's other people that are clocking it and then there's usually a secondary discussion about AI being bad or displacement, water usage, electricity, blah blah blah.
2:16:24
Um but I recently saw a uh a cinematic AI movie trailer all about the Beckham drama.
2:16:34
Have you been following this at all?
2:16:34
Are you familiar with this Beckham drama?
2:16:36
>> What is What is the Beckham drama here?
2:16:38
I I'm not going to explain it well, but uh Victoria Beckham and uh David Beckham are having some sort of interfamilial feud of some sort where the son is is posting.
2:16:50
>> We end up in the Hollywood Reporter once and suddenly John is our new culture expert.
2:16:55
>> Uh no, but but basically but basically like there there's there's a there's a traditional like big Hollywood celebrity drama story that has bubbled up and people are making front-facing videos explaining it.
2:17:05
Uh, the Beckhams themselves are posting about it.
2:17:07
There's PR stories about it, but some creator used Generative AI to create like a dramatic like like movie trailer about it.
2:17:15
And what was interesting is that it's obviously clockable as AI, but everyone in the comments, including the the actual uh the the the tagline on the video, what they upload, the title of the video is like, okay, AI, this is a good use of AI.
2:17:31
And everyone in the comments was like, I approve of this use of AI.
2:17:35
Which is very interesting because truthfully, like there is no one that's getting displaced from that because if you're like you're not going to go and do a $100 million budget video shoot just to make a joke about the Beckham drama.
2:17:48
Like maybe that will be made in, you know, a few years or something or Netflix will do something, but you're not displacing anyone.
2:17:53
And so uh it it does feel like we're at this turning point, but it requires a lot of context, a lot of human element, a lot of creativity to really break through in a way that re reaches like universal acclaim.
2:18:05
I don't know if you have a comment on that, but >> no, it's a great point.
2:18:07
Like there's um >> yeah, trying to phrase my thoughts exactly here.
2:18:13
>> Um >> like generative AI content is widely disliked by people, I think, is is the starting point.
2:18:19
starting point. You know there are lots of people if you post anything that is gendered by AI content you will get comments about you know water usage you know get contents about you know take comments about taking away jobs from artists >> um and those those comments do you know tend to go away if people like it more
2:18:34
if it's you know highquality AI content um to be honest I mean I think a lot of the comments about you know art and water usage come out of like a place of fear from people of kind of not understanding what what the future holds and I I'm it does make me optimistic honestly When I hear people say things like, "Oh, like I like this particular AI usage." Even if I think that that's
2:18:52
Even if I think that that's not the right way to think about it, I think that it's a good kind of sign of at least the culture starting to adopt these things.
2:19:00
I do think it's it's going to inevitably happen that people adopt it.
2:19:03
Like I'm not really worried about the long term, honestly.
2:19:04
I know I'm not like a a hyper AI optimist.
2:19:06
I think that that the technology does a lot of positive things.
2:19:09
There's also going to be some negatives as a result of it, you know.
2:19:12
know. But um I really want >> Yeah, there's also a new there's a new kind of content which is content that could be made by paid actors but no paid actor would ever agree to which is like an Epstein reenactment of like you've
2:19:28
seen you've seen some of these you know uh memes of like them on like yeah Facebook videos things like that where if you ask an actor like okay you're going to play you know this like billionaire financier he's based in New York and they'd be like okay I'm out. Right. Um anyway, Right.
2:19:43
Um anyway, >> what about what about other platforms?
2:19:46
Uh I feel like content has been flowing from uh these like IRL streamers pretty heavily into Axe.
2:19:52
You know, there seems to be this whole culture over on Kick. >> Yeah.
2:19:59
I mean, a lot of those are like clips and highlights, if that makes sense.
2:20:02
Like there are people who sit and watch IRL streamers all day, but then a lot of those are kind of second order.
2:20:07
Like a lot of those then a lot of those are really kind of content farms to make clips for Tik Tok which are then the primary form of consumption.
2:20:12
Like there's this guy who I followed for years, World of T-shirts.
2:20:15
He's kind of one of my like favorite personal internet creators.
2:20:18
He like started as a guy who wandered around New York City and like filmed content but has gradually become like a live he's he does like crazy stuff in his real life.
2:20:27
Like will kind of like scream at people on the streets and so he now has like crews of people that follow him around and live stream him. I don't know. Very interesting man.
2:20:33
Um, but you know, kind of the ecosystem is yes, you can watch the live stream, but most people kind of watch the highlights of the live stream, which I think is an interesting kind of concept farm angle where at the end of the day, still the sensory of it is these like short from vertical video apps that can kind of be like the end of the sea for any form of content.
2:20:48
Like it all flows into the scroll of these, the [laughter] endless scroll, >> feed, feed the trough, as they say, >> the pig sound.
2:21:01
uh talk about talk about publishing in in GQ.
2:21:03
Uh I I want to know both about the process.
2:21:06
Have you have you written for prestige publications before?
2:21:09
Do you do you enjoy the written form?
2:21:12
And then I want to know the thesis of the essay as well. >> Yeah.
2:21:17
So I wrote just for I guess for your audience knowledge, I wrote a piece about um Target for GQ.
2:21:20
Um I didn't go to Target for like seven years.
2:21:24
>> Um and then I went again and so I wrote a piece about that for GQ.
2:21:27
>> And why did you stop going?
2:21:27
Um, I stopped going just like I just I I didn't like the brand was essentially it, you know, like I um it's like it's so red and over the top.
2:21:35
I preferred it felt like dishonest to me basically like when I was I was I was going inside Walmarts and Walmart felt more honest >> and so >> um yeah but like then I kind of you know I that that kind of stopped being true for me like I was you know I was getting more back into brands in America and I was like I'm ready to go back to Target. Also it's inconvenient.
2:21:54
I live in New York City now.
2:21:55
I used to live in Pory, Illinois, which is about equal distribution of Walmarts and Targets.
2:22:01
>> Um, now in New York City, there are no Walmarts at all.
2:22:03
And so, if I wanted to go to like a large, you know, convenience store, um, Target was the only option.
2:22:08
And so, I was like actually making my life more inconvenient for the first year like I lived in New York as a result of following this rule.
2:22:13
Um, and so I thought it was just an interesting I mean, the essay is about that, but also kind of about the larger concepts of like purity rules that you follow in life.
2:22:22
You know, I think that there's so many rules like that.
2:22:23
I mean, people love setting purity rules around their phones right now.
2:22:26
A really common, you know, thing that people do of like, oh, I need to have x amount of nonphone time or I need to set down my >> I can't sleep more than five five feet from my phone.
2:22:35
I got to I got to keep it close, you know, or I can't sleep well.
2:22:40
[laughter] >> The inverse. [sighs] >> Yeah.
2:22:45
>> Yeah. So I just wrote kind of about like that that concept of like purity rules in general because I thought this was like it's such a silly one like the idea of not going to Target is you know obviously there's no ethical impact on that and very little um even moral impact on that right it's even aesthetically yeah like it's very low
2:23:01
impact on almost all parts of life but is a rule that I followed for a really long time and so I kind of wrote about that um >> yeah I mean it kind of just came into being like one of the GQ editors I had like a a long form blog that I post on every once in a while and he just liked the long form blog and reached out to me and asked if I wanted to um write for GQ. Um yeah, it was a really cool
2:23:17
Um yeah, it was a really cool experience to do.
2:23:20
>> Um you know, I I do really believe in working with editors.
2:23:23
It helped a lot to work with, you know, like high quality editors.
2:23:26
Um you know, I I studied writing in school, but was never like to get to a professional level.
2:23:30
I don't work as a full-time professional writer.
2:23:33
And so it was really cool to work with like editors who could help me, you know, refine my voice.
2:23:35
I think was it was a good experience.
2:23:37
>> Yeah, it's a great publication.
2:23:37
We uh uh we'll find like an old profile in GQ every once in a while that just breaks down something in a very interesting way.
2:23:47
We read a whole deep dive on the the history of Rishard Mill and stuff in GQ.
2:23:51
It's a fascinating publication that that I think I think has been uh maybe discounted because it's not putting up breaking scoops and news every day.
2:23:59
It's not in your face, but there's a lot of really timeless stuff that goes on there.
2:24:05
There's more to breathe, more breathing room.
2:24:07
It's a It's an interesting canvas to have the opportunity to to paint on. That's exciting. >> Yeah. Um Sorry, Jordy. Yeah, please.
2:24:15
>> Uh I don't have anything. >> Oh.
2:24:16
Uh uh I wanted to uh ask uh on the question of purity rules.
2:24:21
Do you think we're still in a bull market for purity rules?
2:24:27
I don't know that I saw a ton more activity in 2026 around New Year's resolutions, people stepping back.
2:24:31
There was obviously the big anti-alcohol move, which I see as part of that.
2:24:36
I don't know if you'd put that in the same category, but uh are we becoming more puritanical as a soci society, less puritanical?
2:24:42
Like where where where do you think culture is moving?
2:24:46
>> I I I think culture moves I mean I don't know.
2:24:48
I don't think there's like a hard direction.
2:24:49
I think where where culture is setting purity rules more and more is around like phones like I was saying at the beginning.
2:24:54
I I think that's kind of the big trend that I would clock for in increasing of that.
2:24:58
I think that um I think we're clearly getting to a point at which you know just maximal pure enjoyment on your phone is not the most pleasant way to live your life. You know what I mean?
2:25:08
Like just letting yourself get pulled into your phone at all times is not the most pleasant way to live.
2:25:14
And I think that we're going to gradually like come up with a set of rules that works for everyone on what the most, you know, the best etiquette on phone usage is.
2:25:22
But I I don't know what that looks like, but I would expect a lot of like experimentation over the next like five years or so to try to figure that out.
2:25:29
So yeah, that's my purity room like um like uh bet for the next few years is is that we'll see a lot more of like phone purity rule usage.
2:25:36
>> Yeah, that makes sense.
2:25:36
Last question for me on uh New York City.
2:25:38
Uh we talked to Adam FaZe about how New York is experiencing a boom in content creation and uh his analysis was that a lot of it was around uh Tik Tok creators and those man on the street style videos.
2:25:52
What do you do for a living if you need a lot of random extras effectively?
2:25:56
Uh there's no place better to do it than specific parks in New York City.
2:26:01
Are are you experiencing that? Is it annoying?
2:26:04
Have you ever been asked what do you do for a living?
2:26:09
Um, I've had one time where someone approached me for a man on the street video.
2:26:11
Um, I kind of just walked away from it.
2:26:13
I didn't want to be in it.
2:26:13
Um, it's not super common.
2:26:16
I I do think what I I love the concept of all these kids coming to New York City because of um Tik Tok or whatever other reason that they're pulled there on the internet.
2:26:23
Um, I I I kind of I think it's really magical that I don't know.
2:26:26
It's it's really cool that they're all kind of pulled to one location.
2:26:29
I think if you compare the the migration arcs of other generations, right?
2:26:34
like the the Gen X people who went to Portland, they're trying to like get away from something.
2:26:38
The millennials were kind of going to these like midsize cities.
2:26:40
I think it's really beautiful that you know, yeah, like Austin and Nashville, Denver.
2:26:43
Um, but I think it's really like it really seems like Jen I mean I am one of the Gen Z people.
2:26:48
I guess I'm like I'm very old Gen Z. I'm 28.
2:26:50
Um, but that you know that >> I think it's really cool that Gen Z in general.
2:26:55
It seems to me my read on the ground is that they're coming to New York City like the biggest city they can.
2:27:00
It's already established.
2:27:00
They just like want to be around other people and participate in these systems.
2:27:04
>> Um I think I think it's really special and cool. Um >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
2:27:08
I I I I like some of that that uh content.
2:27:10
It's interesting when you see a video of someone just like playing music and they're a musician and they could just play it in their apartment, but if they go out in the street, they'll get a stronger reaction.
2:27:19
And sure, you could go to Hollywood, but there's just more uh random people on the street in New York.
2:27:26
So, >> a lot of creators have just kind of coalesed around that.
2:27:28
Anyway, >> no, thank you for coming on as these cultural moments pop up.
2:27:34
Would love back on for some hardhitting analysis in real time >> from the source from the anthropologist.
2:27:42
Uh, but it's great to hang and thank you for doing the work.
2:27:45
>> Yeah, we appreciate everything you do.
2:27:46
>> Thanks for having me on.
2:27:47
>> Have a great rest of your day. >> Cheers. >> Goodbye.
2:27:49
>> Let me tell you about Finn. AI.
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2:27:59
We have some breaking news.
2:28:00
>> Yes, >> breaking news.
2:28:01
Uh is without further ado, uh Brex has been acquired by Capital One.
2:28:07
Hit that gong $5 billion. >> Boom.
2:28:11
Um uh wrong header there, boys.
2:28:19
>> So, so yeah, Hunter in the chat was asking if we already discussed OpenAI planning to take a cut of customers discoveries.
2:28:24
Uh there was some back and forth.
2:28:26
We did discuss that a little bit uh Hunter, but thanks for showing up in the chat.
2:28:30
Always good to see you as always.
2:28:33
>> Um yeah, so Capital One strikes 5.
2:28:33
15 billion deal uh for fintech.
2:28:36
Brex deal would give credit card issuer access to technology used by thousands of companies for corporate credit cards. >> Interesting.
2:28:44
>> Uh B of course was valued at 12. 3 billion in 2022.
2:28:47
They hadn't hadn't raised uh in a while outside of I believe a debt facility. Yeah.
2:28:52
But um anyways, I think I think this is a uh this deal makes a lot of sense. Yeah. >> Brex.
2:29:00
>> When we had uh when we had Pedro on, the CEO of Brex, uh we talked to him about how they were doing more uh enterprise offerings.
2:29:07
They were starting to explore some of this powering businesses behind the scenes, right? Wasn't that Yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
2:29:12
So, they had that deal with fir first third what what's third bank.
2:29:17
>> Fifth Third >> Fifth Third. It's a real mouth. >> Third bank.
2:29:19
It's the We They were the fifth third bank. >> Yes. Yes.
2:29:23
So why >> uh anyways so a little more details uh 5.
2:29:28
15 billion in cash in stock in a deal that uh give the card issuer more firepower with corporate clients.
2:29:33
Uh B founded nearly a decade ago uh offers corporate credit cards expenses and rewards.
2:29:42
Uh it also oversees nearly 13 billion in deposits held at partner banks and money market funds.
2:29:49
Acquisition comes at a key moment in the payment world as fintech and crypto firms threatened to siphon business away from banks.
2:29:53
Some established players have looked to uh looked to team up with these firms to stay competitive.
2:29:58
Uh Capital 1 with roughly 670 billion in assets. Not bad.
2:30:03
Obviously acquired Discover last year from Parabus, >> you know. No way. >> Yeah.
2:30:11
Capital One Eric Glimman and Kareem Matias previous. >> Yeah. Yeah.
2:30:16
I knew that, but I didn't I didn't.
2:30:17
>> And they stopped at Braveston at at Capital One.
2:30:19
Uh Capital One is uh yeah, they they want they want uh Silicon Valley founders and they want the companies that they built.
2:30:26
>> Uh this is this is so funny because I I was with uh I was with Art, the the chief business officer at Brex hanging out.
2:30:32
He was hanging out with um my neighbor Ben.
2:30:34
I saw him like less than probably uh a week ago.
2:30:37
He was hanging out at the beach and I'm sure I'm sure he was like uh >> I got something cooking.
2:30:42
Uh excited excited for this news uh to hit the timeline.
2:30:47
How much did they actually raise?
2:30:48
Um >> um but uh yeah, it's a big number and it's big business and so congrats to everyone over there.
2:30:55
Let me tell you about Labelbox reinforcement learn uh reinforcement learning environments, voice, robotics, evals and expert human data.
2:31:03
Labelbox is the data factory behind the world's leading AI teams.
2:31:05
Um we have Kathy Wood joining in just a few minutes.
2:31:10
Uh, we can play this video about AI industry news every two weeks.
2:31:17
We've been s we saw this on Instagram reels and uh I was cracking up because it feels like this uh comedian on Instagram >> and just just to close the loop, Brexit raised a total of 1.
2:31:27
67 billion in combined equity and debt financing.
2:31:29
So anyways, certainly going well beyond the prep stack and uh solid outcome. >> Fantastic. Great outcome.
2:31:37
>> Congratulations to all of them.
2:31:37
So, Advit Moa says, "Can these AI products stop going against each other?"
2:31:42
And he plays a video called AI industry news every two weeks.
2:31:47
Let's see if we can play it. Is it available?
2:31:50
We might need to come back to that.
2:31:53
Uh, in the meantime, let me tell you about Apploving.
2:31:56
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2:32:04
And without further ado, we have Kathy Wood in the Reream waiting room.
2:32:10
Let's bring her in to the TV Ultra Do.
2:32:12
She is the CEO of Arc Invest. >> Welcome to the show. >> Welcome to the show.
2:32:16
Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us. How are you doing? >> Oh, thrilled.
2:32:19
I'm I'm so happy to meet you.
2:32:22
I've heard so much about you.
2:32:24
Congratulations on all your success. >> Thank you. Thank you.
2:32:26
How is your 2026 going so far? >> Ah, it's great. It really is.
2:32:30
Uh I wrote a new year letter, new year's letter. >> Yes.
2:32:36
>> And then we put out big ideas yesterday >> and it's been a whirlwind. A whirlwind.
2:32:42
I feel this is a very important year for us.
2:32:45
>> And is AI the only thing that you're tracking?
2:32:47
Is it is it as all-encompassing in your world as it is has as it has been in ours?
2:32:54
>> Uh it is by far the biggest catalyst to innovation out there today.
2:32:58
Um but we we're very focused on our five major platforms and AI is involved in every one of them.
2:33:07
So robotics, energy storage, >> AI itself, uh uh blockchain technology and multiomic sequencing in the life science space.
2:33:18
>> And so we're really focused on the convergence among those platforms.
2:33:19
They involve 15 different technologies.
2:33:26
uh and and so AI is is part and parcel of all the convergences taking place today. >> Yes.
2:33:32
And how are you uh setting up the firm to actually cover those five trends?
2:33:40
What does the team look like?
2:33:43
Who do you like to work with?
2:33:43
And what are the keys to success to uh growing a career at ARC?
2:33:50
>> Uh that's a great question.
2:33:50
uh we have set ourselves up very differently from traditional asset management research.
2:34:00
>> Um in that world uh the the research responsibilities are organized by sector or or industry or subindustry.
2:34:11
And in fact uh many firms are very proud that they have five different health care analysts uh following very narrow uh silos of companies uh or five consumer analysts.
2:34:23
Uh we have set up arc around this idea that um these technologies are converging and are going to impact every sector every industry.
2:34:36
So our uh analyst re research responsibilities are broken down by uh by technologies.
2:34:43
So the 15 different technologies in involved in those five innovation platforms.
2:34:50
So and and and what they are looking for is okay how is this technology going to scale across sectors?
2:35:00
How big is this opportunity going to be?
2:35:03
I don't think traditional research is set up to do that.
2:35:05
I think to uh really understand how big the opportunities are going to be out there, uh you almost have to set up research this way. >> Yeah. Yeah.
2:35:18
I mean, you're you're you're famous for taking very large positions, very concentrated positions in really important companies.
2:35:23
What does it what does it look like to get comfortable with a a new management team, a new CEO?
2:35:29
Uh is it just endless phone calls, meeting in person?
2:35:32
Do you have any uh rules for how you grow a relationship over time with a new business leader who you think is working on a breakout technology?
2:35:45
>> Well, I think very important is understanding uh the background of the the new business leaders.
2:35:50
You know, I've been in the business for a very long time.
2:35:55
I actually started in college in the late '7s.
2:35:58
And while most of my career had >> overnight success >> and it's a true overnight success. We love it.
2:36:06
>> No, but we know I know a lot of people out there and I've always loved the part of our business where I get to meet uh the people making uh making these companies happen.
2:36:20
Uh so I'm a a devout follower of talent where it's going where it has come from >> uh I usually have some frame of reference uh that I can use as a line of questioning uh just to see you know is this uh is this the kind of leader uh and the right leader uh for this company at this time. Mhm.
2:36:47
>> How do you what's your framework for understanding uh if a management team or CEO is really set up for this AI transition that every company is going through?
2:36:58
Because every comp every CEO wants to say that they're getting the most out of AI, they're getting the most efficiency, they're running the most pilots, etc.
2:37:05
Uh but clearly many companies are are just kind of, you know, doing the demos but not actually evolving their businesses.
2:37:15
Uh so now are you speaking about uh more in the startup world or are you talking about enterprises? >> Both. Both really.
2:37:23
It it's everything from a from a company uh you know like an enterprise software company maybe a system of record that that is looking to evolve all the way through like a manufacturing company who uh you know maybe has been using robotics for years.
2:37:39
And so they're like I don't really see why people are are uh so >> uh We've seen a number of founder CEOs that have been completely reinvigorated by the AI boom.
2:37:48
They've built a great business, but you can tell that they're completely in a new gear, working harder than ever.
2:37:55
There's also legacy players that just placed the right bets at the right time and they're just paying off and reaping the reward.
2:38:01
And then there are some big company CEOs who it does feel like they got caught a little flatfooted and have to adjust their business models. >> Yes.
2:38:12
uh and the way we do our research and and again a lot of people know us for our top- down research.
2:38:18
So the big ideas that came out last night >> uh we are as uh bottomup stock research driven or equity research driven as any other team you'll uh find out there that that's where I came from.
2:38:31
Uh so uh we took from a top-own point of view uh two years ago uh in big ideas we took the position that uh because we were seeing it play out in the numbers uh that the the the tech stack would change uh that the the um you have the infrastructure layer which of course very strong.
2:38:56
Uh you have the platform as a service layer.
2:39:02
Poster child for that Palunteer um was gaining share significant share and then you had application layers software as a service uh growing but losing share of incremental growth.
2:39:15
We put that chart in uh and we had no idea how quickly this was all going to happen.
2:39:23
happen. you know software stocks more traditional software stocks last year were terrible and even this year uh they are they're still suffering so uh AI is happening faster I think than anyone could have imagined uh anyone who thought they had time to adapt um I think has been mistaken uh and you know I even see it with large enterprises when we go in there and ask them okay what's your what's your AI strategy um
2:39:53
you know they they they treated it in the beginning like yeah we'll let our our teams experiment with all these new tools coming up chaty GP no no no no no that's not the way this is going to work >> [laughter] >> uh it's there's there's going to have to
2:40:11
be complete restructuring yeah >> uh around AI or else you're probably gonna fail maybe not outright but you'll become irrelevant So um I think even ARC for example uh we have brought in Palunteer. We're only 70 people uh but
2:40:28
We're only 70 people uh but we've brought in Palunteer and I can see we brought it into research first.
2:40:34
I wanted to see how could we transform our research process >> uh and uh and we're already seeing incredible results in terms of productivity gains uh by by the research team but uh I can see that in the rest of the firm it is going to take uh well first of all you have to have someone other than the CTO and that's true even in our CA case saying we're doing we're doing this.
2:41:06
Our research is telling us this is the way the world's going.
2:41:11
>> We cannot be caught flatfooted.
2:41:14
>> Uh and so I really think you need the CEO, not the CTO, CEO, CFO, uh to drive this change.
2:41:22
And I think you know many people think oh the results are so immediate and they are with our writing and editing perhaps but uh when you're trying to transform an enterprise uh it takes it's hard work.
2:41:37
You have to collect all the data far even data that you didn't know existed.
2:41:43
So you have to figure that out. You have to clean it up.
2:41:47
You have to integrate it.
2:41:47
uh you have to map out workflows in excruciating de uh detail and and that all takes time and a lot of people in this world are impatient.
2:41:58
They don't see results right away.
2:41:59
Um but I think the results are going to pay off.
2:42:02
I I think the way Palanteer is doing it just put it software on top of legacy.
2:42:06
no rip and replace and uh over time it will usurp the role of all of those leg that inefficient legacy software.
2:42:17
So I think it's going to take time in the enterprise and I know there was the MIT study that said hey this isn't happening this is a figment of Silicon Valley's imagination and we disagree >> mightily on that. >> That's good.
2:42:33
uh how how are you hoping to see the private markets evolve uh in the next five years or so?
2:42:40
It's you know we've seen this tremendous growth of companies like uh OpenAI, Anthropic, etc.
2:42:47
these sort of >> uh leading XAI leading labs uh that are happening all in the private markets and if people really really work hard they can probably figure out how to get exposure to them but certainly it's been cut off uh and I know you guys have your uh uh the private side of the business as well but uh any sort of wishes or hopes in terms of um uh how uh how the interaction between the private market and the public market can can evolve.
2:43:15
Uh well, I think the lines are going to start blurring a bit hopefully because the SEC under Paul Atkins is going to get rid of all of the the regulations and bureaucracy.
2:43:31
And I I do think his aim is in that direction.
2:43:34
Um, in terms of the the private markets, I I think we're starting to see venture capital firms move into crossover funds because uh well, first of all, there was a big arbitrage opportunity uh you know when the public when innovation in the public markets was getting crucified and believe me we were the poster child for that.
2:44:00
Um uh I think a lot of these funds were looking at the valuations in the private markets so much higher than in the public markets that that kind of started the conversation going.
2:44:15
And then of course this administration is talking more and more about the democratization of opportunities and uh of venture of course being a big one.
2:44:28
And you know this idea that you have to be accredited in order to have access to companies that you know our our uh investors the younger investors in particular you know they don't have the the net worth or or even the annual income but they know more about these technologies than many of the institutions uh investing in venture.
2:44:55
So, you know, we felt it was important uh to open it up and and to be very um complimentary uh to what's going on out there.
2:45:03
Uh we're not taking board seats, we're not leading uh but we are putting out research and we are willing to bring visibility to companies in our uh venture fund.
2:45:19
uh and we're bringing you know a a new kind of investor who really uh has been yearning for this uh opportunity for years.
2:45:31
>> Uh want to talk about Bitcoin uh and specifically there was news yesterday Coinbase is rolling out an advisory firm on quantum computing and blockchain.
2:45:42
There's obviously been kind of FUD, people uh uh talking about the potential implications for Quantum uh and Bitcoin and and crypto broadly.
2:45:50
Uh how are you thinking about the asset today?
2:45:52
Uh I know this is uh certainly uh a topic that you've talked about many many times on on CNBC and other shows, but we'd love to uh hear the latest. >> Sure.
2:46:06
Uh first I'll start with quantum.
2:46:09
So in our big ideas report and it's in the first section called the great acceleration uh there is a page in there u I think it's titled some interesting technologies will not be disruptive for 20 to 40 years and uh Brett Winton our
2:46:28
chief futurist uh and you know with with that title chief futurist uh you've got to be thinking about these things and and um coming up with analysis ies that either support or refute the conventional wisdom out there. Uh so if
2:46:41
Uh so if you if you go in you'll see a very interesting chart.
2:46:47
Google has doubled the n its number of uh cubits.
2:46:50
It's taken four years for them to do that.
2:46:53
So it's even slower than Moore's law in the semiconductor space.
2:46:58
Uh and so we what what Brett did was illustrate okay let's assume they accelerate progress here if they can to a Moore's law pace okay then in 2044 let's talk >> about um about uh quantum computing and and the risks >> uh that that uh uh are in sort of the whole blockchain techn technology infrastructure particularly Bitcoin.
2:47:30
So um we are not worried.
2:47:33
We are seeing whales so the original the OGs uh they are shifting Bitcoin from wallet to wallet because of quantum fears.
2:47:49
>> Uh so that's happening but it's also created some FUD for for the markets.
2:47:56
Um, are they selling because uh they know something we don't know?
2:48:00
Um, are they selling simply because they don't want to go through the downside of another four-year cycle?
2:48:07
Have we hit the low at down only 35% this time in instead of 85%.
2:48:14
So, we're in that kind of a market and I I do think we're in a basing period.
2:48:20
Um, which really started uh 1010 on 1010 the flash crash >> um it was the software software glitch at Binance caused a lot of auto deleveraging.
2:48:35
It was kind of crazy to learn uh about that kind of deleveraging.
2:48:41
Meaning firms who thought they were hedged, if they were on two different exchanges uh and Binance was one of them, they were auto deleveraged on one side of a trade and so they were totally exposed in a way they never expected.
2:48:56
That caused we think 28 billion dollars of carnage.
2:49:00
Uh and we think that is washing through the system.
2:49:04
We are very positive on Bitcoin uh for the three reasons I always say you know it's a new technology really important uh uh it is a glo a new and a first uh rules-based global private meaning no government oversight monetary system. That's huge. That is huge.
2:49:29
That is its calling card.
2:49:32
a big hedge against inflation and a hedge against deflation if we end up in a banking crisis like 089 and it is the first the leader of a new asset class.
2:49:44
Many people are looking at gold and they're saying well wait a minute gold is doubled in the last uh year or so what Bitcoin's way behind.
2:49:57
Well, if you if you start the clock at the end of the bare market in 22, gold is up, I think, 170% and uh these are maybe dated by a couple of weeks and uh Bitcoin uh by 360%.
2:50:13
So, uh we think that uh uh Bitcoin >> Oh, what happened?
2:50:20
>> That was just a little [laughter] air horn we used. I You said 360%. It was a nice number. sound effects over here.
2:50:27
[laughter] Not to be not to be jarring.
2:50:29
>> They didn't prepare me for this. Anyway, okay.
2:50:32
So, [laughter] >> did they brief you about our flashbang?
2:50:36
>> We will we will save that one for another time, >> but yes. Sorry. Continue, please. >> Yeah. Can Yeah.
2:50:40
So, I'll just say it's very interesting over the full market cycle from 20. Yeah. Uh to now. Yeah.
2:50:45
Uh gold and Bitcoin's correlation hardly it's almost non-existent. >> Yeah. hardly anything.
2:50:53
Uh but we think Bitcoin uh is is especially as intergenerational wealth wealth transfer takes place in the next five to 10 years. >> Yep.
2:51:05
Uh it is the digital gold >> and its supply growth is lower than golds will be. Yeah.
2:51:14
>> And especially now that the gold price is up, miners can go out there, they're being paid to find even more.
2:51:20
>> So that can't happen with Bitcoin.
2:51:20
So >> yeah, >> um I think in a big ideas you'll see uh we expect Bitcoin to scale to $16 trillion in market cap by 2030.
2:51:32
>> Uh and it's uh below two now. So >> yeah.
2:51:35
Uh can you talk about the name of the fund?
2:51:38
Where did the name come from? What does it mean?
2:51:42
>> The name of the company >> ARC. Yeah. >> ARC. Yeah. Yeah.
2:51:45
So um there are two ways to talk about this.
2:51:48
I can talk about this from a regulatory point of view >> uh or the personal point of view and I'm happy to share both >> please. I would love it. >> Okay.
2:52:00
So the regul um ARC was the name I chose for a personal reason.
2:52:03
I'll get into that but I was or we were told by the I think it was SEC that we could not have all caps. >> Okay.
2:52:13
uh we had to have lowercase R and K unless it was an acronym.
2:52:20
>> And so as soon as we got that >> that word uh that immediately I thought okay active >> research knowledge okay >> active means more in the public world because there's passive in the public world doesn't mean as much in the venture world.
2:52:37
>> Um so that's why we have it in all caps.
2:52:41
Uh the personal reason was in 2006 >> I decided I needed to figure a way out of the traditional asset management world because it was going passive.
2:52:52
It was going benchmark sensitive which means >> you take uh the QQQ so the NASDAQ 100. Yeah.
2:53:04
If that's your benchmark, then you pretty much invest in all of those companies and tweak a little bit here, a little bit there.
2:53:11
That's what benchmark sensitive is >> to me. That's not investing. Mhm.
2:53:16
>> Uh and in fact, um so back then, you know, I would just um I was trying to figure out how to do this because if I quit, uh my prior uh position, I would have lost all of my deferred comp, which was >> sizable. >> Yeah.
2:53:35
>> And so I worked took me seven years, >> you know, should I say seven lean years, but whatever. Seven years.
2:53:42
And I just used to open the Bible.
2:53:47
And this started in ' 06. Open the Bible. Okay, God, just tell me.
2:53:52
This seems like an impossible situation. >> Uh, what do I do? Just help me. Help me.
2:54:00
And um, how many times did I hit Ark of the Covenant? >> Yeah.
2:54:04
Ark of the Covenant, which is what the Israelites took into battle before them, believing it was the presence of God >> and that they would be protected >> uh because they were going into battle.
2:54:17
Uh and so it kind of was appropriate.
2:54:17
I was going counter uh counter uh the pendulum swing to passive and benchmark sensitive.
2:54:27
And you know, especially after COVID, a lot of people, you know, they they just thought we were going to fail because this was not the way to do things.
2:54:37
>> How do you think about uh the relationship between religion and markets?
2:54:41
I've always been fascinated.
2:54:42
We've had Pat Gellzinger on the show and uh yeah, >> he there's been a number of times when he was uh either quoting scripture or Bible verses and people were sort of reading into that how he was processing what's going on at Intel at the time.
2:54:55
Um I I would love to know more about the the interaction between religion and investing um because it's it's it's so rarely discussed but it's a fascinating topic and crossover. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. It it is interesting.
2:55:10
So, you know, I can say I was moved >> in the way I mean, you could uh the way I think about what happened there and what I just described is many people uh would use the universe.
2:55:24
They're responding to the universe or the force. >> Yeah.
2:55:30
>> Or the Holy Spirit or that. Right.
2:55:30
So, we're all moved by something.
2:55:33
Sometimes it's unhappiness, you know, whatever.
2:55:39
[laughter] Um, you know, I just I use prayer as other people would use meditation, let's say.
2:55:46
Uh, and I certainly don't go in there, you know, daytoday and say, "Okay, God, what should I do? Buy or sell this stock?" No, not at all. Not at all.
2:55:58
Um, it's it's I would say it's those moments of meditation that bring uh mental clarity.
2:56:05
you know, you clean the clean the the the the brain waves out or whatever.
2:56:12
And uh that that's more it's and it's also, you know, uh I would say it's a way of living just generally. >> Yeah. Sorry.
2:56:21
Uh not to completely change uh gears, but back to [laughter] back to AI productivity.
2:56:26
AI productivity. I want your reaction to this Wall Street Journal report yesterday that uh it showed that uh CEOs uh reported that that you know 20% of the seauite executives that the journal uh interviewed said that they were saving 12 hours a day or 12 hours a week some massive number and then they pulled
2:56:46
workers and workers uh 40% of workers said they're saving no time with AI and I'm wondering if what your read on that is is it that uh one thing that we were kind of kicking around as an idea was potentially that uh the work of the seauite executive is more ready to be
2:57:02
transformed by AI because like in your role you are a CEO you you do a lot of research every question that you're faced with over the course of a day in your life you probably want more information you want it neatly organized and delivered to you and AI is uniquely good at that um whereas many workers
2:57:20
might not be in that level of information processing role but how do you do do Do you think that this is going to be a report from the journal that we look back on like that MIT study where h it was just sort of an anomaly in the data and everything continues unabated? >> Well, this is a survey of course, right?
2:57:37
>> Well, this is a survey of course, right?
2:57:40
It's it's not quantitatively measured.
2:57:42
And so what could be going on >> is uh you know the seauite is really trying to >> um lead lead the charge into the AI world. >> Yeah. Yeah.
2:57:54
and and the the th we're all in the knowledge industry.
2:57:58
It's going to change everyone's job dramatically.
2:57:59
So those who are saying it's not saving me any time, >> I don't believe or they're not harnessing any tools.
2:58:09
What I do believe is they are saving time and if they're saying they're not, then it might be going to a longer lunch hour or, you know, an earlier end of the day.
2:58:20
The history of technology is um is that it increases productivity and the number of work hours is goes uh down over time during the industrial revolution.
2:58:35
Big decline in number of work hours.
2:58:38
Uh farmers used to have to work six and a half days a week or whatever.
2:58:44
And you know their families, the children, they got room and board. There wasn't much more.
2:58:51
Uh but then they went out into the working world.
2:58:54
So the farmers and these unpaid family members, you know, their work week got shorter.
2:58:59
And I think that's part of what's going on. >> Yeah.
2:59:02
Um we've been tracking the optimism around AI and progress sort of loosely along two axes.
2:59:10
There's there's a view that uh GDP will start growing as AI diffuses and we go into a new technical revolution.
2:59:18
We're already seeing some green shoots on the GDP figures, but it's still early.
2:59:23
We're not at 10% GDP growth, but that's what some AI leaders are predicting.
2:59:26
Uh, but then you also have the employment question, and there's some leaders of AI labs that say the future will be high GDP growth, high unemployment, which seems like it will have, you know, significant social consequences and we will have to grapple with that as a society and deal with those problems.
2:59:45
Um, but I'm wondering if you have a view between what we should expect in a decade from AI as it rolls out.
2:59:53
Do you do you fall into that camp of high GDP growth, high unemployment, or are you more, you know, the jobs we'll find new jobs and so maybe we will see an economic boom, but we will also still all find ways to, you know, fill our time during the day with employment.
3:00:09
Yeah, I think that uh one of the reasons uh this question is popping up more and more well first of all is our imaginations but also >> because the unemployment rate for uh 16 to 24 year olds >> has increased uh much more than the overall unemployment rate.
3:00:29
It's now up to double digits 12%.
3:00:34
The average duration of unemployment, the average is about 24 weeks.
3:00:36
And so that's kind of scary.
3:00:41
A lot of entrylevel jobs uh are uh are are going unfilled.
3:00:47
In other words, maybe the people answering that survey >> uh are are now being faced with the um reality that wait a minute, they're not going to hire someone to come in and handle this grunt work. I have to do that too.
3:01:03
Maybe maybe that's what's happening at the low end to give them some credibility or at the lower end there.
3:01:11
>> Um we're in the camp and you'll find this in big ideas as well.
3:01:14
Uh we're and we've been saying this for a while and at first when we said it, we probably said it three years ago for the first time.
3:01:23
We think there's going to be a step function change here in real GDP growth just as there is with every technology super cycle.
3:01:31
So just to illustrate that >> in the 400 years uh between 1500 and 1900 uh Brett Winton working with academia found out or learned or >> uh that real GDP growth was 0. 6%.
3:01:50
Then we had railroads, internal combustion engine, telephone, electricity >> and it went to 3% for the next 125 years. Here we are.
3:01:59
>> We think it's going north of 7%.
3:02:03
>> Uh and that's conservative. >> Fantastic. >> That's conservative.
3:02:06
I think it's conservative.
3:02:07
Really productivity driven. >> Yes.
3:02:10
[laughter] and and we think that uh that this is one of the greatest times to start a business.
3:02:20
When I started ARC, >> there was no chat GBT to say, >> okay, do a deck >> for my startup because this is what I want to do. >> Yeah.
3:02:31
>> Uh there wasn't anything like that.
3:02:31
I had to create everything. Yeah.
3:02:32
Now you can look at an unmet need out there and say, "Hey Chat GBT, uh or hey Grock, uh come help me build this business, right?"
3:02:44
>> Uh so we think that fears of unemployment, sure there's displacement, uh short term, but think about what's also happening. >> 1.
3:02:52
3 million pe baby boomers are retiring every year. >> Yeah. >> Right.
3:02:57
And we've just had or we're in the midst of an exodus of u immigrants. >> Sure.
3:03:07
>> Uh and and and you know little in migration.
3:03:13
>> So that I think is helping >> uh keep the unemployment rate low >> but entrylevel jobs can be done by AI. >> Sure.
3:03:24
>> And so that's what we're seeing at the younger level.
3:03:25
And so what I say to young people is you all in your mind have thought of a a new business that would really fulfill an unmet need, something that frustrates you. >> Why don't you do it? >> Yeah.
3:03:42
>> Uh and use AI to do it to plan it >> and uh just get going while you also look for a job if you're unemployed.
3:03:48
Uh, I think we're going to see the biggest entrepreneurial explosion in history. >> I love it. I love it. Thank you.
3:03:59
>> Uh, we got to hit the gong for 7% GDP growth.
3:04:02
We have a gong around here.
3:04:03
>> I love the sound effects.
3:04:06
>> We have We have real sound effects in addition to the soundboard.
3:04:10
>> Thank you so much for joining.
3:04:11
>> Can I give >> Yes, please. What?
3:04:13
>> Can I just give you one more stat? One more step. >> Yes, please. Please.
3:04:16
>> We think we think inflation will go negative. Oh, >> I love that. >> Yes.
3:04:22
And that's [music] technology. >> This is amazing.
3:04:25
This is uh this is a very optimistic picture of the future and I'd love to hear it.
3:04:29
Thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show and explain all of that.
3:04:32
A very wide-ranging conversation.
3:04:34
I love the history and the personal story and everything that you're doing.
3:04:38
So, thank you so much for taking time out of your busy day to come chat with a bunch of people with a funny soundboard.
3:04:45
>> We will see you later.
3:04:45
Hopefully hopefully we made a good impression and you will be back soon. >> We did.
3:04:50
[laughter] Now I know why you're famous. >> Thank you so much. >> Byebye. >> Goodbye.
3:04:56
[laughter] Have a great day, Jordy. Oh, that was amazing. Plaid.
3:05:02
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3:05:08
Securely connecting bank accounts to move money, fight fraud, and improve lending. now with AI. Go and check it out.
3:05:17
>> I couldn't keep it together. The chat the whole time. >> I know.
3:05:20
The chat was going insane.
3:05:22
[laughter] >> I could I literally [snorts] I was fighting for my life. >> Oh my god.
3:05:25
The >> Every time I look up at the screen, I was just trying to >> I know. I know.
3:05:29
It was just wallto-wall flashbang and I'm just [laughter] trying to hold it together.
3:05:35
>> I love I love you guys, chat.
3:05:35
I love you, but also you make the job a little difficult [laughter] sometimes.
3:05:42
>> That was the hardest battle of my life. That was insane.
3:05:44
And I'm like, and there's nowhere to look cuz I look at the chat, I look at Tyler, I look at my phone, I have a hundred notifications, I assume, as people texting me, they pull the flashbang.
3:05:52
And also, by the way, I can't I can't trigger the flashbang. That's Jordy exclusive.
3:05:57
We need a smoke to clear the air.
3:05:59
We need we need to tell you about Gemini 3 Pro, Google's most intelligent model yet.
3:06:03
Next level vibe coding, state-of-the-art reasoning, and deep multimodal understanding. >> Okay. Uh, so some news.
3:06:11
So, we're going to have uh Pedro from Brex is going to we're working on getting him on.
3:06:16
Uh Delian's also going to join separately, of course.
3:06:20
So, I don't know who's coming on first show.
3:06:22
We can uh in the waiting room, >> but we have another guest jumping on right now. We have John.
3:06:30
>> We're going to push uh we're going to push John just because the stories >> and he's okay. He has some time.
3:06:33
So, we'll so we'll hop on with him later in the show. Fantastic.
3:06:36
Well, before we bring in our next guest, let's tell you about public. com.
3:06:40
I saw someone in the chat asking for public. com read. Here it is.
3:06:45
Investing for those who take it seriously.
3:06:47
Stocks, options, bonds, crypto, treasuries, and more with amazing customer service.
3:06:52
>> I've never I've never cried on air [laughter] before.
3:06:56
>> It this is a unique experience.
3:06:56
The the chat is is a wild wild exper uh wild wild experience.
3:07:03
But thank you to everyone who's been supporting. She was a great sport.
3:07:06
Uh had a bunch of interesting things to share.
3:07:07
And I I I truly do love the optimistic view because we so we we had actually written a chart for uh high growth, high GDP growth, high employment, low employment, low GDP growth.
3:07:20
And we were trying to track where the other AI leaders were because Daario of course came out and said, I think we'll have high GDP growth and I think we'll have high unemployment.
3:07:29
I think there's going to be a lot of labor displacement.
3:07:30
And me and Jordy and Tyler were going back and forth on where we all sit.
3:07:34
Where does the US sit right now?
3:07:36
Where do different leaders uh feel like they the world is going if they're charted on this two axis uh chart?
3:07:42
And and I kind of jokingly put myself all the way in the most optimistic camp.
3:07:47
I said 10% GDP growth and less than 5% unemployment.
3:07:50
Um I don't know if I have my I don't know if I have it in myself to truly believe that.
3:07:56
I do think that there might be some girrations in the employment market, but uh it was great to hear it from her and we appreciate her taking the time to come hang out with us while we uh throw soundboards and flashbangs around.
3:08:07
Anyway, it sounds like we have someone in the reream waiting room. >> Who do we got? >> John. >> Oh well, >> John. We got John. Let's bring John.
3:08:14
>> Let's bring John in to the TV Ultra.
3:08:16
John, thank you so much for taking the time.
3:08:18
Been a bit of a crazy show. >> Look at this setup.
3:08:20
This is what do you have behind you? >> The home library. What else would it be? Incredible.
3:08:25
>> Give us some recommendations.
3:08:25
What's the best thing on that?
3:08:28
>> Um, there's an incredible history of Houston rap music that I highly recommend on this book. >> What era?
3:08:34
Like >> this is like screw era.
3:08:35
Like screw into Paul Jones. Yeah. Okay.
3:08:39
That >> everything that led up to that moment. >> Oh, interesting. Okay. Very cool.
3:08:45
Anyway, thank you so much quick.
3:08:45
This was this was the last 15 minutes or so have been one of the more chaotic that we've ever had.
3:08:52
We had Kathy Wood on talking about a variety of of thesis she has on on markets.
3:08:57
Uh the our chat, we have some sound effects.
3:09:00
Our chat just kept telling us to spam the sound effects and I couldn't couldn't keep it together.
3:09:05
But uh we're super excited to have you on here.
3:09:08
Thank you so much for taking the time.
3:09:10
>> Yesterday was uh was kind of a funny experience.
3:09:13
Somebody sent somebody sent me the video that you posted uh with the rugby and there we only made like a hundred of those.
3:09:19
We gave out we gave them out to friends.
3:09:20
We would have happily sent you one if if we knew you were uh in the market.
3:09:24
But of course, >> I was tapped in. I was tapped in. You were tapped in. You found it. You were tapped in. You found it online.
3:09:30
>> Um so I'm glad I even though it was bootleg, I'm glad that it looked great.
3:09:35
It looked great in the video. Great. Yeah. >> There it is. There it is.
3:09:37
Well, we have sent out a an official TBP in the mail.
3:09:43
It should be arriving any day.
3:09:44
>> And what did it smell like when it arrived from Canada? >> Okay.
3:09:47
So, can I please can I be candid with you guys?
3:09:50
I feel like we can be candy.
3:09:52
>> Of course, >> when this package arrived in my package room in my building, it looked like it had been assembled by a small child.
3:09:57
She was >> It was packed into like a mailer, like a like a regular mailer >> that was tattered at the edges.
3:10:07
>> It had a label from Canada >> and there was a full retinue of packing tape layers, like four or [laughter] five layers on top of the mailing label. I opened the package. I had ordered one. I got two. >> You got two. Okay. [laughter] >> I got two.
3:10:23
So, there's a bonus one if you guys. >> Thank you. >> Do a swap.
3:10:27
>> Smelled like cigarettes.
3:10:29
>> Smelled like [laughter] cigarettes. >> Wait.
3:10:30
So, you think a child was smoking cigarettes like cigarettes.
3:10:34
Child is [laughter] is selling boot. >> Non fumar. Um. >> Yeah.
3:10:42
And but I will say as a as a clothing connoisseur, when I saw the images that you guys had posted of your polo, I was like, incredibly high quality material.
3:10:49
I could see it in the photos, I knew that the embroidery would be like robust to the touch. I knew >> I got this. >> Yeah.
3:10:59
>> Oh, >> this looks like it was made from uh you know, you get like a 10 pack of terry cloths on Amazon basics. >> No, not good. >> Yeah. See, this was an issue.
3:11:06
A lot of people when I f I posted that that we had uh that that there was bootleg merch floating around and a lot of people were like, "Oh, what's the issue?"
3:11:14
Like, >> you guys are a podcast.
3:11:15
It's not your core business.
3:11:17
We don't make merch to make money, right?
3:11:19
Uh but the issue was like I knew people would buy it and they'd get it and they'd be like, "This is low quality course and we care a lot about quality."
3:11:27
>> I was like, "But on the on the flip side, you guys are popping and you're getting bootlegged." So, MV, congratulations.
3:11:33
>> Yeah, it's a good interview. Thank you. >> Anyway, sorry.
3:11:34
uh for your first time on the show, please introduce yourself for everyone who might not be familiar. >> Sure.
3:11:40
Uh my name is John Karam Monica.
3:11:40
I am a pop music critic at the New York Times.
3:11:45
I am the co-host of Popcast, which is our popculture talk show. Yeah.
3:11:49
>> Check us out, YouTube. comcast. >> Yeah. >> Sticker. >> Yeah.
3:11:54
And then and then and then the the the real that started this whole thing on Instagram.
3:11:58
Uh >> break down the thesis.
3:12:00
And then uh and then uh just to clarify uh none of the footage in that is AI generated. Correct. >> No. >> Okay.
3:12:09
>> Just >> but the look like that.
3:12:11
>> I mean no no is something about like the camera movement and your dancing was like a little bit like whoa there's a lot going on. Okay.
3:12:18
Well >> movie magic baby. >> Movie magic. Movie magic.
3:12:22
>> But what was the Yeah.
3:12:22
So every week we do a song of the week.
3:12:24
It's not necessarily pure endorsement.
3:12:25
It's usually a song that's reflective of a bigger idea in pop music.
3:12:29
Obviously, we've been talking a lot about AI and pop in recent months.
3:12:32
We had a big episode on that before the holidays.
3:12:34
I listened to the Bruno Mar song that just came out, and I was like, >> if you had told me that this is just some guy trained on the pop charts of 1972 and made this, I would have totally believed it.
3:12:48
>> So, typically, we film in my car.
3:12:48
My car, unfortunately, is in the shop, so we went up to the South Bronx and filmed a dance video uh in my mechanic's garage. >> That's awesome.
3:12:58
I mean, it's a beautiful set.
3:13:00
I don't know what you shot that on, but it is is like it's a beautiful like piece of media. >> Did you go?
3:13:07
>> Did you go to the Bruno Mars concert in the steal a brain rot game in Roblox? >> What?
3:13:13
>> Did you not [laughter] hear about this? >> I know.
3:13:14
What are you talking about?
3:13:14
I know about this, but I don't know.
3:13:16
>> So, Bruno Mars played a concert in the game Steal a Brain Rot in Roblox, which by itself, just reading that sentence, it kind of feels like it would give you brain rot.
3:13:25
So, I guess it is kind of stealing a brain rot. Exactly. >> Okay.
3:13:29
Well, let's zoom out and talk about AI music.
3:13:31
Um, we were talking about it earlier and and I've always been on this this train where the AI tools are incredible.
3:13:38
The it's, you know, it's hard to tell the difference, but they're always whenever I see a viral piece of AI media like Harry Potter Balenciaga, I return to the fact that AI didn't come up with the concept.
3:13:52
AI was used to instantiate the idea that was created from a human.
3:13:55
And in fact, after Harry Potter Balenciaga, I went to I think ChachiBT and I said, "Here's the here's this thing that's going viral.
3:14:04
They're mashing up a kids classic with a iconic fashion brand.
3:14:06
It's this high low uh create a new viral video concept that will absolutely take over the internet."
3:14:14
And it just was like like, you know, like Star Wars Louis Vuitton.
3:14:16
And it was like that's not actually going to break through in the way that Harry Potter Balenciaga did because it's not innovative.
3:14:24
It's not the first time it's had something happen.
3:14:26
And and I'm wondering like how much do you think we are, you know, you're seeing music that's like purely just the AI did it or it's more of a tool like how are you processing the AI music boom right now? >> Sure.
3:14:39
One note on the Harry Potter Balenciaga thing.
3:14:41
You know that there is an actual Balenciaga Fortnite collaboration. Are you aware of that? >> No, I'm not. Wow.
3:14:47
So when Dem Demna, who until recently was the creative director of Balenciaga, had a really, I would say, a robust sense of humor and irony about the types of clothing that he made.
3:15:01
>> And a lot of times he did some unlikely garment collaborations.
3:15:03
And he there's a sanctioned Balenciaga, Fortnite, I think it's a hoodie, maybe a shirt, two or three pieces.
3:15:12
So they were the troll out trolled the AI. >> Yeah. There you go. There you go.
3:15:18
Um, as far as AI as a music tool, you know, one of the things I think is causing a lot of people anxiety right now >> is you look at some of these artists who are cut from whole cloth, right?
3:15:27
Solomon Ray purports to be a soul musician, but really it's just a guy running a bunch of Anthony Hamilton songs through a program and coming out with a new one, probably allegedly. Yeah.
3:15:39
Now, that doesn't scare me because eventually Spotify, Apple are going to say there's going to be some banner, some badge that's like this is not a real person to the extent that that matters.
3:15:52
>> Here's what I think is interesting >> or or it's not fair use and we need to shuffle the revenue over there and so you're effective.
3:15:58
>> That's going to happen in the same way that sampling y had many years shadows >> and then everything kind of came into formality.
3:16:05
That's going to happen with AI and frankly it's going to happen much faster. >> I agree.
3:16:09
>> I agree. What I think is interesting is if you go into any songwriter, producer studio in Los Angeles right now, which is where all the sort of hits are written typically, >> the the hierarchy of that room is typically famous person,
3:16:23
>> famous person's guy, you know, like songwriter, helper, melody person, >> a name producer who you probably maybe would have heard of, >> one or two songwriters, and then one or two kind of studio hands who were sort of like moving the knobs. I would bet
3:16:36
I would bet anything that in every single one of those sessions, one of those low-level folks is already deploying AI in unexpected ways.
3:16:47
>> There's an interview with Teddy Swims, who's like a moderately successful pop star a couple of months ago, and he said, "Oh, yeah, AI.
3:16:53
Yeah, I use that to multitrack my vocals.
3:16:55
I use that to try out what if I change the key, what's it going to sound like?" >> Sure.
3:17:00
I would bet anything that in the same way that autotune was quietly used for a long time and then became completely accepted, these AI tools are going to get used and deployed in these not totally discernible to the earways.
3:17:14
But in terms of workflow and process, I bet they're already there in everything we're listening to on especially on pop radio.
3:17:20
radio. I heard an interesting story [clears throat] uh from a friend uh from a friend about a friend of theirs who was a like a backup like studio singer whose work went to basically zero because right they were working on tracks that were just meant to be demos so that a
3:17:38
songwriter could share it with different labels or artists or whatever and then suddenly it's like you don't need somebody to go into the studio to like sing your song you just like prompt it and and so yeah I think >> what uh you're obviously a student of history. We talked about the book the
3:17:50
We talked about the book the books behind you.
3:17:52
Um what uh I've >> read them all.
3:17:55
>> Uh what anecdotes can you share about previous technologies rolling out in music?
3:18:01
Backlash to electronic drum machines, backlash to electronic music.
3:18:07
Give me some more like what are you drawing on to for its core? >> Okay.
3:18:10
So I mean the the the story that I think becomes really it looms large in a lot of people mind.
3:18:15
Dylan going electric, right?
3:18:17
This is an era of folk music where everybody's like, "You know what's authentic is me. I don't smell great.
3:18:23
I'm strumming on an acoustic guitar.
3:18:25
I perform at four cafes a night in the village.
3:18:28
We all hang out and write together and have sex with each other."
3:18:32
And that's that's the scene.
3:18:34
>> And then Dylan sees what's happening with technology and sees what's happening especially with the guitar.
3:18:39
And the electric guitar has become a creative tool for an entire legion of rock musicians.
3:18:43
And Dylan brings it to the Newport Folk F to the Newport Folk Festival and says, "I'm I'm plugging in.
3:18:50
I don't care what you guys think."
3:18:52
>> And of course, people call him Judas uh and and say that he's doing heresy.
3:18:55
And the fact is he's just following.
3:18:58
He was a follower at that point.
3:19:02
>> I also mentioned Autotune earlier.
3:19:02
You may remember Jay-Z put out a song called DOA, Death of Autotune.
3:19:06
This is at the peak of Tay.
3:19:09
T Pay is dominating radio with essentially computer music that sounds a lot like Zap and Roger from the late '7s into the early 80s.
3:19:17
That kind of like synthetic funk music that was really popular after like the Earthwind and Fires of the world.
3:19:25
>> Tay comes along, formalizes it, becomes a go-to songwriter, producer, and collaborator.
3:19:30
And all of a sudden, everything on the radio sounds like a computer.
3:19:34
Jay-Z comes along with Death of Autotune and says, "Actually, stop all that."
3:19:38
and that people were like, "That's nice, old man."
3:19:39
Like, "Let's keep it pushing."
3:19:41
And autotune is now widely accepted uh in every genre.
3:19:43
You hear it in country music, you hear it in pop, you hear it in reggae, you hear it in hip-hop.
3:19:49
Those these questions that were sort of like anxious critical m uh anxious critical discourses when they emerged, >> nobody really gives two thoughts to anymore.
3:19:59
>> I think that's probably what's going to happen >> 12 to 24 months from now with AI. >> Yeah.
3:20:04
I I I I want to go so much deeper and and have you back to spend way more time with all this.
3:20:08
I'm interested in your thoughts on um on the the downstream implications of AI music because I I I could imagine that if you're a particular artist that can create one of those like shelling points where there's a specific tour that everyone's talking about, you got to go see the eras tour or this particular tour at the sphere was something that so many people took Instagram reels of and posted that everyone just knows it's real.
3:20:37
that creates this proof of authenticity.
3:20:38
I'm wondering what other downstream effects might are you thinking about as artists react to competition from some anonymous person with AI that can create music that's maybe indistinguishable.
3:20:51
So, they got to specialize. >> Here's the thing.
3:20:54
Here's the anxiety that it brings up for me, >> and I think it's an anxiety that I've long felt >> before AI posed itself as a problem.
3:21:04
I'm a very intense listener. It's my job.
3:21:07
But also, just even before it was my job, I was always an intense listener.
3:21:10
You guys may or may not be intense. I don't know. >> Sure.
3:21:14
>> What I can tell you is that for every person like me, there's 50 people who are casual listeners, which is to say, they press play on a Spotify playlist and walk away >> and don't think too hard about what the second song is or the fifth song is. They're notify. They're not studying.
3:21:29
And they're not preoccupied.
3:21:30
They're not every song that comes on, they don't do a gut check with themselves and say, "Do I like this? Am I curious about this?
3:21:37
Is this an artist I respect?"
3:21:39
They just kind of let it go in the background.
3:21:40
Everything is dentist office music.
3:21:42
It's moving in that direction.
3:21:44
There are plenty of real life artists who are making music like that >> and those are the people who have been shutting out some of the bigger and more creative people.
3:21:54
AI accelerates that process, but AI didn't start that process.
3:21:58
And I think what it's also going to accelerate is more and more people as consumers are going to get trained to try to not pay too close attention >> to the specifics of what they're listening to. >> Mhm. Okay.
3:22:09
Uh I have 50 more questions, but we do have to move on.
3:22:13
But thank you so much for hopping on short.
3:22:16
>> Do you want me to burn this? [laughter] >> No. No, keep it. It has lore now.
3:22:19
We've we've discussed it on the show.
3:22:21
It lives on forever in the Instagram reel. It's great. I love it.
3:22:26
One thing I'll say before I go is that many of my favorite rap shirts from the '9s are all bootlegs.
3:22:31
This may be this may turn out to be the thousand shirt 20 years from now.
3:22:36
>> Maybe it has lore now.
3:22:36
It's been discussed on the show.
3:22:41
>> Let's like actually schedule your next appearance today.
3:22:43
We'd love to have you back on so much.
3:22:48
>> You guys are killing it. Congratulations. >> Thank you so much. You too. We'll talk to you soon. Great to hang. >> Goodbye. Talk to you soon.
3:22:53
>> The New York Stock Exchange.
3:22:53
Want to change the world?
3:22:55
raise capital at the New York Stock Exchange >> and uh >> uh Pedro is in the waiting room.
3:23:01
Bring him on in billion dollar ready. Wow, what a day.
3:23:09
Pedro, how are you doing? How are you feeling? Congratulations. >> How are you guys? Thank you. >> Good to see you.
3:23:14
>> We're super good to see you as well. >> Give us the news.
3:23:16
How'd this come together? What happened? I want to ring the gong. >> Yeah.
3:23:20
So, uh, so today we're announcing the largest, uh, bank fintech merger in history, uh, between Brax and Capital One.
3:23:27
Uh, I'll let you go for it. Go for it. 5. 15.
3:23:29
[clears throat] >> Uh, congratulations. >> Thank you. >> Thank you.
3:23:38
We We're really excited about this.
3:23:40
And >> And as we as we thought about this, right, Capital One is the first fintech ever.
3:23:46
They invented this concept of bringing technology into financial services. >> That's right. That's right.
3:23:50
>> And as we got to know them, what we realized was there was a a really obvious oneplus 1 equals 5 scenario here.
3:23:57
And and and really when you look into that they operate, it was completely different >> than anywhere else uh compared to Brex.
3:24:07
They had, you know, hundreds of millions of consumers, millions of businesses, you know, $150 billion in market cap, $900 billion in KG&B.
3:24:13
And really the way that we we thought about this is when we combine the product that we built at Brex, right?
3:24:21
We created this new category of company that brings financial services and software under one platform to help customers make better financial decisions, right?
3:24:28
And we combine this with uh you know the the product and the platform with Capital One's unprecedented scale brand distribution and balance sheet we have this unique opportunity to accelerate our go to market and product with a level of investment that we would never be able to match as a standalone company.
3:24:47
So it's really about how do we build uh the most important financial platform for businesses in the US.
3:24:51
Uh and this is such a unique combination of being two founder-l like companies that fundamentally believe uh in growth and being here to win.
3:25:02
>> Uh they always say what's the phrase like you meet your acquirer, you know? Yeah.
3:25:08
How did you guys like first?
3:25:08
How did the conversations first start?
3:25:13
>> So uh so I've I've heard of Rich uh and the Capital One team uh for many many years.
3:25:17
Actually, even when I was back in Brazil, uh they were already an inspiration.
3:25:20
These guys have been building in fintech for for a long time.
3:25:23
They invented this idea of bringing data into underwriting which of course is one of the big things that we pioneered back in 2017 as you know.
3:25:30
So so a lot of this has been you know deep admiration and respect.
3:25:34
And then as we started to spend time with them, I think the biggest thing to me was uh the deep respect they had for technology and the fact that when you think of a bank M&A, people really think about okay, we're going to go and integrate all these teams and spend all this time and make super slow.
3:25:51
Um and and really the the the main idea is keeping Brax independently and just accelerate like accelerate the growth and we're going to integrate a few parts of the business but the majority of it will run uh independently and and you know when you put in behind the $6 billion R&D budget of Capital One the $6
3:26:08
billion marketing budget that gets a very special uh a very special combination and and I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't believe that this was the easiest and fastest path for Brex to be the number one player in our space uh operating with this you know unprecedented scale and ambition with them. >> Uh what what uh I want to talk about
3:26:27
>> Uh what what uh I want to talk about other exciting areas of plugging bringing like a Silicon Valley ethos to a larger company.
3:26:35
a larger company. uh how much of what you see over the next few years is like uh deploying AI transformation and bringing uh like that that high energy early adoption of AI throughout the organization or any other areas like even just marketing there's so many different areas that you have a unique view from the founder seat in >> oh 100% 100% and and and look I think I think the thing that about about capital
3:27:02
on the special is being a founder company is just this ability to make uh you know quote unquote bold decisions much more aggressively than others right >> and and when you look into for example the engine that they've built on the go to market side for a small business >> uh I think I think it's nowhere in the world matched uh in to the scale in which they operate >> when you look into the technology and
3:27:25
data and what they do on the credit side and underwriting uh it's really sort of an end of one thing so I think there's a lot for us to learn from them um and and I think the the things that we're really excited to bring to the table is especially when you think about this space right and bringing financial services and software into one uh is really just AI and the direction of the roadmap that we're building as a
3:27:46
standalone company and and now that we can you know double triple our level of investment over the next few years together um it's going to be a really unique thing to do uh and just bring this capability to the millions of businesses that are already on their platform will also be uh huge right so you Super super and and maybe the biggest thing to say is, you know, uh we're not going anywhere. I'm saying
3:28:09
I'm saying this I think this is going to be the most uh exciting years of my career.
3:28:12
Uh yes, we're making history here. >> Super great.
3:28:18
>> Yeah, I was going to ask, are you coming for Rich's job?
3:28:19
Are you going for the top spot?
3:28:21
Some people want to sell, you know, they want to, you know, just rest, but I know you're ambitious.
3:28:25
I can see you going to straight going straight for the top.
3:28:30
>> We advocate for this for every acquisition.
3:28:31
We want the founders to get inside, take over.
3:28:35
>> I I have immense respect for Rich.
3:28:35
He is one of the greatest entrepreneurs of this generation.
3:28:40
Uh and and he's incredibly private and doesn't talk a lot about the he says that the you know the story of Capital One is the book that would never be written >> and and uh and there's some there's some amazing stories there, but but just the way in which he runs a company is founder mode to to the extreme.
3:28:54
Uh and and there's a lot there that that that inspires us.
3:28:59
But look, the reality is for now there's so much to build in the space that we're in, right?
3:29:04
We're still Brexit's 1% of the market. Yeah.
3:29:06
When we bring it together with the existing, you know, commercial card, there's a lot more room to go.
3:29:12
We're going to be the third largest corporate card issuer in the US.
3:29:16
>> Uh, and there's a very clear path to build the most important financial platform for businesses in the country.
3:29:20
So, yeah, uh, really excited. >> What about location?
3:29:22
Uh, I think of you as a San Francisco company.
3:29:25
I'm sure you've expanded.
3:29:27
I think of them as New York company.
3:29:29
Do I have that right or they're going to be like just lots of flights or Yeah. >> Yeah.
3:29:35
They're mostly based in Virginia. So, >> yeah. So, uh in DC.
3:29:38
So, so the the biggest thing for us is we're actually keeping Braggs mostly standalone. Okay.
3:29:45
Uh and and large, you know, operating largely independent.
3:29:47
So, the idea is I remain in San Francisco, our leadership team remains in San Francisco and, you know, spread over the US. Yeah.
3:29:53
Uh we continue to hire in Brazil, we continue to hire in Seattle, we continue to hire in New York.
3:29:58
And really it's like how do we add fuel to the fire?
3:30:00
That's that's really the mindset.
3:30:03
>> Uh and we're going to integrate a few parts of the business that are important like some risk management functions over time of finance reporting and all that.
3:30:10
>> But but fundamentally the cool thing of this is you know how do you play this game at a completely different level of scale and just uh get ahead like five, seven, 10 years of what we would as a standalone company.
3:30:21
Uh and we're really excited about it. Yeah.
3:30:24
>> Uh lessons for entrepreneurs, you know, looking back since 2017, I mean, crazy ride, one of the fastest growing companies of its era.
3:30:33
Then through COVID and Zerp, like it's been an insane roller coaster and and you know, the last few years, >> uh, you know, focusing on, um, on, you know, just navigating through that whole process is, uh, and getting to this outcome is, uh, uh, super inspiring.
3:30:48
But uh any any lessons that you're taking from it, learnings? >> I mean so many right.
3:30:55
Uh I I I think you know it's it's I started this company I was 21.
3:31:01
Uh I didn't know a lot about uh about about things and the world and and I think a lot of the journey of the company is is you know also a reflection of the founder journey. Mhm.
3:31:14
>> Um and and over the years, you know, we've made a lot of mistakes.
3:31:15
We learned a lot and and I think the last two years honestly were uh the most challenging but also the most rewarding years of my career because I ran this company, you know, as sole CEO.
3:31:27
I have an amazing leadership team and I have a fantastic team across all of Rex, but it was a it was a very different game to play.
3:31:34
M >> and then when you see what we did on growth, what we did on the enterprise side and the level of deals that we're winning across every single player, uh the majority of AI companies now operating on Brex uh when you look at the momentum uh and the revenue growth as well as you know profitability, right?
3:31:52
Uh it's it's really remarkable what the team did here over the past few years.
3:31:56
Uh, and I think the biggest lesson is um, you know, continue to believe in the in the things that made you start and the things that keep you going because there are roadblocks, right?
3:32:09
Brex wasn't in a great place in 2023.
3:32:11
2023. Um but I just had this belief uh that we were not living to al to all our our fullest potential >> uh and we could be much more as a company and and I think what we got today is uh first a really exciting milestone that this was all [clears throat] worth it but the most
3:32:29
important part is what the company get to become and just cementing Brex as a part of the US financial system forever and the fact that a company will be around this product that we created that we have so much conviction and belief will be around for 10, 20, 30 years uh at a massive scale. Uh so really sort of
3:32:43
Uh so really sort of unique and emotional moment uh for me.
3:32:48
Uh I I really have so much gratitude for the team we build at Brex uh some of the most talented, hardworking, smart uh and kind people that I know.
3:32:57
Uh and that without them like none of this would be possible.
3:33:01
So uh just just immensely grateful for for everyone that contributed to the journey uh and and getting us here today.
3:33:07
And again, we're just getting started in this new in this new phase. >> What a moment. >> Congratulations.
3:33:13
>> Uh we were we were joking earlier.
3:33:13
It is it is uh interesting that you now have more common ground with with Kareem and Eric over at RAMP and that you've both sold the company to Capital One.
3:33:21
So, [laughter] uh but uh great stuff.
3:33:25
Uh super super inspiring and congratulations to the to the whole team and the whole cap table on the milestone and uh uh it's great uh great to catch up. >> Amazing. Thanks for having me.
3:33:36
Really >> talk to you soon. Cheers. Bye. You guys >> see you. >> Up next, who we got?
3:33:44
>> Do we have anyone in the reream waiting room? >> Got Delion.
3:33:47
>> I think we got coming through >> of coming in [music] from Founders Fund.
3:33:53
Is he available in the reream waiting room?
3:33:54
Let's bring him in to the TBPN Ultra Dome.
3:33:57
Welcome to the show, Dian. How are you doing?
3:34:01
>> You know, just great day. Great day. I got to be here.
3:34:05
What are you hitting me with? No, not the flashbang.
3:34:07
[laughter] >> Did this hit you like a flashbang or were you expecting this? >> No.
3:34:12
I mean, how was I supposed to know the 70s?
3:34:14
They did a good job of, you know, sort of keeping it keeping it down low.
3:34:16
And I want to start where it ended.
3:34:19
Common ground with Eric and Kareem, right?
3:34:20
There is some common ground.
3:34:20
They both have now sold a company to Capital One.
3:34:25
>> There's a lot of distance between the two of them.
3:34:27
>> Kareem and Eric realized it is impossible to have a significant influence on the world by being within the structure of Capital One.
3:34:32
the only way to save customers time and money was to go out and build an independent generational company. >> Okay.
3:34:39
>> Pedro somehow believes the exact opposite.
3:34:42
>> He believes the only way for him to accomplish anything is to go into an old stodgy bank, convince them to overpay for his company by 50% and probably accomplish nothing with the rest of his life.
3:34:49
>> Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
3:34:49
Okay, so we're not we're not Yeah, we're not we're not doing we're not doing uh we're not going to do any grave grave dancing here as much as >> But uh who who knows?
3:34:57
I mean, uh, you know, what if he what if he does his earnout, he leaves, he starts a new company.
3:35:02
You know, are you are you going to sign up?
3:35:04
You say, "Hey, you know, I've backed people that have sold to Capital One before.
3:35:08
I've seen this story before.
3:35:11
His next company might what if you end up inspiring him to go do the earnout, come back, start a start a ramp competitor.
3:35:18
>> What if he starts a movie with a mass driver? Couldn't possibly."
3:35:20
And you're just like, "Wow, he actually cracked it."
3:35:22
You know, this could happen. I don't know.
3:35:24
>> Look, as Josh likes to say, chips on shoulders, but chips in pockets.
3:35:26
So I'm just trying you're putting a chip on his pocket. you are. >> Exactly. Exactly.
3:35:30
>> Exactly. Exactly. The thing that I'll also you know sort of point out and this is more of like a you know sort of you know general company building you know sort of macro point but it's an analogy that I um you know learned from Keith back in the day which is uh building companies is a lot like laying cement >> in the early days you have the ability to like you know manipulate it shape it etc right it is you know sort of soft
3:35:48
and malleable the moment that it starts to harden though trying to change company culture requires like a jackhammer it's loud it's painful it's disruptive it breaks your structural you know sort of integrity and so I think the thing you was kind of listening into you know sort of Pedro's interview and it's a little bit of a you know sort of joker quip but it's still funny to me that throughout the entire interview
3:36:05
there's never a time where he like really deeply was focused on how this is impacting his customers in particular is it going to save them time and money right and I think that just comes down to what the early days of the two companies were like in terms of focus areas the early days of Brex were focused on celebrating go to market celebrating basically like signing up logos celebrating wins I'm not saying that's like necessarily a bad thing I'm
3:36:25
just saying that is what the culture was they celebrated the champagne campaign they set up the you know sort of South Park, cafe, and those types of micro decisions feed into what employees want to work on because they see what the,
3:36:35
you know, sort of founder celebrates versus, as you guys know, what ramp celebrates from the get- go has always been saving customers time and money through better product, better automation, better savings. And that's
3:36:43
And that's what ultimately the individual employee on the line, you know, celebrates and thinks about every single day because they see that that's what the founder is celebrating.
3:36:50
And so I think as you see this like, you know, the two sides of the story basically play out, I actually think it comes down to those early early cultural micro decisions.
3:36:56
And I think companies and founders should be thinking about that a lot even in completely unrelated you know sort of categories of like what is going to be the penultimate you know sort of winning culture.
3:37:04
You know when I think about the space industry are you relativity space and you're celebrating like renders and capital raising or are you SpaceX and you're celebrating like technical accomplishments and actually like landing rockets and ultimately that's going to be what you know sort of plays out.
3:37:17
Relativity goes and raises $3.
3:37:17
5 billion never launches a rocket.
3:37:19
SpaceX obviously launches their first rocket on like you know I think $60 million total raise.
3:37:24
Um, so >> on the on the question of like ramp strategy, I'm interested to hear your thoughts on like the actual structure.
3:37:33
Like if you think about Brexen Capital One, they now have like that combined entity has a consumer business.
3:37:36
Uh, I've pushed Glimman, get me a personal ramp card that I can pull out for my personal finances.
3:37:44
I actually talked to some people who set up like whole LLC's just to run their personal finances through RAM.
3:37:49
It's like very cumbersome because RAMP does not have a a consumer business. Is that in the cards?
3:37:53
Is that do you think that there's a world where ramp grows into a bank or is or is focus like the actual correct strategy for now forever?
3:38:04
How do you see it progressing?
3:38:06
>> I think focus really matters, right?
3:38:08
Like we have a like you know sort of core ICP which is just like you know you know the um all basically enterprises of America and I think like there's so much more that we can do to serve our customers even better.
3:38:18
customers even better. you've you know sort of seen us you know basically spin up you know sort of ramp labs and you know today we just you know they launched you know a new version of you know sort of ramp budget and I think any additional energy spent on just
3:38:30
continuing to develop next generation products especially ones that obviously utilize AI that is focused on the core ICP for ramp is a far better utilization of our time and you know to take it back to like the Peter Teal philosophy we believe in building monopoly right and
3:38:42
ultimately anything that isn't serving that core ICP is a distraction from the potential to build a monopoly I think what I find particularly exciting about today and about the news about Brex is that it is probably the strongest monopoly thesis for ramp that has existed since the company's basically
3:38:57
start if you remember when we funded it you know and it like you know came out and launched in 2019 and 20 amme still had like a really big you know enterprise business was a multi-billion dollar company Divvy was still super you know sort of fast growing bill.com was
3:39:07
com was still super you know sort of fast growing expensify was fast growing like there were so many players in the market you fast forward today divy basically got acquired is barely around anymore more Brex obviously, you know, got acquired.
3:39:19
AMX has almost entirely shifted their focus to their consumer business, right?
3:39:22
If you look at how much of their gross profit basically comes from consumer business and how rapidly that's growing relative to enterprise, it's all the CEOs basically talking about on quarterly earnings calls.
3:39:29
Their entire basically like you know, you know, FMV basically growth over the past three years is entirely based on the consumer business.
3:39:35
consumer business. And so enterprise corporate spend card spend management budgeting just the like smartfo suite that smart CFOs use dude the like field is somehow more open today than it was 5 years ago there's less funding going into it less like super competent
3:39:52
teams that are you know sort of focused on it and so why would you ever like give up focus on just continue to maximize that when like you know we're still only 1% of the way there there's so much more basically to do and so yeah would I as a consumer like love to have that level of power like in my hands. Sure. But like as a ramp shareholder, Sure.
3:40:06
But like as a ramp shareholder, why would we not give up the fact that we literally have the best monopoly opportunity since the company got started that we need to continue to go capitalize on? >> Jordy, anything else?
3:40:18
>> No, I uh I'm I'm happy uh I'm happy for the Brex team.
3:40:21
Uh and uh I think it's I think it's a great outcome and I can also see why you are excited about this moment simply because a lot of people uh probably mocked you for you know investing in a corporate card company.
3:40:35
Yeah, >> when you initially led the round into ramp, even with the quality of the team, it seemed, you know, like you were saying, it seemed like the the uh the cards had already been, you know, fully dealt and and there wasn't, you know, some type of uh green field opportunity.
3:40:50
So, um uh I I guess congratulations to you too.
3:40:54
>> Congratulations to everyone.
3:40:56
>> But yeah, congratulations to everyone.
3:40:57
Honestly, like I hope I hope the the industry uh can just like move past this like kind of like rivalry.
3:41:03
It's like we're all we're all like serving to to we're all building tools to to grow >> uh grow grow the economy and uh that's something I can >> Delian's got to say something nice.
3:41:16
Aren't you a YC founder, Delian?
3:41:17
[clears throat] >> Uh you know, summer 2014, but you know, >> so you're a YC founder.
3:41:21
This is a good outcome for the YC community.
3:41:24
Let's give it up for the YC community.
3:41:25
[applause] Deliver returns.
3:41:29
>> Jordy and Kugan, you guys are much better people than I am.
3:41:31
I think that's why you have much better hair than I do.
3:41:34
I unfortunately am incapable of not being anything but like a vengeful paranoid.
3:41:37
[laughter] So that's all I've got in me.
3:41:39
And you know, I'll say the um you know, the ramp story, as you guys may know, started on Fortnite.
3:41:45
You know, Kareem and I playing together, seeing his brilliance.
3:41:47
I'm happy to, you know, sort of end the Bre story and the rivalry on my favorite, you know, basically saying in, uh, you know, gaming, which is GG, WP, uh, you know, Ezre, which stands for good game, well played, easy game, no rematch. >> No rematch. Savage.
3:42:07
>> Who knows, there might be a rematch.
3:42:08
We'll see what the next company is.
3:42:11
>> Anyway, have a good rest of your day.
3:42:12
We'll see you later, Dian. >> Cheers. Bye, boys.
3:42:13
[applause] And that concludes probably the most chaotic stream of our show.
3:42:21
>> Definitely the most chaotic.
3:42:21
We had technical difficulties. We had flashbangs.
3:42:24
We had >> surprise guest $5 billion deal get announced live. We had bootleg merch. >> Bootleg merch. We had a good time.
3:42:33
>> Uh but uh but no, this is uh a fantastic moment for Capital One and Brex and uh we are we are excited for them.
3:42:39
So >> um I think that's it. I think that's it.
3:42:45
Um uh chat the the the concerning thing is the chat knows that now they can just >> say start spamming flashbang into the chat and I'm not going to be able to keep it together. >> Nope.
3:42:57
It's going to have to happen every once in a while.
3:42:59
Anyway, thank you for tuning in.
3:43:01
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3:43:03
Subscribe to the TVPN newsletter at tbpn. com.
3:43:08
Uh we have a great show for you tomorrow.
3:43:10
I think we're a little bit lighter on the guests as we've been doing on our Friday shows.
3:43:13
We'll be hanging out, bringing you the new >> the mansion section.
3:43:17
>> Doing the mansion section, >> of course.
3:43:19
>> And we hope you have a wonderful tomorrow, 11:00 a. m. Pacific sharp. >> We love you. >> Goodbye. >> Goodbye. is win.