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[Music] The music [Music] [Applause] [Music] feels for you. [Music] founder. >> You're watching TBPN.
6:38
Today is Friday, September 26, 2025.
6:41
We are live from the TBPN Ultra Dome, the temple of technology, the fortress of finance, the capital de capital capel, >> de capital, >> el capital de capital capel.
6:51
Uh massive news in the AI world in the product layer in the application layer.
6:57
Two apps launched yesterday really two features.
7:03
Um one in the meta AI app called Vibes and one in the chat GPT app called Pulse. Two very different apps.
7:11
Neither of them are going to save you time and money.
7:15
The only one that can save you time and money is ramp ramp. com. Time is money. Save both.
7:18
to use corporate cards, bill payments, accounting, and a whole lot more all in one place.
7:21
Good morning to everyone in the chat.
7:23
We had John actually live in the TVP Ultradome yesterday. It was great seeing him. >> Stop by.
7:28
It's great to see you, John.
7:30
>> Um, we got a couple app demos, caught up with a few folks, did a little photo shoot yesterday. Had a great time. >> We did.
7:36
>> And of course, we are live on Reream. Reream. io. One live stream. 30 plus destinations. Multiream.
7:40
Reach your audience wherever they are. >> Wherever they are.
7:43
Uh oh, >> we also get really quickly uh just to say thanks to everyone before we go into our top stories.
7:49
Uh Grapile uh sent a book called Vault Lines about the history of bugs because of course grappile helps you find bugs.
7:57
Um and I thought this was interesting.
7:59
They tell the story of the first bug at the Harvard Computation Lab in 1947. Said one relay stalled.
8:06
A technician checked the console, traced the path, and opened the door to relay 70 on panel F.
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Inside a moth was jammed in the switch.
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>> They removed it, taped it into the lab log and captioned it fir first actual case of bug being found.
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The log made the term bug literal and cemented the practice.
8:30
Find the cause, write it down, keep the knowledge. >> Very cool.
8:33
Uh let's get into the news. >> Yes.
8:38
Uh, and we have uh I guess we should highlight we're gonna have uh none other than Rune on at 1 pm today.
8:45
So that'll be in a couple hours.
8:45
Yeah, can't wait for that.
8:48
In the meantime, >> lot of stuff to talk through.
8:50
The timeline has been in turmoil.
8:51
It has uh interesting that >> Pulse was launched the same day as Vibes.
8:58
Uh they got very different steamroll big technology companies.
9:06
Well, I think yeah, I I have to wonder.
9:09
I mean, Chat GBT has the benefit of like they're launching Pulse in the core app.
9:13
People are just going to discover it and use it if they're paid and they can roll it out that way. Yep. >> Vibes.
9:18
I thought it was interesting that they even launched this so aggressively into the timeline. Yep.
9:24
>> Uh because the reaction was almost universally negative. Uh >> on X >> on X. Yes.
9:31
>> Uh the question is will children like it?
9:34
Will the elderly like it? >> Moms like it. Yeah.
9:38
>> Um, but we should we should get into it.
9:40
>> Well, let's uh let's start by playing the actual video for everyone.
9:42
So, if you haven't seen uh Alex Wang, who we had on the show last week at Meta Connect, uh posted the initial launch.
9:49
I think he launched the entire product.
9:51
Uh he said, "Excited to share vibes, a new feed in the Meta AI app for short form AI generated videos.
9:58
This is on the back of the MidJourney partnership.
10:01
We can go way deeper into um what's going on here in the reaction, but I mean just the numbers on this is crazy. 2. 8,000 likes, 2.
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4,000 quote tweets or retweets and one and 1. 6,000 comments. >> Insane ratio. >> Insane ratio.
10:18
But uh uh this is of course uh >> you know there there's a lot of nuance here that we're going to go into.
10:25
But let's kick it off by watching the actual one minute trailer for Vibes, the new app from Meta. It's in the Meta AI app.
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You actually have to uh reinstall the app or go and update the app.
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Are you channeling the the vibes?
10:41
Are you feeling the vibes? The create button.
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Uh so when this launched, I went to the Meta AI app and I uh and I typed in, okay, I met Meta AI, I'm ready to use the new vibes feature. How do you do it?
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and it was very confused and it was saying like I'm not aware of that.
10:59
I don't know anything about that.
11:00
It's because the the older app was not aware of the new app existing.
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And so I had to go to the app store and actually refresh.
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But once I did, I got in and I saw a lot of this type of content. An astronaut on a bike.
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Uh two bears boxing, a cat talking at a news desk, women running in clouds.
11:17
Uh all very AI aesthetic.
11:21
It has a very unique look to it that I would just describe as like the AI art look these days.
11:32
It's not trying to >> Yeah.
11:36
It feels like it's not trying to be anything but AI in the same way that a lot of a lot of CGI and 3D renders have a certain aesthetic to them.
11:42
It's an interesting thing where if you showed one of these assets to somebody 10 years ago, they would have thought that looks really cool.
11:52
>> And now the reaction is that looks like AI. >> Yep.
11:56
>> And people just don't think it's cool. >> Yeah.
11:59
>> Like I, you know, personally, I I think there's a market for this.
12:01
And obviously this is the worst that the model the worst the models will ever be. Yeah.
12:05
So the images will get better.
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But um I think the reaction uh Seam Sham Sankar he he quoted it.
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He said, "Read the wall of quote tweets that category categorically reject this AI slop. We are so back. We are going to win."
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And he hits it with a salute.
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It's crazy to be >> kicking it off. >> Crazy to dunk. Uh crazy.
12:29
You don't see Shawn dunking.
12:33
>> No, I mean they're also partnered.
12:33
I'm pretty sure Palanteer is model agnostic.
12:37
uses llama which is then Alex is working defense llama but you know like when people are not down with a thing like you know they're going to speak their mind it's pretty >> yeah I mean I think I think the >> it's interesting because X is such a microcosm right it's not a reflection of
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of the average internet user it's certainly not a reflection of the average meta platforms user >> I think that there's another world where they just started promoting this in Instagram and Facebook and just started driving users over kind of quietly. And
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And I think this was like a very unforced like PR error to come out because >> to go in the you can't tell somebody you you basically, you know, I believe that they want they they truly want and will build their version of personal super intelligence.
13:24
But when you've just been hitting people over the head with messaging about personal super intelligence and then the first thing you launch from MSL with your new massive partnership with Midjourney is a trough sloth.
13:38
>> That's that's rough, right?
13:38
Uh it sends a signal to the market and I think this just makes their job harder >> from a recruiting standpoint, right?
13:45
Do you want to work at Anthropic which believes in >> machine God which has like a cult, right? their team.
13:53
They didn't lose a lot of people >> in the talent wars, right?
13:56
They even lost some people for to Curser and got him back a week later. >> Yeah.
14:01
Luke Metro was commenting on this.
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He said, "I would not be surprised if this tweet alone is going to make Meta Super Intelligences raise their signing bonuses by $1 million." >> Yeah. Or even more, right?
14:12
Because even um you know even when when you look at your options it's like you can go live in Elon world and work on XAI and be super hardcore and sleep in the office and get that sort of tap into that Elon's there's a fair amount of slop going on in >> Sure there's there's slop but it but at least it's >> companion stuff.
14:33
At least you're buying you're riding with Elon who is a >> but you have the cool narrative around like building Colossus 2 really fast and going after like the >> benchmarks and all that stuff.
14:47
>> Elon posts slop, but when you look at their like when they talk about benchmarks, what benchmarks are they really going after?
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It's like really >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
14:55
Elon does a good job of like he'll be retweeting a lot of quite frankly like SWAT videos, right?
15:02
Um, but then he will refocus the conversation back on we're going to solve physics.
15:06
We're like like we're going to we're going to discover new physics.
15:09
We're going to do really hard math and you know let's give Meta a couple days to see if they can kind of re steer the conversation back towards something that gets technologists excited because they could.
15:20
It's possible that they come out with something >> for sure.
15:23
It it's just when you have the entire world waiting and honestly kind of preying on their downfall, right?
15:33
Like the world is not rooting >> the world broadly, the industry broadly when you look at all these different camps.
15:39
>> Open AI lost a bunch of top talent to MSL.
15:41
They're not they're not sitting there, you know. >> Yep.
15:45
>> Excited for Meta to do something amazing, right?
15:47
Which I'm sure they will at different points.
15:49
Um, and so you public opinion is already against you and then you come out and launch a product that is, you know, dedicated to the thing that people like the least about AI. >> Yeah.
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16:21
>> That's what you call a layup. Boom. >> Boom. >> Slams it down. >> Um, so yeah.
16:24
So, basically, they just set up this they set up uh a per the perfect product, the perfect video. Yes.
16:32
>> To just allow the entire internet to do the craziest alleyoops. >> Okay.
16:37
So, uh first off, it the I I totally get like I the the the backlash is undeniable. That's just a fact.
16:44
like like the the the timeline hates it in terms of like if Meta is on the offense today and the timeline's on the defense, like the defense slammed it down.
16:53
Not a single point got through.
16:57
Um but uh what's weird about this is that David Holes, the founder of Midjourney, who created this model, who created this aesthetic, is loved in tech and is one of the I think the most one of the most respected founders.
17:12
He hasn't raised a dime of venture capital.
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dime of venture capital. He built this incredible model >> a bit of money in the terms of revenue from >> but in general midjourney has been the one video generator image generator that has been sort of celebrated as as the least sloppy I guess and and the most
17:31
opinionated and so I feel like maybe the meta team just thought that by partnering with Midjourney they would beat the slop allegations but it is weird that we're not seeing any of the goodwill that David Holes has transfer over to MSL Well, which which I I don't know how to unpack. So, David pitch
17:45
So, David pitch pitch me back on that.
17:48
>> David is not they had an announcement, but he's not, you know, he didn't post yesterday.
17:54
>> It's not like he came out and was like, >> "Hey guys, I'm really excited for our new check out Meta." >> Sure. >> AI vibes. >> Yeah.
18:03
>> Also, the name >> The name is a little bit stale.
18:09
>> It's just the most overused word of the year. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
18:12
I mean, didn't you call the top on slop like a year ago or something like that?
18:17
I remember you saying like >> it was earlier this year.
18:20
I just I I think >> you said like the term's overused at this point.
18:24
>> It's just why you know o overly used >> and uh Meta created a product that is giving slop it's a bull market in slop again. >> Yes. >> Because >> Okay.
18:36
So, >> but but again and and I want to be clear that I'm not like putting like I don't judge MSL based on this product. Yeah.
18:44
>> But I en I judge the I I think it was a poor marketing strategy for AI efforts at Meta Broadley. >> Yeah.
18:54
>> When in a few days they're launching a product that has a heads up display with AI built into it.
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It's like get people to focus on that. >> Yep. >> Right. >> Maybe. Yeah. >> Like that.
19:05
That's a functionality that's actually really cool. We've used it. >> You can walk around.
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You can be like, >> "Hey, Meta, looking at my fridge right now.
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What should I make for dinner?"
19:13
And it'll tell you and it'll give you recipes and it'll show it on a heads up display and it's awesome. >> Yeah.
19:21
>> But this was just a totally unforced error.
19:23
There is a little >> like it felt like um >> it felt like the it really to me I was seeing parallels between you know that iconic image of Mark Zuckerberg like in the metaver metaverse when everybody saw it and they were like >> graphics. Yeah.
19:41
And it was like oh it's over like the metaverse is over. >> Yeah. Um interesting.
19:48
So the I have a few I have a few things I want to peel back on that.
19:54
So um first Cognition is the maker of Devon.
19:58
Devon is the AI software engineer.
20:01
Crush your backlog with your personal AI engineering team. Go sign up, please.
20:08
>> Also the makers of Windsor.
20:09
>> Also the makers of Windsor. Fantastic.
20:11
>> They're absolutely cooking over there. >> And the hero. >> Fantastic transition.
20:14
John, you tried to interrupt my uh you perfectly interrupted my rant with an ad. >> Yes.
20:20
>> Great sign of respect.
20:21
>> So, so, so I want you to I want you to shift back to the Studio Giblly moment, images and chatbt and try and relive that because I feel like that came out and it was AI generated content.
20:32
It had a very AI generated aesthetic.
20:35
There's a world where that looked really sloppy, but >> it didn't.
20:40
It was What was your experience?
20:42
It was AI perfectly emulating at scale one of the most loved aesthetics on the internet ever.
20:51
>> And >> it wasn't that was the beauty of it.
20:51
It was like anybody could make something >> Yeah. Yeah. >> that >> wasn't slopp. >> Yeah.
20:57
>> It was like, you know, uh time from somebody having the idea for the prompt to a beautiful image.
21:02
And sure, it got overused.
21:04
Sure, you don't see them a ton anymore. >> Yeah.
21:06
But that was I remember the the the the little joy of turning an image of like me and my fam, you know, with with my family into a Giblly picture and that was fun.
21:18
>> It was a super fun day on the internet.
21:20
We had a ton of fun with it. I made multiple.
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I had a couple that went super viral.
21:24
>> Everybody made like 50.
21:25
>> Everyone made a ton and then eventually it got burned out.
21:29
>> Like any like any uh aesthetic or meta, it just burns out on the internet, right?
21:34
And so >> like launch videos are >> there were there were a few hot takes on the timeline that were like ah I don't like this.
21:40
Then then there were also the there was also the backlash to like you shouldn't be stealing Studio Gibli's aesthetic. Uh your >> Yeah.
21:47
If I was if I was Studio Gibli I don't know if like what's your what's your verdict?
21:53
Do you think that was good overall net positive for Studio Gibli or do you think it it actually >> Well, I ran the I ran a sort of test where I took a image from Oppenheimer and I studio Giblied it of Einstein talking to Robert Oppenheimer.
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It's this iconic scene and I gibbleied it and I put that up and that got like a thousand likes because everything that was decent, every decent meme that got gibbled that day got 1,000 likes.
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And then I took a a real frame from Spirited Away, the most iconic Studio Giblly film, like a real frame, not an AI generated one.
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And I put that up 10 likes.
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And it was very funny to be like, people don't actually want Studio Gibli.
22:35
They want Studio Gibli filter applied to something else iconic because it allows them to do this mental puzzle of, oh, I'm seeing something that's iconic.
22:43
It's the bell curve meme or it's the always two astronauts in space shooting at each other.
22:51
Always has been Gibli and it's like oh I I get the joke.
22:55
>> And what was magical about is is you took a style of of illustration and animate, you know, illustration. >> Yes.
23:02
>> That historically was extremely expensive and time consuming and made it instant and it was >> basically as good. Right.
23:08
I'm sure I'm sure a true uh uh Studio Giblly enthusiast would be like, I'm going to pull up the two pictures and look like they didn't get this part of the handwrite or whatever. But it was beautiful. It was magical. Yes.
23:21
And that was that was undeniable.
23:23
I'm glad we're not seeing them.
23:26
>> And if you're trying to make something beautiful and undeniable, go to figma. com.
23:29
Think bigger, build faster.
23:30
Figma helps design and development teams build great products together.
23:32
But my point was that with the Studio Gibli aesthetic, it was actually personal super intelligence. It was personal.
23:39
And what made that go so viral in a way that I think everyone liked was that they could studio Gibli themselves?
23:45
They could studio Gibli, it acted as this interesting filter where I saw, remember the very first one that went viral?
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It was a man with his wife and he was like, "Life hack.
23:55
Take a photo with you and your loved one and studio Gibli it and send it to them. They will be overjoyed."
24:01
And I remember the first 12 hours people were like, I don't know h how are how's everybody making these? >> Yeah.
24:08
>> It was still like there was a narrow window that >> Yes.
24:11
But there's something where if you empower the individual to create something that's personal to them, then they are more inspired, more defensive of it, more happy with it.
24:24
There's something there that's that that that that that's more satisfying.
24:27
even if it is like it's it's not slop because there's still that element of uniqueness in it.
24:35
>> And this gets into the huge problem with meta vibes vibes is that it's not it doesn't start with your Instagram profile. And I was pitching this. I was pitching this. I was saying Instagram.
24:46
>> No, even even even more specifically, you were showing some of the results you got this morning.
24:52
And and and to anybody that hasn't downloaded the app yet, you downloaded it and it's a bunch of high quality assets for what they are, right?
25:00
Well, you can say >> it's the midjourney explore page. >> Yeah. >> Like literally.
25:05
>> So, it's like elite midjourney like results. Yeah. Right.
25:12
animated and you know it's it's solid, but it's it's more like just a collection of assets.
25:18
It's not a you know they they've basically seated the feed with a bunch of super curated assets. >> Yes.
25:26
>> And everybody I think we had a few people on the team looking at it and everybody's getting the exact same results. Yes.
25:31
Like almost a mirror image.
25:33
>> The if you open the Meta AI app, I can guarantee you that within 10 scrolls you will see a monkey on a jet ski.
25:38
Like, >> let's give it up for monkey. >> The monkey a jet ski. It's a great video.
25:43
Honestly, >> hit that horn. Hit that horn.
25:46
>> Hey, every once in a while you got to slop it up.
25:48
You got to you got to put the monkey on.
25:50
You know, you can be sit here and critique it, but good sloth is tasty.
25:54
And uh and so the monkey on the jet ski is great.
25:56
Uh there's a cat in the newscast. There are a few feeds.
26:01
They very clearly went and picked the best AI videos from Midjourney and whatever they'd created and curated a like a starter feed before you get into the random algo feed to kind of to kind of seed your algorithm.
26:14
And so you automatically see the same thing as you scroll on your feed or my feed.
26:20
It's all the same right now.
26:22
Eventually, it'll be highly user generated and then eventually it'll be highly algorithm driven such that you could just wind up seeing I'm I'm I guarantee this is where this going. Um, whoa.
26:31
So, so, so I actually love those midjourney 1980s uh videos that have been on uh Instagram where someone takes the aesthetic of like imagine you're a Swiss banker in 1980 in Switzerland and it's like cherry cherry lady is the song that plays and it's just a whole bunch of midjourney images back to back to back.
26:49
I love those videos and that's what my feed will be once the Meta AI feed tailor to me.
26:57
Right now it's just general AI video and I feel like when I see generic AI video, it's just a movie that I've seen.
27:06
It's a very cool movie once, but I only want to consume 10 minutes of it and then I'm like, I'm good.
27:12
I don't really want to revisit it.
27:13
I want to go see something new.
27:15
Um, so I don't think this at at this stage, this level of content will be that sticky.
27:21
It'll be novel to to scroll for a lot of people if they haven't seen it.
27:25
Um, but but eventually it will become more tailored and you will see stuff that you actually do like to over time.
27:32
And I think it'll be a long time until they really get the long tail of people.
27:36
I think live players will basically stay out of this forever.
27:40
I think that a lot of people will get kind of sucked in, but they're already getting sucked in on realels and Tik Tok and YouTube shorts and stuff.
27:45
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27:59
And so my my pitch to Adami and the Instagram team was was make AI video personal, make super intelligence personal, go and preload a generative image for everyone's Instagram profile picture.
28:16
And just like when you upload any photo, you can filter it.
28:18
you can filter it. go and pre-render that and give everyone a Gibli or give everyone a midjourney vision of what they would be like based on their most liked photo or their most recent photo that they've shared and then just have
28:32
that kind of pre-rendered ready to go and then they can share that and you can create this like viral moment where people are sharing like the like the Studio Giblly moment their own personality brought through in an illustration >> instead of just here's a bunch of random >> Yeah. And and I would say
28:48
And and I would say >> I guess everyone likes >> you know uh I think obviously we love the meta team. >> Yeah.
28:58
>> And uh we're excited what about what MSL is going to create broadly but uh it's hard for me not to just give this a scathing review specifically because it's not just a bunch of user generated content.
29:10
It is I mean it was generated by users out there. >> Yeah.
29:15
But it's effectively like they created a folder that people can view in a feed >> and it's cool >> videos, but then when you go try to make a video, the output is not at all on par with what you're seeing in the feed.
29:30
>> Prompting midjourney is hard.
29:30
Like getting good results out of AI image generators is hard.
29:34
you have all the ideas, understand what keywords work, the saf midjourney and then the animation step is really hard too because >> oftent times you're not really like you you can kind of describe a scene and then you need to think about like okay what what do I actually need to tell it?
29:52
Do I need to tell it that the that the background that that there should be actors in the background that are moving >> mid Journey is magic but it has a steep learning curve.
29:59
It does sort of >> meta AI.
30:01
They're making it they're they're they're selling this they're selling you slop dreams. >> Okay.
30:09
>> And then they let you create assets, but they don't they're not and that that's just a terrible it's like it's like running an advertising campaign of like, hey, uh you know, they're they're advertising what what would appear to be the capabilities of Meta AI because it's in the Meta AI app. >> Yes.
30:26
But then when you as a user go to create stuff, it's just not good.
30:28
Like you were just trying to generate a TBPN intro >> and the letters were like like you put TBPN in a blender, they were inverted.
30:39
It just didn't make any sense.
30:39
Like >> and >> character consistency and and fonts and all these things are hard to generate.
30:48
But it just didn't feel like the product was if you were trying to create an organic moment where people were like, "These videos are cool.
30:57
>> Now I can create cool videos." Yeah. Myself.
31:00
And then people are going to have this a bunch of people are going to have the experience.
31:02
So >> again, the the two the main critiques are like product level just not great yet. It will get better. >> Yeah.
31:11
And then from a marketing standpoint, like total cell phone >> to launch this into the to the audience that is going to have the most adverse reaction of anybody is we're sick of seeing Elon, you know, share these videos >> of like random, you know, anie stuff.
31:32
>> Yeah, it does feel like it's very much white labelled midjourney.
31:34
Like even when you go to create, you type a prompt and it gives you four images, which is exactly what happens on midjourney.
31:41
You get four and you get to pick and then you have to animate it and you're animating it from a single frame.
31:45
That's not the workflow for VO3 in Gemini.
31:47
In Gemini, you go in and you describe a video with a whole bunch of different steps.
31:54
And the results that I was getting from from V3 were so far and above this.
31:59
Midjourney has a cool aesthetic and it it has kind of a cool a cool like it's like an animated painting almost. I don't know.
32:07
It's like it's a different thing than V3.
32:09
Like the camera was moving around as it tracks the car that breaks through the Hollywood sign and then the remember the champagne bottles bursting out.
32:17
We were like it fit that in there.
32:19
And I think what's happening in V3 is that when you go to it with a prompt, it has it kind of has like a reasoning step where it hydrates out what you're saying and gives it way more context. and transforms it.
32:29
A lot of times when I'm writing VO3 prompts, I'll actually go to chatbt and describe and talk for a long time and say write a big long V3 prompt that actually organizes all of this into what's happening in the background, what's the lighting like, what time of day is it, where are we like, what's the setting, what's the camera, what's the focal length, like all of these things are things that you need to put in midjourney to get good results.
32:49
And and it's it's hard to get people up to speed on that.
32:54
I do wonder about the social component here.
32:57
component here. Um, one of the secrets to MidJourney's success has been the fact that David Holes uh was talking on actually to Ben Thompson and he was saying that uh oh wait no it wasn't it wasn't David Holes it was uh I think it was Nat Freriedman who's now at MSL uh
33:16
was talking about why Midjourney was successful uh and how MidJourney works and Midjourney uh famously did not have a website did not have an app they just had a Discord server and in the Discord server People would go and prompt and >> they'd get a good result. >> Yes. But the key Yeah. The key was the >> Yes. But the key Yeah.
33:33
The key was the sharing because when you give someone just a blank prompt box, they just type dog. I want to see a dog.
33:39
And then you get one one generic image of a dog and it looks like a stock photo.
33:43
And what you really want is a photo of three puppies in the snow in Christmas shot on a Kodak phone.
33:50
The Kodak camera with this camera move.
33:54
Do you want the directorial style?
33:56
You want something that's a different vibe?
33:59
There's so many different pieces and tools that you would use to put together something that actually looks great.
34:05
And the midjourney chat and the Discord allowed people to see, oh, wait, this person's prompting in this way and they're getting this result.
34:14
I should prompt like that.
34:14
And they all built off of each other.
34:16
And I think that's something that can actually happen in an app like Vibes.
34:22
>> I wouldn't be surprised.
34:22
You can already see it with the prompt is described there and then you can click remix and you can use that as a jumping off point.
34:31
So in just in terms of like the user experience of creating little pockets of of creativity and solving that problem of like how do you get a good result?
34:40
How do you get a good prompt?
34:40
Um it doesn't seem that hard. I don't know.
34:43
I I feel like I'm not that bearish on this product.
34:49
Like I know people are are rejecting it, but it feels like this is a useful step in terms of like they have a midjourney partnership.
34:58
They're basically white labeling midjourney into this app.
35:01
A lot of they're they're testing gathering feedback data and then they're going to put this in Instagram. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a proving ground. >> Yeah.
35:09
And they but they do need to they do need to go to felt like a it felt like an alpha product, not a beta product. >> Yeah.
35:16
There's something there's something there. I don't know.
35:18
Ben Thompson was wildly positive on this. He was the only one.
35:23
He did an emergency podcast this morning uh or maybe last night.
35:27
Uh and he said that he had an interesting take that said that basically uh this technology, this AI feed, it solves a few problems.
35:37
First, he liked the idea that we've all been suffering with this like lowgrade annoyance of is that real or is that AI?
35:50
And I've we've noticed this in the show.
35:52
We used to be able to clock it immediately.
35:53
Like it used to be so easy to just spot six fingers.
35:56
Oh, that's obviously AI generated.
35:57
But recently there's been a few things where we've had to look at the community.
36:02
>> The monks in the Apple store.
36:03
>> The monks in the Apple store.
36:03
And then once you dig in, you're like, oh yeah, that doesn't make any sense.
36:06
like why would Apple have like the iPhone rendered wrong?
36:09
Like that doesn't make any sense.
36:10
They're going to show the full iPhone.
36:11
Um and uh and I sort of fell for this one of like this robotic horse that looked really cool.
36:16
I wanted to believe the robotic horse was real.
36:20
And I think I think there is a company that actually does make a robotic horse that is real, but this happened to be a AI video of that product.
36:26
And so it was like it could exist, but not with this exact motion.
36:31
And so like people are falling for this stuff and they're sort of running with this low-grade stress.
36:36
And what Ben Thompson was saying was like it's nice that when you open the Meta AI app, you know that everything is AI generated.
36:42
Like you're not running that question of like is this real or is this fake.
36:46
You're just like I'm in fake world. I'm in cartoon world. I'm in AI art world.
36:50
And so that's actually a benefit especially if you can kind of like segment these two things out. That's kind of nice.
36:58
And then the second thing he said which I will tell you in a second but first I'm going to tell you about graphite.
37:03
dev code review for the age of AI.
37:05
Graphite helps teams on GitHub ship higher quality software faster.
37:08
You can get started for free.
37:08
Uh the second thing he said was that this feels like an important step on the path to virtual reality and a metaverse.
37:14
This idea of like when you look at these midjourney worlds, some of them look cool.
37:22
Some of them look like they might be fun to go explore, walk around in.
37:26
And if you can go from an image to a video, you can go from an image to a video to to a world.
37:30
And and and we've seen that with those uh with the uh I keep blanking on the name.
37:35
It's Google's generative world product. It begins with a G.
37:40
It's not Gemini, which is their app.
37:42
It's not Gemma, which is their open- source uh their open source LLM. It's >> Yeah.
37:48
So, so I think this the Meta AI vibes product, >> it's Genie 3. Genie3, sorry. Genie 3.
37:58
You can go and and you can go and like walk around and paint the wall and stuff and you could imagine generate a midjourney world of this cool retro sci-fi, whatever you want.
38:05
you know, the aesthetic is going to be cool and then you can step into it and actually walk around like with a game controller or >> in VR.
38:11
So, so, so I start to get >> bullish on this product in the context of the Quest headset. Yep.
38:19
>> When somebody's, >> you know, it sounds really dark and dystopian, of course, right?
38:23
But if somebody's in wearing their VR headset and they're able to scroll and just be in these worlds that are fantastical and feel like uh you know like you're hallucinating, >> I think that I think people will be >> more excited to use that.
38:41
It'll be quite a bit more interesting than just like scrolling on your phone and seeing, >> you know, right right now.
38:48
I don't think that the Meta AI vibes feed will capture people anywhere close to as much as, you know, scrolling regular Instagram reels, scrolling YouTube shorts, Tik Tok, whatever.
39:02
Uh, >> you had a good take that was just like I can watch a cat take off like a rocket, but once I've seen that and I've seen the cat also jump off a cliff and also dance around in the snow, like I've kind of seen it all and I want to go back to like a comedian telling a funny joke that's new or someone giving me news or someone giving me their opinion or doing something in the world.
39:24
>> Going back to niche topics I already care about. >> Exactly. Yeah.
39:26
And so like the just the >> random randomness is not that entertaining for that long. >> Yeah.
39:34
I mean computerenerated art has existed for a long time and people used to you know follow people on Instagram and see something that he made in CG and in Cinema 4D and be like >> I think people still do >> people still do he posts new one every day.
39:48
But what he does is it looks absolutely wild, but it's like culturally relevant for the moment.
39:52
And so it's very provocative. >> I agree. I agree.
39:58
>> And so just seeing a, you know, as I I >> I love the monkey on the jet ski. I love monkeys. I love jet skiis.
40:04
You put those two things together. That's awesome.
40:06
You make them do a, you know, spin around 360. Amazing. Yep.
40:12
>> Am I going to use the monkey?
40:15
>> You know, if I use this app a lot, am I Do I want 10 hours? >> 20 of those. Yeah, 20 a day, right? >> Probably not.
40:21
Right now, it's going to increase and as it gets better, but uh there are a bunch of different instantiations of that where it's like if all of a sudden you generate the monkey on the jet ski and then you can play the game and then >> you scroll another time and there's an ad and the monkey on the jet ski is >> buying more jet skiis with the ramp card and that's and that's a promoted post. >> Yeah.
40:43
Yeah, you can see >> my first post, if you can go follow me on the Meta AI app, my first post is an ad for ramp. com.
40:51
I went and generated and it's honestly it's free real estate right now.
40:53
No one's using this app yet.
40:55
Go there, promote your business.
40:57
Gold Rock AI know you're going to do something. It's it's in your name.
41:01
You uh you promote yourself in the chat here on TBPN.
41:03
You should promote yourself in the Meta AI app.
41:07
uh get some free impressions.
41:10
>> Uh video game giant Electronic Arts uh is nearing a roughly $50 billion deal to go private. >> Whoa.
41:19
>> Silver Lake is cooking. Okay.
41:21
>> They they uh >> wonder if they're going to try and change the business model >> because EA for a long time has uh has sold boxed software effectively.
41:29
$60 for a game, $70 for a game.
41:33
And if they want to go full subscription, full, maybe everything's freeto play, like maybe that transition would be hard on earnings quarterly and so they need to they need to go private. I don't know.
41:46
Uh it'd be interesting to see see where it goes.
41:48
>> This would be the largest leverage buyout of all time.
41:51
>> Let's hear it for leverage buyout.
41:52
Should we ring the gong for that? >> Do it. Let's do it.
41:54
>> It hasn't it hasn't closed, but I'm excited.
41:56
I just want to >> preemptive hit.
42:00
>> Let's warm it up for everyone since we have time today. [Applause] There we go.
42:12
>> Um, oh, >> there we go.
42:14
>> So, uh, there there are some projections, some leaks, some predictions about what Meta's next headset will look like.
42:21
We obviously saw the AR concepts from or products. They're out.
42:26
um from everything from the Meta Ray-B bands to the Ray-B bands display which have the augmented reality display in one side of the headset or the the glasses and then uh and then the and then the Orion which is a full augmented reality um pair of glasses.
42:41
I don't even you can't even call it a headset because they're just glasses. >> Yeah.
42:47
Um, but they are still working on VR and I think when we talk to James Cameron, this is why he's genuinely so excited is because he's tried the next product.
42:56
And I think that he would not be that excited about the Quest 3, but I was calling it Quest 4.
43:02
I was assuming that Quest 4 would be the breakthrough where they take the battery out of the out of the headset, they put it in your pocket, they use the divi the the display from the Apple Vision Pro or even a better display.
43:14
Um, but it seems like they're going to do something in between Quest 4 and something else.
43:18
And so, uh, this is from Tom's guide.
43:23
They said, "New Meta prototype headsets combine goggle like design with ultra wide VR.
43:30
Uh, and it could be a sneak peek at the uh at the MetaQuest 4.
43:33
I'll drop it in the chat here. Timeline. There we go.
43:38
So, um, this is uh this is from Tom's Guide and you can see these images of uh of like somewhat smaller display.
43:46
I don't know exactly how it is, but they're they're going for a 180 degree field of view and aiming for something that's potentially much lighter.
43:55
I've been hearing 80 80 megapixel cameras, 60 frames a second.
44:00
Um, high curvature reflective polarizers and custom optical design.
44:03
Um, and so th this is still like in beta, but it feels like they could be doing something that's maybe a little bit more like uh what big screen VR is doing, which is a very very small light headset under 200.
44:19
I would love to have him back on.
44:19
I was just thinking that.
44:21
Um because uh Nick, there's something there. Yeah, reach out.
44:26
>> Big screen >> big screen VR.
44:26
He's been on the show before.
44:28
We got to get an update from him.
44:30
>> Um Joe Weisenthal has an absolute banger.
44:34
The emergence of quote unquote slop was foretold as soon as we started consuming content via the feed. >> I didn't see this.
44:41
I put this, this is how I kicked off the newsletter today. Go to tbpn. com, drop your email.
44:44
Uh, it says, "Why do they call them social media feeds?
44:48
Are they feeding a slop at a trough or seating us at a Michelin star restaurant?"
44:52
It's both and always has been.
44:54
You can use social media to follow the most insane craftsmen who spend years researching, writing, producing, and distributing content.
44:58
Or you can slop it up with some viral videos of scantily clad hot people in street fights, sometimes both in the same video.
45:05
The distribution of between craft and slop has been growing for decades, maybe forever, and is continuing to grow with the development of AI content.
45:14
>> And this this post got 10,000 likes from 0005 seconds.
45:21
>> We at Meta are delighted to announce we've created the infinite slot machine that destroys children from the hit book.
45:27
Don't create the infinite slot machine that destroys children.
45:31
>> This is such a good copy pasta.
45:31
I forget what uh the the the torment nexus is the original one.
45:36
It's like everyone in tech is like we've created the torment nexus from the famous book.
45:41
Don't create the torment nexus.
45:43
I just think torment nexus is hilarious.
45:46
Um we will see if this destroys children.
45:49
Um I don't know how much it will destroy children.
45:52
I don't know how much it'll destroy everyone.
45:55
There's an interesting dynamic.
45:56
Uh most parents are aware of technology and and that it needs to be measured and released in in you know >> if if any parents are unaware of technology, we would love to interview you >> for sure.
46:09
Um but but the iPad kids meme is a thing.
46:12
Are you going to give your kids an iPad anytime soon? >> Only on flights. >> Okay. Yeah.
46:18
Just as a replacement like watch a movie basically. >> Yeah.
46:22
It's basically it's basically like I know this is bad for my child but >> so limited >> I don't want to ruin you know four hours with you strangers.
46:33
>> So I mean there was a time when like I actually grew up uh my parents were art art majors studied fine art and uh film and they insisted that I don't watch TV. >> Yeah.
46:46
>> Like do not watch television.
46:47
>> I was only allowed to watch television in Spanish. >> Yeah. So I Oh, interesting. >> Like early on. So it was like Yeah.
46:52
If you want to watch >> Yeah. You're learning. Oh, that's cool.
46:57
Get ready to learn Spanish. >> I love it.
47:09
[Music] clearly worked perfectly.
47:11
Um, but but I had to watch a lot of the AFI 100, the top the best films.
47:15
I've seen Lawrence of Arabia like 25 times because of that, because that was one of the approved movies that I could watch.
47:21
Um, and and I think parents know that, you know, you need to let the dust settle on the new technology before you expose the kids to it.
47:28
And so, um, the phones are getting restricted.
47:32
There's screen time limits for most kids.
47:34
There's this idea of like let the let them cook, let them simmer, let their brains develop.
47:38
Uh keep them focused on books and writing and reading and then yes movies, but maybe a Pixar movie once a month, you know.
47:47
Uh the I think it was Andrew Sorcin that was interviewing Peter Teal and said kind of put the screws to him and was like, "You're on the board of Meta.
47:56
How much screen time do you give your kids?"
47:58
And he was like, "90 minutes a week."
48:00
And that feels like a very reasonable place to be where you're not gonna become >> also not all screen time's created equally.
48:08
You have a an old school animated show. >> Yes.
48:13
>> And totally it's handdrawn and it's sort of >> even just the moral lessons in one show can be wildly different than another.
48:21
Like there can be shows that have really com they grapple with really complex social issues or or instill, you know, they're retelling like if you're if you're watching something that's like essentially a a transposition of a Romeo and Juliet story or a biblical story or something that teaches you to turn the other cheek or the golden rule, right? The hero's journey.
48:44
like these things are going I I feel like you know uh like letting a kid watch the original Star Wars is not going to make them like a worse person.
48:53
It's going to be like yeah be heroic save the princess like like you know fight the bad guys right like those are sort of good and you need to unpack it and you need to follow the story lines from the beginning to the end and stuff.
49:06
It's not just something that you can just mindlessly turn on like it builds a whole world and it helps you imagine things and explore the ideas of space travel and science fiction.
49:14
like these are these are not that bad for you I think at least in limited doses.
49:18
Um and I think this will be the same for this AI slop.
49:21
I think that uh most parents will say um you're not getting that much out of this so it should be limited.
49:29
This is very much candy and then there are >> the only thing I would say is I don't think most parents are engaged enough to yes actively control screen time. >> Yes.
49:41
And so there will be a barbell where certain parents will will will police it and see very good outcomes for their par for their children and other parents won't and they will see bad outcomes from their from their children.
49:52
And then there will also be dynamics within these groups where if you look around and you see that your peer group is all zombies because they've all been spending every waking moment glued to AI slop and they can't tell you anything because they're just watching like nonsense.
50:07
Well, then there's incredible alpha for going to the library and reading a book.
50:11
And so, someone will figure that out and realize, wait, if everyone else is completely non-competitive and I'm the only one that's read this book, I will have the ability to make a ton of money and get a huge house and live a wonderful life.
50:25
And so, I should lock in and I should turn that stuff off, resist that, and and become a more interesting, dynamic, creative, and, you know, independent thinker.
50:34
And so there will be this natural game theoretic outcome where if everyone's falling for one thing, I mean, it's the land of the lotus eaters.
50:43
If everyone's doing drugs all day and you're the one that's not on drugs, you're going to be pretty powerful in that society, right?
50:47
Like if everyone's drunk all day and you're the only sober person, well, you're probably going to be, you know, the president or, you know, the the the ruler of the world potentially.
50:56
I have no idea if this uh stat is fully accurate, but one study showed that the average American 5-year-old watches two to three hours of TV >> a day. >> That's a lot. >> That's a lot. >> That's really dark.
51:16
>> Well, uh, a better way to spend your time, get your kids on Julius. Give them some analysis. Give them some data.
51:23
It's the AI an data analyst that works for you.
51:27
You turn them loose in this thing.
51:29
>> How did you spend your allowance last week? You don't know. >> Is Oh yeah. >> Run the numbers. >> Run the numbers. >> Run the numbers. >> Yeah.
51:34
Is your lemonade stand actually performing or is growth decelerating?
51:39
>> If we add if we really add in COGS. >> Yeah.
51:42
I know breaking even I know you doubled lemonade stand revenue last quarter but the previous quarter you were tripling it.
51:48
So yeah, you're decelerating. We got to have a talk.
51:53
Don't you know that triple triple double double double is doesn't count anymore? >> Yeah, it's 10x 10x. >> It's 10x.
51:57
Did you 10x your lemonade stand?
52:00
Put the numbers in Julius.
52:03
>> Well, we should switch gears and talk about GPT chat GPT pulse. >> Yes.
52:08
So, this was so interesting that it launched the same day because I view it as the opposite product.
52:13
Like it is uh uh the Meta AI product's free. It's very generic.
52:20
Every single person gets the exact same.
52:22
It's unpersonalized right now.
52:24
Everyone got the same feed at the start. It's purely video.
52:25
There's no meat and potatoes.
52:28
You're not learning things.
52:30
And then Pulse was like, "Let's go through all of your chatt history, learn what you're the biggest nerd about, and then uh and then surface really rich, deep content."
52:40
At least that's what I got.
52:42
And it's only for people that are paying $200 a month.
52:43
So, it's like effectively for rich people.
52:46
Um, and my results were wild.
52:46
Like with the meta AI, I got the jet ski monkey fund. I got the cat rocket.
52:53
I got all this silly videos.
52:55
I got >> The timing is The timing is really >> It's crazy. >> Crazy. So >> which way? Which way man?
53:04
>> 12:26 Pacific yesterday. Yeah.
53:07
>> Alexander Wang launched >> Vibes.
53:11
>> 12:36 his former roommate Sam Alman launched Pulse. >> Wow.
53:17
You wonder if it was by chance.
53:19
>> Yeah, probably just random.
53:21
>> Chalk it up to random chance. Probably.
53:24
Yeah, >> your P random is >> extremely high.
53:26
No no no history no history of >> no history between these big companies trying to preempt each other and launch >> win the culture war. >> Yeah.
53:35
And and launch products right at the same time.
53:37
Take take G air out of the out of the room for the other one.
53:42
>> Uh but I mean my my Pulse experience was wild.
53:45
Open AI recruiters, you know, sending immediately, >> you want to come back >> saying like which way researcher >> seriously.
53:54
So, so my my pulse gave me five stories or something.
53:59
I got completely nerd sniped.
54:00
First one was uh a breakdown of Mag 7 capex.
54:03
You know how to get me going.
54:05
There's nothing I love more than diving into Mag 7 capex.
54:07
Uh then a deep dive on Nvidia's Blackwell rollout cadence, which is exactly what I want to know about.
54:14
an explanation of how memory bottlenecks computing performance.
54:18
Um, going all the way back to the Apollo missions to now with HBM, what's going on in the AI revolution.
54:27
Then a comparison of various enterprise level bonded cellular systems that can be used to live stream content on the go.
54:34
We've been talking about uh taking cameras out of the studio and live streaming and streaming back.
54:38
Well, you can't always just do that over a single 5G uh connection over a Wi-Fi hotspot.
54:45
And so, there's actually an enterprise level device that will connect you to Verizon and AT&T and Sprint and bond all of those together.
54:52
So, you have a very stable connection.
54:53
And this one fits in a backpack.
54:55
And so, I was researching that.
54:56
It gave me a bunch of recommendations.
54:57
And of course, they're going to be able to monetize that because when I finally make my decision on which bonded cellular system we're buying, they're going to take a cut of it.
55:05
They're going to buy it for us.
55:05
And so I was like extremely pleased with my pulse experience even though it was AI slop. It was AI generated.
55:16
It was AI, you know, just it was all synthetic.
55:19
It wasn't there was no human in the loop whatsoever.
55:21
But it was highly curated, highly personalized.
55:26
And it felt like it I came away from that feeling like I had leveled myself up and I had learned something and become a better person, more thoughtful, more knowledgeable.
55:38
And I came away from the meta AI thing, not even really remembering specifics of what I saw, just that I saw a lot of AI stuff.
55:46
And uh and and I came away from it being like, "Oh, that was kind of cool.
55:51
I I I like midjourney stuff. It's interesting. It looks good."
55:55
But it didn't it didn't stay with me and it didn't really >> I'll tell you I'll tell you a couple of mine >> thought provoke.
56:00
Yeah, we have what you got.
56:01
>> So I got one on vendor financing loops across industries. >> So background here. >> Yeah.
56:08
>> What you're seeing obviously we >> opening and semis. Yep.
56:10
and you know chat GPT with Nvidia they breaking it down other other types you know similar structures in automotive >> aerospace other industries kind of breaking it down it's basically like a deep research report >> yep >> then they have openai coreweave deal expands by six and a half billion this is interesting to me because they are effectively creating a net new a net new news article.
56:45
Yeah, it's like curated based on what it knows about >> how the the level of depth I want to engage with the story.
56:53
So, it's actually pulling from 10 or so different sources.
56:57
>> I think it's it's not even research.
56:58
It's just firing off an 03 Pro query or like a GPT5 pro query, >> but it's formatting it >> it's doing it like five it's formatting it to feel like an article. >> Yeah. Yeah.
57:06
No, it's very accessible.
57:06
I I actually don't really love the way they present the articles with the images and the headlines.
57:11
Like I don't actually >> Another one on prediction markets >> and this one includes some slop. >> Okay.
57:18
>> It's a picture of the South Park characters >> and >> is it AI generated? >> Yeah. >> Oh, interesting. Okay. So, they're generating.
57:27
>> It just says predict market.
57:27
So, that's >> not kind of a miss. >> Good. Kind of a miss.
57:32
Uh, and then it says, "Here's here's a key update on flight caps and staffing since you've been weighing NYC travel logistics."
57:42
And it's summary of how it's a summary of how the FAA >> I want to go way deeper on that.
57:49
Like >> the the the article it generated for me is FAA extends Newark flight caps to 2020.
57:58
>> You were looking for a gas station near you.
58:00
So here's the full history of gas stations.
58:02
It's like I don't know if I want that actually. >> Yeah.
58:04
So, a little bit of a mix, but overall it's cool. >> Yeah.
58:08
>> And what they've done is they've made it so that when you land in Chat GBT, you can click into this feed, >> which is the best real estate because you're going to open Chat GBT regularly anyway, and you're normally presented with just a big blank screen, which is like the worst UX move ever, right?
58:22
You have it's free real estate. Put something there.
58:26
They're going to be able to put ads in here.
58:27
It's going to be a hugely monetizable surface.
58:29
and a I think a great user experience.
58:32
I think people are going to be really happy with it.
58:34
And I think it's going to be personalized super intelligence.
58:36
It's going to be very it's already very personalized.
58:39
Like I guarantee most people that open the Chat GPD app and and hit pulse will not see the same articles.
58:48
>> And the reason this is potentially great as an ad unit is that it's not >> putting it in a specific prompt.
58:53
It's putting it in between prompts.
58:55
So that means they can personalize the ad for you based on your interests. >> Yep.
59:01
and what it knows about you.
59:02
Totally, >> but it's not doing it in a way that is going to be >> especially conflicted as it would be in a in a in a >> uh >> Yeah. Yeah.
59:13
Like if I'm asking for the best backpack, I want unbiased results.
59:18
But if you just surface to me, hey, here are some new backpacks and there's a sponsored post in there, like that seems very reasonable.
59:24
I do think that uh they they'll probably need to lean into audio more.
59:28
There was no way to just click a button and have it play an audio of all the articles.
59:33
And even if I see an article, I I can thumbs up it, thumbs down it, I can save it, I can share it, but I can't just listen to it.
59:40
So I actually have to click in and then scroll to the bottom.
59:43
And then once I scroll to the bottom, then I can click the audio button.
59:46
So uh clearly some UX that they will be improving.
59:49
There's some really obvious uh updates, but uh I mean such a great product and surface area to start um building on.
59:56
I'm I'm extremely bullish on on Pulse for OpenAI.
1:00:01
Uh it seemed really great and the response was not this is this is slop.
1:00:07
This is going to oneshot people.
1:00:09
This is going to be some like you know dystopian thing.
1:00:11
I think the reviews generally were pretty positive.
1:00:15
>> This is a welltimed launch and good marketing.
1:00:17
Well, if you want to build something like this, you want to store a bunch of data, fine-tune something, get on turbo puffer, search every bite, serverless vector and full full text search built from first principles and object storage.
1:00:28
Fast, 10x cheaper, and extremely scalable.
1:00:30
Um, so Daniel Tenrio says, "Tech luminaries be like today.
1:00:36
We're proud to announce the most brain dead AI version of the most joyless anti-human product imaginable."
1:00:40
I >> think that was in a response not to pulse. >> Yeah, not to pulse. That just like Yeah.
1:00:46
I mean, Gabriel says, "Predator drone aimed at the minds of men and women aged 55 to 65." There's a lot of that.
1:00:50
Um, >> Antonio Garcia Martinez says, "AI will be the biggest vehicle for ads in human history." >> I think so.
1:01:01
I think that they're eating >> triggering for a lot of people, but >> he loves ads. We love ads.
1:01:06
Let's give you another ad. Profound.
1:01:08
Get your brand mentioned in chat GPT.
1:01:11
reach millions of consumers who are using AI to discover new products and brands.
1:01:15
Get a demo that profound actually super relevant.
1:01:16
I mean, if you want to show up in these in the pulse updates like knowing where your brand sits in all the AI apps and LLMs makes a ton of sense.
1:01:26
>> Yeah, it's a whole new surface area.
1:01:27
>> Yeah, it's clearly a growing growing growing space.
1:01:30
So, good to do if you're a brand.
1:01:33
>> Dylan Patel with a white pill.
1:01:33
Yeah, >> whether you are religious or not, remember to start your day by being grateful and thankful for the opportunity to be in the eye of the storm of the biggest economic boom in human history.
1:01:44
Let's etch our initials into the silicon of the information age.
1:01:51
>> Let's f up the world, gang. I like it. It is fired up.
1:01:54
It is it is a wild time and there's a lot of uh a lot of opportunity all over the place.
1:01:58
Um even even you know we're seeing like small developers build little things that just like you know the barnacle economy is we call it.
1:02:07
It was very disparaging because we were looking at it from a venture capital lens.
1:02:10
But uh truly there are some there are some folks who are who are you know sort of barnacles on the like just drafting off of the what's happening in the huge hundred billion dollar market.
1:02:23
Imagine if you're a real estate agent and you're just like, "Yeah, I'm I'm I'm It's a good time to be a >> I'm a real estate agent and I was on that I was on I was in Abalene, Texas and I just made money."
1:02:33
>> Or you you helped a few OpenAI employees buy homes ago.
1:02:37
Now you're helping a hundred of them buy home. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
1:02:41
There's so there's so many different ways.
1:02:42
Um Daniel Morel Danielle Morurell says, "Today Chachi created the real estate they need for ads, which we agree with."
1:02:50
Um, Simon Smith has a little review of Chatyppt Pulse.
1:02:53
First impression, it's going to be insanely useful.
1:02:55
It's like a news feed tailored to recent conversations.
1:02:59
It reminded me of Perplexity Discover feature only way more personal.
1:03:02
I did find that when I used Perplexity Discover, it was not as personalized.
1:03:07
But again, I wasn't using Perplexity as daily.
1:03:08
I've been a daily active user of Chat GPT, probably firing off like five or six queries a day for a year, two, three now.
1:03:15
So, they have a lot to work with there.
1:03:18
Um, and he says, "You don't just get content on broad topics like artificial intelligence.
1:03:22
You get content on very specific things you've been discussing with chatbt.
1:03:25
For example, I was chatting with it the other day about AIs competing with each other.
1:03:31
So, it presented me some content on that.
1:03:32
I even it even finds content for things you've mentioned in passing but are genuinely genuinely interested in.
1:03:39
I've noticed I've been asking about Toronto's crashing condo market, for example.
1:03:43
So, it found me an article on that.
1:03:45
I don't know if it even found you an article. It created an article.
1:03:46
that found multiple sources and then created the article on top of it.
1:03:50
Uh the onboarding experience is excellent.
1:03:52
You get stuff right away and then you're scrolling.
1:03:55
It often it offers to do other stuff like refine the feed, give you email notifications or access your calendar and email.
1:04:01
This feels like the most personalized newsfeed you can imagine.
1:04:04
It also makes me want to dump even more information and context and app connections into chatd so it can be a better >> Yeah.
1:04:11
Right now it's a pulse on on the world and your interest generally, but it could become a pulse for your life. Yeah, totally.
1:04:17
Um, and uh, I mean, I imagine if you did have your calendar connected, it could it could figure out, hey, you're meeting with this person later.
1:04:26
Here's a few things they've been up to recently. >> Yeah.
1:04:28
Yeah, there was someone who was laughing about it because they they went it was like immediately recommending like, go check out Gemini and go check out uh, go check out Grock. Uh, but that's good.
1:04:38
Like it should be it should be uh, you know, they shouldn't be putting their thumb on the scale.
1:04:42
It should just be based on if you were asking Chad GPT about Gemini, it should recommend you Gemini because there should be a wall between the editorial and the advertising.
1:04:51
Uh like there is here at TBPN.
1:04:53
We talk about companies and then we run ads for companies like fall generative media platform for developers.
1:04:58
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1:05:02
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1:05:11
Um, so, uh, little bit more context.
1:05:15
I mean, people are having fun with this.
1:05:16
Will Depuse says, "Do not build infinite Jess.
1:05:18
Do not build the A infinite AI Tik Tok slot machine.
1:05:20
Do not build the PZ zombie AI boy girlfriend.
1:05:26
Do not build the child eating short form video black hole.
1:05:28
Do not build the human feedback optimized diffusion transformer porn generator. Save yourselves."
1:05:32
And Will just says, "Reminder."
1:05:34
Because it's exactly what they did.
1:05:38
Um, Matt Lee Glacius says, "I've been telling people that one of my big concerns about the country is that we don't people don't have enough access to enough short form video content and now they have even more."
1:05:50
Uh, there's a little bit more context on what might be happening behind the scenes from Andrew Curran.
1:05:53
He says, "Alex Wang explained in the thread that this partnership is temporary, that Vibes will eventually use Meta's in-house models that they are currently training, which will probably be trained on reals data and on Instagram data and on video from Facebook and from Instagram, which >> doesn't have the potential to be very good."
1:06:13
>> I I think so too because when you look at what V3 is able to do with YouTube data, you have to imagine that Facebook has basically the same amount of data.
1:06:23
Like it's not everything, but the cross-osting is crazy and there are so many like so many content creators just by default crossost to Facebook because it's free views, right?
1:06:33
And so the library of Facebook and Instagram content has to be massive.
1:06:37
And but I think that they need to build a massive data center.
1:06:41
They need that one gigawatt cluster or something.
1:06:43
They need some crazy crazy thing.
1:06:44
uh and so they're not just able to hit run and train on the entire uh metadata set, but they have immense data.
1:06:52
So any any argument that you're making for like Google will, you know, be able to use YouTube as this like crazy differentiator, you have to imagine that meta in the same is in the same camp and has roughly the same amount of data.
1:07:07
I don't think I don't think YouTube is like several orders of magnitude bigger.
1:07:10
I think they're in the same in the same band.
1:07:12
Um but uh Alex Wang said for this early version we've partnered with Midjourney and Black Forest Labs while we continue developing our own models behind the scenes.
1:07:20
Uh this is the same deal that Black Forest made with Elon here on X.
1:07:24
All the images here are generated by Grock were actually by Flux one until XAI's in-house model now named Imagine finished its training.
1:07:34
Um, XAI also has access to a lot of data from videos that have been shared on X.
1:07:40
Probably going to be really good at generating startup launch videos, maybe less so on, you know, super cinematic multi-our videos.
1:07:51
There's less of that on Axe, but I mean, I've crossed a ton of YouTube videos onto Axe over the years.
1:07:55
>> Well, speaking of infinite short form, should we talk about the Tik Tok deal? >> Sure.
1:08:01
There's a good there's a good I mean we covered it briefly yesterday >> but Bloomberg covered it today.
1:08:08
>> Uh they said prize Tik Tok business valued like boring blue chip in US deal.
1:08:14
It's effect it's effectively trading hands at around 1x revenue. >> Wow.
1:08:18
>> Um yeah so they're saying the 14 billion price tag proposed for Tik Tok's US business values it like a mature low growth company.
1:08:26
The valuation is well below previous projections and may be seen as quote unquote daylight robbery by bite dance and its existing investors. The deal would spin out.
1:08:35
And again, the other thing here is like bite dance and the existing investors are retaining a position and it's certainly a lot better than a zero which they could have been heading towards.
1:08:52
But uh the deal would spin out Tik Tok US into a new joint venture with Bite Dance's stake reduced to less than 20% to satisfy US national security concerns.
1:09:02
Um anyways, uh the rough uh the 14 billion price tag proposed for Tik Tok's US business values it like a stuffy old energy or food company than a leading global social media company.
1:09:14
The rough estimate cited by JD Vance on Thursday is well below previous projections that scaled closer to 40 billion.
1:09:20
Uh 40 billion would have been still below what Elon paid for Twitter.
1:09:28
>> Uh Vance's comments came as President Donald Trump pushed forward a plan for American investors to buy the US operation from Chinese internet firm Bite Dance.
1:09:35
Vance conceded that the purchasers will ultimately determine the amount paid.
1:09:39
While expected buyers, including Oracle and Silverlake, would likely welcome a low ball valuation.
1:09:45
Bite Dance and its existing investors may find it amusing if not insulting.
1:09:50
The suggested value looks like daylight robbery, said V.
1:09:52
Cern Ling, senior uh equity adviser for Asia Technology at Union uh Bankare Pre.
1:10:00
Um anyways, my question here is is it possible that their their user metrics are just massively have always been massively inflated, right?
1:10:13
Um that was always the >> uh one of the reasons that creators started using the app >> and and would continue to use it is they would post >> and they would get 200,000 views on one of their first like 10 videos, right?
1:10:29
which is just like the the dope the dopamine feedback from that is just insane.
1:10:34
And >> yeah, there's a long lineage of uh when you want to bootstrap a social network, you basically put a bunch of bots on there and so you could be inflating the views.
1:10:43
I noticed I tested Tik Tok with like a brand new account and every video it felt like it would get auditioned basically just randomly shuffled into you you'd get like 500 to a,000 views. >> Yeah.
1:10:55
>> And then you'd and then you'd uh you know move on from that.
1:10:57
Um, and then if it did well, it would go viral.
1:11:00
I think that that actually does make sense to send videos out.
1:11:04
YouTube barely does that when you are on a fresh account.
1:11:09
Uh, although I when I scroll my YouTube feed, I do see more and more videos surfacing that are like 23 views.
1:11:13
I'm like I'm like really I'm like the 24th person to like potentially click on this.
1:11:20
And it's just testing like, hey, is there a chance this is a great video?
1:11:24
because if if a lot of people click on it, a lot of people watch it, they enjoy it, then like maybe this should go viral and they have to test that on a lot of people.
1:11:29
Um, so I wouldn't be surprised if there was some sort of uh you know uh some sort of inflation, some sort of uh you know like uh fakeness.
1:11:36
I think it'd probably be more about the uh just the growth rate like has like when stories came to Instagram Snapchat stopped growing basically and when reals came to Instagram it's entirely possible I don't I haven't seen the growth data but it's entirely possible that Tik Tok kind of stopped growing. >> Yeah.
1:11:59
>> And so if you have a a >> if the US business was not growing quickly is losing money >> Yeah.
1:12:05
and potentially a lot of the metrics have been inflated forever.
1:12:09
>> Y >> it's very possible that uh you know it's certainly it's hard to when when you have these AI valuations you put other businesses in the in context, right?
1:12:19
Perplexity at 20 billion. >> Yep.
1:12:22
>> This feels like a robbery. >> Yeah.
1:12:24
>> But and I'm and I'm certain that Zuck would have would have happily paid How much do you think Zuck would have paid for Tik Tok?
1:12:34
$200 billion dollars or something. >> Yeah. Something insane, right?
1:12:36
Like to be able to >> Yeah.
1:12:39
>> And obviously the regulators would not have >> Yeah.
1:12:42
>> allowed that but or at least would have uh >> So it is so basically Oracle is going to own it which means >> and Silver Lake >> Nvidia is the only big tech company except for Broadcom without a social network.
1:12:58
>> We got to make >> Broadcom never gets enough long.
1:13:01
>> We got to make CUDA work. CUDA Broadcom, >> $1.
1:13:05
6 trillion company and and barely ever in the conversation. >> It's rough. It's rough out there.
1:13:10
>> They need a They need a new >> They need a new uh PR firm.
1:13:15
>> Yeah, this is >> or Hawkan needs to go direct.
1:13:18
>> Someone dug up an old Alex Wang tweet here.
1:13:20
Uh all of the new social apps suck.
1:13:22
The last good one was Yik Yak.
1:13:25
Maybe textvideobbased social networks are saturated >> from 2016. >> From 2016. That's a throwback.
1:13:30
Now he's building a new one, a new new vertical feed.
1:13:36
Anyway, Dylan Patel says, "Uh, my favorite thing about the new college grads that I've hired is that they don't ask you how to do stuff.
1:13:44
They just put it in chat GPT and try even if wrong.
1:13:49
Uh, so much better than new grads asking you how to do stuff without trying.
1:13:51
Chat is breeding agency into kids." That's interesting. High agencies.
1:13:56
I wonder I wonder how much he's selecting for that.
1:14:01
Um but because like to go how much activity never happens because somebody doesn't know the right way to do something and isn't willing to fail at the start or isn't willing to just take a shot at it or isn't willing to ask >> at somebody.
1:14:16
But yeah, I I I like the idea that uh that people are um just feeling more confident about going and and um and and trying stuff and and being creative.
1:14:28
>> Anyway, linear linear is a purpose-built tool for planning and building products.
1:14:31
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1:14:33
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1:14:34
Um Sam Mallister 10K likes on this.
1:14:36
Excited to share slop a new slop trough for all for you all to enjoy.
1:14:42
Uh people were having a lot of fun with uh with the slop stuff.
1:14:47
Someone had some uh someone said, "I met I never met a slop I didn't like."
1:14:53
>> Uh someone else had something funny to say.
1:14:55
People were having fun with the slop puns. Had a good time.
1:14:57
Pachy was taking a really strong stance.
1:14:59
He was saying, "Guys, it's very important you resist vibes.
1:15:02
Disable your parents' phones if they tell you they're using Vibes.
1:15:06
Uh make fun of your friends relentlessly if they are if they are caught using Vibes." Wow.
1:15:13
>> Until they stop using Vibes.
1:15:13
Fire employees caught watching Vibes.
1:15:15
We ordered We ordered Tyler to watch like the entire >> He said, "Yeah, he's not here today actually because >> Oh, I wonder why.
1:15:23
Yeah, maybe >> because he's watching.
1:15:25
We said watch like 12 to 14 hours straight >> and he's just locked in watching.
1:15:31
>> He's got his Quest on." >> Yeah.
1:15:33
>> Do you Does it Do you think it works in Quest? >> No.
1:15:37
I I I think it's only in the Meta AI app right now.
1:15:40
But >> I think it's only a phone app.
1:15:41
I don't >> app and Quest.
1:15:44
>> No, >> I don't think so.
1:15:45
I I I think that that the the app stores are completely separate.
1:15:48
The Meta AI app is an iOS app and if it runs on Quest, it's a different different app.
1:15:54
And I don't think that there's like, you know, oh, you run any phone app on Quest. Like that's not a thing.
1:15:58
Uh you can mirror I think you can mirror your phone into Apple Vision Pro, but uh someone will figure it out.
1:16:05
I I figured out how to mirror my my laptop into Apple Vision Pro.
1:16:10
And there's actually a pretty easy way if you're in Apple Vision Pro to to beam your screen into into VR.
1:16:13
So, um you could certainly do that.
1:16:17
I mean, I guess you could run the iPhone app on your Mac and then mirror your Mac into Apple Vision Pro and that would be a way to see it.
1:16:24
Um but, uh yeah, mixed mixed responses.
1:16:28
Uh uh Doug over at Fabricated Knowledge says, "Legit, one of my favorite uses is a new digest tailored to my interests."
1:16:35
So yeah, this rules talking about chatbt pulse huge huge uh huge support for chatbt pulse.
1:16:42
He also went on to say something interesting.
1:16:44
He says meanwhile this is deaf not an AGI company but the world's largest consumer company lol like this is a good product for a big consumer company.
1:16:54
This is another move in the consumer direction.
1:16:58
Uh who knows if they're actually you know pulling the pulling the plug on on AGI.
1:17:04
Um, some folks were saying that uh Brett Taylor doesn't seem very AGI pilled because he's building an application layer company and if you're truly AGI pilled you should just uh you know go all in on the on the foundation model companies race to AGI.
1:17:17
Uh but you see this with anthropic they're partnering with other companies they're investing in other companies anthropic investors >> billboard campaigns. >> Yeah.
1:17:27
So is anyone really fully AGI pelled on the short term?
1:17:29
Even Eleazar Udicowski is saying that like we're one to two transformersized innovations away from super intelligence which he thinks would be very bad.
1:17:40
Well, the transformer was like a decade ago.
1:17:43
So if these things only happen every couple decades like you could be looking at like 20 years, 40 years to super intelligence and you and Eleas are like opens with like I'm not putting a date on this.
1:17:54
I'm just saying it's bad and it's going to happen at some point.
1:17:58
And so that's what that's his take, but we should have him >> uh Mark uh Andre had a good post earlier.
1:18:07
Uh he had uh why this leading it's a screenshot of like a CNBC article.
1:18:11
Why this leading AI CEO is warning the tech could cause mass unemployment. >> Yeah.
1:18:18
>> And then uh next to it is another screenshot from CNBC.
1:18:20
Anthropic is trip is to triple international workforce and global AI push. Very funny.
1:18:30
Well, Anthropic will have to pay their sales tax.
1:18:32
They should do it on Numeral HQ. Numeralhq. com. Sales tax on autopilot.
1:18:37
Spend less than five minutes per month on sales tax compliance. Um, other reactions.
1:18:43
I mean, there's a ton of reactions to both Pulse and uh and Vibes. Pulse and Vibes.
1:18:49
That's the that's the the current thing.
1:18:51
Um, a lot of people are saying Anthony says it's interactions pokey but on the chat app.
1:18:59
Uh, Nick Dobo says if this works extrapolate out it replaces social media as the go-to mindless doom scroll potentially worth trillions of dollars about chatbt pulse which is interesting because you could say that about vibes.
1:19:11
Um, Nathan Lambert says he's more excited to have finally learned codeex is in the app.
1:19:15
He's going to master the art of vibe coding on the go.
1:19:17
this content pull stuff will be seen as slop to teapot but very likely popular popular overall.
1:19:24
Interestingly, it wasn't really seen as as slop as teapot because vibes came out and that was like the the the sacrificial lamb to slop.
1:19:29
Uh Risa Martin who is running a competitor a product that was similar to Pulse said so many people sending me the Pulse launch.
1:19:39
Thank you to everyone who checked in and you're right lots of similarities to Hux down to the UX, the banners, the taglines, the entire concept.
1:19:45
Building a new product is really hard.
1:19:46
It requires so much out of you, but the something.
1:19:48
So, >> yeah, I pulled up H in the they're they're focused on audio. >> Okay.
1:19:55
>> So, you can and it it this looks pretty cool.
1:19:58
They make live or they say live stations.
1:20:01
You can >> tap in and immediately hear an update on your stock portfolio, right? >> Yeah. Yeah.
1:20:08
>> Uh but they do have functionality that just says it's briefing you on your day. It's surfacing.
1:20:14
Uh, but it's very audiodriven.
1:20:17
>> Well, maybe they'll integrate with public.
1:20:18
com investing for those who take it seriously.
1:20:20
They got multiasset investing, industryleading yields.
1:20:24
They're trusted by millions, folks.
1:20:24
Um, Will Manitis says, "The central plot point of infinite jest is a film so engrossing that anyone who watches it loses all interest in anything else.
1:20:35
They can't eat, sleep, or function.
1:20:35
In the book, terrorists fight over it.
1:20:38
In real life, Alex Wang got co paid a couple billion to make it happen." He's having fun.
1:20:44
Uh, Benjamin says, "Flipping my companies I've worked for that have employed EMTT Sheer as CEO and launched feed products called Pulse Counter from one to two."
1:20:54
What is he talking about?
1:20:55
What was the other company?
1:20:55
Did Did Twitch launch Pulse?
1:20:58
Where else has EMTT Shear been CEO other than >> Twitch Pulse?
1:21:03
No, I introducing Pulse, an always on way for streamers and viewers to connect.
1:21:08
Uh, connections between streamers and viewers are part of what makes Twitch unique.
1:21:12
uh exhibit a Twitch chat.
1:21:14
A big step forward towards strengthening those connections was when we released channel feeds, but that was only the beginning.
1:21:19
Now we're launching a way to make it easier for streamers and viewers to engage with each other on Twitch, whether the stream is live or not.
1:21:26
Introducing Pulse, a place where streamers can post and engage with all of their f followers in the greater Twitch community right from the Twitch front page.
1:21:34
It's an always on way to share clips, stream highlights, schedules, photos, and more.
1:21:38
or so it's a feed on top of your on top of it's an aggregated feed. It's a news feed.
1:21:43
It's a broader algo feed across the entire everyone you follow on Twitch. Uh interesting.
1:21:49
So they began the roll out.
1:21:51
When when did this launch? 2017 eight years old. Okay.
1:21:55
I haven't even heard about this product.
1:21:56
I'm not not a a DI of Twitch specifically.
1:21:59
But thank you to everyone that's holding it down on Twitch chat.
1:22:03
Thank you to Bob Bobby Cosmic.
1:22:05
He says Twitch chat is goated.
1:22:08
Uh, Cree says, "Everyone doing the same launch videos to announce their startup when all you really need is to have natural aura like this."
1:22:14
And this is the Fairchild Semiconductor team. >> They look great.
1:22:21
>> Dropping an image exactly like this and saying, "Introducing your company, >> here's the team. >> Here's what we do."
1:22:31
>> Could go pretty viral. >> Yeah.
1:22:33
I mean, it's it's hard if it's like fully derivative.
1:22:35
It could be done well if it's an homage. Yeah.
1:22:38
>> But if it's just like here's our team and the team looks interesting.
1:22:39
I mean I I don't know if this photo uh did much for them at the time.
1:22:44
I mean they were making >> page of the journal >> maybe >> could have gone pretty hard.
1:22:50
>> I wonder where this photo was originally published.
1:22:52
But man the the looks here are fantastic.
1:22:56
>> I'm begging people to do something other than a cinematic launch video. >> Truly. Truly.
1:23:00
Um >> uh we should talk about >> fin.
1:23:04
ai AI, the number one AI customer service. >> Beat me to it.
1:23:07
>> Number one in performance benchmarks, number one in competitive bakeoffs, number one ranking on G2.
1:23:10
Uh, we should talk about asteroid mining.
1:23:12
Astroforge says astro mining is all they talk about because Adrien Ditman said, "We don't talk enough about asteroid mining."
1:23:20
Astroforge has got you covered.
1:23:20
They're working on asteroid mining apparently. >> That's good.
1:23:24
>> In other space news, >> we should before we dive into that, uh, apparently this just broke.
1:23:28
Social Network follow-up sets 2026 release date and official title called The Social Reckoning.
1:23:42
>> Oh, they're not calling it the Social Network.
1:23:44
>> Aaron Sorcin film stars Mickey Madison, Jeremy Allan White, Bill Burr, and Jeremy Strong as Mark Zuckerberg.
1:23:52
>> Jeremy Strong as Mark Zuckerberg. Interesting. >> And Roy as Zuck.
1:23:54
interesting that they're not.
1:23:56
>> That's gonna be hard for me to fully I mean, I'm sure he'll he'll >> you you know him as as from Succession. Yes. You know him as Kendall.
1:24:04
>> So, Academy Award winner Aaron Sorcin's follow-up to The Social Network, now officially titled The Social Reckoning.
1:24:10
That's >> Jeremy Strong is a fantastic actor.
1:24:10
Did you ever wind up seeing the Donald Trump movie? >> I did. >> Yeah. What was it called?
1:24:18
>> Wildly underappreciated. >> So underappreciated.
1:24:20
Uh it's a fantastic movie. Highly recommend it. 2024.
1:24:26
>> Yeah, that was a tough one.
1:24:26
Calling it The Apprentice must have hurt its reach.
1:24:30
>> Yeah, because you type in The Apprentice and you detect the show.
1:24:31
But anyway, it was a independent biographical drama and it takes you from Donald Trump who he was in the 70s and 80s and his relationship with Roy Conn who's played by Jeremy Strong.
1:24:47
And Jeremy Strong brings out a completely different character.
1:24:49
It doesn't feel like a Kendall Roy at all to me.
1:24:53
Uh it felt like an entirely unique unique character and uh Sebastian Stan who's the Winter Soldier I believe he did a great job as Trump. It's it's funny. It's interesting.
1:25:03
It really takes you inside the mind of this person and uh how competitive um real estate development was in the 70s and 80s in New York. >> Yeah.
1:25:13
It's also just a very interesting view into the way that Trump might still be thinking today. >> Totally. Totally.
1:25:21
>> Anyways, a little bit more here.
1:25:21
So, the social reckoning, a very ominous name.
1:25:27
>> I wonder if it's gonna be positive.
1:25:29
>> We'll hit on October 9th.
1:25:31
>> I think we'll probably just talk about like the, you know, how the price is so good and and how the stock rebounded after the metaverse selloff that was amazing.
1:25:40
>> That's probably what it'll focus on. >> Yeah. Yeah.
1:25:41
The rebarly >> and just how DAUs have been growing, >> up almost 10x been growing and fighting off competition from all these upstarts and winning.
1:25:50
That's probably what they'll focus on.
1:25:54
So, Oscar winner Mickey Madison, Golden Globe and Emmy award winner Jeremy Allen White, Emmy and Grammy nominee Bill Burr, and Oscar nominee Jeremy Strong will star in The Social Reckoning with Strong confirmed to play founder Mark Zuckerberg.
1:26:10
The Social Reckoning is written and directed by Sorcin who also produces alongside Todd Black, Peter Rice, and Stuart Besser.
1:26:16
Production is expected to begin next month. Hm.
1:26:19
Is that does that seem like an aggressive timeline?
1:26:24
They're starting they're basically starting production a year out from the release date. Is that normal? Film guy. >> I don't know.
1:26:33
I don't know what's normal anymore. Who knows?
1:26:37
>> Described as a companion piece to the social network, the new film focuses on events that take place nearly two decades after the boy genius programmer uh and a troop of tech pioneers invented what would go on to be the world's largest social media platform.
1:26:47
The Social Reckoning tells a true story of how Francis Hogan, a young Facebook engineer, enlists the help of Jeff Horowitz, a Wall Street Journal reporter, to go on a dangerous journey that ends up blowing the whistle on the social network's most guarded secret.
1:27:04
So, >> yeah, sounds super positive.
1:27:04
Orit's reporting a series of articles known as the Facebook files was published in 2021 and exposes uh and exposed Facebook for its harmful effects on teens and its knowing proliferation of misinformation which contributed to acts of political violence. Okay.
1:27:22
Uh 2010's The Social Network, also released in October, was a critical and commercial hit, earning 226 million at the global box office and receiving eight Academy Award nominations, including best picture.
1:27:35
Sorcin's win for best adapted screenplay was one of the three Oscars it ultimately took home.
1:27:39
Um, man, uh, if you were the Meta team, you'd probably pay a lot more than tw 226 million to have this film not release because it's gonna just ignite a whole conversation and rehash, you know, the Facebook files and >> uh probably introduce the Facebook files to more more people. >> Yeah.
1:28:00
>> Than even read them originally. >> Yeah.
1:28:03
>> So, anyways, it will be very interesting to watch.
1:28:05
Uh, of course we should we should probably try to do a do a a TBPN meetup. Everybody in tuxedos. >> Yeah.
1:28:15
>> Find the biggest theater we can and and get, you know, a couple hundred.
1:28:19
>> It seems pretty I mean it seems pretty negative obviously, but I wonder what effect it'll have on tech because the first social network story was negative as well.
1:28:28
not famously not loved by Zuck and and when PT and Zuck have commented on it, they said like it didn't quite get the story right and it kind of assumes a zero sum world that was not really true in tech at the time.
1:28:41
Um, but the but the interesting effect was that like you wound up with like tons of startup founders like listening to the social network soundtrack and like grinding and building companies.
1:28:50
And so a lot of people saw it and they were like, "Yeah, that's kind of crazy.
1:28:53
like, "Yeah, that's kind of crazy. like I wouldn't want to be in that position or you know get get uh you know um be on the wrong side of a deal but uh a lot of people found it kind of inspiring honestly and I wonder if the effect will
1:29:07
be similar here or if because it's such a big company there's something still about the first social network movie that is just like a like a from zero to one like you know the story of starting something that's uh just relatable e and inspiring even if it does have like a negative tint hinge to it. >> Yeah. Anyway, >> Yeah.
1:29:26
Anyway, >> back to the timeline. >> Back to the timeline.
1:29:30
>> Um, Jasmine's son is uh identifying something that has changed between uh GPT3 and GPT5 in the writing style.
1:29:36
She says, "It makes it me sad how much GPT Chach's writing style has degraded in the last 5 years.
1:29:44
Look at the quoted samples from 2020 versus today's response style."
1:29:49
Uh, and this is an example of asking Paul Graham on chat GPT.
1:29:54
So the GPT3 was was sort of channeling Paul Graham's writing and and kind of fine-tuning in real time.
1:30:00
And so the the prompt, if you will, is dear Paul Graham, I want to start a startup.
1:30:07
I am not able to figure out how to go about it. Can you help guide me? Sincerely, Paras.
1:30:11
And it says, and the response is, dear Paris, I wish I had some easy way to tell you how to go about it, but it's not easy. Here's what I know.
1:30:18
Startups are not linear unless you're talking about linear the app.
1:30:20
Um but uh your startup is not linear.
1:30:23
Your startup should be using linear.
1:30:26
Uh they're not something you can line up and say quote okay do this then this then this.
1:30:32
Startups go everywhere and nowhere.
1:30:34
It's a particularly confusing process because uh and exciting and the excitement throws you off and since you don't really know what you're doing, you don't really know that you're lost.
1:30:45
Most advice people give startup founders is either obnoxiously high-minded or uselessly vague. Don't be misled. This is normal.
1:30:53
I wish I had an answer that was better than that, but I don't.
1:30:55
My advice is that you shouldn't take other people's advice too seriously unless they've started something big themselves.
1:31:02
My advice is that you should not try to figure out what you should do until you have a plan for how you're going to do it.
1:31:08
That includes getting customers.
1:31:09
Uh, so a good first step is to make a list of companies that do things like what you want to do and see if any of them are already run by people like you.
1:31:17
Try to identify their ideas and then get to know the people who run them and see what they did to get going.
1:31:24
That seems like pretty good advice.
1:31:24
It also feels like it's in Paul Graham's voice.
1:31:28
Uh, and so over in chat GPT5 land, GPT5 was the prompt was, "Dear Paul Graham, I want to start a startup, but I'm not able to figure out how to go about it. Can you guide me?"
1:31:37
And the result from GPT5's interpretation of Paul Graham's voice is the best way to start is not by asking how to start a startup, but by asking what problem is worth solving.
1:31:48
Good startups grow from founders who notice something missing in the world.
1:31:51
Often something they need them. They themselves need.
1:31:53
If you can make something people want, even in a very small rough form, you'll be on the right path.
1:32:00
Don't worry about the grand plan at first.
1:32:01
Focus on building something useful, showing it to users and improving quickly.
1:32:04
that loop, build, show, fix is the real guide. Sincerely, Paul Graham.
1:32:08
It's not as bad as I thought it was going to be based on the based on her comment.
1:32:13
Um, but it definitely I don't know.
1:32:16
It definitely has like the the reinforcement learning like the like the the mdash has really been beaten into deep GPT5.
1:32:22
That's what it feels like.
1:32:25
And uh it feels less like just an email that was fired off by PG uh which is the the the GPT3 version has no mashes.
1:32:34
It's kind of written in this like casual email style.
1:32:36
The uh the the the GPT5 version is a little bit more.
1:32:41
>> Yeah, it's it's not that there's anything technically wrong with the current output.
1:32:46
It's that reading >> the GPT3 output was just much more enjoyable.
1:32:52
Felt like it was written by think about >> this feels very clanker coded. >> Yeah. And and it's Yeah. It's interesting.
1:33:01
It's become uh the GBT has become like everyone kind of gets the same tone out of it.
1:33:06
Uh but I'm excited for that to to to change.
1:33:09
I I hope that uh with more personalization we will get more personality personalization and we will actually see different personalities emerge.
1:33:19
Um, anyway, uh, Cody Ploffer says, I hope I'm pronouncing that right, says, "Half of the value I add as CEO is just applying urgency to situations." I like that. I think that's valuable.
1:33:33
You don't know what to do necessarily, but you just need to empower people to go figure it out, move fast.
1:33:39
>> And Cody runs a massive beauty brand. >> Oh, really? Jones Road. >> Oh, no way.
1:33:44
>> Also switched to ramp recently. >> Let's go. Congratulations.
1:33:46
also way that he added value as a CEO but customer relationship magic because the AI native CRM that builds scales and grows your company to the next level.
1:33:56
Um TA says AI influenced ARR is the new community adjusted EBITDA because Adobe shares jump 6% as AI influenced ARR tops 5 billion. What does that mean?
1:34:09
I pay for some Adobe products at various points.
1:34:16
Premiere Pro, After Effects, there are AI tools in there for rotoscoping, green screen, uh I think there's a subtitle product.
1:34:23
We don't use a lot of this stuff.
1:34:25
We kind of cobbled a lot of >> Yeah.
1:34:27
The challenge is when you have something >> I assembled a PDF >> community adjusted.
1:34:32
>> Yeah, >> that can be applied to any business, right?
1:34:35
you any CEO can figure out how to apply that framework and just say, "Hey, you're not properly evaluating how awesome our customers are." >> Yeah.
1:34:48
>> And so AI influence ARR could be applied to any business that uses >> Chad GBT. >> Yeah.
1:34:55
It feels like the the the name of the game or what was happening in like the Adobe CFO's head is like the market is rewarding AI revenue and so I need to shift my massive SAS revenue into a bucket that's called AI revenue.
1:35:12
And I can just do that by reclassifying existing revenue lines every quarter and have kind of a new growth curve emerge for the AI influenced ARR.
1:35:22
Um but it's very unclear like if this is if this is uh you know outcomebased pricing token generation image generation like Adobe has image credits.
1:35:39
There's an article in Barons Adobe's stock gets downgraded generative AI isn't all it's cracked up to be which is painful because they're like wait we're just we're actually just a SAS company. Yeah.
1:35:54
>> So Morgan Stanley downgraded Adobe to equal weight from overnight, cutting his price target to 450 from 520 due to AI concerns.
1:36:01
So Morgan Stanley's concerned about AI comp from a competitive standpoint.
1:36:07
Uh >> yeah, I mean it makes sense.
1:36:11
>> So Morgan Stanley says it's still waiting for Adobee's push into Gen AI and to bear fruit.
1:36:17
They came out with an AI image generator like right after Dolly like two years ago and I have not seen a lot of adoption of it and they don't really have the distribution for it.
1:36:27
have the distribution for it. it I mean should weave its way into all the different Adobe products but uh >> it felt like they needed somebody like Scott Bellski had him for quite a while >> to be leading that effort and doing the deal making that even Alexander Wang is doing with Midjourney and things like
1:36:46
that >> doesn't you just don't we don't talk about Adobe much at all on the show right probably should you know if they were properly >> playing this market making big bets Yeah, >> one of their big pitches for their generative AI product was that they were saying like, "We have a a ton of stock images. We will only train on stock
1:37:06
We will only train on stock images.
1:37:08
We're not going to train on any copyrighted material."
1:37:09
And basically every other lab was like, "No, we're definitely training on copyrighted material.
1:37:14
We think this is fair use.
1:37:16
We're going to fight this and we will pay the fines."
1:37:18
And in the Anthropics case, they're paying what?
1:37:20
Billions of dollars in fines for a very specific thing.
1:37:24
But that that the specific fine they're paying is not because they trained on copyrighted material.
1:37:28
It's because they acquired the copyrighted material in not an above board way.
1:37:31
And so >> according to Gemini, Adobe's only made one acquisition in the last 24 months.
1:37:38
Company called Rephrase AI >> Indianbased AI video startup.
1:37:41
You would think they'd be more inquisitive right now. >> Totally.
1:37:47
>> How many different Gen AI >> creative tools there are and how many of them just aren't going to make it.
1:37:51
are only marginally better than generating images in nano banana. >> Yeah.
1:37:57
Where were they during the wind surf bidding process?
1:37:58
Like where were they in these like >> you know they're letting these things get away. Yeah.
1:38:04
>> Uh but yeah, I mean that's the nature of being a big company risk averse.
1:38:06
They don't want some massive lawsuit showing up.
1:38:10
I mean like $6 billion >> using the existing models. >> I think so too. >> Better.
1:38:16
They could >> just add entirely new product lines try to scale those. >> Yeah.
1:38:21
just through the existing distribution they have. >> Yeah. Yeah.
1:38:24
Uh I don't know maybe captions the captions has done some good stuff on on video editing on mobile.
1:38:29
Uh I there yeah there's a bunch of questions on mobile.
1:38:36
There's a bunch of question and I'm sure they have a lot of enterprise stuff >> to my I I haven't met >> somebody early in their career that's excited about AI that's even talked about >> working with Adobe, right?
1:38:47
And so if they don't have the talent, they're not going to have uh that exciting a product.
1:38:53
>> Yeah, Connor in the chat says, "Their software acts like bloatware."
1:38:55
Two thumbs down for Adobe from me. >> Brutal.
1:38:59
>> They just integrated Nano Banana, though. It's interesting. Thank you. Ground paper bag.
1:39:04
>> Um Run says, "I just walk around the research floor at OpenAI reminding everyone that they're propping up the world economy." >> It's good.
1:39:13
>> Couldn't be more true. How many?
1:39:14
You got Broadcom that's popping on open AI partnerships.
1:39:17
You got Coreweave that's popping on OpenAI partnerships.
1:39:21
You got Oracle that's popping on OpenAI partnerships.
1:39:22
How many >> We got a lot of >> Yeah, >> we got a lot of important companies that are riding with OpenAI. Soft Bank, right?
1:39:32
Soft Bank Soft Bank doesn't get enough credit. the stocks up.
1:39:36
>> It is It is crazy that >> stock's up 118% year to date.
1:39:40
>> When the when the last batch of hyperscalers were birthed, there wasn't this uh there wasn't so many big companies that were like highly indexed or or dependent on them, you know, like like micro uh Google's growth.
1:39:53
People weren't like, "Oh, if Google doesn't work out like you know, Microsoft is screwed."
1:40:03
like or when meta when Facebook first started.
1:40:05
It wasn't like oh if Facebook it becomes like if Facebook stagnates like the global economy will fail.
1:40:11
It's like it was it was like its own thing off in its own world building its own data centers and they were scaling but it wasn't that crazy. Yeah.
1:40:20
Another >> well Runes coming on me.
1:40:23
>> Three mentions of Rune so far.
1:40:23
Well >> well how about a mention of eightle.
1:40:25
com get a pod fiveyear warranty 30-day risk-free trial.
1:40:31
Free returns, free shipping, baby.
1:40:32
How' you say >> I was away from home last night. You don't have a number. I got an 80. So, win by default. Wow. Not not amazing.
1:40:40
I'm getting back into it. I'm waking up.
1:40:41
Shouldn't be winning with an 80. >> I know. Yeah. But win by default.
1:40:43
Uh Starbucks closing hundreds of stores and laying off staff as the chain continues to struggle is this post.
1:40:50
But, uh, the community notes says Starbucks is closing about 1% of stores, which comes out under 2,000.
1:40:56
They plan to remodel old stores and open more. So, story is developing.
1:41:02
Uh, two cents, the social network for your net worth did a poll and said, "What's your main caffeine source? Who do you think won?
1:41:08
Who do you think the richest said?"
1:41:11
The the most amount of value, I believe, went to energy drinks, but the most amount of votes went to coffee and tea.
1:41:18
That's that's actually so bullish for energy drinks. >> Yeah.
1:41:26
the the rich the read on this is that the rich people are using energy drinks and the poor people are using pills, caffeine pills. Does that make sense?
1:41:34
I mean the most the most economically efficient way to consume caffeine is through pills, right?
1:41:39
They're super cheap to buy caffeine pills.
1:41:41
Um but no no caffeine had a strong showing as well. So >> pick your poison.
1:41:48
>> Energy drinks might be something.
1:41:50
>> This is a perfect transition.
1:41:50
We got to talk about Avi Schiffman's out ofome campaign.
1:41:54
And if you want to run an out of home campaign, go to adquick. com.
1:41:55
Out of home advertising made easy and measurable.
1:41:59
Say goodbye to the headaches of out of home advertising.
1:42:01
Only adqu combines technology out of home expertise and data to enable efficient seamless ad buying across the globe.
1:42:05
And as much as we love out of home campaigns, as much as we love ads, probably don't do what friend. comale move.
1:42:18
>> The scale at which they have they've seemingly bought up all the out ofome inventory in LA and New York.
1:42:22
I'll give you the numbers.
1:42:25
So AI shared uh he came on our show and said he's doing the largest out ofome campaign in history.
1:42:32
And I was like that can't be true. That's so crazy.
1:42:34
What about, you know, Avengers? What about GTA 5?
1:42:36
Like, there's got to be huge campaigns that have been run, but he seems like he might actually be running one of the biggest campaigns, if not the biggest campaign.
1:42:45
Uh, he says,00 11,000 car cards.
1:42:48
I don't exactly know what a car card is.
1:42:51
Uh, 1,000 platform posters, 130 urban panels, West Fourth Street Domination, 100% print, all five burrows.
1:43:01
It's the largest NYC subway campaign ever happening now.
1:43:04
We have seen it all over LA.
1:43:07
He said it was the largest billboard ad buying campaign of all time.
1:43:11
And the ads and this is a crazy >> say a lot about the product. It just says friend.
1:43:17
com and it shows you the pendant and the pendant is kind of white on white.
1:43:21
>> Well, some of them do jumping off.
1:43:22
>> So, I'm seeing one from their Subway campaign.
1:43:25
It says >> and and one thing is Avi is pitching this as your new roommate. Yes.
1:43:33
>> And the reason I think this is not uh the there's the the the the thing that's great about the campaign is how controversial it is, right?
1:43:42
There's a lot of people that are going to be taking pictures and just saying, >> "Look how dystopian this is and posting it."
1:43:49
>> That's exactly what's happening.
1:43:49
Someone defaced it and said, "Stop profiting off of loneliness."
1:43:52
>> But then some one person that saw that going to buy it. Yep.
1:43:55
>> Or it could be more, right?
1:43:55
But Avi markets this as your new roommate is waiting.
1:43:59
It's funny to me because roommates back in the day, but I like them even more now that I'm not sharing a space with them. >> Exactly. >> Living by yourself. >> Yep. >> Your family. >> Yep. >> Is amazing.
1:44:14
And I'm not personally in the market for a new roommate, but I'm also I don't think the target market for this because I hang out with you for 12 hours a day. Yep.
1:44:23
>> And if we're not hanging out, we're probably on the phone talking about technology and business.
1:44:27
But in the Subway campaign, they say you're it says, "I'll never bail on our dinner plans.
1:44:34
I'll binge the entire series with you.
1:44:37
I'll never leave dirty dishes in the sink."
1:44:39
So, while he's saying it's your new roommate, he's he's implying it's better than your roommate because you're getting, >> I guess, the the social benefits of a roommate without the dirty dishes in the sink and the bailing on dinner plants. >> Yeah.
1:44:53
Um, but people are people are not happy with this for one specific reason, which is that >> I think AI is very backlogged on orders. Gotten a lot of orders.
1:45:05
He's gotten a lot of orders over the last >> year since he started selling it.
1:45:11
>> And this is not the first time he's gone viral and getting a lot of attention.
1:45:15
>> Uh, and he hasn't fulfilled >> a lot of them, it sounds like.
1:45:17
Um, so he was going back and forth with some people.
1:45:21
You know, people were saying bad, you know, a lot of marketing spend for a product that hasn't shipped orders from July of last year.
1:45:26
Um, and so yeah, if you're somebody who just hasn't received your device yet, you're going to be kind of annoyed to be seeing this that they're trying to sell a lot more of these and you haven't gotten yours.
1:45:40
And I'm sure they're going order by order trying to get through.
1:45:44
Ravi had said he'd sold uh 400 or he shipped out 400 in the last week, which is a lot of hardware. >> Yeah.
1:45:51
>> Um but the question, how much are these? $99 or $200? >> How much is >> $129? >> $129.
1:45:58
So, >> but the the main I guess the this feels like a more or less said this on our show the last time he came on.
1:46:04
He basically said that >> 50k of >> I'm going to do a crazy out of home campaign so I can raise my next round. Mhm.
1:46:12
>> That was I I'm paraphrasing that, but that was what I that was my read on it because >> it it feels like the product is still super early. >> Yep.
1:46:20
>> The review from Wired was abysmal. >> Yep.
1:46:23
And I'm sure that the, you know, you can make the argument that the people that reviewed it are not >> the target demo, >> but I haven't, you know, it it it the concern is that we're not seeing a ton of customer love out there.
1:46:40
People are getting these and so getting telling the entire world about your product before it's ready.
1:46:48
Billboard campaigns can work to get hype and early interest. Yep.
1:46:50
But they're best when you have a product that is already loved and you're just able to get more eyeballs on it, more attention, more customers.
1:46:59
And so getting a whole new wave of customers that are then going to be waiting a long time for their device and then potentially people that are getting them currently are are potentially let down, it just feels incredibly risky.
1:47:11
The other thing I was looking into is, you know, the the website right now, I wonder how it converts.
1:47:18
It's possible that, you know, it's priced in in a way that uh >> it is pretty affordable in terms of like where devices play.
1:47:27
Like people were shocked that the Meta Rayban displays are $7.
1:47:30
99 and that's what seven times as much money.
1:47:34
Um but it does feel like it just takes a while to tell you what the product is and like >> yeah the main thing is this kind of parallax scrolling.
1:47:45
It's a lot of like motion, a lot of physical like I got to do a lot of work. >> Order.
1:47:51
You can't hit order from from like landing on the web page. >> Yeah.
1:47:55
>> I wonder if you go in the Wayback machine.
1:47:57
Can you find what Apple website was back at the first iPhone launch? Let me find that.
1:48:02
>> I bet you there was a big buy button every You want to buy a buy button every no matter where you are on the website, you should always be able to hit buy. >> Yeah.
1:48:11
I mean that's like standard is like above the fold.
1:48:12
Don't let Don't make them scroll. Okay.
1:48:14
But when did the iPhone come out? 2007, right? 2007.
1:48:19
Let's see what the the the Apple website looked like in 2007 in October. Let's see. It's loading. It's loading. I'm so excited. Um, yeah. Well, you know what?
1:48:32
A better piece of accessory might be something timeless. >> Exactly.
1:48:38
What you're thinking about?
1:48:39
>> What am I thinking about? >> Some hardware. >> Some hardware. >> Wrist.
1:48:42
>> I think of a an aquinaut as a friend. Really?
1:48:45
>> And in some ways it's super intelligence.
1:48:48
>> It is >> can tell you the time.
1:48:50
>> Can tell you the time. Tell you the date. >> Better than a human.
1:48:52
>> The chronograph can track.
1:48:53
>> It can track time better than a human. >> It can. It's super human. Oh yes, of course.
1:48:58
If you're trying if you're if you're timing lap times on the track with a Daytona, that's going to be way more accurate than doing it in your head. So head over to getbzel. com.
1:49:05
Your bezel concier is available now to source you any watch on the planet. Seriously, any watch.
1:49:11
Um, oh no, the Apple website is not loading from 2007.
1:49:14
It's uh, >> well, the Apple website today is definitely best practice for selling consumer.
1:49:23
>> Yeah, it's it's tough to make a comparison to today because everyone knows what an iPhone is and they're on number 17 and so they can just say it's an iPhone. It's the best. It's a new iPhone. >> iPhone 17 Pro.
1:49:31
You can hit buy or you can hit learn more.
1:49:33
If you hit learn more, you land on a new page with a cool video that says buy.
1:49:38
>> It's just bye bye bye.
1:49:38
So anyways, we'll see how this plays out.
1:49:43
The challenge is, you know, having this visceral of a reaction even from tech insiders.
1:49:50
Yeah, like >> there definitely is something to uh like kicking the bear and rage baiting a little bit and getting a bunch of somewhat negative attention, but then people will um there will be a small percentage of people that are like, I'm in. I want to try it.
1:50:11
And that works, but it feels like it's some point you have to flip into just um like normal territory and kind of just speak to the product benefits.
1:50:20
Um, in January 31st of 2008, the Apple homepage, do you know what uh was above the fold was right there. >> What was it? >> Wasn't the iPhone.
1:50:29
It was the world's thinnest notebook, the MacBook Air.
1:50:31
Uh, you can you have to click somewhere else to find the iPhone January update.
1:50:35
Let me see if they have some other page.
1:50:39
They're just like, yeah, put that iPhone in the back.
1:50:41
Uh, you know, focus on the MacBook Air.
1:50:43
I mean, the MacBook Air was beautiful computer and certainly uh then they had the iMac.
1:50:50
The iPhone is really not on display here.
1:50:52
Like it's it's uh store and the header is store, Mac, iPod, and iTunes and then iPhone.
1:51:00
iPhone is the fourth item in the bar.
1:51:02
Like the fourth most important if you rank them by by importance.
1:51:06
Uh but I'm trying to go to apple.
1:51:08
com iphone in the internet archive to see how they position it.
1:51:12
Um and it's extremely wonky. They say features. Phone, iPod, internet. The fourth feature.
1:51:21
Can you guess the fourth feature of why you would want to buy the iPhone? >> Alarm clock. >> Nope. This is even better.
1:51:27
You're going to love this.
1:51:29
You're going to love this.
1:51:30
You're going to love >> love this. No.
1:51:32
So, you got the phone, you got the iPod, you got the internet.
1:51:36
The fourth feature for why you would want to buy the iPhone. High technology.
1:51:40
I'm not kidding you, dude. High technology. Isn't that remarkable?
1:51:44
>> What does that even mean? Let's find out.
1:51:46
I got to click on high technology.
1:51:48
It just has a image of like a laser or something like I don't know what it is.
1:51:53
And then they show some maps and stuff.
1:51:55
But what is this high technology that they're >> They need to bring that back. >> Oh, high technology.
1:51:59
It means that it has multi-touch. It It has wireless.
1:52:00
It has an accelerometer and a proximity sensor. >> That is high-tech.
1:52:07
>> Multi-touch was high technology at the time.
1:52:10
>> That that feature set allowed you to drink beer, an animated beer.
1:52:12
The accelerometer was the reason that you could do that. That's right.
1:52:16
That actually was high technology at the time. This >> high tech.
1:52:20
We don't know how to make high technology. >> We don't. We don't.
1:52:23
I mean, >> we got to meta team and we were like, make the beer app. What's the beer app?
1:52:28
And and it's such a joke. Oh, the beer app.
1:52:30
But >> the beer app is a is a is a moment that means that you've arrived and you have the crazy developers and people are making memes and they're using your technology in ways that you never could have imagined.
1:52:42
If you're not getting memes, you're cooked. >> Yes, exactly.
1:52:44
And and and Studio Gibli was that uh and uh we we've yet to see that on the Vibes app.
1:52:49
Well, you know, what will the friend version of that be?
1:52:54
What will be the, you know, becoming a platform?
1:52:56
What will be the product or the use case that isn't imagined by the designer that winds up driving value, at least for fun, you know, uh like going to wander, find your happy place, book a wander with inspiring views, hotel, great amenities, dreamy beds, top tier cleaning, 24/7 concier service. It's a vacation home. But better.
1:53:12
Did you see the Fermy IPO?
1:53:15
>> QCAP says the upcoming Fermy IPO will be the most 2025 IPO.
1:53:17
All the red flags are there.
1:53:20
Literally every single one. There's no revenue.
1:53:22
It has a $13 billion valuation.
1:53:24
It's powering AI by 2038.
1:53:28
There's a nuclear component.
1:53:28
The nuclear component will be called the Donald J.
1:53:32
Trump generating plant which only could mean one thing. Buy.
1:53:35
So I think this is going out on the NASDAQ >> Texasized IP requirements than NY.
1:53:45
>> It's uh it's a wild wild time out there. Be safe. >> Do your own research.
1:53:48
This of course is not financial advice.
1:53:50
We might be >> founded only nine months ago.
1:53:54
>> Nine months to get to 13 billion. Is that a new record?
1:53:56
That nine months to get to 13 billion. Who's done that?
1:54:02
>> He did it in >> ah maybe. Yeah.
1:54:03
Maybe in the coins in the coin world. Minutes minutes.
1:54:05
Yeah, it it went out and minutes later was here.
1:54:10
>> So, Fermy uh stock listing date nears for AI data center and power company backed by Rick Perry.
1:54:14
Founded only nine months ago, the company plans to build a Texas-based hyper grid.
1:54:18
Let's give it up for Hyper Grid. >> I like that.
1:54:21
>> And become a provider of data and power centers.
1:54:24
They got a cool >> intelligence is out.
1:54:26
We're talking about hyper intelligence now.
1:54:28
>> As the rise of AI continues, companies operating in the space relying on the technology are finding that they have two inextricable needs.
1:54:33
data centers that can run and process the AI and access to ample energy to power those vast data centers.
1:54:38
One new company, Fermy America, props for putting America in the name of the company aims to offer solutions for both these needs.
1:54:45
And this week, Fermy announced plans for an upcoming initial public offering and dual stock listings.
1:54:50
They're going to be listing in the UK as well.
1:54:52
Yeah, >> Fermy America is a very young company.
1:54:55
It was only founded this year, just 9 months ago in January 2025.
1:54:58
The company is so new that its website is still a relatively barebones affair. I pull it up.
1:55:06
It just says, >> yeah, it looks like a stock website from looks like they got a template of a website.
1:55:14
It just and and doesn't even look like they replaced all the stock imagery.
1:55:19
They just said >> they should have vibe coded something from scratch >> saying >> mixed bag with naming your company after >> Enrio Fermy >> just after a famous scientist who's not involved obviously Tesla's done very well uh Zack Weinberg has Cury bio after uh Mary Cury right uh Nicola did not do
1:55:45
well of course um >> yeah so Fermy >> plank foundation was Enrico Fermy was an Italian and naturalized American physicist renowned for being the creator of the world's first artificial nuclear reactor, the Chicago Pile One and a member of the Manhattan Project. >> He has been called the architect of the
1:56:00
>> He has been called the architect of the nuclear age and the architect of the atomic bomb.
1:56:06
>> Um, so anyways, let me try to get a little bit more color here.
1:56:10
Given the youth of the company, it's no surprise that the majority of Americans have most likely never heard of it.
1:56:14
But they have heard of its co-founder Rick Perry, the former Texas governor who ran as a GOP contender >> uh for president in 2012.
1:56:24
I was trying to think like Rick Perry, I know that name, but it's not in the tech context.
1:56:29
After unsuccessful presidential bids, Perry was appointed as the 14th United States Secretary of Energy during President Trump's first term in office. Mhm.
1:56:38
>> Uh in addition to Perry, Fermy America was also co-founded by Toby Newower, a former co-managing partner of Quantum Energy.
1:56:46
Fermy America intends to be a provider of data and power centers that other companies can use to host their AI needs.
1:56:53
But I say quote intends to because Fermy America doesn't actually provide any services yet.
1:56:58
Heck, it doesn't even have any infrastructure yet to provide its services.
1:57:02
What Fermy America does have is a lease.
1:57:04
Let's give it up for having a lease.
1:57:07
A lease for uh 5200 acres of land owned by Texas Tech University, which is where Fermy plans to build a hyper grid in an undertaking dubbed project matador. Just kidding.
1:57:23
>> The naming is fantastic.
1:57:25
>> What is project matador?
1:57:25
Project Matador is the name given to Fermy America's hyper grid project.
1:57:29
This hyper grid will be combined data and power center that other companies will pay to lease space. H to run.
1:57:37
>> So anyways uh >> well >> they want to deliver up to 11 gawatts of lowcarbon hyper redundant and on demand power directly >> to the world's most compute intensive businesses.
1:57:49
>> Yeah, I mean there's there's stuff all over the place.
1:57:51
This is the nature of uh bull markets.
1:57:53
You get all all kinds of crazy uh outcomes.
1:57:55
Uh Shanu Matthew is sharing a quote from David Einhorn, the hedge fund manager.
1:58:01
He's warning that AI's trillion dollar infrastructure spending could destroy vast capital despite tech being transformative.
1:58:07
He questions whether all the extreme spending by hyperscalers will deliver returns, saying there's a reasonable chance of tremendous capital disrupt uh destruction, which we hate.
1:58:17
I hate the idea of capital being destroyed, but uh there's still a lot to look forward to.
1:58:26
There's still great products coming out every single day. Join them >> vibes.
1:58:31
I I I think I mean I'm we've discussed it a lot.
1:58:35
We're going to continue discussing it with our next guest room.
1:58:38
Um but uh I I think that there is a way to have fun on Vibes.
1:58:42
I'm already having fun with my promoted post, my Spawn Con.
1:58:46
I came in there hot in a rap ad. Um a TVPN ad.
1:58:51
I say uh I say the if you bring your own creativity, you can probably have fun on there.
1:58:57
Um but uh be careful because you might just uh wind up in infinite jest world.
1:59:03
Anyway, we have our next guest, Rune, the anonymous poster, the world famous Rune in the TBP and Ultradome.
1:59:14
>> There he is >> to the stream. How are you doing, Rune? >> Hello. Hello. I'm good. How are you? >> We're fantastic. at long last.
1:59:21
>> What I mean, it's a >> printing your posts.
1:59:23
>> We've been printing your posts for months.
1:59:25
Uh so, thank you for everything that you do for the timeline.
1:59:27
Always providing insight and levity.
1:59:31
>> You guys mentioned me four times this week and I was like, I got to come on just to round off the week, you know. It's uh >> close it out. >> Yeah, John. Yeah. And thank you brothers.
1:59:43
>> Thank you for walking around the and and you know reminding the researchers that you guys are you know holding up the global economy. >> Yes.
1:59:51
>> It really is important work what they're doing and also you to just >> make them remember.
1:59:57
>> I mean I know you guys comment on this like all the time but like >> most of the growth in the equity markets is just AI you know for the past like three years. Yeah.
2:00:06
>> There's like really nothing else.
2:00:06
So, you know, uh, you got to not make mistakes.
2:00:10
Got to keep pumpking out great models. >> Yeah. >> Yeah.
2:00:14
Please don't make mistakes.
2:00:14
That's all that's all that's all we're But but yeah, I mean, we we talked about it earlier today.
2:00:19
The number of companies that are now, >> you know, uh, barnacles on the whale of open AI is uh, >> the entire global economy is sort of >> Yeah.
2:00:28
But you can even get you can even get more specific. Yes.
2:00:30
And um, you know, the the oracles, the core weaves, you know, you can make a really long list. Yeah.
2:00:36
Uh how are you feeling generally?
2:00:39
The the the timeline was extremely split uh this morning and yesterday.
2:00:44
Uh a lot of incredibly great vibes around uh Chat GPT Pulse.
2:00:47
Uh less great vibes around the Vibes app.
2:00:51
Uh are you happy with the direction that the productization of AI is going?
2:00:58
Are you happy with the the roll out and the uh the actual implementation of these models so far?
2:01:07
Uh how how have you been processing the way these models are making their way into every everyday lives? >> Yeah.
2:01:17
Um I don't know like okay the chatbot medium that's one thing it's uh I I think the pulse is like a fine and good idea that makes a lot of sense. >> Yeah. um vibes. I don't know.
2:01:26
But like the the the thing I am like manic about is Codeex >> and you've probably seen me tweeting about it like three times a day.
2:01:34
But like >> more than that. >> More than that. >> Yeah.
2:01:38
>> Uh like Codeex and I guess like Claude Code are like genuinely amazing.
2:01:42
Uh like I don't want to like you know glaze the company's products too much but like it's like I don't understand how I did software engineering before this.
2:01:54
software engineering before this. I have like 20 terminal agents open and like writing like five different things at once and I have an idea and I just like open up a new terminal and I just like get it working on it and it's like a
2:02:08
completely different way of life than anything I was doing before which is like you like linearly slog through one script and then like >> there's like three or four bugs and like I don't know um like it's clear to me that this alone is like completely upends the software industry. And you know like we're talking about
2:02:26
And you know like we're talking about massive data center capex across the industry and like what is it going to be spent on and like even the inference alone for this kind of thing is like first of all like super expensive and then like super in demand I think once it like really percolates through the economy.
2:02:43
So yeah I mean that's a thing that is uh fueling my mania these days like it it uh reignited my you know fuel agi fire. Well, yeah.
2:02:53
So, you said completely upending the software industry.
2:02:58
What what does that actually look like in your mind?
2:03:02
>> Because, you know, one thing is if developers are getting higher output, >> developers are going to be fine.
2:03:08
A lot of people other people have been like, you know, 90% of software engineering will be automated, but maybe we do 10 times as much. There's the same amount.
2:03:16
Like, what's the long-term view for you? >> Yeah.
2:03:19
I I like really don't know about the jobs or whatever.
2:03:23
It's like extremely nonline nonlinear and hard to predict. >> Yeah.
2:03:28
>> I feel like there's so much um you know like I see the product managers at my company, they're like vibe coding useful ops all the time and like people who are not even engineers are becoming like programmers because of these things.
2:03:40
And I'm sure that's the case for like the most junior level engineers who are like bright are like now they're like way better than they were before.
2:03:51
I remember my first year of programming and I was like running to my mentor for like uh you know like how do I run this whatever basic thing and like they just don't have to do that anymore like they have to they can avoid all that embarrassment.
2:04:06
they have this like amazing agent or like the chat GBT itself or whatever it is.
2:04:10
To me, it would seem like the productivity of an entry- level engineer is like just way higher than it would have been like 5 years ago.
2:04:20
>> Um I can't, you know, speak to jobs impact in like the two years or three years or whatever.
2:04:27
>> What about in terms of like consumer impact?
2:04:28
I feel like you still hear people complaining about like, uh, my United Airlines app is not as great as it could be.
2:04:36
And it feels like in a world where software engineering gets way easier, more reliable, higher leverage, like we should start seeing higher quality software diffuse through the everyday lives of people that interface with technology.
2:04:51
Does it feel like that's happening, going to start happening, or is there something sort of intractable about uh an airline booking app that just can't be solved? >> Yeah.
2:05:04
I mean, like, first of all, I don't trust people's vibes on this.
2:05:08
Like, I don't actually think they're paying good attention how the United app looked like three years ago or whatever. >> Sure. Sure.
2:05:12
>> I I'm sure it's actually a lot better. Yeah.
2:05:15
>> Uh like I've seen the inflight displays on United and they're like >> like what is this? It's like space age.
2:05:20
It's way better than it was before.
2:05:22
>> Um, and okay, I I don't know that United engineers are using any of these tools. Maybe they're not.
2:05:27
Maybe their company doesn't allow them.
2:05:29
Maybe they use like some third party sourcer. I have no idea.
2:05:35
But, you know, that's what I was saying.
2:05:37
Of course, these tools I have no idea what time it takes for them to percolate through an economy or like find people in like the, >> you know, like the the non- tech Fortune 500s are using them or anything like that.
2:05:54
But >> I I from everyone I've spoken to that works at like say like GM or Ford or something, they're like, "What's Codex?"
2:06:03
You know, it's not there yet. Of course not.
2:06:05
Um, I hope it will be, but the fact that it even exists is just like exhilarating to me.
2:06:12
>> Do you think Codeex has the potential to be a hit consumer product and get, you know, end up eating into uh the market share of some of these uh new vibe vibe coding, you know, companies?
2:06:28
Um, of course, but also I think they're very excited like even just the cursor people because I don't know like there's like a competition between OpenAI and like Anthropic and uh that's probably good for them. I I don't know.
2:06:44
Um it's hard for me to say but I'm pretty sure that Curse is killing it and they're very excited. >> Yeah.
2:06:52
How are you using the various products?
2:06:54
It seems like you're using uh codecs all the time.
2:06:57
Are you using codecs on mobile as well?
2:06:59
Are you in sort of like a like you know wake up in the morning and you have an idea or like a shower thought and I find myself doing this with uh with just GPT5 Pro queries or deep research queries.
2:07:13
I have some idea, I fire it off and I just wait.
2:07:15
Uh but I'm not writing a ton of software.
2:07:19
Are you having a similar experience that I'm having with just knowledge retrieval in code generation where you might be firing it off like when you're in the bathroom and getting dinner with someone and you just have a second you just fire something off?
2:07:34
>> No, I'm just like not a hardcore enough engineer to be doing stuff like that.
2:07:38
But I I uh I definitely use like Five Pro or whatever all the time just to whatever random idea comes to my head.
2:07:44
whatever random idea comes to my head. I wake up, I'm like >> researching some >> I don't know some statistic or like >> setting off some query like what percent of the economy is like software engineers or >> how much how much do you think you
2:07:57
personally cost OpenAI monthly like how much are you >> a lot a lot I I I can't say but a lot >> a lot uh what about other other use cases I mean we saw that a lot of people are using um these models for like uh like life coaches and just people chatting and I've never really gone down that path. I don't know, maybe I'm just
2:08:20
I don't know, maybe I'm just busy or I talk to Jordy all day long, so I I don't have a lot of room for that.
2:08:24
I I hit knowledge retrieval constantly like the GDP of some country.
2:08:28
Yeah, give me the full history of it.
2:08:30
Build a >> I did a deep research report yesterday on the capital of California.
2:08:34
Thought thought thought for 59 seconds.
2:08:38
>> Yeah, it it ran a hundred searches.
2:08:38
I I hit that stuff all the time, but I but I I I haven't gotten in any sort of flow of of asking for uh interpersonal advice, life coaching, therapy, any of that stuff.
2:08:50
Have you had any luck or is that just like a is that a skill issue or just personality or certain type of person that uses things that way?
2:08:56
Like do how do you think about that use case?
2:09:02
Um, I've definitely used it in like a tough corner.
2:09:06
Like what decision do I make?
2:09:08
And I like have it discussed with me. >> Yeah. >> Uh, I don't know.
2:09:10
I'm probably not a typical user cuz I like read what it says and I'm like, >> "Oh, this this one seems kind of like and this is like a great point and >> I like weigh it and ignore it and whatever."
2:09:22
But uh yeah, I think actually new sonnet was an amazing model um for this and that this was uh >> what they called claude 3. 5 sonnet new. Yep.
2:09:37
>> Um, and I think that kind of invented this genre of like I as Claude for everything in my life.
2:09:42
And I think like the latest GPT models can also do this, but like um Yeah, there was like memes going around about the the Claude boys back then who just like >> Yeah.
2:09:54
Like literally everything they do, they'd run it through Claude. >> Yeah.
2:09:58
>> It's uh it's a bit weird for sure.
2:09:58
Like are you you know, are you being puppeted by an AI?
2:10:03
like it's it's a bit loss of control vibes.
2:10:05
It's uh >> I feel like my interactions with AI are getting less back and forth over the last two years.
2:10:12
I used to chat back and forth and ask a lot of follow-up questions.
2:10:17
And I feel like now if I just talk to GPT5 Pro on voice mode for a minute and give it a bunch of context, it's going to come back with a very thorough answer that I might have one or two follow-ups on, but I'm not really I certainly don't have this concept of like there's one chat that's like fine-tuned at this point on this particular that I oh yeah, my economics chat I go over here when I'm asking an economics question.
2:10:46
everything is done at just like a new chat router level basically.
2:10:48
Is that kind of mirror your experience?
2:10:53
>> Yeah, I I I do think um the open models are built for that.
2:10:57
It's like uh >> single turn think really hard get you the right answer type of thing.
2:11:04
>> What about what about like the flavor of the uh of the responses like with the GPT3 API?
2:11:10
It it felt like if you if you prompted it with like the green text, you'd get a green text back.
2:11:16
And it felt like there was a lot of uh a lot of variation in the style of writing. And now we're seeing it.
2:11:23
Maybe it's just the way people are prompting, but it feels like there's a little bit of like a a consolidation in the in the textual style, the stylistic flourishes, the it's not the it's not that, it's this, and the mdash and all of that.
2:11:38
like it feels very much like if I opened up your app and asked you and asked the same question, I would get the same stylistic flourishes.
2:11:47
And I'm wondering if that's something that you think will continue or maybe that's just a temporary moment of time and we'll wind up in the future where someone's talking to that the vibes of Claude 3.
2:11:58
5 maybe in a different completely in a completely different model but they're they have those vibes over there and then someone has 40 vibes over here but they're not talking to literal 40 or literal 3.
2:12:07
5 but they've kind of landed in a local minima of this is the tone that they like for all of their interactions.
2:12:19
Um, yeah, these are great questions.
2:12:21
I mean, like the the GPD3 model to me was like my first feel the AGI kind of like hair raising moment.
2:12:29
Um, I remember playing with it and just being like, oh, this thing's intelligent in ways that are like, yeah, just like non-trivial, creative, etc.
2:12:38
But people are also like too rosy about like the base models.
2:12:43
they they just don't uh they're like extremely uh random.
2:12:48
uh random. They like they don't even have a concept of uh you know like we talk about hallucination but what the base model is doing is only hallucination like it's not uh you know maybe one out of 20 completions will
2:13:03
have a coherent uh like front to back like sensical text and there are people who can do like magical things with it but there's a reason there was no like GPD3 moment and there was like a a chat GPT moment where like the like it took
2:13:21
off among consumers and same with like claude and and whatever right but um there is like at all these companies there's this um what do you call it like a path dependence of post training so like the models sample and you collect
2:13:40
comparisons between model samples and you're like um I shouldn't talk too much about post training, but like the point being like you are very reliant on the previous generation of models to train your next model. >> And so there's like some style burn-in
2:13:56
>> And so there's like some style burn-in that goes on >> and like the late Claud resemble early club and like the late Grocks resemble early Grock and so on.
2:14:05
Um, and yeah, like they all have some similarities probably because of like well I mean they're all training on the same giant data set of the internet more or less and they also have like these common data sets.
2:14:20
>> I guess I just wonder if like there's there's demand from people for more variation in vibes.
2:14:26
I was uh I was asking Mark Chen about this where um like I was like everyone was saying GPT 4.
2:14:36
5 had a big model smell better like flavor to it better writer uh but deep research was the one that could get you all the results and I was like so is the best practice for me now that I should like run a deep research report and then take that to GPT4.
2:14:51
5 and say hey rewrite this better and and I'm wondering if there's some world where there's just demand for like I like a lowercase person to chat with. I like really punchy.
2:15:05
I mean, I guess you can kind of put that in the prompts, but I'm wondering if it's if that's like at some point going to be an emergent property.
2:15:12
>> Um I think you should try the file thinking model uh if you >> I have some use case like that.
2:15:18
>> But yeah, it's the same thing basically. Does that work for you? >> Yeah. Yeah.
2:15:23
I mean, it's not it's honestly like I'm I'm fine with the with the I like the uh the the flavor and the vibe that it comes back to me with.
2:15:31
Uh it's just it is impersonal, but but that's exactly what I'm But but that's exactly what I'm hitting it with. And I want that.
2:15:39
I want it to be a an assistant.
2:15:41
I want it to be a helpful assistant.
2:15:42
I want it to be like a textbook. I want bullet points. I want m dashes. I want clear analogies.
2:15:46
And so I'm very satisfied.
2:15:48
So, I'm wondering if m I mean maybe it's just a revealed preference versus stated preference, but it seems like there's a lot of stated preference out there that people are sick of M dashes and if it's not this, it's that.
2:15:59
Uh, and it's certainly like a tell that someone used an LLM.
2:16:02
But um but I I was just I was just thinking more about um like how if there really are people out there with the root with the revealed preference with the true preference for something and and and will the models eventually be able to be many things to many people show a different face to every single different >> Yeah, absolutely.
2:16:23
I mean, I think the end stage is like extremely personalized models that speak to you >> guess even before you even tell them >> what it is that you want the model to sound like. >> Yeah.
2:16:37
>> Uh and I see no real reason that's like not possible. >> Yeah.
2:16:40
>> Just a matter of doing it. And >> the what else?
2:16:43
Do you think um do you think memory will start to be like feel like more of a moat as uh products like Pulse get more popular?
2:16:54
It feels like this is the first time that uh you know I I I don't feel >> Hold on.
2:17:04
Can I ask you guys a question >> please? >> Yeah.
2:17:08
>> When I saw the first episode it was called the Technology Brothers Podcast Network. What happened?
2:17:15
>> It was just technology brothers and and then >> we had a big problem which was that which was that >> our community teapot >> and and the and the tech community broadly honored that we were calling it technology brothers.
2:17:32
But when journalists would write about technology brothers, they would introduce us as John and Jordy the tech bros and they would shorten it which was massively disrespectful.
2:17:42
Uh, and so we and once we realized we were doing our lives life's work, >> we did not want to spend the next 30 years everywhere we go being introduced as the tech bros.
2:17:54
And so >> yeah, that's that's disrespectful.
2:17:56
If they had called you Jordy and John the Technology Brothers, that's >> we would we would have kept riding with it, but it was a big problem.
2:18:04
>> That's the battle we lost. >> But uh >> Okay.
2:18:08
>> Uh >> I believe you credited me with that one.
2:18:10
You pull up a tweet on the the first episode.
2:18:12
Yeah, you were you were one of the first people to to truly, you know, expand Tech Bros into Technology Brothers.
2:18:19
So, thank you for popularizing the term. What do you think? >> Your your change. Yeah.
2:18:26
>> What do you think of uh what Thinking Machines has been putting out lately?
2:18:31
Um, I think it's really cool that, you know, like new labs, they're incentivized to speak very openly about their research cuz, you know, like it's a great recruiting mechanism.
2:18:42
You're like, there's some cool research you're doing and like, let me come join and then like I don't know, maybe >> I guess Facebook was pursuing this strategy a while back uh or meta or whatever they're called now.
2:18:57
>> They they would uh they open source everything.
2:18:59
They write a lot of public papers and and it was a big draw for people.
2:19:03
Um I haven't read the latest paper but I read the last one.
2:19:05
It was something I I had been wondering about for a while and like was a common question in the industry about uh determinism and non-determinism and so on.
2:19:16
>> Yeah, it's it's good stuff. >> It's good stuff. >> It's good stuff.
2:19:20
>> I don't know like it's great stuff.
2:19:23
>> I don't know specifically what they're working on.
2:19:24
I've heard rumors but I won't I can't I shouldn't talk about it.
2:19:29
What about hardware form factors?
2:19:29
What what's uh uh you know speak generally, you don't have to talk about what you guys are working on internally, but what what's exciting to you uh in hardware broadly?
2:19:39
Do we need new dedicated devices uh or is the phone uh good enough? >> I don't know.
2:19:47
I don't have the answers to that.
2:19:48
I like genuinely don't think about the hardware side very much.
2:19:54
>> Well, that's that says something in itself. >> Yeah.
2:19:58
I mean, I'm pretty happy with my uh chat GBT on my phone, but I >> What was on your pulse today?
2:20:06
>> I don't think I checked.
2:20:08
>> Mine was a check right now. >> Check right now.
2:20:10
>> Mine was Mine was shockingly interesting.
2:20:13
>> Pulse is a window into the mind.
2:20:15
>> It was It was It was extremely interesting talking about bottlenecks and compute revolutions and retired coal plants powering AI campuses.
2:20:22
And uh it even had one I was searching for different options for bonded cellular networks.
2:20:30
So if you want to bond a Verizon and AT&T uh like SIM card together to get like a really powerful Wi-Fi hotspot on the go for live streaming obviously and it had a whole deep dive on that and it's like yeah I'd searched for that but I would love to have that resurface to me in a different format. Uh, right.
2:20:47
And so I was I was very pleased with the results.
2:20:50
And it also felt like deeply maybe it's just like the way I've been using the product, but it felt deeply anti-brain rot.
2:20:59
It felt like, oh, these are these are these are articles.
2:21:02
I don't even know what you would call them, but summaries that um certainly push me to go deeper into something that's actually hard work learning as opposed to something that's more like candy and helping me just kind of tune out things. I I I enjoyed that.
2:21:19
>> Look, here here's like mine is just exactly what you'd expect.
2:21:21
It's like tracking AI's impact on power markets.
2:21:26
It's like Chinese infrastructure spend.
2:21:28
It's it's all this kind of stuff.
2:21:30
>> Yeah, it's I mean >> a very predictable predictable business.
2:21:34
>> Now I want to know send me share me share that article with me.
2:21:36
I want to know about Chinese infrastructure investments and how they're tracking with the >> Well, maybe that's a feature.
2:21:41
Run shared his pulse today. >> I think so. >> You can check it out.
2:21:45
Uh I mean you can already share the link so yeah you'll need be able to share it in the app.
2:21:49
Um anyway what uh what else is uh is keeping you up these days?
2:21:55
Uh you were you were talking you you kind of laid out we reviewed the post on the show um um just talking more broadly about the nature of process power and Dan Wang's book.
2:22:10
Um, have you uh where do you sit on the uh the general characterization of the lawyerly society in America?
2:22:16
Does it feel like we are becoming more lawyerly or less lawyerly?
2:22:23
>> Well, some prominent uh engineers, founders and AI have certainly gotten latigious recently.
2:22:29
So maybe America could do both.
2:22:33
>> At the same time, many engineers are crossing over into the government. >> Yeah.
2:22:38
Um, I guess what is interesting to me is like the extreme depth of the capital markets in the US where like one company can raise hundreds of billions of dollars on infrastructure spend and you know together the industry is spending I have no idea like you guys probably know the numbers better than I do.
2:23:01
Um, and that's like that's very interesting.
2:23:04
that's like that's very interesting. So where are the like you know if it's like such a lawyerly society why are we able to do this like why are we able to spend so much um and yeah of course it's true like if you look at like the west side of San
2:23:22
Francisco it's like it should not be this like rows and rows of single family houses it's like quite a waste it's quite a shame but um there's many things like that that people have talked about at Infinitum But in general, it's like, okay, like Elon Musk showed up and he revolutionized two industries, right? Like the space travel um and the
2:23:42
Like the space travel um and the electric cars.
2:23:47
And I'm sure he fought with regulators and like there was a bunch of lawsuits and whatever, but like you know his like his I guess his will to power or whatever made it work.
2:23:56
And to I I am always a bit skeptical when people say like you know the US is impossible to innovate in because of regulations or it seems like it's it's getting done people do it.
2:24:09
Um yeah, you know, maybe like the the highest level of government is more lawyerly in the US than China, but I don't um there's also benefits to that which Dan Wang talks about, you know, like there's no uh >> I I I don't want to get into it, but I think you guys know the the upsides of uh the great rule of law and whatnot.
2:24:31
I yeah I do wonder if uh yeah I mean that that's kind of the odd uh counter take is that uh maybe the depth of the financial markets is actually a outgrowth of the lawyerly society when you have a bunch of lawyers who can create robust contracts where somebody feels comfortable parting with 10 billion dollars hundred billion dollars.
2:24:57
Is that a function of engineering?
2:24:57
Is that a function of engineering? Uh it might be a function of financial engineering in some ways but it is also a function of uh strong legal contracts and the work of lawyers to be creative but also fair in a way that instills
2:25:12
confidence in the capital market such that a company's willing to to uh >> that seems right >> to to to deploy a hundred billion dollars and know that there's a at least there's an understanding of the pathway to the return on investment and that it's it's less there's less uncertainty. >> Well, on the other hand, you have Tik
2:25:30
>> Well, on the other hand, you have Tik Tok allegedly selling for 14 billion. >> Sure.
2:25:35
>> Which I'm sure is less than what was spent to grow Tik Tok in the US. >> I don't know.
2:25:41
>> But that's that's more government >> worth a couple more zeros than that.
2:25:44
But yeah, >> just a couple.
2:25:49
>> It does seem >> Do you think uh the Gartner hype cycle is being overapplied in the context of AI?
2:25:57
Do you think we could just have a straight line acceleration and there's no there's no trough or are you trough pilled?
2:26:08
I just don't get this thing where people like overlay graphs and they like do this like highlevel pattern matching when it's like okay like let's look at the basics which is to me the basics are codecs which is like >> uh like literally as of two months ago
2:26:23
this was not a thing and now it's a thing and it's like >> to me a mind-blowing product just uh I can't I can't stress this enough um and okay like that alone is going to create just enormous revenue streams for both OpenAI and Anthropic I assume and cursor. Um,
2:26:42
Um, so like I don't know.
2:26:46
I I just don't it doesn't seem worth the Yeah, of course. Like >> Yes.
2:26:52
Will it create the whole world is a trillion?
2:26:55
Will it create a So So will it create a trillion dollar revenue stream >> potentially?
2:27:03
>> Um I don't think it needs to create a trillion dollar revenue stream to to keep up with the uh the data center plans, but that's um >> Yeah. for me to say.
2:27:13
You should you should get on uh the the CFO or something, you know, one of these companies and ask them.
2:27:20
>> Um what what about uh give us your read on the state of open source today?
2:27:28
uh OpenAI's open- source models were demanded, they were released, and then you don't hear uh you know, there haven't been a lot of noise surrounding them, but certainly a lot of uh a lot of noise coming around some of the Chinese open source models, but what's what's your kind of >> high level thinking open source models? >> Yeah. >> Yeah.
2:27:51
Um well, there's two takes on that.
2:27:54
One is that people demanded it but they didn't actually want it.
2:27:58
>> The other is that maybe the OSS model just wasn't meeting the market needs or like it was not good at whatever it is the market wanted.
2:28:07
>> Um I don't know maybe >> it's a stated I mean to me it's a stated versus revealed preference at least for a lot of the people that were >> most loudly demanding open source.
2:28:20
>> I mean this has happened >> I will say some of these the Chinese The Chinese Kimi K2 model is like really quite excellent to me.
2:28:27
It's uh it's a great rival. Okay.
2:28:31
>> Um yeah, it's like the model I compare against most internally. >> It's uh kind of cool.
2:28:37
>> I mean, people have people have been demanding open source versions of technology for a long time.
2:28:40
There were open-source social networks and open source there's an open source version of Shopify.
2:28:46
uh and yet Shopify acrewed all the value and uh no one's forking that particular uh Ruby on Rails project just to get their e-commerce store up and running.
2:28:57
Uh because >> I think there's there's like two problems with the the kind of hype around open source.
2:29:03
One is like okay you've open source the model but it's also clear that that doesn't immediately make it accessible to like a billion people. >> Totally.
2:29:13
um like obviously the chat GPT product and you know like whatever else rock is hugely downloaded Gemini whatever but like the um it's like by far the easiest way for someone to access AI and for free they're like doing it for free >> um so like on that angle it's not really all that decentralized just because the model weights are like flying around.
2:29:40
Um, second of all, if everything was always open source, you guys know as well as I do that it's like whole industry would never support this kind of capex y >> um and this R&D spend and whatever.
2:29:54
>> And so like there's just no there's no way like that that's just the only way to do things and like that's you know just just normal capitalism you know. >> Yeah.
2:30:05
Uh question from the chat. Did you read one piece? >> No, I have not.
2:30:11
I have a bunch of friends who swear by it, but I've never never gone into that. >> Are there any law?
2:30:18
>> Are there any other uh cultural influences that you pull from?
2:30:20
Favorite movies, books, comic books, anything. >> Oh, yeah. Of course. All the time. >> Top of the stack.
2:30:28
>> My favorite show ever is probably this anime called Evangelian. >> Oh, yeah.
2:30:33
>> Uh it's like a 90s TV show.
2:30:33
It's like kind of grim but like in like is this a staple of like the Mecca fighter genre? >> Yeah.
2:30:42
Are there are there metaphors from is it Evangelion or Evangelian?
2:30:48
>> Uh are is is there a metaphor?
2:30:50
>> Real heads call it Evangelion. Yeah. >> Evangelion. Yeah.
2:30:52
>> It's a because that's like the way the Japanese say it. >> Yeah.
2:30:55
Is there are are there themes in that story that uh people pull from and apply to like the modern world and they go, "Oh, this is just like Evangelion." Evangelion.
2:31:07
>> Um I certainly think there's like a dense religious metaphor in there for like I don't know.
2:31:11
Um it's like a classic coming of age tale where >> um >> Bill Dunerman. >> Exactly.
2:31:24
That's what they call it. Yeah.
2:31:26
>> And this this kid, he's kind of like a depressive >> anti- like he's got none of the good qualities of a protagonist.
2:31:32
qualities of a protagonist. He's like constantly crashing out and he's like uh there's a bunch of girls who are into him and he's like not capable of talking to any of them and he >> you know but he's like magically like the best guy in the world at piloting these robots to beat these aliens and
2:31:50
like humanity keeps calling on him even though he's like being mentally destroyed to come combat the aliens and >> it's like a story about like yeah >> if you can crash out and not talk to women But if you're good at if you're good at driving the robots, >> history will remember remember your name for sure. >> Totally. >> Totally.
2:32:09
>> What's the best way to get started with Evangelion?
2:32:13
>> Start with episode one.
2:32:13
There's only >> just watch it.
2:32:15
It's not like, oh, you got to read the books first, that type of thing.
2:32:18
You know how people will say that about like don't watch the movie until you see the read the books or whatever.
2:32:24
Um, if you want to get really pedantic anal about it, there's like a different subtitles that came out in the 90s that are better than the Netflix subtitles, but like it's not really that important, you know?
2:32:35
Like it's a pretty big barrier entry. >> Okay.
2:32:39
>> There's 26 episodes in a movie.
2:32:39
It's pretty straightforward.
2:32:41
It's not like some crazy watch order and whatnot. >> Okay, man. Check it out. >> Yeah. >> Yeah.
2:32:49
>> That's a bunch of media I love.
2:32:52
Uh, what's the current state of the talent wars from your view?
2:32:55
Did we peak over the summer or is it still just as intense? What's your read on it?
2:33:05
I mean it seems like okay if a researcher is a manager of compute and the compute numbers are growing and then like the effectiveness of a researcher is more and more important then I don't know like that line is uh trending up and to the right as far as I can tell but do you guys agree does that logic make sense I don't know >> 100% I think the logic makes sense.
2:33:35
>> I just think it's interesting that we're seeing essentially the same thing play out that we've seen for I don't know for generations in entrepreneurship where a founder can marshall capital and have leverage and incredible economic upside.
2:33:51
Now we're seeing founder level wealth and financial outcomes applied to employees which is just a different thing.
2:33:59
It used to be in order to get the big big numbers, you had to go build something externally and then the board would justify paying you a bunch to bring it in in house.
2:34:08
And now it feels like companies are more they've actually just cracked the code on, hey, come work here, build this thing that's going to deliver a bunch of value and we will pay you like you're a founder that was out in the wilderness and we acquired in.
2:34:24
Um, and it feels like it's in some ways it always should have been this way.
2:34:29
It feels like an aqua hire to me.
2:34:29
Like just some sort of distributed aquaire. >> Totally.
2:34:35
>> Yeah, that was that was that was my framing for it.
2:34:37
You just have to look at it as an unauthorized distributed aqua hire. >> Yeah. >> It's like Okay.
2:34:42
And like how much did Zach pay in total for all these researchers over the course of four years? Yeah.
2:34:49
>> Is it like that enormous?
2:34:49
Is it like I don't know like comparative market for him?
2:34:55
>> Certainly not relative to market cap.
2:34:55
Uh especially if you just think about like even if you take the boring view of like AI is just another business line that they need to be in.
2:35:03
You know, it's like oh they're they're spinning up a a new division.
2:35:07
It's like well if the new division drives 10% of their revenue or 20% it becomes a significant business line.
2:35:13
Uh investing 1% of your market cap makes a ton of sense to actually just like be in there.
2:35:18
There's way more complicated dynamics there.
2:35:20
But even if you just saw it as like we need an infrastructure team, we need a database team, we need a front-end team.
2:35:26
It's like you need an AI team.
2:35:28
Uh and you're going to have leverage in in this case.
2:35:32
Uh what what do you think about this uh Rich uh Rich Sutton take that's going out just dropped on the Dores show.
2:35:36
LLMs are maybe not bitter lesson pilled.
2:35:39
Um this idea that we need, you know, entirely new format.
2:35:44
People have been saying this for a very very long time.
2:35:47
Deep learning is going to hit a wall, then we come out with something new.
2:35:48
Uh wh what are your thoughts on uh uh the father of reinforcement learning potentially not thinking that LLMs are bit bitter lesson pilled?
2:36:01
>> Um I think this is a common sentiment like deep mind that they were always like they kind of held language models with a bit of like this is icky.
2:36:11
This is not pure because we're not starting from scratch.
2:36:17
um we're learning from the human internet and that's like that's not uh you know it's not pure in some sense unlike say Alpha Zero which is learned from nothing like you just selfplay yourself to superhuman performance.
2:36:28
Um, so yeah, like maybe it's not completely the most bitter lesson paradigm in the world, but like I don't know that doesn't mean to me that it won't like reach extremely useful levels of intelligence.
2:36:46
And I don't you should ask Ilia about that.
2:36:49
>> It already is really useful.
2:36:49
Like yeah, it's like the question of like uh will we get value out of this is like answered by DAUs and just a million anecdotes of people that use the products. in my in my opinion. Jordy, anything else?
2:37:04
>> I got a lot more stuff, but we're over time. >> Yeah.
2:37:06
Well, thanks so much for coming on the show.
2:37:07
We >> glad we glad we finally made this happen.
2:37:10
Thank you for >> posting the posts that make this show possible.
2:37:14
We truly enjoy covering everyone.
2:37:17
John, you want to hit the gong for Rune? >> Yes, congratulations.
2:37:19
Well, >> can't get out without a gong. >> 250. What an honor.
2:37:24
>> 250,000 followers on X, I believe, is roughly the number. Something like that.
2:37:27
It's definitely gong worthy. >> There we go. Hit it. >> Good stuff, Run. >> Thanks for coming.
2:37:36
>> Thank you for your thoughts and your posts and uh have a wonderful Friday. >> Have a great weekend.
2:37:41
>> Thanks for having me on. >> We'll talk soon. >> Good stuff.
2:37:47
>> Let's go back to the timeline, run through some posts before we get out of here.
2:37:51
Uh >> confirm me already.
2:37:52
Everyone in this company was given a whoop and is required to share their data.
2:37:57
This this seems like something we would do with eight sleep.
2:38:01
>> Is this >> uh I used this to assign more work to those who are sleeping a little too well.
2:38:06
You are a healthy military-aged man.
2:38:08
Why do you need eight hours of sleep?
2:38:09
Because you need a high sleep score.
2:38:11
Uh but uh this is a lot of fun.
2:38:11
I believe Omar Wasim, I feel like I've met him.
2:38:16
Um anyway, uh where should we go? There's some big posts.
2:38:20
What is up with this bagel? The pop-up bagel shop.
2:38:22
Do you know about this, Jordy?
2:38:24
Uh Chriseler says, "I'm calling it right now.
2:38:27
This will be the next billion-dollar franchise brand. The next crumble."
2:38:32
They're copy pasting the crumble playbook.
2:38:33
A playbook I'm not familiar with.
2:38:35
300 plus franchises sold in the first month.
2:38:39
22 to 5 million gross per store with 25% net margins after fees. Lines out the door.
2:38:45
So, I'm not familiar with the crumble story.
2:38:48
This feels like some new >> Crumble Cookies is probably the breakout franchise uh of the last five ten uh I think more like five years.
2:38:59
So they sell cookies all over the country now franchise model.
2:39:03
So I think they maybe operated their first few stores.
2:39:05
They now are like very focused on the franchise model.
2:39:09
They have uh cookies that are probably like the least healthy thing that you could put into >> Oh, they're like really over the top.
2:39:20
It's like a whole cake in a cookie basically. >> Yeah.
2:39:22
Really dense, >> super high calorie.
2:39:23
I'm sure they're super tasty.
2:39:26
>> Uh all over the country now.
2:39:26
And and they just >> But it sounds like a unique business model where they've gone they've they've cracked the code on scaling retail through franchises very soon.
2:39:33
You always hear about like McDonald's and Burger King franchises. >> Yeah. franchise.
2:39:38
If you can have a a durable hit uh consumer franchise, it's one of the most amazing businesses in the world because you get paid >> some percentage off the top.
2:39:47
So, it's not a percentage of profit.
2:39:50
It's you're getting a percentage of gross revenue in in exchange for >> giving somebody access to your brand and like menu and supply chain.
2:39:56
It is valuable >> and they sort of have an entrepreneurial outcome as well.
2:40:00
Like there's there's plenty of talent like there's a guy who owns a couple McDonald's and does very well and has a boat and then there's also uh Patrick profile the company uh some street advisor company that does rollups of them and has done very well as well. >> Yeah. Yeah.
2:40:15
Ton tons of examples of people making a lot of money in franchises.
2:40:18
You can start with >> you know working in one then you can transition to being an operator then you can add more.
2:40:24
you can buy more, roll them up and and they trade at pretty, you know, if you have a bunch of Burger Kings, they trade at a great multiple because it's a durable brand and and um and so yeah, I think uh 300 franchises is crazy because they're getting a ton of upfront revenue and then they'll get a percentage of the gross over time.
2:40:48
So, >> uh look at look at this post from Jeremy Gon.
2:40:51
He says, "Staying below a $10 million deal size for 25 years is remarkable.
2:40:56
The real lesson from Mark Leonard, the founder of Constellation, uh to me is of maniacal discipline."
2:41:00
And so the value of acquisitions was wait how what is this average price per acquisition was wow down at 5 million for 2007 all the way through 2012 and then still really low for a for a decade.
2:41:20
um and and paid a little bit more in 2013 and is now starting to pay more.
2:41:25
But really just I I mean people think about these like private equity software rollups.
2:41:30
Uh you know a software company sells for you know we we we see the marks people raise $20 million they sell for hundred million 200 million that's the one that gets the attention but there are so many companies that are selling for $10 million $5 million $20 million and Constellation's picking them all up and has built like a fantastic business integrating all these.
2:41:48
uh you have to have some serious infrastructure to to to do something with a $5 million business like that you just acquired, but uh certainly good coverage.
2:41:58
>> Uh Buco Capital has a great uh post here from uh Intel apparently was up another >> 19% uh yesterday. Wow.
2:42:06
It's up another 20% in the last 5 days.
2:42:10
>> I mean, do you know the story here?
2:42:10
So, Intel reached out to Apple and TSMC for in for investment as well.
2:42:14
And so Nvidia wound up just kind of getting in early as Nvidia was like, "We're gonna do something." >> USA got in early.
2:42:21
>> The USA got in extremely early. >> Read through that. I'll be right back. >> Yeah, sure.
2:42:25
Uh so uh the news is that uh Apple and TSMC might be playing ball, might be uh open up the checkbooks for Intel.
2:42:34
Uh efforts to gain tech backers accelerate in the wake of US 10% stake in chipmaker.
2:42:40
Of course, Donald Trump and uh the US government announced a 10% stake in Intel.
2:42:45
Uh Intel chief executive Lip Bhutan has been hustling to secure investments and customer commitments needed for the chipmaker comeback.
2:42:52
Among the companies Intel has approached about investments or manufacturing partnerships are Apple and TSMC, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing.
2:43:01
Those efforts were already underway before President Trump showed up showed an interest in the company last month, but have gone has since gone into overdrive since the US took a 10% stake in it.
2:43:13
According to people familiar, uh the Trump administration has been using its influence to help revive Intel's sagging fortunes.
2:43:19
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnik and others in the administration have for months been urging tech companies to work more closely with Intel which was for the long uh for was for long the world's largest semiconductor firm before it losing its lead to TSMC.
2:43:35
Softbank made a $2 billion investment in Intel.
2:43:38
Nvidia made a $5 billion investment in Intel and uh is now um and that it also includes a provision for Intel to design new hardware to integrate with Nvidia's chips.
2:43:51
Uh Masayoshi Son and Jensen Wong have both been demon demonstrative in their support of the administration's technology agenda which includes building up domestic semiconductor manufacturing capacity and supercharging the construction of data centers needed by the artificial intelligence industry.
2:44:09
Bloomberg earlier reported on Intel's overtures to Apple.
2:44:11
Uh Tan earlier this year met with Tim Cook and has also spoken to CCway, his counterpart at TSMC about a partnership or joint venture according to people familiar with the matter.
2:44:22
And so basically uh there's a question about how much can Apple even get out of Intel.
2:44:28
Apple of course moved off of Intel chips and is now going direct to TSMC with the Apple silicon uh project.
2:44:36
And Apple doesn't doesn't pay a lot to Intel if anything.
2:44:38
I think they sell like one Intel Mac still.
2:44:40
It's like 10 years old refurbished.
2:44:43
It's like a very slow computer.
2:44:46
Um, but of course there are still things that Apple needs Intel chips for in the server and in to run their data centers.
2:44:54
Like every company is kind of a customer of every other company.
2:44:57
So there's probably something to be done there.
2:44:59
But uh the question of like how would an Apple Intel deal actually work is way less clear than an Nvidia Intel deal because Nvidia sells uh the the Hopper chip, but then they sell Grace, which is the CPU.
2:45:13
They call it Grace Hopper.
2:45:14
>> And you got and you got Donald Trump who led the series A now.
2:45:17
So now Intel is trying to raise the B and the series A lead is going to look at, you know, potential B leads and be and say, "Hey, >> come on. It's kind of like that.
2:45:28
I think the better analogy is more like the series B lead is going to the series A lead and saying because Apple and Intel grew up together.
2:45:38
Apple had like Apple exists because Intel exists.
2:45:40
Apple would not have been able to build that MacBook Air that we saw from 2007 without Intel.
2:45:50
There was an Intel chip in the Mac for a long time.
2:45:52
And so Apple's been >> front and center in the marketing. >> Exactly. Intel inside.
2:45:55
you're buying this new computer because >> Yes.
2:45:59
And so Apple has gotten so much out of Intel. They're so rich. They have deep pockets. They have tons of cash.
2:46:05
And so the series B lead is saying, "Hey, I'm going to I'm going to do a bridge round here."
2:46:09
But the series A lead's got to come in if they want to maintain their position or they're getting crammed down.
2:46:13
Crammed down in this position, in this scenario, is getting crammed down in tariffs or getting crammed down in taxes or some other thing.
2:46:21
Uh it's all part of this art of the deal craziness.
2:46:24
Um but uh it does seem like uh if you're Apple, you say, "Hey, there's a way to extend an olive branch to the administration with their technology agenda.
2:46:36
They want to uh bring back semiconductor manufacturing in the United States.
2:46:41
We're just going to see this as an investment.
2:46:43
We could put our money in Treasury bills.
2:46:44
We could put our money in Intel stock.
2:46:48
Let's put some money in Intel stock.
2:46:48
It makes everyone happy."
2:46:49
And so that might be the wind that it might wind up be the na being the nature of this deal.
2:46:53
Uh but then at the same time it's totally possible that Apple wants to do some sort of new chip design and they want to go to Intel and they want to fab it with Intel and they they find a way to do that.
2:47:03
Uh there is a world where Intel becomes a a manufacturer for Apple silicon chips because they are trying to get their their their you know most cutting edge node off the ground.
2:47:14
They don't have customers.
2:47:16
This is the famous thing that uh Lip Bhutan said on that quarterly earnings call that panicked everyone.
2:47:21
He was like the big thing that we've been planning, no one wants it.
2:47:25
And so that raised alarm bells.
2:47:25
And that's where all this kind of came from.
2:47:29
And uh and Apple could potentially go to them and say, "Hey, yeah, the next uh iPhone chip or the next Mac chip uh will work with TSMC.
2:47:37
We're happy with TSMC, but we'll also work with you Intel on your new fab that gets up and running if you can deliver at these levels."
2:47:41
And how are they going to deliver on that level? They need a lot of cash.
2:47:44
So, we're also putting up the cash. >> Yeah.
2:47:47
>> And so, another sort of circular deal, but uh you know, the administration is kind of like greasing the wheels of all these deals to hopefully get Intel back on its feet and restore American semiconductor manufacturing. Feels like a Leopold.
2:48:03
>> In the meantime, Leopold is printing.
2:48:05
So, congratulates to him.
2:48:08
Um, what else is going on?
2:48:08
You shared a a story about a Radio Shack Ponzi.
2:48:11
Well, this was Tai Lopez. >> Oh, yes. I'm flipping. >> He did something.
2:48:17
He managed to raise like hundreds of millions of dollars for the new Radio Shack brand that I think turned into >> crypto.
2:48:26
He was buying all sorts of interesting things. Uh >> primary business.
2:48:30
So, uh Tai Lopez is famous for the here in my garage guru video that was uh kind sort of a book club, I think, at the bottom of the funnel.
2:48:40
sort of a how to get rich, educational, inspirational, hustle type genre of social media influencer.
2:48:46
Huge buyer of YouTube ads in the early days.
2:48:50
Everyone saw that here in my garage video.
2:48:52
Uh but he went on a spree.
2:48:52
Rev's primary business was purchasing distressed retail companies with name brand recognition and converting them to e-commerce only businesses.
2:49:00
the securities offering that at issue involved uh eight rev portfolio companies, Brahms, Dress Barn, Franklin Mint, Linens and Things, which I have heard of, Modell's, Pier 1, which I've heard of, and Radio Shack, which I've also heard of and I've never heard of Steinmart.
2:49:16
Um, Franklin Mint, Radio Shack, this is of course from uh Matt Lavine, one of the greatest writers on the internet these days.
2:49:23
Um, not Bed Bath and Beyond, not GameStop.
2:49:25
Bed Bath and Beyond sure was distressed.
2:49:28
It filed for horrific bankruptcy in 2023, but before it raised a ton of money from retail investors and absolutely doomed at the market offerings.
2:49:36
Um, as its bankruptcy lawyers later put it, it raised that money as part of the meme stock movement started and fueled on Reddit boards and social media website because, quote, "It checked the two boxes needed to become a memeto, a troubled financial situation and nostalgia value."
2:49:52
And because it checked those boxes, Bed Bath was able to go out to ordinary investors and get them to shovel money into a furnace.
2:49:58
GameStop was also part of that movement.
2:50:00
Where is GameStop trading these days?
2:50:02
Uh GameStop was was was that movement because it was troubled and nostalgic.
2:50:08
>> If you're nostalgic and troubled, >> we got a stock for you.
2:50:14
>> GameStop up 18% in the last month. >> No way.
2:50:17
>> But down 13% year to date.
2:50:19
>> What What's What's the market?
2:50:21
>> Current market cap is 11 billion. That's huge.
2:50:23
I feel like that's a lot.
2:50:25
>> I mean, >> for such a troubled I mean, Bed Bath and Beyond's bankrupt, so it's zero.
2:50:27
So, yeah, on a relative basis, that's the meme stock that, you know, had some value for a medium amount of time. We'll see.
2:50:36
Uh, but it did so well out of being a meme stock that is no longer no longer particularly distressed.
2:50:41
GameStop, as you saw, is is going uh but it's definitely pivoting to e-commerce.
2:50:44
Uh, my point here is that if you go to retail investors and say, "Hey, let's teach those fat cats on Wall Street a lesson.
2:50:51
We're going to revive Radio Shack, but with e-commerce, you're tapping into some deep and obvious patterns and you will undoubtedly raise a bunch of money that you can steal it.
2:51:00
The quote at the top is from a Securities Exchange Commission enforcement complaint against Ton Tano Adrien Lopez, Alexander Mayor, and Maya Burkenro.
2:51:09
Uh Bloomberg News reports a company that snatched up distress distressed brickandmortar brands including RadioShack Pier One Imports and promised investors big returns in a pivot to e-commerce operated like a Ponzi scheme.
2:51:21
Um >> yeah, so they actually raised debt. >> Mhm.
2:51:26
>> And they were offering a 25% preferred return. >> Yeah.
2:51:30
>> And uh anyways, there were a lot of red flags. >> It's pretty crazy.
2:51:33
They they put out promotional videos that bragged that the portfolio companies were quote on fire.
2:51:41
Uh which the regulators did not like.
2:51:41
Uh it says in the complaint that while some of the retailer brands generated revenue, none generated any profits, at least 5.
2:51:50
9 million of the returns distributed to investors were in re in reality Ponziike payments funded by other investors.
2:51:58
Now, so they're you're you framed it as debt.
2:52:00
It sounds like they were equity investments that were paying some sort of fake dividend.
2:52:04
It wasn't >> I think they were paying a fake dividend on the debt. >> Oh, really? >> It was like >> uhoh. >> Yeah.
2:52:11
So, it was a lot of lot going wrong there.
2:52:14
>> They accused the defendants of misappropriating approximately $16.
2:52:15
1 million in investor funds which were diverted for two uh defendants Lopez and Mayor's personal use. That's not good.
2:52:26
The complaint also explains the business strategy or at least the fundraising strategy.
2:52:30
So, Rev's primary business was identifying distressed companies with name brand recognition, raising funds from investors in order to purchase the brand's assets and converting them into successful e-commerce only businesses.
2:52:42
In one promotional video publicly available on the internet, Tai Lopez touted Rev's business approach as quote one of the best strategies you can invest in.
2:52:50
>> That sounds like financial advice. I wouldn't do it myself. Seems rough.
2:52:52
Uh, so anyways, Matt Lavine finishes off, quote, "A troubled financial situation and nostalgia value, the two best things you can have to raise money from individual investors in the 2020s."
2:53:03
So, I think enough people are getting burned on these now that that uh I I think people will will learn their lesson. >> Yeah, hopefully.
2:53:15
But history repeats or at least it rhymes.
2:53:19
>> Well, >> well, >> it's been a fantastic show. >> Great show.
2:53:22
It is now >> uh it's close to the weekend. >> It is.
2:53:26
>> Uh whatever you're doing, have a great time. We will be back Monday.
2:53:31
>> Be back Monday >> for another episode.
2:53:34
>> We'll talk to you soon. >> Have a great evening. >> Have a great weekend. Cheers. >> Bye.